I agree that Windows lags behind MacOS in many ways. But let's stop measuring this lag in superficial features like transluscent widgets. These things just don't fucking matter. They look cool, but they don't add shit to the usability of the system. When we compare OSs, let's compare basic functionality, not stupid gimmicks.
VoIP voice quality is fine as long as you have the network capacity for all the extra packets. Did your company bother to figure out whether they had the bandwidth to run VoIP? Or did they just say to themselves, "Copper is so 90s" and proceed?
I once worked a help desk at a hosting company. Every once in a while, you'd get somebody you could barely hear, which meant you had to diagnose their phone problem before you diagnose their hosting problem. Most often the problem was the customer using VoIP and listening to streaming audio on an overburdened DSL line. Get them to turn off the stream, and things got much clearer.
It's still too early to tell whether it will be a rehash of ten years ago when the telephone companies (even before the rise of the ILECS after the 1996 Telecom Reform Act) pishposhed the rising popularity of the Internet until they jumped onboard at the last minute.
I distinctly recall another company that pisposhed the Internet and jumped aboard after the last minute. Namely Microsoft. You could see it in Windows 95, which as initially shipped lacked even an IP stack. Instead, they had all these proprietary networking components that were supposed to lock you into MSN.
They had to play catchup really fast. But when you have deep pockets and desktop OS lockin, it's not that hard.
Of course! But as with Wikipedia, all deletions must be by consensus. Which means that hundreds of new speakers will be suggested, and only the most obviously demented or offtopic speakers will not make the cut. The converence is expected to last several years.
Simply place the lead into the path of a strong neutron stream.
Hard to do with 17th century tech! Anyway, Sir Isaac, smart as he was, knew jack about particle physics. So he attempted to work with what he did know, even though his alchemical skills weren't really relevent. Just like those Utah bozos who attempted to create nuclear fusion through purely chemical means. Both resemble the proverbial drunk searching for his keys where he can see, not where he dropped them.
If the disk sells for $1 at Safeway, the company that makes them gets maybe 40 cents. They could sell for the full retail online (without the S&H bullshit) and still make at least as much money as they get through regular channels. I think the problem is that they can't make enough sales online to justify the hassle of a web store. Most customers are probably impulse shoppers: "Killer Shrews? Oh well, it's only a buck."
...is NASA is doomed to repeat the shuttle experience again by using the new vehicles for the next 30 years without having anything new in the pipeline?
Short answer: of course. The political situation that created the disastrous Shuttle is still in effect, only more so. Which is: politicians need to be seen to be backing manned space travel, but don't have any incentive to give it real funding. So NASA gets enough money to keep one manned space program going (barely!), and no more.
Even if your time is so valuable (and I'm sure you manage your time well!), there are other reasons to hack things: pleasure, self-education, being part of a hacker community. If you feel you have to do a cost-benefit analysis before taking something apart, you should probably avoid the whole Hardware Hacks Topic.
When somebody says, "I'm not a lawyer, but I know that..." there's a good chance that something nasty is about to happen.
Chip is engaging in a legal crusade against Health Market Science, and doing it without legal advice. Naturally, HMS does have lawyers, and consults them as to the best way to screw him over. Screwing precedes. Gosh that's a suprise.
The point is, those who still rely on analog are probably already somewhat disenfranchised because of their likely economic class that this conversion (however "progressive") might serve to disenfranchise them further.
True, but so what? Given the crap that's on TV these days, it's not exactly the biggest tragedy. If the FCC were still requiring broadcasters to provide a decent amount of real news and information, it would be a tragedy. But it's difficult to care that somebody is "disenfranchised" because they can't watch I Want to Be a Hilton.
However, when analog broadcast goes dark, I'm simply not going to HAVE a TV...
Until you buy an HD TV, or a digital adapter for your analog TV. Every existing station is supposed to cut over by some date (I forget, and can't be bothered to look it up). Some of them might go out of business because of the cost -- especially "public" stations. But their frequencies will be quickly snapped up.
Of course, your situation still sucks. You'll be paying a fair amount of money to buy extra equipment just to watch the same crap you're watching now. Except you'll be seeing everything in letterbox format.
It's a stupid situation. I've never seen the logic in forcing everybody to switch over to HD. It's gonna cost a ton of money, and not really going to benefit anybody, outside a few hardware makers. Most of whom are in Japan.
Re:Fine and Good
on
Lucas's New HQ
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Lucas graduated from film school at USC. Before he became a Visionary Mogul, he actually made one or two decent films, including American Graffiti. I think he has a small problem, and a big one. The small problem is that he hasn't actually done that much writing or directing since he became a VM, so he's out of practice. The big problem is that he is a VM, so nobody is in a position to tell him that his shit smells. Especially when that shit consistently makes a profit.
Some of that's going on with the big new campus in San Francisco. The dude's in love with digital media, and he's lost interest in the model-making that is still at the heart of most space opera SFX. You won't find a model shop at the new campus: that group remained behind in the industrial park in San Rafael. Now digital media is certainly cool -- but anybody who's seen Sky Captain will tell you that virtual sets are not quite ready for prime time!
...to accurately layout mostly-text documents, send them to novice users, and have them be able to edit the text without everything exploding.
In theory, XML solves your problems. You control layout with stylesheets, which the novice users don't have access to. They edit text with a simple user-friendly editor, which limits their ability to screw things up.
The problem is that this is pretty hard to set up. You may have trouble finding an off-the-shelf XML schema that suits your needs, and designing your own is non-trivial. Plus there aren't a lot of good user-friendly editors. I like XMetal, but it only runs on Windows, and I'm sceptical as to its long-term survival.
Which brings us back to word processors: people are so used to them, they're not terribly interested in learning about (or spending money on) alternatives. Which is why there hasn't been as much development in XML document management as there should be.
I'm not "entrenched". I'm simply having to deal with real-world issues. Most real workplaces are full of Office users and the files they've created. If you've never had to deal with people who don't want to relearn all their Office skills, or with all the files they've created, you've probably never had a real job.
Sure, it'd be nice to re-educate every word processor user on the planet to do things completely differently. As long as you're counting on miracles, let's wish away terrorism, poverty, disease, and Rick Bermann!
...it has loaded every Office document I have asked it to.
Yeah, but has it loaded it accurately? Are all the tables in your word processor docs properly formatted? Do the bar charts in your spreadsheet look the same? How about your PowerPoint slides? And when you save your changes, do people who open your files in Office complain that they're all messed up?
If you just want to work on your own, there are plenty of decent Office alternatives. But if you want to share files with the huge Office user base, you have to use Office yourself, period.
We really need an end to Ask Slashdots that request legal advice. Leaving aside the legal and ethical problems of providing legal advice from non-lawyers, the potential for harm to the questioner from misinformed Slashdotters is mind-boggling!
Fortunately small in this case. My very inexpert opinion is that an employee who does something illegal at his bosses request has no more legal coverage than if he acted at his own initiative. But the chances of your being prosecuted or sued are very small -- in past situations like yours, the IP police have gone after the company, not the individual employees. Of course there's no guarantee that they'll always do this.
The question you should be asking is "What do I do?" There's no simple answer there. You say you like your job, but you're also concerned about the legal risks you're running. You have to weigh one against the other. And this is something you just have to do for yourself. You're the one at risk of unemployment and/or legal peril. Only you can decide how important all the factors are.
It's certainly not fair that your bosses have put you in this position. But that's the kind of shit that we all have to deal with.
If you're determined to put an end to this situation, there are various outs -- all of which put your job at risk.
Simply refuse to make any more pirate installations.
Narc on your company to the IP police.
Find somebody in the company bureaucracy who sees things your way. The legal department would probably not be happy to know that managers are putting the company at risk this way. The HR department might also be helpful.
Legally, your bosses can't retaliate against you for doing any of the above. Doesn't mean they won't, or that they won't get away with it.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that Windows lags behind MacOS in many ways. But let's stop measuring this lag in superficial features like transluscent widgets. These things just don't fucking matter. They look cool, but they don't add shit to the usability of the system. When we compare OSs, let's compare basic functionality, not stupid gimmicks.
I once worked a help desk at a hosting company. Every once in a while, you'd get somebody you could barely hear, which meant you had to diagnose their phone problem before you diagnose their hosting problem. Most often the problem was the customer using VoIP and listening to streaming audio on an overburdened DSL line. Get them to turn off the stream, and things got much clearer.
They had to play catchup really fast. But when you have deep pockets and desktop OS lockin, it's not that hard.
I think you're a troll because you're full of shit!
Of course! But as with Wikipedia, all deletions must be by consensus. Which means that hundreds of new speakers will be suggested, and only the most obviously demented or offtopic speakers will not make the cut. The converence is expected to last several years.
Another self-taught legal expert. If all soundtracks are copyrighted, then how can so many sound movies be in the public domain?
So I can wait a week for the movie to download, or I can pay a buck and see it now.
If the disk sells for $1 at Safeway, the company that makes them gets maybe 40 cents. They could sell for the full retail online (without the S&H bullshit) and still make at least as much money as they get through regular channels. I think the problem is that they can't make enough sales online to justify the hassle of a web store. Most customers are probably impulse shoppers: "Killer Shrews? Oh well, it's only a buck."
Even if your time is so valuable (and I'm sure you manage your time well!), there are other reasons to hack things: pleasure, self-education, being part of a hacker community. If you feel you have to do a cost-benefit analysis before taking something apart, you should probably avoid the whole Hardware Hacks Topic.
Chip is engaging in a legal crusade against Health Market Science, and doing it without legal advice. Naturally, HMS does have lawyers, and consults them as to the best way to screw him over. Screwing precedes. Gosh that's a suprise.
That's fine -- if your local library has any serious funding and you have some way to get there.
Of course, your situation still sucks. You'll be paying a fair amount of money to buy extra equipment just to watch the same crap you're watching now. Except you'll be seeing everything in letterbox format.
It's a stupid situation. I've never seen the logic in forcing everybody to switch over to HD. It's gonna cost a ton of money, and not really going to benefit anybody, outside a few hardware makers. Most of whom are in Japan.
Some of that's going on with the big new campus in San Francisco. The dude's in love with digital media, and he's lost interest in the model-making that is still at the heart of most space opera SFX. You won't find a model shop at the new campus: that group remained behind in the industrial park in San Rafael. Now digital media is certainly cool -- but anybody who's seen Sky Captain will tell you that virtual sets are not quite ready for prime time!
Did you notice the part where he needs to collaborate with naive end-users? Imagine how such a person could mess up a TeX-based document!
The problem is that this is pretty hard to set up. You may have trouble finding an off-the-shelf XML schema that suits your needs, and designing your own is non-trivial. Plus there aren't a lot of good user-friendly editors. I like XMetal, but it only runs on Windows, and I'm sceptical as to its long-term survival.
Which brings us back to word processors: people are so used to them, they're not terribly interested in learning about (or spending money on) alternatives. Which is why there hasn't been as much development in XML document management as there should be.
I'm not "entrenched". I'm simply having to deal with real-world issues. Most real workplaces are full of Office users and the files they've created. If you've never had to deal with people who don't want to relearn all their Office skills, or with all the files they've created, you've probably never had a real job.
Sure, it'd be nice to re-educate every word processor user on the planet to do things completely differently. As long as you're counting on miracles, let's wish away terrorism, poverty, disease, and Rick Bermann!
It's a very bad thing that so many people are forced to use such lousy software. Doesn't change the factors that force them to use it.
If you just want to work on your own, there are plenty of decent Office alternatives. But if you want to share files with the huge Office user base, you have to use Office yourself, period.
Fortunately small in this case. My very inexpert opinion is that an employee who does something illegal at his bosses request has no more legal coverage than if he acted at his own initiative. But the chances of your being prosecuted or sued are very small -- in past situations like yours, the IP police have gone after the company, not the individual employees. Of course there's no guarantee that they'll always do this.
The question you should be asking is "What do I do?" There's no simple answer there. You say you like your job, but you're also concerned about the legal risks you're running. You have to weigh one against the other. And this is something you just have to do for yourself. You're the one at risk of unemployment and/or legal peril. Only you can decide how important all the factors are.
It's certainly not fair that your bosses have put you in this position. But that's the kind of shit that we all have to deal with.
If you're determined to put an end to this situation, there are various outs -- all of which put your job at risk.
- Simply refuse to make any more pirate installations.
- Narc on your company to the IP police.
- Find somebody in the company bureaucracy who sees things your way. The legal department would probably not be happy to know that managers are putting the company at risk this way. The HR department might also be helpful.
Legally, your bosses can't retaliate against you for doing any of the above. Doesn't mean they won't, or that they won't get away with it.