On 99% of devices using.NET, Winforms is the only reasonable option.
I'd rather walk on a mixture of razor blades, hot coals and nails than use WPF. Maybe my aversion to WPF is illogical, but the whole concept seems to be a mediocre solution in search of a problem.
With 4.5, Qt has really made a lot of improvements in bugfixes, consistency and it's even LGPL now.
Qt on windows works almost as good or maybe even better than on Linux, most definitely works better than Mono on Windows and Linux and from a developer standpoint beats the pants off.NET from a ease of coding standpoint.
OpenSolaris is perfectly practical for the desktop, just maybe not EVERY desktop.
This really depends on what you want to do with your computer. If it's a gaming rig, neither OpenSolaris nor Linux will be perfect for that. If you're looking for maximum software compatibility within the Unix-y realm, Linux is your answer.
If your desktop is a part time file or mail server, OpenSolaris has some features you might like. ZFS and fault management are big ones in that. DTrace also goes way beyond what is available on Linux, that I am aware of. I heard DTrace is available on Linux now, although with varying levels of success.
It's extra work to use managed and unmanaged code in the same project. Microsoft's implementation of Winforms is a wrapper for legacy WIN32 controls, leading to a lot of funky behavior when you try to subclass them.
It's generally just a pain in the ass to use compared to Qt on Windows or Linux, which gives me true interoperability and a slick interface with little work. There are some controls available in.NET that aren't there in Qt, but the reverse is true also. I find Qt's model/view architecture easier to use, although there are a few classes that are a bit contrived.
I would be more worried about WinForms compatibility. I developed a couple of.NET applications(never again!) and running them with the Mono runtime is markedly different than MS's runtime. Stability wasn't great with Mono and controls didn't always behave the same.
Although I won't developing any more.NET applications if I can avoid it, it would still be nice if Mono matured to the point where it could replace the MS runtime without noticeable difference.
The speed of Symphony shouldn't be your most serious concern - it's fairly snappy on a fast desktop, aside from the loading time.
It should be noted that Symphony is a HEAVILY modified version of OO.o. Symphony has a very clean UI and is extraordinarily easy to use. However, it does not offer all of the same features of OO.o.
Still images, check. GIF, JPG, TIF. Audio, check. AIFF, WAV, MP2, MP3. Vector graphics, mmm not much. EPS, CGM. SVG too new really to count. Video, no way. Couple really popular ones(MPEG1, MPEG2, H261/263, FLV). A gazillion not so popular or interoperable ones such as RealVideo, Sorensen Video, Indeo, Cinepak, TrueMotion, Theora, MPEG4.
I get your point though, the computing world has settled on a small set of file formats, excluding office productivity. MS should have taken a more logical, engineering approach to file formats instead of letting new UI features dictate file format.
As another commenter suggested, the most reasonable solution is to merely lock the Kindle and sent an unlock code to whatever email is currently on the account.
It's the Kindle owner's responsibility to maintain Amazon's contact information records. This really puts the responsibility on the Kindle owner without putting them in any particularly troublesome legal territory.
For Amazon right now, it's a lose/lose proposition; helping might cause liability and not helping might cause bad PR. The second is probably less expensive, considering consumerbots have very short memories.
Too true. It's easy to say what is right or wrong while behind a keyboard, but police are perfectly free to make things up as they go and they have almost unlimited recourse to harass people for innocuous and legal behavior. They have dangerous jobs and they are so cautious that they often attribute hostility to what are really freedoms, such as recording their actions in public during the course of them performing their duties.
Interesting you would view a media recording as disrupting to the lawful conduct of a police officer. Defying police is not strictly illegal, except under circumstances where immediate danger to yourself, others or the police is present or where you are under arrest. For example, if a policeman is trying to arrest someone and you are instigating hostility or violence towards the police, you can still be arrested for that even if you yourself are not threatening the policeman or committing violence yourself.
A counter example would be you answering the door and a policeman tells you to exit your residence without providing any reason. Unless he has PC to arrest you or otherwise lawfully remove you from your residence(DV, evacuation order, order of eviction, etc.), you're perfectly free to say "Not without a reason, I'm not budging."
Exactly. At best, Sony loaned money to the artist to cover studio time until the albums were produced. That is one of the ways in which the labels screw the artists.
They say "We'll help you get your music going by providing everything! All you have to do is record it."
They neglect to mention that the contracts usually state that the artist will not see a penny until all investments in the artists venture are met, such as studio recording costs, advertising, promotional materials, etc.
I would really like to see what Sony would tell the Mexican court they feel copyright infringement should be worth. I doubt it will ever get that far though.
I'm sure Sony's view on infringement damages is wildy different when they are the defendants.
Depending on the application, most robotic tracking devices need sub-millimeter accuracy.
For example, if the discrimination of the tracking was within 0.001mm for measured position and rotation, there might be application in multi-axis turning or machining centers. Tracking to within 1mm only has robotic applications in large-scale movements such as robotic welders, packaging equipment, etc.
No, it's not an AVERAGE corporation. WalMart is a $400 billion per year company with over 2 million employees, making them the largest company in the world. If you took all their employees and put them on an island and called it a country, they would be the 143rd largest country on earth.
Are you getting the picture yet?
Their size alone doesn't make them evil, but you have to take their size and resources into account when you look at the effect they have on the US economy. If over 50% of their 2 million employees have no health insurance and average an income of just $1100 per month, that puts almost their entire work force near poverty levels relying on all us other wealthier taxpayers to foot the bill for their medical expenses.
Now you might be tempted to say "well those people chose to accept that job". That is kind of a callous position considering many have little choice because WalMart put local competitors out of business through their cutthroat pricing and megachain distribution agreements.
I know you're apathetic to the situation because well hell, this is just the way capitalism works right? It doesn't need to be this way. People with the financial stability to make responsible choices such as myself need to simply make a stand and say "No more. I wont support companies that increase the burden on social service programs."
I don't shop at WalMart, ever. I won't support a company that treats its employees like that.
Nobody is saying they should have redistributed the copies illegally.
The proper course of action would have been to never have a remote kill-switch in the first place. The fact that Amazon remotely deleted everyones copies of the copyrighted work did not remove their civil liability for copyright infringement. It might have made the copyright owner more palpable but had they chosen to sue Amazon, Bezos would have found himself none the safer.
From a simple customer fairness perspective, Amazon's customers purchased the book in good faith. Amazon should have no more right, let alone capability to forcibly take the book away than a brick and mortar store has to force you to return a physical book. If you buy a physical book from Barnes & Noble and it turns out that the printer didn't have copyrights to produce it, B&N doesn't call you demanding you return the book-they resolve the issue between the copyright holder and publisher behind the scenes.
Walmart, for many years has refused to offer any type of parking lot security due to costs. Numerous employees have been raped, assaulted and robbed in their own parking lots because Walmart refuses to address the issue.
Walmart flaunts many state and local environmental laws about lawn and garden goods being stored outdoors, such as storing pallets of fertilizers outdoors in stream and river watershed areas. Fertilizers have detrimental effects on fish reproductive cycles.
Walmart exercises gender discrimination for promotions with surgical precision. They have been sued numerous times over the years for policies that make it difficult for women to come up in the ranks.
The average Walmart employee works just 28-32 hours per week, with a total monthly income of about $1100. Over 50% of Walmart's employees lack health insurance. Even those that have it pay through the nose because Walmart's contribution is so low. Monthly premiums are often as high as $200+. A disproportionate number of Walmart employees receive Medicaid benefits compared to the general population. In effect, Walmart shifts the medical care cost burden of it's employees onto taxpayers more than any other country in the US.
Walmart has settled charges in numerous states for hiring illegal immigrants. Immigrants lower the value of jobs because they often are willing to work for less than a citizen, leaving more citizens unemployed or underemployed than would be otherwise. Those unemployed or underemployed citizens are often on multiple public assistance programs, amplifying the cost to taxpayers.
Walmart directly operates slave labor factories in China, India and Indonesia through subsidiaries. The employees often live in huge scale dormitory like buildings where they eat, sleep, work and live. The conditions are often poor and the income is very low, even by their own local standards. These factories have little regard for the employees with no concept of OSHA, ergonomics, reasonable breaks, health care, anti-discrimination laws, etc.
Walmart is the single largest foreign products importer in the United States. While no exact figure is known, it's common knowledge that a high percentage of Walmart's revenue is shipped overseas. With such a high percentage of their products coming from Indonesia, India, China, Taiwan and South Korea, each dollar you spend at a Walmart is that much less effective at boosting your own local economy. Numerous local and regional businesses have gone under because Walmart sells for less and consumers are often blind to the damage Walmart does to their region.
To sum it up, Walmart is effectively the devil of all corporations.
How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
Both very large companies I have worked for in the past corrected decisions that affected the customer in hours, not months. When you do something hilariously stupid, you fix it immediately and ponder the ramifications later. That's just good business.
WalMart is the prototypical company when it comes to self-serving conglomerates that are so large and so evil that no one person could stop it. It's like a rolling freight train with so many people interested in it's financial success that nothing could stop it, short of terrorists blowing up a bunch of stores. Even that wouldn't work I think, since they have like 4,000 stores.
Every decision the company makes, even down to workplace safety is pulled from actuarial tables, risk management formulas and cost/benefit reports. The company has no ethics, no morality, no desire to benefit it's employees beyond what is required to keep them from quitting at a rate they cannot train new employees. Like the individuals in an execution each playing a small part, each individual in WalMart fills a small, largely benign role in the contraption. The cumulative actions sustain a great evil drain on the US economy, decimating local economies in small towns across the country.
For all the good the free market has done, WalMart is the yardstick for measuring where capitalism goes horribly wrong.
No, it's not significant. I've worked for a few very large companies, larger than Amazon and apathy for the customer isn't acceptable no matter how big you are.
Yes, acknowledgment of the colossal stupidity of their decision months later is nice, but that doesn't resolve the bigger problems. 1) It takes months for Amazon complaints, even serious ones to reach a decision point and have action taken. 2) Amazon retains remote kill-switch features in the Kindle and they have shown their willingness to use it.
There is little competition here for broadband. I have a choice of 2 DSL companies and cable internet. Cable is 6Mb down, 768Kb up for $55. For that much money, really I would prefer a symmetric DSL plan such as the "power user" which is 5Mb up/down for $49.
Slashdot Mirror
On 99% of devices using .NET, Winforms is the only reasonable option.
I'd rather walk on a mixture of razor blades, hot coals and nails than use WPF. Maybe my aversion to WPF is illogical, but the whole concept seems to be a mediocre solution in search of a problem.
With 4.5, Qt has really made a lot of improvements in bugfixes, consistency and it's even LGPL now.
Qt on windows works almost as good or maybe even better than on Linux, most definitely works better than Mono on Windows and Linux and from a developer standpoint beats the pants off .NET from a ease of coding standpoint.
Dunno, I've found plenty of Linux-compatible porn.
Just maybe...
you're doing it wrong.
Here's a short list of keywords or programs you'll need to know abotu. Google for anything that interests you.
Role based access control
prstat instead of top
prtconf
vmstat
iostat
svcs, svcadmn
dtrace
OpenSolaris is perfectly practical for the desktop, just maybe not EVERY desktop.
This really depends on what you want to do with your computer. If it's a gaming rig, neither OpenSolaris nor Linux will be perfect for that. If you're looking for maximum software compatibility within the Unix-y realm, Linux is your answer.
If your desktop is a part time file or mail server, OpenSolaris has some features you might like. ZFS and fault management are big ones in that. DTrace also goes way beyond what is available on Linux, that I am aware of. I heard DTrace is available on Linux now, although with varying levels of success.
It's extra work to use managed and unmanaged code in the same project. Microsoft's implementation of Winforms is a wrapper for legacy WIN32 controls, leading to a lot of funky behavior when you try to subclass them.
It's generally just a pain in the ass to use compared to Qt on Windows or Linux, which gives me true interoperability and a slick interface with little work. There are some controls available in .NET that aren't there in Qt, but the reverse is true also. I find Qt's model/view architecture easier to use, although there are a few classes that are a bit contrived.
I would be more worried about WinForms compatibility. I developed a couple of .NET applications(never again!) and running them with the Mono runtime is markedly different than MS's runtime. Stability wasn't great with Mono and controls didn't always behave the same.
Although I won't developing any more .NET applications if I can avoid it, it would still be nice if Mono matured to the point where it could replace the MS runtime without noticeable difference.
The speed of Symphony shouldn't be your most serious concern - it's fairly snappy on a fast desktop, aside from the loading time.
It should be noted that Symphony is a HEAVILY modified version of OO.o. Symphony has a very clean UI and is extraordinarily easy to use. However, it does not offer all of the same features of OO.o.
Still images, check. GIF, JPG, TIF.
Audio, check. AIFF, WAV, MP2, MP3.
Vector graphics, mmm not much. EPS, CGM. SVG too new really to count.
Video, no way. Couple really popular ones(MPEG1, MPEG2, H261/263, FLV). A gazillion not so popular or interoperable ones such as RealVideo, Sorensen Video, Indeo, Cinepak, TrueMotion, Theora, MPEG4.
I get your point though, the computing world has settled on a small set of file formats, excluding office productivity. MS should have taken a more logical, engineering approach to file formats instead of letting new UI features dictate file format.
As another commenter suggested, the most reasonable solution is to merely lock the Kindle and sent an unlock code to whatever email is currently on the account.
It's the Kindle owner's responsibility to maintain Amazon's contact information records. This really puts the responsibility on the Kindle owner without putting them in any particularly troublesome legal territory.
For Amazon right now, it's a lose/lose proposition; helping might cause liability and not helping might cause bad PR. The second is probably less expensive, considering consumerbots have very short memories.
Replacing the SIM might get a GSM phone to work but there is no technological reason carriers can't block the phone by ESN.
I know for a fact that carriers keep detailed logs of network access including both SIM identity information and ESN's.
Theoretically carriers could ban a handset using it's ESN. Whether they actually do this in practice or not, I have no idea.
Too true. It's easy to say what is right or wrong while behind a keyboard, but police are perfectly free to make things up as they go and they have almost unlimited recourse to harass people for innocuous and legal behavior. They have dangerous jobs and they are so cautious that they often attribute hostility to what are really freedoms, such as recording their actions in public during the course of them performing their duties.
Interesting you would view a media recording as disrupting to the lawful conduct of a police officer. Defying police is not strictly illegal, except under circumstances where immediate danger to yourself, others or the police is present or where you are under arrest. For example, if a policeman is trying to arrest someone and you are instigating hostility or violence towards the police, you can still be arrested for that even if you yourself are not threatening the policeman or committing violence yourself.
A counter example would be you answering the door and a policeman tells you to exit your residence without providing any reason. Unless he has PC to arrest you or otherwise lawfully remove you from your residence(DV, evacuation order, order of eviction, etc.), you're perfectly free to say "Not without a reason, I'm not budging."
Exactly. At best, Sony loaned money to the artist to cover studio time until the albums were produced. That is one of the ways in which the labels screw the artists.
They say "We'll help you get your music going by providing everything! All you have to do is record it."
They neglect to mention that the contracts usually state that the artist will not see a penny until all investments in the artists venture are met, such as studio recording costs, advertising, promotional materials, etc.
If any Cd's were to be sold in the US, they are culpable here in the US.
I would really like to see what Sony would tell the Mexican court they feel copyright infringement should be worth. I doubt it will ever get that far though.
I'm sure Sony's view on infringement damages is wildy different when they are the defendants.
Depending on the application, most robotic tracking devices need sub-millimeter accuracy.
For example, if the discrimination of the tracking was within 0.001mm for measured position and rotation, there might be application in multi-axis turning or machining centers. Tracking to within 1mm only has robotic applications in large-scale movements such as robotic welders, packaging equipment, etc.
Yeah my bad, I wrote that post at 4 AM.
No, it's not an AVERAGE corporation. WalMart is a $400 billion per year company with over 2 million employees, making them the largest company in the world. If you took all their employees and put them on an island and called it a country, they would be the 143rd largest country on earth.
Are you getting the picture yet?
Their size alone doesn't make them evil, but you have to take their size and resources into account when you look at the effect they have on the US economy. If over 50% of their 2 million employees have no health insurance and average an income of just $1100 per month, that puts almost their entire work force near poverty levels relying on all us other wealthier taxpayers to foot the bill for their medical expenses.
Now you might be tempted to say "well those people chose to accept that job". That is kind of a callous position considering many have little choice because WalMart put local competitors out of business through their cutthroat pricing and megachain distribution agreements.
I know you're apathetic to the situation because well hell, this is just the way capitalism works right? It doesn't need to be this way. People with the financial stability to make responsible choices such as myself need to simply make a stand and say "No more. I wont support companies that increase the burden on social service programs."
I don't shop at WalMart, ever. I won't support a company that treats its employees like that.
Nobody is saying they should have redistributed the copies illegally.
The proper course of action would have been to never have a remote kill-switch in the first place. The fact that Amazon remotely deleted everyones copies of the copyrighted work did not remove their civil liability for copyright infringement. It might have made the copyright owner more palpable but had they chosen to sue Amazon, Bezos would have found himself none the safer.
From a simple customer fairness perspective, Amazon's customers purchased the book in good faith. Amazon should have no more right, let alone capability to forcibly take the book away than a brick and mortar store has to force you to return a physical book. If you buy a physical book from Barnes & Noble and it turns out that the printer didn't have copyrights to produce it, B&N doesn't call you demanding you return the book-they resolve the issue between the copyright holder and publisher behind the scenes.
Amazon should be no different.
Just a few reasons, I'll try to be brief.
Walmart, for many years has refused to offer any type of parking lot security due to costs. Numerous employees have been raped, assaulted and robbed in their own parking lots because Walmart refuses to address the issue.
Walmart flaunts many state and local environmental laws about lawn and garden goods being stored outdoors, such as storing pallets of fertilizers outdoors in stream and river watershed areas. Fertilizers have detrimental effects on fish reproductive cycles.
Walmart exercises gender discrimination for promotions with surgical precision. They have been sued numerous times over the years for policies that make it difficult for women to come up in the ranks.
The average Walmart employee works just 28-32 hours per week, with a total monthly income of about $1100. Over 50% of Walmart's employees lack health insurance. Even those that have it pay through the nose because Walmart's contribution is so low. Monthly premiums are often as high as $200+. A disproportionate number of Walmart employees receive Medicaid benefits compared to the general population. In effect, Walmart shifts the medical care cost burden of it's employees onto taxpayers more than any other country in the US.
Walmart has settled charges in numerous states for hiring illegal immigrants. Immigrants lower the value of jobs because they often are willing to work for less than a citizen, leaving more citizens unemployed or underemployed than would be otherwise. Those unemployed or underemployed citizens are often on multiple public assistance programs, amplifying the cost to taxpayers.
Walmart directly operates slave labor factories in China, India and Indonesia through subsidiaries. The employees often live in huge scale dormitory like buildings where they eat, sleep, work and live. The conditions are often poor and the income is very low, even by their own local standards. These factories have little regard for the employees with no concept of OSHA, ergonomics, reasonable breaks, health care, anti-discrimination laws, etc.
Walmart is the single largest foreign products importer in the United States. While no exact figure is known, it's common knowledge that a high percentage of Walmart's revenue is shipped overseas. With such a high percentage of their products coming from Indonesia, India, China, Taiwan and South Korea, each dollar you spend at a Walmart is that much less effective at boosting your own local economy. Numerous local and regional businesses have gone under because Walmart sells for less and consumers are often blind to the damage Walmart does to their region.
To sum it up, Walmart is effectively the devil of all corporations.
How else would you explain the 2 month time period that elapsed before a decision was made?
Both very large companies I have worked for in the past corrected decisions that affected the customer in hours, not months. When you do something hilariously stupid, you fix it immediately and ponder the ramifications later. That's just good business.
WalMart is the prototypical company when it comes to self-serving conglomerates that are so large and so evil that no one person could stop it. It's like a rolling freight train with so many people interested in it's financial success that nothing could stop it, short of terrorists blowing up a bunch of stores. Even that wouldn't work I think, since they have like 4,000 stores.
Every decision the company makes, even down to workplace safety is pulled from actuarial tables, risk management formulas and cost/benefit reports. The company has no ethics, no morality, no desire to benefit it's employees beyond what is required to keep them from quitting at a rate they cannot train new employees. Like the individuals in an execution each playing a small part, each individual in WalMart fills a small, largely benign role in the contraption. The cumulative actions sustain a great evil drain on the US economy, decimating local economies in small towns across the country.
For all the good the free market has done, WalMart is the yardstick for measuring where capitalism goes horribly wrong.
No, it's not significant. I've worked for a few very large companies, larger than Amazon and apathy for the customer isn't acceptable no matter how big you are.
Yes, acknowledgment of the colossal stupidity of their decision months later is nice, but that doesn't resolve the bigger problems.
1) It takes months for Amazon complaints, even serious ones to reach a decision point and have action taken.
2) Amazon retains remote kill-switch features in the Kindle and they have shown their willingness to use it.
There is little competition here for broadband. I have a choice of 2 DSL companies and cable internet. Cable is 6Mb down, 768Kb up for $55. For that much money, really I would prefer a symmetric DSL plan such as the "power user" which is 5Mb up/down for $49.