On behalf of other Americans, I would like to apologize for 0x0000's ranting. Like many others here, he seems to think that just because a problem affects Americans, everyone else should know about and appreciate its finer points.
He also doesn't seem to realize that the sort of protesting you did, if I read you correctly, moved a power that wouldn't allow him to even post such messages. He seems like one of the people here who feel that if they only were in charge, everything would be suddenly better.
What he doesn't seem to realize is that we will always have power hungry jerks in any form of government or human society. The nice thing about America is that we can all ignore them and go on with our lives unless they do something truly boneheaded, in which case the media will get massive ratings shoving the story down our throats until we do something about it. The only thing here is that if you don't work to make yourself successful, however you define success, you never will be successful. I imagine this is the source of much of his "undirected rage", he hasn't figured out this basic truth yet. Once he ages past 17 (spirtually speaking) he'll likely understand.
Why is this on slashdot? Is CowboyNeal a closet democrat?
So another moron decides to disrupt a peaceful gathering with no clear purpose. He then decides to bravely challenge the 500 pound gorilla, and whines when he gets in trouble for it. Why don't people do this BACK to the granola-sucking troublemakers who have no real desire to change anything but headlines, like Greenpeace or PETA?
(Sure, the Packers were going to change their name to the Pickers. Yeah, right. When cheese doesn't melt in Hell, they might.)
Think (different) for a minute. Who really wants to buy the latest new computer toy? The fourty-year-old executive who hires young bucks to handle those computer thingies? Or the Star Trek freak down the block?
This is SOOOOOO sneaky and subliminal that only Jobs could have pulled it off. Apple will gain market share by.....assimilation! Doesn't that cube, on some level, remind you of a Borg Cube?
While you sleep, the cube sends out nanoprobes into your bedroom and into you, turning you from an overclocking, Linux-booting, propeller-headed web junkie to a MacAddict, complete with pony tail and wire-rim glasses. Apple is finally playing by the Wintel rules.
Scary, no? Resistance is futile. You, too, will be assimilated.
Not only do computers not work in the classroom, but they're not needed.
We hear about Japan's educational superiority, but what isn't told to us is that the superiority doesn't come from incredible funding or computerized classrooms. It comes from 3 things: 1. Dedicated parents 2. Dedicated students 3. Dedicated teachers
In that order of importance. A parent who sees education as important and as a thing in which they should play an active part will help their child succeed. A dedicated student will learn the material to the best of his ability, because he sees the value in learning. Finally, a dedicated teacher works to teach his students, trying to teach the good students AND the bad students. Computers do not enter the Japanese equation.
I had the good fortune to attend several courses in a German Gymnasium (college prep high school is the closest American equivalent) in Munich. I didn't see a single computer in any of the classrooms. And yet these are university-bound students, the "highest" track of Germany's 3-tracked system of education. And still, we hear of the superiority of German schools and educations. Without computers in every classroom. I grew up in a "nice, suburban" school system where there were computer labs, even in elementary school. Aside from typing papers and using Mathematica for my Calculus course, I can't remember learning anything from teachers using computers. Only from hackers who showed me how to get teacher-level access on the banyan network. THAT'S what hooked me on computers, not the Logo we worked with in elementary school, or all the papers I typed, or Oregon trail, or anything else we did.
And the tech guys? My sister is a teacher. Her art room has the only PC's in the school...the rest is all Apple. The tech guy there can't even figure out how to install a standard NIC in a PC. I had to come in and do it. So do I think these kids are getting a good computer education? Sure. Right.
Ever notice that a C# on a bass sax sounds like a fart in the wind?
Anyone think this'll last any longer than that?
One more thing...C++ is, of course, the increment of C. Basic programming joke. I think calling it C# instead of C^2 or J-- shows that Microsoft can't even get basic coding right.
And yet we stray further from the point of this Ask: session. Here's something to bring it back in line.
The reason we have limited purchases taking over so much of the scenery is that we are increasingly concerned with trading part of our "selves" for fantastic prizes. When there is more value placed on having a symbol of status than on having the positive inner qualities that generate such ownerships, we become increasingly willing to give ourselves up to have access to them. For example, many people think nothing of filling out an invasive survey to gain free (but rather bad) internet access, a chance at winning some prize, or some other good.
Similarly, we trade our spirituality - that being religion, such as Christianity - for the material things we want, and wonder why we feel so empty. When's the last time you worked on Sunday morning instead of going to church? Or walked past the homeless man without stopping because you were saving up for the latest CPU? Or worked long hours to save up for something? We want these things so badly that ways are created for us to "have" them. Abracadabra, limited ownership for limited fees.
These desires are nothing new. They are the things that drove Martin Luther to fight the church he loved, after finding that indulgences, paid forgiveness, was going to build a nice cathedral for the pope. They are the things we are told of in the New Testament when we are told "Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness. THEN all these things will be added unto you." Now, since we know that we cannot attain the Kingdom on our own (another truth from the Bible - we are never truly good), when do YOU think we'll have all our wants filled? Not in this life! The Bible, as "full of contradictions" as some may claim it, had this one figured out thousands of years before silicon found its ultimate use. These people who seek only goods need to catch up to its wisdom. Economics even understants this. They call it scarcity - limited resources, UNLIMITED DESIRES.
But how do we change this? First off, get out of the cities sometimes. When we are surrounded by an environment made by man, when every tree, building, street and blade of grass holds its position because a human decided it should be there, we lose our sense of awe. Our vital, necessary, God-fearing sense of awe. So with our surge protectors and lightning rods and storm cellars "saving" us from Nature, so we can snap our fingers at this world we have "mastered", we forget the awe of seeing a tree, standing tall, not because a long-dead logger planted it, but because it GREW WITHOUT HUMANS. A flower opening to the sun, without fertilizer or stakes to guide it. God's miracles are all around us, except in the cities, where we've banished them due to their inconvienence and our own paltry sense of order. God doesn't speak in sound bites and 90 decibel rock-concerts. He speaks in silence, waiting for the awe of his real miracles to return. And we will have more and more limited ownership, not because of the technology, but because of the desire. Because of our desire to fill that God-sized hole in our hearts. Or is it the size of a BMW Z3?
Now, as a fellow/.er, I try to leave my computer as infrequently as possible. But when I do, and I choose to use my credit card, I have to sign something. Then, my signature is (supposed to be - doesn't always happen) checked against the back of the card. This way, the people at the store know I am the true owner of the credit card.
Now, let's suppose I steal some grandma's purse and head straight for my computer with the credit cards. Since I don't have to sign anything, or prove my identity in any way, I could get a lot of neat toys before the free credit card spree ends.
Sure, some online stores are getting paranoid about who's charging what. CDW, a great place to buy computer toys online, requires a signed photocopy of your driver's license and credit card before they'll do business with you. Why? To protect their customers and themselves from false charges. I'm all for it. Sure, it's a little bit of a pain, but I'd be really glad for it if it was my card that was stolen.
And, if fraud is kept down, then we can still get nice, cheap online deals. And, aside from the coolness of buying our favorite toys with our favorite toy, deals are the big reason to shop online. Stop-frauds will help keep it cheap.
-Frauen sind wie Spielzeuge. Je billiger, noch besser!
Just think about the Canadian comment below, 'A "virtual war" in Ignatieff's work, is a fiction, invented by the American armed forces.... I'm from Canada. Can you tell? '
Oh yes, one of those other countries who always look to America to lead any "international" peace initiative. Why? Because America is the only true power left in this world. Russia is bankrupt, China is still struggling to get into the 1950's, and the other "powers", like Canada, don't keep enough of a military to defend themselves, much less "protect peace". They rely on the US military for that service, and take a "moral" highground, claiming to be better than armed conflict. But when their interests are at stake, they're more than happy to cry to the big, bad, US of A.
Getting to the point, if the United States must keep the global peace, AND protect the interests of the western world, how can we possibly commit enough troops to keep every situation calm? How can we take that sort of risk? We need to turn to "virtual weapons". We can't possibly supply the entire world with armed young men to hold territory. Instead, we must convince opposing countries to back down. The best way to do this is with overwhelming force. If diplomacy would work, it would have worked before the aggressor nation moved troops. (For examples, see WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia....)
So, if we save our young men while still preserving world peace, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Do you truly think Saddam Hussein would have stopped with Kuwait? Yeah. It was all about oil. Sure. And Hitler would certainly stop after breaking the treaty of Versailles by rearming. No, after taking the Sudetenland. Or wait, after Poland maybe....
The lesson we learned from Hitler is: eternal vigilance for eternal peace. There is no other option. Either we make sure that "they" know that we can kill them better than they can kill us - or each other - or we wade through the blood of some good old-fashioned large-scale war. Personally, I like the virtual kind much better. It saves me from losing another uncle, like I did from Vietnam.
Actually, I think Echelon is the single best reason for Europe to release encryption technology. Many in Europe are upset at the notion of the US spying on their cell phone conversations, E-mails, and other private communications.
Now, if everything is encrypted in an industrial-strength code, projects like Echelon will either take immense computing power or become wholly ineffective, with the latter being more likely. I know that the US has contributed excessive dollars and power to covert projects before, but Echelon casts such a wide net that decoding all of those tadpoles and minnows to catch the very rare shark just costs too much. Even for the NSA.
I bought an Aptiva w/Athlon 550 just a few months ago. An 8M #9 card came installed in the AGP port, and it could run the UT demo pretty darn well. But, seeing that it was "only an 8M video chip", I replaced it with one of ATI's latest offerings with 32M of memory, since I wanted decent game performance and DVD playback. You know, there wasn't much on an improvement on UT, although the DVD playback skipped less. Probably due to more memory.
But what really impresses me is that the gaming quality of an 8M #9 was close to that of a 32M ATI chipset. Interesting, I wonder what they would have done with 32M? I wish more companies would find ways to stretch the capabilities in our machines instead of using the "brute force required" approach that keeps Intel in business.
Intern Chaser! The game where power and influence are collected to the end of groping more gullible young office workers than your opponents! Can you be a dirtier old man than your friends? Coming to your favorite on-line gaming server in January of 2001! Guarenteed to make your hard drive go berzerk, your eyes pop out of your head, and your knees sore! Brought to you by the Left Wing Programmers. Programming ignorants since 1776!
Caffeine distribution! Without caffeine, there would be no great engineering feats! For the Engineer does not exist, from Archemedes to the great Mr. Scott, which has not sampled of the candy of the learned! And the variety! We can get our fix as pills, hot drinks, cold drinks, syrups, mints....what would life be without that nectar of the Gods, Caffeine? Did the Romans have such eye-popping quality? Did the Greeks indulge in such a variety? Did we, before the 20th Century, have such a wonder? Oh, to mourn the forgotten life-bringer, caffeine!
DVD has three key benefits: picture quality, no rewinding, and sound quality.
For the first, does your TV have an S-video link? Chances are if it's an older model, it won't. That means your video output might not hook up very well...video cards tend to like S-video outputs.
For the second, you're good to go no matter what. Rock on without rewinds.
For the third, your sound quality will be poor from a laptop. Great sound cards are really hard to find for laptops, especially ones that can handle 4 speakers and a sub. You'll need to buy a dolby digital decoder, amp, and a full speaker package. But, by the time you finish doing that, you're already spending a lot on home theatre, probably nearly what you'd spend on your laptop alone. A desktop model could pull off the sound card for you, though. (Try the Xitel Storm Platinum...Aureal Vortex 2 based, included headphones are sweet, and it has digital TOSLINK out so you can copy MP3's to minidisc!)
One further caution...how hot is your laptop going to get running movie marathons, and how much (little) fun is it going to be disconnecting and reconnecting the laptop from your theatre when you want to take the laptop with you? Nice DVD players cost $250, and with a $300 Aiwa system with included subs, you can get a nice effect. Try your favorite online store.
"There must be something on this thing for that thing!" -Homer J. Simpson
The fact that the price of music hasn't changed in 5 years would lead me to believe that there is a monopoly of music producers setting the price artificially high. You know that their cost is going up, after all, inflation has been a reality since CD's were first manufactured.
Why doesn't Napster or MP3 countersue the recording industry with charges of monopolistic price fixing? I think we've got the right administration in office for it!
Just think: pennies to make a CD, that means that 12-18 USD are going to the label! Do you really think that the actual artist sees much of this? Why do you think all of these 80's bands are touring again? They made a few million (before tax), the label made a hundred million, and the money's gone!
That's why the companies are really suing. They aren't so much afraid of free transactions as they are afraid of having to drop the price of music to a more reasonable price so people will buy it.
Very true. I've read a lot of books about effective living and leadership (written by people like Covey and Zig Zigler) and I learned more about leadership from Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow than from all of these books and seminars put together. Ender is smart, but it's his leadership that makes the people around him better. Read the books again, and see how.
You know,/. type of people are the ones who will be looked to for leadership in this new "e-economy" (I know, I hate the e-buzzwords too, but it's easy) and the leadership qualities we can learn here will give us that edge. Besides, we can be the Brain without Pinky (having relegated Pinky to serving french fries), and take over the world!
Re:The End did not justify the Means
on
Sim Plague
·
· Score: 1
Begin flame.
I have fired such weapons as well. Did anyone teach you what you were doing, or were you fucking around with a cannon like that for fun?
Note that the agent's finger is OUTSIDE THE TRIGGER HOUSING!!! In other words, there is NO WAY that he will accidentally shoot ANYONE!!!! This is part of weapons training for people who's jobs require the use of such force. Oh, and a side effect of such training means that odds are good that, unlike YOU, the agent will NOT spray bullets randomly upon pulling the trigger. Ordinarily I'm all for gun rights, but people like you scare the crap out of me. Please learn what you're doing with guns before you hurt someone you care about.
We're forgetting one of the most important parts of a good user interface - the hardware device used. Just think about handing a mouse to someone who's only ever worked on mainframe terminals for the past 20 years. "You mean I have to use thingy X to make thingy Y point at something? I have trouble lighting a cigarette!"
The reason Palm OS (a very nice UI) works so well is that it uses things we've all done since we were 6. That is, 1. Take a stick and point at what we want. 2. Write notes on a small piece of paper.
Want a good UI? Work with what people already know and trust. It may sound a bit odd, but when you want ease of interface, go for a touchscreen. "Drag and drop" and "Open/Run", the two most common operations, become simple, even for Grandma. Because it makes sense. I want that, so point at it. The mouse just makes it complicated. If you want advanced options, drag the icon to a special place, like on the Launcher III for Palm.
And, for advanced users, have an icon that reads 'advanced' and let the options unite under menus! Grandma will be too scared of the A-word to touch it!
Slashdot Mirror
Augusto;
On behalf of other Americans, I would like to apologize for 0x0000's ranting. Like many others here, he seems to think that just because a problem affects Americans, everyone else should know about and appreciate its finer points.
He also doesn't seem to realize that the sort of protesting you did, if I read you correctly, moved a power that wouldn't allow him to even post such messages. He seems like one of the people here who feel that if they only were in charge, everything would be suddenly better.
What he doesn't seem to realize is that we will always have power hungry jerks in any form of government or human society. The nice thing about America is that we can all ignore them and go on with our lives unless they do something truly boneheaded, in which case the media will get massive ratings shoving the story down our throats until we do something about it. The only thing here is that if you don't work to make yourself successful, however you define success, you never will be successful. I imagine this is the source of much of his "undirected rage", he hasn't figured out this basic truth yet. Once he ages past 17 (spirtually speaking) he'll likely understand.
So another moron decides to disrupt a peaceful gathering with no clear purpose. He then decides to bravely challenge the 500 pound gorilla, and whines when he gets in trouble for it. Why don't people do this BACK to the granola-sucking troublemakers who have no real desire to change anything but headlines, like Greenpeace or PETA?
(Sure, the Packers were going to change their name to the Pickers. Yeah, right. When cheese doesn't melt in Hell, they might.)
This is SOOOOOO sneaky and subliminal that only Jobs could have pulled it off. Apple will gain market share by.....assimilation! Doesn't that cube, on some level, remind you of a Borg Cube?
While you sleep, the cube sends out nanoprobes into your bedroom and into you, turning you from an overclocking, Linux-booting, propeller-headed web junkie to a MacAddict, complete with pony tail and wire-rim glasses. Apple is finally playing by the Wintel rules.
Scary, no? Resistance is futile. You, too, will be assimilated.
We hear about Japan's educational superiority, but what isn't told to us is that the superiority doesn't come from incredible funding or computerized classrooms. It comes from 3 things:
1. Dedicated parents
2. Dedicated students
3. Dedicated teachers
In that order of importance. A parent who sees education as important and as a thing in which they should play an active part will help their child succeed. A dedicated student will learn the material to the best of his ability, because he sees the value in learning. Finally, a dedicated teacher works to teach his students, trying to teach the good students AND the bad students. Computers do not enter the Japanese equation.
I had the good fortune to attend several courses in a German Gymnasium (college prep high school is the closest American equivalent) in Munich. I didn't see a single computer in any of the classrooms. And yet these are university-bound students, the "highest" track of Germany's 3-tracked system of education. And still, we hear of the superiority of German schools and educations. Without computers in every classroom. I grew up in a "nice, suburban" school system where there were computer labs, even in elementary school. Aside from typing papers and using Mathematica for my Calculus course, I can't remember learning anything from teachers using computers. Only from hackers who showed me how to get teacher-level access on the banyan network. THAT'S what hooked me on computers, not the Logo we worked with in elementary school, or all the papers I typed, or Oregon trail, or anything else we did.
And the tech guys? My sister is a teacher. Her art room has the only PC's in the school...the rest is all Apple. The tech guy there can't even figure out how to install a standard NIC in a PC. I had to come in and do it. So do I think these kids are getting a good computer education? Sure. Right.
Anyone think this'll last any longer than that?
One more thing...C++ is, of course, the increment of C. Basic programming joke. I think calling it C# instead of C^2 or J-- shows that Microsoft can't even get basic coding right.
The reason we have limited purchases taking over so much of the scenery is that we are increasingly concerned with trading part of our "selves" for fantastic prizes. When there is more value placed on having a symbol of status than on having the positive inner qualities that generate such ownerships, we become increasingly willing to give ourselves up to have access to them. For example, many people think nothing of filling out an invasive survey to gain free (but rather bad) internet access, a chance at winning some prize, or some other good.
Similarly, we trade our spirituality - that being religion, such as Christianity - for the material things we want, and wonder why we feel so empty. When's the last time you worked on Sunday morning instead of going to church? Or walked past the homeless man without stopping because you were saving up for the latest CPU? Or worked long hours to save up for something? We want these things so badly that ways are created for us to "have" them. Abracadabra, limited ownership for limited fees.
These desires are nothing new. They are the things that drove Martin Luther to fight the church he loved, after finding that indulgences, paid forgiveness, was going to build a nice cathedral for the pope. They are the things we are told of in the New Testament when we are told "Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness. THEN all these things will be added unto you." Now, since we know that we cannot attain the Kingdom on our own (another truth from the Bible - we are never truly good), when do YOU think we'll have all our wants filled? Not in this life! The Bible, as "full of contradictions" as some may claim it, had this one figured out thousands of years before silicon found its ultimate use. These people who seek only goods need to catch up to its wisdom. Economics even understants this. They call it scarcity - limited resources, UNLIMITED DESIRES.
But how do we change this? First off, get out of the cities sometimes. When we are surrounded by an environment made by man, when every tree, building, street and blade of grass holds its position because a human decided it should be there, we lose our sense of awe. Our vital, necessary, God-fearing sense of awe. So with our surge protectors and lightning rods and storm cellars "saving" us from Nature, so we can snap our fingers at this world we have "mastered", we forget the awe of seeing a tree, standing tall, not because a long-dead logger planted it, but because it GREW WITHOUT HUMANS. A flower opening to the sun, without fertilizer or stakes to guide it. God's miracles are all around us, except in the cities, where we've banished them due to their inconvienence and our own paltry sense of order. God doesn't speak in sound bites and 90 decibel rock-concerts. He speaks in silence, waiting for the awe of his real miracles to return. And we will have more and more limited ownership, not because of the technology, but because of the desire. Because of our desire to fill that God-sized hole in our hearts. Or is it the size of a BMW Z3?
Now, let's suppose I steal some grandma's purse and head straight for my computer with the credit cards. Since I don't have to sign anything, or prove my identity in any way, I could get a lot of neat toys before the free credit card spree ends.
Sure, some online stores are getting paranoid about who's charging what. CDW, a great place to buy computer toys online, requires a signed photocopy of your driver's license and credit card before they'll do business with you. Why? To protect their customers and themselves from false charges. I'm all for it. Sure, it's a little bit of a pain, but I'd be really glad for it if it was my card that was stolen.
And, if fraud is kept down, then we can still get nice, cheap online deals. And, aside from the coolness of buying our favorite toys with our favorite toy, deals are the big reason to shop online. Stop-frauds will help keep it cheap.
-Frauen sind wie Spielzeuge. Je billiger, noch besser!
Just think about the Canadian comment below,
'A "virtual war" in Ignatieff's work, is a fiction, invented by the American armed forces.... I'm from Canada. Can you tell? '
Oh yes, one of those other countries who always look to America to lead any "international" peace initiative. Why? Because America is the only true power left in this world. Russia is bankrupt, China is still struggling to get into the 1950's, and the other "powers", like Canada, don't keep enough of a military to defend themselves, much less "protect peace". They rely on the US military for that service, and take a "moral" highground, claiming to be better than armed conflict. But when their interests are at stake, they're more than happy to cry to the big, bad, US of A.
Getting to the point, if the United States must keep the global peace, AND protect the interests of the western world, how can we possibly commit enough troops to keep every situation calm? How can we take that sort of risk? We need to turn to "virtual weapons". We can't possibly supply the entire world with armed young men to hold territory. Instead, we must convince opposing countries to back down. The best way to do this is with overwhelming force. If diplomacy would work, it would have worked before the aggressor nation moved troops. (For examples, see WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Bosnia....)
So, if we save our young men while still preserving world peace, WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? Do you truly think Saddam Hussein would have stopped with Kuwait? Yeah. It was all about oil. Sure. And Hitler would certainly stop after breaking the treaty of Versailles by rearming. No, after taking the Sudetenland. Or wait, after Poland maybe....
The lesson we learned from Hitler is: eternal vigilance for eternal peace. There is no other option. Either we make sure that "they" know that we can kill them better than they can kill us - or each other - or we wade through the blood of some good old-fashioned large-scale war. Personally, I like the virtual kind much better. It saves me from losing another uncle, like I did from Vietnam.
Now, if everything is encrypted in an industrial-strength code, projects like Echelon will either take immense computing power or become wholly ineffective, with the latter being more likely. I know that the US has contributed excessive dollars and power to covert projects before, but Echelon casts such a wide net that decoding all of those tadpoles and minnows to catch the very rare shark just costs too much. Even for the NSA.
But what really impresses me is that the gaming quality of an 8M #9 was close to that of a 32M ATI chipset. Interesting, I wonder what they would have done with 32M? I wish more companies would find ways to stretch the capabilities in our machines instead of using the "brute force required" approach that keeps Intel in business.
"There must be something on this thing for that thing!" -Homer J. Simpson
Intern Chaser! The game where power and influence are collected to the end of groping more gullible young office workers than your opponents! Can you be a dirtier old man than your friends? Coming to your favorite on-line gaming server in January of 2001! Guarenteed to make your hard drive go berzerk, your eyes pop out of your head, and your knees sore! Brought to you by the Left Wing Programmers. Programming ignorants since 1776!
Caffeine distribution! Without caffeine, there would be no great engineering feats! For the Engineer does not exist, from Archemedes to the great Mr. Scott, which has not sampled of the candy of the learned! And the variety! We can get our fix as pills, hot drinks, cold drinks, syrups, mints....what would life be without that nectar of the Gods, Caffeine? Did the Romans have such eye-popping quality? Did the Greeks indulge in such a variety? Did we, before the 20th Century, have such a wonder? Oh, to mourn the forgotten life-bringer, caffeine!
For the first, does your TV have an S-video link? Chances are if it's an older model, it won't. That means your video output might not hook up very well...video cards tend to like S-video outputs.
For the second, you're good to go no matter what. Rock on without rewinds.
For the third, your sound quality will be poor from a laptop. Great sound cards are really hard to find for laptops, especially ones that can handle 4 speakers and a sub. You'll need to buy a dolby digital decoder, amp, and a full speaker package. But, by the time you finish doing that, you're already spending a lot on home theatre, probably nearly what you'd spend on your laptop alone. A desktop model could pull off the sound card for you, though. (Try the Xitel Storm Platinum...Aureal Vortex 2 based, included headphones are sweet, and it has digital TOSLINK out so you can copy MP3's to minidisc!)
One further caution...how hot is your laptop going to get running movie marathons, and how much (little) fun is it going to be disconnecting and reconnecting the laptop from your theatre when you want to take the laptop with you? Nice DVD players cost $250, and with a $300 Aiwa system with included subs, you can get a nice effect. Try your favorite online store.
"There must be something on this thing for that thing!" -Homer J. Simpson
Why doesn't Napster or MP3 countersue the recording industry with charges of monopolistic price fixing? I think we've got the right administration in office for it!
Just think: pennies to make a CD, that means that 12-18 USD are going to the label! Do you really think that the actual artist sees much of this? Why do you think all of these 80's bands are touring again? They made a few million (before tax), the label made a hundred million, and the money's gone!
That's why the companies are really suing. They aren't so much afraid of free transactions as they are afraid of having to drop the price of music to a more reasonable price so people will buy it.
Very true. I've read a lot of books about effective living and leadership (written by people like Covey and Zig Zigler) and I learned more about leadership from Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow than from all of these books and seminars put together. Ender is smart, but it's his leadership that makes the people around him better. Read the books again, and see how.
You know, /. type of people are the ones who will be looked to for leadership in this new "e-economy" (I know, I hate the e-buzzwords too, but it's easy) and the leadership qualities we can learn here will give us that edge. Besides, we can be the Brain without Pinky (having relegated Pinky to serving french fries), and take over the world!
I have fired such weapons as well. Did anyone teach you what you were doing, or were you fucking around with a cannon like that for fun?
View again the picture of Elian and the Federal Agent.
Note that the agent's finger is OUTSIDE THE TRIGGER HOUSING!!! In other words, there is NO WAY that he will accidentally shoot ANYONE!!!! This is part of weapons training for people who's jobs require the use of such force. Oh, and a side effect of such training means that odds are good that, unlike YOU, the agent will NOT spray bullets randomly upon pulling the trigger. Ordinarily I'm all for gun rights, but people like you scare the crap out of me. Please learn what you're doing with guns before you hurt someone you care about.
The reason Palm OS (a very nice UI) works so well is that it uses things we've all done since we were 6. That is,
1. Take a stick and point at what we want.
2. Write notes on a small piece of paper.
Want a good UI? Work with what people already know and trust. It may sound a bit odd, but when you want ease of interface, go for a touchscreen. "Drag and drop" and "Open/Run", the two most common operations, become simple, even for Grandma. Because it makes sense. I want that, so point at it. The mouse just makes it complicated. If you want advanced options, drag the icon to a special place, like on the Launcher III for Palm.
And, for advanced users, have an icon that reads 'advanced' and let the options unite under menus! Grandma will be too scared of the A-word to touch it!