No, I didn't spend much time there. You did remind me, though, Atlanta is a bad example. I was there for a week a few years ago to see my cousin compete in the Paralympics.
I now remember renting a car to drive down to the "subway" station (above ground)... Heh -- that was a laugh. There was more parking than subway.
Does anyone ever park in the electric vehicle spots?
>Edmonton (like Calgary) had a population in the 500K~750K range
That's a bit bigger than the cities I'm talking about (sorry, that wasn't so apparent). I'm talking about cities in the 50k-500k range.
Unfortunately bike paths are few and far between where I am, and no one respects the people on bikes (most pass them while there is a car in the lane beside). Not too many hills here, but most of the roads are on slopes.
You can't bike here for 3 months of the year. For 1/2 that time you freeze your ass off (-10 degrees C) and the other half you'd need 5 inch thick tires to get through the snow (well, actually, even people with motorbikes don't come out in the winter).
>After that, it's either bike or taxis.
Exactly. Night service isn't around much. Take a bike, get mugged. Take a taxi, pay 20x more than you would have to go by car. Problem is, if you instate night service, you don't get enough takers (it seems) to pay for the service. And there's NO WAY my taxes are going to pay for people freeloading on a bus at night.:-)
I did take the bus near where I live yesterday. Cost me $2. I could have driven the same distance for $1... It's already too expensive.
>But like all misleading statistics, it hides the fact that mass transit vehicle accidents are generally rarer, and less fatal than car accidents.
First part agreed. Second part I would disagree with. I was just poiting out that IF you are in a crash on a mass transit vehicle, expect to die. They might not happen often, but they are damn horrible when they do. Generally in a car you are wearing a seat belt, have a personal air bag (or two). Your seat is adjusted to fit. The crumple zones can protect you. Rollbars save you when your vehicle goes upside down (if this happens on a bus, you WILL go to hospital). And, if you have enough sense about you, your driving can keep you even safer.
Truth is, I trust myself behind the wheel more than the bus driver. Then again, I hated drama class where they played those "trust" games (you know, fall and expect your partner to catch you).
>Second of all, if a transit bus runs over your mazda Miata, guess who's gonna get CRUSHED?
And when that bus goes over a bridge and turns over, guess who dies? Or what about when it hits the ice, skids, and snaps in half on some telephone poles?
I'm pretty careful about not hitting big objects... I know what they do (I saw a car hit a bus once, ugly... BUT he was going 100 km/h in 1 meter visibility weather). Apart from that, cars keep the driver safe from his own mistakes (that guy came out with a cut to his forehead, nothing more -- he didn't even have an airbag). Driving 200 km/h on the freeway and your car flips a couple of times? I've seen people walk out of cars after that. I'd like to say that about buses, but I can't. Heck, just going over large bumps sends kids to hospital in those things (ala overly played school bus driver having heart attack at wheel video).
I think you see a lot more car accidents simply because people driving cars generally aren't as good at driving as bus drivers and truck drivers.
I'd like to see stats on how many people die in taxi accidents. It'd be interesting to see if they are higher than the stats on other mass transit. My feeling is that the driver is what keeps you safe... Not just the vehicle.
>A lot of smaller cities in Ontario (London, Guelph) have bus service.
I'm actually in the cetire of the KW, Cambridge, and Guelph "Golden Triangle", so I've heard a little about the Guelph bus service. I actually hear it isn't too bad. Then again, my first driving test was there and it was horrible (the streets are kinda random).
The problem is trying to get from city to city (Guelph to KW) on that bus is bad. Really bad. And a lot of people work across the two cities.
The one attempt by KW and Guelph to fix the problem by adding a proper highway between the two cities has met constantly with insane activists who say that people should be taking the bus -- that it isn't a good idea. That its out of the 70's.
Yes. "Take the bus. The two hour bus." No way. Hell will freeze over first before anyone here gets up at 6:00 to go to a 9:00 job. [Ok, maybe the bus isn't that bad, I haven't taken it, this is all from hearsay].
Busses in KW go nowhere you want, at no time you want. I was talking with someone nearby Victoria St. and Frederick St. He has to get up at 7:00 to get to Conestoga College for 8:30 (a 15 minute car ride).:-/
I guess if something happens while you are on some mass transit you can at least expect it to be on the world news (small comfort).
>It's a pitty that the US government so heavily subsidizes automobiles and gives other forms of transit the shaft
As a Canadian who has been to the states often enough to understand mass transit in both countries, I quickly realised that mass transit ONLY works in huge cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, Detriot, New York, for example. And since a large amount of the population in both countries lives in cities where ANYTHING and EVERYTHING (especially work) takes a minimum of a 15 minute drive (often 1/2 hour) mass transit is NOT a viable choice. I refuse to wait an hour (each way) to get my groceries by bus. Heck, where I live I have to drive 20 minutes just to pick up groceries, and I'm only 5 minutes out of a city of 300,000. This is normal in a not-so-big-but-growing city.
Rail: Won't work because you'd have to stop for 3 minutes every 3 rail minutes to pick people up, due to urban sprawl. It will take twice as long to get to the destination (assuming traffic on the roads isn't bad -- and in the smaller cities it usually isn't).
Bus: A better idea, but still much too slow. The amount of buses needed to take so few people ends up pumping more crap into the air than the individual cars, from what I see now.
Supersonic Transport: Great for going to other cities. But that isn't really the problem, is it?
Subway: Not unless your city population is in the millions. The price is just way too high.
Basically, these ideas work well for most other developed countries because their population in most cities is high enough to support them. The United States, and Canada (especially) don't have enough population density to make these ideas work.
I think if you want to solve the problems of the under 1/2 million population cities you need to pack people in more tightly and fix the roads so that people can get where they need to go quickly. Oh, and you need to encourage more really local business (like a 5 minute walk local), rather than have patches of houses, and (far away) patches of stores.
Well, the US has some (and has had) solutions to your Sipping tea in an Air Conditioned room problem:
- Put on the hood. Aim for the white O. Bang, Bang, Bang, Poof, Bang. Sandbags mop up the blood. Unconscious minutes after.
- A quick shave. Some gel. Zap 'em for four minutes 'till he's dead. Hey... Did you forget to fix the restraints? His body went across the room that time.
- A last look at society. Now, strap him in so he doesn't look like he's in pain. Pop a vein, drop in the IV. Pop another, do the same. Pump him full of Anesthetic. Now kill his muscles. Finish off his heart.
- Throw him in the box. Add some sulfuric acid. Listen to the heart. Add sodium cyanide. Wait 18 minutes. You now have one prisoner gassed to death slower than even the most powerful dictators in the world could ever dream of. The masked men add some little bleach to wash off those deadly gas stains.
- Weigh him. Calculate the rope length. Open the door. Wait 45 minutes. Pop, Pop, plop.
Oh, so sorry, did I scare you? Some desensitization might help. May I suggest you take a seat in the room with a view and watch the show? I hear today's is going to be good: Another big guy, should take enough to kill a horse to get rid of him.
First of all, I disagree with a few of your statements on a personal level (I have never burned down a rainforest, TYVM, and any arguments saying my enjoyment of Golden Arches causes it will meet my asbestos suit) but I'll leave that out of the rest of my post.
>So even though we are destroying our rain forest, it's okay, because we're planting new tress?
No, that is not righting the "wrong" you are citing. To right that "wrong" you'd need to get the people in question to stop destroying the old trees. They could then plant new trees as a graicous effort to prove they are nice. Planting new ones in place of old ones is like crying crocodile tears.
>Even though I was driving 25 mph over the limit, it's okay, because I slowed down before I got home?
If you never do it again for the rest of your life (and you didn't hit anything on your way home), I think I'd consider it a closed deal. But only if you continue compliance.
I believe this entire concept is why most non-violent crimes in certain countries have a "expiry" date on prosecution.
Better to have to have the cancer of releasing half your source code than the quick finish of ending up in jail/bankrupt (the inevitable end of anyone using propietary code against license in their software).
But if the GPL is a cancer on modern business, would you want to have your name sullied by a cancerous business? Or, worse yet, do you want to risk joining them?
Noisy Machinery? Try working in a factory. Or in a server room...
No Shampoo? Aww... I really feel for ya buddy.
Chili Sauce instead of cleaning gel? Unless that's for personal cleaning (ouch), I'd say hobbyists do this all the time (its called "Making Do With What Ya Got").
Velcro pads are supposed to stick to things.
The DVD player's screen is too small? Oh please dear God, someone phone 911 and help out!
The Russian medical labels worry me. Hopefully their Sharpie (tm) marker and a talk with ground crew got them outta that one.
The plugs not being standardized, that just confuses me. But that isn't unlike real life, so what's a spaceman to do?;-)
I don't blame the astronauts for putting this in their logs. I just blame the media companies for trying to make this out to be important when apart from the medical labels (which were easy to fix) it isn't. Anyone with a few brain cells to rub together can see from pictures space travel isn't a holiday!
Next in the news: "Getting your tie caught in the photocopier 'sucks'"
>As for the Pioneers that sell the same things--perhaps they're just differently-named branches of the same company?
Well, to be truthful, my scan of the companies was quite limited.:-) What I meant to say was they were both in the same field of sales (ie: A couple of them sell computers, a couple eletronics goods, two of them are newpapers etc...). I'd venture a guess that some of the products they generate are similar enough to each other in a similar manner that Killustrator is similar to Adobe Illustrator (ie: Similar function, totally different implementation).
Actually, the newspaper sites are very much similar in that regard. Both of them are newspapers, but the content of them is different. Just like Killustrator and Illustrator are Vector Drawing Programs, but the content (code) is totally different.
No, it shouldn't, because the rate of computing power increase has stayed the same before and after the C64 was invented (Moore's Law). If we were to somehow deviate from that, then yes, I would factor computing power into my answer.
But that's my point of view, you are free to differ. Both are valid, depending on how you look at things...
>and the mass market appeal of an easy to use PC made PCs cheaper for all of us
I believe I paid less (ok my parents paid less) for my C64 in 1984 (which was GUI free, and came out well before PCs were popular) than I have paid for the "low end" PIII I'm writing this on now. Yes, that is adjusted for inflation...
Ever wondered why people often say "Xerox me a copy of this", yet the word Xerox isn't in the dictionary yet?
Webster's, Oxford, Roget's, and all the other English dictionary companies keep trying to put it in. The minute the word "Xerox" is in the dictionary Xerox ceases to be a trademark for Xerox. It's called trademark dilution. So every time these dictionaries get the bright idea of putting the word in the dictionary Xerox sends them a nasty letter, and its taken out.
Illustrator was already in the dictionary well before Adobe decided to use it, and therefore is a completely diluted, and therefore useless, trademark. I'm sure if the Killustrator developer sends back a note explaining this Adobe will give up (Although IANAL, so its your gamble).
Adobe just thinks they can make a quick couple of bucks. They never thought they'd get enough negative press to *lose* money over the proposition (at the price of their products, it just takes one or two angry slashdotters).
You'd be surprised how many of those companies are infringing on one another's trade marks, yet I hear of no $2000 bills being passed about. Some of them sell identical things.
Why? Oh, maybe because they aren't all called "Pioneer". They are called "Pioneer Technology", and "Pioneer USA", etc...
Adobe needs to get a grip before they get themselves in too deep with the lawyer's money.
Another fun few: Look up companies named "Shepherd", "ATI", and "Trident".
What idiot can't ask a simple yes/no question on such an important test (and with such an important question):
#41. I do not always tell the truth.
Either answer (yes or no) can mean YES. That's why you have to phrase questions so they are clear (unless you are planning on confusing the subject):
I always tell the truth.
That's a real question. I'm glad no one's ever asked me to take this. I'd be asking questions throughout the whole thing.
#44. Once a week or oftener I suddenly feel hot all over, for no real reason
Oftener? That isn't a word, is it?
#91. I have little or no trouble with my muscles twitching or jumping.
That's a two way question if I've ever seen one. Do twitching muscles trouble you? Or do they twitch often enough to bother you?
#112. I like dramatics.
You like dramatic theater? Or do you like seeing people act in extreme dramatic ways?
I give up.
Or maybe that's the whole point, to confuse the person to the point that they don't understand what to write down. Maybe it's just my INTP side talking... I'm confused already!
That should keep them happy, and if they complain again, you can use the WIPO decision about -sucks domains as proof that you are complying with the law.
Re:The Neverending wave of criticism of slackware.
on
Slackware 8.0 Released
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· Score: 1
Yes, the *most* stupid parts of/usr/doc are (in order of uselessness):
This documentation *especially* should be web-only, like you say.
End Sarcasm.
Why use a phone for text messages?
on
SMS vs. E-mail?
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· Score: 1
If you want good quality message service from a phone company on a cellphone, you are probably not looking in the right direction.
Buy a RIM blackberry pager (availiable in many different service provider flavours, mine's a Rogers/AT&T model -- I think AOL does one). It has more service range, its cheaper to operate, easier to type on (actually, easier to type on than anything its size, IMHO), and smaller than any cellphone I've ever seen (I'm talking about the 950 model here).
For me, I've found the coverage area for the pager exceeds what I'm used to getting with a cellphone.
It is designed to send/receive emails (not phone calls), so the interface is good. I can understand why you would hate having to send emails on a phone. If you get one of these I'm certain you'll see that email is the way to go.:-)
You do realise the result of forcing users to choose passwords that make no sense, right?
Post it notes with them written on, tagged all over. That and a huge headache for the support department ("I can't come up with a password that works. Can you give me one?").
That idea, and the idea of forcing password changes every couple of months, are the exact cause of people writing their password all over (remember the big list of different passwords to the school computer written on the desk in Wargames? That part of the movie is real life).
You don't see people putting their 4 digit bank pin on a post it note, right? Why? Because they set it and that's it -- they never have to come up with a passcode again. If they can keep their mouth shut (and especially with money people do) everything is good.
Here's one with enough power to play mp3s. It uses 10 watts maximum. Throw in a hard drive (2A @ 12V max) and a CDROM (1A @ 12V max), you are looking at 46 watts.
Ok, that's a "586"... which is a 486 "pumped up". I'll find you a real 486...
Here's a real 486 that takes about 8 watts of power.
Totally silent, both of them.
You could get real 486 motherboards back in the days when that was hot stuff that used less than 50 watts of power (including the CPU).:-)
I'd get you prices, but I just don't know where to buy that stuff. I'd ask the manufacturers.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I didn't spend much time there. You did remind me, though, Atlanta is a bad example. I was there for a week a few years ago to see my cousin compete in the Paralympics.
I now remember renting a car to drive down to the "subway" station (above ground)... Heh -- that was a laugh. There was more parking than subway.
Does anyone ever park in the electric vehicle spots?
>Edmonton (like Calgary) had a population in the 500K~750K range
:-)
That's a bit bigger than the cities I'm talking about (sorry, that wasn't so apparent). I'm talking about cities in the 50k-500k range.
Unfortunately bike paths are few and far between where I am, and no one respects the people on bikes (most pass them while there is a car in the lane beside). Not too many hills here, but most of the roads are on slopes.
You can't bike here for 3 months of the year. For 1/2 that time you freeze your ass off (-10 degrees C) and the other half you'd need 5 inch thick tires to get through the snow (well, actually, even people with motorbikes don't come out in the winter).
>After that, it's either bike or taxis.
Exactly. Night service isn't around much. Take a bike, get mugged. Take a taxi, pay 20x more than you would have to go by car. Problem is, if you instate night service, you don't get enough takers (it seems) to pay for the service. And there's NO WAY my taxes are going to pay for people freeloading on a bus at night.
I did take the bus near where I live yesterday. Cost me $2. I could have driven the same distance for $1... It's already too expensive.
>But like all misleading statistics, it hides the fact that mass transit vehicle accidents are generally rarer, and less fatal than car accidents.
First part agreed. Second part I would disagree with. I was just poiting out that IF you are in a crash on a mass transit vehicle, expect to die. They might not happen often, but they are damn horrible when they do. Generally in a car you are wearing a seat belt, have a personal air bag (or two). Your seat is adjusted to fit. The crumple zones can protect you. Rollbars save you when your vehicle goes upside down (if this happens on a bus, you WILL go to hospital). And, if you have enough sense about you, your driving can keep you even safer.
Truth is, I trust myself behind the wheel more than the bus driver. Then again, I hated drama class where they played those "trust" games (you know, fall and expect your partner to catch you).
>Second of all, if a transit bus runs over your mazda Miata, guess who's gonna get CRUSHED?
And when that bus goes over a bridge and turns over, guess who dies? Or what about when it hits the ice, skids, and snaps in half on some telephone poles?
I'm pretty careful about not hitting big objects... I know what they do (I saw a car hit a bus once, ugly... BUT he was going 100 km/h in 1 meter visibility weather). Apart from that, cars keep the driver safe from his own mistakes (that guy came out with a cut to his forehead, nothing more -- he didn't even have an airbag). Driving 200 km/h on the freeway and your car flips a couple of times? I've seen people walk out of cars after that. I'd like to say that about buses, but I can't. Heck, just going over large bumps sends kids to hospital in those things (ala overly played school bus driver having heart attack at wheel video).
I think you see a lot more car accidents simply because people driving cars generally aren't as good at driving as bus drivers and truck drivers.
I'd like to see stats on how many people die in taxi accidents. It'd be interesting to see if they are higher than the stats on other mass transit. My feeling is that the driver is what keeps you safe... Not just the vehicle.
>A lot of smaller cities in Ontario (London, Guelph) have bus service.
:-/
I'm actually in the cetire of the KW, Cambridge, and Guelph "Golden Triangle", so I've heard a little about the Guelph bus service. I actually hear it isn't too bad. Then again, my first driving test was there and it was horrible (the streets are kinda random).
The problem is trying to get from city to city (Guelph to KW) on that bus is bad. Really bad. And a lot of people work across the two cities.
The one attempt by KW and Guelph to fix the problem by adding a proper highway between the two cities has met constantly with insane activists who say that people should be taking the bus -- that it isn't a good idea. That its out of the 70's.
Yes. "Take the bus. The two hour bus." No way. Hell will freeze over first before anyone here gets up at 6:00 to go to a 9:00 job. [Ok, maybe the bus isn't that bad, I haven't taken it, this is all from hearsay].
Busses in KW go nowhere you want, at no time you want. I was talking with someone nearby Victoria St. and Frederick St. He has to get up at 7:00 to get to Conestoga College for 8:30 (a 15 minute car ride).
Mass transit isn't as safe as you'd think.
Cars kill fewer people at once.
I guess if something happens while you are on some mass transit you can at least expect it to be on the world news (small comfort).
>It's a pitty that the US government so heavily subsidizes automobiles and gives other forms of transit the shaft
As a Canadian who has been to the states often enough to understand mass transit in both countries, I quickly realised that mass transit ONLY works in huge cities: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Atlanta, Detriot, New York, for example. And since a large amount of the population in both countries lives in cities where ANYTHING and EVERYTHING (especially work) takes a minimum of a 15 minute drive (often 1/2 hour) mass transit is NOT a viable choice. I refuse to wait an hour (each way) to get my groceries by bus. Heck, where I live I have to drive 20 minutes just to pick up groceries, and I'm only 5 minutes out of a city of 300,000. This is normal in a not-so-big-but-growing city.
Rail: Won't work because you'd have to stop for 3 minutes every 3 rail minutes to pick people up, due to urban sprawl. It will take twice as long to get to the destination (assuming traffic on the roads isn't bad -- and in the smaller cities it usually isn't).
Bus: A better idea, but still much too slow. The amount of buses needed to take so few people ends up pumping more crap into the air than the individual cars, from what I see now.
Supersonic Transport: Great for going to other cities. But that isn't really the problem, is it?
Subway: Not unless your city population is in the millions. The price is just way too high.
Basically, these ideas work well for most other developed countries because their population in most cities is high enough to support them. The United States, and Canada (especially) don't have enough population density to make these ideas work.
I think if you want to solve the problems of the under 1/2 million population cities you need to pack people in more tightly and fix the roads so that people can get where they need to go quickly. Oh, and you need to encourage more really local business (like a 5 minute walk local), rather than have patches of houses, and (far away) patches of stores.
Just my 2 cents.
>sat in the submission queue for a while 'til they (Slashdot) finally got around to posting it.
;-)
FYI, Kuro5hin fixed that problem a year ago.
Maybe CmdrTaco and Rusty should chat more often.
Well, the US has some (and has had) solutions to your Sipping tea in an Air Conditioned room problem:
- Put on the hood. Aim for the white O. Bang, Bang, Bang, Poof, Bang. Sandbags mop up the blood. Unconscious minutes after.
- A quick shave. Some gel. Zap 'em for four minutes 'till he's dead. Hey... Did you forget to fix the restraints? His body went across the room that time.
- A last look at society. Now, strap him in so he doesn't look like he's in pain. Pop a vein, drop in the IV. Pop another, do the same. Pump him full of Anesthetic. Now kill his muscles. Finish off his heart.
- Throw him in the box. Add some sulfuric acid. Listen to the heart. Add sodium cyanide. Wait 18 minutes. You now have one prisoner gassed to death slower than even the most powerful dictators in the world could ever dream of. The masked men add some little bleach to wash off those deadly gas stains.
- Weigh him. Calculate the rope length. Open the door. Wait 45 minutes. Pop, Pop, plop.
Oh, so sorry, did I scare you? Some desensitization might help. May I suggest you take a seat in the room with a view and watch the show? I hear today's is going to be good: Another big guy, should take enough to kill a horse to get rid of him.
First of all, I disagree with a few of your statements on a personal level (I have never burned down a rainforest, TYVM, and any arguments saying my enjoyment of Golden Arches causes it will meet my asbestos suit) but I'll leave that out of the rest of my post.
>So even though we are destroying our rain forest, it's okay, because we're planting new tress?
No, that is not righting the "wrong" you are citing. To right that "wrong" you'd need to get the people in question to stop destroying the old trees. They could then plant new trees as a graicous effort to prove they are nice. Planting new ones in place of old ones is like crying crocodile tears.
>Even though I was driving 25 mph over the limit, it's okay, because I slowed down before I got home?
If you never do it again for the rest of your life (and you didn't hit anything on your way home), I think I'd consider it a closed deal. But only if you continue compliance.
I believe this entire concept is why most non-violent crimes in certain countries have a "expiry" date on prosecution.
Better to have to have the cancer of releasing half your source code than the quick finish of ending up in jail/bankrupt (the inevitable end of anyone using propietary code against license in their software).
:-)
What's your poison?
Do you even know what a search engine is?
Understanding Fair Use Rights
It was the 4th hit on google. See the concluding section. NOW!
Let me sum it up in 2.5 words:
NYC - Investment Protection
But if the GPL is a cancer on modern business, would you want to have your name sullied by a cancerous business? Or, worse yet, do you want to risk joining them?
>I assume this extra info is published on New Scientist
:-)
Sorry, couldn't get there when I posted. It was heavily slashdotted (Lots of server not availiable type responses...
Noisy Machinery? Try working in a factory. Or in a server room...
;-)
No Shampoo? Aww... I really feel for ya buddy.
Chili Sauce instead of cleaning gel? Unless that's for personal cleaning (ouch), I'd say hobbyists do this all the time (its called "Making Do With What Ya Got").
Velcro pads are supposed to stick to things.
The DVD player's screen is too small? Oh please dear God, someone phone 911 and help out!
The Russian medical labels worry me. Hopefully their Sharpie (tm) marker and a talk with ground crew got them outta that one.
The plugs not being standardized, that just confuses me. But that isn't unlike real life, so what's a spaceman to do?
I don't blame the astronauts for putting this in their logs. I just blame the media companies for trying to make this out to be important when apart from the medical labels (which were easy to fix) it isn't. Anyone with a few brain cells to rub together can see from pictures space travel isn't a holiday!
Next in the news: "Getting your tie caught in the photocopier 'sucks'"
>As for the Pioneers that sell the same things--perhaps they're just differently-named branches of the same company?
:-) What I meant to say was they were both in the same field of sales (ie: A couple of them sell computers, a couple eletronics goods, two of them are newpapers etc...). I'd venture a guess that some of the products they generate are similar enough to each other in a similar manner that Killustrator is similar to Adobe Illustrator (ie: Similar function, totally different implementation).
Well, to be truthful, my scan of the companies was quite limited.
Actually, the newspaper sites are very much similar in that regard. Both of them are newspapers, but the content of them is different. Just like Killustrator and Illustrator are Vector Drawing Programs, but the content (code) is totally different.
No, it shouldn't, because the rate of computing power increase has stayed the same before and after the C64 was invented (Moore's Law). If we were to somehow deviate from that, then yes, I would factor computing power into my answer.
But that's my point of view, you are free to differ. Both are valid, depending on how you look at things...
>and the mass market appeal of an easy to use PC made PCs cheaper for all of us
I believe I paid less (ok my parents paid less) for my C64 in 1984 (which was GUI free, and came out well before PCs were popular) than I have paid for the "low end" PIII I'm writing this on now. Yes, that is adjusted for inflation...
Ever wondered why people often say "Xerox me a copy of this", yet the word Xerox isn't in the dictionary yet?
Webster's, Oxford, Roget's, and all the other English dictionary companies keep trying to put it in. The minute the word "Xerox" is in the dictionary Xerox ceases to be a trademark for Xerox. It's called trademark dilution. So every time these dictionaries get the bright idea of putting the word in the dictionary Xerox sends them a nasty letter, and its taken out.
Illustrator was already in the dictionary well before Adobe decided to use it, and therefore is a completely diluted, and therefore useless, trademark. I'm sure if the Killustrator developer sends back a note explaining this Adobe will give up (Although IANAL, so its your gamble).
Adobe just thinks they can make a quick couple of bucks. They never thought they'd get enough negative press to *lose* money over the proposition (at the price of their products, it just takes one or two angry slashdotters).
I'm bored, so I decided to do this:
Some "Pioneers":
www.pioneerelectronics.com
www.pioneer.com
www.dailypioneer.com
www.pioneerlocal.com
www.pios.com
www.pioneerfunds.com
www.pld.com
www.pioneertechnology.com
You'd be surprised how many of those companies are infringing on one another's trade marks, yet I hear of no $2000 bills being passed about. Some of them sell identical things.
Why? Oh, maybe because they aren't all called "Pioneer". They are called "Pioneer Technology", and "Pioneer USA", etc...
Adobe needs to get a grip before they get themselves in too deep with the lawyer's money.
Another fun few: Look up companies named "Shepherd", "ATI", and "Trident".
What idiot can't ask a simple yes/no question on such an important test (and with such an important question):
#41. I do not always tell the truth.
Either answer (yes or no) can mean YES. That's why you have to phrase questions so they are clear (unless you are planning on confusing the subject):
I always tell the truth.
That's a real question. I'm glad no one's ever asked me to take this. I'd be asking questions throughout the whole thing.
#44. Once a week or oftener I suddenly feel hot all over, for no real reason
Oftener? That isn't a word, is it?
#91. I have little or no trouble with my muscles twitching or jumping.
That's a two way question if I've ever seen one. Do twitching muscles trouble you? Or do they twitch often enough to bother you?
#112. I like dramatics.
You like dramatic theater? Or do you like seeing people act in extreme dramatic ways?
I give up.
Or maybe that's the whole point, to confuse the person to the point that they don't understand what to write down. Maybe it's just my INTP side talking... I'm confused already!
I do know I hope that isn't a real copy.
KDraw is much too close to Corel Draw. KorelDraw anybody?
And KVector, well, I seem to recall there's a company that sells knives called Vector marketing.
KVDraw just seems like a great way to get sued by both.
I think they should call it Kqkbnwglsd. That way no self respecting company would sue them -- the word isn't even pronouncable!
Rename it to:
kAdobeSucks
That should keep them happy, and if they complain again, you can use the WIPO decision about -sucks domains as proof that you are complying with the law.
Yes, the *most* stupid parts of /usr/doc are (in order of uselessness):
PPP-Howto
Net*Howto
NFS-Howto
dhcp*/
Ethernet-Howto
This documentation *especially* should be web-only, like you say.
End Sarcasm.
If you want good quality message service from a phone company on a cellphone, you are probably not looking in the right direction.
:-)
Buy a RIM blackberry pager (availiable in many different service provider flavours, mine's a Rogers/AT&T model -- I think AOL does one). It has more service range, its cheaper to operate, easier to type on (actually, easier to type on than anything its size, IMHO), and smaller than any cellphone I've ever seen (I'm talking about the 950 model here).
For me, I've found the coverage area for the pager exceeds what I'm used to getting with a cellphone.
It is designed to send/receive emails (not phone calls), so the interface is good. I can understand why you would hate having to send emails on a phone. If you get one of these I'm certain you'll see that email is the way to go.
You do realise the result of forcing users to choose passwords that make no sense, right?
:-)
Post it notes with them written on, tagged all over. That and a huge headache for the support department ("I can't come up with a password that works. Can you give me one?").
That idea, and the idea of forcing password changes every couple of months, are the exact cause of people writing their password all over (remember the big list of different passwords to the school computer written on the desk in Wargames? That part of the movie is real life).
You don't see people putting their 4 digit bank pin on a post it note, right? Why? Because they set it and that's it -- they never have to come up with a passcode again. If they can keep their mouth shut (and especially with money people do) everything is good.
Sorry, just a rant I had to get out.
Here's one with enough power to play mp3s. It uses 10 watts maximum. Throw in a hard drive (2A @ 12V max) and a CDROM (1A @ 12V max), you are looking at 46 watts.
:-)
Ok, that's a "586"... which is a 486 "pumped up". I'll find you a real 486...
Here's a real 486 that takes about 8 watts of power.
Totally silent, both of them.
You could get real 486 motherboards back in the days when that was hot stuff that used less than 50 watts of power (including the CPU).
I'd get you prices, but I just don't know where to buy that stuff. I'd ask the manufacturers.