Anyone who *doesn't* write a site that serves seperate pages to different browsers is doing a disservice to the public. Most are too lazy or too apathetic to do so however.
The most obvious case in point being Lynx.
For various reasons ( including access to the reading disabled) every site should, at the very least, serve a different page to pure text browsers than it does to graphical browsers.
The whole *point* of identifying browsers at all is to allow the server to serve optimized pages for different browsers.
Anyone who writes a site that takes advantage of this to deliberately make certain browsers look like shit is a shithead.
It's just question of how long it takes, and what the ultimate selling price is.
In any case if you build a Rex Roberts type engineered home you couldn't get a mortage in the first place and self contracted with capital you raised yourself, ultimately saving you tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars off the *front* end of home ownership cost.
Bear in mind that a house with a lower retail value also pays lower *property taxes.*
Under the right circumstances owning an "unsalable" home is a positive boon. Perhaps even to the extent that it puts you in a position where you can't be forced to move for work.
Then you wouldn't be a "wage slave" in those terms. You would have risen to the status of "the help."
While there is a difference in class status between the scullery maid and the corporate manager their *state* is the same.
I used the term "wage slave" in the sense of ability to personally control ones working conditions or not. The classical form of wage slavery that you refer to still exists in a form though, but it's slavery to the interest charged by lending institutions rather than the company store.
If you need to borrow money to own a car so that you can get to work, you may well be a wage slave, even in the classical sense. It's just less obvious.
I fully admit that I'm an odd bird in today's world. By *my* standards the guy who barely scrapes by with his own pool cleaning business is of a higher status than a corporation president, no matter how much he "makes."
The classical American Dream is *independence,* not income.
KFG
No, you have to understand that heat travels. . .
on
Blacker Than Black
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· Score: 0
from the colder body to the warmer.
Have you ever looked in a Thermos bottle? It's mirrored. Not black. It *reflects* the heat (from the inside if the contents are hot, and the outside if the contents are cold). Black would radiate it. Remember that in this instance the form of energy we're dealing with is electromagnetic radiation ( infrared light).
In the summer the roof of your house in direct sunlight is the hottest thing going. A black roof absorbs heat from the sun and then radiates to the cooler location. That would be the inside of your house. The polished roof reflects the heat away from the house. Notice that bedouin clothing is white. Ever sit a black car in the summer?
Conversely, in the winter, the black roof absorbs the heat from the house and radiates it to the cooler outdoors. Aluminum *reflects* the heat back into the house. Just like the Thermos bottle. Go to your local home store and look at insulation. Fiberglass batting is backed by aluminum. Foam board is often wrapped in aluminum.
In these materials it is the *aluminum* that provides the active heat manipulating properties of the insulator. The fiberglass batting itself serves to hold the air motionless. If you can maintain the air in your walls motionless you can skip the fiberglass completely and simply use the aluminized paper and get exactly the same insulative results.
And that would pretty much describe a Thermos bottle.
So why do they paint solar collectors black? Ah, they don't. They paint the *inside* of solar collectors black. The collector itself is made out of relective aluminum. Please note that in such a solar collector you don't *want* insulation. You want the inside of the collector to be as *hot* as possible, all the time. This is very different than what you want for your house, or Thermos bottle for that matter.
The black interior of the solar collector absorbs the heat from the sun and then trys to radiate it. Since the black is just a paint layer on reflective aluminum it reflects away from the aluminum, leaving it only the interior of the collector as a place to go, so the interior heats up.
If you wish you can apply this same principle to your house in the winter. Put a black heat source (such as an iron or masonry wood stove) inside your aluminum sheathed home.
of the capitalist model with the model itself. A common error. Even economists make it with distressing regularity.
Just as HTML, XHTML and XML are all implimentations of the SGML standard, the capitalist model is simply a broad umbrella which leaves quite a bit of leeway for creativity and alternative modes.
Modern Western interest driven capitalism isn't the only possible implimentation. "Islamic Banking" is, for instance, attracting a great deal of, ummmmm, interest, these days, despite the fact that it eschews the charging of interest.
It is, nonetheless, a capitalist banking system, as were many of the monetary systems of the ancients who practiced free merchantilism. What's more, many modern western capitalists still raise their capital just as the ancients did.
"Sweat equity" is still capitalism.
KFG
"Wonder how effective it would be . . .
on
Blacker Than Black
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
as a solar heating surface ?"
Ummmmm, much more than black paint?
I don't mean to be snide or anything ( for a change), but you really couldn't figure that out for yourself in about 1/10 of a second?
Not that it'll make much difference in a world that still puts black asphalt products on their roofs (which does everything wrong, being hot in summer and cold in winter) instead of polished aluminum.
In order to make good use of solar radiation one must first learn to use it *properly,* no matter how efficient any particular material is. Otherwise that efficiency just goes to waste.
I recommend a perusal of Rex Robert's classic work "Your Engineered House" for an explaination of how understanding basic thermodynamics can be applied simply and cheaply, with off the the shelf non-propriatary building materials, to a house with remarkable effect.
Just as in software no one makes gobs of money promoting nonpropriatary solutions, even though those solutions may not only be cheaper, but *better.* The whole Open/Propriatary thingummy goes far deeper than the IT industry. It is pervasive in every walk of life.
It's up to you to ignore the advertising material and edumicate yourself I'm afraid.
than it is to Soviet communism. One could think of it as capitalist fascism, as opposed to state fascism.
The primary difference is that in capitalist fascism the private owners of captial are free to contract members of the government into their 'employ,'whereas in state fascism it works the other way around and the state has military force at the their disposal at the bargaining table and in enforcing the contract. One could argue that this last is true of capitalist fascism as well, but I would refer such as wish to argue that to study the MS anti-trust settlement and to compare this to the nationalization of corporations under state fascism.
While the difference between the two is actually quite important at the government/corporation level it is, again, almost imperceptable at the prole level.
A slave is as a slave is compelled to do and giving an employee a nice little nametag that labels him an 'associate' doesn't, in truth, make him one.
It's starting to sound rather like America, and exactly the sort of capitalistic tyrany the founding fathers were afraid their republic could turn into.
You see, the difference is, in Soviet Russia the government owned the means of production.
In America the means of production are in private hands ( the very definition of capitalism) but own the government.
A subtle difference to the man on the street perhaps. After all, at serf level tyrany is tryany, but it isn't fair to slander it with the label of the great "evil empire." It's pure laissez-faire capitalism and a "free" wage slave is still a slave.
And remember, the next time MS gives you that TCO crap, that this hassle, and its attendant expenses, are part of the TCO of using software that falls under the aegis of the BSA.
I'm sure she's got enough lying around to handle any independant's needs.
In fact, her consumption may be the reason supplier's are loath to part with what they've got. You wouldn't want to stiff your best customer just becasue someone wanted to waste this stuff as rocket fuel, now would you?
Although it is the perhaps the most popular one for CD-RW (and what comes budled with XP). Nero software is generally considered better by the "in crowd," and is now fully multitasking ( true use your computer while you burn capability without becoming a "coaster factory").
Anyone can implement UDF. Not just Adaptec (excuse me, Roxio).
The UDF file format is an ISO standard format under the control of OSTA (Optical Software Trade Association). It was orginally developed for DVD's, as the CD file format could not handle the large file sizes needed by video.
It was also felt by the "media industry" that some sort of "universal" ( that's what the U in UDF stands for)file format would be needed in the future that could handle any given binary data, i.e. video, music, data, etc., all mixed on a single disk.
There isn't even inherently anything that requires rewritable CD's or DVD's to use the UDF file format, but it does make a certain amount of sense, being "universal" and all.
Your post my well have been a joke, but the joke is that it's snidely insightful as well. Quite a remarkable accomplishment for a first post. I salute you sir.
Wouldn't it just be loverly if the space program went into *space* once in a while, just to be different?
Viva Von Braun!
I propose a permanent, selfsupporting base and launch facility on the backside of the moon, and from there, to infinity. . . and beyond!
Well good on them. This is one small step in right direction. Now all they have to do is figure out a way to prevent all that unregulated "chat" sharing and rampant free exchange of "information" and the internet will, once again, be free for democracy and automatic shopping by net "enabled" refrigerators.
Yo! Microchip. Go get me a beer and don't give me none o yo back talk.
You know, I've been trying for years, but I still just can't figure out what's so hard about twisting that little rod thingy to adjust my miniblinds. It's simple, easy, quick, effective, mechanically simple and dosn't raise my electric bill.
There always are. This from people who would defend their Ford Taurus to the death, despite the fact that their Ford Taurus is about the most likely thing to kill them. Unless, perhaps, it's their own bathtub.
In the meantime there are people all over the world dying at the hands of other people, quite maliciously, by the score of scores.
The later is a tragedy. The Space Shuttle failure is an *accident.* In essence no different than a fatal car accident due to some trivial mechanical failure or other. It happens. No one threatened the cancelation of the Navy after the Thresher disaster which took the lives of 129 men, some civilians, despite the fact that these men had no more business being in the deep ocean than man has in space.
Why do we do such things as fly into space in the first place? Well, in the words of one of the great martyrs of going someplace no one has been before, "Because it's there."
When left to his own devices, rather than simply being asked idiotic questions by a mindless press agent, he could be quite a bit more eloquent though, and I'll depart with these words of Mr. Mallory:
"The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."
-George Leigh Mallory, 1922
May the crew of the Columbia rest in peace, and joy, and may others live to experience the same joy of stars reached for.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone who *doesn't* write a site that serves seperate pages to different browsers is doing a disservice to the public. Most are too lazy or too apathetic to do so however.
The most obvious case in point being Lynx.
For various reasons ( including access to the reading disabled) every site should, at the very least, serve a different page to pure text browsers than it does to graphical browsers.
The whole *point* of identifying browsers at all is to allow the server to serve optimized pages for different browsers.
Anyone who writes a site that takes advantage of this to deliberately make certain browsers look like shit is a shithead.
KFG
Except, of course, for that little court ruling that it isn't legal to force such tax compliance in the first place which created the "loophole."
Please note that the short list of "players" given are major retailers with a "presence" in all states.
Amazon is a pure e-tailer with a "presence" only in its home state.
This makes a big difference.
KFG
It's just question of how long it takes, and what the ultimate selling price is.
In any case if you build a Rex Roberts type engineered home you couldn't get a mortage in the first place and self contracted with capital you raised yourself, ultimately saving you tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars off the *front* end of home ownership cost.
Bear in mind that a house with a lower retail value also pays lower *property taxes.*
Under the right circumstances owning an "unsalable" home is a positive boon. Perhaps even to the extent that it puts you in a position where you can't be forced to move for work.
KFG
Then you wouldn't be a "wage slave" in those terms. You would have risen to the status of "the help."
While there is a difference in class status between the scullery maid and the corporate manager their *state* is the same.
I used the term "wage slave" in the sense of ability to personally control ones working conditions or not. The classical form of wage slavery that you refer to still exists in a form though, but it's slavery to the interest charged by lending institutions rather than the company store.
If you need to borrow money to own a car so that you can get to work, you may well be a wage slave, even in the classical sense. It's just less obvious.
I fully admit that I'm an odd bird in today's world. By *my* standards the guy who barely scrapes by with his own pool cleaning business is of a higher status than a corporation president, no matter how much he "makes."
The classical American Dream is *independence,* not income.
KFG
from the colder body to the warmer.
Have you ever looked in a Thermos bottle? It's mirrored. Not black. It *reflects* the heat (from the inside if the contents are hot, and the outside if the contents are cold). Black would radiate it. Remember that in this instance the form of energy we're dealing with is electromagnetic radiation ( infrared light).
In the summer the roof of your house in direct sunlight is the hottest thing going. A black roof absorbs heat from the sun and then radiates to the cooler location. That would be the inside of your house. The polished roof reflects the heat away from the house. Notice that bedouin clothing is white. Ever sit a black car in the summer?
Conversely, in the winter, the black roof absorbs the heat from the house and radiates it to the cooler outdoors. Aluminum *reflects* the heat back into the house. Just like the Thermos bottle. Go to your local home store and look at insulation. Fiberglass batting is backed by aluminum. Foam board is often wrapped in aluminum.
In these materials it is the *aluminum* that provides the active heat manipulating properties of the insulator. The fiberglass batting itself serves to hold the air motionless. If you can maintain the air in your walls motionless you can skip the fiberglass completely and simply use the aluminized paper and get exactly the same insulative results.
And that would pretty much describe a Thermos bottle.
So why do they paint solar collectors black? Ah, they don't. They paint the *inside* of solar collectors black. The collector itself is made out of relective aluminum. Please note that in such a solar collector you don't *want* insulation. You want the inside of the collector to be as *hot* as possible, all the time. This is very different than what you want for your house, or Thermos bottle for that matter.
The black interior of the solar collector absorbs the heat from the sun and then trys to radiate it. Since the black is just a paint layer on reflective aluminum it reflects away from the aluminum, leaving it only the interior of the collector as a place to go, so the interior heats up.
If you wish you can apply this same principle to your house in the winter. Put a black heat source (such as an iron or masonry wood stove) inside your aluminum sheathed home.
KFG
Quit your job and start your own business.
I fail to see the socialism in that attitude.
KFG
you don't have the insight to understand the difference between insight and spelling.
You might, now that you bring it up, wish to check your own.
Checking your eyes wouldn't be a bad idea either.
KFG
Although if you agreed with it would simply be "common sense."
By the way, this post is insightfull as well.
KFG
of the capitalist model with the model itself. A common error. Even economists make it with distressing regularity.
Just as HTML, XHTML and XML are all implimentations of the SGML standard, the capitalist model is simply a broad umbrella which leaves quite a bit of leeway for creativity and alternative modes.
Modern Western interest driven capitalism isn't the only possible implimentation. "Islamic Banking" is, for instance, attracting a great deal of, ummmmm, interest, these days, despite the fact that it eschews the charging of interest.
It is, nonetheless, a capitalist banking system, as were many of the monetary systems of the ancients who practiced free merchantilism. What's more, many modern western capitalists still raise their capital just as the ancients did.
"Sweat equity" is still capitalism.
KFG
as a solar heating surface ?"
Ummmmm, much more than black paint?
I don't mean to be snide or anything ( for a change), but you really couldn't figure that out for yourself in about 1/10 of a second?
Not that it'll make much difference in a world that still puts black asphalt products on their roofs (which does everything wrong, being hot in summer and cold in winter) instead of polished aluminum.
In order to make good use of solar radiation one must first learn to use it *properly,* no matter how efficient any particular material is. Otherwise that efficiency just goes to waste.
I recommend a perusal of Rex Robert's classic work "Your Engineered House" for an explaination of how understanding basic thermodynamics can be applied simply and cheaply, with off the the shelf non-propriatary building materials, to a house with remarkable effect.
Just as in software no one makes gobs of money promoting nonpropriatary solutions, even though those solutions may not only be cheaper, but *better.* The whole Open/Propriatary thingummy goes far deeper than the IT industry. It is pervasive in every walk of life.
It's up to you to ignore the advertising material and edumicate yourself I'm afraid.
KFG
than it is to Soviet communism. One could think of it as capitalist fascism, as opposed to state fascism.
The primary difference is that in capitalist fascism the private owners of captial are free to contract members of the government into their 'employ,'whereas in state fascism it works the other way around and the state has military force at the their disposal at the bargaining table and in enforcing the contract. One could argue that this last is true of capitalist fascism as well, but I would refer such as wish to argue that to study the MS anti-trust settlement and to compare this to the nationalization of corporations under state fascism.
While the difference between the two is actually quite important at the government/corporation level it is, again, almost imperceptable at the prole level.
A slave is as a slave is compelled to do and giving an employee a nice little nametag that labels him an 'associate' doesn't, in truth, make him one.
KFG
It's starting to sound rather like America, and exactly the sort of capitalistic tyrany the founding fathers were afraid their republic could turn into.
You see, the difference is, in Soviet Russia the government owned the means of production.
In America the means of production are in private hands ( the very definition of capitalism) but own the government.
A subtle difference to the man on the street perhaps. After all, at serf level tyrany is tryany, but it isn't fair to slander it with the label of the great "evil empire." It's pure laissez-faire capitalism and a "free" wage slave is still a slave.
KFG
And remember, the next time MS gives you that TCO crap, that this hassle, and its attendant expenses, are part of the TCO of using software that falls under the aegis of the BSA.
Just say no.
KFG
Don't confuse me with choice.
KFG
I'm sure she's got enough lying around to handle any independant's needs.
In fact, her consumption may be the reason supplier's are loath to part with what they've got. You wouldn't want to stiff your best customer just becasue someone wanted to waste this stuff as rocket fuel, now would you?
KFG
Although it is the perhaps the most popular one for CD-RW (and what comes budled with XP). Nero software is generally considered better by the "in crowd," and is now fully multitasking ( true use your computer while you burn capability without becoming a "coaster factory").
i st .html
Anyone can implement UDF. Not just Adaptec (excuse me, Roxio).
The UDF file format is an ISO standard format under the control of OSTA (Optical Software Trade Association). It was orginally developed for DVD's, as the CD file format could not handle the large file sizes needed by video.
It was also felt by the "media industry" that some sort of "universal" ( that's what the U in UDF stands for)file format would be needed in the future that could handle any given binary data, i.e. video, music, data, etc., all mixed on a single disk.
There isn't even inherently anything that requires rewritable CD's or DVD's to use the UDF file format, but it does make a certain amount of sense, being "universal" and all.
http://www.softarch.com/us/products/UDFproductl
KFG
Your post my well have been a joke, but the joke is that it's snidely insightful as well. Quite a remarkable accomplishment for a first post. I salute you sir.
Wouldn't it just be loverly if the space program went into *space* once in a while, just to be different?
Viva Von Braun!
I propose a permanent, selfsupporting base and launch facility on the backside of the moon, and from there, to infinity. . . and beyond!
KFG
Well good on them. This is one small step in right direction. Now all they have to do is figure out a way to prevent all that unregulated "chat" sharing and rampant free exchange of "information" and the internet will, once again, be free for democracy and automatic shopping by net "enabled" refrigerators.
KFG
with microchips."
Yo! Microchip. Go get me a beer and don't give me none o yo back talk.
You know, I've been trying for years, but I still just can't figure out what's so hard about twisting that little rod thingy to adjust my miniblinds. It's simple, easy, quick, effective, mechanically simple and dosn't raise my electric bill.
I don't *feel* like a Luddite.
KFG
http://www.asio.gov.au/Review/comp.htm
KFG
Didn't you really make that up?
KFG
There always are. This from people who would defend their Ford Taurus to the death, despite the fact that their Ford Taurus is about the most likely thing to kill them. Unless, perhaps, it's their own bathtub.
In the meantime there are people all over the world dying at the hands of other people, quite maliciously, by the score of scores.
The later is a tragedy. The Space Shuttle failure is an *accident.* In essence no different than a fatal car accident due to some trivial mechanical failure or other. It happens. No one threatened the cancelation of the Navy after the Thresher disaster which took the lives of 129 men, some civilians, despite the fact that these men had no more business being in the deep ocean than man has in space.
Why do we do such things as fly into space in the first place? Well, in the words of one of the great martyrs of going someplace no one has been before, "Because it's there."
When left to his own devices, rather than simply being asked idiotic questions by a mindless press agent, he could be quite a bit more eloquent though, and I'll depart with these words of Mr. Mallory:
"The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It's no use. So, if you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."
-George Leigh Mallory, 1922
May the crew of the Columbia rest in peace, and joy, and may others live to experience the same joy of stars reached for.
KFG
Why, they've added just tons and tons of otherwise unavailable promo material for the *next* "Special" Edition.
That's what.
KFG
Something about taking too many "paisley" pills in the sixties.
KFG
Yes, and they're made by exiled Blue Meanies.
KFG