>>>Instead of something that putters around at 30mph and bores its driver to death
Well to each his own. My Honda Insight may be "boring" when I'm driving it only 55 (the Pres. Carter speed limit), but being able to drive to work and back on only $2.00 is a pretty good deal. (It averages over 90 MPG for me.) Even if I speed along at 80mph, it still gets a decent 60 MPG, so no complaints either way.
We need more cars like this, not less, and if I had the opportunity I'd buy this Caltech car (after it's made roadworthy) or the Volkswagen 240 MPG car or the Volkswagen 88 MPG Lupo 3L. I enjoy saving money, and I don't need a Ford Living Room SUV just to go to hell..... er, I mean work and back.
BTW where is that Volkswagen 240 MPG car? They were supposed to make a production model for 2010, but still no sign of it.:-|
I'm impressed. Does Microsoft provide a guarantee? I would hate to go out, pay $150 for Windows/vista 7, and then have it not work on my old Pentium 4 laptop.
My laptop has 256 megabytes. You think Windows 7 (vista 6.1) will run on that??? I doubt it. I've heard people say it can run on 512 megabytes, but I'm skeptical because vista didn't run on 512 megabytes (hear drive thrashing).
I think XP or Linux are the way to go for machines 512 MB or less.
If your user only does surfing the net, maybe you can try Puppy Linux. It's a nice, friendly-looking OS that is rather simple to use, due to its minimal configuration. And runs like a rocket on steroids. (shrug) Just a thought.
>>>>you'd better not start the whole 'converting business' because you will probably get more questions and remarks than you can handle
+1 insightful.
I ran into this exact same problem. I gave my brother a new Windows/vista 7 desktop and an older Ubuntu Linux laptop (he gave me $350 in return), and you're right. I was not prepared for the number of questions I am now getting from him.
- WINDOWS 7 (vista 6.1) ----- Nary a problem. He did ask me to install RealPlayer but it only took 5 minutes and now he's gone two months without asking any questions.
- UBUNTU LINUX ----- Oh my god. Problem after problem after problem. "Where's the start menu?" "How come I can't find the calculator?" "Why won't my MS Word docs work on this laptop?" "I tried to play a game, but it refused to work." "I tried to watch CNN but the video refuses to run (it needed MS media player)." I'm starting to wish I had installed XP instead of Linux on this laptop, because it's idiot-friendly and my brother knows Windows.
Disclaimer- This is not going to be a popular post. I'm sorry. I can't change what I have observed.
What the heck? It's things like this that make me wonder if the Slashdot moedarators are out to lunch. I don't see anything wrong with the OpenSUSE recommendation.
>>>plenty would have been happy to follow the orders of the fatherland and/or the god-emperor to do whatever it takes to kill you from within. >>>
First off, I suspect your parents would be ashamed to hear you say that. I doubt they are the killers you describe them to be. - Second for those that did commit terrorist acts during WW2, you would capture these American citizens, try them in front of a jury (amendments 5 and 6), and then imprison them. You know - like we're going with that American psychiatrist who went on a firing spree and killed a bunch of soldiers. He may be a nut, but he still has rights.
The Constitution is not just sitting there to look pretty. It's the Supreme Law of the U.S.
Which is an illegal act. We can imprison or deport Chinese citizens, but the Constitution does not allow you to do things like this to chinese-American citizens (like my coworkers and best friend and his wife). The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and you can not simply ignore it.
You can't be serious? It's not the same. Almost my entire state consists of German American citizens (Amish, Quakers, Mennonites, et cetera), but my grandparents were not forced out of their homes and locked-up in concentration camps during the war.
The Japanese-Americans were.
And also even if the German-Americans had been rounded-up into camps, does that make it any better? FDR's decision to do that still violates the first ten amendments to the Constitution, as well as the protected rights in the State Constitutions. He should have been impeached for breaking constitutional law, if not during the war, then certainly after it was over. (IMHO). Unfortunately he didn't live long enough.....
>>>You have it VERY wrong. This is not about the TYPE of an economic system. This is about the type of gov that you are ok with. >>>
Yes it is. And I see the US and EU governments moving towards Chinese-style government. Not immediately of course, but inch-by-inch. Just look at the legislation: You must buy hospitalization, else Congress will fine you ~$1000 per year. France is passing laws to filter the internet (Chinese-style censorship). The UK is looking at 3 strike laws where you lose internet without trial to prove your innocence. The EU Parliament wants to limit selling to only those with brick-and-mortar storefronts (goodbye to ebay or online-only sellers). GM is now Government Motors in North America. The EU is proposing a government-owned rail system that crosses the continent from Russia to Spain (Chinese style). The EU Parliament wants to make firing bad employees illegal, except in the most egregious circumstances (Chinese style guaranteed employment).
Yeah I know what you're thinking - it's not that bad, and you're right. But the direction is clear: We're moving towards Chinese-style, government-run economy.
Vice-versa China is starting to allow democratic elections (at the local level) which I'm sure will gradually expand to the national level. Eventually (2020? 2030?) our two cultures seem destined to meet in the middle with near identical economic-political systems.
In which case, there's no need to fight. We would become allies.
I disagree that we are at war, because the economic-political situation is not the same. During the Euro-American versus Soviet Union Cold War, which initiated in the late 40s, there were two diametrically opposed philosophies: A free uncontrolled market (us) versus a government-controlled market (them).
However in the last few decades things have changed. The Euro-American market is still privately owned, but the government is pulling the strings more-and-more with each passing year (called socialism). Heck we have a carmaker that is now called "government motors" in some circles since the government owns a majority stake in it.
The Chinese market is very similar to the EU and US markets: Privately owned businesses but with government control. Our economies are more alike than different, with the only caveat being our government-controlled marketplace is democratically elected, while theirs is not, but I don't think that's an important enough distinction to declare a cold war.
We are too dependent on one another (we need their goods; they need our customers).
(puts on nitpicker's hat) - The fastest analog modem was 3429 baud with a bit rate of 33.6 kbit/s. I would have killed for 900-something baud. That would be faster than the DSL I'm using now (700-something).
(removes nitpicker's hat) - Wow. I get so anal when I wear that thing. Anyway I agree with you that this was probably just some school exercise, and some of the kids got a little carried away with their "leet" skills. It doesn't mean the Chinese government was involved. (Although one could argue the military and government are the same thing.)
>>>"Beware of the yellow peril! Be a patriotic American...!"
+1 funny. (dark humor)
People who admire FDR always forget this part of his presidency, where he locked-up American citizens and deprived them of their rights to property, trial by jury, free speech, and so on. Why? Simply because these Americans looked like asians. - In many respects FDR was our worst president. I know that's an unpopular view, nevertheless that's what I think.
I hope IF we have another war with the Asian continent (i.e. China) that we do a better job of obeying the Constitution instead of ignoring it.
Instead of shipping across the Pacific, we'd simply ship across the Atlantic, and buy stuff from Europe, Africa, and India. It might cost a little more to buy from those areas, but the goods will still fit our needs.
And China would be hurt from the sudden lack of income from the US and the EU. It would probably throw them into an economic depression.
Can I have a translation on that please? I'm not sure what you mean by, "grats? they lost $0?" but my point is that I'm willing to pay the base price for a service, but not any additional fees.
It's why I pay $20 for my cable TV, but not the $1 rental fees for on-demand movies or sports or whatever. Likewise I'm willing to pay about $20 to buy a game from Sony, but not an additional $20 registration fee for online gaming.
We salespeople have a name for people like you - "dupes". You pay $50-60 for a game when, if you just waited a year, you could get the identical game, brand new and sealed, for only 15-20 dollars.
And you're right it is an "older" game, but playing Final Fantasy 13 in January 2011 (when it's released as a Greatest Hit title for $20) will be just as much fun as you had playing it last month. I'd rather not be a dupe and pay three times more than I need to.
Well if you acted like that every time you saw one of your coworkers do something strange, pretty soon you'd be constantly confronting people, and you'd earn a new nickname with your coworkers - The Asshole.
Even your manager would probably be sick of you and call you the "Whiner" because you're constantly tattling on your coworkers.
Well then musicians are dumb. If I wanted to record a live performance, I wouldn't use a lossy format like MiniDisc or Digital Compact Cassette that creates an inferior, artifacts copy. I'd use DAT, ADAT, or other lossless recording for perfection.
Great! Now I can read usenet and email. Too bad Verizon has stopped carrying Usenet groups and providing POP email. They also refuse to give me the password on my modem so I can open the incoming ports. My Internet Service Provider has slowly-but-surely turned a WWW-only Provider.:-(
Anyway...... this is great news. I love Opera and Opera Dragonfly sounds like a great product. I wish them much success with their new open source plan. I hope the users are patient enough to withstand the transition from closed source to open source.
Aside -
Remember when Opera was ad-supported? That model has faded-away but there are still some that support it, like the ad-suppported Free Netzero.
I didn't say it before, but I'll say it now. I don't think listening to Dan Rather is any more unbiased than listening to Obama's Press Secretary. Dan's a clear and obvious pro-"we need more government" supporter, and that biases all his reporting. You may not have noticed, but since I'm a Libertarian/constitutionalist it stuck-out as clear as the red nose on a clown's face.
I don't think Dan's a good example of excellent or unbiased reporting.
Oh and free Dan Rather is here: http://www.hd.net/danrather.html - There's probably a place to watch HDnet free too, like tvpc.com or justintv.net, but I've not found it yet.
>>>they do publish very thorough statistical analysis of the economy.
CONGRESS: "Can you tell us which companies received TARP money?"
FED RESERVE CHAIRMAN: "No idea."
Yeah I trust these people. Not. They have devalued the American dollar by over 90% since they were created in the 1910s. In other words if you had managed to save $10,000 in 1920 from your job, you would have been rich (or at least well off). Today it's nothing because the Fed runs off dollars and devalues the paper the People hold.
And they give money away to who knows where. It's the People's money - the People's government - they should know where every dollar is spent. I think an audit should be performed every year.
Slashdot Mirror
>>>Instead of something that putters around at 30mph and bores its driver to death
Well to each his own. My Honda Insight may be "boring" when I'm driving it only 55 (the Pres. Carter speed limit), but being able to drive to work and back on only $2.00 is a pretty good deal. (It averages over 90 MPG for me.) Even if I speed along at 80mph, it still gets a decent 60 MPG, so no complaints either way.
We need more cars like this, not less, and if I had the opportunity I'd buy this Caltech car (after it's made roadworthy) or the Volkswagen 240 MPG car or the Volkswagen 88 MPG Lupo 3L. I enjoy saving money, and I don't need a Ford Living Room SUV just to go to hell..... er, I mean work and back.
BTW where is that Volkswagen 240 MPG car? They were supposed to make a production model for 2010, but still no sign of it. :-|
WOW.
I'm impressed. Does Microsoft provide a guarantee? I would hate to go out, pay $150 for Windows/vista 7, and then have it not work on my old Pentium 4 laptop.
My laptop has 256 megabytes. You think Windows 7 (vista 6.1) will run on that??? I doubt it. I've heard people say it can run on 512 megabytes, but I'm skeptical because vista didn't run on 512 megabytes (hear drive thrashing).
I think XP or Linux are the way to go for machines 512 MB or less.
P.S.
If your user only does surfing the net, maybe you can try Puppy Linux. It's a nice, friendly-looking OS that is rather simple to use, due to its minimal configuration. And runs like a rocket on steroids. (shrug) Just a thought.
>>>>you'd better not start the whole 'converting business' because you will probably get more questions and remarks than you can handle
+1 insightful.
I ran into this exact same problem. I gave my brother a new Windows/vista 7 desktop and an older Ubuntu Linux laptop (he gave me $350 in return), and you're right. I was not prepared for the number of questions I am now getting from him.
- WINDOWS 7 (vista 6.1) ----- Nary a problem. He did ask me to install RealPlayer but it only took 5 minutes and now he's gone two months without asking any questions.
- UBUNTU LINUX ----- Oh my god. Problem after problem after problem. "Where's the start menu?" "How come I can't find the calculator?" "Why won't my MS Word docs work on this laptop?" "I tried to play a game, but it refused to work." "I tried to watch CNN but the video refuses to run (it needed MS media player)." I'm starting to wish I had installed XP instead of Linux on this laptop, because it's idiot-friendly and my brother knows Windows.
Disclaimer-
This is not going to be a popular post.
I'm sorry. I can't change what I have observed.
>>>Try OpenSUSE (Score:1, Flamebait)
What the heck? It's things like this that make me wonder if the Slashdot moedarators are out to lunch. I don't see anything wrong with the OpenSUSE recommendation.
>>>plenty would have been happy to follow the orders of the fatherland and/or the god-emperor to do whatever it takes to kill you from within.
>>>
First off, I suspect your parents would be ashamed to hear you say that. I doubt they are the killers you describe them to be. - Second for those that did commit terrorist acts during WW2, you would capture these American citizens, try them in front of a jury (amendments 5 and 6), and then imprison them. You know - like we're going with that American psychiatrist who went on a firing spree and killed a bunch of soldiers. He may be a nut, but he still has rights.
The Constitution is not just sitting there to look pretty. It's the Supreme Law of the U.S.
To ignore it is to have a lawless society.
>>>We would be forced to imprison the Chinese.
Which is an illegal act. We can imprison or deport Chinese citizens, but the Constitution does not allow you to do things like this to chinese-American citizens (like my coworkers and best friend and his wife). The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land and you can not simply ignore it.
Else we would be a lawless society.
>>>What about the German Americans?
You can't be serious? It's not the same. Almost my entire state consists of German American citizens (Amish, Quakers, Mennonites, et cetera), but my grandparents were not forced out of their homes and locked-up in concentration camps during the war.
The Japanese-Americans were.
And also even if the German-Americans had been rounded-up into camps, does that make it any better? FDR's decision to do that still violates the first ten amendments to the Constitution, as well as the protected rights in the State Constitutions. He should have been impeached for breaking constitutional law, if not during the war, then certainly after it was over. (IMHO). Unfortunately he didn't live long enough.....
>>>You have it VERY wrong. This is not about the TYPE of an economic system. This is about the type of gov that you are ok with.
>>>
Yes it is. And I see the US and EU governments moving towards Chinese-style government. Not immediately of course, but inch-by-inch. Just look at the legislation: You must buy hospitalization, else Congress will fine you ~$1000 per year. France is passing laws to filter the internet (Chinese-style censorship). The UK is looking at 3 strike laws where you lose internet without trial to prove your innocence. The EU Parliament wants to limit selling to only those with brick-and-mortar storefronts (goodbye to ebay or online-only sellers). GM is now Government Motors in North America. The EU is proposing a government-owned rail system that crosses the continent from Russia to Spain (Chinese style). The EU Parliament wants to make firing bad employees illegal, except in the most egregious circumstances (Chinese style guaranteed employment).
Yeah I know what you're thinking - it's not that bad, and you're right. But the direction is clear: We're moving towards Chinese-style, government-run economy.
Vice-versa China is starting to allow democratic elections (at the local level) which I'm sure will gradually expand to the national level. Eventually (2020? 2030?) our two cultures seem destined to meet in the middle with near identical economic-political systems.
In which case, there's no need to fight. We would become allies.
I disagree that we are at war, because the economic-political situation is not the same. During the Euro-American versus Soviet Union Cold War, which initiated in the late 40s, there were two diametrically opposed philosophies: A free uncontrolled market (us) versus a government-controlled market (them).
However in the last few decades things have changed. The Euro-American market is still privately owned, but the government is pulling the strings more-and-more with each passing year (called socialism). Heck we have a carmaker that is now called "government motors" in some circles since the government owns a majority stake in it.
The Chinese market is very similar to the EU and US markets: Privately owned businesses but with government control. Our economies are more alike than different, with the only caveat being our government-controlled marketplace is democratically elected, while theirs is not, but I don't think that's an important enough distinction to declare a cold war.
We are too dependent on one another (we need their goods; they need our customers).
>>>it would shift the direction of momentum for such groups as Homeland Security
Here comes the Nightwatch.
>>>analog modems with 900something baud
(puts on nitpicker's hat) - The fastest analog modem was 3429 baud with a bit rate of 33.6 kbit/s. I would have killed for 900-something baud. That would be faster than the DSL I'm using now (700-something).
(removes nitpicker's hat) - Wow. I get so anal when I wear that thing. Anyway I agree with you that this was probably just some school exercise, and some of the kids got a little carried away with their "leet" skills. It doesn't mean the Chinese government was involved. (Although one could argue the military and government are the same thing.)
>>>"Beware of the yellow peril! Be a patriotic American ...!"
+1 funny. (dark humor)
People who admire FDR always forget this part of his presidency, where he locked-up American citizens and deprived them of their rights to property, trial by jury, free speech, and so on. Why? Simply because these Americans looked like asians. - In many respects FDR was our worst president. I know that's an unpopular view, nevertheless that's what I think.
I hope IF we have another war with the Asian continent (i.e. China) that we do a better job of obeying the Constitution instead of ignoring it.
Instead of shipping across the Pacific, we'd simply ship across the Atlantic, and buy stuff from Europe, Africa, and India. It might cost a little more to buy from those areas, but the goods will still fit our needs.
And China would be hurt from the sudden lack of income from the US and the EU. It would probably throw them into an economic depression.
They won't do nothing because China will simply tell the US that it won't be borrowing any more money unless it obeys China's wishes.
Can I have a translation on that please? I'm not sure what you mean by, "grats? they lost $0?" but my point is that I'm willing to pay the base price for a service, but not any additional fees.
It's why I pay $20 for my cable TV, but not the $1 rental fees for on-demand movies or sports or whatever. Likewise I'm willing to pay about $20 to buy a game from Sony, but not an additional $20 registration fee for online gaming.
>>>I am talking about brand new games..
We salespeople have a name for people like you - "dupes". You pay $50-60 for a game when, if you just waited a year, you could get the identical game, brand new and sealed, for only 15-20 dollars.
And you're right it is an "older" game, but playing Final Fantasy 13 in January 2011 (when it's released as a Greatest Hit title for $20) will be just as much fun as you had playing it last month. I'd rather not be a dupe and pay three times more than I need to.
Well if you acted like that every time you saw one of your coworkers do something strange, pretty soon you'd be constantly confronting people, and you'd earn a new nickname with your coworkers - The Asshole.
Even your manager would probably be sick of you and call you the "Whiner" because you're constantly tattling on your coworkers.
Well then musicians are dumb. If I wanted to record a live performance, I wouldn't use a lossy format like MiniDisc or Digital Compact Cassette that creates an inferior, artifacts copy. I'd use DAT, ADAT, or other lossless recording for perfection.
Great! Now I can read usenet and email. Too bad Verizon has stopped carrying Usenet groups and providing POP email. They also refuse to give me the password on my modem so I can open the incoming ports. My Internet Service Provider has slowly-but-surely turned a WWW-only Provider. :-(
Anyway...... this is great news. I love Opera and Opera Dragonfly sounds like a great product. I wish them much success with their new open source plan. I hope the users are patient enough to withstand the transition from closed source to open source.
Aside -
Remember when Opera was ad-supported? That model has faded-away but there are still some that support it, like the ad-suppported Free Netzero.
I didn't say it before, but I'll say it now. I don't think listening to Dan Rather is any more unbiased than listening to Obama's Press Secretary. Dan's a clear and obvious pro-"we need more government" supporter, and that biases all his reporting. You may not have noticed, but since I'm a Libertarian/constitutionalist it stuck-out as clear as the red nose on a clown's face.
I don't think Dan's a good example of excellent or unbiased reporting.
Oh and free Dan Rather is here: http://www.hd.net/danrather.html - There's probably a place to watch HDnet free too, like tvpc.com or justintv.net, but I've not found it yet.
>>>they do publish very thorough statistical analysis of the economy.
CONGRESS: "Can you tell us which companies received TARP money?"
FED RESERVE CHAIRMAN: "No idea."
Yeah I trust these people. Not. They have devalued the American dollar by over 90% since they were created in the 1910s. In other words if you had managed to save $10,000 in 1920 from your job, you would have been rich (or at least well off). Today it's nothing because the Fed runs off dollars and devalues the paper the People hold.
And they give money away to who knows where. It's the People's money - the People's government - they should know where every dollar is spent. I think an audit should be performed every year.
Well Beck made a deal - he'll stop being an emotional girly-man..... when Rachel Maddow stops acting like an arrogant know-it-all bitch.
/just joking
>>>I remember when their miniDisc recorders were the greatest thing for musicians
Not really. MiniDiscs use lossy encoding, and a musician would rather have lossless digital recording, like DAT has, or ADAT* has.
*
* Super VHS tape used for audio recording.