Watermonkey

So. Do criminals in your country manage to get their hands on guns anyway?Shooting people in IL is pretty much illegal too. And guns are outlawed on school campuses there too, unless you're a law enforcement officer. I guess the guy decided not to pay attention to that law...

Lessons learned:I'll take some pictures and add them to this thread in the near future. It's quite an amazing machine internally. I learned the lessons on my own machine, unfortunately, so my friend is up and running without a problem, with all his programs and files intact. First thing is when you go to partition a hard drive in the Disk Utility software, there's a button called "options" you need to click and you need to select "GUID" formatting or the drive will not work when it comes to it. What I mean by that is it'll work if you clone your internal drive onto it, but when you go to actually install Leopard, it'll do things and may even start to install but it won't be successful. Which will destroy all the information on the drive and make it unusable. This happened to me. I tried to install leopard onto the internal 160 GB hard drive and for some reason that didn't work either. Then I tried to, just 'cause, install it on to my large backup drive Mac partition, but it's external and it didn't take there either, but it managed to cripple it. So, I breathed a heavy sigh of defeat two days ago and put the 160 GB drive on USB and installed OSX 10.4.0 from the discs that came with the computer. Then I installed Leopard. Keep in mind, in doing so, I destroyed all my files and settings, etc. that I had on that disc in doing those two things. Then I went online and installed all the updates, the largest of which was the 300+++ MB update to bring the OS up to 10.5.2. Now that disc was all good. I then migrated all my apps and files that I could salvage from the 300 GB drive onto the 160 GB drive because I was about to do the same to it. When I brought it up to 10.5.2 (Leopard begins at 10.5.0), though, the install program actually asked me if I had a disc that had files and apps that needed to be transferred over. D'oh! Oh well, so I let it do it's thing to just in case I missed something. So, basically I was able to save some things so it's not like I had to start over from scratch, and the large storage volume, the 500 GB WD external drive connected via firewire, while crippled, is actually, very slowly, transferring over all my mp3s that I thought I lost. I didn't realize before that I actually had about 27 GB worth of mp3s on the other drives but the external drive has around 65 GB of mp3s, so it's well worth it for me to be patient. Then I've got a lot of pictures I need to save and some documents and things like that that shouldn't take much to transfer over. Then I can wipe it, repair it, and start using it as a backup again, this time making sure it, too, has the correct formatting. But, get this: I now have a Windoz partition on this computer running a very stable XP SP2 Home edition!I met my friend at the library at about 11:30am to begin the whole operation. I still hadn't completed doing everything to my computer and since I had formatted his new hard drive the same way I'd formatted mine, I had to remove it and re-install his original drive and begin again from scratch. For some reason his little drive wasn't working in the WD enclosure the 320 GB drive came in. Strange, so I put it in my enclosure that was powering my original drive just fine. No luck. A sinking feeling came over me. What if his original drive with all his files and mp3s had died... Well, what the hell, I put it back in to his computer, connected the top panel (keyboard and trackpad) and put it back in service without putting all the screws back in place. Voila! It worked inside the computer just fine. Weird... So I installed Leopard on it, ran software update, went to a meeting at 5:30pm, came back with time to spare before it was finished downloading the OS update on the library's slow DSL connection, and ran bootcamp (the main reason for upgrading to Leopard is it's the only way to get bootcamp anymore). Now, bootcamp partitions the drive to create a Windoz partition without destroying your Mac side. Pretty neat, I thought. I had created the partitions before myself thinking that was the way to do it, but Disk Utility won't let you create one partition formatted GUID and the other formatted to run Windoz, so that's when I figured I'd better just create one partition and hope Bootcamp will handle the rest. There was one other thing, after we cloned the original HD onto the now correctly formatted new hard drive, I put the new hard drive back into his computer and closed it up. I'd spent a couple hours installing Windoz on my computer while we were cloning his hard drive earlier in the day, so by the time we got around to doing his I was a Pro. When it asks you if you want to keep the FAT32 formatting or change it to NTFS, even though it warns you NTFS will cause you to be unable to run more than one OS on the drive, it's not aware that there's another partition on the drive already with OS X on it. All the Windoz software sees is its 80 GB FAT partition and so it thinks that's the entire hard drive. So you have to ignore that warning and go ahead and tell it to change it to NTFS. That was the only big hang-up with the Windoz install. Such a little OS compared to the new Leopard which comes on a DVD! So, then I installed his copy of MS Office and my copy of MS Streets and Trips and now I've been moving some files and apps from the hard drive that was on my last Windoz computer I used at work but returned to Costco after having it for several years. Then I've still got to move files over from the Dell and when all that's done, I'll have my work computer right here with my home computer. I just hope I'm able to recover all my pics and files off this slow-as-molassas external drive...Oh, and ya'll might be wondering when we got out of the library. It closed at 8pm that night and we left with about two minutes to spare. Whew! Never did figure out why his Hatachi 120 GB drive doesn't like the WD enclosure. I told him he'd probably have to cough up $15 and buy another cheap enclosure and hope it works inside that...Oh, and FlaKes: It's 5400 RPM, but it's so densely packed it makes it much faster than a lower capacity drive at the same speed.

I've noticed mine has cooled considerably since installing Leopard 10.5.2 and the new WD 320 GB hard drive. Of course, since I'm (or I was) a complete novice at the whole thing, I completely lost everything on both the hard drives when I was in the process of updating them. So now I don't have most of the programs I used to run all the time or any of my files. My external drive died because I tried to install Leopard on it as well so 3/4 of my iTunes are inaccessible as well as my address book and passwords for FF and Opera. Damned computers...

I did a little write-up on an alternative a while ago. I've been there with the Dish Network customer service (dis-service) before and decided I'd rather not go through that again, so now I don't pay for the several hundred crystal clear digital dolby-surround HD channels I get. It's there. You just need to figure out how to acquire it. And what the heck were you thinking letting them install the dish on the roof??? Set up a fifteen foot post with five feet below ground in concrete and mount the dish to the top of the post after it's secure. I'd never let someone mount an antenna on my roof!

A very basic question you should be asking is the exact lat and long of the location of the person whose reading you're giving at the moment of their birth, don't you think? Why would you be concerned with the hour, minute, and second of their birth if you're not asking for the exact location?

We've got a '91 Toyota pickup extended cab SR5 model. It's used to get around when the snow is high, like it is now, and to haul stuff around like the ATV or composted sheep manure or whatever. It'll eventually be replaced by a diesel, maybe this year, maybe next year. It gets around 19 MPG because it's a 4X4. For better economy, we've also got a VW Passat, 1995 GLX with the 2.8L VR6 in it. Front wheel drive. It gets around 30 MPG now that I had the thermostat replaced. Now I need to buy new tires for the summer. I'm anticipating buying a new or newer Jeep Grand Charokee with the MB diesel engine for my work vehicle. That probably won't happen until this summer at the earliest.

I'm jealous! That's going to be too cool for words! Post the pic here for us all to envy, will you? He was in Spokane, not too far away from my home just yesterday, but the weather was too bad, so we'll have to meet him another day. Send him our love from Washington State!

I first heard this little news bit on TV the other night. I'm sure we're not being told the whole story, but with what little is being told I'd say this: If I was taking this little turd in because my daughter or son was such a worthless piece of trash they couldn't take care of their little disaster and he didn't have anywhere else to go, and I found out he was poisoning my family, I'd probably be quite homicidal and really desire to see him at the bottom of an abandoned well or something. So, instead of actually killing the little bugger, like he deserves, maybe I'd talk someone into giving him a black eye and put him into a cage that hasn't been cleaned out for a while to wait for the police to come pick him up, knowing he'll live to poison someone else another day, but he'll never attack me or my family again. And maybe, just maybe, the time in the cage will give him a chance to take stalk of his poor decisions thus far in his life. Some dog crap isn't going to hurt him. Like I'd care anyway, after what he was trying to do to me and my family. I don't think it was an inappropriate response in those circumstances and I bet a jury would agree with me.

Nice to meet someone from Costa Rica. I've often dreamed of being an Expat there. I bet the weather is a whole lot nicer than it is here. So do you work with one of those big tech companies down there? What does your call center do, exactly? Do you know if there's a market for wireless radio technicians in Costa Rica? I might be looking for work somewhere away from here while the Globalists gobble it all up...

For the OZ people, we, in the states, even as far north as Washington State, have both Black Widows and those cute furry Wolf spiders. As far as I'm concerned, I welcome the presence of these arachnids because they control the even more annoying insect population. They don't want to have anything to do with humans, so leave 'em alone! They're eating the other insects under their food chain keeping your place a bit cleaner! I encounter Black Widows (or their webs and homes, at least -I don't go looking for them!) inside of cell sites (wireless phones -like AT&T Wireless and Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint) in the central Washington market quite frequently alone with tales of rattlers (snakes) sunning themselves on the front porch of some of the more remote sites. None of them bother me one little bit. Just remember, these wild animals live in their little worlds and they don't want anything to do with you, and they might even help you in ways you don't recognize! The rattler eats rodents and the spiders eat what bothers you most, little flying, biting insects!

Oh, did I mention I'm my precinct leader as well as the Republican Precinct Officer for the Republican Caucus? And I've actually contributed to Ron's campaign too. (I've never gotten involved with any other campaign or political party in the past.) Tomorrow, I believe, there's another money bomb. Might add some more to the coffers. Freedom and Liberty are very popular and all those things I mentioned (for the uninitiated) are supported by his long and flawless voting record. This is a Congressman who actually returns a portion of his yearly office budget to the treasury. If for no other reason, I believe completely, he's the only candidate who can lead this country (and the world with it) out of the current recession that could easily become a depression of enormous magnitude. He's also never voted to accept a annual pay raise and has opted out of the very lucrative retirement program available to his counterparts in Congress and Senate. The good Doctor is a living breathing founding father from the past who somehow managed to escape all the corruption and evil that has infected most of the rest of the political world. And he's my hero, as you can probably tell.

Ron Paul has never voted to raise taxes.Ron Paul has vowed to bring the troops home from these senseless wars and conflicts.Ron Paul has vowed to end the war on drugs.Ron Paul wants the government out of your life, and out of the affairs of other countries.Ron Paul is a Medical Doctor and has been for longer than some of the other candidates have been alive (I bet!) and knows more than most what's wrong with medical care in this country and how to fix it.Ron Paul has been in Congress off and on for 35 years. (During his political career he's defeated three incumbents!) During his time off, he's delivered over 4000 babies (as an OBGYN) getting paid around $3/hr., if memory serves. If someone couldn't pay, he provided them with care anyway. While he loves life and would rather Roe vs Wade was overturned, he recognizes the Executive Branch doesn't have that power, and he follows the rule of the law.Ron Paul has a perfect pro-constitution voting record. That means he always puts the United States before the Globalist agenda. Ron Paul is known as "Dr. No" in Congress for his refusal to "compromise" our freedoms away. That's why the NRA and pretty much every other lobby doesn't like him.Ron Paul has said he wants to terminate the I.R.S. and the Federal Reserve and bring the United States under the Gold and Silver standard we had up to the 20th Century.I don't hear any of the other candidates talking about these issues with any authority. This country needs a good dose of Ron Paul to heal its wounds and cure what ails it. Vote Ron Paul! Go to http://www.ronpaul.com/ for more info.

Yeah, using the Disk Utility program that comes on the Mac from the factory, I just created two partitions and formatted them to the appropriate theme (FAT32 or HFS+) and then I just cloned my, then, internal drive right onto the new drive partition. The free program actually crashed just after it was half way through, though, so I had to kill it and start over. The first time I didn't think to overwrite everything that was on the drive out of the box, second time I did, though, and it didn't crash on me. Took nearly three hours to complete the 109 GB transfer and, except for "Mail" having to re-build some folder or another, which it did after I gave it permission, I haven't seen any data corruption or problems whatsoever. I'm just ecstatic that it all worked because that's a whole lot of data to worry about!So now I've got two partitions which appear to me to be two separate drives and one of them is ready for me to install XP onto. I just need to find a copy of XP I can use now. Don't really feel like paying for it though...

I bought this MacBook Pro over 15 months ago and it came with a 160GB (149.1 GB in real terms) Hitachi Hard drive that spins at 5400 RPM and is a bit noisy for whatever reason. Yesterday, UPS delivered to me two WD 320 GB (298 GB in real terms) 5400 RPM drives. The second one is for a friend who's going to pay me to install it in his Macbook Pro for him. I paid $190 each for the WD Passports off of newegg.com which, oddly, is less than the hard drive without the Passport enclosure.First challenge was getting the enclosures open without breaking them. There are no screws, it's just two pieces of plastic that snap together so I managed to get my fingernail between the pieces then put the plastic end of a spudger in and just ran it down the length until one side was separated from the other. Without too much work, I had the top separated from the bottom. Then it was just a matter of removing the sticky-backed aluminum foil from the drive and unplugging it from the small circuit board it is attached to giving it a USB interface. Then it was time for the computer.The MacBook Pro is an intimidating computer for the uninitiated, but, trust me, it's really not a big deal to tear into it at all. One needs to have another computer open, though, and be viewing the website, https://www.ifixit.com/ to view the step-by-step instructions. Be sure you use the exact tools they list there or you might strip a screw, which would be a pity. This computer has at least four screws that I can recall removing and replacing that have the #6 Torx interface. This is not an easy tool to find and I had to specially order one last summer when I was at car quest in a neighboring town. I think the little socket cost several dollars too. Quite expensive when you can buy a pair of the more common sizes for $.39 . The computer came apart just about exactly as the instructions said it would and I was able to complete the procedure without any complications or damage.Before I did all this, though, I had to clone the drive from my old drive. I downloaded a small program called Carbon Copy Cloner and used that program to clone the drive to one of the partitions of my new drive. Before I did that, though, I used the disk utility program that is a part of OS X to partition the new drive. I decided to give the Mac side a partition of 220 GB (real) and use the rest for the Windoz side in anticipation of one day installing XP so I can use this computer for work instead of using my work computer which has been kidnapped by my wife. So one partition is formatted with the HFS+ Mac file system and the other partition, just under 80 GB, is FAT32. So, in the end, it's almost like I gained a whole new computer with an 80gig HD while also gaining 71 GB or so space on my Mac HD. Not bad for under $200. My friend will gain even more since his current drive is only 80 GB! And he's running Windoz on one of his partitions too!One thing I have to comment on is that this new drive is QUICK compared to the old one. Noticeably so. Furthermore, it's dead silent. You can't hear the arm moving or the drive spinning or anything. The old drive made itself audibly known whenever it was spinning. It's almost like starting a new $50k car versus a 1977 Chevy or something. I have to look at the tachometer on some cars I rent to see if the engine is running or not. Not like the cars I own at all!

I grew up and continue to live in rural America. I've had plenty of exposure to dairy farms, have friends who've worked at such places, and am researched in this topic. No, I do not own nor have I ever owned a dairy farm. Are you suggesting that only a person who has, can be informed on the subject I bring up? Without getting into a credentials contest with you, perhaps you could expound, using your years of experience [implied] and wisdom, upon why many, if not most, dairy herds in the United States of America are injected with rBST and antibiotics. I'd also ask you to explain why those dairy products are rejected in most of Europe. From HERE Bottom line I'd say to you, Sheepdog: You go ahead and trust Monsanto Corp. (and their ilk) to develop drugs to "improve" the dairy industry. Go ahead and consume those products. I'll trust that God created the Bovine exactly right and I'll continue to consume products from Bovine that have been left to a natural diet and have no added hormones (they've got enough naturally, thank you very much!).

Jim, I think you take all the snow that's fallen for your total snow fall stat. Then you stick your arm (or an actual measuring device ) through the snow on the ground now to give your total standing total. I think we're in for new snow in a couple days which will add to what's on the ground right now. So, I'm pretty sure our total is around 50 inches so far this year, but there's only 17 inches standing right at the moment. My ATV snow plow has aided me in building stacks of snow at least a meter tall, probably more. The wind has blown most of the snow out of the trees, so it doesn't look as pretty as it does sometimes.

I'd encourage you to do some actual research on the bottled water subject. All bottled water is not created equal. The reason I don't drink some tap water (not a problem around here, but go to some larger cities that add fluoride to their water and you won't catch me drinking it) is because of the added toxins such as fluoride harvested from the smoke stacks of fertilizer manufacturers and not separated from the other toxic waste contained therein and these things are all poisons. Virtually all municipal water supplies have a small amount of chlorine added to them. Chlorine is a carcinogen. Ingest them if you want, but I have every right (not because I'm elitist, but because I choose not to ingest poison) not to consume the products that contain poison (the number of food and drink products that don't contain poison is growing so small it's much easier to just target those products instead of trying to list the products to avoid -though that may not be true in some European nations). Another really big one is all soda pop. Every one of them contains massive amounts of poisons. They're making people stupid, literally eating the nervous system -the brain! If you all hate the general ignorance of people as this topic implies, stop poisoning yourselves so you can avoid being one of these people you all hate. Today, the general population is being poisoned by the food supply through genetic manipulation, toxic chemicals, and hypnosis through advertising that has the vast majority of the people absolutely brainwashed. Everything I've written in this post can be found in research. Search out organic, local produce when possible. Learn about which products are most dangerous, such as dental care products, and anything sweetened with anything other than raw, unrefined sugar or another natural sweetener. Remember, if it's not found in nature, it's probably not good for you. Cows are not made to produce the quantity of milk that the factory farmed cows produce. They are pumped up with hormones to increase production and antibiotics to keep them from falling over from the stress of doing so. Thus, if it's not organic or at the very least rBST-free, you're drinking udder puss, hormones, and antibiotics. Mmmmm...

I thought this would be a fun thread to track all the snow in the various backyards around the northern hemisphere. Sorry for you tropics and southern folk, re-visit this thread in about six months and add your snow totals too if it's summer where you're at.I live between Spokane and the Canadian border in the western Rocky Mountain foothills. The standing total right now is 17 inches and according to the Spokane weather report, they've seen 40 inches so far this year. I think you can add about 10 for me because I'm in the mountains and a bit higher in altitude. What kind of snow totals do you have around the world and America/Canada?

Just one of those reasons is truly legitimate. The first one. We, as adults and responsible people must take responsibility for our own actions and not blame teachers or an entire education system for our lack of literacy. So, weather people are slow or they were allowed to graduate without reading, it's still their own fault. Believe me, I'm fully aware, more than you I'm betting, that illiteracy in the U.S. is rampant and completely out of control. Considering we're a "first world country" or an industrialized, developed nation, our own government through the federal department of Education, is intentionally dumbing down the population and we'll all pay for it eventually. Number three doesn't even make any sense, and neither does number four. What the heck does mobile phones have to do with anything? You seem to be making excuses for bad behavior. I haven't seen anyone suggest anything to contradict this statement. This is, specifically, where it sounds catty. To me, she's saying, "if you don't like the grammar problem, why don't you take time out of your busy day and volunteer to help abate the problem?" The actual problem isn't that grammar is being intentionally misused and the language is being purposely trashed, the problem is that the rule in place to counter that behavior doesn't seem to be enforced. So, instead of taking responsibility -she is a moderator after all, she's trying to put the responsibility to make the change back on Misanthrope. That seems a bit snide too. (snide -adj. derogatory or mocking in an indirect way) And since I'm being asked to respond to Velma specifically, (feel free to merge this post with the one above) I'll do just that: (I guess I'll just respond to her in quote tags above, then summarize it here. I hope this clears up what I was saying about Velma's post. I believe she already figured out where I was accusing her of being catty and snide, so this just confirms it. Again, I've never heard anything about this project involving Tiki and Misanthrope. And I can't imagine a reason in the world why I would. Maybe I should not have gotten involved in this discussion, but the topic is a pet peeve of mine too, so why shouldn't I respond?

Well, Shree, I'll tell ya, since you ask. When a person goes out of the way to defend themselves from an action or behavior they haven't been accused of, nine times out of ten, they've committed that infraction they're so vehemently denying. Case in point: No one brought up or accused Velma of lying, but there she is defending herself from doing so. Weather or not she is lying, I'll tell you I never received any communication from her regarding Misanthrope with regards to this topic. Why should I? If Velma wants to communicate to Misanthrope, I'm sure she would just PM her. So, with the absence of the communication Velma alleges to have made, of course her post seems to me to be catty and even just a bit snide, like she'd rather defend herself or attack others instead of taking a simple, straightforward suggestion in the appropriate forum at its face value. Why all the defense? Why the attitude? People, moderators and other members alike, have been allowed to flame away with wanton abandon in response to this suggestion without any warnings or moderation whatsoever. I find that counter-productive to the spirit of what a "suggestion" topic would stand for. I don't see how anyone is going to feel comfortable making a suggestion here if they see this thread and all the personal attacks without consequence that have taken place. Moderators who should know better have become argumentative and defensive. At the front page to this sub-forum, it says, "Support and feedback. Put in your suggestions, comments, complaints. All are welcome." This is a direct contradiction to what you said above, (and it's a contradiction to the responses seen here by other members who have, for whatever reason, taken this suggestion as a personal attack) so now I'm confused. Would you clarify what you're saying here please, Shree? Oh, by the way, is Tiki an English major? If so, that's news to me. You know, someone else who's brought up this very topic elsewhere is Folkrockfan who is, indeed, an English major at the university or college she's attending. Seems to be a female thing (I'm running away!!!!). Anyway, you might approach her too...

TrueFusion, you seem to have a hard time with suggestions. I think it's apparent you should hang out in the "debate" forums because that's pretty much what you've turned this simple suggestion into. Nowhere is it written that someone who makes a suggestion needs to have all the answers or impart a solution for that suggestion if the suggestion is also a criticism. It's not the Original Poster's job to solve all the problems of a huge forum -or any one problem for that matter. Several posters, newbies and senior members of the Trap, have made posts on this thread that have gone largely unnoticed because of the debate you've turned this into. These members have mostly agreed with the original post on the thread. So now that it's apparent that this is, indeed, a problem here, and we agree it can't be completely fixed nor easily fixed, the power of the great "suggestion box" has served its purpose. Weather unpaid staff or paid staff can or will do anything about it will remain to be seen. We can pick this up in the "debate forum" if you'd like, but as far as I can tell this topic is closed.

Wow! Get off your high horse? Are you suggesting we should lower our writing level to "See Spot Run" or something along those lines so that everyone will understand? Looking up the definition of a word every once in a while can't be a bad thing Mike. On the other hand, I don't see the benefit of you writing while you're getting yourself worked up. Turns into a mess. Hard to understand. Cool off. Stay on topic. Don't blame others on your problems... And stop attacking people who are simply here to help! When someone tells you to clean up your grammar, they're not saying they think you're a bad person, they're simply trying to help you become a better person through improving your communication skills. You know, this thread was started in the "Suggestions" topic under "Support and Feedback". Now, if you don't want legitimate suggestions in this "suggestions" area, you're (most of those who've replied to this thread) doing a fine job of discouraging others from having the audacity to voice their suggestions on how to make this forum a better place! I'm especially talking to you, Velma! Your post contained snide catty language and immature demeanor that would suggest you've got better things to do than respond to "suggestions". I'd expect much more insight and forethought from a moderator. I've never seen so many people whine about this and that and make so many excuses and take things so personal just because of a "suggestion" before! You moderators who've joined with the whine: Did you bring some cheese to share with the class? You're all reading way too much into the posts Misanthrope and I have made on this topic while we've gone way out of our way to try and communicate to you all that we're not "Grammar Nazis" who want to ban each and every person ESL or not who makes a typo! Further, we're (or at least I'm) not here to teach people how to write and speak English. If that precedent was set, there would be millions of people from all around the world who'd flock here for free English lessons! I don't think this site is prepared to pay a staff to be on hand to teach ESL anytime soon. Many people here care greatly that their writing is of a high technical level and those people take more time to construct an essay or any other post than others. It doesn't come easily, at least not for me, and it takes more time and effort to do for most of us. The more you practice, though, the easier and faster it comes until you really don't even give it much thought. The thing is, these people may look at all the sloppy lazy hard-to-read posts by others who have the capacity to post higher quality and wonder why they should bother being so anal with their own posts. See what I'm getting at? We occasionally get quite annoyed with people who are just as capable as we are but choose to write several grade levels below what they're capable of just because they don't care. You want me to stop caring Mike? If I didn't care, according to your most recent post on this thread, you wouldn't be at the writing level you're at. If I let the fact that you're a "senior" and respected member here intimidate me, I wouldn't have given you so much crap about your writing skills, motivating you to bring it up a level or two. You're not out of the woods yet, my friend. Just because you've improved doesn't mean you don't have more improvement to go. And as far as "high horses" go, I'd look at the mirror before making that accusation. Indeed, a "thank you" for spending hours correcting and pouring through that essay you wrote last year might even be in order. Instead you just complained that I was too hard on you. WAAAAH! I have a news flash for you. When I was in grammar school, the teachers thought I was mentally challenged because I just didn't pick up on reading and writing as well as my contemporaries. So they actually sent me to a special school for "special" people for a year in third grade. It wasn't until the 11th grade that I was fortunate enough to have been taught by a teacher who was able to bring out the best in me. My writing and comprehension level jumped several grade levels well into college level that year and it's just improved since than. In community college I took other writing classes including poetry to broaden my horizons. I applaud and bow to those here who can speak several languages fluently and write decent English too. I would like to encourage people who speak English as a second language to include their home country so others who are struggling to understand what they're trying to say can be more forgiving. Shree, in his post above this one, seems to "get it". And, I'd just like to add that's probably the cleanest post he's ever posted on the forum! So, in closing, I'd like to direct all the whiners and others to Shree's post because it's clear he's one of the few who actually understand the gist of what Misanthrope was trying to get at here. There should be a thread started in Moderator-land to bring all Mods onto the same page with regards to enforcement of this rule which is so very important to a site that generates revenue on Quality writings. [edit]: Oh, one more thing. This is directed at Mike, more than others, but it should apply to all Americans and anyone else who has the opportunity to watch Jeopardy on television: Rvlkass (sp?) used a big word, "lexicographical", in his post and if it weren't for the fact that it was used in a clue on Jeopardy just yesterday I wouldn't have known its meaning. My point is if people would turn off the titillation and turn on the educational programming on the "boob-tube", you'd be surprised how, in just a few short years, you'll begin to show signs of an upswing in intelligence instead of the opposite. Take care of your environment and you'll grow and prosper. Let your environment go to hell, and you'll sink into the muck of mediocrity having to look up every four syllable word you encounter in a thread. Mike, it's your choice how you take this. You can take the easy way out and take it as a personal attack. Or, you can correctly take it as me reaching my hand out to you making yet another effort to help you rise above the muck. Which way are you going to take it?

This is a laptop with a 17" 1680 X 1050 matte display driven by a ATI Radeon X1600 GPU with 256 VRAM memory.The CPU is Intel's Core 2 Duo at 2.33 GHz with 4MB per processor L2 cache, a Bus speed of 667 MHz and two 1 GB sticks of RAM memory. It has built in audio that can interface with standard 2.5mm jacks or 2.5mm optical jacks, has bluetooth, three USB ports, each with its own power supply, one Firewire 400 port, and one Firewire 800 port. I usually have it connected via the FW 400 port to a Western Digital 500 GB External Hard Drive for back up and network access. Anyway, it's also got a "superdrive" which can CD-Write in the following formats: -R, -RW as well as the DVD burner which can: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL. It also says: "Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, DVD-DAO" -whatever that means. The chipset supports and includes Wireless networking via the new, unapproved 802.11 "n" standard. At the moment I've got a 160 GB Hitachi HTS541616J9SA00 Hard Drive, but on another screen open while I write this, I'm in the process of ordering the new Western Digital 320 Scorpio from newegg.com and in a week it'll be installed and the Hitachi will be in the Passport case the WD is coming in. I'm also strongly considering ordering a 2 GB stick of RAM to bring my total up to three, but I haven't made that decision yet. And all I have to show for it is 300 stink'in days of free hosting!

I don't suppose you could supply a link to that topic...

I have to say, Mike, I used to shudder when I went to read one of your posts. Your main problem is you seem to loose focus on keeping the grammar clean. The post above can serve as an example of this. You start out with a paragraph that's pretty much void of anything that substantially tortures the language, but there are a couple simple typos that spell check could've caught. The second paragraph contains "cold" instead of "could" and English should be capitalized, but these are errors easily overlooked. Seems like the last paragraph falls apart, but either I was seeing things, or you came back and corrected it before I could tear it apart. Either way, overall, I'd agree with you: Your grammar and writing skills have improved considerably and are worthy of someone in the high school level in the inner city like in Baltimore or something. A compliment -if you recall what I said about a year ago on that topic. There's an analogy I'd like you all to consider: In the United States of America, a nation of large, hairy, overgrown children who don't like to take responsibility for their own actions, there's been a growing sediment against the second amendment of the constitution which reads, -from Wiki The language, while a bit unusual by today's standards, is very simple, and eloquent. It means, simply, what it says. But a growing body of people would rather blame an inanimate object (a firearm) for the senseless crimes such as rapes and murders instead of owning up to the fact that a firearm, left without human contact, can do no harm. These people try and claim the second amendment, the highest law of the land, is meant to arm militias, not individual people. It clearly does not mean this, and if you look at supporting documents and simply understand that all the amendments to the constitution are a protection of personal liberties, it would be clear to you too. To those who'd ban ownership of firearms, I say this: The constitution is the law of the land. If you don't like one of the amendments or you'd like to add one, there is a mechanism in place whereby you can either amend an amendment or add one. Simply follow the rules and change the law fairly. Until that time comes that the second amendment is changed to mean something you'd like better, the law is the law and it must be obeyed in a civilized society. Period, end of discussion! So my point is this. If the rules of this forum are in need of revision or clarification, Shree should make the change. That's all. Misanthrope is simply pointing out that a certain rule is being enforced arbitrarily at best because it's too vague. Clarifying it might help, enforcing it would help too. I doubt she's really trying to come down hard on people such as you, Mike, or someone from Bangalore or Bangcock who's writing English as a second language. That wouldn't be reasonable. Someone who has demonstrated, either on the shoutbox or in a thread they are perfectly capable of putting together sentences and putting their thoughts down "on paper", but occasionally just get lazy or want to show people how "cool" they are by flaunting the rules and purposefully mangling the language should, by all reasonable interpretation of the rules in place at this time, be warned. How is this unreasonable? How is this overbearing? I see it as standard moderation and maintenance of this forum. Nothing more, nothing less. (BTW, in this paragraph, I originally mis-spelled seven words. Spell check is our friend. In Firefox, just right-click anywhere and activate spell check, then right click while hovering your arrow over a word with red underline and correct it. It's simple, only takes a minute, and makes you look like you're a freaking genius!)