I have no idea if it's real or not. It's not my site. I just feel like the more people quit slashdot, the less lamer posts like yours I have to wade through to get to the good stuff.
Sorry, I don't live in theory, I live in the real world. I simply will not catch HIV, period. Incidently, transfusion-related infections haven't happened in over 10 years because of the blood screening process.
Tell that to the tens of thousands of Chinese that are infected due to blood transfusions. Admittedly, a different process than what we use, but NO screening process is 100% safe.
To say that it's *almost* 100% preventable is approaching the truth, and the correct attitude.
The more "other people that you don't care about" get this disease, the further from 100% you are.
To say that some diseases are more innocent than others is being observant. To insist that the morality of the cure be dependent on the morality of the disease is repugnant, selfish, and arrogant.
um - insurance premiums=greed
lawsuits=lawyers=greed
drug marketing=greed/stupidity
marketshare=greed
shareholder profits=greed
a new bonus program for executive staff=greed
salaried workers=a drop in the bucket compared to the above.
The more people "out there" who have HIV infection, the greater the risk to YOU - PERSONALLY of contracting HIV. To say that you don't have unprotected gay anal sex, or take intravenous drugs is NO protection. Goody for you, you're morally upstanding.
But the fact is - you are still at risk. What if you get into a car accident, and need a transfusion? If there are 5000 infected potential blood donors out there, you're probably pretty safe, though a small chance of infection does exist. With 10,000,000 infected, high viral-loaded dying potential blood or organ donors out there, you're at a bit of a higher risk.
Plus - that monogamous relationship that you THINK you are in, may not be quite as monogamous as you think.
Or you could be raped.
Or you could inadvertantly contaminate your blood with someone else's in any one of MANY other ways - industrial accident, dental procedure, brushing against someone on the street who has an open sore, being involved in a fistfight, or even being an innocent bystander who gets someone pushed into him from a fight, or a mentally unstable homeless person could bite you.
Admittedly, there are no documented cases of any of these infections, but they're all theoretically possible, none of them are behaviorally-driven, and the risk increases as the percentage of HIV-infected people in the population at large increases, whether you wear a chastity belt or not.
If you believe that HIV is exclusively behaviorally spread, then I have NO sympathy for you when you contract it in one of the "innocent" fashions. Joe Buttplug down the street catching HIV *IS* your concern. His behavior is *not*. It *IS* a public health issue, because each new person infected is a new incubator for viruses, and a vector for more infections. Treating this person with the drugs reduces the chance of the disease spreading - more effectively than telling Joe Buttplug not to put his pee-pee into any more bottoms. Because inevitably, Joe Buttplug will do with his pee-pee as he wishes.
There were a huge influx of Armenian refugees into Macedonia from Serbia during Milosivec's reign of terror. Macedonians didn't want them, because they didn't want a population-induced power shift to destabilize their own country. Nothing personal.
But it happened. The refugees came, and Macedonia was pretty much forced to take them. Now we're sending peacekeeping forces.
Would it have been right to turn these people back at the borders, tell them to go back to their homes and wait for the Serbian death squads to come by and gang-rape them and execute them, not necessarily in that order?
Also, since the Swiss were not Nazi - Godwin's law does not apply.
Here's how I would have written the TV Series; Crusader (sequel/spin-off to Babylon 5):
Crusader finds the cure to the alien plague in first 5 episodes, brings it back to Earth, EarthGov hands it over to the Pharma corps, who patent and license the manufacturing process (remember, it's got to be distributed to every man woman and child on the planet before the quarrantine can be broken) - and they see it as an opportunity to profit, and play hardball on fees.
The cure they devise is not a cure but an ongoing treatment. The actual cure is given only to corporate officers, board members, and shareholders.
After an extended period of negotiations, protests, etc. with the Pharma corps essentially holding all the cards, EarthGov attempts to infiltrate the pharma corps to steal the manufacturing process, and fails. Most of the telepaths from the defunct psi corps now work for the pharmaceutical companies. They cut their power, pharma corps are on backup - they are totally self-reliant. There is now a social elite who have been cured, and the rest are sick and dying. Shareholders are not concerned. They know their rights and they want their money dammit (and they're cured anyway, right?)
Due to EarthGov's noncompliance with interstellar law, their membership in the alliance is revoked. Earth is blockaded as economic sanctions take hold. Only pharma corp ships are allowed free passage.
As the population begins to die off, after repeated attempts to duplicate the drug or steal the process fail - after even appealing to alien races to manufacture the drug, Earth Gov sends in commandos to take over the pharma corp factories. Pharma corp security forces defend their turf - the Earth Gov forces are mostly sick with the virus. Earth Gov is forced to turn the planetary defense systems on the pharma corp forces as a form of support. Orbital particle beam weapons are taken out by pharma corp mercenaries. Most of Earth's population is beyond hope of treatment by this point, riots, starvation, etc.
Cured shareholders and corporate executives flee Earth, and are allowed to take up residence on Mars, being proven "virus free".
I guess that's why I can't find a job as a screenwriter.
not to mention the hundreds of thousands poor Chinese who have HIV because they made the poor moral choice of donating blood.
(Chinese blood donation agencies would take the blood, mix it ALL into a big vat, remove the plasma, and send the rest back to be reinjected into the donors so they don't get anemic)
Yes, a poor government policy caused the epidemic there, and you can bet China will soon be following Brazil's lead, they're already communist, afterall.
don't forget that this has the additional impact on the "generic" drug producers, who have retooled production in anticpation of producing their drug, on slimmer profit margins, with much less production experience. This eats into THEIR bottom lines as well, (pulling the rug out from under them with a patent-extension lawsuit) - and discourages the timely introduction of new expired-patent drugs into the marketplace.
this is largely a recent trend, but a large portion of those marketing expenses are the "free samples" the doctor gives you when you visit with a problem.
In fact, in this way, many doctors have become glorified drug hucksters.
this sounds like the classic psychological test-question for moral development; would you steal a drug needed to save your wife's life if you couldn't afford it?
The facts are, that this sort of behavior fits a LONG TERM PATTERN for Microsoft, dating back to the OS/2 wars on Compuserve. (Steven Barktho)
Another fact is, whether it's a single unscrupulous individual within Microsoft or not - the leadership IS responsible for this behavior. The ethical thing to do is for the senior managment at Microsoft to issue a press release talking about how abhorrent they find this kind of behavior, and fire the unscrupulous individual.
Microsoft has NEVER done this throughout their long history of distorting truth and dishonest marketing practices. So I find it hard to believe that it's a loose cannon - it's something that's endemic to the entire organization.
I'm not saying that there aren't some honest individuals working for Microsoft. If any are reading this, you ought to feel nauseated and ashamed of your organization, and I encourage you to start being honest with yourself about what you are doing with your life, and whether your integrity permits you to be associated with, and benefit monitarily from this particular organization.
The WORST thing is that stupid shell-scrap garbage, a feature which nobody ever uses, and which HIDES extensions even if you've configured the OS to explicitly SHOW extensions so you don't get clobbered with this kind of thing. You assume it's a txt file, because you KNOW you told the OS to show you extensions - but not when it's a shell-scrap file, which was an obscure enough feature that even seasoned power users were unaware of it in their day-to-day use of the OS.
As a viral engineering feat, funny.txt.vbs was genius.
As an OS feature, shell-scrap, as far as I'm concerned can remove the s-es and become hell-crap.
no, I never know whether my porn's gonna open in JpegView, QuickTime Picture Viewer, or Photoshop - and that's all with Jpeg files, with JpegView icons.
First, you say we don't need no stinkin metadata, then you say we need it with more power and flexibility.
I think we can all agree that application binding is a cool thing, and saves us a lot of work as an automatic shortcut to opening documents.
The problem here is, and NOBODY has gotten this right so far as far as I'm concerned, is having a decent way for power users to edit and manipulate metadata, and configure the OS's treatment of it.
Yes, the high and mighty programmers have access to it. The hackers have access to it. The grannies don't want or need access to it as long as application binding functions in a basic, and intelligent way. The power users have access to it, the same way the hackers do - but it's often a pain in the ass, using tools that weren't really designed to do anything other than mess around. Nothing useful can be done with these tools ON ANY OS, in terms of allowing a power user to quickly and easily manipulate the metadata to set up a custom behavior that suits his or her purposes.
And that's really the whole problem.
That, and of course the fact that filename extensions really have got to go.
You'd think that the OS vendors would think about this, and provide the users with some nice tools. And I'll agree with you, Microsoft's solution is kind of nice. Where the CM for a Batch File in explorer will give you the choice to RUN the batch file, or Edit it. I think power users need that kind of flexibility for html as well, OPEN the file in a browser, or OPEN the file in an editor.
I'm often frustrated with graphics files - sometimes I want to run a quick image viewer to display an image file - sometimes I want to tear it up in Photoshop. Launching Photoshop is a 60-second ordeal on some people's machines, and it's a necessary ordeal if you want to do serious editing.
You see the problem here? Granny needs the file to open in her browser on a double-click. The power-user or content creator needs TWO choices on the execution of an icon. Edit or View. And in the case of executible content, Execute. This needs a user paradigm - probably a lot easier to use than a CM. And it must be MUCH quicker than the stupid "open this unregistered file in one of these " deal, which is annoying and slow on every OS I've seen it.
when I think about how annoying this problem is, and how NOBODY has ever offered a real, workable solution for this. I see - an opportunity. . .
A blade formed by molding liquid steel will always be totally inferior to one forged by a traditional process of layering and pounding on an anvil.
The traditional process will yeild successive layers of metals of differing qualities. The high-points of this art are to be found in the swords of the Japanese Samurai, as well as in the Damascus-type blades.
The differing properties of different qualities of steel suit the differing requirements of the edge and body of the blade. The end-result is actually a primative composite, far superior in performance to what would result from a cast piece; an homogenous chunk of blah.
The only thing casting of steel swords allowed was crude mass-production. (skipping the labor-intensive steps of pounding, folding, pounding, etc. which required a very skilled and experienced laborer, as well as a lot of forge-time). And if casting didn't exist, then how did bladesmiths get the stock metal to begin with? So it wasn't casting per-se that the Arabs developed, but rather casting of a metal of a type that was of sufficient quality to work as a blade all by it's lonesome. But it wasn't an especially great blade.
okay, so this was intended as a joke - but who GIVES A SHIT if the machines don't have feelings?
I think it's really an academic question as to whether "intelligent machines" will arise, or whether they will manifest the phenomenon we refer to as consciousness.
We already have machines that are starting to do things - that make this question moot. The "music composing" machine that fooled the music experts. Deep Blue. Etc.
It's already happening, and it's inevitable.
Are these machines conscious? No, but it doesn't matter. To us. They are tools. Nothing more. Can an army tank be accidentally set to drive forward mindlessly without a human driver, and run over buildings and cars and cows? Yes, of course, and the same thing can and will happen with "intelligent machines" as well. It's inevitable. Especially as their workings become so complex as to be unpredictable, even to their designers. (hell, I'm supporting software that does that already).
Is humanity in danger? Of course. We've been in danger of extinction from our unnatural tinkering from the first time Oog started a campfire near some dry grass.
Why all the hemming and hawing about it now? Because it sells books, and tickets to movie theaters, and gets venture capital for companies working on "AI".
I personally believe that natural (or supernatural) human consciousness will never be duplicated by a machine. Others believe that one day, we'll have the mastery over the physical universe that will permit that. Frankly, that's not an important question, because outwardly, "intelligent machines" will be indistinguishable from conscious beings long before we might actually reproduce human consciousness (if that were possible).
Outwardly indistinguishable.
Long before that, either we'll figure out adequate safeguards for such machines, or we'll be the victim of a stupid accident, and become another species on the very long list of extinct species. No biggie. It happens.
YOU go fucking take the customer calls then. I'll give them your extension, 'k?
Have some respect for tech support guys. If they're clueless about the product you coded, it's because you didn't fucking document it properly. Or can't put the effort into communicating information with another human being. How the fuck are they supposed to troubleshoot a black box? Get out of your ivory tower and answer the phone.
I guess the real issue is; I'm shocked. Totally shocked, at the wide range of conclusions drawn from the SAME POOL OF EVIDENCE.
My conclusion is that there is no hope for humanity, whether global warming is real or not. It's really a moot point whether we're changing the climate or not. If we can't *all* look at the same pool of scientifically gathered evidence, agree upon a rational conclusion, and take action to ensure our own survival - we, as a species are doomed.
Whether it's global warming that eventually kills us, or a global plague, or some other threat. If people can't get together and agree on empirical evidence - we're just fucked.
OS X is TOO SLOW on my 300MHz Beige. With ATI video.
I'm saving my pennies for a dual 1GHz G4 with UMA-2 mobo.
Mr. Jobs can HAVE my pennies, when I can have that machine. And until then, I'm still running classic.
Slashdot Mirror
I have no idea if it's real or not. It's not my site. I just feel like the more people quit slashdot, the less lamer posts like yours I have to wade through to get to the good stuff.
Sorry, I don't live in theory, I live in the real world. I simply will not catch HIV, period. Incidently, transfusion-related infections haven't happened in over 10 years because of the blood screening process.
Tell that to the tens of thousands of Chinese that are infected due to blood transfusions. Admittedly, a different process than what we use, but NO screening process is 100% safe.
To say that it's *almost* 100% preventable is approaching the truth, and the correct attitude.
The more "other people that you don't care about" get this disease, the further from 100% you are.
To say that some diseases are more innocent than others is being observant. To insist that the morality of the cure be dependent on the morality of the disease is repugnant, selfish, and arrogant.
um - insurance premiums=greed
lawsuits=lawyers=greed
drug marketing=greed/stupidity
marketshare=greed
shareholder profits=greed
a new bonus program for executive staff=greed
salaried workers=a drop in the bucket compared to the above.
Is anybody out there now not completely convinced that Hillary Rosen is the antichrist?
please consider the following:
Your own welfare and safety ARE at stake here.
The more people "out there" who have HIV infection, the greater the risk to YOU - PERSONALLY of contracting HIV. To say that you don't have unprotected gay anal sex, or take intravenous drugs is NO protection. Goody for you, you're morally upstanding.
But the fact is - you are still at risk. What if you get into a car accident, and need a transfusion? If there are 5000 infected potential blood donors out there, you're probably pretty safe, though a small chance of infection does exist. With 10,000,000 infected, high viral-loaded dying potential blood or organ donors out there, you're at a bit of a higher risk.
Plus - that monogamous relationship that you THINK you are in, may not be quite as monogamous as you think.
Or you could be raped.
Or you could inadvertantly contaminate your blood with someone else's in any one of MANY other ways - industrial accident, dental procedure, brushing against someone on the street who has an open sore, being involved in a fistfight, or even being an innocent bystander who gets someone pushed into him from a fight, or a mentally unstable homeless person could bite you.
Admittedly, there are no documented cases of any of these infections, but they're all theoretically possible, none of them are behaviorally-driven, and the risk increases as the percentage of HIV-infected people in the population at large increases, whether you wear a chastity belt or not.
If you believe that HIV is exclusively behaviorally spread, then I have NO sympathy for you when you contract it in one of the "innocent" fashions. Joe Buttplug down the street catching HIV *IS* your concern. His behavior is *not*. It *IS* a public health issue, because each new person infected is a new incubator for viruses, and a vector for more infections. Treating this person with the drugs reduces the chance of the disease spreading - more effectively than telling Joe Buttplug not to put his pee-pee into any more bottoms. Because inevitably, Joe Buttplug will do with his pee-pee as he wishes.
wow. sounds like you're a fascist about more than just grammar. . .
Similar situation in Macedonia right now.
There were a huge influx of Armenian refugees into Macedonia from Serbia during Milosivec's reign of terror. Macedonians didn't want them, because they didn't want a population-induced power shift to destabilize their own country. Nothing personal.
But it happened. The refugees came, and Macedonia was pretty much forced to take them. Now we're sending peacekeeping forces.
Would it have been right to turn these people back at the borders, tell them to go back to their homes and wait for the Serbian death squads to come by and gang-rape them and execute them, not necessarily in that order?
Also, since the Swiss were not Nazi - Godwin's law does not apply.
Here's how I would have written the TV Series; Crusader (sequel/spin-off to Babylon 5):
Crusader finds the cure to the alien plague in first 5 episodes, brings it back to Earth, EarthGov hands it over to the Pharma corps, who patent and license the manufacturing process (remember, it's got to be distributed to every man woman and child on the planet before the quarrantine can be broken) - and they see it as an opportunity to profit, and play hardball on fees.
The cure they devise is not a cure but an ongoing treatment. The actual cure is given only to corporate officers, board members, and shareholders.
After an extended period of negotiations, protests, etc. with the Pharma corps essentially holding all the cards, EarthGov attempts to infiltrate the pharma corps to steal the manufacturing process, and fails. Most of the telepaths from the defunct psi corps now work for the pharmaceutical companies. They cut their power, pharma corps are on backup - they are totally self-reliant. There is now a social elite who have been cured, and the rest are sick and dying. Shareholders are not concerned. They know their rights and they want their money dammit (and they're cured anyway, right?)
Due to EarthGov's noncompliance with interstellar law, their membership in the alliance is revoked. Earth is blockaded as economic sanctions take hold. Only pharma corp ships are allowed free passage.
As the population begins to die off, after repeated attempts to duplicate the drug or steal the process fail - after even appealing to alien races to manufacture the drug, Earth Gov sends in commandos to take over the pharma corp factories. Pharma corp security forces defend their turf - the Earth Gov forces are mostly sick with the virus. Earth Gov is forced to turn the planetary defense systems on the pharma corp forces as a form of support. Orbital particle beam weapons are taken out by pharma corp mercenaries. Most of Earth's population is beyond hope of treatment by this point, riots, starvation, etc.
Cured shareholders and corporate executives flee Earth, and are allowed to take up residence on Mars, being proven "virus free".
I guess that's why I can't find a job as a screenwriter.
not to mention the hundreds of thousands poor Chinese who have HIV because they made the poor moral choice of donating blood.
(Chinese blood donation agencies would take the blood, mix it ALL into a big vat, remove the plasma, and send the rest back to be reinjected into the donors so they don't get anemic)
Yes, a poor government policy caused the epidemic there, and you can bet China will soon be following Brazil's lead, they're already communist, afterall.
don't forget that this has the additional impact on the "generic" drug producers, who have retooled production in anticpation of producing their drug, on slimmer profit margins, with much less production experience. This eats into THEIR bottom lines as well, (pulling the rug out from under them with a patent-extension lawsuit) - and discourages the timely introduction of new expired-patent drugs into the marketplace.
the need for votes from people in the affected "high-risk groups"
this is largely a recent trend, but a large portion of those marketing expenses are the "free samples" the doctor gives you when you visit with a problem.
In fact, in this way, many doctors have become glorified drug hucksters.
this sounds like the classic psychological test-question for moral development; would you steal a drug needed to save your wife's life if you couldn't afford it?
this is not a new trend.
It is old, and has been going on as long as humanity has had the use of language as a tool to twist meaning.
The facts are, that this sort of behavior fits a LONG TERM PATTERN for Microsoft, dating back to the OS/2 wars on Compuserve. (Steven Barktho)
Another fact is, whether it's a single unscrupulous individual within Microsoft or not - the leadership IS responsible for this behavior. The ethical thing to do is for the senior managment at Microsoft to issue a press release talking about how abhorrent they find this kind of behavior, and fire the unscrupulous individual.
Microsoft has NEVER done this throughout their long history of distorting truth and dishonest marketing practices. So I find it hard to believe that it's a loose cannon - it's something that's endemic to the entire organization.
I'm not saying that there aren't some honest individuals working for Microsoft. If any are reading this, you ought to feel nauseated and ashamed of your organization, and I encourage you to start being honest with yourself about what you are doing with your life, and whether your integrity permits you to be associated with, and benefit monitarily from this particular organization.
that's not the worst thing about funny.txt.vbs.
The WORST thing is that stupid shell-scrap garbage, a feature which nobody ever uses, and which HIDES extensions even if you've configured the OS to explicitly SHOW extensions so you don't get clobbered with this kind of thing. You assume it's a txt file, because you KNOW you told the OS to show you extensions - but not when it's a shell-scrap file, which was an obscure enough feature that even seasoned power users were unaware of it in their day-to-day use of the OS.
As a viral engineering feat, funny.txt.vbs was genius.
As an OS feature, shell-scrap, as far as I'm concerned can remove the s-es and become hell-crap.
no, I never know whether my porn's gonna open in JpegView, QuickTime Picture Viewer, or Photoshop - and that's all with Jpeg files, with JpegView icons.
First, you say we don't need no stinkin metadata, then you say we need it with more power and flexibility.
I think we can all agree that application binding is a cool thing, and saves us a lot of work as an automatic shortcut to opening documents.
The problem here is, and NOBODY has gotten this right so far as far as I'm concerned, is having a decent way for power users to edit and manipulate metadata, and configure the OS's treatment of it.
Yes, the high and mighty programmers have access to it. The hackers have access to it. The grannies don't want or need access to it as long as application binding functions in a basic, and intelligent way. The power users have access to it, the same way the hackers do - but it's often a pain in the ass, using tools that weren't really designed to do anything other than mess around. Nothing useful can be done with these tools ON ANY OS, in terms of allowing a power user to quickly and easily manipulate the metadata to set up a custom behavior that suits his or her purposes.
And that's really the whole problem.
That, and of course the fact that filename extensions really have got to go.
You'd think that the OS vendors would think about this, and provide the users with some nice tools. And I'll agree with you, Microsoft's solution is kind of nice. Where the CM for a Batch File in explorer will give you the choice to RUN the batch file, or Edit it. I think power users need that kind of flexibility for html as well, OPEN the file in a browser, or OPEN the file in an editor.
I'm often frustrated with graphics files - sometimes I want to run a quick image viewer to display an image file - sometimes I want to tear it up in Photoshop. Launching Photoshop is a 60-second ordeal on some people's machines, and it's a necessary ordeal if you want to do serious editing.
You see the problem here? Granny needs the file to open in her browser on a double-click. The power-user or content creator needs TWO choices on the execution of an icon. Edit or View. And in the case of executible content, Execute. This needs a user paradigm - probably a lot easier to use than a CM. And it must be MUCH quicker than the stupid "open this unregistered file in one of these " deal, which is annoying and slow on every OS I've seen it.
when I think about how annoying this problem is, and how NOBODY has ever offered a real, workable solution for this. I see - an opportunity. . .
what's up wit dat? A technology company that actually "gets it".
who would have thought?
absolutely false.
A blade formed by molding liquid steel will always be totally inferior to one forged by a traditional process of layering and pounding on an anvil.
The traditional process will yeild successive layers of metals of differing qualities. The high-points of this art are to be found in the swords of the Japanese Samurai, as well as in the Damascus-type blades.
The differing properties of different qualities of steel suit the differing requirements of the edge and body of the blade. The end-result is actually a primative composite, far superior in performance to what would result from a cast piece; an homogenous chunk of blah.
The only thing casting of steel swords allowed was crude mass-production. (skipping the labor-intensive steps of pounding, folding, pounding, etc. which required a very skilled and experienced laborer, as well as a lot of forge-time). And if casting didn't exist, then how did bladesmiths get the stock metal to begin with? So it wasn't casting per-se that the Arabs developed, but rather casting of a metal of a type that was of sufficient quality to work as a blade all by it's lonesome. But it wasn't an especially great blade.
okay, so this was intended as a joke - but who GIVES A SHIT if the machines don't have feelings?
I think it's really an academic question as to whether "intelligent machines" will arise, or whether they will manifest the phenomenon we refer to as consciousness.
We already have machines that are starting to do things - that make this question moot. The "music composing" machine that fooled the music experts. Deep Blue. Etc.
It's already happening, and it's inevitable.
Are these machines conscious? No, but it doesn't matter. To us. They are tools. Nothing more. Can an army tank be accidentally set to drive forward mindlessly without a human driver, and run over buildings and cars and cows? Yes, of course, and the same thing can and will happen with "intelligent machines" as well. It's inevitable. Especially as their workings become so complex as to be unpredictable, even to their designers. (hell, I'm supporting software that does that already).
Is humanity in danger? Of course. We've been in danger of extinction from our unnatural tinkering from the first time Oog started a campfire near some dry grass.
Why all the hemming and hawing about it now? Because it sells books, and tickets to movie theaters, and gets venture capital for companies working on "AI".
I personally believe that natural (or supernatural) human consciousness will never be duplicated by a machine. Others believe that one day, we'll have the mastery over the physical universe that will permit that. Frankly, that's not an important question, because outwardly, "intelligent machines" will be indistinguishable from conscious beings long before we might actually reproduce human consciousness (if that were possible).
Outwardly indistinguishable.
Long before that, either we'll figure out adequate safeguards for such machines, or we'll be the victim of a stupid accident, and become another species on the very long list of extinct species. No biggie. It happens.
maybe they can make them small enough to power my Honda!
Good.
YOU go fucking take the customer calls then. I'll give them your extension, 'k?
Have some respect for tech support guys. If they're clueless about the product you coded, it's because you didn't fucking document it properly. Or can't put the effort into communicating information with another human being. How the fuck are they supposed to troubleshoot a black box? Get out of your ivory tower and answer the phone.
I guess the real issue is; I'm shocked. Totally shocked, at the wide range of conclusions drawn from the SAME POOL OF EVIDENCE.
My conclusion is that there is no hope for humanity, whether global warming is real or not. It's really a moot point whether we're changing the climate or not. If we can't *all* look at the same pool of scientifically gathered evidence, agree upon a rational conclusion, and take action to ensure our own survival - we, as a species are doomed.
Whether it's global warming that eventually kills us, or a global plague, or some other threat. If people can't get together and agree on empirical evidence - we're just fucked.
OS X is TOO SLOW on my 300MHz Beige. With ATI video.
I'm saving my pennies for a dual 1GHz G4 with UMA-2 mobo.
Mr. Jobs can HAVE my pennies, when I can have that machine. And until then, I'm still running classic.