If it still has so many bugs, then how is it considered "very stable?"
I for one like emacs because it works very well over ssh and and has nice split screen functionality (C-x 2 to split horizontally, C-x 3 to split vertically, C-x o to navigate between). This is very useful for being able to look at your API (.h files) and your code simultaneously.
Also, you can do a great many things in emacs without learning anything more than C-x C-c. As you desire more from emacs (maybe a keyboard shortcut for an action you perform often, highlighting for your programming language, changing the way it indents code: M-x c-set-style, a personal fav), you can do a search for whatever you need and implement it as you choose. Opening emacs for the first time is far less intimidating that opening vi for the first time and just seeing those ~'s. And just so you know where I'm coming from, these days, I generally use vi(m) mostly for lightweight editing of config files and small text files, but emacs for any serious coding.
I really like Linux Administration Handbook by Nemeth, Snyder, and Hein. It is quite comprehensive and detailed, not to mention enjoyable to read. My copy is well-used, indeed. For any hobbyist who runs a linux box at home and is interested in the actual nuts and bolts of the system, rather than just the graphical configuration tools provided by (some) distros, it would be a welcome gift, I think. I used to just google around for online documentation until I came across this excellent reference, which is now the first place I turn.
I think that buying a programming reference for a person who programs for a living would not be such a good idea. But buying something related to a person's out-of-work (or out-of-school) computer interests is a nice gift.
Between artificially limiting supply and aiming for the $400/$500 pricepoint, Microsoft has really lost out on a lot of money here. Even if the XBox 360 did cost Microsoft $470 per unit as this seriously flawed analysis indicates, then Microsoft is dumb as hell for selling it at a loss. How does $500 profit per unit sound to Microsoft? Bad apparently, because they were unwilling to set the price at $1000, which many are selling for on eBay [some way higher than that, believe it or not]. It might be slightly bad PR, but if they put the introductory price at $600 or $750, then they would get many buyers and would cash in on the insane gamers who just have to have one right away. There is really no reason for Microsoft to give this profits to middlemen on eBay and places like Amazon.com and Walmart that are only selling the systems as part of a package including higher margin items such as games, xbox live subscriptions, headsets, controllers, etc. Microsoft could get away with basically whatever price they want until after the holidays (okay, really until PS3 comes out) and then readjust the price to something either break-even or to be competitive with PS3. If they are just trying to ramp up their installed user base to hit a certain target which they believe makes them more desirable for developers, then they are still dumb because they could do a preorder and cash in on the idiots who buy this junk at midnight the day of the release date (don't even need to use retailers--just sell it from the online store), then a month later bring the price down. Demand for this thing is so off the charts, that Microsoft really missed out on an opportunity to make a huge amount of money on it, rather than taking a huge loss (although it's probably not so huge for Microsoft). People are paying retailers upwards of $700 for packages that include games (whose costs are purely the fixed costs of development--very negligable variable cost), then MS could include a few games, which are very high margin to make it sane. Yes, the world would balk at a bare bones console (just system, controller) for $750, but if it came with 2 games and a 3 month XBox Live trial subscription, people would definitely shell out for it.
And do not underestimate the effects of supply and demand on the marketplace. Remember those stupid Razor scooters? They cost $100 in the summer of 2000. In the summer of 2001, they were $20. TWENTY. Their trendiness allowed an additional 400% markup! Do not be so naive and suggest that they dramatically reduced the cost to produce the scooter in that one year time. It was a fad that passed. In fact, Microsoft need only look at its own stock price (still down 50% from its high in 2000) to see how much price can move based on fads and demand.
XBox 360 is way more desirable than those stupid scooters, so really the sky is the limit. If Microsoft did a pre-release of a "special edition" (which of course would have nothing special about it, other than being green or gold or something), they could probably charge like $5000 if the supply were limited enough. Then a more general release a couple months later for $1000 or $750 and a more wide-spread release for $500. At each point, they appeal to a certain consumer base and make the most money that they can. It is kind of surprising that they are not riding the hype over this system to a bigger payday.
well the other reply to your post summed it up nicely in a link, let me make it quite explicit: microsoft does not care at all about quality control beyond a few years. all they care about is getting the product to market. they used junk in the original xbox and there were tons of defective drives, which induced a recall. people are lining up around the block for xbox 360 like crack addicts. there have already been reports of defective xboxes and i'm sure there will be more.
I was skeptical of this report before reading the article in depth, but now I am assuming they are just flat out wrong on some points. Namely:
20GB hard drive for $53 and DVD-ROM drive for $21. I can get better prices than this. Me. On one unit. Microsoft is talking about millions of units. I know that these are thin margin markets, but the exclusive contract from Microsoft is a huge win for any supplier.
So the per-unit loss on each console is probably between 50% and 70% of what they reported. At the very least, you can probably remove $20-$30 for those two drive components alone.
don't forget that if they succeed in knocking sony out, then they will be a monopoly in video game consoles, too, and can jack up the prices even more on the next round (like windows--$200-$300 retail--and office--$400-$500 retail). that way, they can profit on hardware and software.
you're really out of your mind if you think that microsoft is splitting the revenues 50/50 with retailers. i would be surprised if the retailers even got 10%--i think 5% or less is realistic. Basically, the xbox360 brings consumers to the store. stupid, drooling, overpaying consumers who will buy other stuff with higher margins.
Well I know the point has been made before, but what do you think the effect of a war-mongering president, violence-obsessed media, and constant push for loose gun laws (among other things) is on people's propensity for criminal behavior? I'd like to see a CSI where somebody blows up a whole US city just copying what the president is doing abroad. Or maybe he knocks out a major government near a huge museum of great historical importance, losing irreplacable treasures of civilization just to be like Dubya.
What about somebody going on a crime spree just to be on TV (a la Natural Born Killers)?
Yes, video games are violent, however for most of us it's just a healthy outlet for latent tendencies that when played for fun reduce our violent tendencies. When kids who are too young and impressionable play such games before they are able to discern the difference between reality and fantasy, then there could be problems. Overall, I am kind of tired of the government doing what parents should be doing and responsible people such as myself (never had a serious violent thought as a result of a video game, song, movie, or whatever) are denied the sort of entertainment we enjoy as a result.
actually, you are missing pipes. i don't really have time to think about how to fix that, but here is an example of where your "top 10" list would be wrong. let's say you execute the following commands: $ man ls | less $ ls -R | less $ egrep/var/some/log | less $ awk '{print $1}'.zsh_history | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | less etc.
your most used command is obviously 'less', followed by 'sort', although neither would even be listed in your list of commands. given the above, you obviously like pipes, so you are missnig something. I guess you have to do something like make '|' a field separator in your awk script in addition to the newline character. then $1 will be the first part of a new command or it will be the first part after a pipe (which is your program).
this guy has been around for quite a long time. the last time i heard about blacklight power in the "news" (that is, the last time someone slipped it past the editors on slashdot, which was at least 3 years ago, they were also about to bring some revolutionary new power source to market based on a quantum state of 1/2 for the hydrogen atom. a younger man and much more naive back then, i was very excited. well here we are and nothing has come out yet. let me be the first (if not the first, then the loudest) to say if this man solves the world's energy problems, then he deserves all of our praise. still, while it is widely believed that quantum mechanics is only an approximation of some more precise theory, it seems unlikely that this person has discovered that theory. his self-published book and lack of actual product agree with me.
please, i do not want to hear any more about Randell Mills's "claims" until the "hydrino" is providing me with electricity.
quake 2 came out 3 months after goldeneye, so i will spot you that they were roughly contemporaneous. there was nothing near as good as goldeneye when it came out. quake 2 was the standard for a while, but goldeneye got a whole generation of gamers into FPS games. Wolfenstein, Doom (I or II), and even Quake were nowhere near as good, and the multiplayer for Goldeneye was actually awesome. Yes, it was a bit sluggish if you didn't have the memory expansion, but if you tried to play Doom III on an ATI Rage 128 Pro, I think you would complain that it sucked, too. Obviously it's a matter of opinion, but there are many people who do not share your viewpoint that Goldeneye was bad. Some refer to it as the greatest game of all time. Some just the best FPS, and some just the best console FPS. These are all opinions. Personally, I think Perfect Dark brought many welcome enhancements.
Console gaming is just more fun for some people, plus it's way cheaper. Personally, I like the social aspect of several friends sitting around the TV playing games, not all hooked up over the internet (with PC gaming, only 1 user can really use the system at a time). If you have a big TV, split screen is not a big deal. Sorry to ramble on. Your points are all valid--I just respectfully disagree.
Well the code is open so anyone can change it whenever they want. I sincerely hope that if somebody decided to do a major architectural overhaul while still preserving the functionality of the site, then the devs would be welcoming of that. (I know if someone offered to do all my work and make it easier me for me to do other things going forward, while giving my clients and users enhanced performance and functionality, I would say "YES.")
The contest is a good way to get some publicity for the aesthetic improvements, but if anyone wants to hack on/. then they should. If you email the devs with an overview of your intentions beforehand, you will have a higher likelihood of getting your changed merged, I would guess. Well, if they don't do that then shame on them, but that's what I would do.
If you don't believe google, then perhaps some of the following can convince you that 0^0 = 1. try successive approximations on a calculator to convince yourself of this: .1^.1 = 0.794328 .01^.01 = 0.954993 .001^.001 = 0.993116 .0001^.0001 = 0.999079
etc.
In fact, take any two functions f(x) and g(x) whose limit is zero as x->0 (I have chosen f(x) = g(x) = 1/10^x). If f and g are "sufficiently well behaved" -- let's say analytic -- then the limit of f(x)^g(x) as x->0 is 1.
Or calculate the limit x^0 as x->0. (yes, calculating 0^x as x->0 gives 0, but it is universally accepted in the mathematics community agrees that 0^0 = 1 is the only useful value for 0^0).
Has anyone else noticed that they are able to view NY Times articles without logging in? I know they have that "premium" (paid) content now, but it seems that the free stuff does not require registration.
As for this IBM thing, it's nice that such a high-profile corporation is taking a stand on this. It was mentioned elsewhere that it is already illegal in some states to discriminate based on genetic makeup, but having an in-house policy emphasized its importance. Most companies have policies not to discriminate on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. even though it is illegal to do so in most states (but not necessarily in all countries where the corporation has offices!).
checkpoint has had yet another security breach. this time, instead of all of their background records being released onto the internet, the source code of their newly acquired security tool, "snort" was released onto the internet. many have already downloaded this and started using free of charge, not to mention modifying it as they see fit and redistributing it also free of charge. this is a truly embarassing second offense for the security company.
yeah, but the live action stuff is much better. they should have just done away with episode 1 (or significantly shortened it--there was about 30 minutes of useful stuff in there) and made movies of 2, 3 and the clone wars. when i heard they were making 1/2/3, i was expecting the bulk of it to be about the clone wars, not the lame-o story of anakin as a kid and awkward courter of padme.
star wars fans would totally be down with 3 3+ hour movies (a la Lord of the Rings) with tons of badass jedi action. oh well...what could have been.
um, i disagree. in every instance you have a strong jedi and a weak one (okay, episode one is a small exception, but there is no real evidence that qui gon is a great warrior--just a wise jedi). obi wan has proved himself over and over again and yoda, well, so did he. windu is obviously more powerful than the other clowns he was with. and anakin was just a cocky little kid with underdeveloped skills and unreached potential when he fought dooku for the first time. so maybe they got in the way, but yoda and obiwan is a force to be reckoned with. and the greatest omission of the 1/2/3 trilogy is what happened in between 2 and 3 when obi wan and anakin were going around pounding on evil throughout the galaxy. now it is implicated that anakin saved obi wan's life many times, but you also have to guess that there was a lot of cooperative ass-whooping (although nothing is guaranteed).
still a direct attack on the emperor would have been an inevitable failure, given all his protection (clones, vader). maybe yoda should not have given up so easily in their first fight, but once he ran off, their only hope was that luke and leia eventually seek out the jedi way and topple the emperor (a long shot, but everything worked out nicely in the end, except for the nice people of alderan).
also, i think more jedi means more force power flowing around which means clearer picture of the future. as the sith rise in power, the jedi become weaker since their influence is diminished. it probably doesn't really make much of a difference in battle, though, to have 1 or 2 jedi (in terms of future visions).
To address your comments and the others similar to yours: I never said commercial encyclopediae were perfect or even good. Just better than Wikipedia. I have balked at the quality of some articles (while many--most, in fact--are quite good). It really is a great resource and I knew I would be voicing an unpopular opinion to say that normal encyclopediae are better than the free, community produced one, but they are. Wikipedia is fantastic and I use it a lot, but it really hasn't matched the polish of Britannica yet. This is not an indictment of communal production, or even of Wikipedia. I'm just saying that it still is not quite as good as Britannica.
Also, I am not talking about typos. Everyone makes mistakes. I am talking about incorrect information.
Slashdot Mirror
If it still has so many bugs, then how is it considered "very stable?"
I for one like emacs because it works very well over ssh and and has nice split screen functionality (C-x 2 to split horizontally, C-x 3 to split vertically, C-x o to navigate between). This is very useful for being able to look at your API (.h files) and your code simultaneously.
Also, you can do a great many things in emacs without learning anything more than C-x C-c. As you desire more from emacs (maybe a keyboard shortcut for an action you perform often, highlighting for your programming language, changing the way it indents code: M-x c-set-style, a personal fav), you can do a search for whatever you need and implement it as you choose. Opening emacs for the first time is far less intimidating that opening vi for the first time and just seeing those ~'s. And just so you know where I'm coming from, these days, I generally use vi(m) mostly for lightweight editing of config files and small text files, but emacs for any serious coding.
I really like Linux Administration Handbook by Nemeth, Snyder, and Hein. It is quite comprehensive and detailed, not to mention enjoyable to read. My copy is well-used, indeed. For any hobbyist who runs a linux box at home and is interested in the actual nuts and bolts of the system, rather than just the graphical configuration tools provided by (some) distros, it would be a welcome gift, I think. I used to just google around for online documentation until I came across this excellent reference, which is now the first place I turn.
I think that buying a programming reference for a person who programs for a living would not be such a good idea. But buying something related to a person's out-of-work (or out-of-school) computer interests is a nice gift.
Between artificially limiting supply and aiming for the $400/$500 pricepoint, Microsoft has really lost out on a lot of money here. Even if the XBox 360 did cost Microsoft $470 per unit as this seriously flawed analysis indicates, then Microsoft is dumb as hell for selling it at a loss. How does $500 profit per unit sound to Microsoft? Bad apparently, because they were unwilling to set the price at $1000, which many are selling for on eBay [some way higher than that, believe it or not]. It might be slightly bad PR, but if they put the introductory price at $600 or $750, then they would get many buyers and would cash in on the insane gamers who just have to have one right away. There is really no reason for Microsoft to give this profits to middlemen on eBay and places like Amazon.com and Walmart that are only selling the systems as part of a package including higher margin items such as games, xbox live subscriptions, headsets, controllers, etc. Microsoft could get away with basically whatever price they want until after the holidays (okay, really until PS3 comes out) and then readjust the price to something either break-even or to be competitive with PS3. If they are just trying to ramp up their installed user base to hit a certain target which they believe makes them more desirable for developers, then they are still dumb because they could do a preorder and cash in on the idiots who buy this junk at midnight the day of the release date (don't even need to use retailers--just sell it from the online store), then a month later bring the price down. Demand for this thing is so off the charts, that Microsoft really missed out on an opportunity to make a huge amount of money on it, rather than taking a huge loss (although it's probably not so huge for Microsoft). People are paying retailers upwards of $700 for packages that include games (whose costs are purely the fixed costs of development--very negligable variable cost), then MS could include a few games, which are very high margin to make it sane. Yes, the world would balk at a bare bones console (just system, controller) for $750, but if it came with 2 games and a 3 month XBox Live trial subscription, people would definitely shell out for it.
And do not underestimate the effects of supply and demand on the marketplace. Remember those stupid Razor scooters? They cost $100 in the summer of 2000. In the summer of 2001, they were $20. TWENTY. Their trendiness allowed an additional 400% markup! Do not be so naive and suggest that they dramatically reduced the cost to produce the scooter in that one year time. It was a fad that passed. In fact, Microsoft need only look at its own stock price (still down 50% from its high in 2000) to see how much price can move based on fads and demand.
XBox 360 is way more desirable than those stupid scooters, so really the sky is the limit. If Microsoft did a pre-release of a "special edition" (which of course would have nothing special about it, other than being green or gold or something), they could probably charge like $5000 if the supply were limited enough. Then a more general release a couple months later for $1000 or $750 and a more wide-spread release for $500. At each point, they appeal to a certain consumer base and make the most money that they can. It is kind of surprising that they are not riding the hype over this system to a bigger payday.
well the other reply to your post summed it up nicely in a link, let me make it quite explicit: microsoft does not care at all about quality control beyond a few years. all they care about is getting the product to market. they used junk in the original xbox and there were tons of defective drives, which induced a recall. people are lining up around the block for xbox 360 like crack addicts. there have already been reports of defective xboxes and i'm sure there will be more.
I was skeptical of this report before reading the article in depth, but now I am assuming they are just flat out wrong on some points. Namely:
20GB hard drive for $53 and DVD-ROM drive for $21. I can get better prices than this. Me. On one unit. Microsoft is talking about millions of units. I know that these are thin margin markets, but the exclusive contract from Microsoft is a huge win for any supplier.
So the per-unit loss on each console is probably between 50% and 70% of what they reported. At the very least, you can probably remove $20-$30 for those two drive components alone.
don't forget that if they succeed in knocking sony out, then they will be a monopoly in video game consoles, too, and can jack up the prices even more on the next round (like windows--$200-$300 retail--and office--$400-$500 retail). that way, they can profit on hardware and software.
you're really out of your mind if you think that microsoft is splitting the revenues 50/50 with retailers. i would be surprised if the retailers even got 10%--i think 5% or less is realistic. Basically, the xbox360 brings consumers to the store. stupid, drooling, overpaying consumers who will buy other stuff with higher margins.
Well I know the point has been made before, but what do you think the effect of a war-mongering president, violence-obsessed media, and constant push for loose gun laws (among other things) is on people's propensity for criminal behavior? I'd like to see a CSI where somebody blows up a whole US city just copying what the president is doing abroad. Or maybe he knocks out a major government near a huge museum of great historical importance, losing irreplacable treasures of civilization just to be like Dubya.
What about somebody going on a crime spree just to be on TV (a la Natural Born Killers)?
Yes, video games are violent, however for most of us it's just a healthy outlet for latent tendencies that when played for fun reduce our violent tendencies. When kids who are too young and impressionable play such games before they are able to discern the difference between reality and fantasy, then there could be problems. Overall, I am kind of tired of the government doing what parents should be doing and responsible people such as myself (never had a serious violent thought as a result of a video game, song, movie, or whatever) are denied the sort of entertainment we enjoy as a result.
actually, you are missing pipes. i don't really have time to think about how to fix that, but here is an example of where your "top 10" list would be wrong. let's say you execute the following commands: /var/some/log | less .zsh_history | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | less
$ man ls | less
$ ls -R | less
$ egrep
$ awk '{print $1}'
etc.
your most used command is obviously 'less', followed by 'sort', although neither would even be listed in your list of commands. given the above, you obviously like pipes, so you are missnig something. I guess you have to do something like make '|' a field separator in your awk script in addition to the newline character. then $1 will be the first part of a new command or it will be the first part after a pipe (which is your program).
this guy has been around for quite a long time. the last time i heard about blacklight power in the "news" (that is, the last time someone slipped it past the editors on slashdot, which was at least 3 years ago, they were also about to bring some revolutionary new power source to market based on a quantum state of 1/2 for the hydrogen atom. a younger man and much more naive back then, i was very excited. well here we are and nothing has come out yet. let me be the first (if not the first, then the loudest) to say if this man solves the world's energy problems, then he deserves all of our praise. still, while it is widely believed that quantum mechanics is only an approximation of some more precise theory, it seems unlikely that this person has discovered that theory. his self-published book and lack of actual product agree with me.
please, i do not want to hear any more about Randell Mills's "claims" until the "hydrino" is providing me with electricity.
if you are a sysadmin, then you are administering the system. perl would always be available.
that said, awk rocks.
quake 2 came out 3 months after goldeneye, so i will spot you that they were roughly contemporaneous. there was nothing near as good as goldeneye when it came out. quake 2 was the standard for a while, but goldeneye got a whole generation of gamers into FPS games. Wolfenstein, Doom (I or II), and even Quake were nowhere near as good, and the multiplayer for Goldeneye was actually awesome. Yes, it was a bit sluggish if you didn't have the memory expansion, but if you tried to play Doom III on an ATI Rage 128 Pro, I think you would complain that it sucked, too. Obviously it's a matter of opinion, but there are many people who do not share your viewpoint that Goldeneye was bad. Some refer to it as the greatest game of all time. Some just the best FPS, and some just the best console FPS. These are all opinions. Personally, I think Perfect Dark brought many welcome enhancements.
Console gaming is just more fun for some people, plus it's way cheaper. Personally, I like the social aspect of several friends sitting around the TV playing games, not all hooked up over the internet (with PC gaming, only 1 user can really use the system at a time). If you have a big TV, split screen is not a big deal. Sorry to ramble on. Your points are all valid--I just respectfully disagree.
what FPS was better than goldeneye at the time it came out?
sorry, i misspoke. it'd have to be more like 0.999998c to be useful these days.
Tennis Racket
.999c to be useful these days. What a stupid article.
Pitcher's Arm
Automobile
Spring
Hand Gun
You get the idea. Particle accelerators need to be able to hit
Well that all depends on what the definition of "is" is...
Well the code is open so anyone can change it whenever they want. I sincerely hope that if somebody decided to do a major architectural overhaul while still preserving the functionality of the site, then the devs would be welcoming of that. (I know if someone offered to do all my work and make it easier me for me to do other things going forward, while giving my clients and users enhanced performance and functionality, I would say "YES.")
/. then they should. If you email the devs with an overview of your intentions beforehand, you will have a higher likelihood of getting your changed merged, I would guess. Well, if they don't do that then shame on them, but that's what I would do.
The contest is a good way to get some publicity for the aesthetic improvements, but if anyone wants to hack on
If you don't believe google, then perhaps some of the following can convince you that 0^0 = 1. try successive approximations on a calculator to convince yourself of this:
.1^.1 = 0.794328
.01^.01 = 0.954993
.001^.001 = 0.993116
.0001^.0001 = 0.999079
etc.
In fact, take any two functions f(x) and g(x) whose limit is zero as x->0 (I have chosen f(x) = g(x) = 1/10^x). If f and g are "sufficiently well behaved" -- let's say analytic -- then the limit of f(x)^g(x) as x->0 is 1.
Or calculate the limit x^0 as x->0. (yes, calculating 0^x as x->0 gives 0, but it is universally accepted in the mathematics community agrees that 0^0 = 1 is the only useful value for 0^0).
Has anyone else noticed that they are able to view NY Times articles without logging in? I know they have that "premium" (paid) content now, but it seems that the free stuff does not require registration.
As for this IBM thing, it's nice that such a high-profile corporation is taking a stand on this. It was mentioned elsewhere that it is already illegal in some states to discriminate based on genetic makeup, but having an in-house policy emphasized its importance. Most companies have policies not to discriminate on the basis of gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. even though it is illegal to do so in most states (but not necessarily in all countries where the corporation has offices!).
checkpoint has had yet another security breach. this time, instead of all of their background records being released onto the internet, the source code of their newly acquired security tool, "snort" was released onto the internet. many have already downloaded this and started using free of charge, not to mention modifying it as they see fit and redistributing it also free of charge. this is a truly embarassing second offense for the security company.
yeah, but the live action stuff is much better. they should have just done away with episode 1 (or significantly shortened it--there was about 30 minutes of useful stuff in there) and made movies of 2, 3 and the clone wars. when i heard they were making 1/2/3, i was expecting the bulk of it to be about the clone wars, not the lame-o story of anakin as a kid and awkward courter of padme.
star wars fans would totally be down with 3 3+ hour movies (a la Lord of the Rings) with tons of badass jedi action. oh well...what could have been.
don't forget:
[ ] This is so American-Centric! What about me in [ ] Europe [ ] Australia [ ] Antartica [ ] Outer Space ?
[ ] I swear I have a girlfried!
[ ] I swear I have a job at a good company, I just can't mention it here.
[ ] Check out my website, which is mostly off-topic.
[ ] I am not a lawyer, but here's some legal advice.
[ ] I am not an accountant and my mom still buys my clothes, but here is some financial advice.
[ ] I am not a doctor but here is some medical advice.
[ ] d00d, I 4M TEH K3WL! 0N133 UZE LUNIX! H00 C4R3Z AB0U7 WIND0Z3?! SC0P3 TEH P3R1 SKRIP7 I JUS7 WR0T3!
um, i disagree. in every instance you have a strong jedi and a weak one (okay, episode one is a small exception, but there is no real evidence that qui gon is a great warrior--just a wise jedi). obi wan has proved himself over and over again and yoda, well, so did he. windu is obviously more powerful than the other clowns he was with. and anakin was just a cocky little kid with underdeveloped skills and unreached potential when he fought dooku for the first time. so maybe they got in the way, but yoda and obiwan is a force to be reckoned with. and the greatest omission of the 1/2/3 trilogy is what happened in between 2 and 3 when obi wan and anakin were going around pounding on evil throughout the galaxy. now it is implicated that anakin saved obi wan's life many times, but you also have to guess that there was a lot of cooperative ass-whooping (although nothing is guaranteed).
still a direct attack on the emperor would have been an inevitable failure, given all his protection (clones, vader). maybe yoda should not have given up so easily in their first fight, but once he ran off, their only hope was that luke and leia eventually seek out the jedi way and topple the emperor (a long shot, but everything worked out nicely in the end, except for the nice people of alderan).
also, i think more jedi means more force power flowing around which means clearer picture of the future. as the sith rise in power, the jedi become weaker since their influence is diminished. it probably doesn't really make much of a difference in battle, though, to have 1 or 2 jedi (in terms of future visions).
to disable styles in firefox, go to:
view > page style > no style
why would anyone want an irc client in their browser?
To address your comments and the others similar to yours: I never said commercial encyclopediae were perfect or even good. Just better than Wikipedia. I have balked at the quality of some articles (while many--most, in fact--are quite good). It really is a great resource and I knew I would be voicing an unpopular opinion to say that normal encyclopediae are better than the free, community produced one, but they are. Wikipedia is fantastic and I use it a lot, but it really hasn't matched the polish of Britannica yet. This is not an indictment of communal production, or even of Wikipedia. I'm just saying that it still is not quite as good as Britannica.
Also, I am not talking about typos. Everyone makes mistakes. I am talking about incorrect information.