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a VIP version which has a monthly bill of 600 yuen or something.

600 Yuan is about $100 USD - so I hope that's either a mistake or that the VIP version has some pretty nice features.

Surreal Black-And-White Photos Cleverly Combine Seemingly Different Objects

Now I have to build a book-arch before I drag anymore books to the used bookstore.

this tool requires a recurring licensing cost that we'd like to avoid

I believe that you are mistaken that a recurring license fee is required. From the purchase page of SmartSVN (I wasn't aware that WANdisco had acquired this software):

Your purchase includes:

   - A permanent license-key for the current version of SmartSVN Professional
   - One year of free updates (independent of version numbers)

So, you need to pay annually to keep getting upgrades, but if you're content with the software and don't need new features, then there's no requirement to pay the annual upgrade fee.

[_real_]

How Homer Simpson solves this problem:

Operator, give me the number for nine-one-one!

And, of course, when he becomes head of a powerful secret society, he learns the truth about 911:

Lenny: Your membership pack.  [hands it to him]
Homer: [pulls out a decal] What's this?
Lenny: You put that sticker on your car so you won't get any tickets. And this other one keeps paramedics from stealing your wallet while they're working on you.
 Carl: Oh, and don't bother calling 911 any more...here's the _real_ number.  [hands him a card with "912"]
Homer: Ooh!

If you're interested in the RMA route, I'd check withe the manufacturer.  In my experience to get an RMA for a drive (hard drive or optical) all that was necessary was the serial number of the device (which provides them with a date of manufacture) and running through whatever diagnostics the manufacturer required to convince them that the drive was faulty.

I've done this a handful of times over the years and have never had to produce a receipt or other paperwork.

A quick Googlin' seems to indicate that the drive may have a 3 year warranty.  If you haven't smashed it yet and the data isn't so sensitive that you feel OK handing the dead drive over to the manufacturer (only you can determine if that would be an acceptable risk or not), you might be able to get a working one in exchange.

As a potentially interesting aside - Lenovo apparently allows you to purchase a warranty add-on that lets you keep a failed drive in the case of a warranty replacement (I have no idea how much additional they charge):

  - http://www.lenovo.com/ser...s/en/keep-your-drive.html

Wut?

"Voila... peaches!" is the best part of the video.

I might be a bit paranoid, but when they're not in use I cover any of my webcams with a post-it note (for the cameras embedded in an LCD bezel) or with some sort of 'hood' (for cameras that clip to a monitor or otherwise sit in a stand).  Not that I have a stand-alone webcam anymore.

This is not an inconvenience for me because I rarely use webcams anyway.

Wow.  On so many levels.

Good news: the Supreme court upheld the first sale doctrine (overturning the Second Circuit's ruling):

In its ruling, the Court held that neither the word “under” nor any other word in “lawfully made under this title" is meant to impose “a geographical limitation” on the copyright law. “The fact that the Act does not instantly pro­tect an American copyright holder from unauthorized piracy taking place abroad does not mean the Act is inapplicable to copies made abroad,” reads the decision. The ruling also specifically called out the submissions from “Library associations, used-book dealers, technology compa­nies, consumer-goods retailers, and museums,” who pointed out “various ways in which a geographical interpretation would fail to further basic constitutional copyright objectives, in particular “promot[ing] the Progress of Science and useful Arts.”

[I'm]

Huh? How did Google control the news flow? I'm the one who put the feeds I wanted to follow into Google Reader.

Winer's talking about what he believes Google wants to do (and why Google Reader and RSS may not fit into Google's plans), not that they were doing it with Reader.

Interesting that the 'reviewer' in the notebookreview.com posted left by Curt has the user name, mimarsinan, which is a name also associated with CompreXX that Zatronium and Mouser pointed out is largely the same code as MagicRAR.  Yet mimarsinan's post doesn't mention any affiliation with MagicRAR.

MagicRAR may well be useful software, but I'm not left with the best feeling about it.

does anybody find movies that take place in subways or on trains (or in train stations) particularly enjoyable like I do?

Well, I loved the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" - the depiction of New Yorkers was classic.

I also like "The Warriors" quite a bit - it's kind of a subway movie.  I remember watching it on "Joe Bob's Last Call", and he had an MTA map that he used when coming back from the commercial breaks to show exactly what the progress of the Warriors was:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9WwDcs3_vk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9WwDcs3_vk</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjM00ueFw2A" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjM00ueFw2A</a>

I miss Joe Bob.

At least you got to admire the comely and wholesomely sexy Ms. Jenny Agutter in that one.

True, but Sean Connery in diapers is pretty enticing to some people as well.

And it's got that whole pro-gun message that's quite relevant today. 

Plus, giant stone heads are awesome. And a flying one?!?  Awesomest!

Really, what's not to like about Zardoz?

But will it clean your floors?

If you look at the distribution of backers, all except two have pledged less than $85 - I think they're mostly looking for a conversation piece (or backing a buck because they think it's a good joke).  About $3000-$4000 in backing came from these people (still impressive).

The two $500+ backers appear to be responsible for the vast majority of the backing - I don't know what their motivation is. Maybe they're 'insiders' of some sort? I'm not that familiar with kickstarter - it appears that, while discouraged, pledges can be cancelled before the project is funded. Maybe some of the large pledges won't stick?

@simcity tweeted this response:

@derekdonovan Hey, this is on Maxis. EA does not force design upon us. We own it, we are working 24/7 to fix it, and we are making progress

I love the letter that this Forbes article is about:  http://www.forbes.com/sit...simcity-in-public-letter/

An EA employee (unconfirmed) takes the company to task for not following the "core values" of EA - you know those BS lists of values that every big company (and many small ones) posts in hallways and lunchrooms at every workplace. EA's values:

• Be Bold
• Think Consumers First
• Create Quality and Innovation
• Act with Integrity
• Be Accountable
• Learn and Grow

I guess "Be Bold" might apply to the SimCity launch.  So 1 for 6.  We'll see if their reaction to the debacle will let them claim any other values.

Did you visit any of the search results from your googling?  I'm by no means particularly knowledgeable in this stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the sites that you visited (assuming you did) has some sort of affiliation with Amazon and passed your interest in Office 2003 SBE on to them in some fashion.

FWIW, the questionnaire worked fine for me.

I hope they sell a gazillion of these (for $5 it seems a no brainer).

I have no idea how close the nearest one is to where I live.

It wouldn't matter anyway, it's closed.

For that matter, I have no idea how closed the the nearest one is to where I live.

Does it allow software to pass an OS version check by lying when you install something, reporting that you are attempting to install it on XP and not Win7?

If you're running the installer in Win XP mode, then as far as the installer is concerned it is a Win XP machine.

What I'm not sure about is if Win8 has anything similar.

MS removed Win XP mode from Win 8.  Maybe if you upgrade your Win 7 machine with Win XP mode installed, it'll still run in Win 8 in some fashion, but I'm not sure about that.

Note that VirtualBox is supposed to be able to run the Win XP mode VM (which can be downloaded even without having Win7), but I think there's some hacking involved to get the VM's BIOS signature recognized so the Win XP VM doesn't need reactivation. VMware supports running a Win XP mode VM, but my understanding is that it'll only do it on Windows 7 machines to avoid breaking the Win XP mode license.

Yeah but so what.. if a user is going to do that then they weren't going to purchase from you anyway, so what do you care if they got a free license key or not.

It sounds like she's saying that they got few non-refunded paypal sales, so why should they bother with it?

This report just made me find the first genuinely useful use for DRM: if a scammer tries to get free software, you could just revoke his key. (even without DRM, you can always make sure that the scammer's key won't work for the next versions)

This reminds me of some software (that I can't recall at the moment) that worked their money back guarantee like so:

  - when you buy the software, you got a time-limited key (say a 60-day key).
  - if you asked for a refund withing the 30-day guarantee period, then they gave you your money back and that was that - all you had was a key that would expire in a few weeks.
  - after 30 days passed without a refund request, they sent you a permanent key so your software wouldn't time out.

It was a bit confusing, but not terribly so. But I imagine it had a heavier than usual support requirement on the vendor.