Well, I think the fact that the Germans attacked Russia/Soviet Union, instead of just going on and taking over Britain made it a lot more likely for them to lose WWII...
Even though they had a chance of winning, the cost was very high.
If they had done it the other way round, they'd have much of western Europe, and there'll be just USA, Germany, USSR in the North Atlantic.
There are very good reasons for sessions to time out. How long did you take?
The transaction was probably deemed to have completed the moment the "label" was displayed on your screen.
So you should have just printed it out anyway. Print to a file or print to an actual A4. You can then either print to the real label later, or photocopy to the real label depending on whether you do the former or latter.
Or save the page to print it out later (which is why javascript or flash tends to suck for this sort of thing - you may not be able to print the stuff properly).
Maybe the US should just outsource their elections to India (the world's largest democracy). And then get the UN to observe the elections.
I find it funny that the US which makes such a big noise about "Democracy" and "Free Elections", and spends billions "trying to achieve" that in Iraq, can't do their own elections properly - I'm sure there are lots of smart people in the US who can come up with anonymous, auditable voting systems that work.
It's just hypocrisy.
Just like when Hamas won the elections (not even a surprise result), the US doesn't want to accept that. I'm not saying it's a great result, but hey sure seems likely that the people there wanted Hamas.
Even two-bit dictators make sure when they rig elections they don't have negative votes, or more votes than voters.
But in the US... What is really bad is the US citizens just let all that pass.
Makes you wonder what is going on. Are you all drugged or what?
Also in html there isn't a tag that can turn off active content. You have to go figure out what active content there is and disable it. This is relevant when you are displaying HTML from other people - advertisers, 3rd parties, users.
It's like having 100 "GO!" buttons, and no "Stop!" button. You have to make sure all the "Go!" buttons aren't pressed.
If in the future you have a new "Go!" button - making it 101 go buttons, your old code might not disable it.
Whereas if you had a "Stop!" button that meant "stop all active content" it would still work.
I did try proposing to the HTML/W3C people to make a "disable active content" tag (you could in theory have "disable all" or only "enable selected"), but nobody was interested.
I'm not a smoker, but I bet it's even better if Da Boss is out of smokes, and you offer him one of your ciggies...
Talk about creating opportunities;).
Now that doesn't work if you're a nonsmoker - you can't offer a spare cig if you don't smoke yourself - even if you somehow had one, it just won't look right.
" "I am not a luddite, far from it. I'd rather see _real_ improvements." Like what? There have been many attempts at doing something else than a desktop. The thing is, nothing beats it."
Like the "scrollbar"? That was a major advance wasn't it?
And the taskbar. It sure took a while before the taskbar became commonplace. A taskbar that didn't get covered by other stuff.
I think those are greater and more useful improvements than transparent windows. I'm sure you can think of others.
It would be quite remarkable if there is little else we can do to improve things as significantly.
It is telling that in one of the videos (the zoom one?) they talk about the animations making the desktop feel more "physical" (as if it's a good thing). D'oh! Why should we want to be artificially limited to something similar to common physics? Fine if it's for a game, but for a UI?
If you wanted to travel from home to work, I bet if you had the choice most of the time you'd rather teleport directly and instantaneously (almost everything else being equal - safety, energy+monetary costs). Making stuff more "physical" is overrated.
Also, not all desktops have GPUs fast enough to support all that. I suppose this would make the hardware manufacturers pretty happy eh? All the integrated graphics chips would need to be higher spec'ed.
For very little UI/usability gain, this sort of stuff would make machines that were perfectly decent, slower and less responsive.
I am not a luddite, far from it. I'd rather see _real_ improvements.
Not "Ricer UI".
BTW I wonder if the 2D performance of video cards has actually improved over the years, I recall getting a 3D vid card a few years ago and noticing the 2D performance was poorer than my old 2D video card - lower fps in software rendering mode. Don't see many 2D benchmarks being done nowadays...
The Macintosh, Amiga, Atari etc drew windows just fine and that was 20 years ago, on machines 500-1000 times slower. The Apple IIGS only drew windows fine with 8MHz or higher CPU accelerator chips and on later GS/OS versions - the standard speed was only 2.5-2.8MHz.
So I find it hard to be impressed with animated transparent windows more than TWO DECADES after those GUIs. I've recently seen one demo where the windows wobble when you drag them around - not sure why of all things.
For one, I'm weird I guess, but I don't normally need to move windows around much, I usually prefer them fully maximized. I just switch from window to window - in fact it's often easier to do quick compares of similar stuff by tabbing between windows.
The desktop organisation thingy in the demo would suck with 20+ windows (a few ssh windows, source, docs, browsers etc it adds up). Why would anyone need to resize and tile windows, and then only select them, when they've already got this nifty thing called the Taskbar. Maybe they just need to improve the taskbar so people can identify tasks more distinctly.
I think some thing like <a href="http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121349"> this</a> would be more helpful.
Button bounce? Well that hasn't been a problem for me.
In fact, you sure it's not caused by all those delays? Having to click more times due to the sub menus not opening immediately - and thus you clicking to open them. More clicks = more chances for errors.
If you have problems releasing fast enough, have you tried it Apple/Mac style? Keep holding the button down after click, and release only when the cursor is on top of the item you want to select.
" watching someone get through their daily grind faster "
How is all that animation stuff going to make things faster? It's faster to just display/vanish a window immediately, rather than draw the animations. You could of course do the animations in a "ghostlike/background" way, and allow immediate access to whatever is now actually on top, but the animations could still be distracting and get in the way.
Experienced[1] workers really wanting to do stuff faster should get rid of these "cutscenes".
[1] How many of you would get confused by things appearing/disappearing immediately when they are consistent with _your_ intended actions? You click on close and a window vanishes immediately. I call that good, not confusing, it's more likely to be annoying/confusing/worrying if you click on close and a window doesn't close.
Whatever, it's still a waste and a disappointment.
I wouldn't mind except that it's been 30 years, and computers are thousands of times faster with magnitudes more storage.
And here we are getting excited about transparent wobbly windows?
OK, maybe Mr Englebart was way too advanced for his time. So lets call it 20 years since Apple, Amiga, Atari etc. If we have such low expectations no wonder we're still stuck with such crappy automotive and aerospace tech too.
Having animations and other silly stuff (like _pauses_ before actions)just adds latency, and wastes CPU.
If I could choose a "low latency/delay" theme or option then that would be great.
I would have thought that most experienced users would know where their gui stuff (windows, dialog boxes, menus etc) went without needing any animations to give them a clue- progress/status indicators excluded of course.
All this waiting half a second or so before actually doing the stuff is ridiculous. Like requiring pauses before opening submenus. I can understand that immediately opening and drawing large submenus in the days of MHz processors and slow 2D cards can slow down your computer to unproductive levels. But the last I checked my PC was running significantly faster than 1.5GHz.
If there's going to be any time wasting or procrastination done, it should NOT be by the computer.
Leave the time wasting to the humans. Human time is more important than computer time. And like most people, I've only got a finite time left on this world and if I'm going to waste it (like most people here;) ), I sure won't want to waste it waiting for inane animations by silly developers trying to show how clever they think they are.
I remember recently people here were complaining about annoying cut scenes in games.
Well those animations are just like those cut scenes in games. Sure if you can interrupt the animations on-the-fly then it's not so terrible, but uh, it's still going to get quite old after the nth time...
That sort of thing mostly belongs in some "Pimp My GUI" TV show, or fan-boy/"ricer" gatherings.
It's like having your car engine spin some colourful nonfunctional propeller just because it looks cool. Or having your expensive semi-automatic car's UI make cute noises and flash pastel numbers before shifting to the appropriate gear. If I'm going to have my car engine spin something it's got to be something useful like a supercharger or aircond compresser. If my car is going to flash something on my windscreen it should flash an extrapolated icon of a toddler hidden _behind_ a parked car, based on the legs it spotted under that parked car, especially if the toddler is moving towards my path (I don't think very highly of cars that drive themselves - given the sort of "geniuses" around, it's not going to happen within a decade or maybe even two, but there are so many ways that cars could help drivers drive better).
Let's see some real progress OK?
Most of the stuff we currently have on our computers is not really that advanced _conceptually_ from what Douglas Englebart demonstrated nearly 30 years ago. Just compare the Novell demo, current popular GUIs and Englebart's demo - 30 years and that's it?
So it's very disappointing to see the proclaimed "state of the art" in GUIs seems to be the equivalent of blue LEDs on cooling fans.
Anyway the future would probably be "thought macros". Initially it'll probably start with users training their "artificial brain augmenters" by thinking of some arbitrary thing/item/concept and then associating it with an action they want the computer to do.
The thought recognition thing is there - just mostly only done on nonhumans so far.
Combine that with an enhancement of the "seeing with tongue" technology and you'd have input/output.
Add wireless technology and enhanced "home automation" and you'd have virtual telepathy and virtual telekinesis.
If it was an environment with reasonably large predators, then most animals small enough to be picked up by a human wouldn't want to be close to any strange unknown animal.
It must be a relatively safe environment then? Either that or the animals could sense that they weren't in any danger and there are very few sneaky/deceptive predators there[1]?
Anyway, IMO it's usually not really a matter of "learning to be afraid", it's more like the fearless and ignorant get killed.
Most of the mice and small creatures (geckos) out there don't have to learn to run away - those that didn't run away died out long ago.
I wonder if we are getting a higher percentage of "fearless" (low sense of self-preservation) humans given the relatively safe environments many of us live in nowadays.
[1] humans can be a deceitful bunch. They could pretend to not be interested in killing the animal, and next thing you know, wham!
D'oh. This sounds as funny as that "ultra stable C++" ask slashdot...;)
Wouldn't that mean not needing that much heating? Will be just like those bunny rabbits providing heat (in more ways than one perhaps)?
If you really need your computers on all the time and want to cut on bills, each of you should get a tent and set it up in your rooms. In winter put the computer in the tent and run Folding@Home or something similar for heating, that way you can live reasonably comfortably in the tent, and leave the central heating off or on low (if that's possible - I'm sure you'd still need hot running water for showers;) ).
If you're in England and not somewhere like Scotland, the weather isn't what I'd call harsh - I used to study in Manchester, and it was ok (drizzly and/or overcast most days though, except for exam season;) ).
Seriously though, I think that while bills are important considerations, you need to get other things right first and then the bill issue becomes more manageable. You get the other stuff wrong, and you might end up with half the household leaving without notice.
Anyway some random thoughts:
Set your priorities and just cut down on your expenses- beer, tobacco, "new mobile phone that you really don't need" and you'd probably have quite a bit to live on.
I believe the meters are "self-read", so it might be a good idea to update the companies regularly, so that you don't end up with something really huge at an inconvenient point - not everyone in the household might be able to cope with paying that amount.
Assuming not everyone is competent at managing their money, you may also wish to have a pool of money which everyone pays a fixed sum into each month, and any amount leftover is refunded at end of the lease period. Better pick someone you can trust for that;).
The idea is to not end up short of some huge amount "by surprise", and then have to go look for money and possibly end up neglecting your studies etc.
Also, you may have to figure out whether things like certain meals/cooking are shared. "Eating out" in the UK isn't what I'd call cheap. But sharing say the evening meal and cooking AND the necessary grocery shopping would require a fair bit of compromises and cooperation. Might be rather difficult if you have a vegan and a "carnivore" in your household, or even a practising muslim/jew (halal/kosher food only).
While in Manchester, a bunch of us used to share one meal and groceries, but one of us opted out of it in the end. Can't remember why. Maybe it was our cooking (we took turns though);).
It is obvious that cops have different rules from normal citizens. They are authorized to use deadly force under some circumstances.
I'm proposing a rules-of-engagement to govern the interactions between citizens and cops so that many unnecessary problems can be avoided.
The normal laws don't cover everything. It's like the difference between corporate policies and standard operating procedures in a department.
I'm sure the cops have their own SOPs however there doesn't appear to be a publicized one for cop-citizen interaction.
Just because both cops and citizens have a big bunch of rights and powers, doesn't mean there can't be recommended ways of exercising recommended rights to smoothen most common interactions.
An example:
A citizen is walking slowly up and down a dark street at night. A cop finding that suspicious could challenge that citizen.
There are valid and legal reasons for a citizen to behave in that manner, and there are many legal ways a cop could challenge that citizen, and many legal ways a citizen could respond to that challenge.
However, not all the possible ways are good or safe.
I recall someone here complaining about a cop for challenging him for "behaving suspiciously" when he did something like that, and he responded kinda sarcastically, and the cop then said something to the effect that the cop was keeping an eye on him. But I think the cop was just trying to do his job - how else could he challenge someone he thinks is a burglar or someone up to no good?
Now if the cop showed his suspicion in a "proper way", and the citizen is familiar with the procedure, no offence should be taken by the citizen, and there wouldn't be unnecessary rudeness. A burglar challenged in that way would still be at least slightly discouraged from breaking into a house whilst the cop was still about;).
Another example is - what is the recommended way to take out your wallet or whatever it is, in order to show the cop your ID? After all if it is done in the wrong way and the wrong moment, you could get shot because the cop thinks you might be pulling out a weapon. So perhaps the recommended procedure is to NOT show your ID unless explicitly requested. If a cop thinks it is unsafe, the cop should apologize and request you to get into a position where the cop can safely retrieve your ID.
A possible way to challenge a suspected fake cop is to request that the cop summon backup over the radio. Of course the citizen should then be forced to stand in a neutral+safe position till backup arrives. And the cop should remain at also a fairly neutral distance away.
If the fake cops provide the whole stuff - fake "HQ", sirens etc, you're probably in deeper shit than you can cope (since if you were prepared for that you wouldn't bother waiting for the fake backups to arrive).
Given a significant percentage of bad/incompetent cops, I'm sure people will have a hard time of deciding whether to run and be blown away, or not run and be blown away.
There needs to be a well thought out and publicized official "Rules of Engagement" that makes it clear what cops and citizens are recommended to do in _practical_ situations when they interact. And all cops and citizens should follow it to avoid misunderstandings or things escalating.
Haven't you seen people do something like the following:
Give you a bunch of cards saying "pick a card any card, but just one...".
It doesn't matter which card you pick, your choice already has been predetermined.
This is especially true in the US, since the top US politicians need lot of money to get anywhere in politics (unlike in some other countries where this is regulated, and so it is a bit harder).
The various companies (or rich) will sponsor (pick) the politicians from _any_ of the parties, who they think have a chance AND will support their goals. Politicians who don't support their goals don't get money.
Of course there are still differences between the parties, but over time, the companies will tend to get what they want - those who support them rise to the top, and those who don't stay stuck at the bottom.
According to opensecrets.org,for the 2004 election, Bush received and spent USD300+ million, and so did Kerry.
The other four presidential candidates in the running (excludes those who dropped out) received and spent less than USD 8 million.
The really rich usually aren't that stupid, they know a bit about "investing".
Of course I could be wrong, and the past US governments have not consistently favoured the rich and powerful...
Even if it hasn't yet, given the design/architecture of the US election process and system, I think you'd eventually get a plutocracy.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I think the fact that the Germans attacked Russia/Soviet Union, instead of just going on and taking over Britain made it a lot more likely for them to lose WWII...
Even though they had a chance of winning, the cost was very high.
If they had done it the other way round, they'd have much of western Europe, and there'll be just USA, Germany, USSR in the North Atlantic.
There are very good reasons for sessions to time out. How long did you take?
The transaction was probably deemed to have completed the moment the "label" was displayed on your screen.
So you should have just printed it out anyway. Print to a file or print to an actual A4. You can then either print to the real label later, or photocopy to the real label depending on whether you do the former or latter.
Or save the page to print it out later (which is why javascript or flash tends to suck for this sort of thing - you may not be able to print the stuff properly).
Maybe the US should just outsource their elections to India (the world's largest democracy). And then get the UN to observe the elections.
I find it funny that the US which makes such a big noise about "Democracy" and "Free Elections", and spends billions "trying to achieve" that in Iraq, can't do their own elections properly - I'm sure there are lots of smart people in the US who can come up with anonymous, auditable voting systems that work.
It's just hypocrisy.
Just like when Hamas won the elections (not even a surprise result), the US doesn't want to accept that. I'm not saying it's a great result, but hey sure seems likely that the people there wanted Hamas.
Even two-bit dictators make sure when they rig elections they don't have negative votes, or more votes than voters.
But in the US... What is really bad is the US citizens just let all that pass.
Makes you wonder what is going on. Are you all drugged or what?
A penny to access your own thoughts?
Or $2.95?
Whatever.
Also in html there isn't a tag that can turn off active content. You have to go figure out what active content there is and disable it. This is relevant when you are displaying HTML from other people - advertisers, 3rd parties, users.
It's like having 100 "GO!" buttons, and no "Stop!" button. You have to make sure all the "Go!" buttons aren't pressed.
If in the future you have a new "Go!" button - making it 101 go buttons, your old code might not disable it.
Whereas if you had a "Stop!" button that meant "stop all active content" it would still work.
I did try proposing to the HTML/W3C people to make a "disable active content" tag (you could in theory have "disable all" or only "enable selected"), but nobody was interested.
It's still gay though.
Is this a way to hype up demand for DRM tech?
Some people say ATI is being really stupid.
But are they really stupid, or is someone really really cunning and ATI got paid off to "screw up".
This way with all the fuss etc, Joe Public will go: "Wow my next video card MUST HAVE HDCP".
So who's being stupid here?
It'll be really funny if running an "IE vmware player" actually uses less mem and CPU than firefox.
Might even be safer...
Oh well, time to switch to Opera I guess.
I'm not a smoker, but I bet it's even better if Da Boss is out of smokes, and you offer him one of your ciggies...
;).
Talk about creating opportunities
Now that doesn't work if you're a nonsmoker - you can't offer a spare cig if you don't smoke yourself - even if you somehow had one, it just won't look right.
Isn't javascript just as guilty or even worse?
There must be tons of PHBs who lump java and javascript together and make many stupid decisions as a result.
" "I am not a luddite, far from it. I'd rather see _real_ improvements."
Like what? There have been many attempts at doing something else than a desktop. The thing is, nothing beats it."
Like the "scrollbar"? That was a major advance wasn't it?
And the taskbar. It sure took a while before the taskbar became commonplace. A taskbar that didn't get covered by other stuff.
I think those are greater and more useful improvements than transparent windows. I'm sure you can think of others.
It would be quite remarkable if there is little else we can do to improve things as significantly.
It is telling that in one of the videos (the zoom one?) they talk about the animations making the desktop feel more "physical" (as if it's a good thing). D'oh! Why should we want to be artificially limited to something similar to common physics? Fine if it's for a game, but for a UI?
If you wanted to travel from home to work, I bet if you had the choice most of the time you'd rather teleport directly and instantaneously (almost everything else being equal - safety, energy+monetary costs). Making stuff more "physical" is overrated.
OK it's a waste of GPU. Happy now?
Also, not all desktops have GPUs fast enough to support all that. I suppose this would make the hardware manufacturers pretty happy eh? All the integrated graphics chips would need to be higher spec'ed.
For very little UI/usability gain, this sort of stuff would make machines that were perfectly decent, slower and less responsive.
I am not a luddite, far from it. I'd rather see _real_ improvements.
Not "Ricer UI".
BTW I wonder if the 2D performance of video cards has actually improved over the years, I recall getting a 3D vid card a few years ago and noticing the 2D performance was poorer than my old 2D video card - lower fps in software rendering mode. Don't see many 2D benchmarks being done nowadays...
I did watch the videos.
> this</a> would be more helpful.
The Macintosh, Amiga, Atari etc drew windows just fine and that was 20 years ago, on machines 500-1000 times slower. The Apple IIGS only drew windows fine with 8MHz or higher CPU accelerator chips and on later GS/OS versions - the standard speed was only 2.5-2.8MHz.
So I find it hard to be impressed with animated transparent windows more than TWO DECADES after those GUIs. I've recently seen one demo where the windows wobble when you drag them around - not sure why of all things.
For one, I'm weird I guess, but I don't normally need to move windows around much, I usually prefer them fully maximized. I just switch from window to window - in fact it's often easier to do quick compares of similar stuff by tabbing between windows.
The desktop organisation thingy in the demo would suck with 20+ windows (a few ssh windows, source, docs, browsers etc it adds up). Why would anyone need to resize and tile windows, and then only select them, when they've already got this nifty thing called the Taskbar. Maybe they just need to improve the taskbar so people can identify tasks more distinctly.
I think some thing like <a href="http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=121349"
Button bounce? Well that hasn't been a problem for me.
In fact, you sure it's not caused by all those delays? Having to click more times due to the sub menus not opening immediately - and thus you clicking to open them. More clicks = more chances for errors.
If you have problems releasing fast enough, have you tried it Apple/Mac style? Keep holding the button down after click, and release only when the cursor is on top of the item you want to select.
" watching someone get through their daily grind faster "
How is all that animation stuff going to make things faster? It's faster to just display/vanish a window immediately, rather than draw the animations. You could of course do the animations in a "ghostlike/background" way, and allow immediate access to whatever is now actually on top, but the animations could still be distracting and get in the way.
Experienced[1] workers really wanting to do stuff faster should get rid of these "cutscenes".
Now, something like this might make things faster: Bug 121349: Allow direct selection of last active tasks with keystrokes / key combos
You can do this one already: custom keyed menu sequences.
[1]
How many of you would get confused by things appearing/disappearing immediately when they are consistent with _your_ intended actions? You click on close and a window vanishes immediately. I call that good, not confusing, it's more likely to be annoying/confusing/worrying if you click on close and a window doesn't close.
Whatever, it's still a waste and a disappointment.
I wouldn't mind except that it's been 30 years, and computers are thousands of times faster with magnitudes more storage.
And here we are getting excited about transparent wobbly windows?
OK, maybe Mr Englebart was way too advanced for his time. So lets call it 20 years since Apple, Amiga, Atari etc. If we have such low expectations no wonder we're still stuck with such crappy automotive and aerospace tech too.
Yeah, imagine if you ended up with "God mode", but nobody is around to play with you or wants to.
That's not what I call progress.
;) ), I sure won't want to waste it waiting for inane animations by silly developers trying to show how clever they think they are.
*paste rant*
Having animations and other silly stuff (like _pauses_ before actions)just adds latency, and wastes CPU.
If I could choose a "low latency/delay" theme or option then that would be great.
I would have thought that most experienced users would know where their gui stuff (windows, dialog boxes, menus etc) went without needing any animations to give them a clue- progress/status indicators excluded of course.
All this waiting half a second or so before actually doing the stuff is ridiculous. Like requiring pauses before opening submenus. I can understand that immediately opening and drawing large submenus in the days of MHz processors and slow 2D cards can slow down your computer to unproductive levels. But the last I checked my PC was running significantly faster than 1.5GHz.
If there's going to be any time wasting or procrastination done, it should NOT be by the computer.
Leave the time wasting to the humans. Human time is more important than computer time. And like most people, I've only got a finite time left on this world and if I'm going to waste it (like most people here
I remember recently people here were complaining about annoying cut scenes in games.
Well those animations are just like those cut scenes in games. Sure if you can interrupt the animations on-the-fly then it's not so terrible, but uh, it's still going to get quite old after the nth time...
That sort of thing mostly belongs in some "Pimp My GUI" TV show, or fan-boy/"ricer" gatherings.
It's like having your car engine spin some colourful nonfunctional propeller just because it looks cool. Or having your expensive semi-automatic car's UI make cute noises and flash pastel numbers before shifting to the appropriate gear. If I'm going to have my car engine spin something it's got to be something useful like a supercharger or aircond compresser. If my car is going to flash something on my windscreen it should flash an extrapolated icon of a toddler hidden _behind_ a parked car, based on the legs it spotted under that parked car, especially if the toddler is moving towards my path (I don't think very highly of cars that drive themselves - given the sort of "geniuses" around, it's not going to happen within a decade or maybe even two, but there are so many ways that cars could help drivers drive better).
Let's see some real progress OK?
Most of the stuff we currently have on our computers is not really that advanced _conceptually_ from what Douglas Englebart demonstrated nearly 30 years ago. Just compare the Novell demo, current popular GUIs and Englebart's demo - 30 years and that's it?
So it's very disappointing to see the proclaimed "state of the art" in GUIs seems to be the equivalent of blue LEDs on cooling fans.
Anyway the future would probably be "thought macros". Initially it'll probably start with users training their "artificial brain augmenters" by thinking of some arbitrary thing/item/concept and then associating it with an action they want the computer to do.
The thought recognition thing is there - just mostly only done on nonhumans so far.
Combine that with an enhancement of the "seeing with tongue" technology and you'd have input/output.
Add wireless technology and enhanced "home automation" and you'd have virtual telepathy and virtual telekinesis.
I still find it kind of weird though.
If it was an environment with reasonably large predators, then most animals small enough to be picked up by a human wouldn't want to be close to any strange unknown animal.
It must be a relatively safe environment then? Either that or the animals could sense that they weren't in any danger and there are very few sneaky/deceptive predators there[1]?
Anyway, IMO it's usually not really a matter of "learning to be afraid", it's more like the fearless and ignorant get killed.
Most of the mice and small creatures (geckos) out there don't have to learn to run away - those that didn't run away died out long ago.
I wonder if we are getting a higher percentage of "fearless" (low sense of self-preservation) humans given the relatively safe environments many of us live in nowadays.
[1] humans can be a deceitful bunch. They could pretend to not be interested in killing the animal, and next thing you know, wham!
"my IMs are private and if I don't log 'em, they don't get logged."
Uh, if you don't just talk to yourself, the other party could log your IMs too.
Anyway, anyone in between (ISPs, company, wireless provider, 3 letter agencies) can log the data.
Practically all popular IM's send messages in plaintext. Even if you use encryption, the other party may wish to save it in plaintext...
D'oh. This sounds as funny as that "ultra stable C++" ask slashdot... ;)
;) ).
;) ).
;).
;).
Wouldn't that mean not needing that much heating? Will be just like those bunny rabbits providing heat (in more ways than one perhaps)?
If you really need your computers on all the time and want to cut on bills, each of you should get a tent and set it up in your rooms. In winter put the computer in the tent and run Folding@Home or something similar for heating, that way you can live reasonably comfortably in the tent, and leave the central heating off or on low (if that's possible - I'm sure you'd still need hot running water for showers
If you're in England and not somewhere like Scotland, the weather isn't what I'd call harsh - I used to study in Manchester, and it was ok (drizzly and/or overcast most days though, except for exam season
Seriously though, I think that while bills are important considerations, you need to get other things right first and then the bill issue becomes more manageable. You get the other stuff wrong, and you might end up with half the household leaving without notice.
Anyway some random thoughts:
Set your priorities and just cut down on your expenses- beer, tobacco, "new mobile phone that you really don't need" and you'd probably have quite a bit to live on.
I believe the meters are "self-read", so it might be a good idea to update the companies regularly, so that you don't end up with something really huge at an inconvenient point - not everyone in the household might be able to cope with paying that amount.
Assuming not everyone is competent at managing their money, you may also wish to have a pool of money which everyone pays a fixed sum into each month, and any amount leftover is refunded at end of the lease period. Better pick someone you can trust for that
The idea is to not end up short of some huge amount "by surprise", and then have to go look for money and possibly end up neglecting your studies etc.
Also, you may have to figure out whether things like certain meals/cooking are shared. "Eating out" in the UK isn't what I'd call cheap. But sharing say the evening meal and cooking AND the necessary grocery shopping would require a fair bit of compromises and cooperation. Might be rather difficult if you have a vegan and a "carnivore" in your household, or even a practising muslim/jew (halal/kosher food only).
While in Manchester, a bunch of us used to share one meal and groceries, but one of us opted out of it in the end. Can't remember why. Maybe it was our cooking (we took turns though)
I don't know what your point is.
;).
It is obvious that cops have different rules from normal citizens. They are authorized to use deadly force under some circumstances.
I'm proposing a rules-of-engagement to govern the interactions between citizens and cops so that many unnecessary problems can be avoided.
The normal laws don't cover everything. It's like the difference between corporate policies and standard operating procedures in a department.
I'm sure the cops have their own SOPs however there doesn't appear to be a publicized one for cop-citizen interaction.
Just because both cops and citizens have a big bunch of rights and powers, doesn't mean there can't be recommended ways of exercising recommended rights to smoothen most common interactions.
An example:
A citizen is walking slowly up and down a dark street at night.
A cop finding that suspicious could challenge that citizen.
There are valid and legal reasons for a citizen to behave in that manner, and there are many legal ways a cop could challenge that citizen, and many legal ways a citizen could respond to that challenge.
However, not all the possible ways are good or safe.
I recall someone here complaining about a cop for challenging him for "behaving suspiciously" when he did something like that, and he responded kinda sarcastically, and the cop then said something to the effect that the cop was keeping an eye on him. But I think the cop was just trying to do his job - how else could he challenge someone he thinks is a burglar or someone up to no good?
Now if the cop showed his suspicion in a "proper way", and the citizen is familiar with the procedure, no offence should be taken by the citizen, and there wouldn't be unnecessary rudeness. A burglar challenged in that way would still be at least slightly discouraged from breaking into a house whilst the cop was still about
Another example is - what is the recommended way to take out your wallet or whatever it is, in order to show the cop your ID? After all if it is done in the wrong way and the wrong moment, you could get shot because the cop thinks you might be pulling out a weapon. So perhaps the recommended procedure is to NOT show your ID unless explicitly requested. If a cop thinks it is unsafe, the cop should apologize and request you to get into a position where the cop can safely retrieve your ID.
A possible way to challenge a suspected fake cop is to request that the cop summon backup over the radio. Of course the citizen should then be forced to stand in a neutral+safe position till backup arrives. And the cop should remain at also a fairly neutral distance away.
If the fake cops provide the whole stuff - fake "HQ", sirens etc, you're probably in deeper shit than you can cope (since if you were prepared for that you wouldn't bother waiting for the fake backups to arrive).
Given a significant percentage of bad/incompetent cops, I'm sure people will have a hard time of deciding whether to run and be blown away, or not run and be blown away.
There needs to be a well thought out and publicized official "Rules of Engagement" that makes it clear what cops and citizens are recommended to do in _practical_ situations when they interact. And all cops and citizens should follow it to avoid misunderstandings or things escalating.
Suicide... complete destruction of the software used.
Move along, nothing to see here...
Yeah right...
Haven't you seen people do something like the following:
Give you a bunch of cards saying "pick a card any card, but just one...".
It doesn't matter which card you pick, your choice already has been predetermined.
This is especially true in the US, since the top US politicians need lot of money to get anywhere in politics (unlike in some other countries where this is regulated, and so it is a bit harder).
The various companies (or rich) will sponsor (pick) the politicians from _any_ of the parties, who they think have a chance AND will support their goals. Politicians who don't support their goals don't get money.
Of course there are still differences between the parties, but over time, the companies will tend to get what they want - those who support them rise to the top, and those who don't stay stuck at the bottom.
According to opensecrets.org,for the 2004 election, Bush received and spent USD300+ million, and so did Kerry.
The other four presidential candidates in the running (excludes those who dropped out) received and spent less than USD 8 million.
The really rich usually aren't that stupid, they know a bit about "investing".
Of course I could be wrong, and the past US governments have not consistently favoured the rich and powerful...
Even if it hasn't yet, given the design/architecture of the US election process and system, I think you'd eventually get a plutocracy.