What I have never understood about certain segments of the open source community is why Apple gets such a big pass. The average slashdrone will rant endlessly (and probably rightly so) about the evils of SCO and Microsoft. When in fact Apple is more closed source and proprietary than both of them combined and talk about how cool Apple is and if only the world were a better place we would all use Mac's. Any model that fails to give you control of the hardware and software that you pay for is a bad one. Apple locks down both, a claim that is not applicable to either Microsoft or SCO. The open source community should get out of bed with Apple before we get another SCO situation on our hands. To those who say Apple would never do something like SCO look here.
You clearly havne't been visiting/. long enough.;) Apple is the underdog and a competitor to Microsoft, so it has to be good. That said, I think they also gain points in many geeks' eyes due to the fact that OSX is built upon BSD, which is itself embraced by the slashdot community. It's also really the first *nix OS with true mainstream application support. Or at least as much as Mac OS ever had, but most importantly it has Microsoft Office support (no matter your opinion, it's still the standard) Photoshop support, and probably a bunch of other graphical production apps I've never heard of but are pretty important to a lot of other people. So, even though they are extremly closed source and proprietary, they still provide geeks with an appealing alternative to Microsoft, not to mention the occasional cool, innovative, overpriced gadget.
Funny, it seems to imply in the news.com article that less advisories are better than more... hell, I think my ol' comp running win98 went for many months last year without a single advisory notice when I clicking into the Windows update site. Pfft. So therefore win98 is safer than Server 2003...
That's more or less what one of my clients said when I visited him to help get rid of the RPC virus. Granted, since most of is computing infrastructure is Windows 98 based, his site wasn't as hard to repair as some others, but I'm still not sure if using an outdated OS is a real solution for security.
what a shitty and rude thing to say. I hope you enjoy the negative moderation.
That in and of itself is a pretty immature, rude comment. In fact, whatever happened to the general guideline of not moderating a comment just becuase you don't agree with the content?
I can only assume that you are the moderator. Either way, you should get the stick out of your ass. It was a joke, as denoted by the;), or is that no longer the correct emoticon for letting people know that you are only kidding. Perhaps next time I should type "I am only joking, please don't moderate me as a troll!" in all caps just to make sure everybody knows I am joking.
Furthermore I doubt the parent poster saw it as anything more. Slidell is a nice town and a generally pleasant place to live, and a place that many people move to in order to get away from the filth, trash, etc. of New Orleans, not unlike the town I myself grew up in. (Except Slidell has a Best Buy, and my home town didn't.) It's the kind of place I would want to live when it comes time to settle down. I, being young however, happen to like living closer to the action and fun of New Orleans where my trip home isn't quite as long or as expensive after nights of drunken debauchery in the French Quarter.
Grow up, get out more, learn to laugh a little, and get that stick out of your ass. You'll live longer that way.
And to think, just yesterday I was being lambasted by a friend's wife for never being able to be serious about anything...
-- Posting without karma bonus so that fewer people will read this and not be subjected to what will probably be moderated as flamebait again by the previous vindictive moderator. Anonymous Coward indeed.
Eh, perhaps Slidell isn't included, and perhaps animosity is too strong a term. But, working on the West Bank and living in Metarie, I do see... maybe kind of a rivalry is the word? I dunno. The opinion of one of my coworkers is that generally people from Metarie and the rest of the east bank (myself excluded since I'm not originally from here) are stuck up where West Bankers are concerned.
That said, it's nice to see that somebody moderated my joke towards as a Troll. Some people just really have no sense of humor. I wonder how the metamoderators will view that.:) Either way, the "karma game" isn't as much fun since they got rid of the nubmer system.:)
I'm sorry, too. That New Orleans is your hometown, I mean.
--Living large and having fun in New York City.;)
Damn! You've got me beat there. Although what I've found most interesting since moving to New Orleans, is the relative animosity among those who live in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, Slidell included. (It's just on the other side of Lake Ponchatrain.) I'm sure it's the same way with the burrougs (sp?) in New York, but it's really remarkably funny to me, not having lived in New Orleans my entire life.
--Posting without karma bonus due to the OT nature...
The next issue is ignorance by other road users, primarily passenger vehicle operators. Nope, bikers aren't getting squashed by semis, they're getting squashed by SUVs and minivans. I've long been a proponent of tougher licensing standards in the US.
This actually brings up a good point, although I'm not certain the blame should rest solely on the shoulders of the 4-wheel vehicle driver. I have had a few instances where I have cut off motorcyclists on the roads simply because they were driving at high rates of speed at night and literally weren't in the lane when I initially checked my mirrors. For instance, the other night I was leaving Taco Bell. I patiently waited for an extra large gap in traffic so that I could pull all the way out into the left lane and make it into the U-Turn area. So, I see a large gap, thanks to the nearby traffic light, and pull out. As soon as I make it into my lane, I check my mirrors again and there is a sport bike right there behind me, who certainly wasn't anywhere near me when I pulled out into the lane. It made total sense to me though since it was Bike Night and all the sport bikers hang out at a near-by establishment. The point I'm making is that, if you're going to be riding a motorcycle (or driving a car even) at extremely high rate of speeds, the responsibility for your own safety should rest squarely on your own shoulders. And I think the good riders do pay that extra attention, because when you are exceeding the posted speed limit excessively, and other drivers don't expect it (and don't try to give me crap about you should always expect somebody to be doing 90 in a 35 or something), you are taking your own life into your hands becuase when driving so much faster than the rest of traffic, on a tiny motorcycle, they have very little time to realize you are there as you fly up on them at twice the rate of the rest of traffic.
I myself am extra careful around motorcyclists. I like sport bikes and respect their riders, mostly becuase I know that if I had one I'd probably kill myself on Day 1 doing 100+ in a 50. (It's bad enough that I've done it in cars, I'm ashamed to admit.) But also becuase I know that they are way less protected than I am and deserve that extra respect simply becuase of that.
And on a different note, let me implor other 4-wheel drivers to help a motorcyclist out by signaling with him, when he's making a turn in front of you in a passing zone. My Dad's best friend in high school was killed in a situation where he was making a left turn so the car behind him was slowing down, but the redneck behind that car did see a signal and so passed the car just in time to hit my dad's friend mid-way through his turn. So, help a motorcyclist out some time.
"plus most driving in the city is sitting at a standstill so the vehicle uses almost ZERO power while sitting."
do buy in to that. In the real world, its going to need a radio, and some enviromental controls.
Not that this isn't interesting, but they really need a test that involves what most consumer would want. Clearly, buy purchasing this car, the consumer feels they don't need what a gas engine brings them, but how many people will sit inside a car with no AC when its 100 degree outside? or a heater when its 32F/0C outside?
I know plenty of guys who do this with their daily drivers. Of course, all of those cars are highly modified cars that are just barely street legal. But hey, they also out accelerate the above mentioned cars! Then again, they all probably also put out the equivalent pollution of 20 regular cars, but who's counting?:)
am still scatching my head about diesel engines being included.
I'm too lazy to find a link, but check out Volkswagen's Jetta TDI. It's got a 1.8L (I think) diesel engine and has fuel consumption that rivals that of the Honda Civic hybrid. That's why diesel engines are included.
In fact, in Europe Volkswagen markets an even more fuel effiecient engine that it's won some awards for. (Sorry if that's kind of vague, I had a long day and don't feel like searching for the articles.) They just don't market the car here due to it's low power rating. Most American's wouldn't stand for so little power.
I've never really had a condescending attitude towards my users. Ok, so once or twice I get a user so ignorant, and who doesn't even want to make the effort to help themselves that I do maybe act a little condescending to them, but those users and situations are few and far between. I'm just a nice guy and find it very, very hard to be mean to anybody... which is part of the reason my users love to come to me when they need stuff done.
Anyway, back on topic... I always had respect for all the managers in the company, but it wasn't until one day that I really had it all put into perspective for me. One of the managers was talking about how nice I was and how she loved having me around because I never developed a condescending attitude. She then went on to talk about the typical prima-donna IT guys. She then said, "For instance, you couldn't do a [insert some task that I've never heard of and can't remember]." I just kind of stared blankly for a moment and said "Huh?" It was at that moment that she had in effect initiated the BOFH's infamous dumme mode on me. I simply stated that I had no idea what she even said, but that was what made everything so great. I did what I liked and knew how to do and so did she, and because we both liked and respected each other and did our respective tasks, the company made money. Or rather, her department made money for the company while my department made sure they could do it, but that's just nitpicking.
Suffice it to say, that just because we know gobs of technical stuff our users don't, that doesn't necessarily make them any less intelligent than we are. I could no sooner do the jobs of most of my users than they could do mine.
I've been eyeing devices like these off and on for the past several months or so. If I were to travel more than I do, one of these devices would be invaluable. I don't generally watch much broadcast TV. Before I graduated from school and when I still lived with my parents, I found that more often than not I would watch shows that I had previously recorded on their PVR. I find that I generally manage to stay busy enough that I don't find the time to watch television shows when they are broadcast anyway. Other than the Simpsons and the occasional sporting event, that is. (Go Cubs!)
Furthermore, when my roommate and I moved into our new apartment after graduation, we elected not to purchase anything but the most basic cable needed to get cable internet. Instead, I get my TV fix buy purchasing DVD collections for series that I never found the time to watch while being broadcast or series which we never broadcast in my area, recording shows onto my computer from the few channels I do get, and being sent the occasional television episode for a particular series from a friend who recorded it on their computer. (That does fall into fair use, correct?) Just as I have all but stopped listening to the radio and watching MTV (when I still had it), I have now all but stopped watching television. Instead, my entertainment fill is based around on-demand entertainment. I watch shows whenever I get the chance and listen to my CDs whenever I get a chance. For me, being able to take my ondemand video entertainment with me is simply the next step. I would love to be able to rip a couple episodes of The Prisoner or Buffy to take with me and watch while on a trip or during a lunch break at work, or pretty much any time I have some free time away from home that I want to fill. As I said before, if I travelled more, I would most certainly be purchasing one of these devices.
I haven't ran into that, but of everybody I know, I am the only person who is contractless with his current provider. And it turns out that I have been since about August... of 2002. I originally purchased my phone in my home state in June, during summer break. When I came back to school, I switched to a local number and also a new region. Apparently, ever since they switched me to my current region, I have been contractless. I didn't even know this until I called approximately 1.5 to 2 months before my contract was supposed to expire and asked for the date of my contract expiration.
Maybe it's because my going contractless was a mistake, but I don't get chared at a per minute rate. I get monthly bills for the same ammount I always have, and it's the same monthly rate I was getting while still under contract. Although it's probably a fallacy, the fact that I am not currently obligated to stay with my current provider is one of the biggest reasons I haven't yet changed providers. The other reason being that I don't really have any complaints with my service and that it appears to be no worse (in my area) than any of the other proviers I hear about.
Then again, all that may change once number portability goes into effect. This month is looking to be the third month that I will go over my minutes in my 1.33 years with my provider, meaning it might finally be time to upgrade. If my provider cares about keeping loyal customers like me, I should be able to use number portability and my contractless status to renegotiate for a new plan and keep my no contract status. If not, I might have to go with one of the many other providers sure to offer really good plans for new subscribers and possibly even better plans for converts (I'm sure somebody will do it).
Oh yeah, and I also have to decide if I should a)Keep my existing phone (Ericsson T60d) which I am reasonably happy with, b)purchase a GAIT phone (Ericsson T62u is basically my phone but with added GSM capability) for maximum functionality or c)purchase one of those new, super cool GSM phones with all the bells and whistles (maybe a Siemens SL56?).
OK, enough rambling. But I am going to predict that come Nov. 24 it will be open season for cell phone companies. People will cahnge from all the providers, but I really doubt any one company will gain any significant new market share from number portability. In short, this will just create more competition among the cell providers, which should in theory benefit the consumers in the end.
I predict that in the future, keyboards will ONLY be used by programmers (as we're virtually the only ones who need to type funky things like "printf("Hello, World\n");" that would be a RIDICULOUS pain to input with voice), and they will cost a huge amount.
Well, probably nobody will read this since the article is kind of old, but anyway...
I got bored one day and actually tried an experiment doing this. I had a few pages of code that a professor had given, and the code was required for the assignment, but the professor didn't put the code in a shared directory for us... meaning we all had to input the code ourselves, which was of course a horrible waste of time.
I actually started out trying to scan the code in and OCR'ing it first. I had a really good idea what would probably happen, but I gave it a try anyway. Anybody that's ever used OCR software is probably aware that such software is usually Optical Word Recognition insted of Optical Character Recognition. Which is fine considering most people only want to OCR normal english (or other languages) text anyway. The result of my little test was a jumbled mass of guessed words and symbols that weren't in any way intelligible. It might be possible to train certain OCR software (I'm not sure if all OCR packages offer a training feature) to work correctly with code, but I didn't care enough to find out.
So, after that failed experiment and a little chuckle, on a whim I fired up my voice recognition software and decided to see if I could input the code by voice and see just how much of the code the computer could understand... The results were dismal. It was at that point that I realized that my voice recognition software didn't provide much of an interface for speaking special characters, not to mention not being able to spell out words easily. (The particular software I had would try to guess the word.)
In the end, it was an interesting experience to explore the limitations of such programs. Part of the reason they work is due to some creative guesses on their part as to what word you are trying to speak or what is written. I think an interesting project might be to develop programmer oriented "alternative input" software. Granted it wouldn't be all that useful except perhaps to geeks who have lost the use of various limbs. But it would still be an interesting excercise, none the less.
While I'm glad I some protection from telemarketers I know I am still going to get calls from the police asking for donations and silently threatening to ticket me if I don't donate.
Have you ever thought about the fact that it's probably not a policeman calling you soliciting you for donations, and that the person calling to solicit donations could in fact be from an outside contracting company? I spent some time working for such a company in my local area. (Don't worry I wasn't a telemarketer for them.) The "police officers" that called (who btw, never explicitly say that they are police officers) were merely normal people in a room with a list of phone numbers. They work for a company who contracts out to various police organizations to solicit donations for them, pick up the donations, and then give the donations to the non-profit group. There was no bad guy list also submitted to the police with the identifying information of those who did not donate. Although a donation and the applicaiton of a sticker to your car may help keep you from getting ticketed (I believe it did me once), there is no penalty for not donating, despite what may be implied.
Caveat: This was only in my area. It may be different in other areas and with larger non-profit organizations for whom it is more financially viable to handle the solicitations and collecting in house instead of farming it out to a telemarketing company. But even in those situations I'm betting that the callers would still be normal people simply working for a pay check whose only motivation to get you to donate is their commission. Most real police officers have better things to do with their time.
Generally, my experience with color inkjet printers has been that you get what you pay for. My first color inkjet was a Lexmark 5700 that my folks bought for me. I think it was moderately priced back in the day. And that printer performed admirably. It was fairly quick, produced good quality output, and was pretty reliable until it up and quit on me for no real reason one day.
I replaced that one with a Lexmark Z23 because on paper it had similar specs to my old 5700. Yeah, it was cheaper, but I just kind of assumed that the Z23 was a cheaper, updated version of my old 5700. Wrong. I had more problems with that printer than I've ever had with any other printer. It seems like every time I printed out a document to turn in for school, I had to clean the nozzles 2 or 3 times and realign the cartridges. Even then, I would still have some gaps in the print where the printer just didn't seem to cover.
Since then I have bought a used HP Deskjet 895ci. The thing was in practically brand new condition and I have yet to experience any problems with it.
I don't necessarily think that the market has been taken over by the cheap printers. Yes, they are quite common and they sell very well. But, I think that as long as you are willing to spend a little more than the average consumer (I'm guessing above the $150 range) then you will probably get a halfway decent color inkjet printer.
Actually, Cingular is only running on a GSM network in certain areas of the country. Mostly West and East coasts I'm guessing, as these are the most widely populated areas. In other regions such as the Gulf States where I am now and whatever region Arkansas is listed in, Cingular is still using TDMA. That's fine by me however, because if I did live in an area with GSM, then I would be spending waaaay too much on these really cool phones. That's not necessarily a good idea when I look at the amount of wear I've put on my Ericcson T60d in the last 7 months.
Wow. I was unaware that they actually shipped the card. I was under the impression that the 3DO was already pretty much a flop before the card was actually released. That card might be something interesting to get ahold of, just for posterity's sake.:-D
I wish there was a single platform specification, with multiple hardware vendors building compatible systems, all capable of running the same software. Then you'd have real choices.
They tried that. It was called the 3DO, and it failed miserably. There were even plans in the works for a 3DO add-in card for PCs. What it basically ammounts to is that exclusivity is what drives up profits. The big three make most of their profits from game liscensing on their console. I'm not going to get into the profit or no-profit on hardware debate because that is one topic that is so rife with misinformation that such arguments usually go nowhere. The simple truth is that the real profit lies in liscensing fees accrued from developers developing on a particular console.
Which console a particular game is developed for or if a game is developed for all consoles depends on a number of factors, but all the hardware vendors try to get exclusive rights to that really big, hit game. In turn, gamers will buy a console based on that really big hit game. Exclusive use of that one game title, will generate a whole slew of profits from the liscensing fees paid from other games on that console. Not to mention profits from the various peripherals that gamers must purchase. Microsoft understood that when they bought Bungie and therefore Halo. Sony understood that when they enticed Rockstar into developing the Grand Theft Auto series exclusively for their systems. Nintendo simply has a wide range of exclusive character brands that keep loyal gamers coming back. The exclusive games on closed consoles economy simply works, and that's all there is to it. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft aren't necessarily making the big bucks from the games developed in house, at least not in comparison to the profits had from the whole of games developed for their consoles. Instead, they make the money off the wide range of games that were liscensed for release on a particular console, that were purchased after that gamer bought his XBox just to play Halo.
We'll never see an open console standard, and if we do I would be willing to bet that the big three would still find ways to add exclusive features to their consoles that will only work with exclusive games. Much like the SQL standard and the many extensions written by Oracle, Microsoft and the like. The goal is to snag customers and make them loyal. You've got to milk them for all that they've got.
Perhaps he's using some version of Windows? Their system/bandwidth requirements detection script caused my computer (Window XP, want to make a big deal about it?) to hang for a few seconds, possibly due to the bandwidth problems we've been having in my dorm. I also failed to meet the minimum requirements due to the aforementioned bandwidth problems and so was locked out of the site. Personally, it seems like bad business to me to limit the scope of your site like this. What if I were trying to browse their movies over 56k at work (yes, such places do exist) so I could decide what to download over my dsl at home? The again, it's also bad business to charge more than your average rental price for a lower quality movie that can only be watched on the PC so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at other bad business decisions.
And I'm not even Trolling! I am really jealouse, I have been dreaming about a setup like that for a while now! I think possibly the only thing that would be more cooler(not necessarliy more usefull) would be a cellphone/bluetooth card that would alow you to just have a palmpilot, and a bluetooth headset. Possibly the addition of voice dialing like on that stupid ('pet-za' comercial, they work better than advertised btw) that and a bluetooth home phone and car phone, that would switch you between the different phones based on location.
I hear that. I too was dreaming of a setup like this, not even realizing that it existed until I finally decided to join the 20th century and get a cell phone.:) I've got an Ericsson T60d (possibly the phone fubar104 has?) for which I can purchase a bluetooth module and a bluetooth headset. The phone also comes with voice dialing and, when using a handsfree setup, a more full voice command system allowing you to do most of your basic features such as answer and reject calls, etc. I haven't used much more than the voice dialing features yet, as I haven't purchased a headset yet. Also, the bluetooth module and headset are unfortunately pretty expensive for a poor college student. On the plus side, however, this phone does come with a standard 2.5mm headset jack, unlike a lot of other phones, so any old $15 headset will work with it. Still, it's nice to be able to dream and imagine that if I somehow came into a lot of money, I would be able to afford the bluetooth module and headset.:)
One thing the parent didn't mention, is that using bluetooth, the phone can be used as a wireless modem for your laptop. (OK, so I think it can, but I'll admit to not knowing a whole lot about bluetooth, so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
Well, I do remember some of that myself, but I am probably a little younger than yourself. Still, I remember installing my first CD drive into a 486/33 which itself only had a 400MB hard drive. I remember being really excited when we got this Zip drive and I could store all kinds of stuff on it, and I remember our old 286 vaguely. (For some reason I remember that it was an Epson PC.) In fact, I still have a coupld of old 286 laptops lying around my room that I use every once in a while for posterity's sake. But for me, I didn't really start using computers to any great extent until after we got our 486. It was around that time that I really got interested in computers. Sometimes I feel like I missed out on a lot of computing history by not seriously getting into computers until so late, but then I realize that the real reason I didn't get into computers until the 486 era was because I was too young to care about much other than playing games on the thing.
Although in my defense, I did still start out in the MS-DOS command prompt days and at first was totally confused by this Windows crap that came installed on our 486. "I'm clicking on the picture, but nothing happens. Oh. I have to click twice? WTF? How is this any better than typing the command at a DOS prompt." But it still wasn't as bad as Bob.:))
:) I was wondering if somebody would catch that. In reality, "back in the day" would be "back when CD-RW drives were brand new and cost an arm and a leg and your left testicle." Thank god my dad bought it instead of me. I'd like to keep both my testicles, thank you.
When your name could mean something to everyone within your area code?
There were certain disadvantages to being the only person most of my friends knew with a CD-RW drive back in the day.:) It's not exactly uploading warez to BBSs, but...
"You can copy CD's with your computer? Wow. Could you copy this software for me? Hey! Everybody! This guy can copy CD's with his computer!"
OK, it wasn't that bad, but I tried not to let it be known that I had a CD-RW drive since everybody was always asking me to pirate software for them. Geez. Ever heard of a job?
Probably because he's running PC hardware, and not Mac hardware. Unless I am mistaken (and I'll be happy if I am because I've been wanting to try out OSX) there is no x86 port for OSX. I'm just guessing that the guy didn't want to shell out the cash for Mac hardware.
On a slightly different note, I am in a similar boat as this guy. I used Suse for a while, and I did love it. While running Suse the POS PC I was using at the time only crashed about 25% of the time instead of 50% of the time. (Cheap hardware probably caused most of those crashes.) I even managed to get some of my non-core peripherals such as my Lexmark 5700 printer and my Rio 300 working under Suse. In fact, I'd tried Linux a couple of times before installing Suse, but the main thing holding me back previously had been the lack of support for my printer. Yast2 is very easy to use (although it kind of crapped out when I tried to tell it that I didn't want to use dual monitor support with my second video card) and the older version of Yast1 is also really easy to use when finding and installing software packages on the net.
However, I don't use Linux now. The primary reason: lack of driver support. I had a cheap winmodem that I couldn't use while I was home during the summer and at the time I couldn't afford a hardware modem that would be supported by Linux. I eventually formatted my Linux partition deciding that without 'net support the OS was pretty damn useless. When I'm home over the summer, internet and games are the two chief uses of my computers. Oh yeah, and I never could get Q3 to work under Linux either.
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What I have never understood about certain segments of the open source community is why Apple gets such a big pass. The average slashdrone will rant endlessly (and probably rightly so) about the evils of SCO and Microsoft. When in fact Apple is more closed source and proprietary than both of them combined and talk about how cool Apple is and if only the world were a better place we would all use Mac's. Any model that fails to give you control of the hardware and software that you pay for is a bad one. Apple locks down both, a claim that is not applicable to either Microsoft or SCO. The open source community should get out of bed with Apple before we get another SCO situation on our hands. To those who say Apple would never do something like SCO look here.
/. long enough. ;) Apple is the underdog and a competitor to Microsoft, so it has to be good. That said, I think they also gain points in many geeks' eyes due to the fact that OSX is built upon BSD, which is itself embraced by the slashdot community. It's also really the first *nix OS with true mainstream application support. Or at least as much as Mac OS ever had, but most importantly it has Microsoft Office support (no matter your opinion, it's still the standard) Photoshop support, and probably a bunch of other graphical production apps I've never heard of but are pretty important to a lot of other people. So, even though they are extremly closed source and proprietary, they still provide geeks with an appealing alternative to Microsoft, not to mention the occasional cool, innovative, overpriced gadget.
You clearly havne't been visiting
Funny, it seems to imply in the news.com article that less advisories are better than more... hell, I think my ol' comp running win98 went for many months last year without a single advisory notice when I clicking into the Windows update site. Pfft. So therefore win98 is safer than Server 2003...
That's more or less what one of my clients said when I visited him to help get rid of the RPC virus. Granted, since most of is computing infrastructure is Windows 98 based, his site wasn't as hard to repair as some others, but I'm still not sure if using an outdated OS is a real solution for security.
what a shitty and rude thing to say. I hope you enjoy the negative moderation.
;), or is that no longer the correct emoticon for letting people know that you are only kidding. Perhaps next time I should type "I am only joking, please don't moderate me as a troll!" in all caps just to make sure everybody knows I am joking.
That in and of itself is a pretty immature, rude comment. In fact, whatever happened to the general guideline of not moderating a comment just becuase you don't agree with the content?
I can only assume that you are the moderator. Either way, you should get the stick out of your ass. It was a joke, as denoted by the
Furthermore I doubt the parent poster saw it as anything more. Slidell is a nice town and a generally pleasant place to live, and a place that many people move to in order to get away from the filth, trash, etc. of New Orleans, not unlike the town I myself grew up in. (Except Slidell has a Best Buy, and my home town didn't.) It's the kind of place I would want to live when it comes time to settle down. I, being young however, happen to like living closer to the action and fun of New Orleans where my trip home isn't quite as long or as expensive after nights of drunken debauchery in the French Quarter.
Grow up, get out more, learn to laugh a little, and get that stick out of your ass. You'll live longer that way.
And to think, just yesterday I was being lambasted by a friend's wife for never being able to be serious about anything...
-- Posting without karma bonus so that fewer people will read this and not be subjected to what will probably be moderated as flamebait again by the previous vindictive moderator. Anonymous Coward indeed.
Not seen that.
:) Either way, the "karma game" isn't as much fun since they got rid of the nubmer system. :)
Eh, perhaps Slidell isn't included, and perhaps animosity is too strong a term. But, working on the West Bank and living in Metarie, I do see... maybe kind of a rivalry is the word? I dunno. The opinion of one of my coworkers is that generally people from Metarie and the rest of the east bank (myself excluded since I'm not originally from here) are stuck up where West Bankers are concerned.
That said, it's nice to see that somebody moderated my joke towards as a Troll. Some people just really have no sense of humor. I wonder how the metamoderators will view that.
I'm sorry, too. That New Orleans is your hometown, I mean.
;)
--Living large and having fun in New York City.
Damn! You've got me beat there. Although what I've found most interesting since moving to New Orleans, is the relative animosity among those who live in New Orleans and the surrounding areas, Slidell included. (It's just on the other side of Lake Ponchatrain.) I'm sure it's the same way with the burrougs (sp?) in New York, but it's really remarkably funny to me, not having lived in New Orleans my entire life.
--Posting without karma bonus due to the OT nature...
My home town is on slashdot!
;)
Oh, great, it's about a spammer.
Crap.
I'm sorry. That Slidell's your hometown, I mean.
-- Living large and having fun in New Orleans.
The next issue is ignorance by other road users, primarily passenger vehicle operators. Nope, bikers aren't getting squashed by semis, they're getting squashed by SUVs and minivans. I've long been a proponent of tougher licensing standards in the US.
This actually brings up a good point, although I'm not certain the blame should rest solely on the shoulders of the 4-wheel vehicle driver. I have had a few instances where I have cut off motorcyclists on the roads simply because they were driving at high rates of speed at night and literally weren't in the lane when I initially checked my mirrors. For instance, the other night I was leaving Taco Bell. I patiently waited for an extra large gap in traffic so that I could pull all the way out into the left lane and make it into the U-Turn area. So, I see a large gap, thanks to the nearby traffic light, and pull out. As soon as I make it into my lane, I check my mirrors again and there is a sport bike right there behind me, who certainly wasn't anywhere near me when I pulled out into the lane. It made total sense to me though since it was Bike Night and all the sport bikers hang out at a near-by establishment. The point I'm making is that, if you're going to be riding a motorcycle (or driving a car even) at extremely high rate of speeds, the responsibility for your own safety should rest squarely on your own shoulders. And I think the good riders do pay that extra attention, because when you are exceeding the posted speed limit excessively, and other drivers don't expect it (and don't try to give me crap about you should always expect somebody to be doing 90 in a 35 or something), you are taking your own life into your hands becuase when driving so much faster than the rest of traffic, on a tiny motorcycle, they have very little time to realize you are there as you fly up on them at twice the rate of the rest of traffic.
I myself am extra careful around motorcyclists. I like sport bikes and respect their riders, mostly becuase I know that if I had one I'd probably kill myself on Day 1 doing 100+ in a 50. (It's bad enough that I've done it in cars, I'm ashamed to admit.) But also becuase I know that they are way less protected than I am and deserve that extra respect simply becuase of that.
And on a different note, let me implor other 4-wheel drivers to help a motorcyclist out by signaling with him, when he's making a turn in front of you in a passing zone. My Dad's best friend in high school was killed in a situation where he was making a left turn so the car behind him was slowing down, but the redneck behind that car did see a signal and so passed the car just in time to hit my dad's friend mid-way through his turn. So, help a motorcyclist out some time.
"plus most driving in the city is sitting at a standstill so the vehicle uses almost ZERO power while sitting."
:)
do buy in to that. In the real world, its going to need a radio, and some enviromental controls.
Not that this isn't interesting, but they really need a test that involves what most consumer would want.
Clearly, buy purchasing this car, the consumer feels they don't need what a gas engine brings them, but how many people will sit inside a car with no AC when its 100 degree outside? or a heater when its 32F/0C outside?
I know plenty of guys who do this with their daily drivers. Of course, all of those cars are highly modified cars that are just barely street legal. But hey, they also out accelerate the above mentioned cars! Then again, they all probably also put out the equivalent pollution of 20 regular cars, but who's counting?
am still scatching my head about diesel engines being included.
I'm too lazy to find a link, but check out Volkswagen's Jetta TDI. It's got a 1.8L (I think) diesel engine and has fuel consumption that rivals that of the Honda Civic hybrid. That's why diesel engines are included.
In fact, in Europe Volkswagen markets an even more fuel effiecient engine that it's won some awards for. (Sorry if that's kind of vague, I had a long day and don't feel like searching for the articles.) They just don't market the car here due to it's low power rating. Most American's wouldn't stand for so little power.
I've never really had a condescending attitude towards my users. Ok, so once or twice I get a user so ignorant, and who doesn't even want to make the effort to help themselves that I do maybe act a little condescending to them, but those users and situations are few and far between. I'm just a nice guy and find it very, very hard to be mean to anybody... which is part of the reason my users love to come to me when they need stuff done.
Anyway, back on topic... I always had respect for all the managers in the company, but it wasn't until one day that I really had it all put into perspective for me. One of the managers was talking about how nice I was and how she loved having me around because I never developed a condescending attitude. She then went on to talk about the typical prima-donna IT guys. She then said, "For instance, you couldn't do a [insert some task that I've never heard of and can't remember]." I just kind of stared blankly for a moment and said "Huh?" It was at that moment that she had in effect initiated the BOFH's infamous dumme mode on me. I simply stated that I had no idea what she even said, but that was what made everything so great. I did what I liked and knew how to do and so did she, and because we both liked and respected each other and did our respective tasks, the company made money. Or rather, her department made money for the company while my department made sure they could do it, but that's just nitpicking.
Suffice it to say, that just because we know gobs of technical stuff our users don't, that doesn't necessarily make them any less intelligent than we are. I could no sooner do the jobs of most of my users than they could do mine.
I've been eyeing devices like these off and on for the past several months or so. If I were to travel more than I do, one of these devices would be invaluable. I don't generally watch much broadcast TV. Before I graduated from school and when I still lived with my parents, I found that more often than not I would watch shows that I had previously recorded on their PVR. I find that I generally manage to stay busy enough that I don't find the time to watch television shows when they are broadcast anyway. Other than the Simpsons and the occasional sporting event, that is. (Go Cubs!)
Furthermore, when my roommate and I moved into our new apartment after graduation, we elected not to purchase anything but the most basic cable needed to get cable internet. Instead, I get my TV fix buy purchasing DVD collections for series that I never found the time to watch while being broadcast or series which we never broadcast in my area, recording shows onto my computer from the few channels I do get, and being sent the occasional television episode for a particular series from a friend who recorded it on their computer. (That does fall into fair use, correct?) Just as I have all but stopped listening to the radio and watching MTV (when I still had it), I have now all but stopped watching television. Instead, my entertainment fill is based around on-demand entertainment. I watch shows whenever I get the chance and listen to my CDs whenever I get a chance. For me, being able to take my ondemand video entertainment with me is simply the next step. I would love to be able to rip a couple episodes of The Prisoner or Buffy to take with me and watch while on a trip or during a lunch break at work, or pretty much any time I have some free time away from home that I want to fill. As I said before, if I travelled more, I would most certainly be purchasing one of these devices.
I haven't ran into that, but of everybody I know, I am the only person who is contractless with his current provider. And it turns out that I have been since about August... of 2002. I originally purchased my phone in my home state in June, during summer break. When I came back to school, I switched to a local number and also a new region. Apparently, ever since they switched me to my current region, I have been contractless. I didn't even know this until I called approximately 1.5 to 2 months before my contract was supposed to expire and asked for the date of my contract expiration.
Maybe it's because my going contractless was a mistake, but I don't get chared at a per minute rate. I get monthly bills for the same ammount I always have, and it's the same monthly rate I was getting while still under contract. Although it's probably a fallacy, the fact that I am not currently obligated to stay with my current provider is one of the biggest reasons I haven't yet changed providers. The other reason being that I don't really have any complaints with my service and that it appears to be no worse (in my area) than any of the other proviers I hear about.
Then again, all that may change once number portability goes into effect. This month is looking to be the third month that I will go over my minutes in my 1.33 years with my provider, meaning it might finally be time to upgrade. If my provider cares about keeping loyal customers like me, I should be able to use number portability and my contractless status to renegotiate for a new plan and keep my no contract status. If not, I might have to go with one of the many other providers sure to offer really good plans for new subscribers and possibly even better plans for converts (I'm sure somebody will do it).
Oh yeah, and I also have to decide if I should a)Keep my existing phone (Ericsson T60d) which I am reasonably happy with, b)purchase a GAIT phone (Ericsson T62u is basically my phone but with added GSM capability) for maximum functionality or c)purchase one of those new, super cool GSM phones with all the bells and whistles (maybe a Siemens SL56?).
OK, enough rambling. But I am going to predict that come Nov. 24 it will be open season for cell phone companies. People will cahnge from all the providers, but I really doubt any one company will gain any significant new market share from number portability. In short, this will just create more competition among the cell providers, which should in theory benefit the consumers in the end.
I predict that in the future, keyboards will ONLY be used by programmers (as we're virtually the only ones who need to type funky things like "printf("Hello, World\n");" that would be a RIDICULOUS pain to input with voice), and they will cost a huge amount.
Well, probably nobody will read this since the article is kind of old, but anyway...
I got bored one day and actually tried an experiment doing this. I had a few pages of code that a professor had given, and the code was required for the assignment, but the professor didn't put the code in a shared directory for us... meaning we all had to input the code ourselves, which was of course a horrible waste of time.
I actually started out trying to scan the code in and OCR'ing it first. I had a really good idea what would probably happen, but I gave it a try anyway. Anybody that's ever used OCR software is probably aware that such software is usually Optical Word Recognition insted of Optical Character Recognition. Which is fine considering most people only want to OCR normal english (or other languages) text anyway. The result of my little test was a jumbled mass of guessed words and symbols that weren't in any way intelligible. It might be possible to train certain OCR software (I'm not sure if all OCR packages offer a training feature) to work correctly with code, but I didn't care enough to find out.
So, after that failed experiment and a little chuckle, on a whim I fired up my voice recognition software and decided to see if I could input the code by voice and see just how much of the code the computer could understand... The results were dismal. It was at that point that I realized that my voice recognition software didn't provide much of an interface for speaking special characters, not to mention not being able to spell out words easily. (The particular software I had would try to guess the word.)
In the end, it was an interesting experience to explore the limitations of such programs. Part of the reason they work is due to some creative guesses on their part as to what word you are trying to speak or what is written. I think an interesting project might be to develop programmer oriented "alternative input" software. Granted it wouldn't be all that useful except perhaps to geeks who have lost the use of various limbs. But it would still be an interesting excercise, none the less.
While I'm glad I some protection from telemarketers I know I am still going to get calls from the police asking for donations and silently threatening to ticket me if I don't donate.
Have you ever thought about the fact that it's probably not a policeman calling you soliciting you for donations, and that the person calling to solicit donations could in fact be from an outside contracting company? I spent some time working for such a company in my local area. (Don't worry I wasn't a telemarketer for them.) The "police officers" that called (who btw, never explicitly say that they are police officers) were merely normal people in a room with a list of phone numbers. They work for a company who contracts out to various police organizations to solicit donations for them, pick up the donations, and then give the donations to the non-profit group. There was no bad guy list also submitted to the police with the identifying information of those who did not donate. Although a donation and the applicaiton of a sticker to your car may help keep you from getting ticketed (I believe it did me once), there is no penalty for not donating, despite what may be implied.
Caveat: This was only in my area. It may be different in other areas and with larger non-profit organizations for whom it is more financially viable to handle the solicitations and collecting in house instead of farming it out to a telemarketing company. But even in those situations I'm betting that the callers would still be normal people simply working for a pay check whose only motivation to get you to donate is their commission. Most real police officers have better things to do with their time.
Generally, my experience with color inkjet printers has been that you get what you pay for. My first color inkjet was a Lexmark 5700 that my folks bought for me. I think it was moderately priced back in the day. And that printer performed admirably. It was fairly quick, produced good quality output, and was pretty reliable until it up and quit on me for no real reason one day.
I replaced that one with a Lexmark Z23 because on paper it had similar specs to my old 5700. Yeah, it was cheaper, but I just kind of assumed that the Z23 was a cheaper, updated version of my old 5700. Wrong. I had more problems with that printer than I've ever had with any other printer. It seems like every time I printed out a document to turn in for school, I had to clean the nozzles 2 or 3 times and realign the cartridges. Even then, I would still have some gaps in the print where the printer just didn't seem to cover.
Since then I have bought a used HP Deskjet 895ci. The thing was in practically brand new condition and I have yet to experience any problems with it.
I don't necessarily think that the market has been taken over by the cheap printers. Yes, they are quite common and they sell very well. But, I think that as long as you are willing to spend a little more than the average consumer (I'm guessing above the $150 range) then you will probably get a halfway decent color inkjet printer.
Actually, Cingular is only running on a GSM network in certain areas of the country. Mostly West and East coasts I'm guessing, as these are the most widely populated areas. In other regions such as the Gulf States where I am now and whatever region Arkansas is listed in, Cingular is still using TDMA. That's fine by me however, because if I did live in an area with GSM, then I would be spending waaaay too much on these really cool phones. That's not necessarily a good idea when I look at the amount of wear I've put on my Ericcson T60d in the last 7 months.
Wow. I was unaware that they actually shipped the card. I was under the impression that the 3DO was already pretty much a flop before the card was actually released. That card might be something interesting to get ahold of, just for posterity's sake. :-D
I wish there was a single platform specification, with multiple hardware vendors building compatible systems, all capable of running the same software. Then you'd have real choices.
They tried that. It was called the 3DO, and it failed miserably. There were even plans in the works for a 3DO add-in card for PCs. What it basically ammounts to is that exclusivity is what drives up profits. The big three make most of their profits from game liscensing on their console. I'm not going to get into the profit or no-profit on hardware debate because that is one topic that is so rife with misinformation that such arguments usually go nowhere. The simple truth is that the real profit lies in liscensing fees accrued from developers developing on a particular console.
Which console a particular game is developed for or if a game is developed for all consoles depends on a number of factors, but all the hardware vendors try to get exclusive rights to that really big, hit game. In turn, gamers will buy a console based on that really big hit game. Exclusive use of that one game title, will generate a whole slew of profits from the liscensing fees paid from other games on that console. Not to mention profits from the various peripherals that gamers must purchase. Microsoft understood that when they bought Bungie and therefore Halo. Sony understood that when they enticed Rockstar into developing the Grand Theft Auto series exclusively for their systems. Nintendo simply has a wide range of exclusive character brands that keep loyal gamers coming back. The exclusive games on closed consoles economy simply works, and that's all there is to it. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft aren't necessarily making the big bucks from the games developed in house, at least not in comparison to the profits had from the whole of games developed for their consoles. Instead, they make the money off the wide range of games that were liscensed for release on a particular console, that were purchased after that gamer bought his XBox just to play Halo.
We'll never see an open console standard, and if we do I would be willing to bet that the big three would still find ways to add exclusive features to their consoles that will only work with exclusive games. Much like the SQL standard and the many extensions written by Oracle, Microsoft and the like. The goal is to snag customers and make them loyal. You've got to milk them for all that they've got.
Perhaps he's using some version of Windows? Their system/bandwidth requirements detection script caused my computer (Window XP, want to make a big deal about it?) to hang for a few seconds, possibly due to the bandwidth problems we've been having in my dorm. I also failed to meet the minimum requirements due to the aforementioned bandwidth problems and so was locked out of the site. Personally, it seems like bad business to me to limit the scope of your site like this. What if I were trying to browse their movies over 56k at work (yes, such places do exist) so I could decide what to download over my dsl at home? The again, it's also bad business to charge more than your average rental price for a lower quality movie that can only be watched on the PC so I guess I shouldn't be surprised at other bad business decisions.
And I'm not even Trolling! I am really jealouse, I have been dreaming about a setup like that for a while now! I think possibly the only thing that would be more cooler(not necessarliy more usefull) would be a cellphone/bluetooth card that would alow you to just have a palmpilot, and a bluetooth headset. Possibly the addition of voice dialing like on that stupid ('pet-za' comercial, they work better than advertised btw) that and a bluetooth home phone and car phone, that would switch you between the different phones based on location.
I hear that. I too was dreaming of a setup like this, not even realizing that it existed until I finally decided to join the 20th century and get a cell phone. :) I've got an Ericsson T60d (possibly the phone fubar104 has?) for which I can purchase a bluetooth module and a bluetooth headset. The phone also comes with voice dialing and, when using a handsfree setup, a more full voice command system allowing you to do most of your basic features such as answer and reject calls, etc. I haven't used much more than the voice dialing features yet, as I haven't purchased a headset yet. Also, the bluetooth module and headset are unfortunately pretty expensive for a poor college student. On the plus side, however, this phone does come with a standard 2.5mm headset jack, unlike a lot of other phones, so any old $15 headset will work with it. Still, it's nice to be able to dream and imagine that if I somehow came into a lot of money, I would be able to afford the bluetooth module and headset. :)
One thing the parent didn't mention, is that using bluetooth, the phone can be used as a wireless modem for your laptop. (OK, so I think it can, but I'll admit to not knowing a whole lot about bluetooth, so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong on this.)
Although in my defense, I did still start out in the MS-DOS command prompt days and at first was totally confused by this Windows crap that came installed on our 486. "I'm clicking on the picture, but nothing happens. Oh. I have to click twice? WTF? How is this any better than typing the command at a DOS prompt." But it still wasn't as bad as Bob. :))
When your name could mean something to everyone within your area code?
There were certain disadvantages to being the only person most of my friends knew with a CD-RW drive back in the day. :) It's not exactly uploading warez to BBSs, but...
"You can copy CD's with your computer? Wow. Could you copy this software for me? Hey! Everybody! This guy can copy CD's with his computer!"
OK, it wasn't that bad, but I tried not to let it be known that I had a CD-RW drive since everybody was always asking me to pirate software for them. Geez. Ever heard of a job?
Why Not Mac / OSX?
Probably because he's running PC hardware, and not Mac hardware. Unless I am mistaken (and I'll be happy if I am because I've been wanting to try out OSX) there is no x86 port for OSX. I'm just guessing that the guy didn't want to shell out the cash for Mac hardware.
On a slightly different note, I am in a similar boat as this guy. I used Suse for a while, and I did love it. While running Suse the POS PC I was using at the time only crashed about 25% of the time instead of 50% of the time. (Cheap hardware probably caused most of those crashes.) I even managed to get some of my non-core peripherals such as my Lexmark 5700 printer and my Rio 300 working under Suse. In fact, I'd tried Linux a couple of times before installing Suse, but the main thing holding me back previously had been the lack of support for my printer. Yast2 is very easy to use (although it kind of crapped out when I tried to tell it that I didn't want to use dual monitor support with my second video card) and the older version of Yast1 is also really easy to use when finding and installing software packages on the net.
However, I don't use Linux now. The primary reason: lack of driver support. I had a cheap winmodem that I couldn't use while I was home during the summer and at the time I couldn't afford a hardware modem that would be supported by Linux. I eventually formatted my Linux partition deciding that without 'net support the OS was pretty damn useless. When I'm home over the summer, internet and games are the two chief uses of my computers. Oh yeah, and I never could get Q3 to work under Linux either.
Nope. AFAIK only the larger, old-skool dishes can recieve Ku signals.