The primacy of life, especially one's own, should be reason enough for us all to be fit. I say this as the guy who carries around and extra half person between me and my skin. I've been working out most evenings for a month and a half now, and just plain find it frustrating. Before braking my ankle I was very fit, but all my activities were leg centric, and I didn't realize I was gaining weight until I had gained enought that excercising on a less tha optimally performing ankle was painful. Not uncomfortable, painful. So while I would tend to agree with the fit crowd to some degree (sorry, not switching to egg white only omelettes) I do agree that most of that crowd has an unearned hollier than thou attitude.
Among true sports car enthusiasts the Tesla Roadster is a wonderful peice of tech, that performs on a level on par with some super cars, for about 2 hours. 5 hours to recharge, and 250 mile range if your ginger on the accelerator means you can't go out and play all day long.
Trust me, the performance characteristics of electric vehicles are very cool, they're just not ready for prime time.
More on topic, though, yes, solar charged would be much better, allowing much faster cars. And yeah, get the chicks and beer out there. Why not? It may be primal, but so is competition.
Of course, to keep your warranty (wear and tear insurance) you do have to do the oil changes. Maybe health insurance should have mandatory phsycalls and preventative medacine, and increase rates based on the findings.
It seems, to me, that the problem is still, fundamentally, one of technology not mirroring reality. For the last several hundred thousand years we humans have been developing technology for the sole purpose of modify our environment to suite us. As communications tech advances, however, we find that we need to modify us to suite our enivironment, making us more and more animals and less and less higher intelligences. The solution, logically, is simple though. When I'm reading (or otherwise engaged in concentration requiring activities), and someone wants to start a conversation, I'll hold up one finger (nicely, sheesh) to indicate that I'll break my attention in just one moment (moment being a variable length measure of time from a few seconds to approximately a minute and a half. Sometimes I'll need longer to finish up, but there's always an opportunity to say so within a minute or so. I'm needs to replicate this real world behavior. On the I'm pop up we need a "Just a moment button" so we can indicate that we see the message, and will deal with it shortly. Then, if you're in the middle of something, let the other party know. "Hey, I'm in the middle of something, can we chat later (schedule the chat). Unless it's critical, most people, even extroverts, will understand. If it's critical, they'll usually say so.
Second, IM is similar in convenience to the telephone, but lacks in one MAJOR feature. There's no voicemail equivelent for IM (at least, not out of the box). If you can't have an IM conversation, your IM client needs to send you an e-mail letting you know you missed a call. Hell, if you're away, instead of saying so, the IM client should automatically respond to an incoming IM with a message stating so, and asking the other user(s) to leave a message. "Sorry, I can't chat at the moment, please leave me a message and I'll get back to you. Thanks."
Twitter is more of the same issue. With a proper interface, you could post generic status updates easily. Preferably, 1 button, but hey, cell phones in the US suck. So, 1 button to open your twitter app, then press 0-9 to select your standard post, and be done. It doesn't have to been constant. Say, 0=Sleeping, 1=Eating, 2=Working,3={insert your TV addiction here},4={insert hobby},5=Party, etc, and maybe 9=Enter custom message. Then, at least, you're participating without the extra effort.
In the end we'd all prefer that the computer just take care of this stuff for us, but they're not ready for that task yet. So let's make the new tech work at least as well as the old.
First of all, Corporate "support" != Software "support." Don't get too riled up 'till you've tried installing your favorite linux flavor.
Second, the very existence of open source software legitimizes Microsoft's behavior. Don't want to pay MS, use open source. If it doesn't exist, write it yourself. Want it prepackaged with telephone support available, albeit for a fee if its determined to by your cock-up, you may want to pay for the software.
"If we want the government to regulate something"
But I don't want it regulated. So may I please be exempt from paying for something I don't want?
Thank you.
No matter how much you folks rant and rave, MS is not a monopoly, and in reality, not even the DoJ's proclamation makes it one. You have many choices in OS. Firefox has done just fine with IE installed. The hardware architecture is published so if you want to create and sell an OS for it, go ahead. No where does this fit the definition of a monopoly. So long as you have an alternative, it's not monopoly. PUD, Puget Sound Energy, Comcast, Verizon, those are monopolies because if you want wired telephone, you have to buy it (one way or another) from the government mandated local supplier. Same with electricity, cable television, water,sewer, garbage collection, etc. If you want to complain about monopolies, complain about the real ones. I finally got fed up with MS when they decided to make WMI (completely unstable, still) a core windows component, and haven't run their products at home since. I think that pretty much removes any and all legitimacy from monopoly claims.
I burn a LOT of fuel. I mean a lot. And it's almost all for fun. I don't care how high gas prices go, I'm still going out to play EVERY chance I get. I'll just charge my employer more. While I miss the days of 97 cent gasoline, I wont object to higher prices forcing all the damned commuters, who don't really want to be driving, off the streets so I can go play without you getting in my way at 15 under the damned limit. Maybe you'll start paying for your owned damned bus passes and help force our cities to setup realistic public transport. If there were a bus from anywhere near my home to anywhere near my office, I'd take it, despite the fact that I LOVE driving. I hate putting commute mileage on my cars. But alas, in order to make a trip that's 15 minutes by car, I'd have to spend over an hour on the bus, so I, and everyone else who makes similar trips, drive to work. While I would much prefer cheaper fuel so I could go drive MORE, I'll accept more expensive fuel if it help clear up the roads so I can have more fun doing the same amount of driving. Who the hell cares how it's measured. In colder weather the air charge is colder and your burning more fuel, and in warmer weather it's the other way around, so in the end, just STFU.
Come on folks, get real. Minimum Advertised Price has been around a long time. This doesn't allow Ford and GM to get together and set a minimum price on cars. It allows Ford to tell dealers what the minimum price on Fords will be. As long as the dealers sign the contracts, they're participating willingly. If they don't, Ford may willingly chose not to participate with the dealer. Before typing, please invest in a clue, even a cheap one.
You still can't send a meeting request, so who cares? So often the simplest rules are forgotten. Get the basics of useability working, then tweak and upgrade.
"which is designated, by the U.S. Copyright Office, as the sole supplier of"
There's the issue. "designated" by some assholes in DC "as the sole supplier" = government mandated monopoly. Also, I'm damned certain this particular bit of regulation could be turned over fairly easily as ex post facto legislation which is expressly forbidden by our constitution. The want to keep squeezing tighter, fuck 'em, more will slip through their grasp.
Computers are great tools, but they're still just tools. Where's the gd card catalog so I can find what I'm looking for. Hell, I'm only 27, grew up with computers, but the morons writing the Library Catalog systems have obviously never seen the inside of real library, let alone done research in one. If you want tech based research, use Wikipedia to find your 1st or 2nd hand sources and go from there. If your going to the library, learn how the library works. It's been around for a VERY long time and works QUITE well, if you know what you're doing. Learn how to use the tool you're trying to use and, miracle of miracles, it'll be easier to use.
Having worked in Pharma-Research, I can say without a doubt, much much much much much more is spent on research than advertising. The cost of failed research arms is rarely included in the propaganda that suggests otherwise. Just remember, if you don't like the price of drugs in the US, blame Europe. This is the only country on the planet that allows pharmas to charge more than manufacturing costs for drugs. So we're the only ones on the planet paying for R&D.
In my home county, it was the vote counters on our paper ballots that caused our latest issues. Believe me, when they "decide" based on all the other votes on ballot, that a voter simply marked the wrong option on a particular measure, I trust the computer more than the cheating humans. Many of us wore orange during that escapade to demonstrate the similarity to certain rigged Ukranian elections. A paper trail with your votes and an MD5 hash of your ballot, and the ability to verify the hash is correct online would be security enough. Well, maybe a hash with fewer collisions, but the idea is the same.
That's a shortsighted response. If the shoes can't be imported on the cheap, they'll have to be made here on the cheap, driving up labor demand and increasing wages for the below average american. Don't even start to claim that the average american can't afford real shoes rather than the cheapo chinese imports. They just chose to spend their money elsewhere, like on video games, cable TV, and all sorts of other rot.
I think many folks are missing one fundamental point. We don't have to change corporations from the inside. We have to make it illegal for US companies to do business with morally reprehensible countries. In fact, they shouldn't be allowed to business with businesses or countries that do business with countries that don't conform to our ideal of human rights.
"So, Mr. China, I understand you want to sell us cheap shoes. We'd love to buy them, but we can't unless you pay our minimum wage and cut out all this anti-free speech crap."
"He was arrested for writing something"
This is exactly why we should rush to judgement, and arms. A violation of the right to free speech is unacceptable. Period. End of story. Allowing things like this to go unchecked is just as immoral and committing these crimes against humanity.
Instead of modifying the mosquitos, let's figure out how to make us Malaria resistant. Then, introduce a retrovirus which the mosquitos can carry that will modify the whole of our population to protect us. In fact, let's do that with several diseases and ailments (damned 7 cycle limit on mammalian gene replication) and be done with this silly mortality crap already.
There is no extra light at the end of the day. Want to save some daylight, wake an hour earlier. Those of us who use the whole day all year really find it frustrating to finally start driving to work in the sunshine, only to have darkness thrust back upon us because most of you are too friggin lazy to get out of bed.
The author isn't saying it's a good idea. The last sentence reads: "It's hard to see Windows as fitting the bill."
Sometimes people start complaining long before they have a chance to mask their own ineptitude.
Stop buying enormous frigging houses with no yard. Demand a smaller house on a larger plot, located on Cul de Sac, and then tell your kids to go outside and play. Tell them to go next door and ask if the neighbor kid can play, and ground them if they go inside the neighbor's house without asking. Make sure you're home to keep an eye on them while they play outside. The issue isn't the toys or the kids. As usual, it's the parents who can't be bothered to parent.
What if we actually do learn something from these tests? What if useful information was actually derived and the points which have been difficult to consider with math alone are made less fuzzy, or even more clear? What if the collision of certain particles at certain speeds under other certain conditions revealed a nugget of information that formed the seed of knowledge that allowed some nut job somewhere to do something useful? Wouldn't that just be the worst result possible? I mean, all the cynics on either side would have to accept that there's some use to figuring out how the universe works and whether one particular theory describes it well enough to do us any good. Just know this, when I'm sipping martini's on an inhabited world in another galaxy, I'll be laughing with the green skinned bar-tender about all the arguments sentients have over things they neither know anything about, or really even care about.
The difference, of course, is that those of us who grew up in the 80's know better than to claim they were cool. It's the poor, unfortunate children who've never experienced such cultural atrocities that seem to be reaching back.
Slashdot Mirror
The primacy of life, especially one's own, should be reason enough for us all to be fit. I say this as the guy who carries around and extra half person between me and my skin. I've been working out most evenings for a month and a half now, and just plain find it frustrating. Before braking my ankle I was very fit, but all my activities were leg centric, and I didn't realize I was gaining weight until I had gained enought that excercising on a less tha optimally performing ankle was painful. Not uncomfortable, painful. So while I would tend to agree with the fit crowd to some degree (sorry, not switching to egg white only omelettes) I do agree that most of that crowd has an unearned hollier than thou attitude.
Among true sports car enthusiasts the Tesla Roadster is a wonderful peice of tech, that performs on a level on par with some super cars, for about 2 hours. 5 hours to recharge, and 250 mile range if your ginger on the accelerator means you can't go out and play all day long. Trust me, the performance characteristics of electric vehicles are very cool, they're just not ready for prime time. More on topic, though, yes, solar charged would be much better, allowing much faster cars. And yeah, get the chicks and beer out there. Why not? It may be primal, but so is competition.
Of course, to keep your warranty (wear and tear insurance) you do have to do the oil changes. Maybe health insurance should have mandatory phsycalls and preventative medacine, and increase rates based on the findings.
"How mean and how heartless can someone who was born of a human mother be?"
Flawed assumption. As with MacDuff, they were obviously delivered via cesection.
It seems, to me, that the problem is still, fundamentally, one of technology not mirroring reality. For the last several hundred thousand years we humans have been developing technology for the sole purpose of modify our environment to suite us. As communications tech advances, however, we find that we need to modify us to suite our enivironment, making us more and more animals and less and less higher intelligences. The solution, logically, is simple though. When I'm reading (or otherwise engaged in concentration requiring activities), and someone wants to start a conversation, I'll hold up one finger (nicely, sheesh) to indicate that I'll break my attention in just one moment (moment being a variable length measure of time from a few seconds to approximately a minute and a half. Sometimes I'll need longer to finish up, but there's always an opportunity to say so within a minute or so. I'm needs to replicate this real world behavior. On the I'm pop up we need a "Just a moment button" so we can indicate that we see the message, and will deal with it shortly. Then, if you're in the middle of something, let the other party know. "Hey, I'm in the middle of something, can we chat later (schedule the chat). Unless it's critical, most people, even extroverts, will understand. If it's critical, they'll usually say so.
Second, IM is similar in convenience to the telephone, but lacks in one MAJOR feature. There's no voicemail equivelent for IM (at least, not out of the box). If you can't have an IM conversation, your IM client needs to send you an e-mail letting you know you missed a call. Hell, if you're away, instead of saying so, the IM client should automatically respond to an incoming IM with a message stating so, and asking the other user(s) to leave a message. "Sorry, I can't chat at the moment, please leave me a message and I'll get back to you. Thanks."
Twitter is more of the same issue. With a proper interface, you could post generic status updates easily. Preferably, 1 button, but hey, cell phones in the US suck. So, 1 button to open your twitter app, then press 0-9 to select your standard post, and be done. It doesn't have to been constant. Say, 0=Sleeping, 1=Eating, 2=Working,3={insert your TV addiction here},4={insert hobby},5=Party, etc, and maybe 9=Enter custom message. Then, at least, you're participating without the extra effort.
In the end we'd all prefer that the computer just take care of this stuff for us, but they're not ready for that task yet. So let's make the new tech work at least as well as the old.
First of all, Corporate "support" != Software "support." Don't get too riled up 'till you've tried installing your favorite linux flavor. Second, the very existence of open source software legitimizes Microsoft's behavior. Don't want to pay MS, use open source. If it doesn't exist, write it yourself. Want it prepackaged with telephone support available, albeit for a fee if its determined to by your cock-up, you may want to pay for the software.
"If we want the government to regulate something" But I don't want it regulated. So may I please be exempt from paying for something I don't want? Thank you.
No matter how much you folks rant and rave, MS is not a monopoly, and in reality, not even the DoJ's proclamation makes it one. You have many choices in OS. Firefox has done just fine with IE installed. The hardware architecture is published so if you want to create and sell an OS for it, go ahead. No where does this fit the definition of a monopoly. So long as you have an alternative, it's not monopoly. PUD, Puget Sound Energy, Comcast, Verizon, those are monopolies because if you want wired telephone, you have to buy it (one way or another) from the government mandated local supplier. Same with electricity, cable television, water ,sewer, garbage collection, etc. If you want to complain about monopolies, complain about the real ones. I finally got fed up with MS when they decided to make WMI (completely unstable, still) a core windows component, and haven't run their products at home since. I think that pretty much removes any and all legitimacy from monopoly claims.
I burn a LOT of fuel. I mean a lot. And it's almost all for fun. I don't care how high gas prices go, I'm still going out to play EVERY chance I get. I'll just charge my employer more. While I miss the days of 97 cent gasoline, I wont object to higher prices forcing all the damned commuters, who don't really want to be driving, off the streets so I can go play without you getting in my way at 15 under the damned limit. Maybe you'll start paying for your owned damned bus passes and help force our cities to setup realistic public transport. If there were a bus from anywhere near my home to anywhere near my office, I'd take it, despite the fact that I LOVE driving. I hate putting commute mileage on my cars. But alas, in order to make a trip that's 15 minutes by car, I'd have to spend over an hour on the bus, so I, and everyone else who makes similar trips, drive to work. While I would much prefer cheaper fuel so I could go drive MORE, I'll accept more expensive fuel if it help clear up the roads so I can have more fun doing the same amount of driving. Who the hell cares how it's measured. In colder weather the air charge is colder and your burning more fuel, and in warmer weather it's the other way around, so in the end, just STFU.
Come on folks, get real. Minimum Advertised Price has been around a long time. This doesn't allow Ford and GM to get together and set a minimum price on cars. It allows Ford to tell dealers what the minimum price on Fords will be. As long as the dealers sign the contracts, they're participating willingly. If they don't, Ford may willingly chose not to participate with the dealer. Before typing, please invest in a clue, even a cheap one.
You still can't send a meeting request, so who cares? So often the simplest rules are forgotten. Get the basics of useability working, then tweak and upgrade.
"which is designated, by the U.S. Copyright Office, as the sole supplier of" There's the issue. "designated" by some assholes in DC "as the sole supplier" = government mandated monopoly. Also, I'm damned certain this particular bit of regulation could be turned over fairly easily as ex post facto legislation which is expressly forbidden by our constitution. The want to keep squeezing tighter, fuck 'em, more will slip through their grasp.
Computers are great tools, but they're still just tools. Where's the gd card catalog so I can find what I'm looking for. Hell, I'm only 27, grew up with computers, but the morons writing the Library Catalog systems have obviously never seen the inside of real library, let alone done research in one. If you want tech based research, use Wikipedia to find your 1st or 2nd hand sources and go from there. If your going to the library, learn how the library works. It's been around for a VERY long time and works QUITE well, if you know what you're doing. Learn how to use the tool you're trying to use and, miracle of miracles, it'll be easier to use.
Having worked in Pharma-Research, I can say without a doubt, much much much much much more is spent on research than advertising. The cost of failed research arms is rarely included in the propaganda that suggests otherwise. Just remember, if you don't like the price of drugs in the US, blame Europe. This is the only country on the planet that allows pharmas to charge more than manufacturing costs for drugs. So we're the only ones on the planet paying for R&D.
In my home county, it was the vote counters on our paper ballots that caused our latest issues. Believe me, when they "decide" based on all the other votes on ballot, that a voter simply marked the wrong option on a particular measure, I trust the computer more than the cheating humans. Many of us wore orange during that escapade to demonstrate the similarity to certain rigged Ukranian elections. A paper trail with your votes and an MD5 hash of your ballot, and the ability to verify the hash is correct online would be security enough. Well, maybe a hash with fewer collisions, but the idea is the same.
That's a shortsighted response. If the shoes can't be imported on the cheap, they'll have to be made here on the cheap, driving up labor demand and increasing wages for the below average american. Don't even start to claim that the average american can't afford real shoes rather than the cheapo chinese imports. They just chose to spend their money elsewhere, like on video games, cable TV, and all sorts of other rot.
I think many folks are missing one fundamental point. We don't have to change corporations from the inside. We have to make it illegal for US companies to do business with morally reprehensible countries. In fact, they shouldn't be allowed to business with businesses or countries that do business with countries that don't conform to our ideal of human rights. "So, Mr. China, I understand you want to sell us cheap shoes. We'd love to buy them, but we can't unless you pay our minimum wage and cut out all this anti-free speech crap."
"He was arrested for writing something" This is exactly why we should rush to judgement, and arms. A violation of the right to free speech is unacceptable. Period. End of story. Allowing things like this to go unchecked is just as immoral and committing these crimes against humanity.
Instead of modifying the mosquitos, let's figure out how to make us Malaria resistant. Then, introduce a retrovirus which the mosquitos can carry that will modify the whole of our population to protect us. In fact, let's do that with several diseases and ailments (damned 7 cycle limit on mammalian gene replication) and be done with this silly mortality crap already.
I'm only being partially sarcastic, too.
There is no extra light at the end of the day. Want to save some daylight, wake an hour earlier. Those of us who use the whole day all year really find it frustrating to finally start driving to work in the sunshine, only to have darkness thrust back upon us because most of you are too friggin lazy to get out of bed.
The author isn't saying it's a good idea. The last sentence reads: "It's hard to see Windows as fitting the bill." Sometimes people start complaining long before they have a chance to mask their own ineptitude.
Stop buying enormous frigging houses with no yard. Demand a smaller house on a larger plot, located on Cul de Sac, and then tell your kids to go outside and play. Tell them to go next door and ask if the neighbor kid can play, and ground them if they go inside the neighbor's house without asking. Make sure you're home to keep an eye on them while they play outside. The issue isn't the toys or the kids. As usual, it's the parents who can't be bothered to parent.
What if we actually do learn something from these tests? What if useful information was actually derived and the points which have been difficult to consider with math alone are made less fuzzy, or even more clear? What if the collision of certain particles at certain speeds under other certain conditions revealed a nugget of information that formed the seed of knowledge that allowed some nut job somewhere to do something useful? Wouldn't that just be the worst result possible? I mean, all the cynics on either side would have to accept that there's some use to figuring out how the universe works and whether one particular theory describes it well enough to do us any good. Just know this, when I'm sipping martini's on an inhabited world in another galaxy, I'll be laughing with the green skinned bar-tender about all the arguments sentients have over things they neither know anything about, or really even care about.
The difference, of course, is that those of us who grew up in the 80's know better than to claim they were cool. It's the poor, unfortunate children who've never experienced such cultural atrocities that seem to be reaching back.