You are definitely correct, but I wonder if this would be the same in a search environment like Google. First, you have a much broader selection of people that can mark meta-data as being accurate or not. Second, people will not see the meta-data without specifically searching for it. This means that the people searching for "swingers in Milwaukee" will most likely be people that don't frown upon such behavior. There are still obvious issues, like people searching for more general controversial terms like creationism/evolution or people that disagree with a certain behavior organizing against certain sites by "moderating" them poorly. I could easily see this happening in politics and religion.
It's far easier for a thief to drive around a rich neighborhood and pick out a car then instead of looking them up in advance online. There's no guarantee that cars that are outside when the picture is taken will be there when the thief shows up. There's also no way to tell from this service if there will be people, other cars, or pets around.
Besides, expensive cars are rarely stolen, since they're easy to trace. Common cars that are a few years old are targeted and stripped down for parts, which is much harder to trace and worth far more money.
For you a truck doesn't make sense, for us it does. We don't have the money or time to do our entire basement at once, making it impossible and pointless to purchase all of the materials at once. We're doing it gradually, meaning I get 10-20 2x4's at a time and will do the same with insulation, drywall, and trim. Paying a $50 delivery charge each time just doesn't make sense.
That's the point, though. Everyone's needs are different, which is the bigger point I was trying to make. A small car makes excellent sense for you, but to assume it will work for everyone is just wrong.
300,000,000 Americans. Let's guess 70% are adults that drive. That's 2.1 million drivers. Let's say the average vehicle gets 25mpg. That's 4 gallons per driver per year saved.
That's a total of 8.4 million gallons of gas saved per year, which is roughly equivalent to the number of gallons of gas passenger vehicles burn per day in the US. (Sen. Obama press release)
You're saying that it would be insignificant if all Americans took 1 day and didn't drive anywhere? I'm sure my numbers are off, but it all definitely adds up when you're talking about a country the size of the US.
Based on the Edmunds 2006 buying guide for minivans, the average gas mileage they get is around 20/26. This is only slightly less than the 22/30 gas mileage that 4 door sedans get (the Civic throws this off, otherwise it'd be around 28). Obviously there are better vehicles for getting better gas mileage, but for people that want a little more space, have a family, or need to move larger objects once in a while, minivans aren't a bad option.
I personally drive a V8 crew cab pickup truck and even got a comment from a guy I used to work with about ruining the environment. Thing is, I work from home every day and as a result drive less than 4000 miles per year. I burn far less fuel than most hybrid owners, but still have to put up with their comments about what I choose to drive. You don't know people's driving habits, so it's really not fair to make generalizations about them.
Incidentally, while we didn't NEED a pickup truck, it did make sense for us since we're remodeling our house and landscaping during the summer. We tend to haul something at least a few times a month. Our only other options would be to rent a truck or borrow someone else's truck. It's also nice having a heavier vehicle during our Wisconsin winters.
Whenever vehicle stories come up on Slashdot, I read comments about how buying an SUV is all about showing off how much money you have, and that 99% of people don't need a truck. The fact is, anyone who owns a house and puts a decent amount of work into it or has a family with at least 2 kids will make use of the space in their vehicle. Hybrid SUV's are good alternatives, but the extra cost (initial + repairs) just turns people off to them right now.
The main reason you perform better when leaning forward is that the television or monitor fills more of your field of vision, allowing your brain to ignore the surrounding environment and pay more attention to the game. This is the same reason people lean forward during a conversation they're deeply involved in. You'll rarely see blind people do this.
Eyesight can also play a role, but I think that's far more obvious than the reason above.
The other reason that's applicable to computer games and not console games is the controller configuration. Obviously it's impossible to position your fingers over a keyboard and mouse properly while reclined very far. With a gamepad it's much easier.
Even if we had reclining chairs that had the keyboard positioned at the proper angle, it still would be difficult to type. Gravity would want to pull our hands away from the proper position, which would strain our arms/wrists instead of our backs.
That is foil-hattish. We were asked for our ID's in order to get into our dorms after a certain time and night, since visitors weren't allowed unless being registered. That's not about surveillance, it's so they know who's in the building in case of a fire, alien attack, etc.
We were asked for our student ID's for sporting events so we could get our student discount for the tickets. Same thing for shows or conferences. They need some way of making sure you're a student, and an ID is the obvious method. Keep in mind they don't record your ID for these things, but I wouldn't mind if they did. What nefarious scheme could they be implementing by knowing I go to the football game?
I'd be more worried about your example of checking out books, where they could track your reading habits. The other things aren't a big deal in comparison.
I'd agree, except you're ignoring some pretty blatant facts. First, we're not catching anything before the video, which firsthand accounts make it seem like the guy should be tasered. Second, they repeatedly warned him before tasing him each time. That's definitely NOT going "apeshit" on the guy. Apeshit would be if they tased him without warning him, just for screaming at them. Third, according to firsthand accounts and the story, he was provoking the crowd. Police have the right to defend themselves when necessary, and it will be up to the review board to determine if it was necessary in this case or not. It's not up to us, when we have very little information about the situation. Sure, it looks like the cops overreacted, but not to the extent that you're saying.
He shouldn't have gotten shocked repeatedly, but he could have just stood up. After you get shocked with a taser, you have the ability to get up and walk after a relatively short amount of time (about 15-20 seconds from what I've seen on Cops and Jackass:). That's with the heavy duty tasers that major police departments use. The video doesn't show what type of taser they're using, but it could be one of the medium duty ones (think one step up from the ones used on Tory from Mythbusters in the plant experiment). Either way, he would definitely be able to get up and walk before they were able to tase him again.
He would also be in the proper mental state to understand what they're talking about. Other than being really pissed off, that is. Your mind recovers from the shock far faster than your muscle would. He'd be fully cognizant around the time he stopped screaming. Anyone who has gotten a decent shock before would agree with this. I got shocked by an industrial laser with a short in the metal casing and knew what was going on a second later, while my arm hurt like hell for a little while longer.
All he needed to do was show his ID or leave the building when asked and this would have been avoided. He's an idiot for not doing one or the other. On the other hand, the cops are idiots for not just handcuffing him and carrying him out. It's a lot more work when someone is uncooperative, but it's the right thing to do. If he had struggled while they handcuffed him and carried him, then they would have had the right to tase him.
First of all, some of you are saying how wrong it is for people to be purchasing PS3's and reselling them for profit. Tell me how that's wrong. It's entrepreneurship at its best. These people have the time and patience to wait in line 5 days while the rest of us have to work. They make some money off it by reselling to people that can afford to pay a crazy price for the console. It doesn't hurt anybody, since the people that can afford the high price get their consoles, the people who stand in line make a profit, and Sony gets the media buzz. It's a win for everyone except the people at the end of the line who really want to keep the system for themselves, but those people should take issue with Sony limiting production, not the people taking advantage of the system. Heck, around here someone paid a homeless person to stand in line for them, which there's also nothing wrong with. Same situation as before, and you have the added benefit of a homeless person making a decent amount of cash for sitting outside.
Basically, this idiot Walmart manager decides that instead of giving the first 10 people in line their consoles, he'll set up 10 chairs and have everyone race toward them. REAL SMART. Some guy runs into a pole (don't know how that happens anyway) and ends up in the hospital. Great job by a Walmart employee messing up a situation that would have been really easy to handle.
The Washington Post is slashdotted, so I can't read the article, but I doubt this is just a "drop in the bucket". A group of 18 is likely to have more than a single phishing website. More than likely they'd have over 100. That's still just 1% of the sites out there, but it's at least something. Also, if there were other people in this phishing group, those people would be stongly deterred from phishing in the future. It also serves as a preventative against additional people getting into phishing. At least something is being done about these crimes.
Many of us first switched to Firefox because it was so much smaller and faster than Internet Explorer. In fact, much of the early progress was directed at removing unnecessary code. Now it seems as though Firefox is following in the steps of Netscape Navigator by including many more features, some which everyone will use (spell check) and some which many may not (better RSS handling). The result is a larger download.
How does the Firefox team choose which features are going to be included and which ones should be left as add-ons? From a marketing aspect, is it possible to promote a product for being small and compact, or is a long feature list necessary?
I care more about freedom than money, but Stallman might actually convince me to NOT use free software. Slashdot types like to talk about the overzealous Christian conservatives, but many of you fail to realize that that's the same way most of the world sees any type of zealot. Stallman IS a free software zealot, which makes the majority of people feel uncomfortable, which in turn hurts his cause.
Masses respond to marketing. Most individuals respond to logic. Most people avoid zealots. That's the way it is.
I don't think anyone can argue that Stallman hasn't helped free software in the past. In fact, the Forbes article goes into detail about what he's done for linux. The thing is, that was then and this is now. His tactics and outspoken ideology are giving free software a bad name these days. Look at the progress Firefox, mySQL, etc have made in getting their software used by the masses and accepted by managerial types. The way to advance a free software culture isn't to rant about minute details (GNU/Linux)... it's to put out great software and market it like businesses do.
If you're trying to get people to adopt free software in their company or home, and you had to choose Stallman or Mårten Mickos (the mySQL CEO that recently did a Slashdot interview), which would you choose? Which would be more likely to convince people that free software is the way to go?
Are you freakin kidding me? Despite focusing on the business aspects of each question, these are some of the most straightforward and insightful responses I've seen in a slashdot interview. While he briefly touted a few new services and features, he focused on answering the questions instead of turning it into an infomercial. If a MySQL developer were asked the same questions, you'd definitely get a more technical response, but considering he is a businessman, these responses are excellent. The example people are giving about him sidestepping the filesystem vs database question is one place I thought he gave an exceptionally good answer. Instead of getting into a pissing match with the ReiserFS folks, he basically said that every situation can have multiple solutions, which is exactly the same thing that the programmer's motto TIMTOWTDI states.
Overall, I think he did a very good job in answering every question. If slashdot wants a more technical response, they should ask a lead developer for the interview.
What would MS have to do to please all of you? In the past year they've adopted more open standards, turning on a software firewall by default, submitted their own open standards, released more software for free, and improved their security and standards compliance by focusing on those with Vista and IE7. Granted, each of these things wasn't done just to help the world... some of it was done to help Microsoft's market share and public perception. However, the end result is the same: MS seems to be getting more friendly toward OSS software.
Each thing they do is met with people saying they're JUST doing it to increase market share, or to trap customers into certain situations, or to extinguish competition. Hell, even the article about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donating TONS of money to good causes was met with people complaining about how Bill Gates made that money in the first place.
It's quite easy these days to purchase a computer without an operating system on it. It's just as easy to install non-MS software on a Windows system, setup a dual boot system, or set a non-MS program as the default handler for certain file types. It's been a while since I've seen a company go out of business because of Microsoft. In fact, many more companies are in business because Microsoft makes it relatively easy to program for their platform (look at all the crap software that's out there and tell me that it takes more than an idiot to make a Windows program). Lots of linux zealots say that they won't give MS the benefit of the doubt because of their past practices, but Microsoft's past practices now involve a couple of years of doing the right thing.
Sure, there's a few blemishes (genuine advantage, DRM) mixed in with that good stuff, but overall MS has been doing a decent job lately. Perhaps it's time you all try looking at it with a balanced outlook rather than immediately thinking the worst.
All US aircraft carriers since the USS Enterprise have had dual nuclear reactors. Granted, they have a great deal of weapons and other ships to keep them safe, but the idea of putting a nuclear reactor on water isn't really new. Sure, there are dangers, but there are dangers with ground-based nuclear reactors as well. It's just a matter of finding acceptable measures for preventing those dangers.
Startup Tabs (you usually go to the same round of sites when you turn on in the morning, so...)
1. Open up all the tabs you want to open on startup. 2. Go to Options and click "Use current pages" in the Home Page Location setting.
You can also enter them by hand in this field by separating tabs with a |.
IT? Try every job...
on
IT and Divorce?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Anyone that works long hours is going to have a hard time maintaining their relationship. It really has nothing to do with the industry itself, but instead is a result of people neglecting their relationship to spend more time at work or on their computer. I've gone through that myself, with my wife and I going through a separation before I realized that I needed to spend more time with her and less time on the computer. Same goes for mechanics, engineers, managerial staff, etc. Leave your work at work and spend some time with your wife.
OptiPlex 210L, Intel® Pentium 4 Processor 531 with HT (3.00GHz, 1M, 800MHz FSB), XP Pro, 512MB DDR2, 80GB SATA, 48X CD-ROM Drive. Total price: $599 before corporate discounts. At my previous employer we got around 20% off most desktop systems we bought in bulk, so that'd put it at $480. This doesn't include the cost of Office 2003, since upgrades of Office products are separate from upgrades of Windows products. You will still be able to run Office 2000 on Vista. Even if you tack on Office 2003, it's well under the $1500 minimum listed in this article.
Not sure why you don't want Celeron processors... when I worked at SBC and a few smaller companies, we always opted for the cheaper processors. That would drop the price under $350.
The article also says that the cost of installing ram is as much as the ram itself, which is BS. If a company actually did a ram upgrade across the board and got an excellent deal on the ram (say $40 for a stick), then it would have to take most techies 1 hour to upgrade a single system for the article's statement to be true. I can upgrade most systems in 5-10 minutes, so my ram installation cost would be about $8/system.
It'd be a little suspicious carrying a hammer into the voting booth, don't you think. It's not exactly the quietest method of getting though a lock either. As someone else suggested, putting the locked area in an alarmed enclosure would solve the problem.
I want to clarify before I get a bunch of flames. I agree that there are many more issues with the Diebold machines, and I still prefer paper ballots. I'm just pointing out that this hack is easily prevented.
Without iTunes DRM, the major music companies wouldn't allow Apple to sell music in the iTunes store. Same holds true for other online music sales sites (think of the ones that the RIAA is okay with). If you get rid of the iTunes DRM, we'd all still be paying for an entire CD instead of just the songs we want to listen to.
Some of you will claim that the solution is to purchase non-RIAA music, which is fine. There are some RIAA bands I enjoy, however, so for me that's not a solution. Obviously in the case of iTunes, DRM is actually helping consumers. It may not allow us to do everything we want, but it gives us one additional choice in how we get our music.
This entire thing comes down to the ability to pick a lock so someone can replace the flash card. So why not put more secure locks on the devices? The paper ballots that we all love are also stored in locking containers, and as such are subject to the same fate as the Diebold tablets.
There are certain locks that are extremely difficult to pick... that's the solution.
Slashdot Mirror
You are definitely correct, but I wonder if this would be the same in a search environment like Google. First, you have a much broader selection of people that can mark meta-data as being accurate or not. Second, people will not see the meta-data without specifically searching for it. This means that the people searching for "swingers in Milwaukee" will most likely be people that don't frown upon such behavior. There are still obvious issues, like people searching for more general controversial terms like creationism/evolution or people that disagree with a certain behavior organizing against certain sites by "moderating" them poorly. I could easily see this happening in politics and religion.
It's far easier for a thief to drive around a rich neighborhood and pick out a car then instead of looking them up in advance online. There's no guarantee that cars that are outside when the picture is taken will be there when the thief shows up. There's also no way to tell from this service if there will be people, other cars, or pets around.
Besides, expensive cars are rarely stolen, since they're easy to trace. Common cars that are a few years old are targeted and stripped down for parts, which is much harder to trace and worth far more money.
For you a truck doesn't make sense, for us it does. We don't have the money or time to do our entire basement at once, making it impossible and pointless to purchase all of the materials at once. We're doing it gradually, meaning I get 10-20 2x4's at a time and will do the same with insulation, drywall, and trim. Paying a $50 delivery charge each time just doesn't make sense.
That's the point, though. Everyone's needs are different, which is the bigger point I was trying to make. A small car makes excellent sense for you, but to assume it will work for everyone is just wrong.
300,000,000 Americans. Let's guess 70% are adults that drive. That's 2.1 million drivers. Let's say the average vehicle gets 25mpg. That's 4 gallons per driver per year saved.
That's a total of 8.4 million gallons of gas saved per year, which is roughly equivalent to the number of gallons of gas passenger vehicles burn per day in the US. (Sen. Obama press release)
You're saying that it would be insignificant if all Americans took 1 day and didn't drive anywhere? I'm sure my numbers are off, but it all definitely adds up when you're talking about a country the size of the US.
Based on the Edmunds 2006 buying guide for minivans, the average gas mileage they get is around 20/26. This is only slightly less than the 22/30 gas mileage that 4 door sedans get (the Civic throws this off, otherwise it'd be around 28). Obviously there are better vehicles for getting better gas mileage, but for people that want a little more space, have a family, or need to move larger objects once in a while, minivans aren't a bad option.
I personally drive a V8 crew cab pickup truck and even got a comment from a guy I used to work with about ruining the environment. Thing is, I work from home every day and as a result drive less than 4000 miles per year. I burn far less fuel than most hybrid owners, but still have to put up with their comments about what I choose to drive. You don't know people's driving habits, so it's really not fair to make generalizations about them.
Incidentally, while we didn't NEED a pickup truck, it did make sense for us since we're remodeling our house and landscaping during the summer. We tend to haul something at least a few times a month. Our only other options would be to rent a truck or borrow someone else's truck. It's also nice having a heavier vehicle during our Wisconsin winters.
Whenever vehicle stories come up on Slashdot, I read comments about how buying an SUV is all about showing off how much money you have, and that 99% of people don't need a truck. The fact is, anyone who owns a house and puts a decent amount of work into it or has a family with at least 2 kids will make use of the space in their vehicle. Hybrid SUV's are good alternatives, but the extra cost (initial + repairs) just turns people off to them right now.
The main reason you perform better when leaning forward is that the television or monitor fills more of your field of vision, allowing your brain to ignore the surrounding environment and pay more attention to the game. This is the same reason people lean forward during a conversation they're deeply involved in. You'll rarely see blind people do this.
Eyesight can also play a role, but I think that's far more obvious than the reason above.
The other reason that's applicable to computer games and not console games is the controller configuration. Obviously it's impossible to position your fingers over a keyboard and mouse properly while reclined very far. With a gamepad it's much easier.
Even if we had reclining chairs that had the keyboard positioned at the proper angle, it still would be difficult to type. Gravity would want to pull our hands away from the proper position, which would strain our arms/wrists instead of our backs.
That is foil-hattish. We were asked for our ID's in order to get into our dorms after a certain time and night, since visitors weren't allowed unless being registered. That's not about surveillance, it's so they know who's in the building in case of a fire, alien attack, etc.
We were asked for our student ID's for sporting events so we could get our student discount for the tickets. Same thing for shows or conferences. They need some way of making sure you're a student, and an ID is the obvious method. Keep in mind they don't record your ID for these things, but I wouldn't mind if they did. What nefarious scheme could they be implementing by knowing I go to the football game?
I'd be more worried about your example of checking out books, where they could track your reading habits. The other things aren't a big deal in comparison.
I'd agree, except you're ignoring some pretty blatant facts. First, we're not catching anything before the video, which firsthand accounts make it seem like the guy should be tasered. Second, they repeatedly warned him before tasing him each time. That's definitely NOT going "apeshit" on the guy. Apeshit would be if they tased him without warning him, just for screaming at them. Third, according to firsthand accounts and the story, he was provoking the crowd. Police have the right to defend themselves when necessary, and it will be up to the review board to determine if it was necessary in this case or not. It's not up to us, when we have very little information about the situation. Sure, it looks like the cops overreacted, but not to the extent that you're saying.
He shouldn't have gotten shocked repeatedly, but he could have just stood up. After you get shocked with a taser, you have the ability to get up and walk after a relatively short amount of time (about 15-20 seconds from what I've seen on Cops and Jackass :). That's with the heavy duty tasers that major police departments use. The video doesn't show what type of taser they're using, but it could be one of the medium duty ones (think one step up from the ones used on Tory from Mythbusters in the plant experiment). Either way, he would definitely be able to get up and walk before they were able to tase him again.
He would also be in the proper mental state to understand what they're talking about. Other than being really pissed off, that is. Your mind recovers from the shock far faster than your muscle would. He'd be fully cognizant around the time he stopped screaming. Anyone who has gotten a decent shock before would agree with this. I got shocked by an industrial laser with a short in the metal casing and knew what was going on a second later, while my arm hurt like hell for a little while longer.
All he needed to do was show his ID or leave the building when asked and this would have been avoided. He's an idiot for not doing one or the other. On the other hand, the cops are idiots for not just handcuffing him and carrying him out. It's a lot more work when someone is uncooperative, but it's the right thing to do. If he had struggled while they handcuffed him and carried him, then they would have had the right to tase him.
First of all, some of you are saying how wrong it is for people to be purchasing PS3's and reselling them for profit. Tell me how that's wrong. It's entrepreneurship at its best. These people have the time and patience to wait in line 5 days while the rest of us have to work. They make some money off it by reselling to people that can afford to pay a crazy price for the console. It doesn't hurt anybody, since the people that can afford the high price get their consoles, the people who stand in line make a profit, and Sony gets the media buzz. It's a win for everyone except the people at the end of the line who really want to keep the system for themselves, but those people should take issue with Sony limiting production, not the people taking advantage of the system. Heck, around here someone paid a homeless person to stand in line for them, which there's also nothing wrong with. Same situation as before, and you have the added benefit of a homeless person making a decent amount of cash for sitting outside.
Now onto crazy Walmart managers.
Basically, this idiot Walmart manager decides that instead of giving the first 10 people in line their consoles, he'll set up 10 chairs and have everyone race toward them. REAL SMART. Some guy runs into a pole (don't know how that happens anyway) and ends up in the hospital. Great job by a Walmart employee messing up a situation that would have been really easy to handle.
The Washington Post is slashdotted, so I can't read the article, but I doubt this is just a "drop in the bucket". A group of 18 is likely to have more than a single phishing website. More than likely they'd have over 100. That's still just 1% of the sites out there, but it's at least something. Also, if there were other people in this phishing group, those people would be stongly deterred from phishing in the future. It also serves as a preventative against additional people getting into phishing. At least something is being done about these crimes.
Many of us first switched to Firefox because it was so much smaller and faster than Internet Explorer. In fact, much of the early progress was directed at removing unnecessary code. Now it seems as though Firefox is following in the steps of Netscape Navigator by including many more features, some which everyone will use (spell check) and some which many may not (better RSS handling). The result is a larger download.
How does the Firefox team choose which features are going to be included and which ones should be left as add-ons? From a marketing aspect, is it possible to promote a product for being small and compact, or is a long feature list necessary?
I care more about freedom than money, but Stallman might actually convince me to NOT use free software. Slashdot types like to talk about the overzealous Christian conservatives, but many of you fail to realize that that's the same way most of the world sees any type of zealot. Stallman IS a free software zealot, which makes the majority of people feel uncomfortable, which in turn hurts his cause.
Masses respond to marketing. Most individuals respond to logic. Most people avoid zealots. That's the way it is.
I don't think anyone can argue that Stallman hasn't helped free software in the past. In fact, the Forbes article goes into detail about what he's done for linux. The thing is, that was then and this is now. His tactics and outspoken ideology are giving free software a bad name these days. Look at the progress Firefox, mySQL, etc have made in getting their software used by the masses and accepted by managerial types. The way to advance a free software culture isn't to rant about minute details (GNU/Linux)... it's to put out great software and market it like businesses do.
If you're trying to get people to adopt free software in their company or home, and you had to choose Stallman or Mårten Mickos (the mySQL CEO that recently did a Slashdot interview), which would you choose? Which would be more likely to convince people that free software is the way to go?
Poo flung about in every direction.
I have mod points, but I just had to respond...
Are you freakin kidding me? Despite focusing on the business aspects of each question, these are some of the most straightforward and insightful responses I've seen in a slashdot interview. While he briefly touted a few new services and features, he focused on answering the questions instead of turning it into an infomercial. If a MySQL developer were asked the same questions, you'd definitely get a more technical response, but considering he is a businessman, these responses are excellent. The example people are giving about him sidestepping the filesystem vs database question is one place I thought he gave an exceptionally good answer. Instead of getting into a pissing match with the ReiserFS folks, he basically said that every situation can have multiple solutions, which is exactly the same thing that the programmer's motto TIMTOWTDI states.
Overall, I think he did a very good job in answering every question. If slashdot wants a more technical response, they should ask a lead developer for the interview.
What would MS have to do to please all of you? In the past year they've adopted more open standards, turning on a software firewall by default, submitted their own open standards, released more software for free, and improved their security and standards compliance by focusing on those with Vista and IE7. Granted, each of these things wasn't done just to help the world... some of it was done to help Microsoft's market share and public perception. However, the end result is the same: MS seems to be getting more friendly toward OSS software.
Each thing they do is met with people saying they're JUST doing it to increase market share, or to trap customers into certain situations, or to extinguish competition. Hell, even the article about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donating TONS of money to good causes was met with people complaining about how Bill Gates made that money in the first place.
It's quite easy these days to purchase a computer without an operating system on it. It's just as easy to install non-MS software on a Windows system, setup a dual boot system, or set a non-MS program as the default handler for certain file types. It's been a while since I've seen a company go out of business because of Microsoft. In fact, many more companies are in business because Microsoft makes it relatively easy to program for their platform (look at all the crap software that's out there and tell me that it takes more than an idiot to make a Windows program). Lots of linux zealots say that they won't give MS the benefit of the doubt because of their past practices, but Microsoft's past practices now involve a couple of years of doing the right thing.
Sure, there's a few blemishes (genuine advantage, DRM) mixed in with that good stuff, but overall MS has been doing a decent job lately. Perhaps it's time you all try looking at it with a balanced outlook rather than immediately thinking the worst.
All US aircraft carriers since the USS Enterprise have had dual nuclear reactors. Granted, they have a great deal of weapons and other ships to keep them safe, but the idea of putting a nuclear reactor on water isn't really new. Sure, there are dangers, but there are dangers with ground-based nuclear reactors as well. It's just a matter of finding acceptable measures for preventing those dangers.
Startup Tabs (you usually go to the same round of sites when you turn on in the morning, so...)
1. Open up all the tabs you want to open on startup.
2. Go to Options and click "Use current pages" in the Home Page Location setting.
You can also enter them by hand in this field by separating tabs with a |.
Anyone that works long hours is going to have a hard time maintaining their relationship. It really has nothing to do with the industry itself, but instead is a result of people neglecting their relationship to spend more time at work or on their computer. I've gone through that myself, with my wife and I going through a separation before I realized that I needed to spend more time with her and less time on the computer. Same goes for mechanics, engineers, managerial staff, etc. Leave your work at work and spend some time with your wife.
OptiPlex 210L, Intel® Pentium 4 Processor 531 with HT (3.00GHz, 1M, 800MHz FSB), XP Pro, 512MB DDR2, 80GB SATA, 48X CD-ROM Drive. Total price: $599 before corporate discounts. At my previous employer we got around 20% off most desktop systems we bought in bulk, so that'd put it at $480. This doesn't include the cost of Office 2003, since upgrades of Office products are separate from upgrades of Windows products. You will still be able to run Office 2000 on Vista. Even if you tack on Office 2003, it's well under the $1500 minimum listed in this article.
Not sure why you don't want Celeron processors... when I worked at SBC and a few smaller companies, we always opted for the cheaper processors. That would drop the price under $350.
The article also says that the cost of installing ram is as much as the ram itself, which is BS. If a company actually did a ram upgrade across the board and got an excellent deal on the ram (say $40 for a stick), then it would have to take most techies 1 hour to upgrade a single system for the article's statement to be true. I can upgrade most systems in 5-10 minutes, so my ram installation cost would be about $8/system.
It'd be a little suspicious carrying a hammer into the voting booth, don't you think. It's not exactly the quietest method of getting though a lock either. As someone else suggested, putting the locked area in an alarmed enclosure would solve the problem.
I want to clarify before I get a bunch of flames. I agree that there are many more issues with the Diebold machines, and I still prefer paper ballots. I'm just pointing out that this hack is easily prevented.
Without iTunes DRM, the major music companies wouldn't allow Apple to sell music in the iTunes store. Same holds true for other online music sales sites (think of the ones that the RIAA is okay with). If you get rid of the iTunes DRM, we'd all still be paying for an entire CD instead of just the songs we want to listen to.
Some of you will claim that the solution is to purchase non-RIAA music, which is fine. There are some RIAA bands I enjoy, however, so for me that's not a solution. Obviously in the case of iTunes, DRM is actually helping consumers. It may not allow us to do everything we want, but it gives us one additional choice in how we get our music.
This entire thing comes down to the ability to pick a lock so someone can replace the flash card. So why not put more secure locks on the devices? The paper ballots that we all love are also stored in locking containers, and as such are subject to the same fate as the Diebold tablets.
There are certain locks that are extremely difficult to pick... that's the solution.