Re:How can we help the British protestors?
on
Kuro5hin Update
·
· Score: 1
AC Wrote:
Scotchland
Is that where the tape came from? Or whiskey?
I always thought my granmother's family came from
Scotland.
But before that, AC said:
Do we ask GW Bush about his plans to annex the UK into the 52nd, 53rd and 54th
state
I thought those slots were filled by the previously-Candian provinces that aren't Qubec?
And what about Puerto Rico? Don't they get in before the UK?
Actually, I think it would be pretty funny to get the UK in to the United States. Can't wait to see how the Queen Mother votes in the next Presidential election:)
Jeff
I disagree. What is needed is well-reasoned,
impassioned, thoughtful but calm writing. Truthfully, copyright law is not interesting in the normal sense; it just wouldn't make a good movie or novel. It's pretty dry stuff.
I just sent a letter to World Magazine about this case in response to last week's "On-line Pirates walk the plank" article.
World has, in my opinion, done a good job overall of reporting the facts. This one article, however read like a regurgitated press release from the MPAA. I took them to task on it.
I'm also in the process of writing letters to both candidtates for Florida District 15-- US House, Dave Weldon (R) and Patsy Kurth (D) for their take on this issue (as well as Dr. Wen Ho Lee). Similar letters will go to other candidates that I can vote on that will have a say after November (McCollum is running for Senate, replacing Connie Mack, for instance).
That's what I don't like about cable (and Satellite, for that matter) TV. If I'm paying for the priviledge of watching your programming, I defy you to give me a good reason why I should have to endure your advertising.
If it weren't for the wife, I'd not have TV at all!
IE clear coat
spray paint might be in the arts and crafts area, homewares, and paint areas (at walmart
this is true) and they vary in price by as much as a dollar...
How does Wal-Mart do this, as they perform
price look-up by UPC code? Your clear coat
spray paint, if it's truly the same product
in three places, will have the same UPC code
in each location. How'd they know where you
picked it up from?
That is, unless they always ring the high
price, assuming that people won't catch it
at the register? Wal-Mart used to have
a policy that if an item scanned the wrong
price, they'd give your $5 off, or the item
free, whichever was less. I suppose they
don't do that anymore?
I've got Red Hat 6.0 Unleashed, and I have been
mildly disappointed with it. I know it's hard to keep a printed book up-to-date with the latest information, but the repeated references to the HOW-TOs seem almost to say, "We the authors are too busy to update our book; you just spent $40 on pointers to free electronic references that will give you the real skinny!"
Everybody by now has heard of the Firestone tire recalls, if you hear about these and go out and buy firestone tires
anyways then get in a car accident because the treads of your tires came apart, thats your own damn fault and the
law should not protect you for it.
Ya know, I've been thinking. I don't think that thatis Firestone's fault. It seems that I recently read that ten years ago, Ford had a difficult time getting their top-heavy SUVs to meet roll-over safety requirements. If you got in a skid in an Explorer, you better get ready to go for a ride!
In response to this, Ford's "fix" was to reduce the recommended tire inflation pressure. That's right; Ford SUVs under normal condition run on flat tires.
It's pretty common knowledge that running on underinflated tires is bad-- the rubber has to flex more, which generates more heat, which causes more fatigue, which means earlier tire death (blowout, uneven tread wear, or even tread delamination!).
Ford has decided to use Firestone tires in a way that Firestone had not intended. Why has Bridgestone (owns Firestone) stock taken a beating and not Ford, when taken at face value this all looks like Ford's fault?
What happens when unscrupulous manufacturers take good parts and use them in ways that aren't intended? Is the part manufacturer liable?
Here I assume that the future of the 'net is commercial
The default language of any area, in my yet-
unresearched opinion, probably has more to do with who spends the money rather than how many speak what.
How many of those 800M Mandarin (Chinese, I believe) have net access, anyway? Or 300M Hindi speakers (although I would give them a better chance than the Chinese)? Why is that? Partially politics, mostly economics (okay, these are tied together).
Wasn't there a discussion a while back concerning the effects of English on programming? Most languages I've seen (well, all the ones that are'nt assembler!) use English keywords. Why is that?:)
These Mandarin-speakers probably have more important things to worry about than what language their net access is in-- like escaping the secret police for instance. People will probably try to say that the 'net is a great democritizer, but remember that the Chinese government censors the net at the backbone!
I find it utterly disgusting that IBM would ask
for more money to fix something that is their
fault. I mean, IBM should know better than to leave ALT fields out of IMG tags, shouldn't they?
What if Firestone's "fix" for their tire recall
was for owners of the defective tires to buy new ones?
Agilent is a lot more than what you called "HP Medical." The old HP electronic test equipment people are now Agilent, all their RF devices are now Agilent. Basically everything that Hewlett-Packard did that wasn't consumer products is now called "Agilent."
Anyway, was Tarantella one of SCO's more (even recently) successful products? perhaps by dumping the SCO Unix and focusing on the one money-maker, they hope to prolong their existance. By identifying the company with that sole profitable product, perhaps they can get more investment money.
As a DirecTV subscriber, I was interested in
their DirecPC service as a replacement for my
current 56k service I have through Palmnet
(pretty good local ISP that was gobbled up
last year by OneMain)
My wife's concern is rain fade. The little
dishes have little margin for rain-induced
signal degredation. I've considered replacing
our 18" Sony dish with a 36" RCA dish we saw
on consignment at a local used electronics store.
Other than the EXTREME difference in UL/DL
speeds (UL path still uses phone line), does
anyone here have comments about DirecPC?
I used to think that compatibility was the holy
grail of alternative-OS software. I owned three
Amigas at the time, and the last version of my
own sofware offering, Intudex, was to include
export and import modules for every word processor I could get my hands on.
I've come to think that I was misguided. What we
need are not compatibility, but rather users of
alternative systems that demand compatibility. If
I, as a Abiwrite (or whatever) user, get a document that I can't read, I need to go back to
the author and ask for a version that I can read.
If he can't provide that, then it's his WP that's
broken.
It doesn't matter what brand car you drive, they
all use the same gasoline. Their radios all pick up the same stations. Tires are interchangeble (within reason).
It doesn't matter what brand of VCR you buy, they
(nowadays) all use the same tapes (poor Betamax). Drill bits are interchangeable between drills. As long as it's the right diameter, I can buy whatever brand line I want for my line trimmer (Weedeater is a brand name). For that matter, nothing on my computer at home matches-- I've got an Asus system board in a Superpower case, with a Creative audio card and a video card I got from my father-in-law. The monitor is a Princeton Graphics EO70, and the network card is from Encore. The keyboard is NEC and the mouse is Anubis (ick... Lesson learned: don't get a $2 mouse). Floppy disk is Fujitsu; I don't remember the brand CD player I put in, but the hard disk is Wester Digital. They all work together just fine. (Operating system: Red Hat Linux 6.2)
Furthermore, I could replace just about any part of my computer with a similar product by a competing vendor and have NO problems with operability.
To expect any less from software is wrong. Microsoft has that little box in the "Save As..." dialog for selecting the document storage format. You know: MS-Word, RTF, MS-DOS Text, HTML. Perhaps there needs to be other options added to that menu.
DXF isn't perfect, but it's a great way to get data into and out of different CAD programs. I can write a DXF file in Agilent ADS that the mechanical guys can import into Pro/Engineer for their own needs. Word processors need the same.
Personally I'd rather pay the $1.20/litre that petrol (gas) costs here in the UK than risk losing my life every time my car breaks down in the wrong
part of town.
Don't know about where you live, but gasoline
taxes here are pretty much earmarked for road infrastructure maintenance. It's a use-tax, basically. If you use the roads, you're probably buying gas to power your vehicle; tax the gas to pay for road maintenance.
Police and other law enforcement agencies derive their operating monies from other sources, such as property taxes, annual local assessements, etc.
Here in Florida we have this awful thing, the "tourist tax" might be a good name for. It's a tax on anything that a tourist might be interested in-- hotels, restaruants, leisure activities (ie: theme parks). The idea is to hit up the vacationers from out of state. Of course, we residents never use these services. The ides of "soak the traveller" is a sham!
It's a sign of the times. We're a nation-
no a world of victims. We are not responsible
for anything, and we spend our energies looking
for an easy out: how can I profit from somebody
else's work?
This whole idea of coder responsibility for
others' use of software is merely the latest
power grab by these whiners. I'm so
glad I don't live in Atlanta any more, where
gun makers are under threat of suit for people
shooting each other. I just have to shake
my head. What's wrong with sending the
shooters to jail? Oh, yeah. It's their
wretched childhood that made them do it.
Here in Florida, smokers are getting paid to
smoke. No. Really. Long-time smokers,
people that have been smoking since the
European explorers came here and found the
natives burning leaves and inhaling the
combustion products, are suing the companies
that provided them with the instruments
of their chosen leisure activity because
"we didn't know it'd make us sick!" Baloney.
It's common knowledge that smoking will make
you sick, and even kill you. But cigarettes
and tobacco products are legal. There
are warning messages in all advertising. On
even the packaging of the products! In
newspaper articles and medical research
reports. These people have no excuse, other
than themselves, for their continued smoking.
Yet we find ourselves in the midst of an amost
trillion dollar settlement.
About ten years ago, people clammored for air
bags in cars. The automakers were reluctant;
air bags were a relatively unknown quantity,
even though conceptually they held much promise.
The Government, out to save us all from ourselves,
stepped in. A law was passed mandating air bags
in vehicles. Soon after, accidents starting
happening where children were hurt or killed by
these "life-saving" air bags. Now people are
clammoring for "slow-deploying" or switchable
air bags. Tell me, if air bags become switchable,
how long is it going to take before the first law suit is filed claiming that so-and-so was killed because their air bag was turned off? How negligent of the auto maker to allow car owners the option of turning off safety equipment!
Even before air bags was the seat belt. Cars
didn't come with them standard originally. But about 40 years ago books were written and lawsuits came about that end the end meant that every car on the road had seat belts. Cars cost a little more, but hey, now they were safe. Except nobody would use them (well, I like seat belts-- keep me from sliding around:) So fifteen or so years ago, the Government stepped in, and a law was passed requiring seat belt use. Whew! Now we are safe in our cars.
Unless you drive a small car. Ten you are in danger from those of us that choose to drive our
urban tanks (personally, I drive a 1995 Firebird).
Your chinzy little car may get dramatically better gas milage, may be easier to drive and park, and even cost less. But get in a scrap with your neighbor's Suburban, and you're toast. Tell me, what do you think: Should he not be allowed to have his Geo-Eater, or should you be required to buy a Urban-Sherman?
In each of these cases the Government has stepped
in, and in each case we've been told that we're
too dumb to live our own lives making our own decisions. It used to be that a boy became a "man" early in his teenage years. Later it was put off 'till his eighteenth birthday. Afterwards, 21, because "men" could drink. Today, I think that about age 83 is right for becoming a "man." Before age 83, we're too dumb and inexperienced to handle our own lives.
We, as a group, want to be coddled. We've come to live in Neverland, and it's populated with nothing but an army of Peter Pans. We never grow up, we never take responsibility.
Or...let's say you're offended by this story. A ShakespeareProj wrote:
A powerful pious king (and Peeping Tom) sees a beautiful married
woman naked, bathing. He starts lusting after her. He wants her bad. So he murders her husband, then he marries
her. And he is never punished by God or by man. But everyone knows he did it. You think that's a story kids should
read? Well, that story is in the Bible. The king is David. Should we ban the Bible?
Uh, David was punished. The baby died. Don't you also remember Samuel coming to challenge David (paraphrasing):
"Imagine a poor man, who kept a small lamb. He loved this lamb and even let it sleep with him. It was his prized posession, and was worth more than all else he had.
"Now this poor man's neighbor was very rich, and had entire flocks of sheep. One day this rich neighbor had visitors come. Instead of selecting one from his own flocks, he had the poor man's lamb butchered and fed to his guests. What do you think of this man?
Angered, David replied, "he should have to repay seven times for this!"
Samuel answered him, "You are the man! Bathsheba was Uriah's prized posession, and yet you took her from him, and then had him killed. The boy will die, yet God will spare your life."
This is not the worst story in the Bible, but perhaps it's one of the better known stories.
David was known to do lots of bizarre things, including act in dispicable ways, but he was, and continues to be known as "a man after God's own heart."
If you want to rile up people, you should remind people of the angelic visitors that Lot received before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. When the townspeople (men!) came out and told lot, "Bring out those two men visiting you, so that we can have sex with them," Lot responded by offering his daughters instead! And yet, look who was saved out of the destruction of those towns! It was Lot!
Moses recorded some very colorful events, and that's just in Genesis!
The Bible naturally omits this, but to give equal time and tie in your trollish comment about "horrid, disgusting
things"... Adam and Eve were, by your theory, the first two humans beamed into existence. Did they sit around in
formal attire and have tea in the Garden of Eden every day at noon? No. They were naked. They would have had
to've had sex. Alot. Do you think they had Hollywood-style glamorous missionary style sex? Or even used toilets?
Does the thought of that disturb you?
Acutally, the Bible portrays people as they really
are; you just have to actually read it. It pulls no punches. There's murder. Deceit. Adultery. And that's by the good guys.
Adam and Eve were, as you wrote, naked in the Garden. But you left out the important part-- there was no shame. There was no guilt, because there was no sin involved. After the fall, they felt shame because of their guilt. That is why they hid themeslves and covered themselves with leaves. But even as God pronouced curses on them as a result of their disobedience, he also provided them with clothes made of animal skins-- a type of Christ in that, like Christ as he covers our sinful inadequacies, the clothing that God provided covered their now-shameful nakedness.
As far as sex goes, what of it? I don't see your
point. There's nothing wrong or shameful about sex. Matter of fact, the union of a man and a woman was the only part of creation that wasn't just "good," but was "very good." Adam and Eve were given the command to "fill the earth and subdue it." Wouldn't procreation be a large part of fulfilling that command?
The statement about toilets is obviously a troll;
people today in many places don't have toilets. Been to Uganda, or just about any country with a rural, mostly poor, population? Toilets are a very nice thing to have, just like running water. Neither are necessary for life, however.
My wife teaches at a very small private school here in Melbourne, Florida. Their athletic program includes a set of swim teams from grammar school through high school.
One problem they had last year involved the volunteer timers and spotters that worked at meets. Spotters would say that the first three finishers were lanes 4-5-3, but the recorded times would have them finish 3-4-5 or something. Obviously, the reaction times of the timers were not good enough to ensure proper scoring of races.
My idea was to build a small computer that would act as a multichannel lap timer. It would need fourteen inputs-- Reset, Start, and two stops for each lane, one at each end, six lanes maximum.
I wanted to use RF links to the different remotely placed inputs to reduce the wiring clutter and raise safety.
My problem was at such a small school it was hard to get the kids interested in a hardware project like this. When I told them we'd be designing computers, they thought I meant buying a motherboard and slapping PCI cards on it; I really intended to choose a microprocessor (68306 was a good choice) and build a little single-board computer. Not everyone thought that this was fun:(
Good luck in your search for interesting projects!
Dont be such a fucking dick. The chances are pretty good that someone reading SlashDot is a computer scientist, software engineer etc. We`re not all pussy little cowards, full of shit.
Interesting, but don't the "roots" at some point become so distant as to be irrelevant? Isn't it better to look forwards, solving the problems of today and tomorrow, than to stay in the past constantly trying to re-solve old and obsolete problems?
Of course not. Lots of "new" things are re-applications of what came before. There's actually very little that can be called, "new." That is, there's very little that is revolutionary and unlike anything that came before.
Furthermore, many people downplay the need for studying such things as optimization. Back when you had to fit your entire OS and applications into 32k on a machine that could only perform a few tens of thousands of instructions per second, optimization for both size and speed were important. Projects like SETI@Home and whatnot can make use of these ideas to make even today's best machines work better!
Grandpa has macular degeneration and has only a small (peripheral only) ammount of vision left. With special glasses he can make out LARGE print with great difficulty. Speech recognition and synthesis can help people with his condition.
Grandma has muscular atrophy-- a form of muscular dystrophy. Moving a mouse for her can be a frustrating event, as clicking takes all the strength in her hand. When the button finally depresses, she's exerting so hard that the mouse slides away, missing the target! Speech recognition and sythesis can help people like her, too.
For the longest time my grandmother published two monthly newsletters-- with nothing but an IBM Selectric typewriter and her little photocopier. I wonder what she could have done with a good DTP package!
As thin as computer hardware margins are, I would think that it would be in your best interest to sell as many computers as possible.
Most manufacturers of specialized hardware try to make their products seem exciting and fun, not mysterious and secretive. If you want people to buy your machines, you should show them off, not keep them in a dark room under armed guard.
It seems to me that the Macintosh news web sites are doing you an invaluable service by generating interest in and excitement around your new products. To stop them makes your look like a killjoy and only fosters a negative image for your company.
If what they propagate as rumors are true, then you are guaranteed a lot of free publicity and possibly even higher sales. If they are not, then the reporting agency loses credibility. In any case, Apple would stand to gain a great deal and lose nothing!
In conclusion, Mr. Jobs, perhaps its time you count your blessings. Some people still want Macintosh computers. I don't. Maybe if you didn't try so hard to ailenate the people that are on your side you'd sell more machines.
Slashdot Mirror
But before that, AC said:
I thought those slots were filled by the previously-Candian provinces that aren't Qubec? And what about Puerto Rico? Don't they get in before the UK?Actually, I think it would be pretty funny to get the UK in to the United States. Can't wait to see how the Queen Mother votes in the next Presidential election :)
Jeff
I just sent a letter to World Magazine about this case in response to last week's "On-line Pirates walk the plank" article. World has, in my opinion, done a good job overall of reporting the facts. This one article, however read like a regurgitated press release from the MPAA. I took them to task on it.
I'm also in the process of writing letters to both candidtates for Florida District 15-- US House, Dave Weldon (R) and Patsy Kurth (D) for their take on this issue (as well as Dr. Wen Ho Lee). Similar letters will go to other candidates that I can vote on that will have a say after November (McCollum is running for Senate, replacing Connie Mack, for instance).
Anyhoo, what did your letter say?
Jeff
If it weren't for the wife, I'd not have TV at all!
Jeff
JEff
Don't put anything past those guys. Just remember what used to be under that Olympic(TM) natatorium behind SAC (hint-- intermural sports fields!)
I don't know what year you're in there, but I got a definate bone-head feeling from the Administration there from time to time.
By the way, how's Junior's doing?
Jeff B EE 95
That is, unless they always ring the high price, assuming that people won't catch it at the register? Wal-Mart used to have a policy that if an item scanned the wrong price, they'd give your $5 off, or the item free, whichever was less. I suppose they don't do that anymore?
Jeff
Jeff
In response to this, Ford's "fix" was to reduce the recommended tire inflation pressure. That's right; Ford SUVs under normal condition run on flat tires.
It's pretty common knowledge that running on underinflated tires is bad-- the rubber has to flex more, which generates more heat, which causes more fatigue, which means earlier tire death (blowout, uneven tread wear, or even tread delamination!).
Ford has decided to use Firestone tires in a way that Firestone had not intended. Why has Bridgestone (owns Firestone) stock taken a beating and not Ford, when taken at face value this all looks like Ford's fault?
What happens when unscrupulous manufacturers take good parts and use them in ways that aren't intended? Is the part manufacturer liable?
Jeff
How many of those 800M Mandarin (Chinese, I believe) have net access, anyway? Or 300M Hindi speakers (although I would give them a better chance than the Chinese)? Why is that? Partially politics, mostly economics (okay, these are tied together).
Wasn't there a discussion a while back concerning the effects of English on programming? Most languages I've seen (well, all the ones that are'nt assembler!) use English keywords. Why is that? :)
These Mandarin-speakers probably have more important things to worry about than what language their net access is in-- like escaping the secret police for instance. People will probably try to say that the 'net is a great democritizer, but remember that the Chinese government censors the net at the backbone!
What if Firestone's "fix" for their tire recall was for owners of the defective tires to buy new ones?
Anyway, was Tarantella one of SCO's more (even recently) successful products? perhaps by dumping the SCO Unix and focusing on the one money-maker, they hope to prolong their existance. By identifying the company with that sole profitable product, perhaps they can get more investment money.
Jeff
My wife's concern is rain fade. The little dishes have little margin for rain-induced signal degredation. I've considered replacing our 18" Sony dish with a 36" RCA dish we saw on consignment at a local used electronics store.
Other than the EXTREME difference in UL/DL speeds (UL path still uses phone line), does anyone here have comments about DirecPC?
Jeff
I've come to think that I was misguided. What we need are not compatibility, but rather users of alternative systems that demand compatibility. If I, as a Abiwrite (or whatever) user, get a document that I can't read, I need to go back to the author and ask for a version that I can read. If he can't provide that, then it's his WP that's broken.
It doesn't matter what brand car you drive, they all use the same gasoline. Their radios all pick up the same stations. Tires are interchangeble (within reason).
It doesn't matter what brand of VCR you buy, they (nowadays) all use the same tapes (poor Betamax). Drill bits are interchangeable between drills. As long as it's the right diameter, I can buy whatever brand line I want for my line trimmer (Weedeater is a brand name). For that matter, nothing on my computer at home matches-- I've got an Asus system board in a Superpower case, with a Creative audio card and a video card I got from my father-in-law. The monitor is a Princeton Graphics EO70, and the network card is from Encore. The keyboard is NEC and the mouse is Anubis (ick... Lesson learned: don't get a $2 mouse). Floppy disk is Fujitsu; I don't remember the brand CD player I put in, but the hard disk is Wester Digital. They all work together just fine. (Operating system: Red Hat Linux 6.2)
Furthermore, I could replace just about any part of my computer with a similar product by a competing vendor and have NO problems with operability.
To expect any less from software is wrong. Microsoft has that little box in the "Save As..." dialog for selecting the document storage format. You know: MS-Word, RTF, MS-DOS Text, HTML. Perhaps there needs to be other options added to that menu.
DXF isn't perfect, but it's a great way to get data into and out of different CAD programs. I can write a DXF file in Agilent ADS that the mechanical guys can import into Pro/Engineer for their own needs. Word processors need the same.
And I agree with Bean.
Police and other law enforcement agencies derive their operating monies from other sources, such as property taxes, annual local assessements, etc.
Here in Florida we have this awful thing, the "tourist tax" might be a good name for. It's a tax on anything that a tourist might be interested in-- hotels, restaruants, leisure activities (ie: theme parks). The idea is to hit up the vacationers from out of state. Of course, we residents never use these services. The ides of "soak the traveller" is a sham!
At least there's no Florida state income tax!
Jeff
This whole idea of coder responsibility for others' use of software is merely the latest power grab by these whiners. I'm so glad I don't live in Atlanta any more, where gun makers are under threat of suit for people shooting each other. I just have to shake my head. What's wrong with sending the shooters to jail? Oh, yeah. It's their wretched childhood that made them do it.
Here in Florida, smokers are getting paid to smoke. No. Really. Long-time smokers, people that have been smoking since the European explorers came here and found the natives burning leaves and inhaling the combustion products, are suing the companies that provided them with the instruments of their chosen leisure activity because "we didn't know it'd make us sick!" Baloney. It's common knowledge that smoking will make you sick, and even kill you. But cigarettes and tobacco products are legal. There are warning messages in all advertising. On even the packaging of the products! In newspaper articles and medical research reports. These people have no excuse, other than themselves, for their continued smoking. Yet we find ourselves in the midst of an amost trillion dollar settlement.
About ten years ago, people clammored for air bags in cars. The automakers were reluctant; air bags were a relatively unknown quantity, even though conceptually they held much promise. The Government, out to save us all from ourselves, stepped in. A law was passed mandating air bags in vehicles. Soon after, accidents starting happening where children were hurt or killed by these "life-saving" air bags. Now people are clammoring for "slow-deploying" or switchable air bags. Tell me, if air bags become switchable, how long is it going to take before the first law suit is filed claiming that so-and-so was killed because their air bag was turned off? How negligent of the auto maker to allow car owners the option of turning off safety equipment!
Even before air bags was the seat belt. Cars didn't come with them standard originally. But about 40 years ago books were written and lawsuits came about that end the end meant that every car on the road had seat belts. Cars cost a little more, but hey, now they were safe. Except nobody would use them (well, I like seat belts-- keep me from sliding around :) So fifteen or so years ago, the Government stepped in, and a law was passed requiring seat belt use. Whew! Now we are safe in our cars.
Unless you drive a small car. Ten you are in danger from those of us that choose to drive our urban tanks (personally, I drive a 1995 Firebird). Your chinzy little car may get dramatically better gas milage, may be easier to drive and park, and even cost less. But get in a scrap with your neighbor's Suburban, and you're toast. Tell me, what do you think: Should he not be allowed to have his Geo-Eater, or should you be required to buy a Urban-Sherman?
In each of these cases the Government has stepped in, and in each case we've been told that we're too dumb to live our own lives making our own decisions. It used to be that a boy became a "man" early in his teenage years. Later it was put off 'till his eighteenth birthday. Afterwards, 21, because "men" could drink. Today, I think that about age 83 is right for becoming a "man." Before age 83, we're too dumb and inexperienced to handle our own lives.
We, as a group, want to be coddled. We've come to live in Neverland, and it's populated with nothing but an army of Peter Pans. We never grow up, we never take responsibility.
It's stupid and I resent it.
Jeff
David was known to do lots of bizarre things, including act in dispicable ways, but he was, and continues to be known as "a man after God's own heart."
If you want to rile up people, you should remind people of the angelic visitors that Lot received before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. When the townspeople (men!) came out and told lot, "Bring out those two men visiting you, so that we can have sex with them," Lot responded by offering his daughters instead! And yet, look who was saved out of the destruction of those towns! It was Lot!
Moses recorded some very colorful events, and that's just in Genesis!
Adam and Eve were, as you wrote, naked in the Garden. But you left out the important part-- there was no shame. There was no guilt, because there was no sin involved. After the fall, they felt shame because of their guilt. That is why they hid themeslves and covered themselves with leaves. But even as God pronouced curses on them as a result of their disobedience, he also provided them with clothes made of animal skins-- a type of Christ in that, like Christ as he covers our sinful inadequacies, the clothing that God provided covered their now-shameful nakedness.
As far as sex goes, what of it? I don't see your point. There's nothing wrong or shameful about sex. Matter of fact, the union of a man and a woman was the only part of creation that wasn't just "good," but was "very good." Adam and Eve were given the command to "fill the earth and subdue it." Wouldn't procreation be a large part of fulfilling that command?
The statement about toilets is obviously a troll; people today in many places don't have toilets. Been to Uganda, or just about any country with a rural, mostly poor, population? Toilets are a very nice thing to have, just like running water. Neither are necessary for life, however.
I gotta stop responding to trolls :(
One problem they had last year involved the volunteer timers and spotters that worked at meets. Spotters would say that the first three finishers were lanes 4-5-3, but the recorded times would have them finish 3-4-5 or something. Obviously, the reaction times of the timers were not good enough to ensure proper scoring of races.
My idea was to build a small computer that would act as a multichannel lap timer. It would need fourteen inputs-- Reset, Start, and two stops for each lane, one at each end, six lanes maximum.
I wanted to use RF links to the different remotely placed inputs to reduce the wiring clutter and raise safety.
My problem was at such a small school it was hard to get the kids interested in a hardware project like this. When I told them we'd be designing computers, they thought I meant buying a motherboard and slapping PCI cards on it; I really intended to choose a microprocessor (68306 was a good choice) and build a little single-board computer. Not everyone thought that this was fun :(
Good luck in your search for interesting projects!
Jeff
Jeff
Furthermore, many people downplay the need for studying such things as optimization. Back when you had to fit your entire OS and applications into 32k on a machine that could only perform a few tens of thousands of instructions per second, optimization for both size and speed were important. Projects like SETI@Home and whatnot can make use of these ideas to make even today's best machines work better!
Grandpa has macular degeneration and has only a small (peripheral only) ammount of vision left. With special glasses he can make out LARGE print with great difficulty. Speech recognition and synthesis can help people with his condition.
Grandma has muscular atrophy-- a form of muscular dystrophy. Moving a mouse for her can be a frustrating event, as clicking takes all the strength in her hand. When the button finally depresses, she's exerting so hard that the mouse slides away, missing the target! Speech recognition and sythesis can help people like her, too.
For the longest time my grandmother published two monthly newsletters-- with nothing but an IBM Selectric typewriter and her little photocopier. I wonder what she could have done with a good DTP package!
Jeff
As thin as computer hardware margins are, I would think that it would be in your best interest to sell as many computers as possible.
Most manufacturers of specialized hardware try to make their products seem exciting and fun, not mysterious and secretive. If you want people to buy your machines, you should show them off, not keep them in a dark room under armed guard.
It seems to me that the Macintosh news web sites are doing you an invaluable service by generating interest in and excitement around your new products. To stop them makes your look like a killjoy and only fosters a negative image for your company.
If what they propagate as rumors are true, then you are guaranteed a lot of free publicity and possibly even higher sales. If they are not, then the reporting agency loses credibility. In any case, Apple would stand to gain a great deal and lose nothing!
In conclusion, Mr. Jobs, perhaps its time you count your blessings. Some people still want Macintosh computers. I don't. Maybe if you didn't try so hard to ailenate the people that are on your side you'd sell more machines.
Jeff