metadigital

*confused* Why not just get more RAM instead? Doesn't that eliminate the need for memory caching? ReadyBoost is for hardisk-cashing. Try pulling out the cable modem without telling Vista: instant BSoD! Even if you tell Vista via the "remove hardware" wizard (in the menu bar), there is still a 50% chance of BSoD. It also seems to take twice as long to shutdown ... though this might be a lot of (secretly) pre-loaded detritus from Compaq.

And that was cheaper than buying components, without trashing the built-in ones?

He could sell tickets to that (as long as she walks away after the trick ...)

I'd argue that it is self-evident if the will of the people is being acted out: think of single policy issues. If all the pro-choice advocates went and lived in their own little town, then that issue would not be in question. The problem with the US is it is too big to be an effective representative democracy. Government of that scale will always be a republic (at best) (or a kakistocracy at worst).

Isn't it like Solomon's choice: the husband cuts the house and the wife gets to choose which half?

More the problem of getting stuff up there (launch is expensive) and then finding the satellites and intercept them.

Why is that? I believe he's referring to all the rockin' manbods on display. Loincloths and capes, son, all over the place. Makes it kind of funny that the Spartans unironically refer to Athenians as "boy lovers" in the film. It's a movie about soldiers, and there is no greater lover of the male physique than the military, if you catch my drift. And this ain't just any military, it's a Frank Miller military, so rock-hard abs and monstrous biceps are standard issue. I know a lot of girlies who are seeing this solely to experience Gerard Butler naked. The Spartans at Thermopylae are remembered not least because they spent most of the prelude to the battle oiling themselves (and their long manes of hair) up, like the Ancient Greeks did for their Olympic Games. He did? Because I left the movie with a group of people who entered into just such a discussion and came away virtually split. I thought no meaningful connections could be draw, at least, none that were intentional. Maybe because I have read 300 well before the movie, so when I saw a scene I thought of the comic rather than modern day comparisons. I thought the modern day inspired dialogue gave it away. "Freedom is not free." "We bring a new world where freedom will triumph over tyranny and mysticism." Etc. Not that Miller wasn't of the same mind. Rather that the added dialogue was especially analogical to current politics. Haven't seen this yet (Thursday for Britain) but the comparisons are usually with the first Global Super Power (Persia) trying to knock out a small group dissenters in the backwater of the world ... So if Leonidas had been a gay or bisexual Cablinasian and had made sure his carefully written bill to defend the city had passed congress before taking off with only 300 of his fellow short, flabby, gay Cablinasians for some reason anyway, and Xerxes and all of the Africans, Asians, and Iranians that made up his army had been upper-class middle-aged white men invading in order to illegalize stem cell research, and Ephilitas had been seduced by such imagery as wealthy people driving gas guzzling SUVs, and the women were all chastise, single, and also on the battlefield, then you would have thought this was a much better movie? One of the most impressive defeats of the formerly invincible Spartan Hoplites by the 200 gay couples that made up the Sacred Band of Thebes. ^_^

No, actually, the biggest problem is wresting power from people who are deemed to be inappropriate. Good government is self-evident. I'm not saying you're daft. I'm saying that you're advocating the biggest most disruptive approach. We need a more slow 'elbow grease' approach. Education, culture change etc. That's the only way it will work.

You don't like the built-in HTML editor, then?

I wonder if those of you who have listed "get married" as a goal are prepared to marry anyone to accomplish it ... "

Really? Apparently the film doesn't live up to the book, and the central plot device (between the boy and Cate Blanchet, which is changed from the book) is too forced. But I like that Judy Dench is playing not a nice person (even if the character is a little too indistinct). Lawrence of Arabia. I don't think I've seen this before. It's okay. I was disappointed that it wasn't more historically accurate, but the acting is superb.

JBS Haldane (who, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, helped marry Darwin's "survival of the fittest" and Mendel dominant and recessive trait observations but was primarily obsessed with submarines, and acquired a decompression chamber "pressure pot") noted in one of his essays, "the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment."

You don't have to jump tandem. Sorry, I don't know the answer to that, and even if I did, it was 20 years ago and it'd be outdated info by now. She had a group and someone in it had a plane, they had different landing zones they'd go to every week, that sort of thing. You also need no special equipment: the parachute is loaned to you when you jump. Later, if you persist, you will have the opportunity (and obligation) to buy your own parachute, as well as check it and pack it before each jump. But that is quite a few jumps after your first. FYI divers wear two parachutes, and they use an auto-activation device, too, that springs the 'chute based on the altitude. (You are meant to pull the ripcord around 3km, IIRC, and the auto-fire will trigger if you are going terminal velocity at about 1500m, IIRC.)

Funny to think that the British invented income tax as a temporary fillip to fight Napoleon at Waterloo.

I'm pretty sure that requires more than one person to accomplish. " I think I might actually pass my private pilot's licence at some point in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps write a book. Certainly travel everywhere that I haven't so far, and a few places I have, again. Wouldn't mind a trip to space.

I thought you were referring to the Devil's Marbles, for a moment. :D

It's about time you read that; I recommended it ages ago. I'm just about to finish ASHoNE

If you say so, but I only said that it was more stable than the current situation. I'm not certain a stalinist regime predicated upon fear and constant random death qualifies as stable as such. Not in the same way the the MCC board could be said to be stable. Or a chemical compound. Or platform.

I forgot to give our very own Kaftan Barlast the due credit for creating the artistic marvel that is my sig.

Only if you bring some female geeks with you.

Just gave Jade Empire a quick test and me likey. Also played a little bit of NwN2 the other day.

There are concepts and nuanced subtleties that cannot be adequately explored, much less even described, in PG game systems. You can't explain why a person would become a sex worker, much less have a story about the redemption of one, when cruelty is restricted to physical violence, rather than include the more prevalent and realistic mental violence of our Hobbesian reality. Rape is a crime of sadistic power of one evil person forcing another to their will and against their own; the payoff for the evil person is the bending of that person to their will and breaking their opponents; the physical consequences are almost incidental. Almost. But that sort of concept is beyond any that can be delineated in a game world.

Yeah, I've been holding off replaying Half-Life until this comes out ... even though I would like to do some Anomalous Materialing ..!

Avatar The sig is a self-explanatory link.

Because that's when my friends are having their winter break! We're getting a car and we're supposed to be driving around all of Australia in five or so weeks. Actually, for a Nordic person, Winter is a much better time to go ... high Summer would be very uncomfortable. Good luck driving around the country in five weeks. You'd have trouble driving around Queensland in five weeks. (You do realise that Australia is about the same size as the USA, right? And most of it is desert? I plan to one day drive around Highway Number One, but it will take about six months ...)