Sorry for the delay in responding, I have a newborn.
The line in the preamble that *I* used is: \usepackage[colorlinks=true,linkcolor=blue,citecol or=blue,pdfview=Fit]{hyperref}
It colors any hyperlink in the pdf, all of them are blue (that's what my editorial office insisted on) and it sets the default view of the pdf to "Fit to Page", which makes sure that the linked object shows on the page - my editor and I had serious discussions about links NOT going to the target, and it turned out that she had her pdf viewer set differently than mine.
*I* would expect people to use LyX. All the power of LaTeX, lots of easier to use.
It's not wysiwyg, it's wysiwym (what you see is what you mean). You type, with no latex code (unless you want to), doing all the latex stuff with pulldowns and key combinations - kinda like any other WP. You insert citations, references, etc. with dialogs. Your content simply gets typed and viewed in a format chosen for readability. When you want to see what it REALLY looks like, you preview in DVI or pdf with a simple keystroke.
The point is, this separates the content from the formatting. Especially in an office with standardized formats and relatively untrained typists/secretaries, this is great. One person can design the templates for LyX, and the typists simply type in and go. They actually don't need to know LaTeX at all, as LyX pretty much takes care of all of that. It's also got the best math equation editor I've ever used, bar none.
I've used LyX to write my master's thesis and several journal papers, and I don't know SHIT for LaTeX. I've got a reference that I can use if I need to... but I usually don't. It looks the way it's supposed to, it's easy to use, and the citations and cross-referencing mechanisms are superlative, both in terms of the underlying LaTeX functionality and in terms of LyX's user interface to those functions.
Basically, it's what I think a word processor oughta be. I think I would have torn out what little hair I have left if I'd tried to do that thesis in Word - it certainly wouldn't have been done as quickly. Did I mention that you can get LyX to spit out pdfs with the TOC, Lists of Figures, Index, etc. already hotlinked to their targets? Took me 10 minutes to figure out the line in the preamble to make that happen, which is a LOT quicker than having to try to manually create all those links. Yes, that's LaTeX functionality, not LyX - but LyX lets you have the best of both worlds.
I don't think anyone expects you to write all that LaTeX code and keep rendering to see if what you've typed works. Good news is, you don't need to.
Yeah, that too. Even worse when it's both. Makes Mickey D's an attractive career choice, sometimes. If you could figure out a way to write a grant for Homeland nano-Security, you could name your amount.
No shit head. I'm saying that the local government didn't do anything to prevent this...
Now, I know you read the excerpt I provided AND followed the link, but I'll just go ahead and list the important points again so that you can see exactly where you've gotten your facts incorrect:
1. The local and state governments HAVE been doing things to prevent this, but had the funding taken away. This isn't political corruption at a local level (amazingly enough, although it is New Orleans and you could be forgiven for thinking so). New Orleans has had pumps going there for about 40 years now, and those pumps could have handled this storm IF the levees hadn't failed - which they probably wouldn't have, if the planned construction had been completed.
I'll say it again: the local authorities WERE doing what they could to prevent this. Your assertion that they weren't is simply incorrect. You Are Wrong.
2. Whether the Feds should have to or not, the fact is they HAD funded the operations to prevent this and then REMOVED the funding after the locals based their planning on having that funding. Frankly, there's an awful lot of things the Federal Government shouldn't be doing that ought to be the states' prerogative, but sending relief, saving lives, and protecting 25% of the nation's refining capabilities seems pretty reasonable to me. I'd rather see my tax dollars pump out New Orleans than fight a war in Iraq, but that's not what happened.
3. Shouldn't have been living there? By that same logic, NO ONE should live in New York City because we all know that it's vulnerable to terrorists - they've attacked the WTC TWICE and the local government has done NOTHING to prevent it. And no one should live in California, it's all earthquakes and wildfires. Won't someone do something to prevent earthquake damage? Think of the children! You can name off some good reason not to live almost anywhere in the USA.
Those people tried to make their town safer, but the fact is you just can't abandon a major city like New Orleans. Doesn't happen. Just try passing a law requiring everyone in New York to leave. See how well that works.
Look, I've been through a major hurricane. I've stood in line for 6 hours to buy a single bag of ice for $15 (in 1979 dollars!) afterward. I've gone weeks without power or drinkable water, in the middle of a metropolitan area. I've seen National Guardsmen sitting in machine gun nests in the doors of liquor stores. I know what those people are going through. And I was lucky - I had a house to go home to. You sit there in your mom's air-conditioned basement, reading Slashdot and solving the problems of the world with simple pronunciations of who should be allowed to live where... and you don't know a goddamned thing.
I'm fairly certain that if one of us is a shithead, it's not me.
The politicians of New Orleans are the only ones to blame here. Their complete lack of planning and preparation has produced thousands of deaths.
What, you think you're the only person on the planet who thought N.O. was vulnerable? You've been trumpeting this danger to the mountaintops, and yet no one would listen?
"New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
"Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. "
The story on the front page of Slashdot said current, not power. Still says current. Still wrong.
The article might well be right. But what's on the front page of Slashdot isn't.
Re:mod down, the guy doesn't know jack
on
19 million Amps
·
· Score: 1
Let me explain a few things to you, sir.
First, I'm an electrical engineer. Two degrees, working on the third.
Second, my research area is lightning. I deal in high currents and high voltages ***and extraordinarily high powers*** every day. I can safely be said to know "jack" and then some.
Third, the article blurb posted on Slashdot's front page said, "they generated a current equal to about four times all the electrical current on Earth." That's an exact cut-n-paste quote. I re-read it several times because it was so obviously wrong, and I was stunned that something so stupid could make it to the front page. The **article** might have said power and not current, but the Slashdot editors have nothing to do with the article. They passed the story post, which was mind-blowingly wrong and stupid. As of this writing, it still says exactly that.
Fourth, I suggest you take your 800K+ ID self back down into mommy's basement and be quiet while your betters are talking. There might be people who post here who understand more about high V, I, or P than me - but you aren't one of them.
For the record, there's no bullshit at all in my conclusion. If anything, my numbers are LOW conservative estimates. I can't blame you if you don't understand electricity, but I don't think you have to run your mouth about it.
Seriously, people. Is there anyone on the/. editorial staff who can do basic math?
There are easily 19 million electrical service drops in the U.S. alone, counting homes and businesses and such, and I'll bet each and every single one of them uses more than one ampere ALL THE TIME.
So, I take it then that you masterbate [sic] in front of your mother? Your grandmother? How do you know that they'd mind unless you've tried it?
I'm sorry, but your statement is indefensible. YOU might be that one person in several million (yes, I'm making up statistics) who doesn't need or care about privacy, but your assertion that none of us need it is puerile.
Slashdot may know who you are, but none of the rest of us do. If you don't need privacy, then why post anonymously? Why not just say what you feel with your name attached? You aren't a hypocrite, are you?
While we're at it, what's with this voting privacy stuff? Shouldn't we all be required to announce our Presidential vote when we leave the voting booth? Let's hire Michael Buffer to announce our party as we walk in, with great fanfares and a fruity, "Let's get ready to Vote!" I think people should be required to wear a colored button indicating their vote in the most recent presidential election, just so they can get over this silly "privacy" fetish - and so those of us in positions of power can discriminate against them if they voted differently from us. It's already happening, you know.
(For the slower of you with mod points - that last paragraph was sarcasm, mostly)
I don't understand your meaning. Your points seem to be:
1) I like my PowerBook because it runs OSX.
2) I like the PowerBook form factor.
3) I want more power in my PowerBook.
4) The cool thing about Apple was that they weren't mainstream.
5) OSX on Intel isn't any better than Linux on Intel.
6) I don't care if the PowerBook runs x86 or PPC.
So, what's the problem with an Intel-based PowerBook? Why, if you don't think OSX is a more useful OS than Linux (see point 5), don't you just run Linux on your PowerBook? Why would you NOT buy a PowerBook which was engineered as well as the current ones, was faster, had better battery life, and maybe even was cheaper - but had an Intel chip in it?
The impression that I get from your comment is that you like using a PowerBook because it's different, and less common - not because it works better for you. I don't understand this.
Allow me to rebut and point out some relevant facts, please:
1) Yes. Partially due to the fact that the USA is very large and sparsely settled in places. We have multiple carriers. We saw fit some years ago to dismantle our telephone monopoly. Perhaps that was wrong, I can't say.
2.) Yes. Choice is bad?
3) [shrug] Prepay is expensive? OK. I wouldn't know. Sounds like it's not a good choice. Bummer.
4) No, it's 50 minutes of calls per month. There's no restriction on calls being 1 minute or less. I think I know what you meant, but what you said isn't true. Yes, minutes are rounded up. Is an average of a half-minute per call really going to break you?
5) I don't pay anything to talk within my family. My last two plans have included unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes within my network, not just my family. I can talk to anyone who also uses my provider, all I want, no minutes counted. While it's true that half of zero is still zero, it's not really relevant.
6) I don't pay to receive text messages because I don't receive text messages. Perhaps I would find them more useful if I didn't have to pay for them... but I don't use them at all.
7) last I heard, we can text between networks. Again, I don't care - but I'm pretty sure you're mistaken about this as well.
8) In some cases, yes. Not in all cases. If you get your phone unlocked, you can juggle the SIM cards, if your carrier uses SIM cards, and your phone speaks the network protocol of the carrier you want to use... I got the phone I wanted. You might pay more... but what you'd be paying is the actual cost of the phone, not the subsidized and discounted cost, the balance of which the mobile carrier recovers over the life of your contract.
9)...press a few buttons, set up your contract, initiate a billing relationship... yep. They charge for that. However, the people who set up my last contract weren't idiots; in fact, they were very helpful and knowledgeable.
10) This is purely a consequence of large area and population. It's not symptomatic of mobile service in the US, it's symptomatic of telephone service in the US and it's pretty close to unavoidable. It's certainly not conveniently avoidable. There IS a reason that we have area codes, and it's not to make BT look good. Besides, I haven't had a mobile plan which charged for long distance in what? Five years? More? It's not an issue. If I wait until after 7 PM, I get long distance from my land line at $0.016/minute - no, that's not a typo, not 16 cents per minute - 1.6 cents per minute. Who cares?
No, because Lunix isn't as advanced as Windows and doesn't really use all the hardware you paid for. Windows actually knows how all of that stuff works, and it uses everything, and that's why it crashes more on your computer because it's one of those special things that Windows knows about and Lunix doesn't that's actually broken on your computer. So, like, you need to get a new computer and stuff. Plus that's why the Windows is slower, see, 'cause it's using all that extra stuff and that takes more time to make sure that it's using everything your computer can do so that it's doing stuff the best... see?
Oh, and cause your computer is so f-ed up and stuff, you need to go ahead and get a new, fast computer that can run Longhorn, cause that's gonna be really awesome, and then you can just throw that old computer away. You don't want to keep trying to run Lunix on it, because it's not going to use all the stuff and your Lunix won't work as good as the Windows.
-- note to mods: yes, the above was intended as sarcasm. I used to work as a PC salesman, back when there were computer stores that just sold computers. I'd hear the other guys tell customers crap like that (except for the Longhorn part) all the time. And yet, they had better sales numbers than I. Go figure.
Born: 7/6/1946 Birthplace: New Haven, Conn. George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Conn., the first child of future president George H. W. Bush. In 1948, the family moved to Odessa, Tex., where the senior Bush went to work in the oil business. George W. grew up mainly in Midland, Tex., and Houston, and later attended two of his father's alma maters, Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale."
Yes, he was born in New Haven. So what? He moved to Texas when he was two years old, and grew up in Midland and Houston. IMHO his first two years aren't as important as the 58 which have followed them. If you'd prefer to say that he's 3.3% Connectican and 96.7% Texan, that's fine with me.
I didn't realize that Kerry had grown up in Texas. You got documentation for that?
I'm not confused by any such thing. I live in the South. I'm well aware than when capitalized like that, it refers to a cultural grouping which happens to have a strong correlation to a geographical region (which is, yes, primarily south and east - I can read a map just fine, thx).
Similarly, the "West" is a cultural grouping to which Texas belongs much more strongly than it does to the "South". This is distinct from the "West Coast", an entirely different grouping. I stand by my statement, complete with capitalizations, that Texas is more "West" than "South". There are similarities, yes. But by lumping them together as one you show your own confusion, sir.
Interestingly, Florida, which is as south and east as one gets in the US (nevermind the fact that Virginia is more east than Florida), is in many ways NOT a part of the South, as the influx of various flavors of retired Northerners has skewed both the attitudes and demographics - which can be seen in the closeness of the recent Presidential elections in that state.
By either definition, however, Kansas is neither in the south nor the South. You'll notice that this is very similar phrasing to the first time I made this point, suggesting that I was already aware of the difference prior to your oh-so-helpful comment about my confusion. In both places, Kansas and the South, the cultural trends to which you are objecting are based more on conservative Christians being numerous and being highly assertive en masse about their common superstitions than about the entire populace being ignorant and inherently stupid. Southerner != conservative Christian. New Orleans, e.g., is very Southern, but not very conservative Christian (which is a bit of an understatement). The two groupings have large segments of commonality, but are not congruent.
It's a common misconception perpetuated by ignorant people all over the country, Southerners and not. That's the real point of my message here: Southerner != stupid. You can't accurately characterize a population that large that simply, because there's too much variation. You could just as easily characterize all Americans as skateboarders, or all African-Americans as criminals, or all Germans as Jew-haters, or all Northerners as assholes, or all Texans as cowboys. The people who keep electing Bush, putting the Ten Commandments in the lobbies of gov't buildings, trying to insert Creationism into science curriculae, etc. etc. - those people are conservative Christians, not Southerners. The fact that many Southerners are also conservative Christians - disproportionately many, frankly - doesn't mean that Southerners are the people ruining this country. There are conservative Christians up North and on the West Coast, too.
All I'm saying is cast the blame where it belongs.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry for the delay in responding, I have a newborn.
l or=blue,pdfview=Fit]{hyperref}
The line in the preamble that *I* used is: \usepackage[colorlinks=true,linkcolor=blue,citeco
It colors any hyperlink in the pdf, all of them are blue (that's what my editorial office insisted on) and it sets the default view of the pdf to "Fit to Page", which makes sure that the linked object shows on the page - my editor and I had serious discussions about links NOT going to the target, and it turned out that she had her pdf viewer set differently than mine.
Hope this helps.
*I* would expect people to use LyX. All the power of LaTeX, lots of easier to use.
It's not wysiwyg, it's wysiwym (what you see is what you mean). You type, with no latex code (unless you want to), doing all the latex stuff with pulldowns and key combinations - kinda like any other WP. You insert citations, references, etc. with dialogs. Your content simply gets typed and viewed in a format chosen for readability. When you want to see what it REALLY looks like, you preview in DVI or pdf with a simple keystroke.
The point is, this separates the content from the formatting. Especially in an office with standardized formats and relatively untrained typists/secretaries, this is great. One person can design the templates for LyX, and the typists simply type in and go. They actually don't need to know LaTeX at all, as LyX pretty much takes care of all of that. It's also got the best math equation editor I've ever used, bar none.
I've used LyX to write my master's thesis and several journal papers, and I don't know SHIT for LaTeX. I've got a reference that I can use if I need to... but I usually don't. It looks the way it's supposed to, it's easy to use, and the citations and cross-referencing mechanisms are superlative, both in terms of the underlying LaTeX functionality and in terms of LyX's user interface to those functions.
Basically, it's what I think a word processor oughta be. I think I would have torn out what little hair I have left if I'd tried to do that thesis in Word - it certainly wouldn't have been done as quickly. Did I mention that you can get LyX to spit out pdfs with the TOC, Lists of Figures, Index, etc. already hotlinked to their targets? Took me 10 minutes to figure out the line in the preamble to make that happen, which is a LOT quicker than having to try to manually create all those links. Yes, that's LaTeX functionality, not LyX - but LyX lets you have the best of both worlds.
I don't think anyone expects you to write all that LaTeX code and keep rendering to see if what you've typed works. Good news is, you don't need to.
Yeah, that too. Even worse when it's both. Makes Mickey D's an attractive career choice, sometimes. If you could figure out a way to write a grant for Homeland nano-Security, you could name your amount.
That worked great when all scientists were rich aristocrats. Now, any peasant can be a scientist and compete for funding...
It's even worse when the allocation of funding is based not on scientific merit but on alignment with some political party or movement. [grumble]
I didn't know Jonathan Ive had changed his surname's spelling!
Oh, hell, I thought Burl Ives had changed his FIRST name.
Never mind.
Woohoo! First Major League reference I've seen on Slashdot! You, sir, get a prize!
He would have posted his reply twice, with slightly different phrasing, if he was really up to that task.
Slashdot needs editors that take that initiative!
No shit head. I'm saying that the local government didn't do anything to prevent this...
Now, I know you read the excerpt I provided AND followed the link, but I'll just go ahead and list the important points again so that you can see exactly where you've gotten your facts incorrect:
1. The local and state governments HAVE been doing things to prevent this, but had the funding taken away. This isn't political corruption at a local level (amazingly enough, although it is New Orleans and you could be forgiven for thinking so). New Orleans has had pumps going there for about 40 years now, and those pumps could have handled this storm IF the levees hadn't failed - which they probably wouldn't have, if the planned construction had been completed.
I'll say it again: the local authorities WERE doing what they could to prevent this. Your assertion that they weren't is simply incorrect. You Are Wrong.
2. Whether the Feds should have to or not, the fact is they HAD funded the operations to prevent this and then REMOVED the funding after the locals based their planning on having that funding. Frankly, there's an awful lot of things the Federal Government shouldn't be doing that ought to be the states' prerogative, but sending relief, saving lives, and protecting 25% of the nation's refining capabilities seems pretty reasonable to me. I'd rather see my tax dollars pump out New Orleans than fight a war in Iraq, but that's not what happened.
3. Shouldn't have been living there? By that same logic, NO ONE should live in New York City because we all know that it's vulnerable to terrorists - they've attacked the WTC TWICE and the local government has done NOTHING to prevent it. And no one should live in California, it's all earthquakes and wildfires. Won't someone do something to prevent earthquake damage? Think of the children! You can name off some good reason not to live almost anywhere in the USA.
Those people tried to make their town safer, but the fact is you just can't abandon a major city like New Orleans. Doesn't happen. Just try passing a law requiring everyone in New York to leave. See how well that works.
Look, I've been through a major hurricane. I've stood in line for 6 hours to buy a single bag of ice for $15 (in 1979 dollars!) afterward. I've gone weeks without power or drinkable water, in the middle of a metropolitan area. I've seen National Guardsmen sitting in machine gun nests in the doors of liquor stores. I know what those people are going through. And I was lucky - I had a house to go home to. You sit there in your mom's air-conditioned basement, reading Slashdot and solving the problems of the world with simple pronunciations of who should be allowed to live where... and you don't know a goddamned thing.
I'm fairly certain that if one of us is a shithead, it's not me.
The politicians of New Orleans are the only ones to blame here. Their complete lack of planning and preparation has produced thousands of deaths.
What, you think you're the only person on the planet who thought N.O. was vulnerable? You've been trumpeting this danger to the mountaintops, and yet no one would listen?
"New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
"Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. "
Source:editorandpublisher.com
Planning and preparation are useless if someone takes away your ability to execute those plans. You ever been through a major hurricane?
"... despite your tarting off like a rummy little bastard."
As you sow, so shall you reap.
The story on the front page of Slashdot said current, not power. Still says current. Still wrong.
The article might well be right. But what's on the front page of Slashdot isn't.
Let me explain a few things to you, sir.
First, I'm an electrical engineer. Two degrees, working on the third.
Second, my research area is lightning. I deal in high currents and high voltages ***and extraordinarily high powers*** every day. I can safely be said to know "jack" and then some.
Third, the article blurb posted on Slashdot's front page said, "they generated a current equal to about four times all the electrical current on Earth." That's an exact cut-n-paste quote. I re-read it several times because it was so obviously wrong, and I was stunned that something so stupid could make it to the front page. The **article** might have said power and not current, but the Slashdot editors have nothing to do with the article. They passed the story post, which was mind-blowingly wrong and stupid. As of this writing, it still says exactly that.
Fourth, I suggest you take your 800K+ ID self back down into mommy's basement and be quiet while your betters are talking. There might be people who post here who understand more about high V, I, or P than me - but you aren't one of them.
For the record, there's no bullshit at all in my conclusion. If anything, my numbers are LOW conservative estimates. I can't blame you if you don't understand electricity, but I don't think you have to run your mouth about it.
Seriously, people. Is there anyone on the /. editorial staff who can do basic math?
There are easily 19 million electrical service drops in the U.S. alone, counting homes and businesses and such, and I'll bet each and every single one of them uses more than one ampere ALL THE TIME.
Who lets this crap through, anyway?
"There is no reason to need privacy."
So, I take it then that you masterbate [sic] in front of your mother? Your grandmother? How do you know that they'd mind unless you've tried it?
I'm sorry, but your statement is indefensible. YOU might be that one person in several million (yes, I'm making up statistics) who doesn't need or care about privacy, but your assertion that none of us need it is puerile.
Slashdot may know who you are, but none of the rest of us do. If you don't need privacy, then why post anonymously? Why not just say what you feel with your name attached? You aren't a hypocrite, are you?
While we're at it, what's with this voting privacy stuff? Shouldn't we all be required to announce our Presidential vote when we leave the voting booth? Let's hire Michael Buffer to announce our party as we walk in, with great fanfares and a fruity, "Let's get ready to Vote!" I think people should be required to wear a colored button indicating their vote in the most recent presidential election, just so they can get over this silly "privacy" fetish - and so those of us in positions of power can discriminate against them if they voted differently from us. It's already happening, you know.
(For the slower of you with mod points - that last paragraph was sarcasm, mostly)
I don't understand your meaning. Your points seem to be:
1) I like my PowerBook because it runs OSX.
2) I like the PowerBook form factor.
3) I want more power in my PowerBook.
4) The cool thing about Apple was that they weren't mainstream.
5) OSX on Intel isn't any better than Linux on Intel.
6) I don't care if the PowerBook runs x86 or PPC.
So, what's the problem with an Intel-based PowerBook? Why, if you don't think OSX is a more useful OS than Linux (see point 5), don't you just run Linux on your PowerBook? Why would you NOT buy a PowerBook which was engineered as well as the current ones, was faster, had better battery life, and maybe even was cheaper - but had an Intel chip in it?
The impression that I get from your comment is that you like using a PowerBook because it's different, and less common - not because it works better for you. I don't understand this.
Thanks!
I'm really excited. Not looking forward to getting rid of my car, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
According to your sig, that's all that's worked in that time.
Yes, thank you. In fact, my wife is due to deliver our daughter in August. Yes, the child is mine. Yes, I'm sure. Thanks, though.
using an non-Widnows OS isn't really "the answer"
Why not? It's worked perfectly for me for years.
Allow me to rebut and point out some relevant facts, please:
...press a few buttons, set up your contract, initiate a billing relationship... yep. They charge for that. However, the people who set up my last contract weren't idiots; in fact, they were very helpful and knowledgeable.
1) Yes. Partially due to the fact that the USA is very large and sparsely settled in places. We have multiple carriers. We saw fit some years ago to dismantle our telephone monopoly. Perhaps that was wrong, I can't say.
2.) Yes. Choice is bad?
3) [shrug] Prepay is expensive? OK. I wouldn't know. Sounds like it's not a good choice. Bummer.
4) No, it's 50 minutes of calls per month. There's no restriction on calls being 1 minute or less. I think I know what you meant, but what you said isn't true. Yes, minutes are rounded up. Is an average of a half-minute per call really going to break you?
5) I don't pay anything to talk within my family. My last two plans have included unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes within my network, not just my family. I can talk to anyone who also uses my provider, all I want, no minutes counted. While it's true that half of zero is still zero, it's not really relevant.
6) I don't pay to receive text messages because I don't receive text messages. Perhaps I would find them more useful if I didn't have to pay for them... but I don't use them at all.
7) last I heard, we can text between networks. Again, I don't care - but I'm pretty sure you're mistaken about this as well.
8) In some cases, yes. Not in all cases. If you get your phone unlocked, you can juggle the SIM cards, if your carrier uses SIM cards, and your phone speaks the network protocol of the carrier you want to use... I got the phone I wanted. You might pay more... but what you'd be paying is the actual cost of the phone, not the subsidized and discounted cost, the balance of which the mobile carrier recovers over the life of your contract.
9)
10) This is purely a consequence of large area and population. It's not symptomatic of mobile service in the US, it's symptomatic of telephone service in the US and it's pretty close to unavoidable. It's certainly not conveniently avoidable. There IS a reason that we have area codes, and it's not to make BT look good. Besides, I haven't had a mobile plan which charged for long distance in what? Five years? More? It's not an issue. If I wait until after 7 PM, I get long distance from my land line at $0.016/minute - no, that's not a typo, not 16 cents per minute - 1.6 cents per minute. Who cares?
The picture isn't as bleak as you paint, sir.
No, because Lunix isn't as advanced as Windows and doesn't really use all the hardware you paid for. Windows actually knows how all of that stuff works, and it uses everything, and that's why it crashes more on your computer because it's one of those special things that Windows knows about and Lunix doesn't that's actually broken on your computer. So, like, you need to get a new computer and stuff. Plus that's why the Windows is slower, see, 'cause it's using all that extra stuff and that takes more time to make sure that it's using everything your computer can do so that it's doing stuff the best... see?
Oh, and cause your computer is so f-ed up and stuff, you need to go ahead and get a new, fast computer that can run Longhorn, cause that's gonna be really awesome, and then you can just throw that old computer away. You don't want to keep trying to run Lunix on it, because it's not going to use all the stuff and your Lunix won't work as good as the Windows.
-- note to mods: yes, the above was intended as sarcasm. I used to work as a PC salesman, back when there were computer stores that just sold computers. I'd hear the other guys tell customers crap like that (except for the Longhorn part) all the time. And yet, they had better sales numbers than I. Go figure.
You speak as a man who knows nothing about his subject - no surprise, this is Slashdot.
Mississippi is a MUCH worse place than Florida. People in *Alabama* regularly thank God that they don't live in Mississippi.
Personally, I'd much rather live in Florida than, say... [shudder] New Jersey!
"George Walker Bush
Born: 7/6/1946
Birthplace: New Haven, Conn.
George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, in New Haven, Conn., the first child of future president George H. W. Bush. In 1948, the family moved to Odessa, Tex., where the senior Bush went to work in the oil business. George W. grew up mainly in Midland, Tex., and Houston, and later attended two of his father's alma maters, Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., and Yale."
Yes, he was born in New Haven. So what? He moved to Texas when he was two years old, and grew up in Midland and Houston. IMHO his first two years aren't as important as the 58 which have followed them. If you'd prefer to say that he's 3.3% Connectican and 96.7% Texan, that's fine with me.
I didn't realize that Kerry had grown up in Texas. You got documentation for that?
Seriously! Which is why I'm rather more fond of my family members who are Yankee assholes than of those who are conservative Christians.
I'm not confused by any such thing. I live in the South. I'm well aware than when capitalized like that, it refers to a cultural grouping which happens to have a strong correlation to a geographical region (which is, yes, primarily south and east - I can read a map just fine, thx).
Similarly, the "West" is a cultural grouping to which Texas belongs much more strongly than it does to the "South". This is distinct from the "West Coast", an entirely different grouping. I stand by my statement, complete with capitalizations, that Texas is more "West" than "South". There are similarities, yes. But by lumping them together as one you show your own confusion, sir.
Interestingly, Florida, which is as south and east as one gets in the US (nevermind the fact that Virginia is more east than Florida), is in many ways NOT a part of the South, as the influx of various flavors of retired Northerners has skewed both the attitudes and demographics - which can be seen in the closeness of the recent Presidential elections in that state.
By either definition, however, Kansas is neither in the south nor the South. You'll notice that this is very similar phrasing to the first time I made this point, suggesting that I was already aware of the difference prior to your oh-so-helpful comment about my confusion. In both places, Kansas and the South, the cultural trends to which you are objecting are based more on conservative Christians being numerous and being highly assertive en masse about their common superstitions than about the entire populace being ignorant and inherently stupid. Southerner != conservative Christian. New Orleans, e.g., is very Southern, but not very conservative Christian (which is a bit of an understatement). The two groupings have large segments of commonality, but are not congruent.
It's a common misconception perpetuated by ignorant people all over the country, Southerners and not. That's the real point of my message here: Southerner != stupid. You can't accurately characterize a population that large that simply, because there's too much variation. You could just as easily characterize all Americans as skateboarders, or all African-Americans as criminals, or all Germans as Jew-haters, or all Northerners as assholes, or all Texans as cowboys. The people who keep electing Bush, putting the Ten Commandments in the lobbies of gov't buildings, trying to insert Creationism into science curriculae, etc. etc. - those people are conservative Christians, not Southerners. The fact that many Southerners are also conservative Christians - disproportionately many, frankly - doesn't mean that Southerners are the people ruining this country. There are conservative Christians up North and on the West Coast, too.
All I'm saying is cast the blame where it belongs.
Actually, our little girl is due in August. I should probably change my sig. Sorry I got your hopes up! I'm really excited, though.