To add to that, it is clearly the better company as far as customer service and reliability is concerned compared to any alternative in the UK.
Total crap. On three different occassions BT has failed to even install their products and have given up. I have lost my own Internet connection, a large contract in the City of London (hardly a backwater) and in a smaller Woking office because, in each case, after literally weeks of talking to BT and reporting fault after fault with the work done by their so-called engineers, BT have simply said that they were unable to find what was causing the problem and that they simply were not going to try to fix it anymore. Note that there was no dispute about the existance of the faults, quite the opposite as some of the staff seemed to find the whole process facinating.
BT are fucking useless and it's not squat to do with regulation. Regulation is the only thing that stops them, from trippling their prices again.
I would be very happy to hear that BT had gone bust and all the bastards that work for them are unemployed; as far as I can see none of them, from the board down to tele-sales, are actually in useful employ now anyway.
NTL are bad but at least they've never told me that they won't bother fixing a fault because they can't find it.
I've not read the article yet, but I have dealt with BT on many occasions. They are without a doubt the worst company in the world. Totally disorganised, uninterested in their customers, and years behind the rest of the world. What does BT stand for? Bloody Terrible? Bag o' Tripe, Bunch of Tossers? Take your pick. Whatever it stands for, they're shit.
Now that I've vented, I'll go and read the article. After which I'll probably need to vent again.
Hillary, you have been dismissed as a non-credible witness. and a moron.
Maybe her girlfriend gave her a new, as in replacement, iPod. I think it's a fair bet that she's shilling for Micorsoft and its DRM system, but you never know, maybe she really has seen the light. Stop laughing at the back!
The League of Concerned Satanists will no doubt lambast this movie as Christian propaganda, due to its thinly veiled allegory.
Well, I read the books in primary school and loved them, so when I found them again during a house move I thought I'd have a trip down memory lane. Bloody hell, they are bad! Really very thinly disguised and poor Christian propaganda. Stomach-turning is the phrase that leaps to mind.
Keep your childhood memories safe: don't return to Narnia!
If you want Christian allegory done well, real Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle", it far surpasses any of Lewis' work in quality and power of its message.
Will someone please tell me, in a civilized manner, what is so bad about national IDs.
Very simple: McCarthy.
Many, many people were forced to flee America because they were unable to work in their own field (Hollywood) because they were blacklisted. The ability to blacklist someone from basically everything and anything, including justice, using automated systems linked to a central database is too powerful to allow into the hands of human politicians or, worse still, unelected officials at local level.
Think how hard you could make the life of a political opponent with a few bribes or a good ol' boys network and ID cards. A few adjustments to the records and - boom! - you're wanted/undesirable/a no-fly. Who's the guy at the gate going to believe? You, or the machine?
The innocent have had, and will always have, something to fear from the power that knowing their every move gives to the corrupt but powerful. That's human nature and there's no point pretending it can't happen to you, because that's what everyone says until it does and then it's too late.
The thing about the midichlorians is that that whole concept was stolen from Parasite Eve!
Actually, it was stolen from real life. The whole question of our relationship with our mitochondrian symbiotic cells, which provide our energy ("life force", anyone?) in return for being protected by our bodies, is so strange that I'm not surprised that Lucas, or anyone else, picked up the idea and ran with it a bit. Enough biologists have remarked on it, why not a few film-makers?
Seemed a fairly run-of-the-mill bunch of hackneyed SF cliches from the trailer. I've not seen the TV series, nor heard of it before last week, was it any good?
you would be surprised how much some people are scared of typing things into that black screen.
I know that, but what I'm saying is that encouraging them to get over that fear, when it's counter-productive, is NOT being elitist or arrogant or whatever. There is nothing wrong with getting people to use the right tool for a job, especially when the wrong tool (in this case, a GUI), would be harder to use.
What is so hard about letting people type "emerge program" that we have to wrap it in a totally unreasonable atmosphere of "oh, that's high-temple stuff, just use the mouse"? That, to me, is the arrogant approach.
I'm not saying newbies should have to use the command line for everything, or even for much, but this is a good example of something where the user can be let loose gently on something which they can handle and could serve as a demonstration that the command line is not scary all the time.
What is so bad about showing people that their fears are unfounded?
TWW
Re:The register must know something we dont...
on
Dutch Pass iPod Tax
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· Score: 1
You're telling me that in two years, we'll have 1000GB laptop drives (~10x up) and 1000000GB desktop drives (~2000x up)?
The law, if passed, will apply to all storage devices, not just laptops, MP3 players, and desktop machines. All server racks, your company's lovely terabyte RAID array (which might exist already), etc will pay too.
As everyone else that's replied to you has pointed out you are talking out your ass. Lisp had exceptions and GC long before Java or C# were even an idea.
I was amazed to find in an earlier/. thread that C++/C#/Java programmers actually think exception handling was a great new thing when their language came out. What they thought we did "in the old days" is beyond me. But then, C++ programmers have told me that the common template library is a great programming concept and not just a hack to get around the limitations of the language's terrible design.
That's exactly the "If they can't build a G4 out of a bucket of NAND chips, they've got no right even touching a computer!" attitude that's been killing this otherwise sweet distro (and indeed Linux as a whole) from the beginning.
No, I'm saying that people, like yourself perhaps, should be open to the idea that sometimes the command line is the easiest way to do things. Try to forget the conditioning that mouse=easy and look at the problem sensibly and you'll find that sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.
There just is no way that a GUI on Portage is going to make it easier to use. It might make it less intimidating, but that's because WIMP actually makes people scared to try other ways. The command line does not seem to have the same effect.
Either way, I'm not advocating not letting newbies use the system, I'm just saying we shouldn't have to bend over backwards to make a bad tool in order to satisfy preconceptions and thereby reinforce erronious ideas as to how difficult simple, but non-graphical, techniques are.
It'll never outdo Windows until its at least as user-friendly. That's a fact.
You mean it'll never out-sell Windows, it already outdoes Windows. That's a fact.
What the OS needs is a Prometheus GUI mentality, to translate this amazing power into something mere mortals can handle.
Sorry, I'm just not buying the idea that typing "emerge" and then the name of the program you want is something "mere mortals" can't handle. People just aren't that dumb. No, really, they're not.
There are areas where some aspects of Portage could be made GUI: selection of USE flags perhaps, but actually I think that by the time you are aiming at the audience you are talking about, they'll probably not even know or care enough to select those, so it's probably better not to bother, after all the package management paspects of Portage is probably the only benefit that they will understand.
Which doesn't mean they shouldn't be using the system.
But Gates said his company was hiring at all levels, from recent college graduates to those with more advanced skills. "Anybody who's got a good computer-security education, they're not out there unemployed," he said.
Yep, so long as they have no pride in their work or any professional ethics, Bill will get them. I've been to university; I've seen the sort of people that apply to MS for work, and the sort that don't.
It doesn't do much good to help a newbie through the install process graphically and then expect them to use a Portage from the command line.
What makes you think that someone that can't use Portage on the command line could work out how to turn their computer on in the first place? There are few utilities as easy to use, graphical or command-line, as Portage.
In what way? It's a long time since I looked at the architecture but I was under the impression that 64bit was available on both the address and data buses as well as the instruction set for quite some time.
1. The PPC has been 64bit longer than either AMD or Intel. That aside, both companies are forced by backward compatability issues to run hot and support a terrible programming model at the machine level (which, of course, is where all code ends up).
2. I want a quiet system, and that means no fans. A high-end graphics board that sucks energy and produces heat is not just a neutral "I don't need it", it's a negative "I don't WANT it". For me there are no pay-offs for the downsides. I'm actually happy to pay extra for a quiet machine.
And two processors that make the P4 look like the hold-overs from the 1970's that it is. Anyway, video cards long ago passed the point where I don't care; there's no advantage to me, or most Mac users, in a newer, hotter, more power-heavy card just to look at Photoshop or InDesign do its thing. Or iMovie for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Total crap. On three different occassions BT has failed to even install their products and have given up. I have lost my own Internet connection, a large contract in the City of London (hardly a backwater) and in a smaller Woking office because, in each case, after literally weeks of talking to BT and reporting fault after fault with the work done by their so-called engineers, BT have simply said that they were unable to find what was causing the problem and that they simply were not going to try to fix it anymore. Note that there was no dispute about the existance of the faults, quite the opposite as some of the staff seemed to find the whole process facinating.
BT are fucking useless and it's not squat to do with regulation. Regulation is the only thing that stops them, from trippling their prices again.
I would be very happy to hear that BT had gone bust and all the bastards that work for them are unemployed; as far as I can see none of them, from the board down to tele-sales, are actually in useful employ now anyway.
NTL are bad but at least they've never told me that they won't bother fixing a fault because they can't find it.
TWW
Now that I've vented, I'll go and read the article. After which I'll probably need to vent again.
TWW
Maybe her girlfriend gave her a new, as in replacement, iPod. I think it's a fair bet that she's shilling for Micorsoft and its DRM system, but you never know, maybe she really has seen the light. Stop laughing at the back!
At the moment, I don't have to carry any. Perhaps you should be asking why you have to have one, instead of asking why you need three.
ID cards are totally ineffectual against the sorts of threats being talked about, and making them compulsory is open to abuse, so why bother?
TWW
Well, I read the books in primary school and loved them, so when I found them again during a house move I thought I'd have a trip down memory lane. Bloody hell, they are bad! Really very thinly disguised and poor Christian propaganda. Stomach-turning is the phrase that leaps to mind.
Keep your childhood memories safe: don't return to Narnia!
If you want Christian allegory done well, real Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle", it far surpasses any of Lewis' work in quality and power of its message.
TWW
It might be worth pointing out that this is an urban myth, probably born of some misbegotten YUPPY Powerpoint show in the late 80's.
TWW
Very simple: McCarthy.
Many, many people were forced to flee America because they were unable to work in their own field (Hollywood) because they were blacklisted. The ability to blacklist someone from basically everything and anything, including justice, using automated systems linked to a central database is too powerful to allow into the hands of human politicians or, worse still, unelected officials at local level.
Think how hard you could make the life of a political opponent with a few bribes or a good ol' boys network and ID cards. A few adjustments to the records and - boom! - you're wanted/undesirable/a no-fly. Who's the guy at the gate going to believe? You, or the machine?
The innocent have had, and will always have, something to fear from the power that knowing their every move gives to the corrupt but powerful. That's human nature and there's no point pretending it can't happen to you, because that's what everyone says until it does and then it's too late.
TWW
Actually, it was stolen from real life. The whole question of our relationship with our mitochondrian symbiotic cells, which provide our energy ("life force", anyone?) in return for being protected by our bodies, is so strange that I'm not surprised that Lucas, or anyone else, picked up the idea and ran with it a bit. Enough biologists have remarked on it, why not a few film-makers?
TWW
Yes, because knowing that they'll be identified from their personal effects after the rubble has been sifted will really put such hijackers off.
TWW
Burn the heretic!
Because it packs a punch but is rather slow.
TWW
Just when you thought Gates couldn't be less likable.
TWW
The same way the US ones were made: bribery and, er.. well, just bribery, really.
TWW
Is it?
TWW
TWW
I know that, but what I'm saying is that encouraging them to get over that fear, when it's counter-productive, is NOT being elitist or arrogant or whatever. There is nothing wrong with getting people to use the right tool for a job, especially when the wrong tool (in this case, a GUI), would be harder to use.
What is so hard about letting people type "emerge program" that we have to wrap it in a totally unreasonable atmosphere of "oh, that's high-temple stuff, just use the mouse"? That, to me, is the arrogant approach.
I'm not saying newbies should have to use the command line for everything, or even for much, but this is a good example of something where the user can be let loose gently on something which they can handle and could serve as a demonstration that the command line is not scary all the time.
What is so bad about showing people that their fears are unfounded?
TWW
The law, if passed, will apply to all storage devices, not just laptops, MP3 players, and desktop machines. All server racks, your company's lovely terabyte RAID array (which might exist already), etc will pay too.
TWW
I was amazed to find in an earlier /. thread that C++/C#/Java programmers actually think exception handling was a great new thing when their language came out. What they thought we did "in the old days" is beyond me. But then, C++ programmers have told me that the common template library is a great programming concept and not just a hack to get around the limitations of the language's terrible design.
TWW
No, I'm saying that people, like yourself perhaps, should be open to the idea that sometimes the command line is the easiest way to do things. Try to forget the conditioning that mouse=easy and look at the problem sensibly and you'll find that sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't.
There just is no way that a GUI on Portage is going to make it easier to use. It might make it less intimidating, but that's because WIMP actually makes people scared to try other ways. The command line does not seem to have the same effect.
Either way, I'm not advocating not letting newbies use the system, I'm just saying we shouldn't have to bend over backwards to make a bad tool in order to satisfy preconceptions and thereby reinforce erronious ideas as to how difficult simple, but non-graphical, techniques are.
It'll never outdo Windows until its at least as user-friendly. That's a fact.
You mean it'll never out-sell Windows, it already outdoes Windows. That's a fact.
What the OS needs is a Prometheus GUI mentality, to translate this amazing power into something mere mortals can handle.
Sorry, I'm just not buying the idea that typing "emerge" and then the name of the program you want is something "mere mortals" can't handle. People just aren't that dumb. No, really, they're not.
There are areas where some aspects of Portage could be made GUI: selection of USE flags perhaps, but actually I think that by the time you are aiming at the audience you are talking about, they'll probably not even know or care enough to select those, so it's probably better not to bother, after all the package management paspects of Portage is probably the only benefit that they will understand.
Which doesn't mean they shouldn't be using the system.
TWW
Yep, so long as they have no pride in their work or any professional ethics, Bill will get them. I've been to university; I've seen the sort of people that apply to MS for work, and the sort that don't.
TWW
This is true, but typing "emerge <name of the program you want to install>" has to be easier than any point-and-grunt interface.
TWW
What makes you think that someone that can't use Portage on the command line could work out how to turn their computer on in the first place? There are few utilities as easy to use, graphical or command-line, as Portage.
TWW
In what way? It's a long time since I looked at the architecture but I was under the impression that 64bit was available on both the address and data buses as well as the instruction set for quite some time.
TWW
2. I want a quiet system, and that means no fans. A high-end graphics board that sucks energy and produces heat is not just a neutral "I don't need it", it's a negative "I don't WANT it". For me there are no pay-offs for the downsides. I'm actually happy to pay extra for a quiet machine.
3. Well, fair enough. We all want more RAM.
TWW
And two processors that make the P4 look like the hold-overs from the 1970's that it is. Anyway, video cards long ago passed the point where I don't care; there's no advantage to me, or most Mac users, in a newer, hotter, more power-heavy card just to look at Photoshop or InDesign do its thing. Or iMovie for that matter.
TWW