... will it take to beat into their thick skulls the simple fact that the music those dolts are pushing onto the public sucks.
I try to listen to the radio, I really do, but I cannot for more than, maybe, an hour. During that hour I've probably listened to a half hour of commercials. I realize they have to pay the bills but the sheer number of ads one is forced to endure is ridiculous. Hell, many of the songs that the DJs are allowed to play are those that are used in commercials or are Autotuned to death (or both). At least after a couple of sessions of listening to local radio stations and almost giving up on music altogether I wind up re-discovering a forgotten CD or LP in my collection and revel in the way music used to be made.
"Despite some consumer grumbling, they're satisfied with more efficient alternatives. 71% of US adults say they have replaced standard light bulbs in their home over the past few years with compact fluorescent lamps or LEDs and 84% say they are 'very satisfied' or 'satisfied' with CFLs and LEDs."
I'm sure they counted replacing any standard bulb with a CFL as part of that statistic. Yeah, my family has done that. But I'm betting the people touting that data don't include -- or care about -- the bulbs that consumers aren't replacing because they don't fit standard lamps. Those grumbling consumers are pissed off because they went to replace a standard bulb with a CFL and found that they'd most likely have to replace the whole damned lamp; the CFL bulbs are too tall. Priced nice lamps lately? They're effin' expensive. The lack of high wattage-equivalent CFLs that actually fit an existing lamp -- especially the three-way bulbs -- make them pretty bad for people who like to read and need those extra lumens. Take those things into account and, yeah, we'll be stocking up on some of the incandescents. At least until we can save up to replace lamps.
The local forecast from NOAA says that it's going to get cloudy by tomorrow night and stay that way for several days. No aurora viewing for us it seems. Another typical weather forecast obscuring yet another astronomical event for folks in the Chicago area. I suppose we should all consider ourselves lucky we were able to see the aurora incident several years ago. It may be years before we get the chance again.
... any number of studies to sway the lizard brains that predominate within the legal offices of the **AA. They live by the phrase "don't try to confuse me with the facts".
...cover up the first 2-3 characters of the main text. (At least it does with Firefox.) In order to read anything just to the right of those menus you have to scroll it down to the bottom of the window. Either that or one has to guess what text is being obscured by the menus. Changing the font size doesn't help.
The one I'm using to post this reply has been working flawlessly for 18 years. The one on the KVM in the basement is even older. Unless a semi crashes into my office and crushes it, I don't expect any of my Model Ms to ever just die; they'll have to be killed. (And I have spares stashed away in the basement in case there is one of those semis out there headed this way.)
I have a touch screen on my MP3 player (Cowon) and I can't imagine using one on any device for doing anything more complicated than pressing "Start", "Stop", etc.
"Ever work with a person who's so good that he/she gets his/her own set of rules?"
Not quite. But I once worked with a guy who thought he was so good that he deserved his own set of rules. The worst of it was that, over time, he'd gotten a director wrapped around his little finger so he, effectively, did get his own set of rules.
... what in the world would make me want to trust an operating system that isn't even located on my computer and is being loaded onto my computer without my at least having had a chance to check it? Am I supposed to just trust Steve Jobs? Ri-i-i-ight.
Like I hadn't seen enough "Ubuntu conquers the World!" news this month. I was pretty much saturated with that already after perusing the magazines at the local Borders and saw almost nothing but magazines containing DVDs of the newest Ubuntu distribution or some beta copy of it. I doubt I would have been surprised to find one stuck in the latest Tiger Beat or Cosmo.
"dkd903"
Heh. Alpha user? Just kidding. (I guess I've spent way too much time at P00>>> prompts in recent months.)
"... the boot time reported to be almost instant."
Surely you meant "instantaneous". (Sorry 'bout that.)
I still have floppies form '83 that I could restore from. I'd have to dig a 5.25" drive out of box in the basement before I could actually restore those files but it could be done.
... I can set the sound that my electric car makes be the one that the Jetson's car made. I can live with that level of government intrusion into my life. What I expect to happen is that some "standard" sound will be mandated resulting in city dwellers having a loss in hearing at the frequencies contained in the standard car noise after being subjected to it for a time. (Rather like folks who spent too much time in noisy work environments like factories, data centers, etc.)
One has to wonder, though, if a mandated minimum noise level is even necessary. Much of the noise that the cars make is a result of tire contact with the road (with the exception of the car with the busted muffler that the teenager down the street drives home after getting off the late shift; everybody's got one of those living on their block). With most of the roads in the US being more pothole than road there's already plenty of noise so I'm not sure that a minimum sound is really even necessary. What's next? All cyclists must put playing cards in the spokes of their bikes like we did as kids? That actually makes more sense than a mandated sound for cars. I can be very stealthy on my bike while in my car... not so much.
"Windows' dominance of the PC market has been good in many ways: reduced hardware costs, increased IT literacy"
Whoa... The reduced hardware cost point is, IMO, debatable. I'll concede that it may have had some effect but I would have expected PC hardware costs to go down eventually even if Windows hadn't appeared. Some other OS or computing environment would certainly have arisen and caused a wide adoption of the desktop computer. For example, what if Apple hadn't kept its prices so high in the early days? I was hardly the only person who held off from buying a PC because Apple ][s cost so much. (At the time, at least.)
But to say that Windows has increased IT literacy is laughable. Unless by "literacy" you mean that more people were able to touch a computer. Unfortunately, many if those people, though, may have a hard time spelling IT -- even if you spot them the "I".
Whatever good Windows might have had on the PC industry has been greatly overshadowed by the negatives. Granted, what I consider a negative can be, in some cases, a positive for you. If you happen to run an anti-virus software company, that is. For most people, Windows has had a negative affect on their use of computers. I realize I'm preaching to the choir on this site but prior to the widespread use of Windows, few computer users had to: deal with spam (and, thanks to Windows, that includes users of non-Windows operating systems), pay extra for anti-virus software, pay for weird registry cleaning software, pay for forced application upgrades due to file format changes made for no other reason than to force an upgrade (obviously not really Windows's fault but hasn't happened to users of similar applicaitons that run on other OSs), wasted time rebooting for the least little computer problem, the list goes on...
One of the first things out of the mouth of the presiding judge was a statement to the effect of
"We'll be examining all the evidence of how the defendents have harmed your ability to sell the products you produce using these patented concepts and how much you been impacted financially. This evidence will weigh heavily in the instructions I'll will be giving to the jury."
with photos of the plaintiff's legal team's facial expressions then printed in major publications and websites.
(Yeah... I know it's probably not in the judge's power to look at the patent cases in that way -- at least according to the letter of the law -- but in the spirit of the law, when it was written, you'd think that sort of way of looking at a patent suit would be a given.)
And, due to the lack of advertising revenue, more and more websites will erect paywalls or introduce subscription plans where only certain content will be freely available (like it is now) and more will only be available to subscribers. None of that will adversely affect the network owners, though, so maybe the FCC won't mind.
...and one might have predicted this would happen. (I would not be surprised at all to find that someone did predict this).
The business world seems to believe that the idea is the most important part of the product release process. Goes hand in hand, I think, with the patent troll phenomenon. If creation of an actual product were seen as the most important part of a successful product, perhaps the patent trolls would find productive employment elsewhere (cleaning out septic tanks, for example) instead of clogging up the patent system and the courts with their dreams of big bucks without having to produce a physical product.
... I'm so-o-o tired of hearing about leaked documents about Iraq or Afghanistan.
What would be much more interesting would be for something really juicy.... like complete email collections from the large banks that nearly killed the world economy and all their partners in crime.
Hey... Christmas is coming and a guy can dream, can't he?
I recall once a couple of us playing startrek on the school's HP3000 via a Teletype at 110 baud. (Tip: don't play with someone who's in the habit of asking for a map of the galaxy every other turn.)
... doesn't foul up your printing parameters like most of the previous "upgrades" have managed to do. 'Cuz I just love tracking down all of my saved passwords and rebuilding my FF configuration from scratch after an upgrade turns all of the fonts on my printed webpages into something that looks like they were taken from an old CGA adapter's output.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh... have you been watching the news lately? Nowadays, being in a union and working for the government means you have a big, fat target on your back.
As I like to say:
Human Resources: "We took the 'Personal' out of 'Personnel'."
... will it take to beat into their thick skulls the simple fact that the music those dolts are pushing onto the public sucks.
I try to listen to the radio, I really do, but I cannot for more than, maybe, an hour. During that hour I've probably listened to a half hour of commercials. I realize they have to pay the bills but the sheer number of ads one is forced to endure is ridiculous. Hell, many of the songs that the DJs are allowed to play are those that are used in commercials or are Autotuned to death (or both). At least after a couple of sessions of listening to local radio stations and almost giving up on music altogether I wind up re-discovering a forgotten CD or LP in my collection and revel in the way music used to be made.
I'm sure they counted replacing any standard bulb with a CFL as part of that statistic. Yeah, my family has done that. But I'm betting the people touting that data don't include -- or care about -- the bulbs that consumers aren't replacing because they don't fit standard lamps. Those grumbling consumers are pissed off because they went to replace a standard bulb with a CFL and found that they'd most likely have to replace the whole damned lamp; the CFL bulbs are too tall. Priced nice lamps lately? They're effin' expensive. The lack of high wattage-equivalent CFLs that actually fit an existing lamp -- especially the three-way bulbs -- make them pretty bad for people who like to read and need those extra lumens. Take those things into account and, yeah, we'll be stocking up on some of the incandescents. At least until we can save up to replace lamps.
The local forecast from NOAA says that it's going to get cloudy by tomorrow night and stay that way for several days. No aurora viewing for us it seems. Another typical weather forecast obscuring yet another astronomical event for folks in the Chicago area. I suppose we should all consider ourselves lucky we were able to see the aurora incident several years ago. It may be years before we get the chance again.
Maybe that could be an excuse for the MSM to refrain from reporting on her every move. Her fifteen minutes of fame were up years ago.
... any number of studies to sway the lizard brains that predominate within the legal offices of the **AA. They live by the phrase "don't try to confuse me with the facts".
The new design sucks like a tornado.
This is the first site that may force me to routinely use FireFox's "View->Page Style->No Style" option in order to view the content.
Pretty sad.
...cover up the first 2-3 characters of the main text. (At least it does with Firefox.) In order to read anything just to the right of those menus you have to scroll it down to the bottom of the window. Either that or one has to guess what text is being obscured by the menus. Changing the font size doesn't help.
Anyone got a fix for this problem?
The one I'm using to post this reply has been working flawlessly for 18 years. The one on the KVM in the basement is even older. Unless a semi crashes into my office and crushes it, I don't expect any of my Model Ms to ever just die; they'll have to be killed. (And I have spares stashed away in the basement in case there is one of those semis out there headed this way.)
I have a touch screen on my MP3 player (Cowon) and I can't imagine using one on any device for doing anything more complicated than pressing "Start", "Stop", etc.
Not quite. But I once worked with a guy who thought he was so good that he deserved his own set of rules. The worst of it was that, over time, he'd gotten a director wrapped around his little finger so he, effectively, did get his own set of rules.
... what in the world would make me want to trust an operating system that isn't even located on my computer and is being loaded onto my computer without my at least having had a chance to check it? Am I supposed to just trust Steve Jobs? Ri-i-i-ight.
Like I hadn't seen enough "Ubuntu conquers the World!" news this month. I was pretty much saturated with that already after perusing the magazines at the local Borders and saw almost nothing but magazines containing DVDs of the newest Ubuntu distribution or some beta copy of it. I doubt I would have been surprised to find one stuck in the latest Tiger Beat or Cosmo.
Heh. Alpha user? Just kidding. (I guess I've spent way too much time at P00>>> prompts in recent months.)
Surely you meant "instantaneous". (Sorry 'bout that.)
I still have floppies form '83 that I could restore from. I'd have to dig a 5.25" drive out of box in the basement before I could actually restore those files but it could be done.
... I can set the sound that my electric car makes be the one that the Jetson's car made. I can live with that level of government intrusion into my life. What I expect to happen is that some "standard" sound will be mandated resulting in city dwellers having a loss in hearing at the frequencies contained in the standard car noise after being subjected to it for a time. (Rather like folks who spent too much time in noisy work environments like factories, data centers, etc.)
One has to wonder, though, if a mandated minimum noise level is even necessary. Much of the noise that the cars make is a result of tire contact with the road (with the exception of the car with the busted muffler that the teenager down the street drives home after getting off the late shift; everybody's got one of those living on their block). With most of the roads in the US being more pothole than road there's already plenty of noise so I'm not sure that a minimum sound is really even necessary. What's next? All cyclists must put playing cards in the spokes of their bikes like we did as kids? That actually makes more sense than a mandated sound for cars. I can be very stealthy on my bike while in my car... not so much.
Whoa... The reduced hardware cost point is, IMO, debatable. I'll concede that it may have had some effect but I would have expected PC hardware costs to go down eventually even if Windows hadn't appeared. Some other OS or computing environment would certainly have arisen and caused a wide adoption of the desktop computer. For example, what if Apple hadn't kept its prices so high in the early days? I was hardly the only person who held off from buying a PC because Apple ][s cost so much. (At the time, at least.)
But to say that Windows has increased IT literacy is laughable. Unless by "literacy" you mean that more people were able to touch a computer. Unfortunately, many if those people, though, may have a hard time spelling IT -- even if you spot them the "I".
Whatever good Windows might have had on the PC industry has been greatly overshadowed by the negatives. Granted, what I consider a negative can be, in some cases, a positive for you. If you happen to run an anti-virus software company, that is. For most people, Windows has had a negative affect on their use of computers. I realize I'm preaching to the choir on this site but prior to the widespread use of Windows, few computer users had to: deal with spam (and, thanks to Windows, that includes users of non-Windows operating systems), pay extra for anti-virus software, pay for weird registry cleaning software, pay for forced application upgrades due to file format changes made for no other reason than to force an upgrade (obviously not really Windows's fault but hasn't happened to users of similar applicaitons that run on other OSs), wasted time rebooting for the least little computer problem, the list goes on...
One of the first things out of the mouth of the presiding judge was a statement to the effect of
with photos of the plaintiff's legal team's facial expressions then printed in major publications and websites.
(Yeah... I know it's probably not in the judge's power to look at the patent cases in that way -- at least according to the letter of the law -- but in the spirit of the law, when it was written, you'd think that sort of way of looking at a patent suit would be a given.)
Yeah... It's amazing. It's like the network is the computer.
And, due to the lack of advertising revenue, more and more websites will erect paywalls or introduce subscription plans where only certain content will be freely available (like it is now) and more will only be available to subscribers. None of that will adversely affect the network owners, though, so maybe the FCC won't mind.
Can you look over walls? Or wrestle poodles? And win?
...and one might have predicted this would happen. (I would not be surprised at all to find that someone did predict this).
The business world seems to believe that the idea is the most important part of the product release process. Goes hand in hand, I think, with the patent troll phenomenon. If creation of an actual product were seen as the most important part of a successful product, perhaps the patent trolls would find productive employment elsewhere (cleaning out septic tanks, for example) instead of clogging up the patent system and the courts with their dreams of big bucks without having to produce a physical product.
... I'm so-o-o tired of hearing about leaked documents about Iraq or Afghanistan.
What would be much more interesting would be for something really juicy.... like complete email collections from the large banks that nearly killed the world economy and all their partners in crime.
Hey... Christmas is coming and a guy can dream, can't he?
I recall once a couple of us playing startrek on the school's HP3000 via a Teletype at 110 baud. (Tip: don't play with someone who's in the habit of asking for a map of the galaxy every other turn.)
... doesn't foul up your printing parameters like most of the previous "upgrades" have managed to do. 'Cuz I just love tracking down all of my saved passwords and rebuilding my FF configuration from scratch after an upgrade turns all of the fonts on my printed webpages into something that looks like they were taken from an old CGA adapter's output.
Was there a video of him saying that? I'll bet he had that dear-gawd-you-wanna-smack-him smirk on his face as he uttered that.