Not one of the keystrokes Ctrl-A through Ctrl-Z was used for any function in any program bundled with Microsoft Windows from 1985 to 1992.
and
Then, in 1992, when the monopoly was firmly established, a slew of Ctrl-plus-letter-key keystrokes were given prominent functions in Microsoft Windows.
Windows was not a monopoly in 1992. 1992 was the year that Windows 3.1 was released and 3.0 was released in 1990. Windows 3.0 was the first version of Windows that was really useable, and Windows 3.1 was the first version that was really popular. In 1992, DOS was still more popular than Windows, so Windows was definitely not a monopoly.
Besides which, I am sure that the reason that IBM included control keys on its keyboards is because they were standard in the mainframe and Unix world. The fact that they weren't used directly in DOS programs doesn't really prove anything.
I agree with you overall, but I think that you went a little too far with this point:
Railroads, especially in the United States and Canada, were the only heavy transportation that mattered for decades;
I think most people involved with water borne freight will disagree with you. Shipping pre-dates railroads by quite a bit and has been an important form of heavy transport throughout the history of the US. Its still crucial form of transport from the oceans, to the Great Lakes, and to Mississippi/Ohio River system.
Sure, water borne traffic is more limited by geography than the rails, but it is still important.
Where do you draw the line between an "appropriate" redirect and an "inappropriate" one?
The point is that you don't draw a line. There is no reason to draw a line. If you think something is inappropriate, don't go to that site. Or if you feel compelled, complain to them about it, but there is no reason to regulate this kind of speech.
Its really similar to TV or talk radio. If I don't like the humor on a show I don't watch it. If I find the opions espoused by a host inane or baseless, I don't listen. That's the great thing about free speech, anyone can say whatever they want, within certain reasonable limits. I certainly don't think any of the examples presented here are anywhere near any of those limits.
Yep, I've been reading the Onion for over 10 years, and they do repeat themselves sometimes. Its hard to blame them though, just like its hard to blame Letterman for doing the same gags over. It ain't easy having to be funny.
Who decided to drop the spell checker facilities?
The spellchecker wasn't dropped. Netscape bought there spellchecker from someone else, so they couldn't release the source to it. There is a working spellchecker, but it hasn't been merged into Mozilla's source tree yet. See bug 56301 for more details as well.
There will be an
RC3, and I hope there's an RC4 as well. Better a good product, than one pushed out the door too quickly. As for bugs, there is no chance that most of the new bugs will be fixed by 1.0. Only important bugs or bugs with trivial fixes are getting fixed in the 1.0 branch now.
But 2001 is clearly a brilliant SF movie, and it's got no action at all.
Huh? 2001 has action. It may not have guns, but it has action. Much of the "Dawn of Man" scenes is action, as well as the scene where Dave takes back control of the ship.
Yeah, lots of SF by "big" names makes the best sellers list for at least a short time. Isaac Asimov's Foundation's Edge , Arthur C. Clarke's later Odyssey books, some of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, some of Terry Brooks's Shannara books, etc.
Interestingly enough, none of the people who prosecuted the Microsoft case (the DOJ) are elected either.
Not true. Various states are involved in the Microsoft anti-trust case as well and the Attorneys General of most (all?) of those states are elected officials.
Fix one single bug in XP code and you've potentially fixed a bug on the 20+ different platforms tha Moz builds on. Fix one Linux bug, and you've fixed a bug on only one platform, albeit the third or forth most important one.
While I agree that fixing cross-platform bugs is more important than fixing platform specific ones, I don't think that you made your point very well. The reason is that there are few truly Linux-specific bugs in mozilla. Most "Linux" bugs are actually bugs on all of Mozilla's X Window Systems. Since more than half of Mozilla's platforms use X, fixing one of these bugs fixes a lot of platforms.
Mozilla should run fine on an ulta 5. I usually run on an ultra 10, though sometimes I even run on a Sparc Station 20. Memory is a bigger bottleneck with mozilla than processor speed.
As for compiling mozilla, don't bother compiling it unless you have a reason (I compile it myself because I'm following a few patches that aren't in the main tree yet). Just download the latest milestone or nightly (though the nightlies don't happen every night on Sparc Solaris right now).
It didn't say why the North Pole is moving (unless I missed it). It's because of solar wind, correct?
No, these movements of the pole are not caused by the solar wind. The solar wind does affect the location of the poles, but on shorter time-scales. The movements of the
poles are believed to be caused by shifts in the core of Earth that affect the dynamo that causes the Earth's intrinsic magnetic field.
Well, if the Earth's magnetic field were a perfect dipole then the north and south magnetic fields would be exactly opposite each other. Its not a perfect dipole (10% non-dipole ?), so they aren't exactly opposite each other. The shorter time-scale variations tend to be less dipolar. On longer time-scales, the poles do tend to stay pretty well attuned.
The NES introduced three very important concepts to the video game system industry:
Using a pad controller instead of a joystick
Well, they got this wrong. Intellivision had a pad controller before Nintendo. Of course the disc thing on the controller was used for movement in most games, but the keypad was used directly in some.
Bruce Schneier is giving a talk entitled "The Natural Laws of Digital Content" on November 15 at 7:00 at the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus.
The subject of the talk is related to the topic of this story - how legislation such as DMCA interact with computer security issues. So if you're interested in this topic and live near Minneapolis click the link above to find out details about this talk.
Also, we hope to tape Bruce's talk and put up video and audio of the talk on our web site at a later date.
Actually, the neutrino detectors weren't built to study the "Solar Neutrino Problem" either, although that has been a pleasant side effect.
I'm pretty sure that Super-K and the current generation of neutrino detectors were designed to study neutrinos. Earlier detector such as
Kamiokande and Soudan
were designed to look for proton decay.
Right, as if the lower crime rates in Europe have anything to do with ID cards. A lot better case could be made for lower crime rates correlating with higher literacy rate than with any kind of ID card.
OK, so now you're adding another assumption: assume the carpool has more than 2 people. You're right that would make the numbers more realistic, though I'm guessing most carpools only have 2 or 3 people.
I wasn't trying to defend the over-reliance on cars in the U.S., just trying to mock statistics pulled out of thin air. Personally I'd be quite happy if there were more carpoolers, it would make my commuting by bike more pleasant.
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Besides which, I am sure that the reason that IBM included control keys on its keyboards is because they were standard in the mainframe and Unix world. The fact that they weren't used directly in DOS programs doesn't really prove anything.
- apt-get source foo (grab the source)
- tweak the source
- apt-get -b source (builds the source - apt-get is smart enough not to
re-grab the source)
- dpkg -i foo.deb (install)
Build-depends don't work with all debs yet, but with the majority. And apt-get is readline enabled, unless your favorite shell isn'tSure, water borne traffic is more limited by geography than the rails, but it is still important.
Its really similar to TV or talk radio. If I don't like the humor on a show I don't watch it. If I find the opions espoused by a host inane or baseless, I don't listen. That's the great thing about free speech, anyone can say whatever they want, within certain reasonable limits. I certainly don't think any of the examples presented here are anywhere near any of those limits.
People don't have a right not to be offended.
Yep, I've been reading the Onion for over 10 years, and they do repeat themselves sometimes. Its hard to blame them though, just like its hard to blame Letterman for doing the same gags over. It ain't easy having to be funny.
Here on Solaris 7 the bug only causes mozilla to crash - it doesn't affect X at all.
Its an annoying bug, but like similar bugs that crashed IE, its not really that big of a deal.
Who decided to drop the spell checker facilities? The spellchecker wasn't dropped. Netscape bought there spellchecker from someone else, so they couldn't release the source to it. There is a working spellchecker, but it hasn't been merged into Mozilla's source tree yet. See bug 56301 for more details as well.
There will be an RC3, and I hope there's an RC4 as well. Better a good product, than one pushed out the door too quickly. As for bugs, there is no chance that most of the new bugs will be fixed by 1.0. Only important bugs or bugs with trivial fixes are getting fixed in the 1.0 branch now.
I agree with you about Gattaca, though.
I am still not sure that I believe the number is only 1000, but its at least possible.
Yeah, lots of SF by "big" names makes the best sellers list for at least a short time. Isaac Asimov's Foundation's Edge , Arthur C. Clarke's later Odyssey books, some of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books, some of Terry Brooks's Shannara books, etc.
There's no reason why he wouldn't admit it. There's plenty of music that is legal by even the RIAA's definition at mp3.com, the labels sites, etc.
As for compiling mozilla, don't bother compiling it unless you have a reason (I compile it myself because I'm following a few patches that aren't in the main tree yet). Just download the latest milestone or nightly (though the nightlies don't happen every night on Sparc Solaris right now).
Well, if the Earth's magnetic field were a perfect dipole then the north and south magnetic fields would be exactly opposite each other. Its not a perfect dipole (10% non-dipole ?), so they aren't exactly opposite each other. The shorter time-scale variations tend to be less dipolar. On longer time-scales, the poles do tend to stay pretty well attuned.
Take a look at this article on the Navy satellite testing it LEDs - it might be what you saw.
"The Natural Laws of Digital Content" on November 15 at 7:00 at the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus.
The subject of the talk is related to the topic of this story - how legislation such as DMCA interact with computer security issues. So if you're interested in this topic and live near Minneapolis click the link above to find out details about this talk.
Also, we hope to tape Bruce's talk and put up video and audio of the talk on our web site at a later date.
Not if they only carpool once a week like you first suggested.
Anyway, we mostly agree - I'm just more of pessimist.
Right, as if the lower crime rates in Europe have anything to do with ID cards. A lot better case could be made for lower crime rates correlating with higher literacy rate than with any kind of ID card.
I wasn't trying to defend the over-reliance on cars in the U.S., just trying to mock statistics pulled out of thin air. Personally I'd be quite happy if there were more carpoolers, it would make my commuting by bike more pleasant.
- Assume that almost all gasoline is used to commute.
- Assume that no extra gasoline is used picking up and dropping off people for a car pool compared to driving your normal route.
- Assume people work 4 days a week.
So if you car pool, you drive 1 day a week out of 4 days, saving you 25% of your gasoline consumption.I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to poke holes in this...