Umm, I think you mean an extra $250, and you'll get a box that's still underpowered for the OS it's expected to run (in this case, Vista).
I agree, the complaints about the OS are legitimate, and will hopefully be fixed in later revs of the product. But the argument that you can just pay twice as much to get a functional Vista box is a) bullshit, and b) missing the point entirely (that this is an ultra-cheap PC for those who need such a thing).
I'd be willing to spend a dollar or two for a movie, if I could watch it for more than 24hrs. Perhaps a week. In very high quality.
Umm... explain to me how a downloaded copy will be of higher quality than just renting a disc, particularly if you don't want it to take a week just to download the thing?
So CF bulbs are not only far more expensive, they require people to rewire their houses?
No. It means you should get an inspector to check your house, because faulty wiring can be a significant safety hazard. It can also reduce the life of other electronic devices, including computers, which don't have a particularly high tolerance to voltage spikes. The CFLs are just a canary in the coalmine.
As for the rest of your post, I really don't understand your point. Like all products which are available from multiple manufacturers, some CFLs are better than others. Shocking, I know. So the poor will, like they do with all things (clothing, electronics, etc), be forced to use lower quality products. So be it. But that's hardly a reason to bitch about CFLs as a whole.
I maintain that GOOM is one of the most effective visualizers I have ever seen. TBH, this earth visualizer, while somewhat pretty, is pretty friggin' boring, if you ask me. There seems to be very little actual algorithmic interpretation of the music... just a slow animation of a photorealistic earth model. Woo woo. But GOOM! The stuff it does continues to surprise me, and it's been running on my MythTV install for over a year, now.
I'm sure you have some kind of point, here, aside from the fact that you're overly concerned about your neighbour's opinions, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is.
It's not just the code isn't clean, it's that it went out of its way to REVERSE the way that anyone else would have done it.
So? I understand you don't like it, but you still haven't demonstrated, with actual evidence (and no, your opinions and suppositions don't qualify) that PINE is either unmaintainable or unusually buggy. I'm beginning to think that's because you can't.
The fact that the code had to be altered because the maintainers chose to replace UNIX headers with their own misconfigured variants IS an example of the code being unusually difficult to maintain or alter.
Uhh... why? Do you have examples where this has proven unusually onerous? I mean, given PINE's overall portability, it seems to me that there has been little negative effect, but perhaps you can provide examples to the contrary?
Have you READ the code? I have. It's crap.
Again, in your personal opinion. But unless you can prove to me that it really is buggy or unmaintainable, that's all it is: opinion.
Think about that, people have spent their entire careers working on a theory that many not be proved or disproved in their lifetimes.
Uhh, there are many experiments in GR and SR that have only been recently attainable, long after Einstein's death. The same is true of Darwin's theory of evolution, the mechanism for which was only discovered with the advent of genetics. I'm sure the same has been true for hundreds of years. This is hardly a new or unusual phenomenon.
I never said physics was not science, but more like science fiction where you don't really have to prove anything just suggest something is plausible.
And right there you expose your ignorance regarding science.
In science, you don't *prove* anything. There is no proof that gravity works the way we think it does. There's no proof quantum physics exists as we've formulated it. The same goes for GR, thermodynamics, every single damn theory in existence. A scientific theory is merely a hypothesis backed by experimentation. Any one of these theories may be disproved with the appropriate experiment, and it is that property which makes them scientific.
So, in this case, we have a class of theories based on higher-order dimensions. Every single one of them could be *dis*proved based on experiments performed with the LHC. And if the results of those experiments are in line with the predictions of those theories, then those theories will live on, and we will formulate new experiments to test other predictions of those theories, and so on, and so on. This is how we approach the truth in science. And, eventually, only on theory will be left standing.
Now, as you say, in some cases, we have a few hypotheses with require experiments that are likely forever beyond our reach (some of the experiments needed to explore string theory require virtually unattainable energies). And, I agree, at that point, we are entering a realm where the work is not "scientific", at least in the strictest sense. But that is *not the case here*. Here, we have a valid experiment, using the LHC, which may disprove this theory.
So, this very experiment disproves your assertion that "Physics has become the domain of science fiction authors." Here, we quite clearly have a scientific hypothesis which can be explored with experiments that will be performed once the appropriate equipment has been built. What's the problem?
But should we have armed government enforcers to "help" you enforce how you want to raise your kids?
Err... where did anyone say anything about "armed government enforcers"? Do you normally just make crap up to support your position?
Meanwhile, do you have similar objections to age limits on cigarette and alcohol sales, and their associated fines and enforcement mechanisms? Because Clinton is proposing essentially the same thing.
And the alternative is... no HD channel at all, because they wouldn't have the bandwidth to broadcast 1080p30 (given they can barely broadcast what they do, now). But, nice job demonstrating the parent's point.
So, let me get this straight. A scientist proposes an admittedly unusual theory which will be falsifiable using the proper equipment, and that makes it equivalent to science fiction?
Perhaps you need to educate yourself on what science, precisely, is. If this is a legitimate hypothesis with a legitimate experiment to test it, then there's absolutely nothing unscientific about it, whether you think it sounds outlandish or not.
And, BTW, I'm fully aware of the usage of "it's" and "its"... oddly enough, I, like many others, suffer from typos. However, mine often involve homophone substitutions, particularly since I tend to write out full words before my brain has an opportunity to validate that the spelling is correct.
Meanwhile, you don't address the point. If "Listening to some song lyrics is asinine", then what makes poetry any different? Or books? Or any other artform that doesn't involve "people exchanging opinions and ideas in real time".
After all, Shakespeare was nothing more than popular tripe during it's time. Do you have problems with his work, too?
Given how long PINE has been around, and how easily it's evolved to changing requirements (ffs, it supports acting as a webmail client, now!), I'd say that means the original supposition (that PINE is poorly written) has been refuted, then.
Consider the end users who suffered with various PINE bugs relating to not detecting incoming mail or truncating files, due to the offset bug described.
Oh please. There is a ton of well-written code out there that isn't 64-bit clean.
Consider all the vulnerabilities, crashes, and so on, which necessarily entail from badly-written code.
Funny, I've found PINE to be nothing but incredibly stable. In fact, aside from the 64-bit bug you previously described, you have yet to attribute such behaviour to PINE itself, instead referring to general "vulnerabilities, crashes, and so on".
So, in short, unless you can demonstrate that PINE is unusually bug-ridden or difficult to maintain or alter, I'll have to conclude that the original poster was either wrong, or simply venting his own prejudices toward the codebase (after all, style is, more than anything else, a passionate topic for programmers... unfortunately, often times, such style issues have little effect on the ultimate maintainability or functionality of code (see emacs vs Vi, tabs vs spaces, braces on the next or same line, etc, for classic examples)).
No, I just think you philosophy pedants need to suck it up and accept the fact that the common usage of the phrase "begs the question" no longer matches the classical definition.
I'm glad you made this stipulation. Personally, I work for a startup company who's target customers are primarily very large players. As such, it would be extremely easy for them to take advantage of us by determining how our technology works, and then using their deep pockets to fund a replacement development effort. However, our patents (and, to be clear, while I'm generally opposed to software patents, I believe ours are examples of legitimate innovation) have provided us with the necessary leverage to ensure this doesn't happen (in fact, one company we're partnered with flat out admitted that, with the knowledge they now have of our product, they probably could write their own version, but because we own the patents, it's a non-starter for them).
In closing, I believe patents *can* have a legitimate function in spurring innovation. However, the unfortunate truth is, our case is probably an exception, rather than the rule.
Wow, you really are a jackass. I can only assume you feel the same way about books, plays, poetry, and basically every other artform ever invented. It must be sad to live in such a colourless, bland world.
Such slop and conjecture in these 'true cost' studies is usually tilted towards those who want to grab power and money 'for our own/ the planets good.'
Bah, that's just a BS excuse to ignore valid scientific data. Go look at the numbers yourself and tell me that coal plants and oil refineries don't cause respiratory ailments. Even if you don't believe in the environment cost, the health damage alone is a valid externality to consider.
Then again, it's you same assholes that thought that dumping raw sewage into the ocean was a good idea (it's huge, what harm could we do!), resulting in miles of barren coastline.
The latest UN conference was on 'climate change', throwing even more suspicion on the entire affair.
Holy shit. You've got to be fucking kidding me. You conservative jerks twist the debate, managing to redefine "global warming" as "climate change" in the media, and then you use that exact fucking label to try and discredit valid science. Un-fucking-believable.
As for the rest, it's the usual global warming denialist bullshit. You'll believe what you want to believe, and no fact or argument will convince you otherwise. It's a damn shame, really... you seem like you might be a relatively intelligent individual, if not for your unshakable biases and prejudices. Well, that and your adolescent love affair with unregulated capitalism.
The lesson for greenies is of course to find cheaper, more environmentally friendly ways to achieve the same output as fossil fuels.
Raising costs with punitive 'carbon taxes' will earn revulsion and support theories that global warming hysteria is really just a power and money grab.
Never heard of negative externalities, eh? Yeah, most non-greenies haven't. See, it's kinda tough to create price-competative, green technologies when the dirty ones are subsidized by the rest of the planet, as their prices don't reflect their true cost, in terms of environmental and health damage. As such, the only economically sound solution is a carbon tax, which forces the cost of those externalities back onto the consumers, who may then make a more economically (and, coincidentally, environmentally) sound choice.
The difference is that, even millions of years from now, odds are there'll still be traces of humanity lying around. Therefore, the idea of a creator wouldn't be so wildly crazy, since there would actually be evidence of a real, physical creator.
Good christ, how long are your paragraphs that you feel compelled to break them into pieces?? I'm sorry, but it sounds to me like you're inventing an unreasonable requirement in order to invalidate a position you disagree with. I see absolutely *no* reason why you can't live with paragraph-level granularity, if you have a need to break the content up. And that's only aided by XHTML, as long as you make sure to place your paragraphs in divs or p tags.
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Umm, I think you mean an extra $250, and you'll get a box that's still underpowered for the OS it's expected to run (in this case, Vista).
I agree, the complaints about the OS are legitimate, and will hopefully be fixed in later revs of the product. But the argument that you can just pay twice as much to get a functional Vista box is a) bullshit, and b) missing the point entirely (that this is an ultra-cheap PC for those who need such a thing).
I'd be willing to spend a dollar or two for a movie, if I could watch it for more than 24hrs. Perhaps a week. In very high quality.
Umm... explain to me how a downloaded copy will be of higher quality than just renting a disc, particularly if you don't want it to take a week just to download the thing?
So CF bulbs are not only far more expensive, they require people to rewire their houses?
No. It means you should get an inspector to check your house, because faulty wiring can be a significant safety hazard. It can also reduce the life of other electronic devices, including computers, which don't have a particularly high tolerance to voltage spikes. The CFLs are just a canary in the coalmine.
As for the rest of your post, I really don't understand your point. Like all products which are available from multiple manufacturers, some CFLs are better than others. Shocking, I know. So the poor will, like they do with all things (clothing, electronics, etc), be forced to use lower quality products. So be it. But that's hardly a reason to bitch about CFLs as a whole.
I maintain that GOOM is one of the most effective visualizers I have ever seen. TBH, this earth visualizer, while somewhat pretty, is pretty friggin' boring, if you ask me. There seems to be very little actual algorithmic interpretation of the music... just a slow animation of a photorealistic earth model. Woo woo. But GOOM! The stuff it does continues to surprise me, and it's been running on my MythTV install for over a year, now.
I'm sure you have some kind of point, here, aside from the fact that you're overly concerned about your neighbour's opinions, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is.
It's not just the code isn't clean, it's that it went out of its way to REVERSE the way that anyone else would have done it.
So? I understand you don't like it, but you still haven't demonstrated, with actual evidence (and no, your opinions and suppositions don't qualify) that PINE is either unmaintainable or unusually buggy. I'm beginning to think that's because you can't.
The fact that the code had to be altered because the maintainers chose to replace UNIX headers with their own misconfigured variants IS an example of the code being unusually difficult to maintain or alter.
Uhh... why? Do you have examples where this has proven unusually onerous? I mean, given PINE's overall portability, it seems to me that there has been little negative effect, but perhaps you can provide examples to the contrary?
Have you READ the code? I have. It's crap.
Again, in your personal opinion. But unless you can prove to me that it really is buggy or unmaintainable, that's all it is: opinion.
Think about that, people have spent their entire careers working on a theory that many not be proved or disproved in their lifetimes.
Uhh, there are many experiments in GR and SR that have only been recently attainable, long after Einstein's death. The same is true of Darwin's theory of evolution, the mechanism for which was only discovered with the advent of genetics. I'm sure the same has been true for hundreds of years. This is hardly a new or unusual phenomenon.
I never said physics was not science, but more like science fiction where you don't really have to prove anything just suggest something is plausible.
And right there you expose your ignorance regarding science.
In science, you don't *prove* anything. There is no proof that gravity works the way we think it does. There's no proof quantum physics exists as we've formulated it. The same goes for GR, thermodynamics, every single damn theory in existence. A scientific theory is merely a hypothesis backed by experimentation. Any one of these theories may be disproved with the appropriate experiment, and it is that property which makes them scientific.
So, in this case, we have a class of theories based on higher-order dimensions. Every single one of them could be *dis*proved based on experiments performed with the LHC. And if the results of those experiments are in line with the predictions of those theories, then those theories will live on, and we will formulate new experiments to test other predictions of those theories, and so on, and so on. This is how we approach the truth in science. And, eventually, only on theory will be left standing.
Now, as you say, in some cases, we have a few hypotheses with require experiments that are likely forever beyond our reach (some of the experiments needed to explore string theory require virtually unattainable energies). And, I agree, at that point, we are entering a realm where the work is not "scientific", at least in the strictest sense. But that is *not the case here*. Here, we have a valid experiment, using the LHC, which may disprove this theory.
So, this very experiment disproves your assertion that "Physics has become the domain of science fiction authors." Here, we quite clearly have a scientific hypothesis which can be explored with experiments that will be performed once the appropriate equipment has been built. What's the problem?
My gut feeling is that they take more energy to produce
Oh, well, if your gut says it's true, it must be! Have you been spending a lot of time with Stephen Colbert, recently?
I've had a few blow out on me even though they advertise a much longer lifespan
Get your electrical checked. That's almost certainly a sign of faulty or poor quality wiring.
And occasionally a low, annoying 60hz hum.
That would be the ballast vibrating. Just get a higher-quality bulb.
But should we have armed government enforcers to "help" you enforce how you want to raise your kids?
Err... where did anyone say anything about "armed government enforcers"? Do you normally just make crap up to support your position?
Meanwhile, do you have similar objections to age limits on cigarette and alcohol sales, and their associated fines and enforcement mechanisms? Because Clinton is proposing essentially the same thing.
And the alternative is... no HD channel at all, because they wouldn't have the bandwidth to broadcast 1080p30 (given they can barely broadcast what they do, now). But, nice job demonstrating the parent's point.
So, let me get this straight. A scientist proposes an admittedly unusual theory which will be falsifiable using the proper equipment, and that makes it equivalent to science fiction?
Perhaps you need to educate yourself on what science, precisely, is. If this is a legitimate hypothesis with a legitimate experiment to test it, then there's absolutely nothing unscientific about it, whether you think it sounds outlandish or not.
And, BTW, I'm fully aware of the usage of "it's" and "its"... oddly enough, I, like many others, suffer from typos. However, mine often involve homophone substitutions, particularly since I tend to write out full words before my brain has an opportunity to validate that the spelling is correct.
Gee, how very clever of you.
Meanwhile, you don't address the point. If "Listening to some song lyrics is asinine", then what makes poetry any different? Or books? Or any other artform that doesn't involve "people exchanging opinions and ideas in real time".
After all, Shakespeare was nothing more than popular tripe during it's time. Do you have problems with his work, too?
Bad code is unmaintainable code.
Given how long PINE has been around, and how easily it's evolved to changing requirements (ffs, it supports acting as a webmail client, now!), I'd say that means the original supposition (that PINE is poorly written) has been refuted, then.
Consider the end users who suffered with various PINE bugs relating to not detecting incoming mail or truncating files, due to the offset bug described.
Oh please. There is a ton of well-written code out there that isn't 64-bit clean.
Consider all the vulnerabilities, crashes, and so on, which necessarily entail from badly-written code.
Funny, I've found PINE to be nothing but incredibly stable. In fact, aside from the 64-bit bug you previously described, you have yet to attribute such behaviour to PINE itself, instead referring to general "vulnerabilities, crashes, and so on".
So, in short, unless you can demonstrate that PINE is unusually bug-ridden or difficult to maintain or alter, I'll have to conclude that the original poster was either wrong, or simply venting his own prejudices toward the codebase (after all, style is, more than anything else, a passionate topic for programmers... unfortunately, often times, such style issues have little effect on the ultimate maintainability or functionality of code (see emacs vs Vi, tabs vs spaces, braces on the next or same line, etc, for classic examples)).
PINE was one of the most atrociously-written programs I have ever seen.
And that has bearing on it's value to it's end users, how?
No, I just think you philosophy pedants need to suck it up and accept the fact that the common usage of the phrase "begs the question" no longer matches the classical definition.
To beg the question does not mean "to raise the question."
It does now. Piss off.
Patents in big business,
I'm glad you made this stipulation. Personally, I work for a startup company who's target customers are primarily very large players. As such, it would be extremely easy for them to take advantage of us by determining how our technology works, and then using their deep pockets to fund a replacement development effort. However, our patents (and, to be clear, while I'm generally opposed to software patents, I believe ours are examples of legitimate innovation) have provided us with the necessary leverage to ensure this doesn't happen (in fact, one company we're partnered with flat out admitted that, with the knowledge they now have of our product, they probably could write their own version, but because we own the patents, it's a non-starter for them).
In closing, I believe patents *can* have a legitimate function in spurring innovation. However, the unfortunate truth is, our case is probably an exception, rather than the rule.
Wow, you really are a jackass. I can only assume you feel the same way about books, plays, poetry, and basically every other artform ever invented. It must be sad to live in such a colourless, bland world.
We have music playing at our desks at work and in our house for about 18 hours a day. - my point exactly.
And that was what, again? I missed it amongst all the snobbery.
Such slop and conjecture in these 'true cost' studies is usually tilted towards those who want to grab power and money 'for our own/ the planets good.'
Bah, that's just a BS excuse to ignore valid scientific data. Go look at the numbers yourself and tell me that coal plants and oil refineries don't cause respiratory ailments. Even if you don't believe in the environment cost, the health damage alone is a valid externality to consider.
Then again, it's you same assholes that thought that dumping raw sewage into the ocean was a good idea (it's huge, what harm could we do!), resulting in miles of barren coastline.
The latest UN conference was on 'climate change', throwing even more suspicion on the entire affair.
Holy shit. You've got to be fucking kidding me. You conservative jerks twist the debate, managing to redefine "global warming" as "climate change" in the media, and then you use that exact fucking label to try and discredit valid science. Un-fucking-believable.
As for the rest, it's the usual global warming denialist bullshit. You'll believe what you want to believe, and no fact or argument will convince you otherwise. It's a damn shame, really... you seem like you might be a relatively intelligent individual, if not for your unshakable biases and prejudices. Well, that and your adolescent love affair with unregulated capitalism.
If you're implementing Duff's Device at all, let alone in Perl, you deserve to be shot, brought back to life, and shot again.
The lesson for greenies is of course to find cheaper, more environmentally friendly ways to achieve the same output as fossil fuels.
Raising costs with punitive 'carbon taxes' will earn revulsion and support theories that global warming hysteria is really just a power and money grab.
Never heard of negative externalities, eh? Yeah, most non-greenies haven't. See, it's kinda tough to create price-competative, green technologies when the dirty ones are subsidized by the rest of the planet, as their prices don't reflect their true cost, in terms of environmental and health damage. As such, the only economically sound solution is a carbon tax, which forces the cost of those externalities back onto the consumers, who may then make a more economically (and, coincidentally, environmentally) sound choice.
The difference is that, even millions of years from now, odds are there'll still be traces of humanity lying around. Therefore, the idea of a creator wouldn't be so wildly crazy, since there would actually be evidence of a real, physical creator.
Good christ, how long are your paragraphs that you feel compelled to break them into pieces?? I'm sorry, but it sounds to me like you're inventing an unreasonable requirement in order to invalidate a position you disagree with. I see absolutely *no* reason why you can't live with paragraph-level granularity, if you have a need to break the content up. And that's only aided by XHTML, as long as you make sure to place your paragraphs in divs or p tags.