those same fundamentalist christians will say that a catholic school isn't really christian because catholics aren't really christians. i've known too many people who were "born again".
i agree though... i went to catholic school and even though there was a disclaimer in bio class, the teacher said "this goes against some of the catholic teachings, but it's science and we feel it's important you know this". or something to that extent. and then she taught us all about darwin and evolution...
you do know the mysearch bar is actually spyware, right? that's one thing i get rid of... but i don't have to do it through add/remove programs... in fact, i never remove anything through add/remove programs except new.net (apparently adaware and spybot don't recognize that) and viewpoint-related stuff. but mysearch is picked up quite nicely by adaware and spybot and removed. know what you're using before you use it. i assume you didn't put it there, it was probably put there by kazaa or grokster and you just started using it, right?
the entire first page of a google search using "hijackthis" as the search term is legit links. the first 7 are links to download it. the last 3 look like they're info on the log files and how to read them and what they mean. if you've never used hijackthis, check out those links. i think there's also a small tutorial at www.merijn.org.
mod this guy up... even though he's AC and saying linux isn't as good, he's got a very valid point. if you're not a linux expert, getting the computer to do exactly what you want is not all that easy and can take quite a bit more time than with windows.
and i want to use linux even less just because the fanatics are the most annoying people you could possibly meet... windows isn't all bad. and don't give me the crap about how much extra time it takes to secure windows... it doesn't take all that much time and you can avoid the spyware problems and viruses pretty easily if you know what you're doing (or even if you don't know that much about what you're doing).
the one thing you left out... displays where the one-way streets are. i use mapquest and yahoo maps for my needs (actually, since i moved to RI, i've been using yahoo maps because mapquest can't seem to get RI right). mapquest has arrows in the one-way streets, yahoo does not. google should add these, makes it easier when looking at a map and planning your own route.
almost all of that contact solution stuff is pretty much the same. i have heard of people having certain brands affect their eyes. but generally it's the same stuff, including in the generic brands... you don't actually think walmart makes contact lens solution, medicine, batteries, etc, do you?
and yes, i know if you actually rub them, they last longer... no way i'll end up doing that unless they're not lasting me the 2 weeks... it's just a nuisance really. i hate taking them in and out as is... but they're better for certain weather (or all weather) than glasses.
dell is making a pretty good sized profit from each of those categories. they are not reducint consumer confidence because the consumer doesn't know any better. the majority of the people on slashdot either don't buy from dell or just got a good tip on how to get the best price from dell.
define daily use vs. multi-use. to me daily use means you wear them once and throw them away. multi-use, you wear them for a week or 2 or maybe a month and then throw them out.
mine are 2 weeks. i can wear them longer if i so choose, and sometimes i do if i forget to switch them or if a new shipment is late.
however... you're wrong in saying multi-use contacts cost more. maybe they do per pair, but if you actually do what's told, your daily use ones cost more. and at least with mine, if i wear mine for more than 3 weeks they start to burn, of course that depends on how long i wear them each day (usually 16 hours) or what i'm doing while wearing them (anything athletic where sweat or dust or dirt gets in my eyes reduces the amount of time i can wear them. but generally i stick to 2 weeks because i wear them for longer than you're supposed to each day.
no laws specifically state every little thing. they can technically consider a programmable calculator to be a computer. but i have a feeling it's jsut a calculator to them. and i have a feeling the telephone falls under the "similar devices" category. your laptop is not exempt under section 4 because it is not a calculator, plain and simple. i want to see you hold it for half an hour and type like that without dropping it. and if you can, you either have really good balance or you're a robot. and if you're a robot, you probably cost $10 more after this law is passed.;)
seriously... you're being a dumb college student saying taht your laptop is a calculator... although given that it's a dell, it's worth not much more than one... biggest problem laptops i've seen recently have come from dell...
there are updates to older versions of windows. they all just work out of the box. now i'm sure most slashdotters will come and say windows sucks, linux rules, but the fact of the matter is, if you want an easy to use system out of the box, windows is the answer hands down (with the only exception being apple).
there seems to be more of a discount on the education side too. i have been thinking about getting a 17" powerbook for a while now and working in a college, i get the discount (although technically, i think anyone can get that discount since i don't think they verify that you work in a college or are a student if you buy it online). regardless... i'm pretty sure the discount was $200 off the 17", now it's $300. i could be wrong...
do they actually offer pop3 mail for subscribers now? the biggest issue i had with using aol was that i had other email addresses that i couldn't send mail from when i was connected to aol. they don't have an smtp server that i could use to send mail (actually they did at one point and turned off access to it to send mail from outside addresses). i no longer use aol, this was years ago. i haven't seen it in a long time.
there's a difference between simply lying and having other aspects of your life that your parents don't know about. while you could be teh same person they knew, there's things that they just don't need to know. like take a distinguished lawyer who is great at what he does and people think he's amazing... but if they find out he's a deadhead who smokes a ton of pot, they'll think he's a loser and completely lose respect for him. take a wealthy business man, makes a ton of money owns a baseball team, lots of money in oil... people find out he snorts a ton of coke, barely graduated from yale, and had a major drinking problem and he becomes president... ok, bad example.
anyway, the point is that people can live great lives and have something about them that their parents don't know about that doesn't change who they are, but could change someone else's perspective of them.
my email may not necessarily represent the me that my parents want to remember. therefore, i would not necessarily give them access to my email to begin with. there's a reason it's mine and only mine. my parents only know the me that they saw, not the me that others may have seen, which may be reflected in emails. maybe they're proud of something about him or proud that he wasn't something. why should they have access to something and learn that he was really not what they thought?
while your posts stinks of hatred... how about a customized car stereo thing, explaining what stuff does? amplifires, specialized cable to reduce interference, frequencies put out by certain speakers, etc.
also, how about a DIY car mp3 player connecting a laptop to a car stereo or something?
you really have a poor idea of what the majority of american students are like. just because TV has shows like pimp your ride or whatever doesn't mean that's what the kids are like. sure they're fun to watch, i've watched it, it's cute. a lot of people who are into that stuff are also into science and computers. i'm not even touching on those who are into cars and know all the mechanics of it (which is a pretty high percentage of high school students).
i think you should give them more credit. a lot of what they do in their spare time has nothing to do with what they're really into half the time. a lot of what they watch is just to say they watch it. so don't judge people on what they watch on tv or what they listen to for music...
ummm... this has nothing to do with apple doing no wrong. what apple did wasn't wrong. real networks hacked apple to play real networks' proprietary drm-scheme. apple found the flaw and fixed it. do you want to support drm protected files?
i beg to differ. while yes, i admit that i know some computer savvy, techie people who are smart and still haev spyware on their machines, it's not anywhere near as bad as the less savvy people i see. i do this stuff for a living. i see a lot of computers each week. the biggest problem is spyware/adware stuff. some have viruses, but when we give out managed virus software, it limits them. the people who come in who seem to know what they're doing don't have anywhere near the number of infections that those who have no clue have. i hear things like "oh, i thought that away message that said "OMG!! LOOK AT THESE PICS!" was a real link to pics (if you don't know that one, it's an AIM hijacker, links to a.scr file). or how about "the page said i was infected so i clicked the link to clean my computer, it hasn't been the same since." right... yeah, people who know anything don't click those.
i'm not making excuses for MS, but you should realize that the worst infections, sometimes nearly beyond cleanup are not the savvy people. i haven't had an infection on my personal machine ever if i think about it. i probably wouldn't even run virus software if i wasn't receiving viruses in emails from members of discussion lists i belong to. for the record, i do run anti-virus, i run win2k, and i use firefox (IE for windows updates and IE-specific pages only).
i don't blame it entirely on MS though. it's possible to combat it, it's possible to avoid it, it's possible that other operating systems would have similar issues if they were as mainstream as windows.
i am confused by the point you are trying to make. you compare your use of your car to the average computer user's use of his computer. you have other people take care of your car when something goes wrong, just like the average computer user goes to someone to have their computer taken care of when something goes wrong.
while you do mention preventative maintenance, like oil changes, you don't do it yourself. you also don't prevent everything from occurring by checking ever little bit of your car. you do it on your computer though, but there's still those things you just can't avoid (random hardware failure).
now while most people who have computers don't perform the preventative maintenance (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc), they do know someone who will fix it for free or cheap. a car is far more expensive than a computer to replace or repair, and it's a much more important tool for most people.
so while it's great that you're all l33t, there are plenty of people who feel for cars what you feel about computers, yet they know nothing about computers. the same goes for other "necessities" as well (plumbing, electric wiring, etc).
now while you can re-brand and correctly setup windows and sell it at a premium, you would still need third party software to keep it running smoothly. think of the third party software as you getting your oil changed ever 3000 miles. so now if your car started to have problems, nothing catastrophic, but something you can have fixed... would you just throw out your car? most of the problems people have with their computers are things that are easily fixed in about an hour, maybe even less. sounds familiar, huh? things like replacing a muffler or brakes or belts and hoses. they're all a fraction of the cost of a new car. and i know about car problems myself... mine is 15 years old and has "broken down" once (in quotes because i could still drive it, just not in reverse, had the transmission replaced, which was half of what i paid for the car, that was almost 2 years ago and my car will last me another few years). the only people that will pay for a PC that runs as well as a mac are people who have the extra money to spend, and even those people won't when they can buy a dell for $500.
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i believe if you win a case in small claims court, your settlement includes your court costs. or at least it does in some states.
it should be in the science section, but it's important... the bush administration is forcing scientists to ignore science to favor businesses.
those same fundamentalist christians will say that a catholic school isn't really christian because catholics aren't really christians. i've known too many people who were "born again".
i agree though... i went to catholic school and even though there was a disclaimer in bio class, the teacher said "this goes against some of the catholic teachings, but it's science and we feel it's important you know this". or something to that extent. and then she taught us all about darwin and evolution...
you do know the mysearch bar is actually spyware, right? that's one thing i get rid of... but i don't have to do it through add/remove programs... in fact, i never remove anything through add/remove programs except new.net (apparently adaware and spybot don't recognize that) and viewpoint-related stuff. but mysearch is picked up quite nicely by adaware and spybot and removed. know what you're using before you use it. i assume you didn't put it there, it was probably put there by kazaa or grokster and you just started using it, right?
the entire first page of a google search using "hijackthis" as the search term is legit links. the first 7 are links to download it. the last 3 look like they're info on the log files and how to read them and what they mean. if you've never used hijackthis, check out those links. i think there's also a small tutorial at www.merijn.org.
mod this guy up... even though he's AC and saying linux isn't as good, he's got a very valid point. if you're not a linux expert, getting the computer to do exactly what you want is not all that easy and can take quite a bit more time than with windows.
and i want to use linux even less just because the fanatics are the most annoying people you could possibly meet... windows isn't all bad. and don't give me the crap about how much extra time it takes to secure windows... it doesn't take all that much time and you can avoid the spyware problems and viruses pretty easily if you know what you're doing (or even if you don't know that much about what you're doing).
the maker of hijackthis has a website at http://www.merijn.org/
the AC gave a url for spybot... i usually use http://www.safer-networking.org/
the one thing you left out... displays where the one-way streets are. i use mapquest and yahoo maps for my needs (actually, since i moved to RI, i've been using yahoo maps because mapquest can't seem to get RI right). mapquest has arrows in the one-way streets, yahoo does not. google should add these, makes it easier when looking at a map and planning your own route.
and for those of us who can't afford lasik... any suggestions?
almost all of that contact solution stuff is pretty much the same. i have heard of people having certain brands affect their eyes. but generally it's the same stuff, including in the generic brands... you don't actually think walmart makes contact lens solution, medicine, batteries, etc, do you?
and yes, i know if you actually rub them, they last longer... no way i'll end up doing that unless they're not lasting me the 2 weeks... it's just a nuisance really. i hate taking them in and out as is... but they're better for certain weather (or all weather) than glasses.
dell is making a pretty good sized profit from each of those categories. they are not reducint consumer confidence because the consumer doesn't know any better. the majority of the people on slashdot either don't buy from dell or just got a good tip on how to get the best price from dell.
besides... this happens everywhere.
define daily use vs. multi-use. to me daily use means you wear them once and throw them away. multi-use, you wear them for a week or 2 or maybe a month and then throw them out.
mine are 2 weeks. i can wear them longer if i so choose, and sometimes i do if i forget to switch them or if a new shipment is late.
however... you're wrong in saying multi-use contacts cost more. maybe they do per pair, but if you actually do what's told, your daily use ones cost more. and at least with mine, if i wear mine for more than 3 weeks they start to burn, of course that depends on how long i wear them each day (usually 16 hours) or what i'm doing while wearing them (anything athletic where sweat or dust or dirt gets in my eyes reduces the amount of time i can wear them. but generally i stick to 2 weeks because i wear them for longer than you're supposed to each day.
no laws specifically state every little thing. they can technically consider a programmable calculator to be a computer. but i have a feeling it's jsut a calculator to them. and i have a feeling the telephone falls under the "similar devices" category. your laptop is not exempt under section 4 because it is not a calculator, plain and simple. i want to see you hold it for half an hour and type like that without dropping it. and if you can, you either have really good balance or you're a robot. and if you're a robot, you probably cost $10 more after this law is passed. ;)
seriously... you're being a dumb college student saying taht your laptop is a calculator... although given that it's a dell, it's worth not much more than one... biggest problem laptops i've seen recently have come from dell...
there are updates to older versions of windows. they all just work out of the box. now i'm sure most slashdotters will come and say windows sucks, linux rules, but the fact of the matter is, if you want an easy to use system out of the box, windows is the answer hands down (with the only exception being apple).
there seems to be more of a discount on the education side too. i have been thinking about getting a 17" powerbook for a while now and working in a college, i get the discount (although technically, i think anyone can get that discount since i don't think they verify that you work in a college or are a student if you buy it online). regardless... i'm pretty sure the discount was $200 off the 17", now it's $300. i could be wrong...
do they actually offer pop3 mail for subscribers now? the biggest issue i had with using aol was that i had other email addresses that i couldn't send mail from when i was connected to aol. they don't have an smtp server that i could use to send mail (actually they did at one point and turned off access to it to send mail from outside addresses). i no longer use aol, this was years ago. i haven't seen it in a long time.
there's a difference between simply lying and having other aspects of your life that your parents don't know about. while you could be teh same person they knew, there's things that they just don't need to know. like take a distinguished lawyer who is great at what he does and people think he's amazing... but if they find out he's a deadhead who smokes a ton of pot, they'll think he's a loser and completely lose respect for him. take a wealthy business man, makes a ton of money owns a baseball team, lots of money in oil... people find out he snorts a ton of coke, barely graduated from yale, and had a major drinking problem and he becomes president... ok, bad example.
anyway, the point is that people can live great lives and have something about them that their parents don't know about that doesn't change who they are, but could change someone else's perspective of them.
my email may not necessarily represent the me that my parents want to remember. therefore, i would not necessarily give them access to my email to begin with. there's a reason it's mine and only mine. my parents only know the me that they saw, not the me that others may have seen, which may be reflected in emails. maybe they're proud of something about him or proud that he wasn't something. why should they have access to something and learn that he was really not what they thought?
what is this afterlife you speak of and who is God?
and do you have something against gays?
you can play other mp3's that don't come from itunes. where's the drm?
while your posts stinks of hatred... how about a customized car stereo thing, explaining what stuff does? amplifires, specialized cable to reduce interference, frequencies put out by certain speakers, etc.
also, how about a DIY car mp3 player connecting a laptop to a car stereo or something?
you really have a poor idea of what the majority of american students are like. just because TV has shows like pimp your ride or whatever doesn't mean that's what the kids are like. sure they're fun to watch, i've watched it, it's cute. a lot of people who are into that stuff are also into science and computers. i'm not even touching on those who are into cars and know all the mechanics of it (which is a pretty high percentage of high school students).
i think you should give them more credit. a lot of what they do in their spare time has nothing to do with what they're really into half the time. a lot of what they watch is just to say they watch it. so don't judge people on what they watch on tv or what they listen to for music...
yahoo wasn't keeping out drm.
ummm... this has nothing to do with apple doing no wrong. what apple did wasn't wrong. real networks hacked apple to play real networks' proprietary drm-scheme. apple found the flaw and fixed it. do you want to support drm protected files?
i beg to differ. while yes, i admit that i know some computer savvy, techie people who are smart and still haev spyware on their machines, it's not anywhere near as bad as the less savvy people i see. i do this stuff for a living. i see a lot of computers each week. the biggest problem is spyware/adware stuff. some have viruses, but when we give out managed virus software, it limits them. the people who come in who seem to know what they're doing don't have anywhere near the number of infections that those who have no clue have. i hear things like "oh, i thought that away message that said "OMG!! LOOK AT THESE PICS!" was a real link to pics (if you don't know that one, it's an AIM hijacker, links to a .scr file). or how about "the page said i was infected so i clicked the link to clean my computer, it hasn't been the same since." right... yeah, people who know anything don't click those.
i'm not making excuses for MS, but you should realize that the worst infections, sometimes nearly beyond cleanup are not the savvy people. i haven't had an infection on my personal machine ever if i think about it. i probably wouldn't even run virus software if i wasn't receiving viruses in emails from members of discussion lists i belong to. for the record, i do run anti-virus, i run win2k, and i use firefox (IE for windows updates and IE-specific pages only).
i don't blame it entirely on MS though. it's possible to combat it, it's possible to avoid it, it's possible that other operating systems would have similar issues if they were as mainstream as windows.
i am confused by the point you are trying to make. you compare your use of your car to the average computer user's use of his computer. you have other people take care of your car when something goes wrong, just like the average computer user goes to someone to have their computer taken care of when something goes wrong.
while you do mention preventative maintenance, like oil changes, you don't do it yourself. you also don't prevent everything from occurring by checking ever little bit of your car. you do it on your computer though, but there's still those things you just can't avoid (random hardware failure).
now while most people who have computers don't perform the preventative maintenance (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc), they do know someone who will fix it for free or cheap. a car is far more expensive than a computer to replace or repair, and it's a much more important tool for most people.
so while it's great that you're all l33t, there are plenty of people who feel for cars what you feel about computers, yet they know nothing about computers. the same goes for other "necessities" as well (plumbing, electric wiring, etc).
now while you can re-brand and correctly setup windows and sell it at a premium, you would still need third party software to keep it running smoothly. think of the third party software as you getting your oil changed ever 3000 miles. so now if your car started to have problems, nothing catastrophic, but something you can have fixed... would you just throw out your car? most of the problems people have with their computers are things that are easily fixed in about an hour, maybe even less. sounds familiar, huh? things like replacing a muffler or brakes or belts and hoses. they're all a fraction of the cost of a new car. and i know about car problems myself... mine is 15 years old and has "broken down" once (in quotes because i could still drive it, just not in reverse, had the transmission replaced, which was half of what i paid for the car, that was almost 2 years ago and my car will last me another few years). the only people that will pay for a PC that runs as well as a mac are people who have the extra money to spend, and even those people won't when they can buy a dell for $500.