How long does it take to manually enter a channel guide eachday?
*A* channel guide? Doesn't each region/country/cable company/type of service (and every combination thereof) have its own listings? And you need it more than each day, you need listings for shows a week or more in advance so customers can plan their recording schedules. You'd also need to keep up to date with schedule changes, channel additions/subtractions, etc. And on top THAT, DVRs need more information that newspaper's provide. Is the show a repeat? Is the show already recorded (unique identifiers)? Full title for the episode w/ brief summaries.
Trying to do all this manually (from a newspaper!?!?) would be a nightmare and totally unreliable.
Either Google wants to control our OS or media search engines have turned into whiny conglomerates that fight over whose right it is to search what. I am more concerned about Google throttling competition than MS.
I'm more concerned about getting an OS that is more functional out of the box. It is about time MS got a useful, fast, and simple desktop search like Spotlight on OS X. Not that I would actually USE Windows even if it had good search, but still... I expect my OS of choice to keep up with modern features. I don't want to spend hours downloading third party utilities to augment the OS to a point where it is usable every time I do a new install. It sucks. And I think it is unfair of companies like Google to try to stand in Microsoft's way of innovating (if you can call copying a feature from another OS innovation...).
While we're on the subject of augmenting the base OS to make it more useful, how about Microsoft include a useful screenshot taking utility out of the, eh? No, i don't want to have to open up Photoshop so I can paste the screenshot and then save it to a file. I want Windows to do it just like OS X does and just write the screenshot to a PNG file on the desktop for me. Oh and perhaps allow me to select a rectangle for the screenshot so I dont' have to open in photoshop or whatever to crop it for documentation purposes.
Or would this piss off all the fly-by-night shareware developers who've written screenshot utilities? Screw 'em. The more basic functionality I can get out of the OS, the better. Screw the shareware programmers (and Google).
well do you really expect anyone to integrate a third party search into their OS? why dont people sue apple for Spotlight?
I guess having so many developers making third party software for your OS is a double edged sword. At some point Microsoft got so many people augmenting the OS that they could barely make an improvement or add a feature without putting someone out of business (ok, Google isn't going to go out of business over this, but the point is still valid).
One of the many things I don't like about Windows is that is seems so relatively useless out of teh box. No PDF reader, for example. Who doesn't need a PDF reader? But you know if Microsoft included a PDF reader Adobe would get all pissed off , where Apple can include a PDF reader and nobody blinks and eye.
Windows is stagnating under the weight of its own developer base, if you ask me. Besides not being able to "innovate" because it pisses people off, they have to maintain god aweful amounts of backwards compatability. Apple, on the other hand, was able to switch to a fundamentally new OS, and then later a new processor architecture, with only a short period of discomfort. Poor Microsoft.:-P
Actually, I would hazard a guess that agricultural wastes would be a larger problem: Out here in the country, it's simply a matter of run off. A luxury you do not have in the city.
All the designs I looked at on the site included recycling of waste with no runoff. Also, they claim that, since they don't use pesticides or fertilizers, the "runoff" shouldn't be so bad anyway.
Some of the designed seemed to included wind power on the top of the buildings and/or methane reactors for biomass. I didn't, however, see anything on the site that talked about the net engergy requirements.
It depends on why it failed. If its a licensing issue, BSD might work out.
By the time you pile on all the end-user applicaitons (mostly GPL, AFAIK), the licensing differences between Linux and BSD are pretty insignificant. The system will be at like 90% GPL either way.
The third reason would be user's view of Linux and BSD.
I dont' think most people will 1) know the difference between Linux and BSD or 2) care about the difference. It'll look and feel nearly identical to them either way. Because, again, it is nearly identical software.
he battle for more efficient cars has been fought already, and diesels won.
Mmm, diesel hybrids.....
Aside from the battery issues, what is wrong with hybrids? AFAIK they're not particularly slow, ineffeicient (diesel hybrids can be pretty darn efficient), OR thirsty. I mean the whole POINT of them is that they are efficient (for city driving at least).
They're "complex" mostly because they're new and most mechanics don't know how to work on them. The idea is to get more out there and standardize them and make them less novel.
How are hybrids and evolutionary dead end if electric cars will eventually be the future? Hybrids will drive battery development, electric motor development, etc. Seems like a natural step to me. Where do you get off calling it a dead end.
Sticking with a purely combustion drive train the dead end.
Better things to do? Like what? Show me your hobbies and I'll show you a waste of time.
Heh, first you accuse me of being some kind of loser who has nothing to do and now you are going to nitpick the things I do do? Nice troll.
The difference between you and I are that I'm not so deluded into thinking that anything someone else enjoys is automatically a "waste of time" just because I don't.
"The difference between you and I?" What the fuck do you think you know about me, anyway? Just a post ago you thought I was a full time WoW player who felt "cheated" by people who buy gold.
I don't play online games. I have in the past, but don't ATM because my interests lie elsewhere.
You show me an interest, and I'll show you a waste of time. Dick.
You still need to maintain all those different versions of the libraries and keep them in a repositories. And if you are not careful, it coudl get out of hand really fast. And what about security updates and such? Do you have to backport security patches to every single minor version of lib X in your repository? It is a lot of work and can really bog down a distribution.
Might as well just give up an dynamic libraries altogether can go back to static binaries, eh?
The problem is that the "base" for Linux and especially FreeBSD are actually very small and there is no standard. Unlike, say, OS X, there are no central, consistent "frameworks" that a developer can expect to be on every system. Heck, even minor differences in libc can be a problem.
This is, in my opinion, the biggest weakness in "free" desktops. Lack of standards, consistency, and backwards compatibility.
The fundamental reason many of us think free desktops will prevail is still there. Think of BSD systems as a backup in case Linux fails in the desktop market. Even if we all fail, we may force Microsoft and Apple to innovate to stay ahead of us.
If Linux failed on the desktop, wouldn't BSD fail for the same reasons? I mean, it is all the same user-land software. FreeBSD doesn't really have much more/different to offer beyond the kernel. Heck, even as a sysadmin, I dont' really feel that FreeBSD and (certain distributions of) Linux are all the different. Again, they both run pretty much the same software.
Gold farming isn't "playing" anymore than painting the lines on a baseball field is "playing baseball."
I've never played WoW, but I hope gold "farming" isn't actually a required part of the game for each player like maintaining a car is. If it is, it is a stupid game and I'm glad I haven't wasted a cent on it.
By and large the people who think like you have minimum wage jobs or no jobs/friends to otherwise occupy your time (this is/., hence you get modded up) so you feel cheated when people actually have a life outside of game can still log in for a few hours and have fun.
People who "think like me?" WTF are you talking about? You're the one playing a "game" which is so readily compared to work that lots of people are willing to pay other people to play it for them. I don't play the stupid game because I do have better things to do with my time.
By your analogy, Bob must be getting a good tan and tone muscles, even though he can't use those muscles properly or efficently, he has the appearance of a seasoned swimmer.
Well, he has a appearance of seasoned swimmers insofar as his neighbors think he's the one out there every day swimming.
I'm curious though, do you wonder why the guy who takes his Ferrari to someone else to get it detailed bought it in the first place?
No, because the person buying a Ferrari bought it to drive it, not clean it. Presumably if you pay to play a game, you're paying to play the game. Paying someone else to play a game for you is bordering on absurd. It would be like buying a Ferrari and paying someone else to dress up as you and drive it around town in your place.
What about the person who has someone else do all of their pool maintenance?
What about the person who has someone else swim in their pool?
"Who's that swimming in your pool, Bob?"
"Oh, that's my pool boy. I don't have time to swim in it myself so I pay this Chinese guy to swim in it for $.30 an hour. Pretty cheap compared using my much more valuable time to do it."
"Gee, Bob, don't you think it is kind of silly to own a pool, not use it yourself *and* pay someone else to use it? I mean, shouldn't your pool boy be paying you for the privilege of swimmin in it?"
"Privilege? Swimming is a lot of work. My time is money. Swimming in that pool would actually be a loss of money above and beyond the cost of purchasing and maintaining it. It is much cheaper to pay my pool boy to do it."
"Then why'd you buy a pool then, Bob?"
"Because the pool looks good in my back yard and having someone swimming in it makes me seem more active to my neighbors. Did you notice that the Chinese guy kinda looks like me from a distance?"
"Oh."
For many gold farming is one aspect of a game they don't consider "fun" but other aspects are enjoyable enough that they are willing to part with $$$ so that when they log in they can focus on the things they like to do.
Our friend Bob likes to sit around the pool and watch the pool boy swimming.
I used to think the same thing, but guess what? I'm driving a brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse right now. The argument that they "immediately lose a bunch of resale value, the minute you drive them off the lot" is technically correct. But realistically, it doesn't mean as much as people pretend it does. In reality, MOST people buying a new car plan on keeping it for a while. The initial loss in value only affects someone who makes a poor purchasing decision and tries to trade the almost new car back in after only a few months through maybe the first year or two of ownership.
The trick is to buy the used car from one of these people who made a "poor" purchasing decision and tries to resell it after only a few months to a year of use. Maybe a little more. A $8,000 loan is much easier on the budget than a $13,000 load... Big difference. Especially if you can avoid the used-car-dealer middle man and buy directly from a trustworthy owner.
Meanwhile, loans on new vehicles tend to have much better interest rates than loans on used vehicles, so you're not giving as much of your money away to some bank as you pay off your car....
My new car also included such "bonuses" as free roadside assistance during the warranty period. Used car owners generally don't receive benefits like this, and have to pay for a "motor club" membership like AAA to get the same thing.
So get AAA. $88/year for road side assistance. Big deal.
The warranty itself can be a factor, too. You may or may not get one with your used car purchase, depending on its mileage and all. But it could easily "make or break" the overall "value" of your purchase if something major like a transmission fails 2 or 3 years into the vehicle ownership.
True, the warranty on my used Hyundai was cut in half when it was resold to me. But I did have some coverage.
Ultimately, for me, the assurance that my new car doesn't have some worn out part just waiting to fail
There could just as easily be a factory defect just waiting to fail.
I'm unconvinced that buying new is the best financial decision. That isn't to say that there are no advantages to buying new. I'm just saying that it is somewhat of a luxury. For someone on a tight budget, a smart used car purchase usually makes the most sense. Let the people willing to pay the for the luxury of having a new car pay the cost of driving it off the lot.
So BoB is a huge corp that is taking over the game? How is it affecting the gameplay?
I'm hoping I'll get another 7-day free trial offer so I can join and see what's up. Not sure I want to start paying subscription if things are kinda hopeless. Before I left 2 years ago, I hadn't quite made it to 0.0 space for the real EVE fun (so I hear) and I was hoping to give it a go. But if this BoB is owning the game, I wonder if there is any point.
You CAN just use technology without drooling over it. You don't have to be able to "rattle off each and every model of Intel and AMD CPU and their corresponding motherboard sockets" to appreciate the usefulness of certain devices.
But that's just it, a lot of gadgets really aren't that useful in a practical sense. They tend to serve as either a social status symbol (real nerds dont' care about social status) or a time waster. I think a real geek/nerd simply doesn't have time for that crap and doesn't need interruption to their work/hobbies (hence the aversion to the cell phone). It isn't just mobile phones either.
No kidding. The guys who deck themselves out with gadgets are usually just run of the mill, overpaid geeks. Overpaid because they're not as smart as people think. Yeah, that's right. There is such thing as a dimwitted geek. Just because you can rattle off each and every model of Intel and AMD CPU and their corresponding motherboard sockets, doesn't mean you're intelligent. You just spend too much time drooling over technology and reading Wired magazine.
The *nerds* are too busy studying/researching/coding and too poor from school debts to waste their time with gadgets.:-P
Well, i think we can safely draw a distinction between high technology like medicine and superfluous personal gadgets like camera phones, iPods, etc. I believe we're talking more about the latter in this thread
Who are you speaking for? I'm sorry to spoil your self absorbed personal geek fest, but I should remind you that *nerds* don't necessarily deck themselves out in high tech gadgets. That is something the *geeks* do to hide the fact that they aren't as intelligent as the nerds.
No offense, and maybe you are an exception to this rule, but in my experience, the guys who geek out on gadgets are usually the least skilled at their actual jobs. Put down the fucking phone/GPS/iPod and code or something else useful, damn it. I dont' care if you can send a video from your phone to your "girlfriend" in the Phillipines of yourself wanking.
Seriously though, I just tried PithHelmet out. Pretty decent. Although it is unlikely to ever work on Safari for Windows seeing that it is very specific to Cocoa.
Still, it isn't going to tear me away from Firefox and the 5 other extensions that I use.
Or you could just use/etc/hosts, which is what I do.
It works, but it is rather crude./etc/hosts doesn't actually remove the ads and their containers from the page. Check out the EasyElement list for AdBlock Plus.
There are still other extensions that make Firefox essential for me, but ABP, I think is a pretty good reason for just about anyone to use Firefox.
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*A* channel guide? Doesn't each region/country/cable company/type of service (and every combination thereof) have its own listings? And you need it more than each day, you need listings for shows a week or more in advance so customers can plan their recording schedules. You'd also need to keep up to date with schedule changes, channel additions/subtractions, etc. And on top THAT, DVRs need more information that newspaper's provide. Is the show a repeat? Is the show already recorded (unique identifiers)? Full title for the episode w/ brief summaries.
Trying to do all this manually (from a newspaper!?!?) would be a nightmare and totally unreliable.
-matthew
I was under the impression that the VF designs allowed for at least a portion of the plants on lower levels to get direct sun.
-mtthew
I'm more concerned about getting an OS that is more functional out of the box. It is about time MS got a useful, fast, and simple desktop search like Spotlight on OS X. Not that I would actually USE Windows even if it had good search, but still... I expect my OS of choice to keep up with modern features. I don't want to spend hours downloading third party utilities to augment the OS to a point where it is usable every time I do a new install. It sucks. And I think it is unfair of companies like Google to try to stand in Microsoft's way of innovating (if you can call copying a feature from another OS innovation...).
While we're on the subject of augmenting the base OS to make it more useful, how about Microsoft include a useful screenshot taking utility out of the, eh? No, i don't want to have to open up Photoshop so I can paste the screenshot and then save it to a file. I want Windows to do it just like OS X does and just write the screenshot to a PNG file on the desktop for me. Oh and perhaps allow me to select a rectangle for the screenshot so I dont' have to open in photoshop or whatever to crop it for documentation purposes.
Or would this piss off all the fly-by-night shareware developers who've written screenshot utilities? Screw 'em. The more basic functionality I can get out of the OS, the better. Screw the shareware programmers (and Google).
-matthew
I guess having so many developers making third party software for your OS is a double edged sword. At some point Microsoft got so many people augmenting the OS that they could barely make an improvement or add a feature without putting someone out of business (ok, Google isn't going to go out of business over this, but the point is still valid).
One of the many things I don't like about Windows is that is seems so relatively useless out of teh box. No PDF reader, for example. Who doesn't need a PDF reader? But you know if Microsoft included a PDF reader Adobe would get all pissed off , where Apple can include a PDF reader and nobody blinks and eye.
Windows is stagnating under the weight of its own developer base, if you ask me. Besides not being able to "innovate" because it pisses people off, they have to maintain god aweful amounts of backwards compatability. Apple, on the other hand, was able to switch to a fundamentally new OS, and then later a new processor architecture, with only a short period of discomfort. Poor Microsoft.
-matthew
All the designs I looked at on the site included recycling of waste with no runoff. Also, they claim that, since they don't use pesticides or fertilizers, the "runoff" shouldn't be so bad anyway.
-matthew
Some of the designed seemed to included wind power on the top of the buildings and/or methane reactors for biomass. I didn't, however, see anything on the site that talked about the net engergy requirements.
-matthew
By the time you pile on all the end-user applicaitons (mostly GPL, AFAIK), the licensing differences between Linux and BSD are pretty insignificant. The system will be at like 90% GPL either way.
I dont' think most people will 1) know the difference between Linux and BSD or 2) care about the difference. It'll look and feel nearly identical to them either way. Because, again, it is nearly identical software.
-matthew
Mmm, diesel hybrids.....
Aside from the battery issues, what is wrong with hybrids? AFAIK they're not particularly slow, ineffeicient (diesel hybrids can be pretty darn efficient), OR thirsty. I mean the whole POINT of them is that they are efficient (for city driving at least).
They're "complex" mostly because they're new and most mechanics don't know how to work on them. The idea is to get more out there and standardize them and make them less novel.
How are hybrids and evolutionary dead end if electric cars will eventually be the future? Hybrids will drive battery development, electric motor development, etc. Seems like a natural step to me. Where do you get off calling it a dead end.
Sticking with a purely combustion drive train the dead end.
-matthew
Heh, first you accuse me of being some kind of loser who has nothing to do and now you are going to nitpick the things I do do? Nice troll.
"The difference between you and I?" What the fuck do you think you know about me, anyway? Just a post ago you thought I was a full time WoW player who felt "cheated" by people who buy gold.
You show me an interest, and I'll show you a waste of time. Dick.
-matthew
You still need to maintain all those different versions of the libraries and keep them in a repositories. And if you are not careful, it coudl get out of hand really fast. And what about security updates and such? Do you have to backport security patches to every single minor version of lib X in your repository? It is a lot of work and can really bog down a distribution.
Might as well just give up an dynamic libraries altogether can go back to static binaries, eh?
The problem is that the "base" for Linux and especially FreeBSD are actually very small and there is no standard. Unlike, say, OS X, there are no central, consistent "frameworks" that a developer can expect to be on every system. Heck, even minor differences in libc can be a problem.
This is, in my opinion, the biggest weakness in "free" desktops. Lack of standards, consistency, and backwards compatibility.
-matthew
If Linux failed on the desktop, wouldn't BSD fail for the same reasons? I mean, it is all the same user-land software. FreeBSD doesn't really have much more/different to offer beyond the kernel. Heck, even as a sysadmin, I dont' really feel that FreeBSD and (certain distributions of) Linux are all the different. Again, they both run pretty much the same software.
-matthew
Wait, I thought GNU/Hurd was the planned successor to Unix?
Sounds like the game is hopelessly broken. It is amazing that it is so popular.
I've never played WoW, but I hope gold "farming" isn't actually a required part of the game for each player like maintaining a car is. If it is, it is a stupid game and I'm glad I haven't wasted a cent on it.
People who "think like me?" WTF are you talking about? You're the one playing a "game" which is so readily compared to work that lots of people are willing to pay other people to play it for them. I don't play the stupid game because I do have better things to do with my time.
Well, he has a appearance of seasoned swimmers insofar as his neighbors think he's the one out there every day swimming.
-matthew
No, because the person buying a Ferrari bought it to drive it, not clean it. Presumably if you pay to play a game, you're paying to play the game. Paying someone else to play a game for you is bordering on absurd. It would be like buying a Ferrari and paying someone else to dress up as you and drive it around town in your place.
What about the person who has someone else swim in their pool?
"Who's that swimming in your pool, Bob?"
"Oh, that's my pool boy. I don't have time to swim in it myself so I pay this Chinese guy to swim in it for $.30 an hour. Pretty cheap compared using my much more valuable time to do it."
"Gee, Bob, don't you think it is kind of silly to own a pool, not use it yourself *and* pay someone else to use it? I mean, shouldn't your pool boy be paying you for the privilege of swimmin in it?"
"Privilege? Swimming is a lot of work. My time is money. Swimming in that pool would actually be a loss of money above and beyond the cost of purchasing and maintaining it. It is much cheaper to pay my pool boy to do it."
"Then why'd you buy a pool then, Bob?"
"Because the pool looks good in my back yard and having someone swimming in it makes me seem more active to my neighbors. Did you notice that the Chinese guy kinda looks like me from a distance?"
"Oh."
Our friend Bob likes to sit around the pool and watch the pool boy swimming.
-matthew
The trick is to buy the used car from one of these people who made a "poor" purchasing decision and tries to resell it after only a few months to a year of use. Maybe a little more. A $8,000 loan is much easier on the budget than a $13,000 load... Big difference. Especially if you can avoid the used-car-dealer middle man and buy directly from a trustworthy owner.
At my credit union, the rates are the same:
http://www.myconsumers.org/site/rates.html
So get AAA. $88/year for road side assistance. Big deal.
True, the warranty on my used Hyundai was cut in half when it was resold to me. But I did have some coverage.
There could just as easily be a factory defect just waiting to fail.
I'm unconvinced that buying new is the best financial decision. That isn't to say that there are no advantages to buying new. I'm just saying that it is somewhat of a luxury. For someone on a tight budget, a smart used car purchase usually makes the most sense. Let the people willing to pay the for the luxury of having a new car pay the cost of driving it off the lot.
-matthew
How in the world would it go from being embedded in coral or wood to being embedded in its BONE far under its bubber?
So BoB is a huge corp that is taking over the game? How is it affecting the gameplay?
I'm hoping I'll get another 7-day free trial offer so I can join and see what's up. Not sure I want to start paying subscription if things are kinda hopeless. Before I left 2 years ago, I hadn't quite made it to 0.0 space for the real EVE fun (so I hear) and I was hoping to give it a go. But if this BoB is owning the game, I wonder if there is any point.
-matthew
But that's just it, a lot of gadgets really aren't that useful in a practical sense. They tend to serve as either a social status symbol (real nerds dont' care about social status) or a time waster. I think a real geek/nerd simply doesn't have time for that crap and doesn't need interruption to their work/hobbies (hence the aversion to the cell phone). It isn't just mobile phones either.
-matthew
No kidding. The guys who deck themselves out with gadgets are usually just run of the mill, overpaid geeks. Overpaid because they're not as smart as people think. Yeah, that's right. There is such thing as a dimwitted geek. Just because you can rattle off each and every model of Intel and AMD CPU and their corresponding motherboard sockets, doesn't mean you're intelligent. You just spend too much time drooling over technology and reading Wired magazine.
:-P
The *nerds* are too busy studying/researching/coding and too poor from school debts to waste their time with gadgets.
-matthew
Well, i think we can safely draw a distinction between high technology like medicine and superfluous personal gadgets like camera phones, iPods, etc. I believe we're talking more about the latter in this thread
-matthew
Who are you speaking for? I'm sorry to spoil your self absorbed personal geek fest, but I should remind you that *nerds* don't necessarily deck themselves out in high tech gadgets. That is something the *geeks* do to hide the fact that they aren't as intelligent as the nerds.
No offense, and maybe you are an exception to this rule, but in my experience, the guys who geek out on gadgets are usually the least skilled at their actual jobs. Put down the fucking phone/GPS/iPod and code or something else useful, damn it. I dont' care if you can send a video from your phone to your "girlfriend" in the Phillipines of yourself wanking.
Gadget geeks are so annoying and useless.
-matthew
Ack, but it is shareware. :P
Seriously though, I just tried PithHelmet out. Pretty decent. Although it is unlikely to ever work on Safari for Windows seeing that it is very specific to Cocoa.
Still, it isn't going to tear me away from Firefox and the 5 other extensions that I use.
-matthew
It works, but it is rather crude.
There are still other extensions that make Firefox essential for me, but ABP, I think is a pretty good reason for just about anyone to use Firefox.
-matthew