razerbeans

To build off of your idea, what if the IOC had their own camera crews that would cover the live events and rather than bidding out the events? They could license access to the raw footage to buyers (i.e. NBC/ABC/ESPN) who would then choose how to use the footage as well as applying their own commentators and technologies (such as scores, replays, etc.).

Seems like the IOC would benefit from licensing to all the different networks, the networks would all benefit from being able to carry the olympics, and the people would benefit from the competition between the networks to provide better replays/commentary/analysis.

It seems like now, more than ever, politicians see their positions as a profession rather than a service. While the two aren't mutually exclusive, I believe that if their mindset was that as a servant of the people more so than a politician, things may be different. There's a social disconnect.

But there's also the way that politicians conduct themselves. It's more like a bunch of spoiled kids that feel entitled crying foul and bringing congress to a screeching halt. Everyone seems to be so engulfed in pride that they can't come to a compromise. Isn't the point to at least come to a compromise to please as many people as possible instead of bringing things to a complete standstill?

The irony of this is the fact that I had a lecture that very day across UAHuntsville's campus in which my literature teacher said often times, when a person murders someone, there is a significantly higher chance they will do it again. I'm not saying that the death of her brother was indeed a murder, but I couldn't help but get a chill when I found out the news later that day. All of the teachers at UAHuntsville have passion about what they do; this is evident especially in the passion that the teachers seem to imbue in us as students. It is saddening to hear that three faculty have been killed, especially since one of those teachers was my own this past semester.

This gives a general overview of how the BIOS works, but I'm not entirely sure if it goes as in depth as you may want it to. However, it should be a good starting point. http://mikeos.berlios.de/write-your-own-os.html (See "PC primer" paragraph)

Sure, I have complete confidence in using a beta product, prone to crashing, to solve a bug that's two years old.

Thanks for the links mru! Both look very interesting; Beagleboard in particular. How helpful are the communities associated with both? It'd be nice to know whether I can ask newbie questions without getting blasted.

Right now I'm more interested in just getting started, so whatever would have a smaller learning curve in the beginning. I have had experience with installing custom firmware on home routers (dd-wrt) and that was what initially piqued my interest.