Well, printing money like it's going out of style benefits people who are heavily in debt, since decreasing the value of the dollar decreases the real value of the debt.
It's the people trying to save money for college, retirement, health care, etc., that are going to get screwed by out-of-control spending.
Tax rates are a red-herring, especially since nobody talks about the actual tax revenue after the rates are changed. It's possible to lower rates and see increases in revenues if you do it right. Not to say that this is what happened, but it's not as simple as raising or lowering tax rates, there are many variables.
But it really doesn't matter when neither party will stop spending. They're killing the future value of our economy for short term gains and it's a travesty.
Perl's a natural fit for people who already know BASIC -- lots of $ all over, doesn't enforce any particular programming style, not particularly object oriented, etc.
When I had just graduated college I implemented a portion of what you're describing -- a barcode system to track inventory for a small business. It reads and prints barcodes, has a database that interfaces with a barcode reader so you can scan to get information about inventory, prints reports, etc. This was a business that was so messed up that they were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year simply because they couldn't keep track of their inventory.
The cheapest proprietary solution they found for this was about $30,000. I think my time to implement the system and train the staff on it, at $15 an hour, was probably close to $1000.
Their next problem was their awful POS/accounting system. After talking extensively about either writing a new POS/accounting system, or hooking the inventory program into their current program in an automated way, we decided neither was worth it. Writing a POS that didn't suck would have taken months and extensive knowledge about accounting, tax law, and security. I also didn't want to be even remotely responsible for stolen credit card data, which would be a disaster.
Also, none of this is a fun or interesting problem, it's tedious in the extreme. You could probably pay someone like me to write a POS that is comprehensive, secure, and reliable, but I'd estimate the cost in the six-figures once all is said and done.
And that's why they cost $5000, because if you could write one (and support it!) in your spare time for cheaper than that, you'd only have to sell a few hundred copies at $1000 a pop to become quite wealthy. Someone would have done that already. It's not going to happen any time soon.
In some methods of error correction, you're left with a nearly 50-50 shot in some cases of getting something right vs. wrong. For example, in a simple repition code where each bit is repeated 3 times, for a total of 4 bits, if two become flipped, then you have no information about 1 or 0 is the correct decoding.
More complex decoders (Viterbi) give metrics based on the analog signal received that the decoder can use to find the correct symbol. In some cases you have even or nearly even odds between two paths, so it's essentially a guess as to the correct one.
In any event, errors do occur, and a properly shielded cable that transmits the signal well over its length will reduce errors. It's not an all or nothing thing simply because the data is digital.
Digital is different -- either it worked or it didn't.
While the error rate for HDTV is probably so low that any cable will work, can we please all stop saying "digital either works or it doesn't" as if digital channels are perfect and there is no such thing as error correction coding in digital signals?
There is quite a range where digital signals are transmitted without error, but in a bad physical channel, there will certainly be errors, and the error correction has to be really good in order to give you your original signal.
Error correction on a physical channel that's transmitting digital data works by "guessing" what the most likely transmitted symbol is, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that the algorithm guesses wrong.
It's not only resistance, but capacitance, especially over long runs of cable. The capacitance of a cable can lower the high frequency response. As a side note, apparently Stevie Ray Vaughan liked this effect with long runs of guitar cables and continued to use them throughout his career.
But whether you can actually hear the effect on your home stereo enough so that it interferes so much with the music that you can't correct it by bumping up the "treble" knob slightly is dubious.
Yeah, I know some guy will reply saying that he actually CAN hear the difference and it's INCREDIBLE on his $$$$$ stereo, but usually that's the same kind of guy who thinks Yes is the greatest band ever, so his opinion counts for shit.
Blender is the vi of 3d modeling programs. I took a few days to learn it once, and my opinion of the UI changed completely.
I think most people who complain about the UI aren't really going to be that interested in using a program like Blender for more than toying around with it. Changing the program to suit those people would really piss off the people who use it all the time, the same way I'm cranky and unproductive if I can't use vi keybindings.
Can you also have it second-guess the way you're driving and change its mind about which way you should turn at the last minute? Or how about having it shout "Oh my GOD!!!!" at random while you're driving in traffic, and then telling you that they're putting in a new Banana Republic at the shopping center you just passed.
Until I can buy a GPS that does that, I'll stick with the real thing.
Javascript does have a sandbox security model based on the domain name of the javsacript/html source.
Displaying the html mail in its own internal frame that pulls from a different domain name than the rest of the application should solve the problem you're referring to. Something like mail.googlecontent.com would work nicely.
Amen. No matter how hard you try, you can't be all things to all people without making compromises that are going to alienate some group.
I like the separation of configuration functionality in Gnome and Ubuntu. It means my family can use it without messing things up that they don't care about, and I can get it to do what I want with a small amount of effort.
And these days, most of the time I just want sane defaults, I don't have time to configure things like I did when I was in school with nothing better to do. If something really matters a lot to me, changing a text file is the easiest way for me to change it.
This is the kind of bleeding edge information that keeps me coming back to Slashdot, day after day.
I've tried Google on your recommendation, and it's awesome. It works great on my browser, even though the browser won't support frames until the next version. And Google's search results are so much better than Webcrawler's, I think I might switch permanently.
The right wing has believed this since the beginning. See Pat Buchanan, et. al. The Republican partisans who make up about 20% of the population are the ones who believe Bush can do no wrong, and nothing will change their mind.
Those of us who used to be Republicans and paid the slightest attention know that Republicans and Democrats are both socialists at the core. You can see this just by looking at the terms of debate about health care. There's no argument that universal health care is a bad idea, unconstitutional, etc., although some Republicans still give lip service to that (except Ron Paul). They're all arguing over who has the better plan to implement it.
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Well, printing money like it's going out of style benefits people who are heavily in debt, since decreasing the value of the dollar decreases the real value of the debt.
It's the people trying to save money for college, retirement, health care, etc., that are going to get screwed by out-of-control spending.
Tax rates are a red-herring, especially since nobody talks about the actual tax revenue after the rates are changed. It's possible to lower rates and see increases in revenues if you do it right. Not to say that this is what happened, but it's not as simple as raising or lowering tax rates, there are many variables.
But it really doesn't matter when neither party will stop spending. They're killing the future value of our economy for short term gains and it's a travesty.
I propose we adopt a new standard. Viola is getting old.
Cello!
Perl's a natural fit for people who already know BASIC -- lots of $ all over, doesn't enforce any particular programming style, not particularly object oriented, etc.
A sufficiently intelligent Perl script of a few lines could nominate you over and over by October 12th.
If you could have it also be the winning entry of the obfuscated Perl contest, then you'd win for sure, and deservedly so.
May the best sysadmin win.
Hmm. You could try propositioning the salesman in an airport bathroom, I'll bet that's probably one of the quickest ways.
When I had just graduated college I implemented a portion of what you're describing -- a barcode system to track inventory for a small business. It reads and prints barcodes, has a database that interfaces with a barcode reader so you can scan to get information about inventory, prints reports, etc. This was a business that was so messed up that they were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year simply because they couldn't keep track of their inventory.
The cheapest proprietary solution they found for this was about $30,000. I think my time to implement the system and train the staff on it, at $15 an hour, was probably close to $1000.
Their next problem was their awful POS/accounting system. After talking extensively about either writing a new POS/accounting system, or hooking the inventory program into their current program in an automated way, we decided neither was worth it. Writing a POS that didn't suck would have taken months and extensive knowledge about accounting, tax law, and security. I also didn't want to be even remotely responsible for stolen credit card data, which would be a disaster.
Also, none of this is a fun or interesting problem, it's tedious in the extreme. You could probably pay someone like me to write a POS that is comprehensive, secure, and reliable, but I'd estimate the cost in the six-figures once all is said and done.
And that's why they cost $5000, because if you could write one (and support it!) in your spare time for cheaper than that, you'd only have to sell a few hundred copies at $1000 a pop to become quite wealthy. Someone would have done that already. It's not going to happen any time soon.
In some methods of error correction, you're left with a nearly 50-50 shot in some cases of getting something right vs. wrong. For example, in a simple repition code where each bit is repeated 3 times, for a total of 4 bits, if two become flipped, then you have no information about 1 or 0 is the correct decoding.
More complex decoders (Viterbi) give metrics based on the analog signal received that the decoder can use to find the correct symbol. In some cases you have even or nearly even odds between two paths, so it's essentially a guess as to the correct one.
In any event, errors do occur, and a properly shielded cable that transmits the signal well over its length will reduce errors. It's not an all or nothing thing simply because the data is digital.
Unfortunately there are about three journalists who would understand what you just said.
I agree. Just because he gave the same link to wikipedia doesn't mean everything in his entire post was redundant.
Digital is different -- either it worked or it didn't.
While the error rate for HDTV is probably so low that any cable will work, can we please all stop saying "digital either works or it doesn't" as if digital channels are perfect and there is no such thing as error correction coding in digital signals?
There is quite a range where digital signals are transmitted without error, but in a bad physical channel, there will certainly be errors, and the error correction has to be really good in order to give you your original signal.
Error correction on a physical channel that's transmitting digital data works by "guessing" what the most likely transmitted symbol is, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that the algorithm guesses wrong.
It's not only resistance, but capacitance, especially over long runs of cable. The capacitance of a cable can lower the high frequency response. As a side note, apparently Stevie Ray Vaughan liked this effect with long runs of guitar cables and continued to use them throughout his career.
But whether you can actually hear the effect on your home stereo enough so that it interferes so much with the music that you can't correct it by bumping up the "treble" knob slightly is dubious.
Yeah, I know some guy will reply saying that he actually CAN hear the difference and it's INCREDIBLE on his $$$$$ stereo, but usually that's the same kind of guy who thinks Yes is the greatest band ever, so his opinion counts for shit.
This is a good idea, but ONLY if it tunes to drop D. I have wayyyy too much angst to play in standard tuning.
That's very immature of the Sun. Fortunately, we know that the comet's tail will grow back, and it will be none the worse for wear.
Blender is the vi of 3d modeling programs. I took a few days to learn it once, and my opinion of the UI changed completely.
I think most people who complain about the UI aren't really going to be that interested in using a program like Blender for more than toying around with it. Changing the program to suit those people would really piss off the people who use it all the time, the same way I'm cranky and unproductive if I can't use vi keybindings.
I think the devs are making the right decision.
Fires in office buildings don't generally proceed far enough to make the whole building collapse.
Excuse me, but I did not receive my paycheck last week, and I told Mr. Lumburg that . . . OK, but that's the last straw.
Wife's voice, eh?
Can you also have it second-guess the way you're driving and change its mind about which way you should turn at the last minute? Or how about having it shout "Oh my GOD!!!!" at random while you're driving in traffic, and then telling you that they're putting in a new Banana Republic at the shopping center you just passed.
Until I can buy a GPS that does that, I'll stick with the real thing.
Javascript does have a sandbox security model based on the domain name of the javsacript/html source.
Displaying the html mail in its own internal frame that pulls from a different domain name than the rest of the application should solve the problem you're referring to. Something like mail.googlecontent.com would work nicely.
Hard to say. I can beat it now in under two hours, but it took me a couple of weeks when it came out.
Funny thing is, it's still one of the best games ever, IMO. I replay quite often.
I don't really get that. Games are for playing, they're not movies you watch. Well, some are practically movies, but I don't find those very much fun.
Tetris has about 5 minutes of content, but I played that for years.
I don't want interactive movies, I'd rather watch regular movies. I'm sure I'm not alone.
It took me years to complete SMB. I hate that damn one block wide ledge in level 8-2 or 8-3, that thing psyched me out almost every time.
Then you get to the end of that level and the stairs have holes in them and that goddam cloud thing was throwing spiny shit at you. Bastards.
Amen. No matter how hard you try, you can't be all things to all people without making compromises that are going to alienate some group.
I like the separation of configuration functionality in Gnome and Ubuntu. It means my family can use it without messing things up that they don't care about, and I can get it to do what I want with a small amount of effort.
And these days, most of the time I just want sane defaults, I don't have time to configure things like I did when I was in school with nothing better to do. If something really matters a lot to me, changing a text file is the easiest way for me to change it.
I meant there's no argument among the candidates. I wasn't asserting that it's a bad idea.
This is the kind of bleeding edge information that keeps me coming back to Slashdot, day after day.
I've tried Google on your recommendation, and it's awesome. It works great on my browser, even though the browser won't support frames until the next version. And Google's search results are so much better than Webcrawler's, I think I might switch permanently.
The right wing has believed this since the beginning. See Pat Buchanan, et. al. The Republican partisans who make up about 20% of the population are the ones who believe Bush can do no wrong, and nothing will change their mind.
Those of us who used to be Republicans and paid the slightest attention know that Republicans and Democrats are both socialists at the core. You can see this just by looking at the terms of debate about health care. There's no argument that universal health care is a bad idea, unconstitutional, etc., although some Republicans still give lip service to that (except Ron Paul). They're all arguing over who has the better plan to implement it.
The other choice is to not buy it at all.
Don't make the mistake of assuming economic transactions will occur at the same rate even if conditions change.