Better yet, computers in the library for research. Period. No need for kids to take expensive equipment home.
My wife is an educatator, I can say first hand that computers for kids for every subject are a bad idea. They don't teach kids at all how to find material in books, they offer shortcuts so that kids never have to learn real math, and even worse kids are taught how to use a particlar brand of software *cough*MS*cough* instead of how to interact with the machines.
Teachers are very ill-equipped to teach them anyway. Most teachers don't know how to use them themselves much less teach the kids. The kids often know more than the teachers. My poor wife spends a lot of time answering stupid questions from other teachers because "her husband is into computers so she must know a lot about it".
There should be computer courses in schools, even starting from an early age. How to use the Internet to get information quickly, how to interact with a computer, no matter what software its running, even how to recognize fraud and online preditors. And those courses should be taught by professionals. Heck maybe I should walk down to the school and volunteer to teach the teachers some of this stuff. (Probably wouldn't want me due to politics).
Anyway, computers for computers sake are a waste of everyone's time and money. Especially if you have kids tell your school boards and your state legilatures this fact.
And there's a little bug - if you search for a city, its name appears on the right. Now, zoom out, and zoom in on another city. The city name doesn't change.
You've been able to do the same thing with Mapquest forever, it just takes longer to load each section.
Friend of mine picked it up not too long ago, its pretty cool really, though its not like most board games. The marines work together and, at least according to my friend, the demons are "supposed to lose".
Of course he said this after I played the demons and kicked marine butt all over the map in the first level... but that's beside the point.
Because the general public doesn't understand that is IE or Microsoft that is the problem. Think about it, whenever a new virus or worm comes out, the media and everyone else rushes the blame the 'evil virus writers and hackers'. Microsoft points their own fingers too and everyone looks the other way.
And a billion dollar industry is being propped up by bad design ideas.
An earlier poster commented that Microsoft doesn't have incompetent developers and nor are they purposely directing virus writers. I personally feel this is not true. Its got to be one or the other, or a combination of the two. The combination is most likely. The incompetence comes not from developers, I'm sure there are very talented people at Microsoft, rather it comes from a strategy of putting marketing before good design.
But now they know this, but why should they fix the problem? While I doubt they are actively seeking virus writers, the bugs prop up a billion-dollar industry and I'm sure those people have closed door meetings with MS and I wouldn't be surprised if some money changes hands, you know, 'Stratigic partnerships' and things like that.
I couldn't agree more about PHP, and how often are the user comments completely wrong, or suggest something that's going to get your site owned.
As for perl documentation its not that hard. On *nix 'man perl' gives a list of man pages and what to look for where. And if you're looking for a specific function you can do 'perldoc -f ' and get a good idea how to use it. Or do perldoc perlfunc (or man perlfunc) to get a complete function list if you aren't sure what to look for. And most pagers let you search the page your viewing.
If you don't have access to a shell there's also http://perldoc.com/ which should have everything that's availiable from a shell. And finally if you need info on specific modules it can be obtained from the shell after installed (at least through CPAN) or you can view the docs on the web by typing in the module name at http://search.cpan.org/
if you still need help there's also http://perlmonks.org/ with lots of people ready to answer your questions:)
As much as I hate IE (I mean really frickin' hate it), as a web developer I have to say that detecting browsers and then doing something based on what that browser supports is a bad idea. The web was meant to work for everyone and since 80%+ still use IE it has to work for them.
I personally code in standard WC3 and then use IE's conditional comments to load non-standard stylesheets or do Javascript that works around IE bugs. No need for server side code and no worrying about browser versions I haven't heard of.
Nobody in their right mind should be in favor of illegal immigration. I say start handing out green cards at the border crossing and letting 'em come on in, but that would destroy the wage-lowering effect that immoral employers so desire.
I'm not in favor of illegal immigration. Handing out green cards seems to be what Bush wants to do.
Do you have a crystal ball which allows you to predict the current experiment in global economics is going to play out?
Of course not, but its certainly likely. History tends to repeat itself. If you think that corporations exploit people now in the US, then take a look at the beginning of the 20th century. Eventually people said "enough is enough" and didn't stand for it anymore. This is already happening throughout the world, note the uprisings in Nigeria, poor common people are standing up and taking up arms even because they aren't getting the economic benefits of the country's oil wealth. The standard of living in China and India is already rising at unheard of rates and eventually it will match that in the US. When it does the corporations will be forced to pay as much for someone in India as they do here, and even the lower paying jobs will return.
This theory has been presented as fact by it's promoters in the corporate media.
Its a theory based evidence and economics. Just because people in the media say its true doesn't make it false.
Those who question the theory are labeled "protectionists" (a fresh derogatory label replacing the aging term "commie") and apparently considered "retarded" by certain childish Slashdot readers.
No I said protectionism doesn't work, and I called the original poster's idea retarded. But of course the easiest thing to do is resort to personal attacks when you have no real argument.
The economy is a game. In every game there are winners and losers.
Of course. And the losers are the people who want to sit on their hands and suck of the government teat instead of furthering their education and starting new careers. Its called capitalism, for better or worse its made the US the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. I'm not denying its problems, but its the best we have at the moment.
Only time will tell if globalization eventually benefits the US economy and it's workers.
If it doesn't then the corporations will simply be putting themselves out of business because there won't be anyone left who can afford their products. Corporations may be short sighted but in the long term most of them are fairly good at adapting. If they weren't they wouldn't last so long.
One thing is for sure, if you are over forty years old and your job has been outsourced or you have been replaced by imported foreign labor, you will likely not benefit from globalization.
Tell that to my uncle who at age 50 lost his factory job to Mexico. He went back to school, and now he works for a technology company. Was it hard? Yes. Is he better off? Most certainly.
People in developed countries with access to education don't have an excuse other than they don't want to better themselves. Sorry to be harsh but that's the way it is.
As I said previously the alternative is to become completely protectionist. Sure in the short term it will protect our jobs, but incentives to create new and better things are removed, the rest of the world will be pissed off at us (as if they aren't enough already)
The TTC will serve as a new delivery system to many communities across the state. For goods from Mexico? For immigrants from mexico?
Score -1 Retarded.
Why are so many people so anti-immigration and protectionist? Protecting manufacturing jobs here is going to just piss the world off and cost us all a lot more money for the things we buy. Globalization of the econmony is a *good* thing. Eventually it will lead to an equalization of wages and a higher standard of living for everyone in the world, not just people in rich countries. Watch and see if the workers in third world countries don't start unionizing and demanding higher wages.
Besides, are you going to start building houses and picking fruit or digging ditches for a living? That's what most of the illegal immegrants are doing over here, jobs you don't want to do anyway so they are contributers to the economy.
The toolkit has nothing to do with it. GTK runs on windows just fine and has a special theme that causes it to match whatever Windows theme you are using.
The problem on Windows is that Gimp uses multiple windows for one app and doesn't contain them. A pain when you have to constantly click on the top bar to bring the window in focus or it gets minimized but have you ever considered that is a limitation of Windows, not of GIMP (of course not)
I use BlackBox on Linux. GIMP's UI works quite well in a sloppy focus environment where just putting a mouse over a window brings it into focus and doesn't always bring it to the top. In fact I much prefer that way of doing it. That way I can put my different tools where I want them, not where the window manager thinks I want them, or where a developer decided to put them.
Consider that the developers of GIMP set out to write a painting program for that type of environment, not Windows. Someone else ported it to Windows. If you don't like the way it works then go contribute:)
My wife is a teacher, so i'll take what you're saying a step further.
WE DON'T NEED COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM.
Sure computers on campus, specific times where students can go to a computer class and learn from them is great, but it should be an extra treat. But schools these days are purchasing new computers every chance they get, its all a status symbol. "Look at our school! We buy computers every year! We're so advanced!"
Schools need to be spending that money on more, and better teachers. Teachers are so underpaid its not even funny. They are forced to teach too many students at one time and consequently even the good teachers end up using the computers to baby-sit the kids. The computers aren't teaching the basics, they're teaching them how to click buttons.
I'd suggest writing your local school board, but unfortunatly since the politicos took over the school systems, nothing will fix it until they're gone.
Do you really believe that if cellphones had existed 50 years ago that people would use them any differently?
I don't think that people have changed at all, just technology has changed enabling them to be more annoying.
Personally I think everyone needs to chill and go on with their lives. A loud guy on a cell phone is a small matter in the grand scheme of things. If he won't shut-up complain to the stewardess, or if you can't bring yourself to ask him to shut-up then bring some headphones. Nice to drown out some of the engine noise anyway.
And as for the right to be annoying: one could argue that the freedom of speech is just that. I made that argument in a previous reply just above.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Microscopic torpedos that blow up with little flashes of light at carefully measured distances, of course. Think of it as a really small fireworks show.
In some ways this is not a bad idea. Not torpedos but little nanobots with light-emitting diodes. Then you could have a mechanical aspect to the picture as well, instead of directing the light, you move the light. With advances in nano-tech it doesn't seem that far-fetched. (of course we'll still talking decades at least).
Ah but that's only true of large car companies, there are still a few small car companies that make their cars mostly by hand and those cars are very expensive.
In the IT market this is even more true. Big companies aren't the end all be all of IT. Ther are a lot of small companies in niche markets making plenty of money by being local hosting companies staffed by humans, or writing specialty software. Not to mention local ISPs which are still everywhere even though dial-up is dying many are offering Wireless or reselling DSL. Not to mention the fact that even if all the little ISPs disappeared the big guys would still need someone to maintain all the local infrastructure. The guy in India can't do that.
Besides, even now the big guys are starting to figure out that people don't like dealing with tech-support or developers in India because they don't quite speak the same English not to mention cultural and time differences. I've personally spoken to leaders of midsize companies that tried the outsourcing thing and in the end it created far more problems (and costs) than it ever saved.
Even if everything you say came true, everyone in IT would have to cease to innovate. I personally don't see that happening.
Not insightful. But modding you down would be too easy.
I'm a web developer and I code to a published standard. Its amazing how all the alternative browsers just work with that standard. All the time I spend getting pages to work right is hacks for IE.
Web developers are unfortunatly forced to support IE but they can still develop for the standard. If you are having to 'support' everything then you aren't doing it right.
But do abortion, school prayer, and hate crime laws really affect your everyday life? Generally not really: abortion laws haven't changed because changing them would hurt Republicans (they could have pushed for an amendment to ban it). School prayer similarly could be fixed with an amendment. They don't push the amendments because they probably wouldn't pass but they continue to make noise about it because it pleases the 'base'. Hate crimes on the dem's side is similar, and the abortion issue helps them too "Look at us! We're working hard to make sure the evil Republicans don't trod on women!"
Bracketted taxes comes closest but that, like the other three items you mentioned don't affect corporate profits so its really just another "Look at us! We're doing something!" issue.
Both parties consistantly vote for less freedom, less rights, and less voice for the regular people. See the PATRIOT act, every bit of copyright legislation that has recently been proposed and all the examples of "The war on $boogey_man". Those things affect you and they help corporations. And that appears to be what the government now does. Pretend they're doing great things for people by drumming up emotional issues (think of the children!) while in reality they are pandering to large corporations in hopes of obtaining more power and money.
* Changing the temporary cache path? Uses a random folder name in your settings path for security. Though I believe you can change it in about:config
* No option to clear cache when done? Privacy->Cache->Clear
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run? Uh it doesn't have Active X. Under Web Features->Advanced there are several things you can disallow or allow Javascript to do. about:config may have some more settings.
* Prompted cookie setting control? Privacy->Cookies->Ask For Each Cookie. It even remembers what you said for each cookie so you don't have to tell it again for the same site. And there is an exceptions menu in the same place that allows you to go back and change what you said.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.) Its in about:config, and in regular Mozilla the setting is there. I agree this was a stupid one to leave out of the main menus.
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites. Only Windows has the concept of "Zones" and its a stupid idea anyway. The browser should not be able to run code on your machine. You can configure Popup Windows, Images and Cookies per site though.
* Installed security is to save passwords, allow web sites to install software, save form information, and Java is enabled?
(Of course IE is probably even more open, but the point is that FireFox is supposed to be secure right?) Firefox is trying to appeal to main stream users. Thus there is a trade-off. There are several prompts on the installing software stuff. Besides you can't install new programs with it, just add-ons and themes for your browser. And, as of yet no security problems have been discovered where someone can get around the prompts (unlike Active X)
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something. Like what?
No offense but for most of these, it doesn't appear you looked all that hard before you gave up on it.
For a group of people that claims such intellegent superiority over all the "hicks" in the midwest that voted for Bush, you sure to buy wholeheartedly into the media BS. That and Democratic press releases! As someone on Fark said the other day, if the Dems ever hope to get elected again they need to quit believing their own rhetoric!
Case in point: Outsouring. TWO PERCENT of the jobs lost this year were due to outsourcing. That's a bit more than 4,000 people. (sources: Here and here). Tragic? Sure, sucks to lose your job but 4,000 people does not translate into "everyone is outsourcing its the end of the world!". Nor does it translate into "President Bush supports outsourcing". No, President Bush supports tax cuts to encourage growth and it appears to be working (and no I'm not a wealthy person but I still got a tax break). The tax cuts are about the only thing he has done right. If he hadn't have started a useless war and pooped all over the Constitution I might have voted for him.
1. How about "I can't vote for either in good conscience"
2. Voting for a third party helps toward the goal of having a huge following for one.
3. Badnarik takes votes from Bush as much or more as Nadar takes from Kerry but you don't ever hear the media report on that. Maybe because the Dems know that by keeping Nadar on the ballot they have a scapegoat that they can whine about for the next four years since they can't come up with a candidate that's good enough to beat Bush (and that I can't understand at all)
Bottom line if the major parties ran people that weren't so marginalized one way or the other then they wouldn't have to worry about 3rd parties
Slashdot Mirror
Better yet, computers in the library for research. Period. No need for kids to take expensive equipment home.
My wife is an educatator, I can say first hand that computers for kids for every subject are a bad idea. They don't teach kids at all how to find material in books, they offer shortcuts so that kids never have to learn real math, and even worse kids are taught how to use a particlar brand of software *cough*MS*cough* instead of how to interact with the machines.
Teachers are very ill-equipped to teach them anyway. Most teachers don't know how to use them themselves much less teach the kids. The kids often know more than the teachers. My poor wife spends a lot of time answering stupid questions from other teachers because "her husband is into computers so she must know a lot about it".
There should be computer courses in schools, even starting from an early age. How to use the Internet to get information quickly, how to interact with a computer, no matter what software its running, even how to recognize fraud and online preditors. And those courses should be taught by professionals. Heck maybe I should walk down to the school and volunteer to teach the teachers some of this stuff. (Probably wouldn't want me due to politics).
Anyway, computers for computers sake are a waste of everyone's time and money. Especially if you have kids tell your school boards and your state legilatures this fact.
And there's a little bug - if you search for a city, its name appears on the right. Now, zoom out, and zoom in on another city. The city name doesn't change.
You've been able to do the same thing with Mapquest forever, it just takes longer to load each section.
Friend of mine picked it up not too long ago, its pretty cool really, though its not like most board games. The marines work together and, at least according to my friend, the demons are "supposed to lose".
... but that's beside the point.
Of course he said this after I played the demons and kicked marine butt all over the map in the first level
Um what about Firefox's (and Moz's) XML web building platform?
.Net. Its more secure and if it gains acceptance, Windows will become a collection of buggy device drivers.
XUL >
Because the general public doesn't understand that is IE or Microsoft that is the problem. Think about it, whenever a new virus or worm comes out, the media and everyone else rushes the blame the 'evil virus writers and hackers'. Microsoft points their own fingers too and everyone looks the other way.
And a billion dollar industry is being propped up by bad design ideas.
An earlier poster commented that Microsoft doesn't have incompetent developers and nor are they purposely directing virus writers. I personally feel this is not true. Its got to be one or the other, or a combination of the two. The combination is most likely. The incompetence comes not from developers, I'm sure there are very talented people at Microsoft, rather it comes from a strategy of putting marketing before good design.
But now they know this, but why should they fix the problem? While I doubt they are actively seeking virus writers, the bugs prop up a billion-dollar industry and I'm sure those people have closed door meetings with MS and I wouldn't be surprised if some money changes hands, you know, 'Stratigic partnerships' and things like that.
I couldn't agree more about PHP, and how often are the user comments completely wrong, or suggest something that's going to get your site owned.
:)
As for perl documentation its not that hard. On *nix 'man perl' gives a list of man pages and what to look for where. And if you're looking for a specific function you can do 'perldoc -f ' and get a good idea how to use it. Or do perldoc perlfunc (or man perlfunc) to get a complete function list if you aren't sure what to look for. And most pagers let you search the page your viewing.
If you don't have access to a shell there's also http://perldoc.com/ which should have everything that's availiable from a shell. And finally if you need info on specific modules it can be obtained from the shell after installed (at least through CPAN) or you can view the docs on the web by typing in the module name at http://search.cpan.org/
if you still need help there's also http://perlmonks.org/ with lots of people ready to answer your questions
Couldn't you write extensions that add these features for people that want them?
Its not a bug, its a feature request. Perhaps the developers don't think its something that needs to be in the core of Moz/Firefox.
As much as I hate IE (I mean really frickin' hate it), as a web developer I have to say that detecting browsers and then doing something based on what that browser supports is a bad idea. The web was meant to work for everyone and since 80%+ still use IE it has to work for them.
I personally code in standard WC3 and then use IE's conditional comments to load non-standard stylesheets or do Javascript that works around IE bugs. No need for server side code and no worrying about browser versions I haven't heard of.
Nobody in their right mind should be in favor of illegal immigration. I say start handing out green cards at the border crossing and letting 'em come on in, but that would destroy the wage-lowering effect that immoral employers so desire.
I'm not in favor of illegal immigration. Handing out green cards seems to be what Bush wants to do.
Do you have a crystal ball which allows you to predict the current experiment in global economics is going to play out?
Of course not, but its certainly likely. History tends to repeat itself. If you think that corporations exploit people now in the US, then take a look at the beginning of the 20th century. Eventually people said "enough is enough" and didn't stand for it anymore. This is already happening throughout the world, note the uprisings in Nigeria, poor common people are standing up and taking up arms even because they aren't getting the economic benefits of the country's oil wealth. The standard of living in China and India is already rising at unheard of rates and eventually it will match that in the US. When it does the corporations will be forced to pay as much for someone in India as they do here, and even the lower paying jobs will return.
This theory has been presented as fact by it's promoters in the corporate media.
Its a theory based evidence and economics. Just because people in the media say its true doesn't make it false.
Those who question the theory are labeled "protectionists" (a fresh derogatory label replacing the aging term "commie") and apparently considered "retarded" by certain childish Slashdot readers.
No I said protectionism doesn't work, and I called the original poster's idea retarded. But of course the easiest thing to do is resort to personal attacks when you have no real argument.
The economy is a game. In every game there are winners and losers.
Of course. And the losers are the people who want to sit on their hands and suck of the government teat instead of furthering their education and starting new careers. Its called capitalism, for better or worse its made the US the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. I'm not denying its problems, but its the best we have at the moment.
Only time will tell if globalization eventually benefits the US economy and it's workers.
If it doesn't then the corporations will simply be putting themselves out of business because there won't be anyone left who can afford their products. Corporations may be short sighted but in the long term most of them are fairly good at adapting. If they weren't they wouldn't last so long.
One thing is for sure, if you are over forty years old and your job has been outsourced or you have been replaced by imported foreign labor, you will likely not benefit from globalization.
Tell that to my uncle who at age 50 lost his factory job to Mexico. He went back to school, and now he works for a technology company. Was it hard? Yes. Is he better off? Most certainly.
People in developed countries with access to education don't have an excuse other than they don't want to better themselves. Sorry to be harsh but that's the way it is.
As I said previously the alternative is to become completely protectionist. Sure in the short term it will protect our jobs, but incentives to create new and better things are removed, the rest of the world will be pissed off at us (as if they aren't enough already)
The TTC will serve as a new delivery system to many communities across the state. For goods from Mexico? For immigrants from mexico?
Score -1 Retarded.
Why are so many people so anti-immigration and protectionist? Protecting manufacturing jobs here is going to just piss the world off and cost us all a lot more money for the things we buy. Globalization of the econmony is a *good* thing. Eventually it will lead to an equalization of wages and a higher standard of living for everyone in the world, not just people in rich countries. Watch and see if the workers in third world countries don't start unionizing and demanding higher wages.
Besides, are you going to start building houses and picking fruit or digging ditches for a living? That's what most of the illegal immegrants are doing over here, jobs you don't want to do anyway so they are contributers to the economy.
I'd also like to add that in East Texas it rains at least 3 or 4 days a week during the spring and fall. And in the Panhandle snow is not uncommon.
So weather in Texas depends on where you are. Sunny and hot in the valley all year sure.
Cool. Maybe it will happen at the same time and us people in the "Red States" will finally be rid of all the whiney liberals!
(Anyone who mods me down has no sense of humor)
The toolkit has nothing to do with it. GTK runs on windows just fine and has a special theme that causes it to match whatever Windows theme you are using.
:)
The problem on Windows is that Gimp uses multiple windows for one app and doesn't contain them. A pain when you have to constantly click on the top bar to bring the window in focus or it gets minimized but have you ever considered that is a limitation of Windows, not of GIMP (of course not)
I use BlackBox on Linux. GIMP's UI works quite well in a sloppy focus environment where just putting a mouse over a window brings it into focus and doesn't always bring it to the top. In fact I much prefer that way of doing it. That way I can put my different tools where I want them, not where the window manager thinks I want them, or where a developer decided to put them.
Consider that the developers of GIMP set out to write a painting program for that type of environment, not Windows. Someone else ported it to Windows. If you don't like the way it works then go contribute
My wife is a teacher, so i'll take what you're saying a step further.
WE DON'T NEED COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM.
Sure computers on campus, specific times where students can go to a computer class and learn from them is great, but it should be an extra treat. But schools these days are purchasing new computers every chance they get, its all a status symbol. "Look at our school! We buy computers every year! We're so advanced!"
Schools need to be spending that money on more, and better teachers. Teachers are so underpaid its not even funny. They are forced to teach too many students at one time and consequently even the good teachers end up using the computers to baby-sit the kids. The computers aren't teaching the basics, they're teaching them how to click buttons.
I'd suggest writing your local school board, but unfortunatly since the politicos took over the school systems, nothing will fix it until they're gone.
Do you really believe that if cellphones had existed 50 years ago that people would use them any differently?
I don't think that people have changed at all, just technology has changed enabling them to be more annoying.
Personally I think everyone needs to chill and go on with their lives. A loud guy on a cell phone is a small matter in the grand scheme of things. If he won't shut-up complain to the stewardess, or if you can't bring yourself to ask him to shut-up then bring some headphones. Nice to drown out some of the engine noise anyway.
And as for the right to be annoying: one could argue that the freedom of speech is just that. I made that argument in a previous reply just above.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
I think it says so right there.
Well I'll ask what I ask on Fark all the time (and still haven't gotten a response)
Where is it written that you have a right to be annoyed?
Ever think of asking them to tone it down?
Microscopic torpedos that blow up with little flashes of light at carefully measured distances, of course. Think of it as a really small fireworks show.
In some ways this is not a bad idea. Not torpedos but little nanobots with light-emitting diodes. Then you could have a mechanical aspect to the picture as well, instead of directing the light, you move the light. With advances in nano-tech it doesn't seem that far-fetched. (of course we'll still talking decades at least).
Ah but that's only true of large car companies, there are still a few small car companies that make their cars mostly by hand and those cars are very expensive.
In the IT market this is even more true. Big companies aren't the end all be all of IT. Ther are a lot of small companies in niche markets making plenty of money by being local hosting companies staffed by humans, or writing specialty software. Not to mention local ISPs which are still everywhere even though dial-up is dying many are offering Wireless or reselling DSL. Not to mention the fact that even if all the little ISPs disappeared the big guys would still need someone to maintain all the local infrastructure. The guy in India can't do that.
Besides, even now the big guys are starting to figure out that people don't like dealing with tech-support or developers in India because they don't quite speak the same English not to mention cultural and time differences. I've personally spoken to leaders of midsize companies that tried the outsourcing thing and in the end it created far more problems (and costs) than it ever saved.
Even if everything you say came true, everyone in IT would have to cease to innovate. I personally don't see that happening.
Not insightful. But modding you down would be too easy.
I'm a web developer and I code to a published standard. Its amazing how all the alternative browsers just work with that standard. All the time I spend getting pages to work right is hacks for IE.
Web developers are unfortunatly forced to support IE but they can still develop for the standard. If you are having to 'support' everything then you aren't doing it right.
But do abortion, school prayer, and hate crime laws really affect your everyday life? Generally not really: abortion laws haven't changed because changing them would hurt Republicans (they could have pushed for an amendment to ban it). School prayer similarly could be fixed with an amendment. They don't push the amendments because they probably wouldn't pass but they continue to make noise about it because it pleases the 'base'. Hate crimes on the dem's side is similar, and the abortion issue helps them too "Look at us! We're working hard to make sure the evil Republicans don't trod on women!"
Bracketted taxes comes closest but that, like the other three items you mentioned don't affect corporate profits so its really just another "Look at us! We're doing something!" issue.
Both parties consistantly vote for less freedom, less rights, and less voice for the regular people. See the PATRIOT act, every bit of copyright legislation that has recently been proposed and all the examples of "The war on $boogey_man". Those things affect you and they help corporations. And that appears to be what the government now does. Pretend they're doing great things for people by drumming up emotional issues (think of the children!) while in reality they are pandering to large corporations in hopes of obtaining more power and money.
* Changing the temporary cache path?
Uses a random folder name in your settings path for security. Though I believe you can change it in about:config
* No option to clear cache when done?
Privacy->Cache->Clear
* Inability to prompt me if I want scripts to run?
Uh it doesn't have Active X. Under Web Features->Advanced there are several things you can disallow or allow Javascript to do. about:config may have some more settings.
* Prompted cookie setting control?
Privacy->Cookies->Ask For Each Cookie. It even remembers what you said for each cookie so you don't have to tell it again for the same site. And there is an exceptions menu in the same place that allows you to go back and change what you said.
* Inline images are either on or off. Eg, no ability to prevent animations (gif or otherwise) from running.
(This is frustrating. I want to see the original images, but I absolutely hate animations of any sort.)
Its in about:config, and in regular Mozilla the setting is there. I agree this was a stupid one to leave out of the main menus.
* No Zones feature so that I can configure certain security options for certain sites.
Only Windows has the concept of "Zones" and its a stupid idea anyway. The browser should not be able to run code on your machine. You can configure Popup Windows, Images and Cookies per site though.
* Installed security is to save passwords, allow web sites to install software, save form information, and Java is enabled?
(Of course IE is probably even more open, but the point is that FireFox is supposed to be secure right?)
Firefox is trying to appeal to main stream users. Thus there is a trade-off. There are several prompts on the installing software stuff. Besides you can't install new programs with it, just add-ons and themes for your browser. And, as of yet no security problems have been discovered where someone can get around the prompts (unlike Active X)
* Many other configuration options are missing that would allow me to be prompted if I want to execute or do something.
Like what?
No offense but for most of these, it doesn't appear you looked all that hard before you gave up on it.
For a group of people that claims such intellegent superiority over all the "hicks" in the midwest that voted for Bush, you sure to buy wholeheartedly into the media BS. That and Democratic press releases! As someone on Fark said the other day, if the Dems ever hope to get elected again they need to quit believing their own rhetoric!
Case in point: Outsouring. TWO PERCENT of the jobs lost this year were due to outsourcing. That's a bit more than 4,000 people. (sources: Here and here). Tragic? Sure, sucks to lose your job but 4,000 people does not translate into "everyone is outsourcing its the end of the world!". Nor does it translate into "President Bush supports outsourcing". No, President Bush supports tax cuts to encourage growth and it appears to be working (and no I'm not a wealthy person but I still got a tax break). The tax cuts are about the only thing he has done right. If he hadn't have started a useless war and pooped all over the Constitution I might have voted for him.
1. How about "I can't vote for either in good conscience"
2. Voting for a third party helps toward the goal of having a huge following for one.
3. Badnarik takes votes from Bush as much or more as Nadar takes from Kerry but you don't ever hear the media report on that. Maybe because the Dems know that by keeping Nadar on the ballot they have a scapegoat that they can whine about for the next four years since they can't come up with a candidate that's good enough to beat Bush (and that I can't understand at all)
Bottom line if the major parties ran people that weren't so marginalized one way or the other then they wouldn't have to worry about 3rd parties