Sure it would. Ok, no, it wouldn't stop a single devoted and evil geek, but it anything that puts the bar up above metaphorical *knee-level* would be sufficent to solve the problem -- if one had to continually jump through the hoops you mention to keep it working, there's no way they could be sold to the public in enough quantity to make it worthwhile.
Sure, an overall better solution would be, well, better -- but anything that makes the device a pain for mass-market use would make the main problem go away.
X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.
And if you are, you're probably getting something of slightly better quality than that you can get from the X10 company itself -- there's several manufacturers making better-quality modules. I use Smarthome's *linc products very happily, although I've heard others complain about their reliablility. I also use a lot of Leviton stuff, which is very solid.
The Super 88 asian grocery near my house in Boston has signs at their food court about paying for your purchase by cell phone. Haven't tried it and dunno how it works, but looks like this idea has made it over here as well.
Perhaps some more details on exactly how it will become "more stable, faster, and more secure", and perhaps a rough idea about when it will be available. Some predictability of the timetable would be nice too, even +/-2 years (not "it will be ready when it's ready...now stop asking")
Microsoft doesn't know this either. The difference is, that doesn't stop them from telling you that they do. Their timeline is considerably *less* predicable than that of Linux, when it comes down to reality.
You can't copyright names. Getting copyright and trademark confused just, well, confuses the issue.
If I have a site critizing, say, Verizon, I ought to be able to advertise that site using the name in a descriptive way. That's legal under normal fair use, and adding "on the internet" shouldn't change that.
I brought the various graphs up in different windows for side-by-side comparison, and at first missed something interesting -- the scale on the graphs is different. For example, the "Linux Concerns" graph goes from 0-40%, while the "Windows Worries" one goes all the way up to 80%.
A quick visual comparison makes it seem that people are as worried about "Lack of a complete and fully integrated software environment" and "Accountability if problems arise" on Linux as they are about the top MS Windows issues, "Software quality or vulnerabilities" and "Cost of ownership is too high". Not so -- in fact, the top concerns with Linux are down near the middle of the MS Windows scale.
lwell, except for the 4-year-old bug in mozilla (#9203, if you're counting -- direct links from/. not allowed, but: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9203) which makes it save incorrect URLs anyway...
I would much rather lose the backtick and tilde keys as they serve less purpose than the SysRq key and MUCH less purpose than the Insert key.
Wow. You clearly don't use Unix or Perl. Backtick is incredibly useful in the shell, as it saves you from typing $(( )) a lot. And a similar function in perl. Meanwhile, in Unix, ~ is a shortcut for your home directory, and ~foo, ~bar, etc. are shortcuts for the home dirs of foo and bar and so on. They're incredibly useful.
The menus in GIMP tear off and will remain exactly where you place them, if that is what you like.
Sort of -- once you've done that, the actions of that torn-off menu related to whichever window you've done something in last -- it doesn't keep track of which was actually last active. Unless this is changed in 1.3 -- I haven't looked. Maybe I'll go do that now.:) Also, the torn-off menu remains an inconvenient vertical column -- still harder to target.
I won't argue for Photoshop's inteface being perfect, but at least the menu choices are in the same physical place every time, not buried under four layers of variable-position right-click menus. This makes GIMP incredibly tedious to use.
Also, is it possible yet to make the cursors be actually the same size as the brush? I can't really work any other way.
I'm not usually one for complaining about the stories, but yeesh: I've been here for about as long as anyone, and this is the lamest one I can remember. Which is quite a feat.
Hell, if slashdot didn't have 4 SCO stories a day, average shmucks like me wouldn't know or care! Quit elevating them to a position of importance!
Average schmucks don't read slashdot. And I'm not saying this to praise the l33tness of/. -- obviously it's Not Very. But the segment of geeks that visit here is relatively narrow. Meanwhile, SCO has a pretty much free reign in the mainstream press, where their statements go largely unchallanged and their press releases go to print as news. It doesn't hurt to have a few channels for the real story. I'm not likely to go digging up SCO stories, but I like that I can follow along by checking in here.
Anyone want to add color syntax highlighting to Joe? The author made a comment on a newsgroup or list about doing exactly that -- something like 8 years ago. I really like this editor, but the lack of color is finally driving me away. I've got a list of half-done projects three pages long, so I'm not going to add this to that, but if anyone implements this in Joe, I'll buy you a beer. Or non-alcoholic beverage of your choice.
They seem pretty okay. The ballot is a straightforward fill-in-the-circles thing, and they give you nice wide-tipped felt pens, so it's trivial to fill in the circles properly. Then, you feed it into a big square box that looks like a combination between a safe and a paper shredder. The feed mechanism is surprisingly fast -- like a high-end copy machine. The workers there didn't seem to know much about things like "encryption", but from what I gather, the machine saves its data to a floppy disk, which is taken downtown at the end of the day. It's probably pretty easy to alter the data on that disk -- but then, that's no easier than submitting false data from the precinct would have been earlier....
This is why optical scanners are good -- the machine does the counting, but the paper you fill out is saved too.
I'm going in 5 minutes to vote in the Boston preliminary City Council election -- the first time they've got these new machines in place. I'll come back and reply to this post with my impressions.
Your rant is nice and all, but it's largely irrelevant. This new project exists _exactly_ to cover these concerns -- well #3 and #1, at least. #2 is a matter of style.
Actually, the NASDAQ is up 42% year-to-date, and up 53% since this day last year. (The DJIA 16%/18%.) This alone explains the increase -- the only reason it isn't more is that it's tempered by those more conservative "safe" investments.
It's a sad world we live in. We don't value education. We value money.
That may be true, but it's not illustrated here.
Computer science degrees are great, but they're largely theoretical. Most computer-related jobs are highly practical. Therefore, education doesn't correlate with knowledge and skills. In fact, an argument can be made for an *inverse* correlation -- many people with a CS degree are in the field chasing the dream of high-paying jobs (looks easier than law or medicine!), whereas highly-skilled and experienced non-degree techies are in it for pure love.
I don't mean to disparage those with CS degrees -- that theoretical background *can* be very useful, and obviously there are those who have both the degree and the real-world geek cred. It's just that there's a good reason "level of education attained" shouldn't be a primary factor in computer jobs.
The "cakewalk" comment came from former U.N. ambassador (and former assistent to Donald Rumsfeld) Ken Adelman in a Washington Post editorial on Feb. 13, 2002. Specifically, he said "I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."
But there's other good stuff from actually inside the current government -- for example Cheney making the "guess" on Meet the Press (Mar. 16 '03) that the Iraqi Republican guard "are likely to step aside", or Rumsfeld on CNN (Mar 23, '03): "The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over."
And then you've got the "shock and awe" claims. For example, Gen. Richard Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Mar 4, '03): ""What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable." -- an obvious and naive (or would-be naive, were it honest) misreading of the situation.
The Bush administration and its backers clearly presented this to the American people as a quick, surgical act -- a simple and concrete step in the generally nebulous War on Terrorism. This was either foolish or a lie. Wrangling over those claims is as preposterous as Clinton wrangling over the semantics of his claims about Lewinsky.
And that's not even getting started with the claims about knowning exactly where WMD were hidden.
But, let the human race dream before summarily dismissing the entire concept. I for one dont believe that all I have to look forward to as i grow older is a greater dependence on big oil, old money, and the like.
Well, be comforted, then. If our oil consumption continues to grow, we'll handily run out in your lifetime.
Slashdot Mirror
Still won't work...
Sure it would. Ok, no, it wouldn't stop a single devoted and evil geek, but it anything that puts the bar up above metaphorical *knee-level* would be sufficent to solve the problem -- if one had to continually jump through the hoops you mention to keep it working, there's no way they could be sold to the public in enough quantity to make it worthwhile.
Sure, an overall better solution would be, well, better -- but anything that makes the device a pain for mass-market use would make the main problem go away.
Oh, yeah, "Strange Ranger". *That's* really putting the personal information on the line.
X10 had a niche product - home automation products. Not everyone is willing to replace plugs and switches in their home with x10 enabled smart ones.
And if you are, you're probably getting something of slightly better quality than that you can get from the X10 company itself -- there's several manufacturers making better-quality modules. I use Smarthome's *linc products very happily, although I've heard others complain about their reliablility. I also use a lot of Leviton stuff, which is very solid.
Oh, and Obligatory X10-related Plug: check out my X10-enabled Lego Office.
The Super 88 asian grocery near my house in Boston has signs at their food court about paying for your purchase by cell phone. Haven't tried it and dunno how it works, but looks like this idea has made it over here as well.
Perhaps some more details on exactly how it will become "more stable, faster, and more secure", and perhaps a rough idea about when it will be available. Some predictability of the timetable would be nice too, even +/-2 years (not "it will be ready when it's ready...now stop asking")
Microsoft doesn't know this either. The difference is, that doesn't stop them from telling you that they do. Their timeline is considerably *less* predicable than that of Linux, when it comes down to reality.
You can't copyright names. Getting copyright and trademark confused just, well, confuses the issue.
If I have a site critizing, say, Verizon, I ought to be able to advertise that site using the name in a descriptive way. That's legal under normal fair use, and adding "on the internet" shouldn't change that.
I brought the various graphs up in different windows for side-by-side comparison, and at first missed something interesting -- the scale on the graphs is different. For example, the "Linux Concerns" graph goes from 0-40%, while the "Windows Worries" one goes all the way up to 80%.
A quick visual comparison makes it seem that people are as worried about "Lack of a complete and fully integrated software environment" and "Accountability if problems arise" on Linux as they are about the top MS Windows issues, "Software quality or vulnerabilities" and "Cost of ownership is too high". Not so -- in fact, the top concerns with Linux are down near the middle of the MS Windows scale.
lwell, except for the 4-year-old bug in mozilla (#9203, if you're counting -- direct links from /. not allowed, but: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9203) which makes it save incorrect URLs anyway...
I would much rather lose the backtick and tilde keys as they serve less purpose than the SysRq key and MUCH less purpose than the Insert key.
Wow. You clearly don't use Unix or Perl. Backtick is incredibly useful in the shell, as it saves you from typing $(( )) a lot. And a similar function in perl. Meanwhile, in Unix, ~ is a shortcut for your home directory, and ~foo, ~bar, etc. are shortcuts for the home dirs of foo and bar and so on. They're incredibly useful.
Cool. Looking very nice in other ways too. Thus reinforcing the "look before posting" rule. :)
The menus in GIMP tear off and will remain exactly where you place them, if that is what you like.
:) Also, the torn-off menu remains an inconvenient vertical column -- still harder to target.
Sort of -- once you've done that, the actions of that torn-off menu related to whichever window you've done something in last -- it doesn't keep track of which was actually last active. Unless this is changed in 1.3 -- I haven't looked. Maybe I'll go do that now.
I won't argue for Photoshop's inteface being perfect, but at least the menu choices are in the same physical place every time, not buried under four layers of variable-position right-click menus. This makes GIMP incredibly tedious to use.
Also, is it possible yet to make the cursors be actually the same size as the brush? I can't really work any other way.
2003 - 1986 = ???
I'm not usually one for complaining about the stories, but yeesh: I've been here for about as long as anyone, and this is the lamest one I can remember. Which is quite a feat.
Hell, if slashdot didn't have 4 SCO stories a day, average shmucks like me wouldn't know or care! Quit elevating them to a position of importance!
/. -- obviously it's Not Very. But the segment of geeks that visit here is relatively narrow. Meanwhile, SCO has a pretty much free reign in the mainstream press, where their statements go largely unchallanged and their press releases go to print as news. It doesn't hurt to have a few channels for the real story. I'm not likely to go digging up SCO stories, but I like that I can follow along by checking in here.
Average schmucks don't read slashdot. And I'm not saying this to praise the l33tness of
Anyone want to add color syntax highlighting to Joe? The author made a comment on a newsgroup or list about doing exactly that -- something like 8 years ago. I really like this editor, but the lack of color is finally driving me away. I've got a list of half-done projects three pages long, so I'm not going to add this to that, but if anyone implements this in Joe, I'll buy you a beer. Or non-alcoholic beverage of your choice.
They seem pretty okay. The ballot is a straightforward fill-in-the-circles thing, and they give you nice wide-tipped felt pens, so it's trivial to fill in the circles properly. Then, you feed it into a big square box that looks like a combination between a safe and a paper shredder. The feed mechanism is surprisingly fast -- like a high-end copy machine. The workers there didn't seem to know much about things like "encryption", but from what I gather, the machine saves its data to a floppy disk, which is taken downtown at the end of the day. It's probably pretty easy to alter the data on that disk -- but then, that's no easier than submitting false data from the precinct would have been earlier....
This is why optical scanners are good -- the machine does the counting, but the paper you fill out is saved too.
I'm going in 5 minutes to vote in the Boston preliminary City Council election -- the first time they've got these new machines in place. I'll come back and reply to this post with my impressions.
Your rant is nice and all, but it's largely irrelevant. This new project exists _exactly_ to cover these concerns -- well #3 and #1, at least. #2 is a matter of style.
32 MB of memory could only add a couple of dollars at most to the cost of a card, it's just not that big a deal.
It's a big win on laptops though, where space is at a premium.
Actually, the NASDAQ is up 42% year-to-date, and up 53% since this day last year. (The DJIA 16%/18%.) This alone explains the increase -- the only reason it isn't more is that it's tempered by those more conservative "safe" investments.
Yeah, and if it includes the virus, your own virus scanner can catch it and delete it with ease.
It's a sad world we live in. We don't value education. We value money.
That may be true, but it's not illustrated here.
Computer science degrees are great, but they're largely theoretical. Most computer-related jobs are highly practical. Therefore, education doesn't correlate with knowledge and skills. In fact, an argument can be made for an *inverse* correlation -- many people with a CS degree are in the field chasing the dream of high-paying jobs (looks easier than law or medicine!), whereas highly-skilled and experienced non-degree techies are in it for pure love.
I don't mean to disparage those with CS degrees -- that theoretical background *can* be very useful, and obviously there are those who have both the degree and the real-world geek cred. It's just that there's a good reason "level of education attained" shouldn't be a primary factor in computer jobs.
The "cakewalk" comment came from former U.N. ambassador (and former assistent to Donald Rumsfeld) Ken Adelman in a Washington Post editorial on Feb. 13, 2002. Specifically, he said
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."
But there's other good stuff from actually inside the current government -- for example Cheney making the "guess" on Meet the Press (Mar. 16 '03) that the Iraqi Republican guard "are likely to step aside", or Rumsfeld on CNN (Mar 23, '03): "The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over."
And then you've got the "shock and awe" claims. For example, Gen. Richard Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Mar 4, '03): ""What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable." -- an obvious and naive (or would-be naive, were it honest) misreading of the situation.
The Bush administration and its backers clearly presented this to the American people as a quick, surgical act -- a simple and concrete step in the generally nebulous War on Terrorism. This was either foolish or a lie. Wrangling over those claims is as preposterous as Clinton wrangling over the semantics of his claims about Lewinsky.
And that's not even getting started with the claims about knowning exactly where WMD were hidden.
But, let the human race dream before summarily dismissing the entire concept. I for one dont believe that all I have to look forward to as i grow older is a greater dependence on big oil, old money, and the like.
Well, be comforted, then. If our oil consumption continues to grow, we'll handily run out in your lifetime.