The Answer and the Question cannot simultaneously co-exist. The theory states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
Of course, there is another theory which states that this has already happened.
I for one completely understand the rage. I think I was assigned this examiner - some of the things done must have been very similar to what he describes. It enraged my otherwise calm, quiet reserved patent attorney to the point he had to wait a week before responding or it would have been in much the same way. This poor bastard just didn't wait the week.
or didn't call the examiner's supervisor. The supervisor's name and phone number are provided with every official notice that explains a rejection. And there is more than one option to appeal and get the Examiner's reasoning reviewed by people with higher pay-grades.
Full-blown appeals are admittedly expensive, but are far more worthwhile than raving and ranting like an unprofessional. Such rants will simply be ignored at best, or (at worst) circulated around the Patent Office as an example of a bad patent attorney to watch out for. And the inventor/applicant? On the hook for attorney fees, regardless.
Dude, if clicking on the lower left hand corner of the screen to get to your desktop prevents you from getting work done, may I suggest that the problem may not be Windows 8...?
The problem IS Windows 8 when you have to make your whole desktop disappear to look up and start another app (read: break your concentration).
The problem IS Windows 8 when launching the printer config or the picture viewer or the movie viewer or certain control panels makes your whole desktop go away because these apps (surprise) have been made Metro and it's full-screen or nothing.
The problem IS Windows 8 when you depend on running 4 or 5 apps at once to get your work done, each with multiple windows, and goddamn charms keep bouncing up because your mouse hit the corner of one of your multiple screens.
Many of the above may be solved simply by installing Classic Shell, Start8, etc. But as Microsoft pressures developers to develop in Metro, the more often work on the desktop will get interrupted for some full-screen nonsense. On a tablet? Okee sure. But not with two 28-inch monitors, at work.
The whole point of windows in a GUI is to see and do more than one thing at once. Windows 8 needlessly defeats this for the sake of emulating a tablet on a PC.
Your customer's knowledge of your interface is a monetizable asset. Changing interfaces without a very compelling reason doesn't just inconvenience customers, it affects the bottom line.
Bottom line? If you don't have to change it, don't.
The Great Metro Experience will be seen as a knee-jerk corporate move driven by suits freaked-out by what they perceived as the death of the PC in the wake of mobile devices. Instead of continuing a positive trend of improving the desktop experience from XP to Vista to 7, they turned ALL their effort to an interface that either runs lousy on desktop screens or runs ok on devices that are (too) late to market. This is Steve Ballmer in an act of desperation - and why? because Microsoft's market cap fell below Apple's?
I care because I liked the trend Microsoft was taking to improving the desktop. Was everything in Aero perfect? No, but it brought plenty of good ideas to improve upon. Now with Metro as the new big thing, all hope of continuing that effort is gone. In its place, Windows 8 makes the desktop feel like a legacy/compatibility mode that's available but being put to pasture.
The parent poster is absolutely right. The fact that so many people worldwide know what to do with a desktop with a Start Menu in the lower left corner (since 1995) is Microsoft's biggest asset. Dilute that away, and Ballmer might just be able to make his company irrelevant.
Mobile = great for consuming content,
Desktop = great for creating content.
Will Mobile catch up to the Desktop? Yes, I agree the gap will significantly decrease but I seriously doubt it will even come close within 10 years.
OK, so when mobile processors and memory get really up to snuff, how about a phone with a socket (or wireless interface) for a keyboard, mouse, and 2 or more really high-res monitors? When hooked up to desktop devices, the phone switches to using a desktop GUI; the mobile of the future is a pocket-sized desktop PC that presents whatever GUI is appropriate for the screen and controllers you use to operate it.
Would anyone want that? Too easy to lose leave behind on the bus?
"They have to be coaxed, not ordered to move. Show them the mountaintop"
So true.
The Windows "8" team needs to set aside their inner city, dorm room 620p -1080p console for 5 to 10 year loving colleagues and sell "this" years and "next" years improvements - every year.
Intel has amazing CPU power on offer.
Nvidia and AMD have generations of medium and top end GPU ability to sell.
Solid-state drive (SSD) are reqady, RAM is cheap.
Show the world what Windows 8 with DX 11.1 can do. Get fans, developers and consumers dreaming of games beyond 1080p junk.
Then I would suggest: multiple screens. This is where the desktop PC still has an advantage over portables.
I can't live without two large monitors anymore, at work or at home. But stock Windows doesn't do much beyond the basics (i.e., extending the desktop), and game support (to my knowledge) for multiple screens is proprietary to the graphics card. Microsoft could invest in better API's and desktop tools toward multiple displays (e.g., assignment of window/app to screen, screen-related window widgets, DirectX API's for multiple screens).
Doesn't play well with Metro, though.
MIcrosoft doesn't want to fix their UI. They want to train users in their touch UI.
The tablet space is an attractive market, and Microsoft wants to use their power on the desktop to win the tablet war.
And as they were real late to the game (Apple and Android well established), they are making the market for new PC's and upgrades into a captive audience to market their tablets and phones - because that's not your desktop on your desk, it's Microsoft's (and don't you forget it). The company was/is under major pressure from marketing and financial types to get into portable devices and fast. Time will tell if this gimmick imposed against their bread-and-butter will either back-fire or pay out, but I wish there were metrics on how many Win 8 customers have simply disabled the Metro Start Screen with one of the dozen or so add-ons available to do that.
I'd also like to see (er... hear) silence. Quiet and silent desktop PC's are still just a niche, but could grow if better marketed. After more than 20 years, I'm real tired of whiny fans that get louder and louder with age. And I would (and do) shell out some bucks for a quiet (or better yet, silent) computer.
Seems odd that the machines were wiped. Didn't that come and go in the 90's? I thought by now the whole point was to hijack a computer without wiping the machine so it can be exploited. Amateurs? or was destruction the idea in the first place? or NK brass fears what their hackers might do with access to computers outside their control?
To give the devil his due, there are certain things that Nixon/Kissinger did right. You mentioned one of them. Others are détente and SALT I. But those are no reason to loose sight of the corrupt, murderous, and possibly outright treasonous things that they also did. History is full of such contradictions.
Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970, advocated for (near) universal health care, and even negotiated with Anwar Sadat for King Tut to travel from Egypt to the U.S.. The guy's demons ultimately got the best of him, but it's whack that the guy behind the Southern Strategy that led the Republicans into the crazy they're in today would now be considered too liberal (even socialist!) for his own party.
The devices we call 'hydrogen bombs' are not pure fusion explosives. They are more correctly known as 'hydrogen-boosted fission' devices. The hydrogen fusion is used to provide more neutrons to sustain the fission reaction, but in most cases the majority of the energy still comes from fission.
(At least, that's my understanding.)
Correct. Fission --> Fusion --> Lots More Fission --> Very Big Kaboom Although the energy density of hydrogen fusion is greater than that of Uranium/Plutonium fission, the energy of individual fusion reactions are generally much less energetic than individual fission ones. H-bombs are crazy because fusion produces high-energy neutrons (and lots of 'em), which are sufficient to cause fission in normally non-fissile U238. So, they jacket the fusion part with cheap U238, which is useful as a tamper for slow neutrons until the fusion fuel ignites (by way of energy from a separate, fission primary), after which the cheap U238 is fuel for boosting the yield off the charts.
Intelligent people go to great lengths to avoid having to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to.
and the richer you are, the more lengths you have available to you, including lengths inconceivable to "normal" people and lengths to conceal those lengths because they're intelligent enough to know if everybody knew what lengths they went to, people would take lengths to prohibit those lengths as a matter of fairness and common sense.
But if you're poor you don't pay much tax at all, so what the hell are you complaining about?
that "much tax at all" counts a whole lot when you're poor. a nickel in sales tax may not seem much to you, but try being broke. and since they can't afford those "lengths" that rich people can (tax attorneys, offshore accounts, golf club memberships, politicians, tax-free loopholes masquerading as "incentives") the poor pay in full. Seriously. the more money you have, the more breaks you get handed to you.
Progressive tax or no, it always sucks to be poor. so, a little sympathy/humility, please. work at a food bank. visit a poor neighborhood. shop at an Aldi. volunteer at a hospital. read a book by Dickens. learn something.
We are tossing a 19 year old kid into the system for 2 and 1/2 years over shining a light. Without a doubt he could have caused more harm than he did, but to take away the beginning of his adult life... just seems wrong. Make him do a few thousand hours of community service while on probation will do more good for everyone than teaching him to be a professional convict at this point in his life.
Ok, let's put this into perspective. You're driving down the freeway, approaching an overpass, when suddenly you have a burning sensation in the back of your eye and you can't see. As you blink and turn your head, your car goes out of lane and nearly hits another car that honks loudly at you. Thankfully for your kid in the back seat, you weren't going that fast and recovered, but one of your eyes really hurt and has a blind spot that won't go away. Carefully, you work your way off the freeway, wonder if you have to call a doctor.
Now, imagine you are coming in for your first landing as a pilot-in-training. Nervous, but everything's going great, you're in control, when... you get the picture.
Now, imagine you're on that overpass with this 19-year-old you know. You're bored, had some beers. "Check this out," the 19-year-old goes, pulling something out of his pack. "Hi-powered laser." "What you gonna do with it?" you ask over the sound of cars speeding past, below. "I'm gonna shine it at cars and planes. You get 'em in the eyes, it fucks 'em up!" "Uh, really? Does it hurt?" "If it goes in your eyes, fuck yeah it hurts! Blinds you some, too! I looked at it real quick once and I couldn't see right for hours." "Uh, dude, you gonna do this on the freeway? People could crash, man." "Stop being such a punk-ass bitch. Man up and have some balls! Here, watch me fuck up that little plane up there. Yeah, see, I'm gettin' him!" as the plane violently yaws to one side.
The Previous Poster seems to forget that this guy didn't do it once and then come to his senses, like "oh, shit, this has gotta stop". He did it again and again. Either too stupid to understand the real harm/danger he was causing, or knew precisely what he was doing and didn't care, and no thousand hours of service is gonna set that straight (if he was 14, maybe; but he's 19! if he don't know better by then...) Either way, YOU don't want someone around like this wherever you drive, fly or live. Throw away the damn key.
Seriously, Steve O is a "knucklehead" who does some crazy shit. This is something else entirely.
What worked for me was this thing called a Sound Screen or Sound Conditioner. It's a little fan inside a toadstool enclosure that makes a tuneable whoosh sound. Totally blocks out voices and chills you out, and fills the room better than an electronic box with a speaker; therapists use these things to maintain privacy for their sessions. You can get it from Amazon or I've even seen it at Bed Bath and Beyond.
"Personally I keep a list of the top 10 applications I launch (Chrome, Visual Studio, a screen capture utility, etc) right at the very top level of the "Start" menu so I can get to them quickly"
So put them on the metro page. Functions in a similar way: press the windows key and you'll see all your pinned apps for quick and easy access as well as be able to just type the name of any given app you may want.
Better solution! If forced to upgrade to Windows 8, use Classic Shell or one of the other hacks out there that take the hate out of Windows 8 (you get a start menu, and the Metro screen is just a memory). A quick search for "windows 8 start menu" speaks volumes to how much people detest Metro, many of these hacks and how-to's written before 8 was officially released!
Given how often one is forced to use Windows, it is fortunate that Windows is so tweakable (albeit by third parties) to make up for Redmond's incompetence. Unless you work at a place where Windows is locked down and you can't install anything... but such places aren't likely to upgrade, either.
What is pathetic is that every one of us who did the testing on the DP and CP told MSFT repeatedly this was a BAD move, and if you'd have asked any of us retailers we'd have been happy to point out why.
So what focus groups were they listening to? And do they listen or do they just make up whatever conclusion they want to hear?
What is most irritating is if you like Windows 7, but have noticed little bugs, UI inconsistencies, or other irritants, well, Windows 8 means you're out of luck. No more Service Packs, no more Desktop Gadgets, Aero, or other Windows 7-type stuff, no more non-critical bug fixes, security updates only, end-of-life has been scheduled.
They did the same thing to XP with Vista. Granted XP was 10 years old, but by SP4 it did what it did really really well. Vista came out and wasn't close to being a reasonable replacement, but with a stranglehold on OEM's and massive PR, Microsoft was set to steamroll over XP. Once again, the focus groups all loved Vista, and you will too! Everybody upgrades, massive profits.
Didn't quite go as planned.
With Windows 7, you would think they learned their lesson. Decent OS, still in its infancy but an honest improvement over XP, seemed to have a decent future up to about a year ago. Imagine regular incremental upgrades for the next 5-7 years, re-establish a solid hold on desktops and laptops (particularly in the work space). But Microsoft is cutting it off to... what? Push developers to create tablet apps? for a late-entry tablet in a market already covered by iOS and Android? How is that a reason to upgrade, except that Windows 7 is now a dead platform just like XP?
Windows 7 was thrown under a bus the moment Microsoft got shamed into going tablet.
Pity, because Windows 7 is a really good Windows, very little to complain about, and lots of little things like security and Gadgets that seemed to have a future. I skipped Vista, but found Windows 7 a very easy upgrade from XP for work, particularly because nearly everything I don't like about Windows 7 can be tweaked with a tool or a hack.
Investors weren't happy with a good, stable (and dominant!) desktop where Phones and Tablets are the new thing. Microsoft's shift to put the desktop behind them (or, as a process under Metro) is little more than a pander to Wall St. know-it-alls in the hope of getting their stocks and options to rise. But there are no apps, and Balmer is better there won't be unless developers think the desktop is going away.
Beyond being repugnant, Akin's comment is a window into how these politicians think. Akin is ready to believe, and say in public, a blanket statement about people-not-him (i.e., women) that is hurtful, divisive, and easily proven false with even the smallest effort.
But it advances his agenda. In fact, it covers up a gaping hole in the pro-life position that he thinks he needs to get re-elected.
Does he really believe the thing that came out of his mouth? I don't think he cares. To him, it's just sucking up to a loud (and sometimes scary) special-interest group. Talk's cheap, and it's easy to say what the pollsters tell you likely voters want to hear.
Proof will be in whether he quits. More proof if he gets re-elected. If he sticks around, then he truly believes that what he said, true or not, was proper in view of election politics. If he wins, then his belief will be justified.
The trouble will come when he carries that complete disregard for the facts into creating laws we have to live with.
People complain about government. But we elect idiots like this to run the government. Hmmm.
Absolutely. Mine include a gold/chrome/rutherfordium alloy with a micro-diamond coating (check e-Bay). Works great. But you're a fool if you aren't purchasing premium power from the grid. Your typical utility electricity is full of spikes and mischarged electrons (known as "radicals") that gunk up your outlets, leading to distortion and hum you can hear from these little sparks hitting on your plugs. Even buying natural, organic power from wind farms can get gunky if your local utility wires are old and rusty. If you aren't sure, best to roll your own: solar, wind, geothermal, radon gas, whatever you have around.
If they market a big push like they did with Vista, suggesting all XP users and new PC's will have to take the upgrade, Microsoft is going to take a big hit. The desktop is their bread and butter, even if it isn't as new and sexy as tablets. Sink that, and even a company as big as Microsoft can be permanently damaged.
Windows 8 looks like an all-in tablet experiment, designed to force desktop developers to make Metro applications. Maybe Microsoft feels they have to, because they are really playing catch-up with tablets. There is not just one well-established competitor, but two, both with thousands of apps. How many killer apps run on Metro, and when?
I think there is a real possibility that the Microsoft tablet will be a dud - too little, too late. A side-effect of the iPad 3 is there will be tons of still-viable, cheap iPad 1's and 2's flooding the second-hand market, ripe for businesses and schools, making that platform more ubiquitous. The Android platform has a big challenge ahead of it, but I wouldn't count out Google. Meanwhile, the Microsoft tablet is still on the drawing board.
The tablet is not a repeat of the PC in the 1980's and 90's. Metro could be a huge fail. Microsoft should hedge its bets and let everyone know Windows 7 will be around and supported and fixed and improved on for a long long time. Why not a Metro API layer than runs on 7, without the crippled desktop? Of course, that means fewer developers will write for Metro, but it's better than alienating them off to an uncertain, unproven platform.
The problem Microsoft faces is they took 10 years to get out from XP, so people got used to XP, tweaked it, customized it, worked around its shortcomings, got faster machines, and got accustomed to having the same familiar thing around for a nice long time. You would expect to have 10 years or so (ok, at least six?) of Windows 7.
Now they expect PC users to trash Windows 7 for Metro? where the desktop interface is crippled, appearing like a tacked-on compatibility mode for outdated software that always ducks back out to Metro? Yet the desktop is also essential, the only way to get at key system apps like the task manager? Seriously?
Windows 7, to Microsoft's credit, mostly works fine, particularly at work where you might have to grind between 8 or 9 apps simultaneously. If Microsoft is truly tablet-happy, I would prefer a Windows 7 with a Metro compatibility mode tagged-on for running Metro apps (maybe in a window, maybe full-screen), rather than making the tried-and-true desktop into a second-class citizen. If they don't reverse themselves on this, I'm skipping Windows 8 unless someone writes a hack (enhancement) that puts the desktop and start menu back front-and-center and Metro in its place as a gadget.
The RIAA, and other so-called trade associations that lobby Congress, exists by trumping up FUD like this. They make their living (quite sizeable ones) as self-styled champions of the industry against on-going threats. Mr. Sherman has to put on a good and public show, writing to newspapers, appearing on television, and producing "public interest" advertising for radio, print, and TV in order to show the "members" of the RIAA that he's doing something really, vitally important, and therefore deserves to keep getting paid.
It's not about whether he "gets it"; it's about whether the members of the RIAA believe he's out there earning the money they send him.
It's a racket, and the D.C. area is full of 'em. Everyone from the MPAA to the NRA, extorting huge bucks one industry or interest group or another in return for "advocacy" and "representation". The trouble is, you can't expect to get big money from people unless the threat is really huge. So, it literally pays a guy like Sherman to pump up an issue like piracy to a level like it's the apocalypse, and all he has to do is write a few articles, produce a few scary ads for print and television, and act important while he wines and dines people on Capitol Hill.
Think about that. That's how he makes his living. Sure beats working, doesn't it?
That's why I don't take too much meaning out of his piece. His stuff is not intended so much to convince people over the issue, than to justify his existence to the industry members that pay him. It doesn't even matter if he's successful: SOPA can succeed or die (preferably die even)... as long as the industry and its investors keep worrying, Sherman and the RIAA get paid! They fit into that weird freakonomic human behavior where you can't quantify something's worth against some uncertain threat, but your FUD is bigger than the dues you're paying, so better to just keep paying up every year (just to be safe!). And so, for good or ill, the RIAA keeps on doing just what it's been doing.
Very nicely written. Thank you for sharing. Slashdot just seems like the right place to read something like this that hits folks like us at the gut level. Now, if only you could be there for the landing (cause after all, isn't that what makes the Shuttle special)!
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, there is another theory which states that this has already happened.
I for one completely understand the rage. I think I was assigned this examiner - some of the things done must have been very similar to what he describes. It enraged my otherwise calm, quiet reserved patent attorney to the point he had to wait a week before responding or it would have been in much the same way. This poor bastard just didn't wait the week.
or didn't call the examiner's supervisor. The supervisor's name and phone number are provided with every official notice that explains a rejection. And there is more than one option to appeal and get the Examiner's reasoning reviewed by people with higher pay-grades.
Full-blown appeals are admittedly expensive, but are far more worthwhile than raving and ranting like an unprofessional. Such rants will simply be ignored at best, or (at worst) circulated around the Patent Office as an example of a bad patent attorney to watch out for. And the inventor/applicant? On the hook for attorney fees, regardless.
Dude, if clicking on the lower left hand corner of the screen to get to your desktop prevents you from getting work done, may I suggest that the problem may not be Windows 8...?
The problem IS Windows 8 when you have to make your whole desktop disappear to look up and start another app (read: break your concentration).
The problem IS Windows 8 when launching the printer config or the picture viewer or the movie viewer or certain control panels makes your whole desktop go away because these apps (surprise) have been made Metro and it's full-screen or nothing.
The problem IS Windows 8 when you depend on running 4 or 5 apps at once to get your work done, each with multiple windows, and goddamn charms keep bouncing up because your mouse hit the corner of one of your multiple screens.
Many of the above may be solved simply by installing Classic Shell, Start8, etc. But as Microsoft pressures developers to develop in Metro, the more often work on the desktop will get interrupted for some full-screen nonsense. On a tablet? Okee sure. But not with two 28-inch monitors, at work.
The whole point of windows in a GUI is to see and do more than one thing at once. Windows 8 needlessly defeats this for the sake of emulating a tablet on a PC.
Your customer's knowledge of your interface is a monetizable asset. Changing interfaces without a very compelling reason doesn't just inconvenience customers, it affects the bottom line.
Bottom line? If you don't have to change it, don't.
The Great Metro Experience will be seen as a knee-jerk corporate move driven by suits freaked-out by what they perceived as the death of the PC in the wake of mobile devices. Instead of continuing a positive trend of improving the desktop experience from XP to Vista to 7, they turned ALL their effort to an interface that either runs lousy on desktop screens or runs ok on devices that are (too) late to market. This is Steve Ballmer in an act of desperation - and why? because Microsoft's market cap fell below Apple's?
I care because I liked the trend Microsoft was taking to improving the desktop. Was everything in Aero perfect? No, but it brought plenty of good ideas to improve upon. Now with Metro as the new big thing, all hope of continuing that effort is gone. In its place, Windows 8 makes the desktop feel like a legacy/compatibility mode that's available but being put to pasture.
The parent poster is absolutely right. The fact that so many people worldwide know what to do with a desktop with a Start Menu in the lower left corner (since 1995) is Microsoft's biggest asset. Dilute that away, and Ballmer might just be able to make his company irrelevant.
The KEY point is:
Mobile = great for consuming content, Desktop = great for creating content.
Will Mobile catch up to the Desktop? Yes, I agree the gap will significantly decrease but I seriously doubt it will even come close within 10 years.
OK, so when mobile processors and memory get really up to snuff, how about a phone with a socket (or wireless interface) for a keyboard, mouse, and 2 or more really high-res monitors? When hooked up to desktop devices, the phone switches to using a desktop GUI; the mobile of the future is a pocket-sized desktop PC that presents whatever GUI is appropriate for the screen and controllers you use to operate it.
Would anyone want that? Too easy to lose leave behind on the bus?
"They have to be coaxed, not ordered to move. Show them the mountaintop"
So true.
The Windows "8" team needs to set aside their inner city, dorm room 620p -1080p console for 5 to 10 year loving colleagues and sell "this" years and "next" years improvements - every year.
Intel has amazing CPU power on offer.
Nvidia and AMD have generations of medium and top end GPU ability to sell.
Solid-state drive (SSD) are reqady, RAM is cheap.
Show the world what Windows 8 with DX 11.1 can do. Get fans, developers and consumers dreaming of games beyond 1080p junk.
Then I would suggest: multiple screens. This is where the desktop PC still has an advantage over portables.
I can't live without two large monitors anymore, at work or at home. But stock Windows doesn't do much beyond the basics (i.e., extending the desktop), and game support (to my knowledge) for multiple screens is proprietary to the graphics card. Microsoft could invest in better API's and desktop tools toward multiple displays (e.g., assignment of window/app to screen, screen-related window widgets, DirectX API's for multiple screens).
Doesn't play well with Metro, though.
MIcrosoft doesn't want to fix their UI. They want to train users in their touch UI.
The tablet space is an attractive market, and Microsoft wants to use their power on the desktop to win the tablet war.
And as they were real late to the game (Apple and Android well established), they are making the market for new PC's and upgrades into a captive audience to market their tablets and phones - because that's not your desktop on your desk, it's Microsoft's (and don't you forget it). The company was/is under major pressure from marketing and financial types to get into portable devices and fast. Time will tell if this gimmick imposed against their bread-and-butter will either back-fire or pay out, but I wish there were metrics on how many Win 8 customers have simply disabled the Metro Start Screen with one of the dozen or so add-ons available to do that.
I'd also like to see (er... hear) silence. Quiet and silent desktop PC's are still just a niche, but could grow if better marketed. After more than 20 years, I'm real tired of whiny fans that get louder and louder with age. And I would (and do) shell out some bucks for a quiet (or better yet, silent) computer.
Seems odd that the machines were wiped. Didn't that come and go in the 90's? I thought by now the whole point was to hijack a computer without wiping the machine so it can be exploited. Amateurs? or was destruction the idea in the first place? or NK brass fears what their hackers might do with access to computers outside their control?
To give the devil his due, there are certain things that Nixon/Kissinger did right. You mentioned one of them. Others are détente and SALT I. But those are no reason to loose sight of the corrupt, murderous, and possibly outright treasonous things that they also did. History is full of such contradictions.
Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970, advocated for (near) universal health care, and even negotiated with Anwar Sadat for King Tut to travel from Egypt to the U.S.. The guy's demons ultimately got the best of him, but it's whack that the guy behind the Southern Strategy that led the Republicans into the crazy they're in today would now be considered too liberal (even socialist!) for his own party.
The devices we call 'hydrogen bombs' are not pure fusion explosives. They are more correctly known as 'hydrogen-boosted fission' devices. The hydrogen fusion is used to provide more neutrons to sustain the fission reaction, but in most cases the majority of the energy still comes from fission.
(At least, that's my understanding.)
Correct. Fission --> Fusion --> Lots More Fission --> Very Big Kaboom
Although the energy density of hydrogen fusion is greater than that of Uranium/Plutonium fission, the energy of individual fusion reactions are generally much less energetic than individual fission ones. H-bombs are crazy because fusion produces high-energy neutrons (and lots of 'em), which are sufficient to cause fission in normally non-fissile U238. So, they jacket the fusion part with cheap U238, which is useful as a tamper for slow neutrons until the fusion fuel ignites (by way of energy from a separate, fission primary), after which the cheap U238 is fuel for boosting the yield off the charts.
Intelligent people go to great lengths to avoid having to pay more tax than they are legally obliged to.
and the richer you are, the more lengths you have available to you, including lengths inconceivable to "normal" people and lengths to conceal those lengths because they're intelligent enough to know if everybody knew what lengths they went to, people would take lengths to prohibit those lengths as a matter of fairness and common sense.
But if you're poor you don't pay much tax at all, so what the hell are you complaining about?
that "much tax at all" counts a whole lot when you're poor. a nickel in sales tax may not seem much to you, but try being broke. and since they can't afford those "lengths" that rich people can (tax attorneys, offshore accounts, golf club memberships, politicians, tax-free loopholes masquerading as "incentives") the poor pay in full. Seriously. the more money you have, the more breaks you get handed to you.
Progressive tax or no, it always sucks to be poor. so, a little sympathy/humility, please. work at a food bank. visit a poor neighborhood. shop at an Aldi. volunteer at a hospital. read a book by Dickens. learn something.
We are tossing a 19 year old kid into the system for 2 and 1/2 years over shining a light. Without a doubt he could have caused more harm than he did, but to take away the beginning of his adult life... just seems wrong. Make him do a few thousand hours of community service while on probation will do more good for everyone than teaching him to be a professional convict at this point in his life.
Ok, let's put this into perspective. You're driving down the freeway, approaching an overpass, when suddenly you have a burning sensation in the back of your eye and you can't see. As you blink and turn your head, your car goes out of lane and nearly hits another car that honks loudly at you. Thankfully for your kid in the back seat, you weren't going that fast and recovered, but one of your eyes really hurt and has a blind spot that won't go away. Carefully, you work your way off the freeway, wonder if you have to call a doctor.
Now, imagine you are coming in for your first landing as a pilot-in-training. Nervous, but everything's going great, you're in control, when... you get the picture.
Now, imagine you're on that overpass with this 19-year-old you know. You're bored, had some beers. "Check this out," the 19-year-old goes, pulling something out of his pack. "Hi-powered laser."
"What you gonna do with it?" you ask over the sound of cars speeding past, below.
"I'm gonna shine it at cars and planes. You get 'em in the eyes, it fucks 'em up!"
"Uh, really? Does it hurt?"
"If it goes in your eyes, fuck yeah it hurts! Blinds you some, too! I looked at it real quick once and I couldn't see right for hours."
"Uh, dude, you gonna do this on the freeway? People could crash, man."
"Stop being such a punk-ass bitch. Man up and have some balls! Here, watch me fuck up that little plane up there. Yeah, see, I'm gettin' him!" as the plane violently yaws to one side.
The Previous Poster seems to forget that this guy didn't do it once and then come to his senses, like "oh, shit, this has gotta stop". He did it again and again. Either too stupid to understand the real harm/danger he was causing, or knew precisely what he was doing and didn't care, and no thousand hours of service is gonna set that straight (if he was 14, maybe; but he's 19! if he don't know better by then...) Either way, YOU don't want someone around like this wherever you drive, fly or live. Throw away the damn key.
Seriously, Steve O is a "knucklehead" who does some crazy shit. This is something else entirely.
What worked for me was this thing called a Sound Screen or Sound Conditioner. It's a little fan inside a toadstool enclosure that makes a tuneable whoosh sound. Totally blocks out voices and chills you out, and fills the room better than an electronic box with a speaker; therapists use these things to maintain privacy for their sessions. You can get it from Amazon or I've even seen it at Bed Bath and Beyond.
"Personally I keep a list of the top 10 applications I launch (Chrome, Visual Studio, a screen capture utility, etc) right at the very top level of the "Start" menu so I can get to them quickly"
So put them on the metro page. Functions in a similar way: press the windows key and you'll see all your pinned apps for quick and easy access as well as be able to just type the name of any given app you may want.
Better solution! If forced to upgrade to Windows 8, use Classic Shell or one of the other hacks out there that take the hate out of Windows 8 (you get a start menu, and the Metro screen is just a memory). A quick search for "windows 8 start menu" speaks volumes to how much people detest Metro, many of these hacks and how-to's written before 8 was officially released!
Given how often one is forced to use Windows, it is fortunate that Windows is so tweakable (albeit by third parties) to make up for Redmond's incompetence. Unless you work at a place where Windows is locked down and you can't install anything... but such places aren't likely to upgrade, either.
On behalf of all progressive humanity I congratulate the Korean people with becoming a space power.
Uh-huh. Speaking of power, here's a view of NK at night. :-\
Now that's progressive.
What is pathetic is that every one of us who did the testing on the DP and CP told MSFT repeatedly this was a BAD move, and if you'd have asked any of us retailers we'd have been happy to point out why.
So what focus groups were they listening to? And do they listen or do they just make up whatever conclusion they want to hear?
What is most irritating is if you like Windows 7, but have noticed little bugs, UI inconsistencies, or other irritants, well, Windows 8 means you're out of luck. No more Service Packs, no more Desktop Gadgets, Aero, or other Windows 7-type stuff, no more non-critical bug fixes, security updates only, end-of-life has been scheduled.
They did the same thing to XP with Vista. Granted XP was 10 years old, but by SP4 it did what it did really really well. Vista came out and wasn't close to being a reasonable replacement, but with a stranglehold on OEM's and massive PR, Microsoft was set to steamroll over XP. Once again, the focus groups all loved Vista, and you will too! Everybody upgrades, massive profits.
Didn't quite go as planned.
With Windows 7, you would think they learned their lesson. Decent OS, still in its infancy but an honest improvement over XP, seemed to have a decent future up to about a year ago. Imagine regular incremental upgrades for the next 5-7 years, re-establish a solid hold on desktops and laptops (particularly in the work space). But Microsoft is cutting it off to... what? Push developers to create tablet apps? for a late-entry tablet in a market already covered by iOS and Android? How is that a reason to upgrade, except that Windows 7 is now a dead platform just like XP?
How was this modded as "insightful"?
Windows 7 was thrown under a bus the moment Microsoft got shamed into going tablet.
Pity, because Windows 7 is a really good Windows, very little to complain about, and lots of little things like security and Gadgets that seemed to have a future. I skipped Vista, but found Windows 7 a very easy upgrade from XP for work, particularly because nearly everything I don't like about Windows 7 can be tweaked with a tool or a hack.
Investors weren't happy with a good, stable (and dominant!) desktop where Phones and Tablets are the new thing. Microsoft's shift to put the desktop behind them (or, as a process under Metro) is little more than a pander to Wall St. know-it-alls in the hope of getting their stocks and options to rise. But there are no apps, and Balmer is better there won't be unless developers think the desktop is going away.
So bye-bye Windows 7, we hardly knew ye.
Beyond being repugnant, Akin's comment is a window into how these politicians think. Akin is ready to believe, and say in public, a blanket statement about people-not-him (i.e., women) that is hurtful, divisive, and easily proven false with even the smallest effort.
But it advances his agenda. In fact, it covers up a gaping hole in the pro-life position that he thinks he needs to get re-elected.
Does he really believe the thing that came out of his mouth? I don't think he cares. To him, it's just sucking up to a loud (and sometimes scary) special-interest group. Talk's cheap, and it's easy to say what the pollsters tell you likely voters want to hear.
Proof will be in whether he quits. More proof if he gets re-elected. If he sticks around, then he truly believes that what he said, true or not, was proper in view of election politics. If he wins, then his belief will be justified.
The trouble will come when he carries that complete disregard for the facts into creating laws we have to live with.
People complain about government. But we elect idiots like this to run the government. Hmmm.
Absolutely. Mine include a gold/chrome/rutherfordium alloy with a micro-diamond coating (check e-Bay). Works great. But you're a fool if you aren't purchasing premium power from the grid. Your typical utility electricity is full of spikes and mischarged electrons (known as "radicals") that gunk up your outlets, leading to distortion and hum you can hear from these little sparks hitting on your plugs. Even buying natural, organic power from wind farms can get gunky if your local utility wires are old and rusty. If you aren't sure, best to roll your own: solar, wind, geothermal, radon gas, whatever you have around.
If they market a big push like they did with Vista, suggesting all XP users and new PC's will have to take the upgrade, Microsoft is going to take a big hit. The desktop is their bread and butter, even if it isn't as new and sexy as tablets. Sink that, and even a company as big as Microsoft can be permanently damaged.
Windows 8 looks like an all-in tablet experiment, designed to force desktop developers to make Metro applications. Maybe Microsoft feels they have to, because they are really playing catch-up with tablets. There is not just one well-established competitor, but two, both with thousands of apps. How many killer apps run on Metro, and when?
I think there is a real possibility that the Microsoft tablet will be a dud - too little, too late. A side-effect of the iPad 3 is there will be tons of still-viable, cheap iPad 1's and 2's flooding the second-hand market, ripe for businesses and schools, making that platform more ubiquitous. The Android platform has a big challenge ahead of it, but I wouldn't count out Google. Meanwhile, the Microsoft tablet is still on the drawing board.
The tablet is not a repeat of the PC in the 1980's and 90's. Metro could be a huge fail. Microsoft should hedge its bets and let everyone know Windows 7 will be around and supported and fixed and improved on for a long long time. Why not a Metro API layer than runs on 7, without the crippled desktop? Of course, that means fewer developers will write for Metro, but it's better than alienating them off to an uncertain, unproven platform.
The problem Microsoft faces is they took 10 years to get out from XP, so people got used to XP, tweaked it, customized it, worked around its shortcomings, got faster machines, and got accustomed to having the same familiar thing around for a nice long time. You would expect to have 10 years or so (ok, at least six?) of Windows 7.
Now they expect PC users to trash Windows 7 for Metro? where the desktop interface is crippled, appearing like a tacked-on compatibility mode for outdated software that always ducks back out to Metro? Yet the desktop is also essential, the only way to get at key system apps like the task manager? Seriously?
Windows 7, to Microsoft's credit, mostly works fine, particularly at work where you might have to grind between 8 or 9 apps simultaneously. If Microsoft is truly tablet-happy, I would prefer a Windows 7 with a Metro compatibility mode tagged-on for running Metro apps (maybe in a window, maybe full-screen), rather than making the tried-and-true desktop into a second-class citizen. If they don't reverse themselves on this, I'm skipping Windows 8 unless someone writes a hack (enhancement) that puts the desktop and start menu back front-and-center and Metro in its place as a gadget.
The RIAA, and other so-called trade associations that lobby Congress, exists by trumping up FUD like this. They make their living (quite sizeable ones) as self-styled champions of the industry against on-going threats. Mr. Sherman has to put on a good and public show, writing to newspapers, appearing on television, and producing "public interest" advertising for radio, print, and TV in order to show the "members" of the RIAA that he's doing something really, vitally important, and therefore deserves to keep getting paid.
It's not about whether he "gets it"; it's about whether the members of the RIAA believe he's out there earning the money they send him.
It's a racket, and the D.C. area is full of 'em. Everyone from the MPAA to the NRA, extorting huge bucks one industry or interest group or another in return for "advocacy" and "representation". The trouble is, you can't expect to get big money from people unless the threat is really huge. So, it literally pays a guy like Sherman to pump up an issue like piracy to a level like it's the apocalypse, and all he has to do is write a few articles, produce a few scary ads for print and television, and act important while he wines and dines people on Capitol Hill.
Think about that. That's how he makes his living. Sure beats working, doesn't it?
That's why I don't take too much meaning out of his piece. His stuff is not intended so much to convince people over the issue, than to justify his existence to the industry members that pay him. It doesn't even matter if he's successful: SOPA can succeed or die (preferably die even)... as long as the industry and its investors keep worrying, Sherman and the RIAA get paid! They fit into that weird freakonomic human behavior where you can't quantify something's worth against some uncertain threat, but your FUD is bigger than the dues you're paying, so better to just keep paying up every year (just to be safe!). And so, for good or ill, the RIAA keeps on doing just what it's been doing.
Very nicely written. Thank you for sharing. Slashdot just seems like the right place to read something like this that hits folks like us at the gut level. Now, if only you could be there for the landing (cause after all, isn't that what makes the Shuttle special)!