As I recall, the last NEW music CD I bought was the MC Hawking Greatest Hits disc.

As for the rest of my CDs, pretty much all of them are from used CD shops here in the Boston/Cambridge area, or from eBay.

Same thing with DVDs, wait a month or two and grab it cheap from the "Previously Viewed" bin at Blockbuster or West Coast video or the aforementioned used CD shops/eBay.

Once I own the disc, it gets ripped to iTunes (CD) or a quick trip through MacTheRipper (DVD).

Physical discs get stored and the digital copies are used instead for listening or viewing.

DRM will never, ever, be an impediment to the pirate or the determined listener/viewer.

Whoops! Gotta go. I have a movie to watch. MacTheRipper just finished ripping and stripping my latest used DVD purchase.

Suck it, MPAA! I'm "consuming" your "product" and you aren't seeing a single cent of what I paid for it. And, I'll "consume" it on any device I own, be it my computer, my television, or my iPod, without your permission!

BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

#83 Scottfree

Thank you for the correction!

The Scientific Method in action. A statement was made, a correction offered, with a proof, and the error is corrected.

No Divine Intervention Required!

To be accurate, I have one of these:

http://www.sliderulemuseum.com/Pickett/S219_Pickett_Microline_140-ES.jpg

which I use when it's too much bother to switch on my HP-45 calculator.

BACK OFF!

I've got one of these http://www.grabup.com/uploads/d6067bb093905c602f99c83b8de62ac7.jpg
And I'm not afraid to use it!

I'm pleased to see that the City of Los Angeles has successfully addressed/eliminated all the major/minor crimes that have, for so long, plagued that fabulous city, so that the City Council can now address such pressing quality of life matters as a taco truck sitting in one spot for more than an hour.

BRAVO, City Council of Los Angeles! Bravo for showing the rest of the United States "how it's done"!

I REALLY HOPE that the photographer in question has recovery software on his computer.

Just because you "delete" the images, it doesn't mean that they have been erased from the memory card.

"Is it just me or does that guy look slightly like Bruch McCullough?"

If by Bruch McCollough, you mean, "A Dick", then, you sir, are correct!

I just saw the 2007 St.Trinians film.

It does lack the charm of the earlier films, and definately lacks the genius of Alistair Sim.

Still and all, I wouldn't call it ho-hum. More "well, nice try".

Of COURSE Iron Man is against Linux.

Do you have ANY idea of the danger Iron Man faces on a daily basis from Steve's Beowulf cluster of Atomic Supermen and his genetically engineered cybergoats?

Jeebus, people! Face the reality of Tony Stark's life! He's going up against Steve, the SuperVillian on a daily basis!

http://www.ubergeek.tv/article.php?pid=54&swfSize=2

Actually, there were almost no stings at all, save for the one on Penn's arm. Oh, and the one at 3:15 where he spits out the bee that stung him on his tongue.

That's right. Penn got stung by a bee ON HIS TONGUE!

Now, go ahead and tell me just how badly YOUR job sucks!

In a similar vein, The Simpsons had Moore at a signing in Springfield.

Milhouse asked him to sign his copy of Watchmen Babies: V for Vacation.

Link to image on Skitch.

And may FSM have mercy on their servers!

Too many idiots, not enough comets!

"This is as good an argument for heavy typers to use a Model M Keyboard as I've ever heard."

Or, for the Macintosh user, the original Apple Extended Keyboard.

Mine is over 20 years old, and looks and works as if it just came off the assembly line.

When I got my dual processor G4 Mirror Door Drive Mac, I upgraded to OS X 10.4 and a Griffin iMate ADB to USB adaptor, so that I could continue to use my Extended.

The Extended Keyboard worked just fine. As it does under OS X 10.5.

Real mechanical keyswitches, excellent tactile and audible feedback, superb "feel". It's a pleasure to use for hours on end.

Every modern keyboard I've used feels like I'm poking at a slab of silly putty.

Actually, the fellow was just doing his impression of Harlan Ellison.

And quite a spot on impression it is, too.

The Air Force has had bad luck with catchy slogans.

Some years ago, they had a whole slew of TV commericals, with jets swooping and zooming and being all cool and macho, ending with the slogan:

"The U.S. Air Force - No one comes close."

Which got pulled on September 12, 2001.

Was it only 60 or so years ago, when the Nazis were bombing the crap out of London when THIS POSTER appeared in London with a simple message from the King?

A simple message that, today, has been forgotten by just about everyone?

It makes one weep.

"everything is up and running at 88.80.13.160.""

<NelsonMuntz>"HA-ha! We routed around your damage!</NelsonMuntz>

In silico, actually, we do. Almost.

Damned if I can find it now, but there is a working sensor to nerve tissue interface.

Still pretty primative, but hey, it's interfacing the meat and the machine.

The Disemvowler strikes again!

Kinnaird, you are free to come to Boston and make the attempt.

However, do not be too greatly surprised if things don't go as you imagine them.

Takuan, I live in Boston, VERY near to the Dorchester area of the city. There have been LOTS of shootings barely 2-3 miles from my front door. (Hell, last year, there were TWO shooting incidents within sight of my living room window!)

nd yt, my trsrs rmn nskd by my wn rn. lv my prtmnt bldng ncncrnd f 'm gng t b gnnd dwn. 'm mr lkly t d f slp nd fll n th tb, ctlly.

Bng trrfd f th Bgmn 24/7 is no way to go through life.

nd flppng t n cllg cmps wth bg stdnt rtst ppltn s rlly dmb. You see a LOT of people with tripods and easels by MassArt on Huntington Avenue here in Boston. You see a LOT of people with oddly shaped cases slung over their shoulders in the vicinity of Massachusetts Avenue between Boyleston Street and Huntington Avenue. Thats where the Berklee School of Music is located.

And yet, I have yet to hear any urgent police calls on my scanner about "people with guns" at either MassArt of Berklee.

We are not unfamiliar with terror, here in Boston. Two of the hijacked 9/11 jets took off from Logan Airport. And while city officials are terrified of pictures of Mooninites made from LEDs, the rest of us are made of sterner/smarter stuff.

Refuse to be terrorized.

Canada produced some of the most ass-kicking warriors in WWI and WWII.

What happened to Canadians since WWII?

Sm knd f pnts-wttng wssyfctn vrs nfct th cntry?

Tanner, BitTorrent and/or NZB+USENET could be your very good friends, when it comes to watching that particular episode of MythBusters, as well as MythBusters in the future.

Indeed, using this link:

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9775271-46.html

you can automate the whole downloading procedure and have every new episode of MythBusters delivered to your computer every week.

DO read the comments, the author of the article left out an important step in the process, the needed step is mentioned in the comments.

If I am not mistaken, the teacher is modeled on Kay Kaiser, of "Kay Kaiser and his College of Musical Knowledge" radio game show.

Couldn't tell you abou the odd dance moves, however, novelty dances were not the exclusive domain of the 50s or 60s.

Doc Savage, The Man Of Bronze!

Come on, guys, You KNOW you want to riff the hell out of that movie.

@23, your sincere and deeply held concern has been duly noted at the highest levels, and it will be addressed in a prompt and socially responsible manner as soon as humanly possible!

<sound of toilet flushing>

Your TSA screener on the way to work at Logan Airport here in Boston this past January, just outside the Back Bay MBTA/AMTRAK station.

That ain't a bottle of Moxie™ in that brown paper bag in his right hand!

http://img.skitch.com/20071224-xbr4tg8e6d6i37x774rq3yxxy2.jpg

Feel safer, now?

The less said about Great Cthulhu's sexy teenage granddaughter, the better.

"I can see him practicing his you-got-a-broken-tail-light swing already."

Geek Driver: <comicbookguyvoice>"Hah! My +5 Tailights of Lexan defeat your +1 Nightstick of Pummeling! I am the victor in this encounter!</comicbookguyvoice>

Your TSA screener on the way to work at Logan Airport here in Boston.

And that ain't a bottle of Moxie in that brown paper bag!

http://img.skitch.com/20071224-xbr4tg8e6d6i37x774rq3yxxy2.jpg

"Since 1962, more than one million Americans have died in firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings (Violence Policy Center)"

Wow! It's taken over 40 years for one million Americans to die via firearms.

It only took 20 years to kill that many Americans via automobile accidents (assuming an average of 50K deaths a year)

WOOT!

So, you're going to want to ban the private ownership of cars, right?

Look, you misuse anything and a death can result. I could beat you to death with my Apple Extended Keyboard. I could strangle you to death with a necktie. I could suffocate you with the sponge in the kitchen or the loofah in the bathroom.

The misuse and/or illegal use of a firearm is bad. Punish those who misuse or illegally use them.

You can be scared of the firearm boogieman 24/7 or you can choose to not be scared of the firearm boogieman.

I choose not to be scared.

I live in Boston. I have far more lethal things to concern myself with.

Have you SEEN how people drive in this city?

Man, it's like a MMPLARP of "Deathrace 2000"!

Being shot is WAY down on list of how to get killed in Boston.

Cory, do try some handguns next time.

If possible, and time and money allow, begin with something like the .25 semi auto pocket gun. And work your way up to something like the .445 Casul (If I recall the name and caliber correctly).

And yes, if possible, do try a caplock revolver and a Peacemaker.

Those larger caliber guns are like cherry bombs you can hold in your hand and not lose any fingers!

"Much respect to your lady friend. An Uzi in full auto is VERY hard to hit anything but the ceiling with. (Even three-round bursts tend to hit the target in an upward arc.)"

Depends if she was using the shoulder stock or not.

And, if you've used the weapon before, then you know what it does and how to compensate for the muzzle rise.

Like this:

http://web.newsguy.com/christucker/images/range1.jpg

What must it have been like, before the FF bought the Baxter Building, for the poor sod who was the rental agent for the Baxter Building!

Can you imagine what it must have been like, trying to get people to rent office space there?

Every other month, the Skrull are ripping it from the very bedrock and hurling it into space, or Doctor Doom is using some new energy projector to melt it into slag or Iron Man stops by to schmooze with Reed and The Mandarin shows up to wreak vengence upon Tony Stark, yet again.

Sure, it's only $5.00 per square foot, an incredable bargain for Manhattan, but Jeebus! It's the frigging BAXTER BUILDING!

And what about the other buildings in the neighborhood? Man, Damage Control must have had retainers from EVERYONE!

If the FF had only moved to the World Trade Center, those planes wouldn't have gotten within a mile of the WTC before the tractor beams snagged them in midair.

Hello, George, this is GOD! You have been very bad, very bad indeed!"

"Hello Nancy. This is GOD! Why haven't you impeached Bush and Cheney yet?"

"John! John Hinkley! This is GOD! Did you know that George Bush is schtupping Jodie Foster? And that Dick Cheney is getting sloppy seconds? Oh, and you DO NOT want to know what Condi Rice is doing to her! Just thought you should know."

Yes, this gadget has a million and one uses to benefit humanity.

Just wait, Hoagland will soon discover the Great Stone Ass On Mars, at the antipoidal point from the Face! (CF Futurama)

Zapp: "The great stone face of Mars. Hmm, the only known entrance to the marsian reservation."
Leela: "What about the great stone ass of Mars?"
Zapp: "Well, yeah. But it's way on the other side of the planet."

Does it have the "Worker and Parasite" cartoons?

Orlando, thank you very much for the Agent Cooper tapes upload.

I regretted not buying it when it was released all those years ago.

I'll burn a CD to go along with the box set.

Think of it this way:

The Wenger is Microsoft Vista. It does everything, but it's expensive, hard to use, and eventually, just too frustrating to deal with.

I have that entire series. Really, the insane amount of detail that went into creating a comic from 1963 was worth the effort.

Even the letters page rings true to the era.

I really regret that the series bombed out as it did.

It was a wonderfully sincere homage to that glorious era of comics.

A few thoughts.

Yes, you need windows and likely a roof mounted A.C., vents, cooking exhaust. Water, sewage and power/phone will need openings, too. Oh, and a back door/fire exit!

VERY labor intensive to have someone with a torch or saw cut the openings.

Use shaped cutting charges instead. Just like they use to cut the support girders when imploding a building.

A lot less labor, a lot less skill (assuming prefabbed shaped charges) and a lot less time involved in making the openings.

Blow the holes, slide in the prefabbed modules for A.C. windows, doors, et al. Bolt them in, seal them against the elements, Move it out and bring in the next container.

While the containers are being fabbed, the concrete slabs are being poured (if need be), water, sewage, power, phone or cable TV or fiber optic (fiber would be my choice for long term) is being laid at the disaster site, utilizing in situ infrastructure as much as possible. If the phone switch or cable hub is still there and working, you don't need to bring in satellites or a new switch. BIG semi-mounted generators will handle the electrical needs until the site can be hooked up to the national grid.

It ain't the Ritz by a long shot. Beats the hell out of a tent, though. Particularly when you have a door you can lock from the inside.

If there's a big enough family, there would be special side by side versions to add more space. Heck, maximize lot usage and stack them in a 2 X 2 or 3 X 3 configuration. Most people could deal with a short flight of stairs. If they can't, they get a bottom unit.

Am I the only one whose first thought on seeing the picture was, "LEGO"?

Your droid needs the Tourette's patch and/or stop downloading South Park via peer to droid filesharing.

"Many Bothans died to bring us these 0day warez!"

Yahoo! Music is broken.

Their LaunchCast "radio" service is not supported on Mac OS.

iTunes has a very decent selection of "radio" streams.

Comcast has a very decent selection of music streams via my cable box and television. No computer needed.

Rogue Amoeba's "RadioShift" application will hook you up to a ton of streaming stations via Mac OS

Live365 likewise has a ton of free streams. Non-platform specific. Just a recent browser.

Real and Windows Media Player can do the same thing, and video, too. As can VLC and Miro, all via Mac OS

Check out the websites of your favorite stations. Odds are, there's a Real or WMA or streaming MP3 or QuickTime link. Again, non-OS specific.

But not Yahoo! Music. Oh, well...

(AOL Voice Guy) "Goodbye!" (/AOL Voice Guy) to Yahoo! Music, as far as I'm concerned.

This is much like the hoorah over modchipping the XBOX.

Yes, modchipping CAN let one play pirated games.

But for the most part, it's done to unlock the XBOX so the OWNER of the XBOX can do with HIS/HER property as they see fit. Usually just toomake it easier to install Linux or the XBox Media Center and use XBMC with things like remote controls or wireless keyboards/mice.

(And of course, modchipping an XBOX makes the Baby Bill Gates cry. ALWAYS a valid reason for doing something!)

And now, unlocking an iPhone is done for the same reasons. It's MY property, Steve. I can do with it as I see fit.

"Oxygen free copper cables"?

Please. Don't make me laugh. I have chapped lips.

OK, is it oxygen free cables that sound better because the electrons don't bump into the oxygen atoms and slow down and get all out of sequence, or is there some other BS about oxygen free copper I'm forgetting?

I think my favorite audiophile money removing device is the Quantum Dot CD sound improving device.

Read all about it

http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina64.htm

Warning! This BS WILL MAKE YOUR HEAD ASPLODE!

TwoShort, I live in Boston, and occasionally shop at both Coops, Harvard Square and at Kendall Sq.

I must confess that I DO enjoy twitting the Hahvahd student body.

Writing down ISBNs?

How last millennium!

Use the camera on your cellphone. It's a lot faster and you can upload the image of the ISBN and it's barcode to your computer and have a script you've written analyze the image and parse the data it and run a web search for the least expensive copy of that book...

What?

Oh, HARVARD students at the Harvard Coop. Not MIT students.

Never mind.

You know what would just suck?

Foamcore board, foil, spray adhesive and a simple set of measurments to convert the board, foil and spray adhesive into a set of corner reflectors.

"What's a 'corner reflector'?" I hear you ask.

It reflects an incoming beam of energy directly back at the same angle the beam hits the reflector.

On otherwords, beam goes in, beam goes out, directly back AT the emitter.

And anyone standing behind it.

I wonder what the effect would be of the beam intereacting with the antenna, tuned to the excat frequency of the beam, so there's gonna be some serious resonation effects, and maybe even some unanticipated interaction with the rest of the system.

Foamcore and aluminum foil and 3M spray adhesive.

There's your shield against the pain ray.

Lining your clothes, shoes, gloves and hood with several layers of aluminized mylar would do a fair job of shielding. Hey, did you know that the wrappers for PopTarts are aluminized mylar AND are see through? Just the thing to protect your eyes and let you see at the same time.

Gee, I wonder what the exact wavelength is. You might be able to get away with metal window screen for a liner and whole head helmet.

I suspect that a few balloons filled with kerosine and powdered aluminum, broken against the transmitting antenna, might cause significant hilarity to ensue.

Asymmetric warfare. It's what's happening, baby!

Oak Island Lady @175:

Wow. Really. WOW!

You got EVERYTHING wrong except the Career Day date.

"Any further questions?"

Yes, Bricology, I do.

What's it like, living in a state of pants-wetting terror every day of your life, and wishing some Big Daddy would make all the scary people Go Away?

kthxbai!

"
#3 posted by raybot , September 23, 2007 3:20 AM:

you cant watch a torrent
"

Huh?

I had no trouble at all watching the episode Friday night here in Boston.

I downloaded it, double clicked the icon, up came QuickTime player. I watched, I laughed (many times) and then moved the file to the IT Crowd second series folder to keep it.

Teresa@#158

Well said! Well said, indeed!

Star was not arrested for displaying a "hoax device" she was arrested for confusing a cop, now, according to a previous posted, apparently a crime here in the Commonwealth.

Just for the record, Boston really IS full of morons. And these morons give other morons badges and guns.

I've lived here for 15 years or so. Teh Stupid: IT BURNS!

You would think that Teh Smart from all the colelges and universities and Harvard and MIT would rub off on the locals.

You would be wrong.

Merc, put down that copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine.

In the real world, nobody puts LEDs on chunks of C-4 or Semtex, or artillery shells or suicide vests, nor do they have countdown timers on any of those things, either.

STOP conflating what you see in the movies and on TV with the way things are in Real Life!

kthxbai!

Dear Lord, I wish someone would put together a kit of parts and the PCB for this.

http://web.jfet.org/ignignokt/

Imagine a few hundred people going about their lawful occasions at Logan, each one wearing their own personal Ignignokt, graphically displaying how they feel about the terror theater taking place every day there.

The best quote on that one was from Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, on the obviously suspicious nature of the Mooninites:

“[The device] had a very sinister appearance."

So does Dick Cheney!

"It had a battery behind it, and wires.”

So does Dick Cheney's heart. Can we get the Boston Bomb Squad to blow up Dick Cheney?