Because one uses .NET 1.1 and the other uses .NET 2.0. There are significant differences between them, and its very often useful to keep 2003 around for legacy stuff.

"Hey this computer belongs to ME! If I want to run all kinds of stuff at any friggen privilege level I want to then that is MY RIGHT." Truer words were never spoken, absolutely spot on mate. I'm sick and tired of Microsoft telling me what I can and can't do. I've spent a lot of time & money on MY computer, and Microsoft just want to put obstacles (and UAC is just one big annoying obstacle) in my way. Enough. Guess what? Vista will suffer from malware and viruses and badly written software exactly as much as any other operating system on the planet (written by Microsoft). UAC doesn't solve anything, except to annoy experienced users and freak out inexperienced ones. Granted, there are SOME aspects of it which are good - but *only* the transparent parts. Anything that pops up several frigging dialogs every time I try and run a program will cause far more problems than it potentially solves.

There are five books... ;P

Yup. Pair programming is the perfect way to double the cost of software development IMO. What we do instead at our company is code reviews. One developer writes the code, along with the unit tests, and then before it is integrated into the main solution in source control it's passed to another (usually more senior) developer who checks it. Much quicker, easier, less intrusive - and you still get the quality control.

Also, if we colonised a planet say orbiting Proxima Centauri (the nearest star to Sol), by the time we heard about a nuclear war back on Earth (assuming we would), they'd all have been dead for nearly 4 years. Communication can't travel faster than light any more than we can. Not even bad news can travel faster than light. ;P

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Gah. They should put the words "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters on the cover, and be done with it.

Good point about the super volcanoes. And they are a good enough reason to push for colonies on other worlds in and of themselves. I think you're wrong about the extent of Methane Clathrates, or their danger (they translate to approximately 100 times the greenhouse strength of carbon dioxide which everyone is so concerned about nowadays) though. If they were released, even in comparatively small amounts, the Earth would get so hot that the oceans would eventually boil (thus releasing more, and you get a runaway effect). You're right that the oceans used to be hotter than they are now, but we also didn't used to have an oxygen rich atmosphere. A couple of billion years ago, our atmosphere was very different. Mostly methane, CO2, and sulphur actually. Not a nice place to live. Also, as the sun gets older, it will get gradually hotter. This will ultimately mean our atmosphere burning away - the oceans evaporating, and Earth will be a ball of dust in space. As Earth gets hotter, so will Mars - which will make it temperate like the Earth for about 1 billion years after the Earth becomes un-inhabitable. There really is no hope for the Earth. Sooner or later, it'll be a rump or destroyed by the sun as it expands to become a red giant as it dies. The only way the human race is going to survive is if we start looking to colonize other worlds - and Mars is the logical first step. People are researching the oceans, but Mars is the future.

I never said it was a "runaway Earth". I said it was a warning to show what *can* happen if the temperature gets out of control. For starters, Venus is much closer to the Sun than the Earth is, so the temperatures are naturally hotter... however: Methane Clathrates (those huge stored pockets of methane (a far more dangerous greenhouse gas than CO2) that live in the ocean floor - mainly on the continental shelves where the water is deep and the temperature coolest) are very susceptible to temperature change. If these start to 'melt', then it's "bye bye" Earth as a habitable place to live.

Joe Woodbury wrote:

What nonsense. No matter how bad earth could get, it will still be more habitable than Mars. Furthermore any technology required to make Mars a viable place to live could also be applied to Earth.

Okay, I'm guessing you've never heard of Venus then... :doh: If Earth ever succumbs to the kind of runaway greenhouse effect that Venus suffers from (and it wouldn't take much really, just a couple or so degrees increase in the ocean temperatures), Mars would start to look like a pretty comfortable place by comparison.

Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:

What did we gain from the Moon? most would say "little" or "nothing". But in the process of the "path" we gained fuel cells, new methods for cooling and storing liquid gasses, lasers, velcro, many plastics, new manufacturing methods, computer advancements, communication advancements, weather prediction advancements, food processing, food storage, medicines, medical techniques, and the list is seemingly endless, not to mention the list of things that those then went on to generate. None of those were found on the Moon, but all of them were found on the path to the Moon.

You forgot to add "movie special effects" to your list. ;P