Subject line says it all. If competitors were free to string/bury/broadcast their own connections, we'd see prices come down and service go up pretty fast.
You missed the point. They do it to annoy the hell out of all of you. They get to post a bunch of crap, which is so obviously not true that you all will flame it and whine and complain like little babies, which, will make it all the more likely to happen in the future. It might have been dumb to you, but I'm sure they were all laughing their asses off at you.
No, we didn't miss the point. It just wasn't funny. We get it, it just wasn't all that funny. And being obnoxious to annoy people isn't funny or clever either.
No (I can hear you), re-read #1. I said we get it, it just isn't funny. Understand now?
I had my doubts too, but my current manager was adament about it; that's how we do review and markup of documents (I'm a tech writer; there's a LOT of that).
Works perfectly. Click the little paragraph looking button, and everyone's changes are visible, in a different color. Hover the mouse over a change to see who made it. Right-click to accept or reject a change. Or use a Wizard thingie to search sequentially through the changes, accepting or rejecting each one. If it gets too messy to read with all those changes and strikeouts, just click the paragraph looking button again - changes hidden.
It's a heck of a lot more productive than trying to make out chicken scratches on paper. Every proposed change is legible, and you can see who made it and when. We use Word comments to explain changes.
Was there any reason not to think that a standards-compliant, easily embeddable, open-source HTML renderer wouldn't eventually become a great choice for network software? It doesn't depend on users taking it on themselves to go get and use mozilla (which I agree wasn't too likely), any more than it depends on them going and getting GTK and making their own browsers. What mattered was whether software developers and companies that make and distribute network software found it useful.
Ultimately, the problem is caused by the number of people who can only afford to own the cars they do because of cheap gas and other government subsidies. On the other hand, for those of us with cars within our budgets, gas at $1 or $2 or $3 is just not such a big deal.
I was totally with you up until that point. "cheap gas" isn't a government subsidy; it is a decision not to apply absurd Euro-style taxes to it. Anyway, taxes are still a huge proportion of the price, even here in the US. I have a hard time thinking that something that is heavily taxed is cheap because of some mythical subsidy.
And I'm sorry that you can't afford, or don't like, SUVs. If it weren't for the CAFE nonsense, we'd still have big cars and you'd see fewer of them.
Have you ever, um, looked at legal statues? Just law, mind you, not "case law", i.e. every case ever litigated.
I have, in support of a project I work on. Just one narrow area of law, in one U.S. state. I tried to limit it to just the statutes, but I also had to look at some regulations and "policy", i.e. how the agencies involved chose to interpret the law.
It's insane. Maybe, with an army of lawyers, you could sorta comply with everything. Except the parts that are contradictory, impossible, or just too vague.
I doubt if anyone avoids "illegal" activity even in their personal lives, and it is actually impossible for business or even government, any complex entity. The problem with email and other electronic retrieval is that the normal wiggle room of life shrinks and shrinks. Aha, they did something illegal! This is done to make Joe Blow think the accused has done something actually immoral, when it could just be some absurd technicality, or just the sheer weight of things to comply with.
By the way, big business, the bugaboo of/., doesn't really mind this situation much. Makes it so hard for some upstart competitor to emerge and compete.
... "This isn't spam!" then it is. Pure and simple.
It is SPAM by definition! Noone complains about receiving email that they requested, knowingly. Think about it! If you have to trick them into "requesting" it, then it is spam.
As for "remove me" links... I'm sure somewhere there's a hooker who gives it away for free, has no disease, and is a virgin. But guess what? She looks like all the others. You'll never know. Same with "remove me" links.
I'm sure creating an imaginary world where your beliefs are actually the rules would help you make your point. But how would it help make good policy?
For example, I'm sure in SimSocialSecurity, you would have a little government account with your name on it, waiting for you. Of course in the real world, it would still be a just tax and an entitlement program, with the same name, and no actual account for you. But you'd believe the game, because it would be more vivid even than a politician's speech.
If people are getting locked into proprietary [msn.com] interfaces [aol.com] with built in censorship
Hmm, AOL was a "locked in" environment. Then there was an email gateway, then you could load www pages in the AOL browser windows, then you could minimize the AOL window and use any winsock client (IIRC, the order may be slightly different).
Sounds like a history of ever greater openness and interoperability to me. Some of the AOL paranoia just astounds me. AOL is just a connection client (albeit heavy) with a built-in browser you may or may not choose to use.
I have never looked at the screen (with a clear signal) and said, "damn, I wish this was higher resolution"! Never. I've asked myself why I was wasting so much time watching, or wished the plot was better, but never thought that if only the picture was finer, all would be peachy.
Couldn't agree more. I'm working on a State's child support system project. Same problems as any complex organization and project, but very satisfying. Most people actually care!
Is there some problem with picture quality, in TV or movies?
Other than over-the-air static, I've never sat there thinking, "darn, I wish this picture was sharper and more lifelike". I have thought, "this would be much better if it made sense, or had a plot".
I just don't get it. My life isn't going to be any more interesting just because the little people in the box or the big people on the screen are more, um, lifelike, although still 2D. I can totally suspend disbelief and enjoy movies and TV now.
But I don't remember any of those things inspiring me to waste hours, fooling around, when I should have been learning. And any time I did waste with them (drawing or writing outrageous things on the blackboard, having competitive space warfare games by flicking a pencil against paper) required far more creativity than firing up a game, a web page, or IRC.
John, let me introduce the minimize widget
on
Heart of the Net
·
· Score: 1
If you don't like AOL's portal (it looked rather tame to me) then click the minimize widget, and open a browser, or other winsock compliant software. Now AOL is a (heavy) connection client.
Orwell would be chagrined that a bunch of whiny, priviledged citizens of the United States are complaining about how not being able to burn leaves and having to fill out a census.
Glad you can read his dead mind. I'll ignore the brainless insults.
First of all, leaf burning laws are local, not federal laws.
So? The parent post said terrorism was ending the idea that a man's home is his castle. I said that the idea has long been under attack, terrorism or no.
Second of all, censuses have been in existence in the US since 1790. 2 years after the adoption of the Constitution.
Did they threaten fines and criminal penalties for not filling it out in 1790? Also, it is supposed to be a simple enumeration, it has been expanded way, way beyond that.
I can't bear to reply to the idea that federal standards on toilet flush capacity is Orwellian...
Didn't say it was. But it relates to my house being my castle. There is no reason for the federal government to be regulating this.
The America of personal freedom, a man's house is his castle, that sort of thing, is what will cease to exist.
Already happened, and has nothing to do with terrorism:). I can't burn leaves in my backyard, put up a fence that could stop anything, or install a toilet with sufficient flush capacity. The government already knows where I live and work, and how much I make, so they can transfer my income to other people. They threatened me with criminal penalties if I didn't fill out my census and tell them all about my household anyway (now if only my census form hadn't got lost in the mail...)
If we can remove those freedoms, for the feeble reasons they have been removed, then what's a little more;).
The thing about terrorism is that there is no way the terrorists can't win
Er, that's ludicrous. Last time I checked, Israel still existed. There was still a Northern Ireland. Terrorism hasn't won there. We aren't being governed by revolutionary hippies in the US (other than those we elected, but Clinton's gone now). There aren't any imperial Japanese or Nazi's hanging around, blowing things up, though some were suicidaly dedicated and militant. Fighting terrorism doesn't seem all that futile to me.
Oh, you mean that all crimes and violent acts can't be prevented from happening! Well, sure, but we still try, within reason. Plus having knowledge of a person's connections helps investigate after the fact, and round up his buddies.
I can't believe Atari thought so many "hot chicks" would be hanging out at the arcade playing their games. It's clear that this is the staff's collective male fantasy captured for all of us to see.
Yep. The only hot chicks we ever saw in arcades were dragged in there by their boyfriends (and so were few and far between).
As for the few girls who were there alone... oh, it wasn't pretty...
Slashdot Mirror
Subject line says it all. If competitors were free to string/bury/broadcast their own connections, we'd see prices come down and service go up pretty fast.
You missed the point. They do it to annoy the hell out of all of you. They get to post a bunch of crap, which is so obviously not true that you all will flame it and whine and complain like little babies, which, will make it all the more likely to happen in the future. It might have been dumb to you, but I'm sure they were all laughing their asses off at you.
No, I'm serious.
I had my doubts too, but my current manager was adament about it; that's how we do review and markup of documents (I'm a tech writer; there's a LOT of that).
Works perfectly. Click the little paragraph looking button, and everyone's changes are visible, in a different color. Hover the mouse over a change to see who made it. Right-click to accept or reject a change. Or use a Wizard thingie to search sequentially through the changes, accepting or rejecting each one. If it gets too messy to read with all those changes and strikeouts, just click the paragraph looking button again - changes hidden.
It's a heck of a lot more productive than trying to make out chicken scratches on paper. Every proposed change is legible, and you can see who made it and when. We use Word comments to explain changes.
My 2 cents.
Take that, mozilla bashers.
Was there any reason not to think that a standards-compliant, easily embeddable, open-source HTML renderer wouldn't eventually become a great choice for network software? It doesn't depend on users taking it on themselves to go get and use mozilla (which I agree wasn't too likely), any more than it depends on them going and getting GTK and making their own browsers. What mattered was whether software developers and companies that make and distribute network software found it useful.
Ultimately, the problem is caused by the number of people who can only afford to own the cars they do because of cheap gas and other government subsidies. On the other hand, for those of us with cars within our budgets, gas at $1 or $2 or $3 is just not such a big deal.
I was totally with you up until that point. "cheap gas" isn't a government subsidy; it is a decision not to apply absurd Euro-style taxes to it. Anyway, taxes are still a huge proportion of the price, even here in the US. I have a hard time thinking that something that is heavily taxed is cheap because of some mythical subsidy.
And I'm sorry that you can't afford, or don't like, SUVs. If it weren't for the CAFE nonsense, we'd still have big cars and you'd see fewer of them.
Have you ever, um, looked at legal statues? Just law, mind you, not "case law", i.e. every case ever litigated.
I have, in support of a project I work on. Just one narrow area of law, in one U.S. state. I tried to limit it to just the statutes, but I also had to look at some regulations and "policy", i.e. how the agencies involved chose to interpret the law.
It's insane. Maybe, with an army of lawyers, you could sorta comply with everything. Except the parts that are contradictory, impossible, or just too vague.
I doubt if anyone avoids "illegal" activity even in their personal lives, and it is actually impossible for business or even government, any complex entity. The problem with email and other electronic retrieval is that the normal wiggle room of life shrinks and shrinks. Aha, they did something illegal! This is done to make Joe Blow think the accused has done something actually immoral, when it could just be some absurd technicality, or just the sheer weight of things to comply with.
By the way, big business, the bugaboo of /., doesn't really mind this situation much. Makes it so hard for some upstart competitor to emerge and compete.
... "This isn't spam!" then it is. Pure and simple.
It is SPAM by definition! Noone complains about receiving email that they requested, knowingly. Think about it! If you have to trick them into "requesting" it, then it is spam.
As for "remove me" links ... I'm sure somewhere there's a hooker who gives it away for free, has no disease, and is a virgin. But guess what? She looks like all the others. You'll never know. Same with "remove me" links.
Whoops, make that "just a tax" not "a just tax". See, computers are distorting politics already :)
I'm sure creating an imaginary world where your beliefs are actually the rules would help you make your point. But how would it help make good policy?
For example, I'm sure in SimSocialSecurity, you would have a little government account with your name on it, waiting for you. Of course in the real world, it would still be a just tax and an entitlement program, with the same name, and no actual account for you. But you'd believe the game, because it would be more vivid even than a politician's speech.
If people are getting locked into proprietary [msn.com] interfaces [aol.com] with built in censorship
Hmm, AOL was a "locked in" environment. Then there was an email gateway, then you could load www pages in the AOL browser windows, then you could minimize the AOL window and use any winsock client (IIRC, the order may be slightly different).
Sounds like a history of ever greater openness and interoperability to me. Some of the AOL paranoia just astounds me. AOL is just a connection client (albeit heavy) with a built-in browser you may or may not choose to use.
Why do I need HDTV?
I have never looked at the screen (with a clear signal) and said, "damn, I wish this was higher resolution"! Never. I've asked myself why I was wasting so much time watching, or wished the plot was better, but never thought that if only the picture was finer, all would be peachy.
Couldn't agree more. I'm working on a State's child support system project. Same problems as any complex organization and project, but very satisfying. Most people actually care!
... but John, really, cheerleaders are no better in bed than other girls. You really need to get over being turned down by them ;)
Another possible example of capitalism at it's finest.
No. Patents are government granted monopolies. They only exist because of government.
Is there some problem with picture quality, in TV or movies?
Other than over-the-air static, I've never sat there thinking, "darn, I wish this picture was sharper and more lifelike". I have thought, "this would be much better if it made sense, or had a plot".
I just don't get it. My life isn't going to be any more interesting just because the little people in the box or the big people on the screen are more, um, lifelike, although still 2D. I can totally suspend disbelief and enjoy movies and TV now.
- JUST ASSERT THAT
-- PENCILS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- BLACKBOARDS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- PHOTOCOPIERS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- LAMINATORS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- PROTRACTORS STIFLE CREATIVITY,
-- CUISINAIRE BLOCKS STIFLE CREATIVITY
-- MICROSCOPES STIFLE CREATIVITY
But I don't remember any of those things inspiring me to waste hours, fooling around, when I should have been learning. And any time I did waste with them (drawing or writing outrageous things on the blackboard, having competitive space warfare games by flicking a pencil against paper) required far more creativity than firing up a game, a web page, or IRC.
If you don't like AOL's portal (it looked rather tame to me) then click the minimize widget, and open a browser, or other winsock compliant software. Now AOL is a (heavy) connection client.
Orwell would be chagrined that a bunch of whiny, priviledged citizens of the United States are complaining about how not being able to burn leaves and having to fill out a census.
Glad you can read his dead mind. I'll ignore the brainless insults.
First of all, leaf burning laws are local, not federal laws.
So? The parent post said terrorism was ending the idea that a man's home is his castle. I said that the idea has long been under attack, terrorism or no.
Second of all, censuses have been in existence in the US since 1790. 2 years after the adoption of the Constitution.
Did they threaten fines and criminal penalties for not filling it out in 1790? Also, it is supposed to be a simple enumeration, it has been expanded way, way beyond that.
I can't bear to reply to the idea that federal standards on toilet flush capacity is Orwellian...
Didn't say it was. But it relates to my house being my castle. There is no reason for the federal government to be regulating this.
The America of personal freedom, a man's house is his castle, that sort of thing, is what will cease to exist.
Already happened, and has nothing to do with terrorism :). I can't burn leaves in my backyard, put up a fence that could stop anything, or install a toilet with sufficient flush capacity. The government already knows where I live and work, and how much I make, so they can transfer my income to other people. They threatened me with criminal penalties if I didn't fill out my census and tell them all about my household anyway (now if only my census form hadn't got lost in the mail ...)
If we can remove those freedoms, for the feeble reasons they have been removed, then what's a little more ;).
You know, all the ./ers said terrorists would never use export grade encryption either, yet we all know of the recent story where one did.
Surprisingly, this stuff works sometimes. Ya never know. Terrorists aren't all-knowing, all-powerful, infallible people.
The thing about terrorism is that there is no way the terrorists can't win
Er, that's ludicrous. Last time I checked, Israel still existed. There was still a Northern Ireland. Terrorism hasn't won there. We aren't being governed by revolutionary hippies in the US (other than those we elected, but Clinton's gone now). There aren't any imperial Japanese or Nazi's hanging around, blowing things up, though some were suicidaly dedicated and militant. Fighting terrorism doesn't seem all that futile to me.
Oh, you mean that all crimes and violent acts can't be prevented from happening! Well, sure, but we still try, within reason. Plus having knowledge of a person's connections helps investigate after the fact, and round up his buddies.
...by the seventies dream girl. C'mon, they were fantasizing in these pictures. They couldn't do better than that?!?
I can't believe Atari thought so many "hot chicks" would be hanging out at the arcade playing their games. It's clear that this is the staff's collective male fantasy captured for all of us to see.
Yep. The only hot chicks we ever saw in arcades were dragged in there by their boyfriends (and so were few and far between).
As for the few girls who were there alone ... oh, it wasn't pretty ...
In the wake of the dot-com washout, a lot people nearly wrote off cyberspace as a retailing wasteland
Wait a minute ... wasn't one of those people you?!?
Now I know ...
To determine what the conventional wisdom is, what everyone already thinks, and has therefore already been discounted by the market, just read Katz ...