There is absolutely NO FUCKING REASON why any app -- except for certain system utilities (and games and typing tutors aren't those) -- should require Admin. It's fucking lazy sloppy programming.
I know exactly what you mean. At my place of work, our three primary applications require write access to various directories and various registry keys, all of which are not allowed by default. Our primary application even proudly claims "Windows 2000 Compatible!" on the cover. I guess they just mean that it will crash less on 2K, as I certainly don't consider a piece of software that requires us to give the everyone group full control to its directory 2K compatible.
And I'm not even going to get into the other piece of software that's not multi-user aware. I have to reconfigure the app any time a user uses a new computer. This is in addition to making sure the user is able to write to the correct keys in the registry.
Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with Windows 2000 when our most important software isn't even fully compatible.
Yeah, that's just horrible because I need to change the spark plugs on my car at least twice a month.
Granted, you generally don't need to change spark plugs often. That's not the point. The point is that when the time comes to change the plugs it's such a grave inconvenience that instead of spending $15 on plugs and doing it myself, I spent $70 on plugs and labor. I don't mind doing my own maitenance when I can. In fact, I prefer to do it when I can simply becuase I trust myself more than the average mechanic.
But the spark plugs aren't the only thing hard to get at on my car. The battery is located underneath a support strut and the wiper fluid reservoir, both of which have to be removed just to get at the battery. Even seemingly easy things to get at such as the alternator can be a pain as we found that GM also clipped the fuel hardlines to the back of the alternator where you can't see, and the grounding rod (or whatever the proper term is) took 10 minutes of fiddling around before we were able to get it back in place on the new alternator because of where it's located.
The point is that the manufacturers just fit everything into such a small place that it becomes a real pain to do general maitenance.
No worse than having to pull the engine on my Porsche 356 to replace the #3 spark-plug. (Using Weber carbs instead of the factory Solex or Zeniths, no room to get a tool in there to access it).... Or the W-Body GM cars (Lumina, Monte Carlo, Regal, and my '95 Cutlass Supreme) where you have to unbolt the engine and jack it up in order to change the spark plugs on the firewall side of the engine.
The sad reality is that cars seem to keep getting harder and harder to work on. Manufacutures keep trying to package more and more stuff into an engine bay that keeps getting smaller and smaller. This inevitably makes it hard to get to some things, making it more likely that you'll just take your car in to have it serviced. (Becuase the plugs on my Oldsmobile were so hard to change, I just said fsk it and took it in.)
Heck, if you even look under the hood of most modern cars, many of them have plastic pieces covering most of the engine bay anyway. It's almost as if the manufacturer doesn't want you to do the work yourself.
The server must be hosted on one of those things. I feel sorry for the Hamster RC unit! It must have already burst into flames and burnt to the ground... *sniff*
I love how no matter what the subject this same old joke just never gets old on/.
C'mon folks! We're intelligent people! We should be able to come up with some new jokes here. Or at least find some way to kidnap a comedian and force him to come up with new material for us.;)
*now waiting for the obligatory "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" joke...*
(I guess I shouldn't complain too much. At least the Natalie Portman and Grits jokes have died down over time...)
A friend of mine was telling me a story about this guy he knows who owns some kind of service business. This guy got all his employees some new cell phones (or something, some kind of communication gear) with GPS built in. The first week he fired something like 2 people, one of whom was taking a nap somewhere (presumably) and the other of whom was found in a very very bad part of town -- apparently buying drugs.
Other people cause stress. So the mail server goes down, big deal. Unless people, like your boss, get all worked up over it.
Stress is a function of living beings, not machines.
Yes! It's rare that I get stressed out over anything by myself. I just do everything I can in whatever time I have alotted and stuff gets done when it gets done.
However, once other people start stressing over something, that's when I start to get stressed. They start putting the pressure on me, start talking to their bosses, etc... then I get stressed.
Oh yeah, that and the people who simply send emails along the lines of "My computer is broke. Help!" They get on my nerves, too. If they would just describe the problem to me, about 75% of the time I can solve their problems without ever leaving my office. Now that for some reason stresses me.
...but applying the much harsher penalties meant to deter irresponsible drunk drivers from killing people to responsible minors who drink illegally and happen to be driving home with a safe BAL that is above zero is stupid and cruel.
As are many other laws, unfortunately. How about curfew laws? Or even worse, daytime curfew laws which state that you can be pulled over and arrested if not at school and without a note? All that does is punish the responsible kids, like I myself was, while the irresponsible ones were just breaking one more law that probably mattered less to them than the other laws they are supposedly breaking. Honestly, it should be the parents who determine what time a kid should be home on a school night, not the local politicians. And those are just two out of many laws imposed upon minors that are both stupid and cruel. They are no deterrent, and instead act as a means for police to harass those who had no ill intentions in the first place.
The fact of the matter is, kids don't vote, so they don't count. Any law that gets passed "for the kids" is in fact passed in order to please the parents. And it may in fact be beneficial for the kids, but nobody cares if they like it or not. Kids have no say in these matters, and perhaps they shouldn't, but it's always bothered me how certain right seem to be sometimes taken away from kids "for their safety."
But this is offtopic and a rant for another time.
(Posting without karma bonus due to the rant's offtopicness.)
Ban parking lots at establishments that serve alcohol. With the new blood-alcohol limits, it doesn't take much to put an average human over the limit. Having a parking lot at a bar is like being an accessory to the crime.
Nice troll. Becuase, of course nobody ever has a designated driver when they go to establishments that server alcohol. Or conversely, everybody who goes to an establishment that serves alcohol is going to drink.
Hell, about 70% of the time I go out to eat with friends somwhere that serves alcohol, I order a beer. The other times, I'm the one who's driving. You fail to consider the fact that some people are indeed responsible and that not everybody who goes to some establishments (restaurants especially) is going to drink alcohol just because it's there.
Your proposition makes about as much sense as this law that was passed. In other words, it makes no sense and merely passes the blame/cost on to others.
Furthermore, I wonder if any of those who passed this law have thought about the distraction this thing will cause for the driver when requiring a rolling test. This law in effect punishes the majority of the population that doesn't drink and drive instead of the minority who does.
What's really called for is tougher penalties for DUIs, but politicians never seemed inclined to pass laws like that. I have no idea why.
Hey, I had fun the last time I was at Chuck E. Cheese's! Then again, I'd had enough alcohol by that point that I probably would have had just as much fun watching the traffic drive by on the freeway.
Still, it was somehow satisfying to beat all those 5 year old kids at the racing games while drunk.:)
Back when I was doing some contract work, one of my clients had a particular web-based application that required IE 5 SP2. It apparently didn't yet work correctly with IE6. Well, that was fine until MS mysteriously pulled support and removed the download files for IE5 SP2. It also kind of made you wonder what was so wrong with SP2 that they removed it like that without warning. (Or maybe they did give warning? I didn't know about it ahead of time either way, and IE5 without SP2 was still available making me wonder what was so bad about SP2...)
Although I guess I shouldn't criticize. I just noticed last week that my laptop was running IE 4. Uh, and Windows 95... becuase it doesn't meet the minimum specs for 98...
You are pulling our plonkers, right? Every phone I've owned in the last five years has had some way of syncing with an application on a PC.
Again, the phone may have the capability, but how many people actually do it? I only know 2 of my friends who do it with their phones. One because his phone has Bluetooth and he already had a Bluetooth transceiver, and the other because he already owned the PC cable so he could surf the internet using his phone as the modem.
Personally, I never synced my phone because I didn't feel like letting my phone's manufacturer screw me out of $35 for a bloody data cable. That was before I came to rely on my cell phone so much and before I had the level of disposable income that I now have. Now, I just don't do it becuase I have plans to buy a new phone and again don't want to spend $35 on a bloody cable for a phone I'm not going to keep around much longer.
Yeah, the phone can sync with the PC, but most people don't even know that it's possible. I don't mean to insult you or anybody else here, but I feel that a majority of the people on/. sometimes don't realize just how technologicaly stupid most of the population is. I see it every day at work, being in the IS industry. I constantly have people asking me how I know so much about computers, how do I remember all that stuff, etc., all while performing simple tasks that I take for granted. I would be willing to bet that, now that cell phones have become such a universally accepted commodity, 85% - 90% of people owning a cell phone are unaware that they can sync it with their computers.
Do phone numbers really matter all that much? I used to know all my friends' phone numbers by memory. Now, speed dial makes it worthless.
Yes. Not everybody in this world is technologically savvy -- not even savvy enough to use speed dial. In fact, I remember last christmas my family had a round of "Update Contact Information." While everybody pulled out their pysical address books, I was the only one who pulled out my cell phone to update contacts. Yes, they all have speed dial on their cell phones and home phones, but most of the people I know don't actually bother to use it, partly becuase most physical phones (and let's not forget the fact that most people probably still use their land-line phone primarily) make it such a pain to enter speed dial numbers. Or, it may be easy, but without that LCD for feedback on what they are doing, many peole don't feel comfortable programming something they can't see.
Furthremore, what happens when you lose your cell phone? Or if your cell phone is like mine, what happens when your cell phone becomes senile and loses half of it's phone numbers, and won't let you re-enter the ones that were lost? For about two months before my cell phone fixed itself there were many people in my phone whom I could only call by manually dialing their number.
Yes, until there is some sort of national Name Service for phones (I can't conceive of a way to make a system like that functional), phone numbers are very important.
(This would probably be funnier if you knew me personally. Ever since the 9x days, in the network naming box on my computers, I have always put "For a good time, dial 976-GIRL." It was even more ammusing with the advent of XP Home, and it's method of listing computers on the network by their description instead of their name.)
Re:The Stoichiometric Fuel/Air Mixture
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Oh yeah. I never meant to imply that it's something Average Joe should attempt to use. You have to know what you're doing when tuning a car to tha textent. I myself am still learning from him, but I don't know nearly enough yet to even consider modifying an engine map on my own. Especially when trying to tune an engine to the bleeding edge for maximum horsepower under all conditions, and yet keep a car drivable under everyday circumstances (I.E. cold start, closed loop, etc.).
Re:But if you were going to hack your car...
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· Score: 4, Interesting
This is exactly what many aftermarket engine management systems do. My mechanic/tuner for instance happens to use a Haltech ECU in his car. Systems like this essentially replace your factory ECU and allow a full range of cusotmization of your engine's various settings. The Haltech operates via a serial link with a laptop (kind of sucks for some people that their new laptops don't even have serial ports) and you can make changes on the fly. When he's tuning a car, he does in effect drive around with his laptop, accelerating, decelerating, watching the graphs on the screen, and making adjustments as needed.
You simply make an adjustment on the computer and then upload the new engine map (map of fuel mixture, timing, etc.) to the ECU. His RX-7 pushes close to 500 HP at the rear wheels (an exceptoinal number, even more so when you consider that most manufacturer's horespower claims are at the crank shaft, before any powerloss due to drivetrain) and can still get 22MPG cruising on the freeway. City driving is much worse, but that's beside the point. But he basically can adjust the fuel mixture on the fly for better or worse gas mileage, and for drivability. It's really fascinating stuff if you're at all interested in modifying cars.
Heh. Maybe it is a regional thing. Might be a lot having to do with the type of people we associate with as individuals. Many of my friends from back home are fairly close minded (a reason I moved away) with regards to anything that's not mainstream, as anime is.
As for non-scifi anime, the more that I think about it, you are right as far as scifi anime being practically the only thing they import to the US. Which is why it's probably hard to think of non scifi anime. The other non-scifi anime that I thought about immediately was Cityhunter, and I'm not sure if that's officially been brought over here or not. (The live action movie staring Jackie Chan is available at Best Buy, though.) And I did see some anime on Action channel a while back about a couple of female detectives that was decidedly non-scifi. But you're right -- most of what is imported here is scifi based.
And Initial D is pretty big (Radio Shack even sells Initial D Zip-Zap like cars), but I think it's success is mostly contained to the import racer crowd. Pick up just about any import racing magazine and you'll find a reference to Initial D, drifting, or the AE86 Corolla/Trueno.
Anyway, I wonder if there is something we, as anime fans, can do to promote the importing of non-scifi anime to the US?
Neither of my parents and at least two of my friends won't watch anime for just that reason. My parents do watch, and enjoy scifi as well, but anytime I watched anime or tried to get them to watch it, they couldn't get past the fact that it was animated and that animated == for kids. My friends that won't watch it aren't really scifi buffs, so that may have something to do with it. Nevertheless, they too claim that they won't watch it becuase it's animated. Yes, they understand that it's supposed to be for adults, but they still say cartoons are for kids.
That's at least 4 people I know right there who won't watch anime because it's a "cartoon." My grandfather won't watch The Simpsons for that same reason. (The other 4 do, however.) Perhaps I'm trying to extend my limited sample size too far, but that's enough people that I know to make me believe that my previous reasoning isn't just "bullshit."
Furthermore, I can think of a few animes that aren't scifi immediately. The biggest being Initial D, but that only comes to mind so quickly becuase the show has become very big among the import racer crowd, all of whom assume that since I own the same car as the main character, I am also into drifting... Sometimes I wish that anime hadn't become so popular.
Anime is about the only category where there is cool new stuff. The entertainment industry of today is exactly like the auto industry of the 1970s, and the Japanese are about to buy the whole thing for about 4c on the dollar. Anime is a diamond mine of originality and creativity. There are anime series that are masterpieces of contemporary thought and literature, as well as fantastically capable demonstrations of state-of-the-art animation. Nothing else can even begin to compete.
If the anime and manga shelves at Suncoast continue to expand at their current rate, there will be no Hollywood DVDs for sale there in five years.
While I will conceed that there is plenty of creativity in anime and even more room for it to expand, I don't feel that it will ever become quite as popular as you are describing. We, as geeks, tend to be more open about "alternative" forms of entertainment. However, Average Joe over there has a hard time overcoming his preconceptions about animated shows -- the preconception that they are for kids.
I don't know how many times my friends, parents, etc. have asked me why, at my age, I was watching "a cartoon." The Simpsons seems to be an exception, but despite the fact that it's been around for 15 seasons (is that right?) I still know some older people who don't want to watch it because "it's a cartoon."
Anime won't really become mainstream over here until the average American is able to look at it as more than just a cartoon for kids.
Hehe. Well, I hope I didn't sound bitter about not getting in. I did get into my first choice for university anyway, and ended up in a much more fun city (New Orleans) than St. Louis. I'm certainly happy with where I spent my 4 years, but looking back on things I'm almost certain that a better education would have been obtained at WU. How much better? Who's to say. A lot of that opinion may again be inflated by their higher prestige. I think the only thing that irked me about being rejected was the fact that they felt the need to ennumerate the number of valedicatorians (sp again?), salutatorians, etc. That, and with their higher prestige I may have been able to get a higher paying job, as I just found out that I am considerably below the national average for my job position.:D
I tried that 4 years ago, but that is a hard school to get into. Despite graduating in the top 10% of my class (I don't remember the exact number, but it wasn't 1 or 2), better standardized test scores than most of my classmates, and having the singular distinction of having taken more advanced placement classes than anybody else in my graduating class, I wasn't accepted.
The letter of rejection basically stated that they had received X number of valedictorians (sp?), X number of salutatorians, and X number of applicants with perfect scores on their SATs and/or ACTs, and that I was merely mediocre compared to those students. Apparently they get a very high quality of applicants. It was enough to almost make me wish I'd actually put forth some effort into my high school education, actually studying and doing homework, and getting those As instead of settling for Bs. Makes me wish I had taken the time to prepare for my ACTs and SATs; SAT especially instead of taking it the day after my senior homecoming, slightly hung over and not nearly awake.
It all worked out for me in the end as I actually ended up at my first choice anyway, but I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have gotten a better education at Washington University. I guess what I'm trying to say is, for those of you still in High School, start planning for college now, and not half-way through you senior year like I did.:)
As a Computer Science degree holder working in IS, it's nice to know that I'm well below the average for the IS field. Uh, I guess. And I'm even more below the average for Computer Science degrees, of course. What's worse is that they redefined the job description during the interview phase to make it an hourly position...
What I think would be more useful would be to report the average salary for a particular area. Although I know that I am making less than the national average, the cost of living here is also less than say, California, where the starting salary of course needs to be higher. I think I am probably making around the average for this geographical area, but I sure would love to see some hard data on that.
Well, I've never heard of this band, but I'll buy this CD. Maybe it's just a publicity stunt, and maybe I'm falling right into their trap, but I don't care. Because publicity stunt or not, maybe the RIAA will take notice if this album sells extremely well. Even if the band stands to gain from this stunt, I think we as the music buying public do as well. By buying this album we can send a message to the RIAA that we don't like being treated with contempt by them, and that we really do care about fair use.
My parents use the Dish Network PVR back home, and they love it. I would say that in the case of a satellite provider, purchasing their PVR is a much better solution than purchasing a standalone TiVo. From what I understand the tivo will pretty much be relegated to only recording when you tell it to, where as the satellite provider's PVR will allow for easy scheduling based on the built in program guide.
However, I must suggest that you purchase a small UPS for your PVR receiver if you go with Dish network. My folks went through 4 PVR units before they bought a UPS for it. The software just isn't robust enough to easily recover from the daily (seriously!) power outages they have back home. Also, the software seems to have trouble when you fill up the HD to near capacity. I'd suggest leaving a buffer of about 2 hours just to be safe, but your mileage may vary. Again, this seems like it may be a software problem caused by the software's inability to handle extremely low hard drive constraints. Those issues aside, the PVR receiver is awesome. Scheduling a show to record is much easier done than, say, when I use the Guide+ software for my AIW Radeon. Playback is made easy by the inclusion of a button dedicated to taking you to your recorded library. Basically everything is simple and easy to use.
As for signal, we really haven't had many problems at all. Really severe thunderstorms seem to be the biggest signal loss culprit... or the only signal loss situations I've experienced with the dish. The only thing that gets on my nerves is that occasionally macro blocking can become an issue when watching very dark movies or television shows. The macro blocking usually isn't too severe, but just the fact that it's apparent at all gets on my nerves.
Anyway, my folks are happy with the service, and that's what matters. Dish was a very good alternative to their local cable provider and their old C-Band satellite dish.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to like to use the following:c om
you@ss.com (I'm sure that's registered with them.)
bitemy@ss.com
kissmy@ss.com
yourean@ss.
your@ss.com
I feel sorry for anybody at ss.com.
There is absolutely NO FUCKING REASON why any app -- except for certain system utilities (and games and typing tutors aren't those) -- should require Admin. It's fucking lazy sloppy programming.
I know exactly what you mean. At my place of work, our three primary applications require write access to various directories and various registry keys, all of which are not allowed by default. Our primary application even proudly claims "Windows 2000 Compatible!" on the cover. I guess they just mean that it will crash less on 2K, as I certainly don't consider a piece of software that requires us to give the everyone group full control to its directory 2K compatible.
And I'm not even going to get into the other piece of software that's not multi-user aware. I have to reconfigure the app any time a user uses a new computer. This is in addition to making sure the user is able to write to the correct keys in the registry.
Sometimes I wonder why we even bother with Windows 2000 when our most important software isn't even fully compatible.
Yeah, that's just horrible because I need to change the spark plugs on my car at least twice a month.
Granted, you generally don't need to change spark plugs often. That's not the point. The point is that when the time comes to change the plugs it's such a grave inconvenience that instead of spending $15 on plugs and doing it myself, I spent $70 on plugs and labor. I don't mind doing my own maitenance when I can. In fact, I prefer to do it when I can simply becuase I trust myself more than the average mechanic.
But the spark plugs aren't the only thing hard to get at on my car. The battery is located underneath a support strut and the wiper fluid reservoir, both of which have to be removed just to get at the battery. Even seemingly easy things to get at such as the alternator can be a pain as we found that GM also clipped the fuel hardlines to the back of the alternator where you can't see, and the grounding rod (or whatever the proper term is) took 10 minutes of fiddling around before we were able to get it back in place on the new alternator because of where it's located.
The point is that the manufacturers just fit everything into such a small place that it becomes a real pain to do general maitenance.
No worse than having to pull the engine on my Porsche 356 to replace the #3 spark-plug. (Using Weber carbs instead of the factory Solex or Zeniths, no room to get a tool in there to access it). ... Or the W-Body GM cars (Lumina, Monte Carlo, Regal, and my '95 Cutlass Supreme) where you have to unbolt the engine and jack it up in order to change the spark plugs on the firewall side of the engine.
The sad reality is that cars seem to keep getting harder and harder to work on. Manufacutures keep trying to package more and more stuff into an engine bay that keeps getting smaller and smaller. This inevitably makes it hard to get to some things, making it more likely that you'll just take your car in to have it serviced. (Becuase the plugs on my Oldsmobile were so hard to change, I just said fsk it and took it in.)
Heck, if you even look under the hood of most modern cars, many of them have plastic pieces covering most of the engine bay anyway. It's almost as if the manufacturer doesn't want you to do the work yourself.
The server must be hosted on one of those things. I feel sorry for the Hamster RC unit! It must have already burst into flames and burnt to the ground...
/.
;)
*sniff*
I love how no matter what the subject this same old joke just never gets old on
C'mon folks! We're intelligent people! We should be able to come up with some new jokes here. Or at least find some way to kidnap a comedian and force him to come up with new material for us.
*now waiting for the obligatory "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these" joke...*
(I guess I shouldn't complain too much. At least the Natalie Portman and Grits jokes have died down over time...)
A friend of mine was telling me a story about this guy he knows who owns some kind of service business. This guy got all his employees some new cell phones (or something, some kind of communication gear) with GPS built in. The first week he fired something like 2 people, one of whom was taking a nap somewhere (presumably) and the other of whom was found in a very very bad part of town -- apparently buying drugs.
Other people cause stress. So the mail server goes down, big deal. Unless people, like your boss, get all worked up over it.
Stress is a function of living beings, not machines.
Yes! It's rare that I get stressed out over anything by myself. I just do everything I can in whatever time I have alotted and stuff gets done when it gets done.
However, once other people start stressing over something, that's when I start to get stressed. They start putting the pressure on me, start talking to their bosses, etc... then I get stressed.
Oh yeah, that and the people who simply send emails along the lines of "My computer is broke. Help!" They get on my nerves, too. If they would just describe the problem to me, about 75% of the time I can solve their problems without ever leaving my office. Now that for some reason stresses me.
...but applying the much harsher penalties meant to deter irresponsible drunk drivers from killing people to responsible minors who drink illegally and happen to be driving home with a safe BAL that is above zero is stupid and cruel.
As are many other laws, unfortunately. How about curfew laws? Or even worse, daytime curfew laws which state that you can be pulled over and arrested if not at school and without a note? All that does is punish the responsible kids, like I myself was, while the irresponsible ones were just breaking one more law that probably mattered less to them than the other laws they are supposedly breaking. Honestly, it should be the parents who determine what time a kid should be home on a school night, not the local politicians. And those are just two out of many laws imposed upon minors that are both stupid and cruel. They are no deterrent, and instead act as a means for police to harass those who had no ill intentions in the first place.
The fact of the matter is, kids don't vote, so they don't count. Any law that gets passed "for the kids" is in fact passed in order to please the parents. And it may in fact be beneficial for the kids, but nobody cares if they like it or not. Kids have no say in these matters, and perhaps they shouldn't, but it's always bothered me how certain right seem to be sometimes taken away from kids "for their safety."
But this is offtopic and a rant for another time.
(Posting without karma bonus due to the rant's offtopicness.)
Here would be a good law for everyone:
Ban parking lots at establishments that serve alcohol. With the new blood-alcohol limits, it doesn't take much to put an average human over the limit. Having a parking lot at a bar is like being an accessory to the crime.
Nice troll. Becuase, of course nobody ever has a designated driver when they go to establishments that server alcohol. Or conversely, everybody who goes to an establishment that serves alcohol is going to drink.
Hell, about 70% of the time I go out to eat with friends somwhere that serves alcohol, I order a beer. The other times, I'm the one who's driving. You fail to consider the fact that some people are indeed responsible and that not everybody who goes to some establishments (restaurants especially) is going to drink alcohol just because it's there.
Your proposition makes about as much sense as this law that was passed. In other words, it makes no sense and merely passes the blame/cost on to others.
Furthermore, I wonder if any of those who passed this law have thought about the distraction this thing will cause for the driver when requiring a rolling test. This law in effect punishes the majority of the population that doesn't drink and drive instead of the minority who does.
What's really called for is tougher penalties for DUIs, but politicians never seemed inclined to pass laws like that. I have no idea why.
Hey, I had fun the last time I was at Chuck E. Cheese's! Then again, I'd had enough alcohol by that point that I probably would have had just as much fun watching the traffic drive by on the freeway.
:)
Still, it was somehow satisfying to beat all those 5 year old kids at the racing games while drunk.
Back when I was doing some contract work, one of my clients had a particular web-based application that required IE 5 SP2. It apparently didn't yet work correctly with IE6. Well, that was fine until MS mysteriously pulled support and removed the download files for IE5 SP2. It also kind of made you wonder what was so wrong with SP2 that they removed it like that without warning. (Or maybe they did give warning? I didn't know about it ahead of time either way, and IE5 without SP2 was still available making me wonder what was so bad about SP2...)
Although I guess I shouldn't criticize. I just noticed last week that my laptop was running IE 4. Uh, and Windows 95... becuase it doesn't meet the minimum specs for 98...
You are pulling our plonkers, right? Every phone I've owned in the last five years has had some way of syncing with an application on a PC.
/. sometimes don't realize just how technologicaly stupid most of the population is. I see it every day at work, being in the IS industry. I constantly have people asking me how I know so much about computers, how do I remember all that stuff, etc., all while performing simple tasks that I take for granted. I would be willing to bet that, now that cell phones have become such a universally accepted commodity, 85% - 90% of people owning a cell phone are unaware that they can sync it with their computers.
Again, the phone may have the capability, but how many people actually do it? I only know 2 of my friends who do it with their phones. One because his phone has Bluetooth and he already had a Bluetooth transceiver, and the other because he already owned the PC cable so he could surf the internet using his phone as the modem.
Personally, I never synced my phone because I didn't feel like letting my phone's manufacturer screw me out of $35 for a bloody data cable. That was before I came to rely on my cell phone so much and before I had the level of disposable income that I now have. Now, I just don't do it becuase I have plans to buy a new phone and again don't want to spend $35 on a bloody cable for a phone I'm not going to keep around much longer.
Yeah, the phone can sync with the PC, but most people don't even know that it's possible. I don't mean to insult you or anybody else here, but I feel that a majority of the people on
Do phone numbers really matter all that much? I used to know all my friends' phone numbers by memory. Now, speed dial makes it worthless.
Yes. Not everybody in this world is technologically savvy -- not even savvy enough to use speed dial. In fact, I remember last christmas my family had a round of "Update Contact Information." While everybody pulled out their pysical address books, I was the only one who pulled out my cell phone to update contacts. Yes, they all have speed dial on their cell phones and home phones, but most of the people I know don't actually bother to use it, partly becuase most physical phones (and let's not forget the fact that most people probably still use their land-line phone primarily) make it such a pain to enter speed dial numbers. Or, it may be easy, but without that LCD for feedback on what they are doing, many peole don't feel comfortable programming something they can't see.
Furthremore, what happens when you lose your cell phone? Or if your cell phone is like mine, what happens when your cell phone becomes senile and loses half of it's phone numbers, and won't let you re-enter the ones that were lost? For about two months before my cell phone fixed itself there were many people in my phone whom I could only call by manually dialing their number.
Yes, until there is some sort of national Name Service for phones (I can't conceive of a way to make a system like that functional), phone numbers are very important.
Thank you Mr. Moderator.
Sweet! Now I can finally get 976-GIRL!
(This would probably be funnier if you knew me personally. Ever since the 9x days, in the network naming box on my computers, I have always put "For a good time, dial 976-GIRL." It was even more ammusing with the advent of XP Home, and it's method of listing computers on the network by their description instead of their name.)
Oh yeah. I never meant to imply that it's something Average Joe should attempt to use. You have to know what you're doing when tuning a car to tha textent. I myself am still learning from him, but I don't know nearly enough yet to even consider modifying an engine map on my own. Especially when trying to tune an engine to the bleeding edge for maximum horsepower under all conditions, and yet keep a car drivable under everyday circumstances (I.E. cold start, closed loop, etc.).
This is exactly what many aftermarket engine management systems do. My mechanic/tuner for instance happens to use a Haltech ECU in his car. Systems like this essentially replace your factory ECU and allow a full range of cusotmization of your engine's various settings. The Haltech operates via a serial link with a laptop (kind of sucks for some people that their new laptops don't even have serial ports) and you can make changes on the fly. When he's tuning a car, he does in effect drive around with his laptop, accelerating, decelerating, watching the graphs on the screen, and making adjustments as needed.
You simply make an adjustment on the computer and then upload the new engine map (map of fuel mixture, timing, etc.) to the ECU. His RX-7 pushes close to 500 HP at the rear wheels (an exceptoinal number, even more so when you consider that most manufacturer's horespower claims are at the crank shaft, before any powerloss due to drivetrain) and can still get 22MPG cruising on the freeway. City driving is much worse, but that's beside the point. But he basically can adjust the fuel mixture on the fly for better or worse gas mileage, and for drivability. It's really fascinating stuff if you're at all interested in modifying cars.
Heh. Maybe it is a regional thing. Might be a lot having to do with the type of people we associate with as individuals. Many of my friends from back home are fairly close minded (a reason I moved away) with regards to anything that's not mainstream, as anime is.
As for non-scifi anime, the more that I think about it, you are right as far as scifi anime being practically the only thing they import to the US. Which is why it's probably hard to think of non scifi anime. The other non-scifi anime that I thought about immediately was Cityhunter, and I'm not sure if that's officially been brought over here or not. (The live action movie staring Jackie Chan is available at Best Buy, though.) And I did see some anime on Action channel a while back about a couple of female detectives that was decidedly non-scifi. But you're right -- most of what is imported here is scifi based.
And Initial D is pretty big (Radio Shack even sells Initial D Zip-Zap like cars), but I think it's success is mostly contained to the import racer crowd. Pick up just about any import racing magazine and you'll find a reference to Initial D, drifting, or the AE86 Corolla/Trueno.
Anyway, I wonder if there is something we, as anime fans, can do to promote the importing of non-scifi anime to the US?
Neither of my parents and at least two of my friends won't watch anime for just that reason. My parents do watch, and enjoy scifi as well, but anytime I watched anime or tried to get them to watch it, they couldn't get past the fact that it was animated and that animated == for kids. My friends that won't watch it aren't really scifi buffs, so that may have something to do with it. Nevertheless, they too claim that they won't watch it becuase it's animated. Yes, they understand that it's supposed to be for adults, but they still say cartoons are for kids.
That's at least 4 people I know right there who won't watch anime because it's a "cartoon." My grandfather won't watch The Simpsons for that same reason. (The other 4 do, however.) Perhaps I'm trying to extend my limited sample size too far, but that's enough people that I know to make me believe that my previous reasoning isn't just "bullshit."
Furthermore, I can think of a few animes that aren't scifi immediately. The biggest being Initial D, but that only comes to mind so quickly becuase the show has become very big among the import racer crowd, all of whom assume that since I own the same car as the main character, I am also into drifting... Sometimes I wish that anime hadn't become so popular.
Anime is about the only category where there is cool new stuff. The entertainment industry of today is exactly like the auto industry of the 1970s, and the Japanese are about to buy the whole thing for about 4c on the dollar. Anime is a diamond mine of originality and creativity. There are anime series that are masterpieces of contemporary thought and literature, as well as fantastically capable demonstrations of state-of-the-art animation. Nothing else can even begin to compete.
If the anime and manga shelves at Suncoast continue to expand at their current rate, there will be no Hollywood DVDs for sale there in five years.
While I will conceed that there is plenty of creativity in anime and even more room for it to expand, I don't feel that it will ever become quite as popular as you are describing. We, as geeks, tend to be more open about "alternative" forms of entertainment. However, Average Joe over there has a hard time overcoming his preconceptions about animated shows -- the preconception that they are for kids.
I don't know how many times my friends, parents, etc. have asked me why, at my age, I was watching "a cartoon." The Simpsons seems to be an exception, but despite the fact that it's been around for 15 seasons (is that right?) I still know some older people who don't want to watch it because "it's a cartoon."
Anime won't really become mainstream over here until the average American is able to look at it as more than just a cartoon for kids.
Hehe. Well, I hope I didn't sound bitter about not getting in. I did get into my first choice for university anyway, and ended up in a much more fun city (New Orleans) than St. Louis. I'm certainly happy with where I spent my 4 years, but looking back on things I'm almost certain that a better education would have been obtained at WU. How much better? Who's to say. A lot of that opinion may again be inflated by their higher prestige. I think the only thing that irked me about being rejected was the fact that they felt the need to ennumerate the number of valedicatorians (sp again?), salutatorians, etc. That, and with their higher prestige I may have been able to get a higher paying job, as I just found out that I am considerably below the national average for my job position. :D
I tried that 4 years ago, but that is a hard school to get into. Despite graduating in the top 10% of my class (I don't remember the exact number, but it wasn't 1 or 2), better standardized test scores than most of my classmates, and having the singular distinction of having taken more advanced placement classes than anybody else in my graduating class, I wasn't accepted.
:)
The letter of rejection basically stated that they had received X number of valedictorians (sp?), X number of salutatorians, and X number of applicants with perfect scores on their SATs and/or ACTs, and that I was merely mediocre compared to those students. Apparently they get a very high quality of applicants. It was enough to almost make me wish I'd actually put forth some effort into my high school education, actually studying and doing homework, and getting those As instead of settling for Bs. Makes me wish I had taken the time to prepare for my ACTs and SATs; SAT especially instead of taking it the day after my senior homecoming, slightly hung over and not nearly awake.
It all worked out for me in the end as I actually ended up at my first choice anyway, but I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't have gotten a better education at Washington University. I guess what I'm trying to say is, for those of you still in High School, start planning for college now, and not half-way through you senior year like I did.
As a Computer Science degree holder working in IS, it's nice to know that I'm well below the average for the IS field. Uh, I guess. And I'm even more below the average for Computer Science degrees, of course. What's worse is that they redefined the job description during the interview phase to make it an hourly position...
What I think would be more useful would be to report the average salary for a particular area. Although I know that I am making less than the national average, the cost of living here is also less than say, California, where the starting salary of course needs to be higher. I think I am probably making around the average for this geographical area, but I sure would love to see some hard data on that.
Well, I've never heard of this band, but I'll buy this CD. Maybe it's just a publicity stunt, and maybe I'm falling right into their trap, but I don't care. Because publicity stunt or not, maybe the RIAA will take notice if this album sells extremely well. Even if the band stands to gain from this stunt, I think we as the music buying public do as well. By buying this album we can send a message to the RIAA that we don't like being treated with contempt by them, and that we really do care about fair use.
My parents use the Dish Network PVR back home, and they love it. I would say that in the case of a satellite provider, purchasing their PVR is a much better solution than purchasing a standalone TiVo. From what I understand the tivo will pretty much be relegated to only recording when you tell it to, where as the satellite provider's PVR will allow for easy scheduling based on the built in program guide.
However, I must suggest that you purchase a small UPS for your PVR receiver if you go with Dish network. My folks went through 4 PVR units before they bought a UPS for it. The software just isn't robust enough to easily recover from the daily (seriously!) power outages they have back home. Also, the software seems to have trouble when you fill up the HD to near capacity. I'd suggest leaving a buffer of about 2 hours just to be safe, but your mileage may vary. Again, this seems like it may be a software problem caused by the software's inability to handle extremely low hard drive constraints. Those issues aside, the PVR receiver is awesome. Scheduling a show to record is much easier done than, say, when I use the Guide+ software for my AIW Radeon. Playback is made easy by the inclusion of a button dedicated to taking you to your recorded library. Basically everything is simple and easy to use.
As for signal, we really haven't had many problems at all. Really severe thunderstorms seem to be the biggest signal loss culprit... or the only signal loss situations I've experienced with the dish. The only thing that gets on my nerves is that occasionally macro blocking can become an issue when watching very dark movies or television shows. The macro blocking usually isn't too severe, but just the fact that it's apparent at all gets on my nerves.
Anyway, my folks are happy with the service, and that's what matters. Dish was a very good alternative to their local cable provider and their old C-Band satellite dish.