Organisms just evolve, ie. they become different from their ancestors
So, by your definition, evolve is just a synonym of change. Why not just call it change, and be done with it? Oh, that's right - because using synonyms like emerge, come forth, etc... have undesirable political consequences.
These are the kind of verbal semantics which I have come to loathe. Words are used for their political effect, rather than their actual meaning, and the common usage of a word is reduced in scope from something very specific and descriptive to something very broad and general. In this case, to you, evolve means merely change - to others, evolve means "reject God's authority". I don't see how any intelligent discourse can arise when two different groups of people have differing definitions for the same words.
If you read scientific papers with an open mind, you're not subject to this stupid political pandering which has plagued science since its inception. Inevitably, science - like art - merely reflects the opinions of its financiers. I'm sorry to rain on your objectivity parade, but all science these days is political, and one needs look no farther than the global warming debate to see this.
And this explains why the church still has a considerable following. People want to know the truth, and believe in something which won't come and go with the shifting of political power. Remember the Energy Crisis of the 70's? The Low Fat - High Carb dogma? How about the Population Explosion? How about the Geocentric model of the solar system - yes, it was secular thought that brought that one forth. Science wasn't just a little wrong - it was completely false. And yet you have the Church, still sending the same message it has always sent, since the 70's - AD 70 - that there is a way to eternal life. And it doesn't change every decade. And for those willing to learn, it has a much more sound basis in truth than the scientific method could ever provide.
A lot of comments have talked about vigilante justice, unintended consequences, etc... (for example, you make a 1 digit mistake with a legit key, and suddenly your home directory gets deleted).
There is a bigger issue looming here. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor, adopted a similar policy? Windows Vista already phones home and validates once every 180 days. What if MS Windows deleted files if it couldn't be validated? I can see where MS could take things:
Windows could offer an anti-piracy service which would delete select files - determined, of course, by the application vendor - if it discovered an "unlicensed" version of a vendor's software. Microsoft, of course, would charge vendors for the service. And the EULA would indemnify Microsoft and the application vendor of any liability.
Windows could (or maybe it already does) stop working if it failed to validate. Or, it could simply "reinstall" itself - formatting the HD in the process.
A few years ago I wrote a messaging utility which would encode messages in the executable image. When you started it up, it would display the message, and promptly overwrite the executable file so the message couldn't be displayed again. The idea was that the recipient of the message would view the message, enter a new message (which would be written into the data section of the executable image), and then email the same executable, now modified, back to the sender.
I would think you could easily do the same thing to prevent piracy - when you install the executable on the system, you use something like the Windows Software key to encrypt all but the first part of the executable image. The first part of the image would contain a stub which would load the Windows key, decrypt the rest of the image, and continue executing. This way, the executable would only run on the machine on which it was originally installed.
Now, the interesting part about this is that pirating this software would be very difficult. If your installation program checks that A.) the installation executable image is writable, and B.) it encrypts the installation image with the Windows key, you have narrowed down the potential avenues of piracy considerably. (I assume that the download script retrieves the Windows key and encrypts the installation executable before sending it back to the requesting computer.)
And voila! You don't have to delete anyone's files, you don't irritate your users, and you avoid unauthorized copying.
I agree, and so did the judge - the court rejected this argument. However, it is notable the manner in which corporations are two faced about issues when it comes to their own interests.
FTA:
a golden disk is shipped abroad to the replication service, containing the master of the Vista operating system that includes AT&T's drivers. It's not software at that point, Olson says, because no one can execute it. When it's installed onto a hard drive, then it becomes software, and it's the end customer who does that.
If I understand Microsoft's argument correctly, then, all of those illicit copies of Windows Vista don't really infringe on Microsoft's copyright because "It's not software at that point... because no one can execute it. When it's installed onto a hard drive, then it becomes software..."
IOTW, there's nothing wrong with copying the Windows Vista disks, because it's not software until it is actually installed on someone's machine.
This is absolutely incredible. This is the same Microsoft which is suing my local computer shop for copyright infringement over copies of Windows.
...it seems that the Republicans are waking up to the fact that these people are not representative of the opinions of the majority of Americans...
Um, I've observed just the opposite: Republicans are fond of paying lip service to conservative ideals while ignoring both the majority of Americans and the religious fundamentalists. With things like endorsing torture, failing to take substantive action on the abortion problem*, etc...
For example, I can find no verse in my Bible that says, "Thou shalt ban thy social networking websites...", yet an Illinois Republican proposed doing just that.
Nor can I find any evidence of democracy being a Biblical style of government. In fact, Israel didn't go around spreading Democracy in the Old Testament, yet GW seems to think its the Right Thing(TM) to do.
Is it any wonder why they Republican party has failed? Had they simply upheld their self-professed core values, they wouldn't be on the verge of losing power.
* - No, appointing conservative judges doesn't count. When you think about it, if you really believe (as the pro-lifers claim) that a fetus is a human being, that would make abortion a far greater threat to humanity than terrorism.
If terrorists killed 1.5 million Americans a year, you can bet that Bush & Co would be doing more about it than just appointing judges...
In Amazon's defense, they advertised "buy one, get one free". So everyone who bought one expected initially to be charged for at least on of the box sets. Some were probably pleasantly surprised to see 0.00 on the invoice, but I don't think any reasonable person expected Amazon to give them two box sets for free.
It would be different if Amazon had advertised "buy one, get one free", and then charged customers for both boxed sets when they ordered two. But they didn't. Instead, Amazon is holding their customers and themselves to the terms of the original advertised offer - buy one, get one free. I fail to see how anyone could have seen the zero dollar charge as the honest price - or how they expected to get something for free from Amazon when their ad clearly indicated otherwise.
Really, how could you not know that a charge of $0.00 wasn't a mistake?
If that is true, then why do I see copyright statements at the beginning of books and DVDs? It would seem the publishers are being hypocritical - they post their content publicly, refuse to use the robots.txt file, and then go on a litigation rampage when someone actually makes use of their web site. They're little different than the kid who takes his ball and goes home when he starts losing the game.
Furthermore, I would argue that posting to a web page is implied permission because the owners do so expecting their work to be copied to personal computers. In an interesting turn of events, private individuals are allowed to copy and archive web pages, but Google is not.
It used to be that alcohol was a part of man's daily life. Making water into beer and wine kept it potable for long periods of time. While "underage" - if you could call it that - drinking wasn't illegal, it was generally frowned upon for a man to let his son or daughter get roaring drunk. There was family oversight of drinking activities, which tended to restrain people from getting totally sloshed. That, and the fact that hard liquor hadn't been invented...
As the industrial era came upon us, families generally stopped producing alcohol. They could buy it more cheaply from the brewery than they could make it. Consequently, there came about laws which prevented minors from purchasing alcohol. Now the state had to step in to prevent unscrupulous shopkeepers from profiteering from inappropriate drinking. The rationale was pretty good - underage drinking does have deletrious effects on developing minds and bodies.
Still later, when the dangers of tobacco became apparent, selling it to minors was prohibited. Again, it was done with the intention of protecting children, and given that nicotine is more addictive than heroin, it didn't seem like such a bad law.
Now, in the Land of the Future(TM), selling strings of bits to minors is prohibited. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that children are not capable of dealing with violent video games, even though they'll see 16,000 murders on tv by the time they are 18. This restriction, mind you, from the same society that considers Jack Bauer torturing a suspect on national tv to be entertainment. Show it all you want on tv, but don't dare let a minor buy a violent video game.
So I understandably watched your Islam video on your website. But since I'm not a Muslim, I decided to watch your Christian video also to gain a point of reference.
Don't take this as a troll: I'm saying this to be helpful. Some nits:
Your arguments for atheism would be less frivolous if you used one of the more popular versions of the Bible. While the majority of Americans are protestant (NIV), the majority of the Christians in the world are Catholic or one of its variants (NAB). Like many atheists, you quote from a Bible which many Christian groups do not consider authoritative.
If you are going to use a Bible, you should use a Catholic one, because it is the scripture of about 1 billion Christians. In America, the most popular denominations are protestant, which commonly use the NIV. Your quotes came from neither.
While on the subject of Bibles, it would help you to know that most churches, and especially the Catholic church, would raise serious objections to your interpretations of scripture. While most Protestant denominations do believe in Sola Scriptura - that is, that the Bible is the only source of doctrine - they do not use the version from which you quote. Furthermore, they do have definitive doctrine, just not a formally recorded one; you have to go to a Bible college to learn it. (Or, I suppose you could piece it together by listening to sermons...). Also, the Catholic Church, the most popular worldwide denomination, believes that the proper interpretation of scripture is held by the Church as a whole, not merely an individual's own interpretation. Some clarity can be obtained by reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The verses you quote do not purport to mean what you say they do, and your lack of understanding of the context meaning is very evident:
The verse about the would-be disciple is telling. In the time of writing, the phrase "bury one's father" was used to denote the time in a man's life where he would tell his mother and father that they could no longer rely on his support. This did not refer to the actual death of the man's father. Jesus responds with a pun: Let the dead bury their own dead. There are several possible reasons for his response - Jesus might have been appalled at the euphemism for disrespectful treatment of one's elders; he might have felt the action unnecessary; he could have been making a point about the spiritual death of those who chose not to follow him; he could have been challenging the young man to see if his salvation was more important to him than his family.
Jesus often responds to the Pharisees to expose their own hypocrisy. For example, when he quotes to the Pharisees the scripture about stoning one's child, he does so to make the point that even the Pharisees don't follow the principles they so espouse.
There is no contradiction between Paul and Jesus as you suppose. Paul's assertion is true - that all Israel will be saved - but he, like Jesus, speaks of Israel as a spiritual kingdom, rather than a material or inherited one. Had you read the rest of Romans, where Paul asserts that, "Rather, one is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter..." (Romans 2:29) you might have recognized that it does not conflict with Jesus saying, "the children of the Kingdom shall be cast into outer darkness..." when referring to the Pharisees.
Had you simply read the Catechism (maybe you have?) you'd know that your commentary often distorts doctrine, or, in some cases is the exact opposite of what Christians believe. As an example, your claim that "Jesus had no problem with the idea of drowning everyone on the earth in a flood..." is not merely at odds with Christian doctrine (Jesus came to save sinners...), but isn't even supported by the scripture used. If Jesus "had no problem" with such a catastrophe, why would he have warned his followers to avoid it?
The quotes from the Quran likewise shocked me, but I
and we discussed this kind of stuff via IRC, for instance, in the not too distant future I could envisage getting a visit from the police, or even ending up in
jail, just for talking about stuff.
Um, in case you didn't notice, that is already happening today. It's called the war on terrorism, and people are being locked up because of things they've said in chat rooms
Is that New York is a city of idiots. Or at least, that's what they're politicians have us believe. I strongly suspect that even the most illiterate New Yorker is capable of crossing the street and talking on a cell phone. And you would think that of all people, politicians would be doing this the most often.
I suppose the real problem is that we live in a society where idiot laws like this can get passed, and the general public thinks "It's for the safety of the people".
It's about revenue, folks. Specifically, non-tax revenue, which works out well for "We don't raise taxes on the working-man" republicans, and the "Think of the children!" democrats.
It's just like the red light cameras - which actually increased traffic accidents because of the unforeseen side effect that people would now stop at yellow lights if there was a camera at the intersection.
All about the revenue. Who cares about your freedoms, anyway?
The problem is that even if the current is miniscule, humans can feel as little as 1 mA. The LED lighting incident commented on earlier shows that the current is at least 1 mA, if not more.
The issue is that a laptop shouldn't be leaking any current. None. A circuit designed as you suggested is a potential lawsuit - if a capacitor shorts, the user gets full line current - not a very good idea. A person can be electrocuted well before a circuit protection device trips.
I don't think this guy is a professional. I really don't. His writing sounds like he's more interested in trolling Linux users than actually imparting wisdom.
So I'll bite.
A professor of mine once said, "I use operating systems for what they're good at, not what they're bad at..." This guy could use that advice. At the time, the college was a mixture of Windows NT and Linux machines - the Linux boxes were used for file and print sharing, and the NT boxes for Exchange.
Complaining that Linux doesn't support Exchange is like complaining that Windows can't read your ext3 formatted floppy, or that it can't see your NFS shares. Windows wasn't built to use UNIX filesystems; Linux wasn't built to use Exchange.
So why don't we turn the argument around: Microsoft failed to build software that interoperated with UNIX. After, their web site says it does. I think the real failure here is Microsoft's: Office doesn't support OO.org file formats. And they don't support using the UNIX mail command, either. I mean, clearly, this is all Microsoft's fault because their software doesn't do what it wasn't designed to do, right?
I don't have problems using Linux and Windows, mostly because I've come to know the strengths and shortcomings of each. I'm not going to bang my head against a wall because Windows doesn't support OO.org file formats, or because Linux doesn't support Exchange.
Instead, I'm going to use the right tool for the job.
Those who want to run a proprietary OS get to pay for one.
Suppose, for example, that you want to use the latest and greatest video card. You already pay for the drivers - there's a reason why cheap video cards crash the system more often than expensive ones. Now, apparently, you'll need Microsoft's permission to write drivers for your own device. So now you get to pay a little more for hardware and drivers.
Perhaps one of the last compelling reasons to use Windows is hardware support. Every PC device made today comes with Windows drivers, and most can be installed by even non-technical people. Take that away, and there's not much reason for the average user to run Windows - Linux is more stable, and does things like email, websurfing, and document editing just as well, or better than Windows, and at a fraction of the price.
This is great for Linux. I would love to see MS apply DRM to drivers. The first time I can install HW under Linux that doesn't run in Windows, I'll know that it's the beginning of the end for MS.
It's a nice patent. One which would never get implemented by an astute company. Honestly, now that Windows costs more than the machines on which it runs, I'm wondering where they could possibly go with this.
A process which does much IO does not need to have the CPU more often - typically, what happens is that the process is IO bound, where it runs for a short time and then blocks on IO. Such processes already have more than enough CPU time; what they need is faster IO. Giving the CPU to such a process will only result in more context switches, as it will start an IO and then return. The net result is that CPU-intensive processes should be given the CPU more often.
Ok, I'm not trying to troll, but the latest CPU scheduling algorithm is just yet another example of how when it comes to Windows, the design is done more by the marketing department than by the engineers. At least we hope the engineers would have raised objections!
I understand their CPU cycle counting is intended to improve fairness between applications, but the proposed scheme will have just the opposite effect. Consider, for example, that interrupts aren't counted against a process' cpu usage. All well and good in theory, but the practical result is that a process which is I/O intensive - that is, one which causes interrupts to occur - will actually run much longer than it would otherwise. So, the problem of one I/O intensive process locking out all of the other applications will only get worse in Vista.
And the interesting thing is that this will actually give a subtle priority boost to multimedia applications, without them having to raise their priority level. IOTW, your multimedia app gets realtime priority whether you asked for it or not.
It's unauthorized interloping. Kind of like pretexting isn't lying.
And I'm sure Kamb didn't steal company secrets, he merely relocated them to a more secure area.
FTA:
While still employed by HP, these former high-level employees and their co-conspirators covertly organised and began operating a competing business venture using HP's resources, contacts and trade secrets," HP claimed in court documents.
Inveterate Prevaricator: Competing busines venture? Compete is such a strong word... I prefer to think of it as a competition stimulation exercise /Inveterate Prevaricator
I happen to know of an IT department at a big company that does nothing for new user orientation. That's right - nothing. Oh, and there seems to be an unwritten department rule that new hires aren't allowed to touch a computer for the first two weeks.
I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to explain why someone who has been working there for 6 weeks still cannot check their voice mail...
If I understand it correctly, my output resolution will be degraded unless I buy a MPAA-approved display device?
Why would I bother upgrading from DVD if I'm not going to get any better quality?
Tip to Hollywood: Deliberately crippling technology doesn't boost sales. As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in buying into this. Why would I bother to spend a lot of money for something that won't work with my existing equipment, and likely won't work in the manner I intend to use it?
Um, yes, it should have taken me no more than 15 minutes. But something insided me thought, "I wonder what would happen if I used the installation CD..." Well, I found out. I had to go back and fix what the install CD had broken. Come to think of it, I probably could have done it in Linux in about 5 minutes.
Incidentally, $200 of my time is a lot less than three days. Maybe you should consider asking for a raise...
Which could easily explain why I spend more time with a computer than with my SO.
But, get this: (FTA)
The average consumer has experienced computer troubles eight times -
about every four months - over the last three years.
The average American is wasting 12 hours per month - the equivalent of
half a weekend - due to problems with their home computer.
A majority of Americans (52%) describe their most recent experience
with a computer problem as one of anger, sadness or alienation.
I can relate - there are computer things which simply don't get done around my house because I don't have the time to mess with them. For example, I'm not using my home PC as a media server because: 1.) There's a problem with my Samba configuration that I don't have time to troubleshoot, and 2.) For some reason, Windows98 shares don't play well with the rest of the network. I really don't have the time to troubleshoot either problem, but if I had to fix one of them, I'd fix Samba because, generally speaking, you only have to fix a Linux problem once.
And don't get me started on how awful it was setting up a wireless router with Windows XP... I spent $200 worth of my time to configure a $15 piece of hardware.
And that is the "plug and play" friendly OS. I wonder how much time I would have wasted had I tried to set it up from Linux...
This takes the cake. Microsoft Linux is next. I predict within 5 years, Vista will become a legacy product, and all new computers will be shipped with Microsoft's Windows API hosted on a Linux kernel.
For those that don't know, Billy G. made his first big sale of DOS to IBM before he even owned it - or so the rumors go. He bought the rights to what would become MS-DOS from a third party, and then sold it to IBM.
And it shouldn't surprise anyone that Microsoft is selling what doesn't belong to them. I wonder how the Windows developers feel. Imagine if your job could be eliminated by Linux. Microsoft doesn't care, they're going to sell whatever makes them money.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to sell their desktop, rather than the OS:
Kernel development is an overhead cost - it isn't seen by the users, and it doesn't sell the OS.
Why bother with HW issues when Linux already does that for you - for free?
Microsoft has actually been pretty good at making office software - considerably better than OS.
Linux has the security Microsoft wishes Windows had.
Linux doesn't have the spyware problem Windows does.
So if Microsoft can hide the complexities of Linux under a familiar interface, they could produce a very compelling product.
Slashdot Mirror
Organisms just evolve, ie. they become different from their ancestors
So, by your definition, evolve is just a synonym of change. Why not just call it change, and be done with it? Oh, that's right - because using synonyms like emerge, come forth, etc... have undesirable political consequences.
These are the kind of verbal semantics which I have come to loathe. Words are used for their political effect, rather than their actual meaning, and the common usage of a word is reduced in scope from something very specific and descriptive to something very broad and general. In this case, to you, evolve means merely change - to others, evolve means "reject God's authority". I don't see how any intelligent discourse can arise when two different groups of people have differing definitions for the same words.
If you read scientific papers with an open mind, you're not subject to this stupid political pandering which has plagued science since its inception. Inevitably, science - like art - merely reflects the opinions of its financiers. I'm sorry to rain on your objectivity parade, but all science these days is political, and one needs look no farther than the global warming debate to see this.
And this explains why the church still has a considerable following. People want to know the truth, and believe in something which won't come and go with the shifting of political power. Remember the Energy Crisis of the 70's? The Low Fat - High Carb dogma? How about the Population Explosion? How about the Geocentric model of the solar system - yes, it was secular thought that brought that one forth. Science wasn't just a little wrong - it was completely false. And yet you have the Church, still sending the same message it has always sent, since the 70's - AD 70 - that there is a way to eternal life. And it doesn't change every decade. And for those willing to learn, it has a much more sound basis in truth than the scientific method could ever provide.
Perhaps that's why the phrase, "In God We Trust" was placed on money in the first place - to remind people to trust in God rather than money.
A lot of comments have talked about vigilante justice, unintended consequences, etc... (for example, you make a 1 digit mistake with a legit key, and suddenly your home directory gets deleted).
There is a bigger issue looming here. What if Microsoft, or some other large vendor, adopted a similar policy? Windows Vista already phones home and validates once every 180 days. What if MS Windows deleted files if it couldn't be validated? I can see where MS could take things:
A few years ago I wrote a messaging utility which would encode messages in the executable image. When you started it up, it would display the message, and promptly overwrite the executable file so the message couldn't be displayed again. The idea was that the recipient of the message would view the message, enter a new message (which would be written into the data section of the executable image), and then email the same executable, now modified, back to the sender.
I would think you could easily do the same thing to prevent piracy - when you install the executable on the system, you use something like the Windows Software key to encrypt all but the first part of the executable image. The first part of the image would contain a stub which would load the Windows key, decrypt the rest of the image, and continue executing. This way, the executable would only run on the machine on which it was originally installed.
Now, the interesting part about this is that pirating this software would be very difficult. If your installation program checks that A.) the installation executable image is writable, and B.) it encrypts the installation image with the Windows key, you have narrowed down the potential avenues of piracy considerably. (I assume that the download script retrieves the Windows key and encrypts the installation executable before sending it back to the requesting computer.)
And voila! You don't have to delete anyone's files, you don't irritate your users, and you avoid unauthorized copying.
I agree, and so did the judge - the court rejected this argument. However, it is notable the manner in which corporations are two faced about issues when it comes to their own interests.
FTA: a golden disk is shipped abroad to the replication service, containing the master of the Vista operating system that includes AT&T's drivers. It's not software at that point, Olson says, because no one can execute it. When it's installed onto a hard drive, then it becomes software, and it's the end customer who does that.
If I understand Microsoft's argument correctly, then, all of those illicit copies of Windows Vista don't really infringe on Microsoft's copyright because "It's not software at that point... because no one can execute it. When it's installed onto a hard drive, then it becomes software..."
IOTW, there's nothing wrong with copying the Windows Vista disks, because it's not software until it is actually installed on someone's machine.
This is absolutely incredible. This is the same Microsoft which is suing my local computer shop for copyright infringement over copies of Windows.
Um, I've observed just the opposite: Republicans are fond of paying lip service to conservative ideals while ignoring both the majority of Americans and the religious fundamentalists. With things like endorsing torture, failing to take substantive action on the abortion problem*, etc...
For example, I can find no verse in my Bible that says, "Thou shalt ban thy social networking websites...", yet an Illinois Republican proposed doing just that.
Nor can I find any evidence of democracy being a Biblical style of government. In fact, Israel didn't go around spreading Democracy in the Old Testament, yet GW seems to think its the Right Thing(TM) to do.
Is it any wonder why they Republican party has failed? Had they simply upheld their self-professed core values, they wouldn't be on the verge of losing power.
* - No, appointing conservative judges doesn't count. When you think about it, if you really believe (as the pro-lifers claim) that a fetus is a human being, that would make abortion a far greater threat to humanity than terrorism. If terrorists killed 1.5 million Americans a year, you can bet that Bush & Co would be doing more about it than just appointing judges...
Zero dollars?
In Amazon's defense, they advertised "buy one, get one free". So everyone who bought one expected initially to be charged for at least on of the box sets. Some were probably pleasantly surprised to see 0.00 on the invoice, but I don't think any reasonable person expected Amazon to give them two box sets for free.
It would be different if Amazon had advertised "buy one, get one free", and then charged customers for both boxed sets when they ordered two. But they didn't. Instead, Amazon is holding their customers and themselves to the terms of the original advertised offer - buy one, get one free. I fail to see how anyone could have seen the zero dollar charge as the honest price - or how they expected to get something for free from Amazon when their ad clearly indicated otherwise.
Really, how could you not know that a charge of $0.00 wasn't a mistake?
If that is true, then why do I see copyright statements at the beginning of books and DVDs? It would seem the publishers are being hypocritical - they post their content publicly, refuse to use the robots.txt file, and then go on a litigation rampage when someone actually makes use of their web site. They're little different than the kid who takes his ball and goes home when he starts losing the game.
Furthermore, I would argue that posting to a web page is implied permission because the owners do so expecting their work to be copied to personal computers. In an interesting turn of events, private individuals are allowed to copy and archive web pages, but Google is not.
It used to be that alcohol was a part of man's daily life. Making water into beer and wine kept it potable for long periods of time. While "underage" - if you could call it that - drinking wasn't illegal, it was generally frowned upon for a man to let his son or daughter get roaring drunk. There was family oversight of drinking activities, which tended to restrain people from getting totally sloshed. That, and the fact that hard liquor hadn't been invented...
As the industrial era came upon us, families generally stopped producing alcohol. They could buy it more cheaply from the brewery than they could make it. Consequently, there came about laws which prevented minors from purchasing alcohol. Now the state had to step in to prevent unscrupulous shopkeepers from profiteering from inappropriate drinking. The rationale was pretty good - underage drinking does have deletrious effects on developing minds and bodies.
Still later, when the dangers of tobacco became apparent, selling it to minors was prohibited. Again, it was done with the intention of protecting children, and given that nicotine is more addictive than heroin, it didn't seem like such a bad law.
Now, in the Land of the Future(TM), selling strings of bits to minors is prohibited. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that children are not capable of dealing with violent video games, even though they'll see 16,000 murders on tv by the time they are 18. This restriction, mind you, from the same society that considers Jack Bauer torturing a suspect on national tv to be entertainment. Show it all you want on tv, but don't dare let a minor buy a violent video game.
What an improvement to society!
So I understandably watched your Islam video on your website. But since I'm not a Muslim, I decided to watch your Christian video also to gain a point of reference.
Don't take this as a troll: I'm saying this to be helpful. Some nits:
The quotes from the Quran likewise shocked me, but I
Um, in case you didn't notice, that is already happening today. It's called the war on terrorism, and people are being locked up because of things they've said in chat rooms
Heck, I can't even get their and they're right, and I can cross the street while talking on a cellphone.
Is that New York is a city of idiots. Or at least, that's what they're politicians have us believe. I strongly suspect that even the most illiterate New Yorker is capable of crossing the street and talking on a cell phone. And you would think that of all people, politicians would be doing this the most often.
I suppose the real problem is that we live in a society where idiot laws like this can get passed, and the general public thinks "It's for the safety of the people".
It's about revenue, folks. Specifically, non-tax revenue, which works out well for "We don't raise taxes on the working-man" republicans, and the "Think of the children!" democrats.
It's just like the red light cameras - which actually increased traffic accidents because of the unforeseen side effect that people would now stop at yellow lights if there was a camera at the intersection.
All about the revenue. Who cares about your freedoms, anyway?
The problem is that even if the current is miniscule, humans can feel as little as 1 mA. The LED lighting incident commented on earlier shows that the current is at least 1 mA, if not more.
The issue is that a laptop shouldn't be leaking any current. None. A circuit designed as you suggested is a potential lawsuit - if a capacitor shorts, the user gets full line current - not a very good idea. A person can be electrocuted well before a circuit protection device trips.
I don't think this guy is a professional. I really don't. His writing sounds like he's more interested in trolling Linux users than actually imparting wisdom.
So I'll bite.
A professor of mine once said, "I use operating systems for what they're good at, not what they're bad at..." This guy could use that advice. At the time, the college was a mixture of Windows NT and Linux machines - the Linux boxes were used for file and print sharing, and the NT boxes for Exchange.
Complaining that Linux doesn't support Exchange is like complaining that Windows can't read your ext3 formatted floppy, or that it can't see your NFS shares. Windows wasn't built to use UNIX filesystems; Linux wasn't built to use Exchange.
So why don't we turn the argument around: Microsoft failed to build software that interoperated with UNIX. After, their web site says it does. I think the real failure here is Microsoft's: Office doesn't support OO.org file formats. And they don't support using the UNIX mail command, either. I mean, clearly, this is all Microsoft's fault because their software doesn't do what it wasn't designed to do, right?
I don't have problems using Linux and Windows, mostly because I've come to know the strengths and shortcomings of each. I'm not going to bang my head against a wall because Windows doesn't support OO.org file formats, or because Linux doesn't support Exchange.
Instead, I'm going to use the right tool for the job.
Those who want to run a proprietary OS get to pay for one.
Suppose, for example, that you want to use the latest and greatest video card. You already pay for the drivers - there's a reason why cheap video cards crash the system more often than expensive ones. Now, apparently, you'll need Microsoft's permission to write drivers for your own device. So now you get to pay a little more for hardware and drivers.
Perhaps one of the last compelling reasons to use Windows is hardware support. Every PC device made today comes with Windows drivers, and most can be installed by even non-technical people. Take that away, and there's not much reason for the average user to run Windows - Linux is more stable, and does things like email, websurfing, and document editing just as well, or better than Windows, and at a fraction of the price.
This is great for Linux. I would love to see MS apply DRM to drivers. The first time I can install HW under Linux that doesn't run in Windows, I'll know that it's the beginning of the end for MS.It's a nice patent. One which would never get implemented by an astute company. Honestly, now that Windows costs more than the machines on which it runs, I'm wondering where they could possibly go with this.
Why should a user have to purchase another copy of XP after repairing a computer?
Because consumers would rather have it this way, that's why. Or, because Microsoft/E-machines tell you to.
Microsoft has a history of committing felonies and suing their customers. What led you to believe that they weren't going to shaft you.
My question to you is this: Knowing how MS treats their customers, why did you expect that they would treat you of all people, fairly?
A process which does much IO does not need to have the CPU more often - typically, what happens is that the process is IO bound, where it runs for a short time and then blocks on IO. Such processes already have more than enough CPU time; what they need is faster IO. Giving the CPU to such a process will only result in more context switches, as it will start an IO and then return. The net result is that CPU-intensive processes should be given the CPU more often.
Ok, I'm not trying to troll, but the latest CPU scheduling algorithm is just yet another example of how when it comes to Windows, the design is done more by the marketing department than by the engineers. At least we hope the engineers would have raised objections!
I understand their CPU cycle counting is intended to improve fairness between applications, but the proposed scheme will have just the opposite effect. Consider, for example, that interrupts aren't counted against a process' cpu usage. All well and good in theory, but the practical result is that a process which is I/O intensive - that is, one which causes interrupts to occur - will actually run much longer than it would otherwise. So, the problem of one I/O intensive process locking out all of the other applications will only get worse in Vista.
And the interesting thing is that this will actually give a subtle priority boost to multimedia applications, without them having to raise their priority level. IOTW, your multimedia app gets realtime priority whether you asked for it or not.
Well intentioned, yes. But also naive.
It's unauthorized interloping. Kind of like pretexting isn't lying.
And I'm sure Kamb didn't steal company secrets, he merely relocated them to a more secure area.
FTA:
While still employed by HP, these former high-level employees and their co-conspirators covertly organised and began operating a competing business venture using HP's resources, contacts and trade secrets," HP claimed in court documents.
Inveterate Prevaricator:
/Inveterate Prevaricator
Competing busines venture? Compete is such a strong word... I prefer to think of it as a competition stimulation exercise
I happen to know of an IT department at a big company that does nothing for new user orientation. That's right - nothing. Oh, and there seems to be an unwritten department rule that new hires aren't allowed to touch a computer for the first two weeks.
I'll leave as an exercise for the reader to explain why someone who has been working there for 6 weeks still cannot check their voice mail...
If I understand it correctly, my output resolution will be degraded unless I buy a MPAA-approved display device?
Why would I bother upgrading from DVD if I'm not going to get any better quality?
Tip to Hollywood: Deliberately crippling technology doesn't boost sales. As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in buying into this. Why would I bother to spend a lot of money for something that won't work with my existing equipment, and likely won't work in the manner I intend to use it?
Um, yes, it should have taken me no more than 15 minutes. But something insided me thought, "I wonder what would happen if I used the installation CD..." Well, I found out. I had to go back and fix what the install CD had broken. Come to think of it, I probably could have done it in Linux in about 5 minutes.
Incidentally, $200 of my time is a lot less than three days. Maybe you should consider asking for a raise...
Which could easily explain why I spend more time with a computer than with my SO.
But, get this: (FTA)
I can relate - there are computer things which simply don't get done around my house because I don't have the time to mess with them. For example, I'm not using my home PC as a media server because: 1.) There's a problem with my Samba configuration that I don't have time to troubleshoot, and 2.) For some reason, Windows98 shares don't play well with the rest of the network. I really don't have the time to troubleshoot either problem, but if I had to fix one of them, I'd fix Samba because, generally speaking, you only have to fix a Linux problem once.
And don't get me started on how awful it was setting up a wireless router with Windows XP... I spent $200 worth of my time to configure a $15 piece of hardware.
And that is the "plug and play" friendly OS. I wonder how much time I would have wasted had I tried to set it up from Linux...
This takes the cake. Microsoft Linux is next. I predict within 5 years, Vista will become a legacy product, and all new computers will be shipped with Microsoft's Windows API hosted on a Linux kernel.
For those that don't know, Billy G. made his first big sale of DOS to IBM before he even owned it - or so the rumors go. He bought the rights to what would become MS-DOS from a third party, and then sold it to IBM.
And it shouldn't surprise anyone that Microsoft is selling what doesn't belong to them. I wonder how the Windows developers feel. Imagine if your job could be eliminated by Linux. Microsoft doesn't care, they're going to sell whatever makes them money.
When you think about it, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to sell their desktop, rather than the OS:
So if Microsoft can hide the complexities of Linux under a familiar interface, they could produce a very compelling product.