In a blatant attempt to make my movie-going a valid business expense..
If you go to enough movies to make a dent in your tax bill, you need help! If you don't go to that many movies, but you still look for ways to deduct a $10 ticket, you really need help!
It wasn't that they prevented you from speaking, but that they terminated your employment. Whether it was right to sack you is a matter for employment law, but they weren't directly preventing you from speaking.
Right. And when a dictator has you shot for speaking out against him, he's not preventing you from speaking out.
Well, if everybody had run out and purchased big huge HD TV sets (which was the whole point of this analog-to-digital snafu), then DVD would be just unacceptable. Everybody would have to upgrade to Blu Ray to eliminate the pixelation.
But people aren't running out and buying HD TV sets. This is partly because of the recession, but I think that people are just tired of getting soaked a lot of money for high-tech couch potato technology. VCRs. DVDs. HD TVs. (Coming soon: 3D TV!) Monthly cable bills that run past $100. People pay and pay and pay, and then they realize that they're still pretty bored, and go off looking for more creative ways to amuse themselves.
I think the market's long past saturated. Any new passive entertainment technology would lay an egg, regardless of the "wow!" factor.
Long before the invention of the photocopier, mud was the ideal way to preserve an image of your butt.
Some of us still consider mud to be far superior. Photocopiers may be more convenient, but they really can't compare with mud for capturing detail without distortion.
Now I'm going to be flamed by a lot of Xerox fan boys. For the last time: the best technology is the technology that works best for you!
The government can't ban free speech. (In theory, anyway.) Private individuals have more latitude.
I once lost a job after disagreeing with a political rant a customer was making. (I thought I was polite and respectful; the customer disagreed.) Abridgment of my free speech rights! But no, two different lawyers assured me that employer was well within his rights in regulating workplace discourse.
What's this silly obsession with nitpicking use cases you obviously aren't a party to? 90% of the time I read it's in bed a night.
Dude, you're the one that sneered at any device that doesn't have backlighting. If you tout your own particular use case as the norm, it's not nitpicking for me to point out that it's not.
OOOh, right you are! Big lapse, that. A bit like listing key events in WW II while skipping over Pearl Harbor!
A couple of other bits of sloppiness:
No, Hollerith cards had nothing to do with the founding of IBM. John Watson did that much later, by merging several companies that included Hollerith's Tabulating Machines Company. People called them "IBM cards" because IBM dominated data processing during the period where punched cards were the only digital storage medium most people knew about.
Although IBM did invent 9-track tape, I don't recall it ever being referred to as "IBM tape".
Ironically, given their IBM-centric view of history, that they left out the hard disk. Nowadays, all hard disks use Winchester technology — invented at IBM!
Well, in this case, I suspect the moderator was an editor in vindictive mode. (See my sig.) Very sad that somebody who plays a major role in running a site that's for online dialog has a compulsive need to shout down any dialog he doesn't care for.
Actually, the IE feature set isn't as pervasive as it used to be. For example Explorer (the file browser, not the web browser) used to treat folders as a kind of web page. If you wanted to customize a folder, you editing its style sheets and added VBS scripts. Lots of nice exploits there, which is why it no longer works.
On the other hand, I sometimes get an IE security warning when I right click on network files served by Samba. It appears that IE plays a role in displaying context menus!
Still, if the user can't use IE to surf the web, IE doesn't exist, at least from the user's point of view. The fact that IE components are still employed by the OS is beside the point. The point being that IE no longer has precedence over other web browsers.
My Nokia N810 lasts for days of reading without recharging.
Well, that's pretty amazing, considering that Nokia only claims 4 hours.
Not that this is a bad product — I came very close to buying its sibling the N800 (I have no use for thumb keyboards), until I decided I wanted a bigger form factor.
Call me when you can backlight eInk evenly...
Jeez, what is this silly obsession with backlighting? The only reason you need them is these gooddamned technicolor displays that are unreadable without them. When I first started buying portable devices (including an early Toshiba laptop, a Palm Vx, and a Samsung cell phones) all these devices had simple monochrome displays that were perfectly readable without a backlight under normal lighting conditions. Which, oddly enough, is where you mostly use them. It was only when feature creep set in, and all devices had to have color displays that always-on backlights became mandatory.
Color displays have their uses (I love watching videos on my Motion tablet). But for reading??? And WTF cares about "even lighting"?
And wifi for looking up definitions. And an IM client (optional) that I can use to chat while reading. And it can be configured (easily) to use dim red text on a black background that doesn't strain or ruin night vision.
Actually, the Kindle also has a web browser, one that works even when you're not near a hotspot. As for night vision, do you really have time to read when you're on special ops?
Sorry, forget the sarcasm. Look, if this Nokia tablet meets your needs, by all means use it. But don't go all Jihad just because somebody else likes a different technology. It's just a little lame.
Well, how about abandon-ware business applications?
Yeah, that's a huge market. And it's full of customers with deep pockets!
I simply don't think VMWare and Parallels have thought this through.
Uh, have you ever worked for a company that actually makes and sells software? I have, and support costs are big factor in all our business decisions. Trust me, we think these things through. Our jobs depend on it!
Most home MacOSX users who want windows emulation and are savvy enough to set it up have been using computers for at least a decade. Its highly likely that they have a favorite game or app that would influence them to choose the product that supports it.
If they don't need support, why spend money on Parallels or VMware? DOSBox and xVM VirtualBox are free.
It would be much easier to have a general purpose product that can be used with any OS of user's choice than to try to quantify every possible use case.
Yeah, because coping with the quirks of 16-bit Windows is so easy...
. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?
Well, DOSBox does a decent job. But that's a self-supported donationware project. To include that sort of functionality in a commercial product, you have to hire people not only to do the development and tweaking, but to support customers who use the feature. Just not worth it for companies like Parallels and VMware to go to all that trouble for a few customers that want to play abandonware games.
Another "troll" mod that has me scratching my head. Not because it's unfair (long since given up caring about that), but because it's strange. Here's another example:
Last I checked you weren't allowed the privilege of purchasing an amazon ebook without having a Kindle registered to your account.
Did you bother to look since this announcement? Web pages do change, or so I've heard.
You need a book light for an ebook reader? Seriously?
You need a book light because it's epaper. Just like regular paper, it doesn't emit any light of its own. The upside with this is that the display only draws power when you turn the page. I think that the convenience of having a device that you can use continuously for days without recharging kind of outweighs the inconvenience of having to provide your own light source.
Slashdot Mirror
"You don't have an absolute right to a job with that employer."
I didn't say it was. You did.
It. Was. A. Joke. I asked if you had any evidence that anecdotal evidence was a oxymoron. Get it? Guess not.
On the other hand, I'd also argue it doesn't matter much.
If you don't care about the cost of replacing the damn thing.
Oh wait, the questioner said he didn't. Never mind!
"Anecdotal evidence" is an oxymoron.
Do you have any evidence?
In a blatant attempt to make my movie-going a valid business expense..
If you go to enough movies to make a dent in your tax bill, you need help! If you don't go to that many movies, but you still look for ways to deduct a $10 ticket, you really need help!
And he's gay!
Go write for TV. What would you rather have, a quality product, or a big audience?
So if Obama starts telling people "You have to fire everybody who's not a registered Democrat, or I won't give you any stimulus money" that's OK?
Oh, right, your fancy BCT can unflatten your butt. Get real!
I think you just like having your posterior irradiated. Hope you're not planning to have kids!
It wasn't that they prevented you from speaking, but that they terminated your employment. Whether it was right to sack you is a matter for employment law, but they weren't directly preventing you from speaking.
Right. And when a dictator has you shot for speaking out against him, he's not preventing you from speaking out.
Well, if everybody had run out and purchased big huge HD TV sets (which was the whole point of this analog-to-digital snafu), then DVD would be just unacceptable. Everybody would have to upgrade to Blu Ray to eliminate the pixelation.
But people aren't running out and buying HD TV sets. This is partly because of the recession, but I think that people are just tired of getting soaked a lot of money for high-tech couch potato technology. VCRs. DVDs. HD TVs. (Coming soon: 3D TV!) Monthly cable bills that run past $100. People pay and pay and pay, and then they realize that they're still pretty bored, and go off looking for more creative ways to amuse themselves.
I think the market's long past saturated. Any new passive entertainment technology would lay an egg, regardless of the "wow!" factor.
Long before the invention of the photocopier, mud was the ideal way to preserve an image of your butt.
Some of us still consider mud to be far superior. Photocopiers may be more convenient, but they really can't compare with mud for capturing detail without distortion.
Now I'm going to be flamed by a lot of Xerox fan boys. For the last time: the best technology is the technology that works best for you!
The government can't ban free speech. (In theory, anyway.) Private individuals have more latitude.
I once lost a job after disagreeing with a political rant a customer was making. (I thought I was polite and respectful; the customer disagreed.) Abridgment of my free speech rights! But no, two different lawyers assured me that employer was well within his rights in regulating workplace discourse.
What's this silly obsession with nitpicking use cases you obviously aren't a party to? 90% of the time I read it's in bed a night.
Dude, you're the one that sneered at any device that doesn't have backlighting. If you tout your own particular use case as the norm, it's not nitpicking for me to point out that it's not.
OOOh, right you are! Big lapse, that. A bit like listing key events in WW II while skipping over Pearl Harbor!
A couple of other bits of sloppiness:
No, Hollerith cards had nothing to do with the founding of IBM. John Watson did that much later, by merging several companies that included Hollerith's Tabulating Machines Company. People called them "IBM cards" because IBM dominated data processing during the period where punched cards were the only digital storage medium most people knew about.
Although IBM did invent 9-track tape, I don't recall it ever being referred to as "IBM tape".
Ironically, given their IBM-centric view of history, that they left out the hard disk. Nowadays, all hard disks use Winchester technology — invented at IBM!
Well, in this case, I suspect the moderator was an editor in vindictive mode. (See my sig.) Very sad that somebody who plays a major role in running a site that's for online dialog has a compulsive need to shout down any dialog he doesn't care for.
Actually, the IE feature set isn't as pervasive as it used to be. For example Explorer (the file browser, not the web browser) used to treat folders as a kind of web page. If you wanted to customize a folder, you editing its style sheets and added VBS scripts. Lots of nice exploits there, which is why it no longer works.
On the other hand, I sometimes get an IE security warning when I right click on network files served by Samba. It appears that IE plays a role in displaying context menus!
Still, if the user can't use IE to surf the web, IE doesn't exist, at least from the user's point of view. The fact that IE components are still employed by the OS is beside the point. The point being that IE no longer has precedence over other web browsers.
Since acquire-a-patent-and-sue become a common business model.
My Nokia N810 lasts for days of reading without recharging.
Well, that's pretty amazing, considering that Nokia only claims 4 hours.
Not that this is a bad product — I came very close to buying its sibling the N800 (I have no use for thumb keyboards), until I decided I wanted a bigger form factor.
Call me when you can backlight eInk evenly ...
Jeez, what is this silly obsession with backlighting? The only reason you need them is these gooddamned technicolor displays that are unreadable without them. When I first started buying portable devices (including an early Toshiba laptop, a Palm Vx, and a Samsung cell phones) all these devices had simple monochrome displays that were perfectly readable without a backlight under normal lighting conditions. Which, oddly enough, is where you mostly use them. It was only when feature creep set in, and all devices had to have color displays that always-on backlights became mandatory.
Color displays have their uses (I love watching videos on my Motion tablet). But for reading??? And WTF cares about "even lighting"?
And wifi for looking up definitions. And an IM client (optional) that I can use to chat while reading. And it can be configured (easily) to use dim red text on a black background that doesn't strain or ruin night vision.
Actually, the Kindle also has a web browser, one that works even when you're not near a hotspot. As for night vision, do you really have time to read when you're on special ops?
Sorry, forget the sarcasm. Look, if this Nokia tablet meets your needs, by all means use it. But don't go all Jihad just because somebody else likes a different technology. It's just a little lame.
Well, how about abandon-ware business applications?
Yeah, that's a huge market. And it's full of customers with deep pockets!
I simply don't think VMWare and Parallels have thought this through.
Uh, have you ever worked for a company that actually makes and sells software? I have, and support costs are big factor in all our business decisions. Trust me, we think these things through. Our jobs depend on it!
Most home MacOSX users who want windows emulation and are savvy enough to set it up have been using computers for at least a decade. Its highly likely that they have a favorite game or app that would influence them to choose the product that supports it.
If they don't need support, why spend money on Parallels or VMware? DOSBox and xVM VirtualBox are free.
It would be much easier to have a general purpose product that can be used with any OS of user's choice than to try to quantify every possible use case.
Yeah, because coping with the quirks of 16-bit Windows is so easy...
. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?
Well, DOSBox does a decent job. But that's a self-supported donationware project. To include that sort of functionality in a commercial product, you have to hire people not only to do the development and tweaking, but to support customers who use the feature. Just not worth it for companies like Parallels and VMware to go to all that trouble for a few customers that want to play abandonware games.
Another "troll" mod that has me scratching my head. Not because it's unfair (long since given up caring about that), but because it's strange. Here's another example:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1148821&cid=27066447
Pudge, are you abusing your editor infinite mod points again? Perhaps taking revenge for my outing your sockpuppets? If so, you really need help!
OK, why is this flamebait? Even by the unofficial definition that a lot of moderators use ("flamebait" == "you're full of it") that seems a stretch.
Last I checked you weren't allowed the privilege of purchasing an amazon ebook without having a Kindle registered to your account.
Did you bother to look since this announcement? Web pages do change, or so I've heard.
You need a book light for an ebook reader? Seriously?
You need a book light because it's epaper. Just like regular paper, it doesn't emit any light of its own. The upside with this is that the display only draws power when you turn the page. I think that the convenience of having a device that you can use continuously for days without recharging kind of outweighs the inconvenience of having to provide your own light source.