Too much of Latex's document design is prefabricated. It is completely unsuited for commercial print design -- books included.
The whole idea of TeX is to automate layout! Naturally it can't do the same work as a top-notch book designer laying out each page by hand in Quark or Pagemaker. A TeX-produced book will never win a Franklin award. But for everything short of that, it does an excellent job, with very little effort, and a huge labor savings.
Look at an O'Reilly book sometime -- the nicest looking computer books around. The beauty of TeX is that I can make my docs look *like that,* which is better than what my collegues can do with Frame. And it definately gives me a competitive edge. Not to mention the greater flexibility of DocBook source files, which can be searched, indexed, transformed, converted, etc.
Frame is the tech writing industry standard for anything bigger than what Word can handle. If you're going for any tech writing work of consequence, you'd better be handy with Frame.
Unfortunately, tech writers seem to march to the Microsoft drummer in general. I doubt many will care about Frame for OSX.
Selective Availability has mostly been turned off, but it still comes on occasionally, during military exercises or whatever. Warnings are issued over marine radio etc. when SA is to be in effect.
Most of the time, accuracy is indeed better than 10 feet. In my experience, it's actually about a meter.
I find Total Recorder very useful too. Just paying $12 for it is easier than trying to find free programs to do the same thing. What's your time worth? I searched for weeks to find something that would record streaming radio broadcasts on Windows (Linux can do this all by itself, with a few command line untilities piped together). Anyway, Total Recorder was the only thing I could find, free or not.
A problem with developing this kind of software is needing proprietary libraries, etc. So virtually all software of this type is non-free. Total Recorder gets around this by recording the output of the sound card. Methinks Java could be used for this and it could be cross-platform, but so far no one's bothered.
The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. Patents are granted too liberally in order to generate fees. There's a negative incentive to deny patents, which is one reason why we have so many bad ones.
The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. There's too much incentive to grant patents, in order to generate fees. Contracting the work out would only increase this profit incentive, and make the situation worse.
I saw the head of Nasa on TV yesterday, talking about Hubble's cancellation. The counter argument was that Hubble's best years are ahead of it -- the next planned service mission will increase Hubble's resolution dramatically. We can already look almost into the origin of the Universe. An improved Hubble may let us to do exactly that.
This probably scares the shit out of the Religious Right. The last thing they want is more evidence that Science has the answers. The Bush administration is well known for being shameless idealogues, pandering the the Religious Right, while giving other reasons for policy changes. So one wonders about anti-science forces working behind the scenes on this one. It's Galileo vs. The Church, all over again.
When I went to Cal Poly, the snotty people from Harvey Mudd and Caltech were saying the same thing about Cal Poly -- that "state university" people weren't smart enough to be genuine engineers, so they shouldn't give out real engineering degrees at state universities! Cal Poly graduates were only supposed to be capable of assembly line drudgery at aerospace firms, or technical sales jobs -- the "Indian programmers" of their day! "Real" engineering was done by people from Caltech or MIT.
But then getting into the best schools got a lot harder. People started to think better of state school grads, and looking down on technical schools like DeVry. But lo and behold, DeVry now offers 4 year engineering degrees, and is fully accredited. What is this world coming to?
Everything ESR says is a rant! He may be a great programmer, and he may have some great ideas. But even when he's right, he comes across as a sophomoric jackass. When I read one of his diatribes, I feel like I'm sitting in a coffeehouse at 3AM with a bunch of 20 year old philosophy students from a third rate university. So I think "rant" and "out of touch" characterize ESR very well. Grow up, Richard, and get a job (a real one).
Amusing, but seriously, marketing majors and *professional* marketing people are rarely responsible for problem spam. The kind of spammers we hate are usually people who never went to college, and became bottom-feeders instead. I don't think you'll find too many MBAs in the porn industry, the illegal drug/supplement industry, or the pyramid scheme industry.
I travel to Canada a lot, often for weeks at a time. The last few years, I've gotten all my medical "maintenance" taken care of up there, because it's so much cheaper. An optometrist in southern CA costs over $100. Even in "expensive" Vancouver, it's $60 Canadian, or $45 US -- less than half the price. So I have a Canadian optometrist, dentist, chiropractor, and sports therapist. I'm thinking about LASIK, and I'd definately get that done up there too.
Similarly, a lot of Americans get stuff done in Mexico, particularly dentistry and plastic surgery. All we hear about are the wacky cancer treatments, but the market for the mundane stuff is many times bigger.
Note to all you contractors and self-employed people out there -- while the IRS lets you deduct all your medical expenses now, you still have to spend it first. And spending less is still spending less, tax deduction or no...
Java Web Start offers one-click downloading and installation on any OS or desktop. It works beautifully. The trouble is getting developers to use it. Most don't program in Java to being with, and if they do, they insist on native installation routines, etc.
Similarly, InstallAnywhere, the ubiquitous Windows installer, is actually a cross-paltform Java application. It allows a developer to plug in routines to install an app on any system -- Windows, Mac, or Unix/Linux. The trouble is getting developers to actually do that.
The bottom line is that the system isn't the issue. Cross-compatibility doesn't matter anymore. Developers only care about the proverbial "middle 50%" of the market, which is Windows. So that's all they bother to develop for.
Good laptops have relatively quiet keyboards and silent pointing devices. They're expensive, but well worth it -- two semesters of restful nights are easily worth two grand. Not to mention the savings in dormroom real estate, and superior ergonomics. I frequently put in 12 hour days w/ my laptop, and I'll never go back to a desktop.
By all means take the usual Computer Science or Computer Engineering, but -- get some experience. ASAP, get a job doing something related to networks -- whether it's adminning Cisco gear, servicing small offices, or just pulling cable, it all helps. Working summers and weekends will help you pay for school. But more importantly it will help you understand what you're studying in school. Finally, it will give you the experience you'll need to get a good job after college. It's not just about having "x" years of experience as a bargaining chip -- it's about knowing what to do in the real world, and being able to hit the ground running.
911 works by resolving your home address through the POTS network, so when you go off POTS you lose 911 service. This is definately something to think about. You can always program emergency numbers into your phone, but it won't help you if you're incapacitated and can't give directions. Even a 3 year old can dial 911, and help will arrive automatically.
I'm a big fan of streaming Java, such as that offered by Hello Network. It runs in a Java applet, so it doesn't require a special player. Server side costs are about the same as with commercial grade versions of competing products. Quality at low bitrate levels is comparable too. I can't understand why streaming Java isn't more popular. Hello Network's major markets seem to be corporate conferences, and porn -- both of which benefit greatly from idiot-proof player software.
I've found the best Windows help to be on the microsoft.public newsgroups. Most ISPs carry them. If yours doesn't, you can connect to msnews.microsoft.com
Stick to this issues, ask good questions, and refrain from adolescent anti-Microsoft and pro-Unix rants, and you'll get plenty of good advice. Don't do this, and you'll be ignored.
...it's reliability. Now that broadband is taking over, dialup access has fallen by the wayside. Dial-in POPs have no capacity, aren't maintained properly, and reliability sucks. And the more you get out into the hinterland, where broadband access is a problem, the worse it is with dialup too. 56k? You're lucky if you can get 28k, and keep a connection for more than 5 minutes.
...has become more and more about finding places with cheaper and cheaper rent, because you can no longer make enough money to live in a real city with real internet access!
Slashdot Mirror
Too much of Latex's document design is prefabricated. It is completely unsuited for commercial print design -- books included.
The whole idea of TeX is to automate layout! Naturally it can't do the same work as a top-notch book designer laying out each page by hand in Quark or Pagemaker. A TeX-produced book will never win a Franklin award. But for everything short of that, it does an excellent job, with very little effort, and a huge labor savings.
Look at an O'Reilly book sometime -- the nicest looking computer books around. The beauty of TeX is that I can make my docs look *like that,* which is better than what my collegues can do with Frame. And it definately gives me a competitive edge. Not to mention the greater flexibility of DocBook source files, which can be searched, indexed, transformed, converted, etc.
Frame is the tech writing industry standard for anything bigger than what Word can handle. If you're going for any tech writing work of consequence, you'd better be handy with Frame.
Unfortunately, tech writers seem to march to the Microsoft drummer in general. I doubt many will care about Frame for OSX.
Selective Availability has mostly been turned off, but it still comes on occasionally, during military exercises or whatever. Warnings are issued over marine radio etc. when SA is to be in effect.
Most of the time, accuracy is indeed better than 10 feet. In my experience, it's actually about a meter.
I find Total Recorder very useful too. Just paying $12 for it is easier than trying to find free programs to do the same thing. What's your time worth? I searched for weeks to find something that would record streaming radio broadcasts on Windows (Linux can do this all by itself, with a few command line untilities piped together). Anyway, Total Recorder was the only thing I could find, free or not.
A problem with developing this kind of software is needing proprietary libraries, etc. So virtually all software of this type is non-free. Total Recorder gets around this by recording the output of the sound card. Methinks Java could be used for this and it could be cross-platform, but so far no one's bothered.
Does anyone know what the free software package is?
Betcha it's SME Server: http://www.e-smith.org
The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. Patents are granted too liberally in order to generate fees. There's a negative incentive to deny patents, which is one reason why we have so many bad ones.
The trouble with the Patent Office is that it's being used as a cash cow. There's too much incentive to grant patents, in order to generate fees. Contracting the work out would only increase this profit incentive, and make the situation worse.
I saw the head of Nasa on TV yesterday, talking about Hubble's cancellation. The counter argument was that Hubble's best years are ahead of it -- the next planned service mission will increase Hubble's resolution dramatically. We can already look almost into the origin of the Universe. An improved Hubble may let us to do exactly that.
This probably scares the shit out of the Religious Right. The last thing they want is more evidence that Science has the answers. The Bush administration is well known for being shameless idealogues, pandering the the Religious Right, while giving other reasons for policy changes. So one wonders about anti-science forces working behind the scenes on this one. It's Galileo vs. The Church, all over again.
Darl McBride obviously suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder. He *wishes* he were important enough to get death threats!
This is why auto mechanics will always have work. Same with plumbers, electricians, and hairdressers (now *there's* a lucrative career).
Of course, most auto mechanics these days are recent immigrants, willing to work for a lot less than the average middle-class-or-better white boy...
When I went to Cal Poly, the snotty people from Harvey Mudd and Caltech were saying the same thing about Cal Poly -- that "state university" people weren't smart enough to be genuine engineers, so they shouldn't give out real engineering degrees at state universities! Cal Poly graduates were only supposed to be capable of assembly line drudgery at aerospace firms, or technical sales jobs -- the "Indian programmers" of their day! "Real" engineering was done by people from Caltech or MIT.
But then getting into the best schools got a lot harder. People started to think better of state school grads, and looking down on technical schools like DeVry. But lo and behold, DeVry now offers 4 year engineering degrees, and is fully accredited. What is this world coming to?
Grow up, Richard, and get a job (a real one).
Sorry, I meant Eric, not Richard...
Everything ESR says is a rant! He may be a great programmer, and he may have some great ideas. But even when he's right, he comes across as a sophomoric jackass. When I read one of his diatribes, I feel like I'm sitting in a coffeehouse at 3AM with a bunch of 20 year old philosophy students from a third rate university. So I think "rant" and "out of touch" characterize ESR very well. Grow up, Richard, and get a job (a real one).
Kill all the Marketing Majors.
Amusing, but seriously, marketing majors and *professional* marketing people are rarely responsible for problem spam. The kind of spammers we hate are usually people who never went to college, and became bottom-feeders instead. I don't think you'll find too many MBAs in the porn industry, the illegal drug/supplement industry, or the pyramid scheme industry.
I travel to Canada a lot, often for weeks at a time. The last few years, I've gotten all my medical "maintenance" taken care of up there, because it's so much cheaper. An optometrist in southern CA costs over $100. Even in "expensive" Vancouver, it's $60 Canadian, or $45 US -- less than half the price. So I have a Canadian optometrist, dentist, chiropractor, and sports therapist. I'm thinking about LASIK, and I'd definately get that done up there too.
Similarly, a lot of Americans get stuff done in Mexico, particularly dentistry and plastic surgery. All we hear about are the wacky cancer treatments, but the market for the mundane stuff is many times bigger.
Note to all you contractors and self-employed people out there -- while the IRS lets you deduct all your medical expenses now, you still have to spend it first. And spending less is still spending less, tax deduction or no...
Way cooler...
What apps? Please name a significant one.
InstallAnywhere, the cross-platform installer which is the industry standard for Windows apps, is a Java program.
Java Web Start offers one-click downloading and installation on any OS or desktop. It works beautifully. The trouble is getting developers to use it. Most don't program in Java to being with, and if they do, they insist on native installation routines, etc.
Similarly, InstallAnywhere, the ubiquitous Windows installer, is actually a cross-paltform Java application. It allows a developer to plug in routines to install an app on any system -- Windows, Mac, or Unix/Linux. The trouble is getting developers to actually do that.
The bottom line is that the system isn't the issue. Cross-compatibility doesn't matter anymore. Developers only care about the proverbial "middle 50%" of the market, which is Windows. So that's all they bother to develop for.
Good laptops have relatively quiet keyboards and silent pointing devices. They're expensive, but well worth it -- two semesters of restful nights are easily worth two grand. Not to mention the savings in dormroom real estate, and superior ergonomics. I frequently put in 12 hour days w/ my laptop, and I'll never go back to a desktop.
By all means take the usual Computer Science or Computer Engineering, but -- get some experience. ASAP, get a job doing something related to networks -- whether it's adminning Cisco gear, servicing small offices, or just pulling cable, it all helps. Working summers and weekends will help you pay for school. But more importantly it will help you understand what you're studying in school. Finally, it will give you the experience you'll need to get a good job after college. It's not just about having "x" years of experience as a bargaining chip -- it's about knowing what to do in the real world, and being able to hit the ground running.
911 works by resolving your home address through the POTS network, so when you go off POTS you lose 911 service. This is definately something to think about. You can always program emergency numbers into your phone, but it won't help you if you're incapacitated and can't give directions. Even a 3 year old can dial 911, and help will arrive automatically.
I'm a big fan of streaming Java, such as that offered by Hello Network. It runs in a Java applet, so it doesn't require a special player. Server side costs are about the same as with commercial grade versions of competing products. Quality at low bitrate levels is comparable too. I can't understand why streaming Java isn't more popular. Hello Network's major markets seem to be corporate conferences, and porn -- both of which benefit greatly from idiot-proof player software.
I've found the best Windows help to be on the microsoft.public newsgroups. Most ISPs carry them. If yours doesn't, you can connect to msnews.microsoft.com
Stick to this issues, ask good questions, and refrain from adolescent anti-Microsoft and pro-Unix rants, and you'll get plenty of good advice. Don't do this, and you'll be ignored.
...it's reliability. Now that broadband is taking over, dialup access has fallen by the wayside. Dial-in POPs have no capacity, aren't maintained properly, and reliability sucks. And the more you get out into the hinterland, where broadband access is a problem, the worse it is with dialup too. 56k? You're lucky if you can get 28k, and keep a connection for more than 5 minutes.
...has become more and more about finding places with cheaper and cheaper rent, because you can no longer make enough money to live in a real city with real internet access!