You just dropped over a thousand dollars on a device. You didn't do your homework before spending that much, but let's ignore that for now. You don't know how to use it yet. Do you:
(a) crack open the manual (b) ask for help (c) call the news?
All she needed was a word processor and to get her DSL hooked up. So the real trouble was that she didn't ask the school (who told her to just use OO.org once they knew) or Verizon (which said they'd send someone out once they knew) before she dropped all of her classes and called the local news.
I'm sure Dell's rep was not interested in "the cause of FOSS", just the fact that he had a support ticket to handle. Lady calls in, says there's no word processor and internet. Rep says yes there is. Ticket closed.
The tragedy of this is that by calling the news she altered the course of nature here -- person acts stupid, bad things happen, person learns to be less stupid next time. I know people like this woman and unfortunately the only thing they learn in life is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
The article said "Verizon High-Speed Internet", which, unless the newspaper got it wrong, means DSL. The article also implies that installing Windows would void her warranty, which I really doubt.
So no drivers or anything here. She needed a word processor and DSL. Nothing that the school couldn't have helped her out with, or Verizon. And it's not Windows-specific...again in the article the school tells her she can use OO.org and her response is basically "oops." I'm sure the school has a computer lab, as well.
She probably had a nervous breakdown, which led her to cancel all of her classes and call the local news.
Did you read about the Tuttle city manager? Or the San Clemente woman who called 911 over a messed-up Burger King order? Stupid and crazy is a bad combination. The lesson is, do some research before you drop $1100 on something. Don't expect Dell to do it for you, they're trying to sell you the damn thing.
You may be right about "the average iTunes user" not having any clue, but in my mind that's hardly an excuse.
So you're saying it's completely obvious for people who already knew about it or knew to look for it? Wow, you're a genius!
The fact is, it's in a very discoverable part of the interface. None of us were born with knowledge of how to navigate a particular computer prorgram, but where they've put it is more than enough notice to fend off any accusation of secrecy.
In my pretty extensive use of iTunes and in my brief read of the EULA, nowhere did I see any admission that account information was linked to my music.
I think it's pretty obvious that they keep track of your purchase history. I'll admit that I didn't know they stored your username in the file, but if I'd had an occasion to guess, I would have said yes. The iTunes Plus files are structured the same as the regular ones, and now essentially everything is Plus.
I guess where we differ is that I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the files are "clean" in that sense. They never were before. And the fact that it shows up alongside all of the other metadata tells me that in this case they've done enough (which is not to say that they couldn't do more, as an extra-mile courtesy to their paying customers).
Just having some fun. I think he's a man who makes up for his lack of tact with strong convictions, or maybe the other way around.:)
FWIW, I think Sagan did a better job educating people about science's role in truth than Dawkins has. Not that Dawkins himself with disagree; they're big shoes to fill.
Right. Does anyone even know what studies he's referring to? The article doesn't mention it and I haven't seen it in anyone's comment. I would really like to know. It seems like these things generally fall into two types, both of which rely on the fact that they've gathered evidence in support of a hypothesis that only sounds like the one being put forth.
1. Have a group of kids play GTA for an hour. Have the control group draw pictures of butterflies and listen to concertos. Each gets asked a series of questions about their mood. - The flaw: kid feeling hyper != aggressive behavior. In other words, it relies on ambiguous use of the word violence.
2. Compare statistics of who's actually violent and who plays violent games, look for a correlation. - The flaw: (as we all know) correlation != causation.
Baca needs to do his job instead of trying to look tough by chasing paper tigers with faulty logic. In fact, he looks jowly enough that I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's actually confused about what video games are.
I think your average person is content to admit that they don't understand the universe and everything in it. Religious or not.
Atheism is something of a loaded term since people seem to want to equate it with not only not believing in a god, but loudly denying the possibility of one.
What you replied to was a clear troll (or maybe Richard Dawkins), and since you mention "keeping score", please don't add that troll to the atheist side.
I agree with you there, I'm just confused about the ACID3 thing. I think I read it wrong.
And I agree that there is a conflict of interest, but my overall feeling is that open is open, and if Google were to do something as dumb as implement a plugin API that specifically disallowed ad blockers, those that wanted them would just grab a different build (free-chrome and Iron come to mind).
So I think it comes down to how well Google understands the Streisand effect.
But it is all somewhat meaningless, whether Chrome passes ACID3 or not, since Chrome is meant to support a company that sells advertising.
One really doesn't have to do with the other, unless you've uncovered some secret plot by doubleclick to subvert the W3C.
It's open source. The are already builds that block ads. Google even said that they'd like to support plugins, and that they wouldn't ban ad-blockers. And if they did, you can use an alternative build.
seceding, as is their right according to their terms for joining the union
Normally I wouldn't ruin a good joke with pedantry, but this seems like the sort of thing people will see and then bring up in conversation for the rest of their life.
The Apple apps behave immensely better on OS X, and Safari is the fastest. It loads like IE 6 did. Fast the first time, instant every subsequent time.
I have to wonder why anyone would use Safari on Windows other than for testing designs. And I know I'm not saying anything new here, but it's very annoying that they sneak it in with iTunes. I don't see what they have to gain by that, unless, like Chrome, it's an attempt to prevent IE from returning to its old levels of dominance.
From the left panel, add EasyList, EasyElement, and EasyPrivacy. They seem to be more accurate and faster than filterset.g, and Adblock Plus will update them for you automatically.
Which won't happen because first person shooters and real time strategy only work on PCs.
I won't deny that the Mac gaming market is in shambles now but things get better every year as:
(a) sales of Apple machines come back around (b) devs realize that even though there's less Macs around, OS X ports sell a disproportionately larger amount (c) cross-platform coding gets easier, and hardware support for OpenGL gets better
I'd be surprised if they did something like that now, given that it would amount to them pissing off their biggest customers, and needlessly adding tiers to the Vista Ready/Vista Capable scheme.
Wii firmware updates are quick and painless compared to, say, Windows Update.
Of course, a system like Steam that takes care of updates, installs, DRM, etc, makes things much easier.
There is a fundamental difference between an open system (by which I mean, will run unsigned code) and one that ships neutered. The overall experience on the latter is more controlled, and can be much better. But you lose the freedom to do what you want with the hardware.
Is one or the other better for games? I think the better question is, what's wrong with both? I have plenty of fun playing games on my phone, even. Not exactly immersive, but fun.
It's only recently that consoles have started to shove the inconveniences of steady updates and long load times on gamers. But you still have a choice: these things are still tolerable on the Wii. Like you say, it's a broad market and it's about what the individual wants. But I take issue with someone pointing to console annoyances and saying that they're equivalent to PCs there. There may not be a difference in kind, but there is certainly a difference in the amount.
Slashdot Mirror
You just dropped over a thousand dollars on a device. You didn't do your homework before spending that much, but let's ignore that for now. You don't know how to use it yet. Do you:
(a) crack open the manual
(b) ask for help
(c) call the news?
All she needed was a word processor and to get her DSL hooked up. So the real trouble was that she didn't ask the school (who told her to just use OO.org once they knew) or Verizon (which said they'd send someone out once they knew) before she dropped all of her classes and called the local news.
I'm sure Dell's rep was not interested in "the cause of FOSS", just the fact that he had a support ticket to handle. Lady calls in, says there's no word processor and internet. Rep says yes there is. Ticket closed.
The tragedy of this is that by calling the news she altered the course of nature here -- person acts stupid, bad things happen, person learns to be less stupid next time. I know people like this woman and unfortunately the only thing they learn in life is that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
And it was most likely DSL ("Verizon High-Speed Internet", says TFA).
The school probably had computers that she could use.
Which is another reason why dropping all of her classes was stupid.
The article said "Verizon High-Speed Internet", which, unless the newspaper got it wrong, means DSL. The article also implies that installing Windows would void her warranty, which I really doubt.
So no drivers or anything here. She needed a word processor and DSL. Nothing that the school couldn't have helped her out with, or Verizon. And it's not Windows-specific...again in the article the school tells her she can use OO.org and her response is basically "oops." I'm sure the school has a computer lab, as well.
She probably had a nervous breakdown, which led her to cancel all of her classes and call the local news.
Did you read about the Tuttle city manager? Or the San Clemente woman who called 911 over a messed-up Burger King order? Stupid and crazy is a bad combination. The lesson is, do some research before you drop $1100 on something. Don't expect Dell to do it for you, they're trying to sell you the damn thing.
First you say that you've only seen the format used with pirated (presumably Hollywood) movies.
Then you say that "everyone" (presumably you) ignore independent filmmakers.
It seems to me that the second statement is causing the first to become true.
You may be right about "the average iTunes user" not having any clue, but in my mind that's hardly an excuse.
So you're saying it's completely obvious for people who already knew about it or knew to look for it? Wow, you're a genius!
The fact is, it's in a very discoverable part of the interface. None of us were born with knowledge of how to navigate a particular computer prorgram, but where they've put it is more than enough notice to fend off any accusation of secrecy.
In my pretty extensive use of iTunes and in my brief read of the EULA, nowhere did I see any admission that account information was linked to my music.
I think it's pretty obvious that they keep track of your purchase history. I'll admit that I didn't know they stored your username in the file, but if I'd had an occasion to guess, I would have said yes. The iTunes Plus files are structured the same as the regular ones, and now essentially everything is Plus.
I guess where we differ is that I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the files are "clean" in that sense. They never were before. And the fact that it shows up alongside all of the other metadata tells me that in this case they've done enough (which is not to say that they couldn't do more, as an extra-mile courtesy to their paying customers).
* "would disagree"
Just having some fun. I think he's a man who makes up for his lack of tact with strong convictions, or maybe the other way around. :)
FWIW, I think Sagan did a better job educating people about science's role in truth than Dawkins has. Not that Dawkins himself with disagree; they're big shoes to fill.
But really I just didn't like The Selfish Gene :P
Right. Does anyone even know what studies he's referring to? The article doesn't mention it and I haven't seen it in anyone's comment. I would really like to know. It seems like these things generally fall into two types, both of which rely on the fact that they've gathered evidence in support of a hypothesis that only sounds like the one being put forth.
1. Have a group of kids play GTA for an hour. Have the control group draw pictures of butterflies and listen to concertos. Each gets asked a series of questions about their mood.
- The flaw: kid feeling hyper != aggressive behavior. In other words, it relies on ambiguous use of the word violence.
2. Compare statistics of who's actually violent and who plays violent games, look for a correlation.
- The flaw: (as we all know) correlation != causation.
Baca needs to do his job instead of trying to look tough by chasing paper tigers with faulty logic. In fact, he looks jowly enough that I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that he's actually confused about what video games are.
"What if you had to tell someone the most important thing in the world, but you knew they'd never believe you?"
I think your average person is content to admit that they don't understand the universe and everything in it. Religious or not.
Atheism is something of a loaded term since people seem to want to equate it with not only not believing in a god, but loudly denying the possibility of one.
What you replied to was a clear troll (or maybe Richard Dawkins), and since you mention "keeping score", please don't add that troll to the atheist side.
RTFHeadline.
If you code in Notepad, maybe :)
I agree with you there, I'm just confused about the ACID3 thing. I think I read it wrong.
And I agree that there is a conflict of interest, but my overall feeling is that open is open, and if Google were to do something as dumb as implement a plugin API that specifically disallowed ad blockers, those that wanted them would just grab a different build (free-chrome and Iron come to mind).
So I think it comes down to how well Google understands the Streisand effect.
But it is all somewhat meaningless, whether Chrome passes ACID3 or not, since Chrome is meant to support a company that sells advertising.
One really doesn't have to do with the other, unless you've uncovered some secret plot by doubleclick to subvert the W3C.
It's open source. The are already builds that block ads. Google even said that they'd like to support plugins, and that they wouldn't ban ad-blockers. And if they did, you can use an alternative build.
The one that never got past the Senate, you mean?
Texas was annexed via a joint resolution.
seceding, as is their right according to their terms for joining the union
Normally I wouldn't ruin a good joke with pedantry, but this seems like the sort of thing people will see and then bring up in conversation for the rest of their life.
Texas isn't free to secede.
The Apple apps behave immensely better on OS X, and Safari is the fastest. It loads like IE 6 did. Fast the first time, instant every subsequent time.
I have to wonder why anyone would use Safari on Windows other than for testing designs. And I know I'm not saying anything new here, but it's very annoying that they sneak it in with iTunes. I don't see what they have to gain by that, unless, like Chrome, it's an attempt to prevent IE from returning to its old levels of dominance.
Here's what I've found to be a better solution, and I get the impression that it's something a lot of people do:
http://easylist.adblockplus.org/
From the left panel, add EasyList, EasyElement, and EasyPrivacy. They seem to be more accurate and faster than filterset.g, and Adblock Plus will update them for you automatically.
I send feedads.googleadservices.com to 127.0.0.1, then I ignore where they used to be :D
Not wanting to start a flamewar here, but Tkinter is worse than GTK in just about every way, and doesn't use native widgets on any platform.
Which won't happen because first person shooters and real time strategy only work on PCs.
I won't deny that the Mac gaming market is in shambles now but things get better every year as:
(a) sales of Apple machines come back around
(b) devs realize that even though there's less Macs around, OS X ports sell a disproportionately larger amount
(c) cross-platform coding gets easier, and hardware support for OpenGL gets better
This all applies to linux as well.
http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you-should-support-mac-os-x-and-linux/
They tried it in the pre-PC days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
I'd be surprised if they did something like that now, given that it would amount to them pissing off their biggest customers, and needlessly adding tiers to the Vista Ready/Vista Capable scheme.
Wii firmware updates are quick and painless compared to, say, Windows Update.
Of course, a system like Steam that takes care of updates, installs, DRM, etc, makes things much easier.
There is a fundamental difference between an open system (by which I mean, will run unsigned code) and one that ships neutered. The overall experience on the latter is more controlled, and can be much better. But you lose the freedom to do what you want with the hardware.
Is one or the other better for games? I think the better question is, what's wrong with both? I have plenty of fun playing games on my phone, even. Not exactly immersive, but fun.
It's only recently that consoles have started to shove the inconveniences of steady updates and long load times on gamers. But you still have a choice: these things are still tolerable on the Wii. Like you say, it's a broad market and it's about what the individual wants. But I take issue with someone pointing to console annoyances and saying that they're equivalent to PCs there. There may not be a difference in kind, but there is certainly a difference in the amount.