No, really. It worked for me. I was 5'8" 240 lbs. Now I'm 190 lbs. (losing about 1 lb every couple of weeks now, I'm comfortable with that pace). Additionally I was suffering from fairly severe adult acne (I'm 35), and it stopped dead in it's tracks when I started the Atkins diet. I don't even get them on my back anymore. This was a totally unexpected side effect. I had tried everything to stop the acne, including trying to change my diet - but getting rid of all the carbs was the kicker.
My eating habits have changed - my appetite is much less than it was. I'm now eating about half the sheer quantity of food I used to eat. One problem though - this diet gives you really bad breath. Eating more vegetables seems to help, but there's a lot of carbs in some veggies, so you have to consciously factor that into your total carb intake.
In theory, computers and automation *should* eliminate that overhead.
The problem is, banks want their cake, and they want to eat it too, and they want to tell you that if you're hungry because you don't have any bread, that you also, should eat cake.
If computers and automation can improve the efficiency of financial transactions (they can and WILL as soon as a standard emerges), that savings will go to profit for the banks in traditional Macro Payment transactions. Micro Payments are theoretically possible, but that would amount to passing that efficiency savings along to the consumer. And then why would it be worth the bank's time to invest in the technology that would bring about this improvement then?
Answer: it would not. They'll invest in technology only as long as it improves efficiency, and generates more profit. But NOT to enable you to pay 2 cents to read a webcomic.
Banks and Vendors are content to stay with Macro Payments. Why would they want to make it easier for you to be a cheapskate? 'cmon! Whip out that credit card and charge up at least $5.
As an owner of a DishPlayer 7200, which ran this software - I can affirm - while it doesn't BSOD, up until about a year ago, this software was rife with serious, serious, issues. Every update they put out kept making the problems worse and worse. But finally, it seems they got it right. It's a slow box, but it's reasonably stable now.
The thing is, it was the WebTV client that caused most of the havoc, but I didn't even subscribe to WebTV - I was in it for the PVR functionality. Supposedly the OS is a stripped-down FreeBSD. But that's just hearsay from DBSForums.
Someone get that stuff and put it back together. They shredded it for a reason. The FBI allowed them to continue shredding for months. For a reason. That reason is in those papers.
If Lay could be implicated, it would be totally worth it. Definately worth more than $40 Million investigating a blowjob.
" Sharing usually involves taking something that belongs to you, and depriving yourself of it "
Get with the program. File-Sharing is really license sharing. There's no need to be pedantic about that use of terminology. "Piracy" , "stealing" sure. But I think this is a widely accepted alternate definition of "sharing".
Where the cognative dissonance comes in - is the license terms forbid it, but everyday common sense does not. (for example, someone blasting their boom box - are they necessarily sharing their license with anybody with in earshot? How about your wife listening to a CD you bought, and left in the car you share? Those are examples of common sense telling us there's no violation of license terms going on - but the LETTER, and some cases INTENT of the license terms IS being violated
This has become obvious on the Govt project on which I'm working.
Our project was a 5-year one.
It was spec-ed out with the technology that was current at the time - and we're building a system that's 5 years out of date. It meets the original requirements, but now we're being hounded to upgrade everything (and re-code to account for all the changes that entails). With no additional funding.
And when we deliver the project, in another two years, it will be obsolete again. And unmaintainable. And unlikely to survive any upgrades without a total redesign.
The insistence that "Linux is cheaper if your time is worthless" is ONLY true if you're talking about near-term costs.
But consider LONG TERM costs. Like 5-10 years later, when you've got to sustain a system, and forced upgrades from the vendor or backwards compatability issues screw you over. With Open Source, and a team of competent maintainers, it is theoretically possible to maintain a system based on commodity hardware indefinately. But with Proprietary Closed Source software, you will be forced into the perpetual upgrade cycle, and be dooming yourself to buying an entirely new system every 5-10 years, as the old one is no longer possible with the new mix - often because some marketroid made the decision that "that way (OLE) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (ActiveX)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (ActiveX) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (DNA)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (DNA) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (COM)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (COM) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (DCOM)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (DCOM) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (.NET)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (.NET) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way ()" only to be followed up in another two years with:
"nobody is going to go see a movie that leaves them high and dry again and again."
They will if it contains a scene where the character who "knows all the answers" gives a 10 minute cryptic diatribe, speaking quickly, and in an odd accent.
Damn, with that kind of bandwidth, you could digitize yourself, transmit yourself to Ireland, rape and pillage, and transmit yourself back at a profit.
What he says about "advanced technology" is pretty much spot on. When you look at our "advanced boosters" - in a basic sense, all they are is old early cold-war-era ICBMs, retrofitted with Solid Rocket Boosters. Atlas, Delta, and Titan. The last REAL innovation in US booster technology was Saturn V.
I agree with several points he made - about how VTOHL is kind of retarded. Launching big heavy wings vertically, so the craft can land horizontally is ridiculous. But he overlooks some of the alternatives.
Lifting Bodies - X-33 was a spectacular failure - only because when confronted with adversity, WE GAVE UP. Part of that was the failure of the guys who set the budget unrealistically low in the first place, and let it overrun past the point of credibility. But if you want weight-savings in not sending wings up vertically, that's the way to do it. There's one real technicall challenge - an oddly-shaped fuel tank able to repeatedly deal with the pressurization cycle. And we just rolled over and quit when the first few attempts failed. I think that's sad.
Horizontal Take-off - Pegasus has been a spectacular success. If you're going to put wings on your craft, you may as well Horizontal Take-Off. Most of the launch fuel of getting a vehicle into space is used up in the first 5 miles. I don't know if there's a good way to fix this problem cheaply - we already "blew our wad" so-to-speak, but here's what we can do maybe in 10 years: Justify the development of a new, VERY large multi-purpose transport aircraft - like the Galaxy C-5, only, in order to take advantage of economy of scale, use the same principle used in the JSF program. One plane that fulls multiple roles. Here are the roles: Heavy Bomber (to replace the B-52). Cargo Transport (to support loads the C-5 cannot handle) Commercial Passenger plane (I know, we can't justify the Boeing double-decker, but at one point, it was at least worth thinking about). Launch Vehicle Deployment.
Currently, the Pegasus can loft a tiny 1000lb payload into orbit. It's taken up to 40,000 ft by an L-1011, which is a pretty large plane. A plane on the scale of what I'm talking about could horizontally loft a next-generation spaceplane up to 40,000 ft, separate, and return to the ground, for mere peanuts compared to what it costs to prep your typical Atlas/Titan/Delta/Arianne. From 40,000 ft, scramjets can get this plane to 80,000 ft and Mach 8-12. (another technology we would need to develop, but it will save the weight of carrying oxidizer). Booster rockets can get it to Orbit. (either a SRB strap-ons, or perhaps the scramjets can be fed oxidizer).
Admittedly VERY complicated technology, but this is the evolution we were looking at 15 years ago with VentureStar, and other variants. And they were abandoned, due to lack of vision at the federal level. This lack of vision stems from a lack of a pissing-contest with the Russians, like we had when we were going to the moon.
Blaming the lazy American worker is false and disingeneous at best.
I'm not afraid to compete at my level with the best Indian or Chinese worker. On a basis of taking cost of living into account. If I could live as cheaply where my family is, as Apu does in Pune, then I'd happily compete with him. But Apu does not pay taxes to pave their roads, provide safe drinking water, inspect food, or even defend their country at the same level I do. Apu does not have regulations protecting him. All of these things contribute to a lower cost. Then, the point of competition isn't about skill or work ethic or productivity or time-efficiency. It's all about cost. Human beings can be thought of as commodities, to your average bean-counter. But they are not commodities.
Yes, but this period also created a WHOLE SLEW of 4 year college graduates in CS, who know how to program MFC apps in C++ using Visual Studio, but fundamentally, have no clue how a computer really works, and no concept of proper engineering. I know, I've worked with MANY of these people.
I was never an "HTML programmer" - I was always a Systems Integrator-type guy. I've done programming, basic shell-scripting, some C, some VB, actually a buttload of DOS scripting (batch programming) - but I never really considered myself a programmer. When I was laid off, because my company felt it was better to hire a half a dozen clueless phone monkeys than one problem-solver, I went around looking for jobs, not billing myself as a programmer. At a couple of interviews, I was told that I was "selling myself short" - but on the other hand, wages are now VERY depressed. The amount of money I can ask for going into a new position with my level of skills is miniscule, compared to the salary I used to command after I had repeatedly saved people's asses over the years.
I don't really mind competing for a job. My latest endeavour has me working as a programmer. I'm learning a lot, and working my ass off. I can say that my last job had me stagnating, because they simply didn't demand my level of skill for where they placed me. So getting laid off was really a good thing. I just wish that the cost of living had declined along with my salary. It's not about doing without luxuries. It's about wondering if I can keep my home, or if I can afford to keep my car maintained.
In the end, my level of consumption has drastically decreased. THIS is why the economy sucks. When corporations expect to sell to the lucrative American Market with their high standard of living, but then refuse to pay the salaries that make that standard of living happen - they're basically cutting their own throat. And I don't feel sorry for their falling profits at all.
Let's remember that the DMCA arose from the effort to harmonize Copyright Law throughout all the industrialized nations, in the whole Globalization effort of the 1990's. This was decided in the UN first, supported by the Content Gentry, and pushed through in Congress to comply with what the Globalization community wanted.
The reason why DMCA smells so bad is because it was concieved for the purpose of abdicating US sovreignity to the "global" entity. It wasn't designed to be compliant to our Consitution, or our values. Because Globalization itself, is all about eliminating Nations, and joining them all together, which, on it's surface sounds nice, unless we all end up joined together in a fascist dictatorship run by corporations.
The model of "free viewer, paid editor" was a good one, but not when they charge $400 for the editor. Adobe had a great window of opportunity to lower their price before HTML came along and ate their lunch with a "good enough" feature set. They blew it.
There is one company I can think of that has a LONG history of successful partnership with Microsoft. Arcada->Seagate->Veritas.
They wrote the backup applet that shipped with 95, and some of the other disk utilities bundled with NT/2000, etc. When Veritas (primarily a Unix company) bought the Seagate unit (primarily a Windows company) a few years back - suprisingly, all these years have gone by, and Microsoft STILL has not pulled their rug out from under them. And Veritas continues to sell into both the Unix and MS markets. And they're basicaly THE main player in the backup market. Microsoft could SO easily beat them up and steal their lunch money. . . but has just left them alone.
In my experience, advertising what the product can do is done by Salesmen - probably the people who are MOST divorced from the reality of any given product.
Then the developers get the shaft when the product fails to live up to the expectations set by the "SalesWeasels".
with layoffs coming every couple of months, I sure as heck don't want to be tech lead on a project that customers are returning and suing us over because it doesn't work as advertised.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm aware of this.
I do drink lots and lots of water. (Also helps the halitosis problem).
And I only cut carbs out completely during the first 3 weeks or so. But now - I simply LIMIT my carbs.
No, really. It worked for me. I was 5'8" 240 lbs. Now I'm 190 lbs. (losing about 1 lb every couple of weeks now, I'm comfortable with that pace).
Additionally I was suffering from fairly severe adult acne (I'm 35), and it stopped dead in it's tracks when I started the Atkins diet. I don't even get them on my back anymore. This was a totally unexpected side effect. I had tried everything to stop the acne, including trying to change my diet - but getting rid of all the carbs was the kicker.
My eating habits have changed - my appetite is much less than it was. I'm now eating about half the sheer quantity of food I used to eat. One problem though - this diet gives you really bad breath. Eating more vegetables seems to help, but there's a lot of carbs in some veggies, so you have to consciously factor that into your total carb intake.
Gawd I miss pasta though. . .
In theory, computers and automation *should* eliminate that overhead.
The problem is, banks want their cake, and they want to eat it too, and they want to tell you that if you're hungry because you don't have any bread, that you also, should eat cake.
If computers and automation can improve the efficiency of financial transactions (they can and WILL as soon as a standard emerges), that savings will go to profit for the banks in traditional Macro Payment transactions. Micro Payments are theoretically possible, but that would amount to passing that efficiency savings along to the consumer. And then why would it be worth the bank's time to invest in the technology that would bring about this improvement then?
Answer: it would not.
They'll invest in technology only as long as it improves efficiency, and generates more profit. But NOT to enable you to pay 2 cents to read a webcomic.
Only Consumers want Micro Payments.
Banks and Vendors are content to stay with Macro Payments. Why would they want to make it easier for you to be a cheapskate? 'cmon! Whip out that credit card and charge up at least $5.
As an owner of a DishPlayer 7200, which ran this software - I can affirm - while it doesn't BSOD, up until about a year ago, this software was rife with serious, serious, issues. Every update they put out kept making the problems worse and worse. But finally, it seems they got it right. It's a slow box, but it's reasonably stable now.
The thing is, it was the WebTV client that caused most of the havoc, but I didn't even subscribe to WebTV - I was in it for the PVR functionality.
Supposedly the OS is a stripped-down FreeBSD. But that's just hearsay from DBSForums.
I dunno, it doesn't work with Visual Basic, so why bother?
Enron
Someone get that stuff and put it back together. They shredded it for a reason. The FBI allowed them to continue shredding for months. For a reason. That reason is in those papers.
If Lay could be implicated, it would be totally worth it. Definately worth more than $40 Million investigating a blowjob.
America, Land of the Free (TM) has a larger percentage of incarcerated citizens than China, Land of Communist Oppression.
Think about that for a moment.
" Sharing usually involves taking something that belongs to you, and depriving yourself of it "
Get with the program.
File-Sharing is really license sharing. There's no need to be pedantic about that use of terminology. "Piracy" , "stealing" sure. But I think this is a widely accepted alternate definition of "sharing".
Where the cognative dissonance comes in - is the license terms forbid it, but everyday common sense does not.
(for example, someone blasting their boom box - are they necessarily sharing their license with anybody with in earshot? How about your wife listening to a CD you bought, and left in the car you share? Those are examples of common sense telling us there's no violation of license terms going on - but the LETTER, and some cases INTENT of the license terms IS being violated
How about (IMO) THE seminal work; Shelley's Frankenstein?
The interaction between science and human morality, perhaps even the difference between morality and ethics.
This has become obvious on the Govt project on which I'm working.
Our project was a 5-year one.
It was spec-ed out with the technology that was current at the time - and we're building a system that's 5 years out of date. It meets the original requirements, but now we're being hounded to upgrade everything (and re-code to account for all the changes that entails). With no additional funding.
And when we deliver the project, in another two years, it will be obsolete again. And unmaintainable. And unlikely to survive any upgrades without a total redesign.
Exactly!
The insistence that "Linux is cheaper if your time is worthless" is ONLY true if you're talking about near-term costs.
But consider LONG TERM costs. Like 5-10 years later, when you've got to sustain a system, and forced upgrades from the vendor or backwards compatability issues screw you over. With Open Source, and a team of competent maintainers, it is theoretically possible to maintain a system based on commodity hardware indefinately. But with Proprietary Closed Source software, you will be forced into the perpetual upgrade cycle, and be dooming yourself to buying an entirely new system every 5-10 years, as the old one is no longer possible with the new mix - often because some marketroid made the decision that "that way (OLE) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (ActiveX)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (ActiveX) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (DNA)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (DNA) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (COM)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (COM) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (DCOM)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (DCOM) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way (.NET)" only to be followed up in another two years with: "that way (.NET) of doing things is obsolete, now you must do it THIS way ()" only to be followed up in another two years with:
bah! Why does the press always assume that if a guy likes to be submissive in the bedroom, that he's gay?
"nobody is going to go see a movie that leaves them high and dry again and again."
They will if it contains a scene where the character who "knows all the answers" gives a 10 minute cryptic diatribe, speaking quickly, and in an odd accent.
Damn, with that kind of bandwidth, you could digitize yourself, transmit yourself to Ireland, rape and pillage, and transmit yourself back at a profit.
Viking never looked so attractive!
Yeah, but once they put a Cap on Awards in frivolous Giant Monster damage lawsuits, this problem will go away.
What he says about "advanced technology" is pretty much spot on.
When you look at our "advanced boosters" - in a basic sense, all they are is old early cold-war-era ICBMs, retrofitted with Solid Rocket Boosters. Atlas, Delta, and Titan. The last REAL innovation in US booster technology was Saturn V.
I agree with several points he made - about how VTOHL is kind of retarded. Launching big heavy wings vertically, so the craft can land horizontally is ridiculous. But he overlooks some of the alternatives.
Lifting Bodies - X-33 was a spectacular failure - only because when confronted with adversity, WE GAVE UP. Part of that was the failure of the guys who set the budget unrealistically low in the first place, and let it overrun past the point of credibility. But if you want weight-savings in not sending wings up vertically, that's the way to do it. There's one real technicall challenge - an oddly-shaped fuel tank able to repeatedly deal with the pressurization cycle. And we just rolled over and quit when the first few attempts failed. I think that's sad.
Horizontal Take-off - Pegasus has been a spectacular success. If you're going to put wings on your craft, you may as well Horizontal Take-Off. Most of the launch fuel of getting a vehicle into space is used up in the first 5 miles. I don't know if there's a good way to fix this problem cheaply - we already "blew our wad" so-to-speak, but here's what we can do maybe in 10 years:
Justify the development of a new, VERY large multi-purpose transport aircraft - like the Galaxy C-5, only, in order to take advantage of economy of scale, use the same principle used in the JSF program. One plane that fulls multiple roles. Here are the roles:
Heavy Bomber (to replace the B-52).
Cargo Transport (to support loads the C-5 cannot handle)
Commercial Passenger plane (I know, we can't justify the Boeing double-decker, but at one point, it was at least worth thinking about).
Launch Vehicle Deployment.
Currently, the Pegasus can loft a tiny 1000lb payload into orbit. It's taken up to 40,000 ft by an L-1011, which is a pretty large plane. A plane on the scale of what I'm talking about could horizontally loft a next-generation spaceplane up to 40,000 ft, separate, and return to the ground, for mere peanuts compared to what it costs to prep your typical Atlas/Titan/Delta/Arianne. From 40,000 ft, scramjets can get this plane to 80,000 ft and Mach 8-12. (another technology we would need to develop, but it will save the weight of carrying oxidizer). Booster rockets can get it to Orbit. (either a SRB strap-ons, or perhaps the scramjets can be fed oxidizer).
Admittedly VERY complicated technology, but this is the evolution we were looking at 15 years ago with VentureStar, and other variants. And they were abandoned, due to lack of vision at the federal level. This lack of vision stems from a lack of a pissing-contest with the Russians, like we had when we were going to the moon.
Blaming the lazy American worker is false and disingeneous at best.
I'm not afraid to compete at my level with the best Indian or Chinese worker. On a basis of taking cost of living into account. If I could live as cheaply where my family is, as Apu does in Pune, then I'd happily compete with him. But Apu does not pay taxes to pave their roads, provide safe drinking water, inspect food, or even defend their country at the same level I do. Apu does not have regulations protecting him. All of these things contribute to a lower cost. Then, the point of competition isn't about skill or work ethic or productivity or time-efficiency. It's all about cost. Human beings can be thought of as commodities, to your average bean-counter. But they are not commodities.
Yes, but this period also created a WHOLE SLEW of 4 year college graduates in CS, who know how to program MFC apps in C++ using Visual Studio, but fundamentally, have no clue how a computer really works, and no concept of proper engineering. I know, I've worked with MANY of these people.
I was never an "HTML programmer" - I was always a Systems Integrator-type guy. I've done programming, basic shell-scripting, some C, some VB, actually a buttload of DOS scripting (batch programming) - but I never really considered myself a programmer. When I was laid off, because my company felt it was better to hire a half a dozen clueless phone monkeys than one problem-solver, I went around looking for jobs, not billing myself as a programmer. At a couple of interviews, I was told that I was "selling myself short" - but on the other hand, wages are now VERY depressed. The amount of money I can ask for going into a new position with my level of skills is miniscule, compared to the salary I used to command after I had repeatedly saved people's asses over the years.
I don't really mind competing for a job. My latest endeavour has me working as a programmer. I'm learning a lot, and working my ass off. I can say that my last job had me stagnating, because they simply didn't demand my level of skill for where they placed me. So getting laid off was really a good thing. I just wish that the cost of living had declined along with my salary. It's not about doing without luxuries. It's about wondering if I can keep my home, or if I can afford to keep my car maintained.
In the end, my level of consumption has drastically decreased. THIS is why the economy sucks.
When corporations expect to sell to the lucrative American Market with their high standard of living, but then refuse to pay the salaries that make that standard of living happen - they're basically cutting their own throat. And I don't feel sorry for their falling profits at all.
I'm down with OPN. (Other People's Networks).
Let's remember that the DMCA arose from the effort to harmonize Copyright Law throughout all the industrialized nations, in the whole Globalization effort of the 1990's. This was decided in the UN first, supported by the Content Gentry, and pushed through in Congress to comply with what the Globalization community wanted.
The reason why DMCA smells so bad is because it was concieved for the purpose of abdicating US sovreignity to the "global" entity. It wasn't designed to be compliant to our Consitution, or our values. Because Globalization itself, is all about eliminating Nations, and joining them all together, which, on it's surface sounds nice, unless we all end up joined together in a fascist dictatorship run by corporations.
PDF could have been it.
But Adobe was too damn greedy.
The model of "free viewer, paid editor" was a good one, but not when they charge $400 for the editor. Adobe had a great window of opportunity to lower their price before HTML came along and ate their lunch with a "good enough" feature set. They blew it.
There is one company I can think of that has a LONG history of successful partnership with Microsoft.
Arcada->Seagate->Veritas.
They wrote the backup applet that shipped with 95, and some of the other disk utilities bundled with NT/2000, etc. When Veritas (primarily a Unix company) bought the Seagate unit (primarily a Windows company) a few years back - suprisingly, all these years have gone by, and Microsoft STILL has not pulled their rug out from under them. And Veritas continues to sell into both the Unix and MS markets. And they're basicaly THE main player in the backup market. Microsoft could SO easily beat them up and steal their lunch money. . . but has just left them alone.
In my experience, advertising what the product can do is done by Salesmen - probably the people who are MOST divorced from the reality of any given product.
Then the developers get the shaft when the product fails to live up to the expectations set by the "SalesWeasels".
with layoffs coming every couple of months, I sure as heck don't want to be tech lead on a project that customers are returning and suing us over because it doesn't work as advertised.