TBRMInsanity

Through out human history, we have been directly responsible for the extinction of millions of species on the Earth. Since we are responsible for this and several environments have suffered for it (such as the rabbit plagues in Australia or the exploding seal population in Canada), is it our responsibility to bring back some of these extinct species (with methods like reverse selective breading, or cloning) and try to repair some of the damage we have done?

I can't access my website outside of my router, I need to know how to set my IP address so it is visible outside my router.

I have a Palm Centro (I'm waiting for GSM to come to my location) and I'm not in a place that follows DST. I've set my Centro to my city, but it in turn sets the city to the largest city in my time zone (which does follow DST). This means that during the summer my clock is always being put out by one hour (and I have to reset my location each day so I have the correct time). How can I stop Palm OS from automatically resetting my location?

I was watching the following:

http://blog.ted.com/2010/05/lessons_from_fa.php

and Johanna Blakley brings up the point that the industries that have the least amount of copyright and patent control (for example the fashion industry) have the highest creativity and the highest GDP over industries that have rigorous copyright and patent control (for example the music and film industry). Personally I work in the IT industry and I've noticed how Open Source can lower costs in a company significantly but business is reluctant to change. Is it the old attitude that copyright and patents protect your nest egg, that is hurting business today? Do we need to get rid of copyright and patent laws? Or is something else in play here?

I've had my computer for about 5 years now but recently when I reboot or start up the machine it is taking 20-30min for it to get past the BIOS screen. Otherwise there is nothing wrong with the computer. What could be dieing on my computer?

I'm wondering what programs I need to compile VB code on Ubuntu (9.10). Do I use Mono or is there a Eclipse plugin for VB?

Side questions:

How hard is it to take code compiled on Linux and re-compile them on Windows?

Should I really be looking to dual boot my machine and do VB programming from the Windows partition?

If I have to use Windows do do VB programming, is there a cheaper alternative to Microsoft Visual Studios?

I'm looking at getting an Android phone and the two that are available to me in my price range are the LG Eve and the HTC Dream. Which is a better phone keeping in mind that I plan to not use my data package (data plans in Canada are horribly over priced) but I would like to take advantage of features like GPS, taking quick camera pics/videos, and to use as a PDA (my current PDA is a Nokia N800 and besides being a great PDA, it is too bulky to carry around everywhere).

On a side note, if someone knows where I can get either a Motorola Milestone (aka Droid), Nexus One, or N900 for under $300 CDN I would also appreciate it.

For the last month or so I've noticed my internet connection slowing down and in some cases just not working. It doesn't matter what OS I use or if I'm using a hard line or wireless, the internet is just not working properly. When I try to open more then one website at once, all the pages fail to load (where in the past they loaded just fine). When either myself or my wife is playing an online game, we can't use the internet on another computer or it won't work (or the game will lag/drop). I don't torrent and every speed test on the line says the line is good. What's up?!? My service provider refuses to give me any support because the line is good so I'm up the creek without a paddle. Some one throw me a line, I'm drowning.

I'm looking to buy my wife a laptop for Christmas but it has to meet the following criteria:

* It has to be able to play Sims 2 decently (ie not just meeting the min requirements)

* I want it to have a decent wireless card so she can surf the net with little to no slow down.

* I can't spend more then $750 and I would rather not spend more then $600

* It has to have more then a 13" screen but anything over 17" is overkill.

* I plan to install Win XP (my wife hates the Vista interface and won't even try Win 7) on the machine so if I can save money on not having an OS that would be great.

I got an MSN account so I could talk to some of my friends via IM, but I get WAY too much spam messages via MSN. How do I block any non-friend IM from coming in?

Please note I'm using my MSN account via Pidgin on Ubuntu (don't have Windows and I'm not going to download and install another IM just for MSN).

Does anyone know if there is a law or some other thing that prevents Canadians from viewing online TV services like http://www.hulu.com/ and downloading shows from the PSN (like you can in the USA)?

The only official answer I can get from the mentioned companies and the CRTC is that they don't offer the service right now, but they will notify me when the service becomes available in Canada.

I'm looking to get a bicycle and I haven't bought one in quite some time. I'm a little overwhelmed by the new innovations and I wanted to know a good bike for in city commuting and some casual riding. I would prefer a bike that I can remove the wheel(s) and seat (to prevent theft) and I'm not a fan of racing bikes (in the past I usually drove mountain bikes but that was when I did a lot of hiking).

On my work machine I set up a folder access on the toolbar so I can navigate my hard drive and network folders more quickly. The problem is that when I reboot the name of the folder disappears and I can't navigate the folder. I can right click on the folder and open it and eventually the ability to navigate the folder does return (but not it's name) but I want to fix this so it doesn't happen in the first place. Any suggestions?

There seems to be something wrong with our current system in that all it produces is minority governments and lack luster leaders of our political parties. What do we need to change to get the truly great people of our nation to run for our political parties and become our next Prime Minister?

Are there any countries out there that had a similar problem of minority government after minority government? How did they fix their system?

Every year during tax time I have to either load QuickTax (or similar program) in WINE or a virtual machine to get it working on Linux (Ubuntu). Is there a tax program out there that works on Ubuntu that follows Canadian tax law?

I'm doing some data point analysis and I'm trying to derive a formula from a series of data points (400 points in total). Currently I have to try every possible type of formula I can think of to find a best shape curve that fits my data points and it is time consuming. Is there a program out there that can take a series of data points and derive the best fit formula for those points?

I want add a rule into one of my RPG games that states if you roll at least 1/2 (round up) the dice (D10) as 1s then you have a critical glitch. What is the probability of a critical glitch (I can't remember the formula) if I roll 2 dice, or 3 dice, ..., 9 dice?

Can you show the math so I can tweak it to make the game fair.

My current cordless is dieing a slow death and I want to replace it with a cordless phone that is also Skype enabled. What is a good model that can do both Skype calls and regular phone calls?

I'm doing a trip to Halifax, PEI, and the Nova Scotia south shore (in and around Chester) this summer and I wanted to know some "must see" locations while I'm there.

I've been spoiled with Linux over the years. Programs like Myth TV allow me to (with an internet connection) download thousands of TV shows and view them at my leisure. Recently though I've noticed that some companies are offering on demand channels (Sprint being the biggest one with their FIOS service). I really like the idea of being able to watch what I want when I want.

My question is, would you want a service like this, and how much would you be willing to pay for it? Should we as consumers demand more of these types of services from our television providers? Is this the future of TV?