Coopernundrums

Americans don’t need the government to tell them when or how to pray.

Americans have the right to pray for whomever they want and in what manner they like. But we don’t need an officially designated government proclamation to do that. Our people are free to engage in worship whenever they want. Allowing government to set aside certain days for prayer and worship implies that the state has some say over our religious lives when it does not. It is simply not the business of government to advise when, if and how people pray.

via Americans United: Our Efforts.

  As I shuffled through all my sundry computer components that I have collected over the years I ran into caches of floppy disks in at least three different places.  This made me wonder what I could have been thinking at the time I hid them all away like a large, burley, somewhat pale hamster.  I mean I seem to have bought enough “floppies” to last me a life time.

  Long ago in a galaxy far, far away, ahem… I mean, long ago when I was first getting into computers it seemed like I was ALWAYS in need of a floppy.  Showing my age, I can remember when they were the only way to get files from computer A to computer B without having both hooked into a network.  My, how times have changed.  Nowadays those of us in the tech industry never leave home without our tiny thumb drives.  I count no less than 4 hanging off my key ring even now.  All range in size from a massive 32 Gigabytes down to the lowly 4 Gigabytes.  Lets us compare this to the humble floppy which can only hold a measly 1.5 Megabytes.

  My question now is this; since I don’t have a floppy drive in any of my 4 PCs what the heck am I holding on to all these disks for?  Do people still buy floppy disks?  I guess I need to look into the best way to recycle them since it looks like I won’t ever need them again.  I am more than a little sad to see my buddies go.

Windows XP transitions out of Mainstream Support phase
by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 14th 2009 at 1:47PM (engadget)

It may only be a footnote in the long history of Windows XP, but Microsoft has confirmed today that, as planned, the venerable OS has finally and officially transitioned from the Mainstream Support phase to the Extended Support phase. This, of course, follows a number of extensions to the Mainstream Support phase which normally only lasts five years, although most users likely wont notice much of a difference as XP moves into this new, more wistful period of life, as theyll still be getting regular security updates and occasional hotfixes depending on their support plan all the way until April 8th, 2014 — or who knows how much longer if the demand is there.

via ENGADGET