While typically I'm against things like this, I think ultimatly some good could come from it.
School lunch programs are a joke in this country. The food is barely etible, and are hardly healthy. When the parents start checking their children's lunch purchases and say to their kids "Hey, why are you only buying garbage?", and the kids say "This is the best they have to offer.", the parents might wake up a little and start demanding a little quality and nutrition in the lunch programs.
Of course, it would be better if the schools just spent the money on quality meat and vegibitels now instead of this monitoring program, but hey, I'm not a school administrator.
I've always been of the opinion that passing judgment on weather or not a movie is good is a pretty subjective thing. There's no real scientific way of determining weather a movie is good or bad. As such, you're going to get quite a few varied opinions.
I've always thought there are two different ways a piece can be good: It can be a quality production, with excellent acting, excellent writing, excellent direction... this is what I think makes a work a "film". Or, it can be vastly entertaining, a fun experience... this is what I would call an "entertaining movie". On one side of the spectrum you can take a movie like Schindler's List. While it's generally considered to be a well crafted film with a good story and good acting, nobody finishes watching it thinking "Wow, that was a lot of fun!". On the other side you can take a movie "Independence Day", which was a great ride but when it was over, nobody thought "This should earn Wil Smith an Oscar nomination for best actor".
The original Star Wars trilogy was unique in that they had elements of both. The first two prequels failed largely because other then a few high points, they were lacking in both film craftsmanship and entertainment value. Episode III breaks the mold, because while it's very, very poor on the artistic side of "film" making--The acting is laughable, the dialog is insanely bad, the character development is cartoonish--it excels in entertaining; the movie draws us into a world where we have an "experience", where we can feel excited, we can laugh (I mean, other then just at the bad acting) and we can find ourselves almost cheering for the characters on screen.
I *think* that's why reviewers are having such a difficult time with the work. It's confounding when a work shines so much in being entertaining, yet fails so miserably as an artist work (I'm not talking about the special effects).
As for Ebert, I've long since stopped listening to him as a movie reviewer. He gave Pulp Fiction a thumbs down, then later devoted an entire show saying first that he still thought Pulp Fiction was a thumbs down movie and he wouldn't change his mind, then proceeded to talk at length about why Pulp Fiction was such a great movie. Ebert has probably reached the status of being the most popular, or at least the most well known critics out there, and no other critic's reviews is subject to the level of scrutiny that is placed on Ebert. To me, it seems that Ebert's reaction to this is to constantly second guess himself and to produce reviews, then tortured explanations of his reviews based more on how he thinks the public will react as opposed to how good he thinks a movie really is.
That's left me looking other places to find out decent reviews of movies. Peter Travis from Rolling Stone is usually on, but just as Ebert's review of Episode III could be faulted for putting too much stock in the entertainment value of the film, Travis' review decides to ignore that completely and focus only on the crummy acting and dialogue. The point being is, I've yet to find a film critic who can be trusted to make recommendations that will actually translate into my own likes and dislikes of movies.
There has been some work on the Internet to match people's individual takes on specific films to and find recommendations based on shared opinions. Film Affinity is one of those websites that could prove promising, though currently it fails mostly due to a poor user base. Yahoo Movies has recently started trying a similar approach, though its value has yet to be seen.
As it stands now, I'm not sure there's really a "great" movie reviewer out there, or at least one I can say is right about what I would like with any consistency. Typically I look at reviews as an aggregate: If most reviewers say a movie is good, then it's probably decent. If most reviewers say it's awful, then I'll probably avoid it. If reviews are mixed, then I just have to find out for myself.
My guess is, most small computer companies would not be too keen on your idea. You want to do something that would A) Encourage their users to use products that they can't sell, and thus can't profit from, and B) Encourage their users to learn how to stop screwing up their computers, so they aren't employed to clean them (and profit from). This is much of the bread and butter of small local computer companies, so I'm not sure if you would get a whole heck of a lot of support.
That's not to say that you have a bad idea. On the contrary, it's a great idea! It's just I think in looking at the small computer retailer your digging around the wrong places. What you want to do is essentially provide the end user with information that will save him or her lots of time and money. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself.
If you really are ambitious, I'd suggest starting your own little company that advertises "Want to learn how to stop paying for software legally", or "Want to learn how to rid your computer of spyware and viruses without spending lots of money?" Then find a forum you can use to teach classes. Even a modest $10 a head should net you a decent payback. It may be small at first, but if you do it right, and word gets around, you could actually start making real money.
Funny. Back in 80s/early 90s, everyone I knew from BBS systems and IRC called them emoticons. It wasn't until the mid 90s that I even heard the word "Smiley" uttered.
And I do have an "online journal", which is seperate from my "personal website". I figured Blog was just another one of those terms used by writers who figured "online journal" sounded too technical.
(personally, I hate the term "blog" too. The word brings about images of obese women wearing swimming suits).
As a condition of being smart, defending ideas is a natural skill. Sometimes that skill takes precedent over rational thought and smart people will focus so much on being right that they will forget to think rationally.
Well yeah. Optical mice, to me, were kind of pointless when they first came out and I thought of them more of an unnecessary "gee-wiz" toy then anything else. But with time they figured out how to make them not need the 'grid mouse pad', and make them cheap enough so they can be on par with traditional mice price-wise. (I should note that my last mouse purchase was a wireless optical, which I bought over a year and a half ago for $30 and have had no problems with)
And most likely, they'll figure out a way to safely increase the broadcast power, or the reception sensitivity (or even the mouse's power usage efficiency) so the RFID chip mouse will have the same range and flexibility as current day battery powered wireless mice.
But for now, this nifty new "gee wiz" toy would be more of a hindrance then an advancement. Though it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that if they could figure out a way to make it work at distance sans mouse pad, these things will become the norm.
For a moment, I thought "First they put them in dogs and cats, now they're putting them in mice?" And then wondered why is it news that it's wireless? Was there something about the little critters that made it so you had to run a wire into your pet mouse for a RFID tag to work properly? And really, how often do peoples mice run away and then are picked up by animal control and scanned to find the owner?
Yeah, I'd have to go with the "Hey that's (kinda) cool" reaction. When I got my first wireless mouse, the advantages were seen immediatly: I could use it anywhere on my desk and not worry about a cord. The way this thing is set up, it'd be more of a pain then a tradtional wired mouse, because not only would there still be a cord for the mouse pad, which the mouse needs to sit at least 2" from, but the mouse itself is useless unless it's on the mouse pad.
For me, one of the nice things about having a wireless mouse is when I'm reading longer webpages, I often sit back in my chair, holding the mouse in the palm of my hand, and use the mouse wheel to scroll down the page. (which I could do with a wired mouse, only it gets. ..messy).
I'm sure there are better implimentations of remote RFID power, and it's probably going to end up being very common in the future, it's just I can't think of any right now.
I like your name. It's been fun to see how this comment has struck a chord with so many different mods. This one has 10 moderations. 6 being funny, 3 being flamebait, and 1 being troll.
The way I see it, if I can waste the mod points of stupid people who are unable to distinguish a joke from something else, and they spend their mod points gleefully modding me down, that means they have one less modpoint to kill the comments of someone who otherwise says something funny that stupid mods don't get, but hasn't built up as much karma as me.
They only get around to actively developing features in their most commonly used programs when the people form together and make a better alternative with the features they want?
Welcome to American Business History for the last 100 years. One only needs to look at the behavior of our automotive industry when the big three were in collusion absent any foreign competitors to see that generally speaking, American industry does not innovate unless a better product threatens their dominance.
Odd, your list contains far more words that I know, and even have used with some frequency (asshat and burninate being two I've been known to utter), then this other list. In fact, the only word I reconized there was "Woot" (and yes, I use that quite often, but oddly enough only in text format. I don't think I've ever said it out loud).
A few more I'd like to see:
- Broked (as in "They done broked me" - Fucktard (excuse the profanity) - Interweb (a purposly missspoken word used when talking as someone who thinks the Internet and the Web are one in the same) - Gaysexual (meant to be a 'non-offensive' slang word for homosexuals)
It actually surprises me sexcapade isn't in the dictionary. That's been around for a long time.
Also, I've noticed far more usage of "craptacular" then "craptastic", but then again, I've never heard anyone use the word "Phonecrastinat"
That is seemingly the direct reaction of a single program being used by the masses. In this sense, I think everyone could benefit from more variety. But it probably wont happen with a program as complex as today's browsers.
All too true. Just look at operating systems. Part of the reason so much junk like spy ware and viruses is written for Windows is because so many people use it.
Maybe its required that we use something different from the masses of people in order to have a pleasant browsing experience?
I can't help to think that the sudden rise in popularity of Linux didn't have something to do with Microsoft focusing on reliability when they developed XP. In 98, and even more so in ME, stability was a joke, and the real big benefit to migrating to Linux for many people was that your computer didn't freeze up at least once every day.
So even though Firefox will probably not become *the* dominate browser, it certainly is getting MS off their rears to make IE better.
I am surprised that the Ewoks did not turn out to be Chewbacca's midget children that he never knew about.
Everyone knows the Ewoks are a race of midget wookies.
Also, if you really pay attention, you learn the following things:
Yoda is Chewbacca's father.
While technically, yes, Anikin was "conceived" by the midicholorides or whatever the heck they're called, the real reason Anikin's mom was so vague about his conception was that she was having an affair with Watto at the time.
The real reason why Jar Jar was kicked out of the secret underwater city is because he was gettin' it on with Padame, an act strictly prohibited by the Gungan. However since they're pretty much all stupid, the gungans only description for sexual miconduct is "being clumsy". Proof of this is found in Episode II's tortured romantic discussions between Skywalker and Padame when she talks about her first boyfriend, and finalized by a split second shot in Episode III when Padame shoots Jar Jar one of "those" knowing looks.
If you pay close attention to the Millennium Falcon in Episode III, you notice that it is NOT the same ship they used in Episodes IV-VI. It's actually the original TOY they released to the general public back in the early 80s. This way, Lucas and his merchindising buddies can say that they toys everyone bought back in the 80s was actually a model of the ship in Episode III, and they should all go out and buy a new Millennium Falcon if they want the REAL Ep IV-VI toy.
Episode III is also the first Star Wars where we discover that people a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away sometimes suffered from terrible gas pains. This was shown by the expressions on Palpatine's face many times in the film (at first I thought it was bad acting, but later learned it was just gas).
I thought the exact same thing about Easter Eggs. I'm not sure if there's been some change in the meaning of "Easter eggs", or if the writer misunderstood what the term meant.
Perhaps the writer was too busy inserting hyper-links willy-nilly to look up the term.
I just hope this isn't a part of a changing trend where writers start to misuse words and before you know it people just accept the missuse as normal. Like the case with emoticons. Somewhere along the line writers decided that "emoticon" was too big and confusing as a word, so they started using the word "smiley" instead. Sadly smiley caught on.
I really can't. This is like Ford saying "Since the national speed limit is capped at 75 mph, all of our cars will have a built in governor that will prevent them from exceeding the speed limit, even in states without a speed limit". Only this is far more insidious.
Assuming that pirating protected IP is wrong (I'm not getting into that debate... let's say for the sake of argument that it is), this is still a very, very bad move, because:
A) Due to changes in pirating methods, DRM is probably going to change. Hard wiring DRM into the CPU would be something that would either become useless very quickly, or so restrictive that media that the user plays could easily be mistaken for being a pirated copy. (or both)
B) DRM in any current iteration doesn't do very well at determining illegal copies of media from legal ones. (Wait, because I copied this CD I *own* onto a CD-R as a backup, and the physical CD I *own* and paid good money for the rights to listen to got scratched, I can't listen to the music anymore on my new computer?)
C) Hardware should *NEVER* have restrictive control over the type of information stored on a hard drive or the type of information that can be sent over any network unless users are given an understanding of how that control works, and it can be %100 modifiable by the user, as well as being shut off. "Hey, this old file from an old legacy application won't load on my new computer because the CPU thinks it's a pirated game instead of statistical financial information. And you're telling me there's no way around it for 'security' reasons?"
D) The nature of DRM is that it's set by media corporations who have demonstrated over and over again that they are unethical and prone to abuse any power they have for their own ends. (Ask any up and coming recording artist that's been screwed over by an RIAA member record company). I'm sorry, but I really don't feel very good about my CPU looking into what files I'm trying to access from my HDD or send over the Internet when it's been programmed by what I believe to be a bunch of crooks.
Of course it's a bad idea, and one that will probably die a horrible death. Tech savvy end users will avoid chips that have DRM, and buyers for larger organizations will probably shy away from putting machines on their networks that restrict information in ways they can't control. As long as there's decent alternatives, it's not something I'm too upset about.
Then again, I've not purchased an Intel product for my desktop since the 8088 chip I had back in '87 (AMD has always seemed, to me, to offer a better deal), and while most of my laptops currently run Intel chips, if DRM is implemented on them I'll find another brand.
Note: I'm not an expert on this and thus might be wrong on some points, so I'm admitting this right now before a dozen replies come in saying I'm wrong and overzelous mods don't select 'Flamebait' or 'troll'.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine called me up saying she was having all sorts of trouble whenever she accessed the Internet. I went over there, saying I could give her a few minutes. Her computer was riddled with spyware. IE had four different spyware related "search bars" running at the top (which is a record in my experience).
Rather then spend hours cleaning things up, I just downloaded firefox and installed some of the more popular plugins (flash etc.) and deleted the big blue E from the desktop and the start menu. I talked to her the other day and she told me "wow, my computer is still running great".
It makes me wonder now if IE might be losing ground not because firefox is better, but because there seems to be less junk out there that messes with firefox? (don't get me wrong, I still think Firefox is better).
This is exactly the kind of thing the guy is talking about. He wrote the article because he, like many, myself included, is fed up with people namecalling and bashing based on broad generalizations. Can we PLEASE be done with that?
No. We won't. Any serious examination of any OS will find their strengths and weaknesses, of which both Windows and MacOS have. In my own opinion, Mac has the superior OS from a technical standpoint, while Windows has a far larger development pool.
It's because of that development that I mostly use Windows (as opposed to a Mac, or even Linux). I'm not a gamer, but there are quite a few work related apps that I have to use that simply don't run on anything other then Windows. Yes, technically I could run Mac or Linux with a windows emulator, but I'm a lazy man and I don't see the point in doing all that work just to do what Windows does natively. If I want to get my geek fix, I do have a server running in my home that has FreeBSD installed, and I can tool around with that (no X installed. I like command lines!)
Now, that all having been said, it's fun to tease users of different OSes that take this sort of thing seriously. It just so happens that the only Mac users I've known have been either girls I've dated or gay men. Both groups tell me they chose a Mac because "It just looked better in my apartment". It just so happens that the women I know well and the gay men I'm friends with are not big into computers. I'm not saying all women use Macs, and all gay men use Macs. I just find it an interesting coincidence that personal experience points in that direction.
Moreover, I think it's amusing to see how much this generalization seems to bother some people and make others laugh. Perhaps my personal experiences aren't that uncommon and it's one of those stereotypes that hits so close to the nerve that it ruffles people's feathers. Or not. Don't take it seriously, it's a joke. Ford and Chevrolet make equally fine products (or equally terrible products, depending on your view), but that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun messing with the people who take the rivalry seriously.
I worked for Earthlink in '99, at one of their in house call centers, and we had a very limited linux support. Essentially we could tell them what files to modify, and what should be in them. Anything beyond that (like if they said "how do I edit a file? I can't figure out vi!"), and we had to stop the support.
Of course, if the caller was proficient at using any technology, he could have easily gotten a local number from the automated support service on the 800 number. Perhaps he just liked waiting in queues and yelling at people.
A Windows vs. Mac debate is as silly as a G.I. Joe vs Strawberry Shortcake debate.
One is for boys, and the other is for girls and male homosexuals.
Duh.
I have a solution to make everyone happy.
on
Tinfoil Hat House
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· Score: 1
If the family suffering from this radio poisoning is reading this, I may have your answer:
I too had this terrible problem, until I developed and tested a simple solution in pill form.
I call it "The Placebo 9000". I can nearly guarantee this Sacramento family 100% protection against feeling like they are being poisoned by any sort of radio-waves.
One month's supply for an adult of the Placebo 9000 is available for only $49.99.
The Placebo 9000 is NOT FDA approved, because the chemical makeup of the product is so incredibly advanced, FDA scientists can only find simple sugars in the product. This is a good thing, because you DON'T WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO KNOW you're taking the Placebo 9000.
If they find this out, they may decide to use more powerful radio-wave poisoning, which can lead to all of your symptoms to return. In this case, you'll need the Placebo 9210, which has been enhanced as an effective countermeasure to level 9B and above government produced interferences.
The Placebo 9210 is $149.99 for an adult's one month supply.
They typically will refund your money if the movie really blows. I've done it twice. You walk out of the movie (not at the end, you can usually tell if the movie is awful 20-30 minutes into it).
When you walk out, ask to speak to the theatre manager, and tell them "This movie is awful. I want my money back".
It would be great if more people started doing this. If theatres starting realizing that screening truly awful peices of junk would cost them lots and lots of money, maybe they would just avoid screening a film altogether if it stinks despite how much money was spent on its promotion.
Now, if I could only figure out a way to get my money back for the $7 tub of popcorn a truly awful movie caused me to vomit up, I'd be even happier.
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While typically I'm against things like this, I think ultimatly some good could come from it.
School lunch programs are a joke in this country. The food is barely etible, and are hardly healthy. When the parents start checking their children's lunch purchases and say to their kids "Hey, why are you only buying garbage?", and the kids say "This is the best they have to offer.", the parents might wake up a little and start demanding a little quality and nutrition in the lunch programs.
Of course, it would be better if the schools just spent the money on quality meat and vegibitels now instead of this monitoring program, but hey, I'm not a school administrator.
I've always been of the opinion that passing judgment on weather or not a movie is good is a pretty subjective thing. There's no real scientific way of determining weather a movie is good or bad. As such, you're going to get quite a few varied opinions.
... this is what I would call an "entertaining movie". On one side of the spectrum you can take a movie like Schindler's List. While it's generally considered to be a well crafted film with a good story and good acting, nobody finishes watching it thinking "Wow, that was a lot of fun!". On the other side you can take a movie "Independence Day", which was a great ride but when it was over, nobody thought "This should earn Wil Smith an Oscar nomination for best actor".
I've always thought there are two different ways a piece can be good: It can be a quality production, with excellent acting, excellent writing, excellent direction... this is what I think makes a work a "film". Or, it can be vastly entertaining, a fun experience
The original Star Wars trilogy was unique in that they had elements of both. The first two prequels failed largely because other then a few high points, they were lacking in both film craftsmanship and entertainment value. Episode III breaks the mold, because while it's very, very poor on the artistic side of "film" making--The acting is laughable, the dialog is insanely bad, the character development is cartoonish--it excels in entertaining; the movie draws us into a world where we have an "experience", where we can feel excited, we can laugh (I mean, other then just at the bad acting) and we can find ourselves almost cheering for the characters on screen.
I *think* that's why reviewers are having such a difficult time with the work. It's confounding when a work shines so much in being entertaining, yet fails so miserably as an artist work (I'm not talking about the special effects).
As for Ebert, I've long since stopped listening to him as a movie reviewer. He gave Pulp Fiction a thumbs down, then later devoted an entire show saying first that he still thought Pulp Fiction was a thumbs down movie and he wouldn't change his mind, then proceeded to talk at length about why Pulp Fiction was such a great movie. Ebert has probably reached the status of being the most popular, or at least the most well known critics out there, and no other critic's reviews is subject to the level of scrutiny that is placed on Ebert. To me, it seems that Ebert's reaction to this is to constantly second guess himself and to produce reviews, then tortured explanations of his reviews based more on how he thinks the public will react as opposed to how good he thinks a movie really is.
That's left me looking other places to find out decent reviews of movies. Peter Travis from Rolling Stone is usually on, but just as Ebert's review of Episode III could be faulted for putting too much stock in the entertainment value of the film, Travis' review decides to ignore that completely and focus only on the crummy acting and dialogue. The point being is, I've yet to find a film critic who can be trusted to make recommendations that will actually translate into my own likes and dislikes of movies.
There has been some work on the Internet to match people's individual takes on specific films to and find recommendations based on shared opinions. Film Affinity is one of those websites that could prove promising, though currently it fails mostly due to a poor user base. Yahoo Movies has recently started trying a similar approach, though its value has yet to be seen.
As it stands now, I'm not sure there's really a "great" movie reviewer out there, or at least one I can say is right about what I would like with any consistency. Typically I look at reviews as an aggregate: If most reviewers say a movie is good, then it's probably decent. If most reviewers say it's awful, then I'll probably avoid it. If reviews are mixed, then I just have to find out for myself.
In India, there are 1.1 billion people.
So when somebody in India says "You're one in a million", there are 1,100 people out there just like you.
My guess is, most small computer companies would not be too keen on your idea. You want to do something that would A) Encourage their users to use products that they can't sell, and thus can't profit from, and B) Encourage their users to learn how to stop screwing up their computers, so they aren't employed to clean them (and profit from). This is much of the bread and butter of small local computer companies, so I'm not sure if you would get a whole heck of a lot of support.
That's not to say that you have a bad idea. On the contrary, it's a great idea! It's just I think in looking at the small computer retailer your digging around the wrong places. What you want to do is essentially provide the end user with information that will save him or her lots of time and money. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself.
If you really are ambitious, I'd suggest starting your own little company that advertises "Want to learn how to stop paying for software legally", or "Want to learn how to rid your computer of spyware and viruses without spending lots of money?" Then find a forum you can use to teach classes. Even a modest $10 a head should net you a decent payback. It may be small at first, but if you do it right, and word gets around, you could actually start making real money.
Good luck.
Funny. Back in 80s/early 90s, everyone I knew from BBS systems and IRC called them emoticons. It wasn't until the mid 90s that I even heard the word "Smiley" uttered.
And I do have an "online journal", which is seperate from my "personal website". I figured Blog was just another one of those terms used by writers who figured "online journal" sounded too technical.
(personally, I hate the term "blog" too. The word brings about images of obese women wearing swimming suits).
What he's saying:
As a condition of being smart, defending ideas is a natural skill. Sometimes that skill takes precedent over rational thought and smart people will focus so much on being right that they will forget to think rationally.
There, I just saved you 10 minutes of reading.
Where's my check?
I hear that the version of these open source packages being distributed in India check the CPU ID and won't work on P-4s and Athalons.
Well yeah. Optical mice, to me, were kind of pointless when they first came out and I thought of them more of an unnecessary "gee-wiz" toy then anything else. But with time they figured out how to make them not need the 'grid mouse pad', and make them cheap enough so they can be on par with traditional mice price-wise. (I should note that my last mouse purchase was a wireless optical, which I bought over a year and a half ago for $30 and have had no problems with)
And most likely, they'll figure out a way to safely increase the broadcast power, or the reception sensitivity (or even the mouse's power usage efficiency) so the RFID chip mouse will have the same range and flexibility as current day battery powered wireless mice.
But for now, this nifty new "gee wiz" toy would be more of a hindrance then an advancement. Though it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that if they could figure out a way to make it work at distance sans mouse pad, these things will become the norm.
For a moment, I thought "First they put them in dogs and cats, now they're putting them in mice?" And then wondered why is it news that it's wireless? Was there something about the little critters that made it so you had to run a wire into your pet mouse for a RFID tag to work properly? And really, how often do peoples mice run away and then are picked up by animal control and scanned to find the owner?
Then I read the article and it made more sense.
Yeah, I'd have to go with the "Hey that's (kinda) cool" reaction. When I got my first wireless mouse, the advantages were seen immediatly: I could use it anywhere on my desk and not worry about a cord. The way this thing is set up, it'd be more of a pain then a tradtional wired mouse, because not only would there still be a cord for the mouse pad, which the mouse needs to sit at least 2" from, but the mouse itself is useless unless it's on the mouse pad.
.messy).
For me, one of the nice things about having a wireless mouse is when I'm reading longer webpages, I often sit back in my chair, holding the mouse in the palm of my hand, and use the mouse wheel to scroll down the page. (which I could do with a wired mouse, only it gets. .
I'm sure there are better implimentations of remote RFID power, and it's probably going to end up being very common in the future, it's just I can't think of any right now.
I like your name. It's been fun to see how this comment has struck a chord with so many different mods. This one has 10 moderations. 6 being funny, 3 being flamebait, and 1 being troll.
The way I see it, if I can waste the mod points of stupid people who are unable to distinguish a joke from something else, and they spend their mod points gleefully modding me down, that means they have one less modpoint to kill the comments of someone who otherwise says something funny that stupid mods don't get, but hasn't built up as much karma as me.
They only get around to actively developing features in their most commonly used programs when the people form together and make a better alternative with the features they want?
Welcome to American Business History for the last 100 years. One only needs to look at the behavior of our automotive industry when the big three were in collusion absent any foreign competitors to see that generally speaking, American industry does not innovate unless a better product threatens their dominance.
Odd, your list contains far more words that I know, and even have used with some frequency (asshat and burninate being two I've been known to utter), then this other list. In fact, the only word I reconized there was "Woot" (and yes, I use that quite often, but oddly enough only in text format. I don't think I've ever said it out loud).
A few more I'd like to see:
- Broked (as in "They done broked me"
- Fucktard (excuse the profanity)
- Interweb (a purposly missspoken word used when talking as someone who thinks the Internet and the Web are one in the same)
- Gaysexual (meant to be a 'non-offensive' slang word for homosexuals)
It actually surprises me sexcapade isn't in the dictionary. That's been around for a long time.
Also, I've noticed far more usage of "craptacular" then "craptastic", but then again, I've never heard anyone use the word "Phonecrastinat"
Yes, because nothing's more unforgivable then misspelling a fake word.
That is seemingly the direct reaction of a single program being used by the masses. In this sense, I think everyone could benefit from more variety. But it probably wont happen with a program as complex as today's browsers.
All too true. Just look at operating systems. Part of the reason so much junk like spy ware and viruses is written for Windows is because so many people use it.
Maybe its required that we use something different from the masses of people in order to have a pleasant browsing experience?
I can't help to think that the sudden rise in popularity of Linux didn't have something to do with Microsoft focusing on reliability when they developed XP. In 98, and even more so in ME, stability was a joke, and the real big benefit to migrating to Linux for many people was that your computer didn't freeze up at least once every day.
So even though Firefox will probably not become *the* dominate browser, it certainly is getting MS off their rears to make IE better.
Pfft!
I am surprised that the Ewoks did not turn out to be Chewbacca's midget children that he never knew about.
Everyone knows the Ewoks are a race of midget wookies.
Also, if you really pay attention, you learn the following things:
Yoda is Chewbacca's father.
While technically, yes, Anikin was "conceived" by the midicholorides or whatever the heck they're called, the real reason Anikin's mom was so vague about his conception was that she was having an affair with Watto at the time.
The real reason why Jar Jar was kicked out of the secret underwater city is because he was gettin' it on with Padame, an act strictly prohibited by the Gungan. However since they're pretty much all stupid, the gungans only description for sexual miconduct is "being clumsy". Proof of this is found in Episode II's tortured romantic discussions between Skywalker and Padame when she talks about her first boyfriend, and finalized by a split second shot in Episode III when Padame shoots Jar Jar one of "those" knowing looks.
If you pay close attention to the Millennium Falcon in Episode III, you notice that it is NOT the same ship they used in Episodes IV-VI. It's actually the original TOY they released to the general public back in the early 80s. This way, Lucas and his merchindising buddies can say that they toys everyone bought back in the 80s was actually a model of the ship in Episode III, and they should all go out and buy a new Millennium Falcon if they want the REAL Ep IV-VI toy.
Episode III is also the first Star Wars where we discover that people a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away sometimes suffered from terrible gas pains. This was shown by the expressions on Palpatine's face many times in the film (at first I thought it was bad acting, but later learned it was just gas).
I thought the exact same thing about Easter Eggs. I'm not sure if there's been some change in the meaning of "Easter eggs", or if the writer misunderstood what the term meant.
Perhaps the writer was too busy inserting hyper-links willy-nilly to look up the term.
I just hope this isn't a part of a changing trend where writers start to misuse words and before you know it people just accept the missuse as normal. Like the case with emoticons. Somewhere along the line writers decided that "emoticon" was too big and confusing as a word, so they started using the word "smiley" instead. Sadly smiley caught on.
I really can't. This is like Ford saying "Since the national speed limit is capped at 75 mph, all of our cars will have a built in governor that will prevent them from exceeding the speed limit, even in states without a speed limit". Only this is far more insidious.
Assuming that pirating protected IP is wrong (I'm not getting into that debate... let's say for the sake of argument that it is), this is still a very, very bad move, because:
A) Due to changes in pirating methods, DRM is probably going to change. Hard wiring DRM into the CPU would be something that would either become useless very quickly, or so restrictive that media that the user plays could easily be mistaken for being a pirated copy. (or both)
B) DRM in any current iteration doesn't do very well at determining illegal copies of media from legal ones. (Wait, because I copied this CD I *own* onto a CD-R as a backup, and the physical CD I *own* and paid good money for the rights to listen to got scratched, I can't listen to the music anymore on my new computer?)
C) Hardware should *NEVER* have restrictive control over the type of information stored on a hard drive or the type of information that can be sent over any network unless users are given an understanding of how that control works, and it can be %100 modifiable by the user, as well as being shut off. "Hey, this old file from an old legacy application won't load on my new computer because the CPU thinks it's a pirated game instead of statistical financial information. And you're telling me there's no way around it for 'security' reasons?"
D) The nature of DRM is that it's set by media corporations who have demonstrated over and over again that they are unethical and prone to abuse any power they have for their own ends. (Ask any up and coming recording artist that's been screwed over by an RIAA member record company). I'm sorry, but I really don't feel very good about my CPU looking into what files I'm trying to access from my HDD or send over the Internet when it's been programmed by what I believe to be a bunch of crooks.
Of course it's a bad idea, and one that will probably die a horrible death. Tech savvy end users will avoid chips that have DRM, and buyers for larger organizations will probably shy away from putting machines on their networks that restrict information in ways they can't control. As long as there's decent alternatives, it's not something I'm too upset about.
Then again, I've not purchased an Intel product for my desktop since the 8088 chip I had back in '87 (AMD has always seemed, to me, to offer a better deal), and while most of my laptops currently run Intel chips, if DRM is implemented on them I'll find another brand.
Note: I'm not an expert on this and thus might be wrong on some points, so I'm admitting this right now before a dozen replies come in saying I'm wrong and overzelous mods don't select 'Flamebait' or 'troll'.
Actually, your post made me wonder.
A few weeks ago a neighbor of mine called me up saying she was having all sorts of trouble whenever she accessed the Internet. I went over there, saying I could give her a few minutes. Her computer was riddled with spyware. IE had four different spyware related "search bars" running at the top (which is a record in my experience).
Rather then spend hours cleaning things up, I just downloaded firefox and installed some of the more popular plugins (flash etc.) and deleted the big blue E from the desktop and the start menu. I talked to her the other day and she told me "wow, my computer is still running great".
It makes me wonder now if IE might be losing ground not because firefox is better, but because there seems to be less junk out there that messes with firefox? (don't get me wrong, I still think Firefox is better).
This is exactly the kind of thing the guy is talking about. He wrote the article because he, like many, myself included, is fed up with people namecalling and bashing based on broad generalizations. Can we PLEASE be done with that?
No. We won't. Any serious examination of any OS will find their strengths and weaknesses, of which both Windows and MacOS have. In my own opinion, Mac has the superior OS from a technical standpoint, while Windows has a far larger development pool.
It's because of that development that I mostly use Windows (as opposed to a Mac, or even Linux). I'm not a gamer, but there are quite a few work related apps that I have to use that simply don't run on anything other then Windows. Yes, technically I could run Mac or Linux with a windows emulator, but I'm a lazy man and I don't see the point in doing all that work just to do what Windows does natively. If I want to get my geek fix, I do have a server running in my home that has FreeBSD installed, and I can tool around with that (no X installed. I like command lines!)
Now, that all having been said, it's fun to tease users of different OSes that take this sort of thing seriously. It just so happens that the only Mac users I've known have been either girls I've dated or gay men. Both groups tell me they chose a Mac because "It just looked better in my apartment". It just so happens that the women I know well and the gay men I'm friends with are not big into computers. I'm not saying all women use Macs, and all gay men use Macs. I just find it an interesting coincidence that personal experience points in that direction.
Moreover, I think it's amusing to see how much this generalization seems to bother some people and make others laugh. Perhaps my personal experiences aren't that uncommon and it's one of those stereotypes that hits so close to the nerve that it ruffles people's feathers. Or not. Don't take it seriously, it's a joke. Ford and Chevrolet make equally fine products (or equally terrible products, depending on your view), but that doesn't mean you can't have a little fun messing with the people who take the rivalry seriously.
Odd.
I worked for Earthlink in '99, at one of their in house call centers, and we had a very limited linux support. Essentially we could tell them what files to modify, and what should be in them. Anything beyond that (like if they said "how do I edit a file? I can't figure out vi!"), and we had to stop the support.
Of course, if the caller was proficient at using any technology, he could have easily gotten a local number from the automated support service on the 800 number. Perhaps he just liked waiting in queues and yelling at people.
A Windows vs. Mac debate is as silly as a G.I. Joe vs Strawberry Shortcake debate.
One is for boys, and the other is for girls and male homosexuals.
Duh.
If the family suffering from this radio poisoning is reading this, I may have your answer:
I too had this terrible problem, until I developed and tested a simple solution in pill form.
I call it "The Placebo 9000". I can nearly guarantee this Sacramento family 100% protection against feeling like they are being poisoned by any sort of radio-waves.
One month's supply for an adult of the Placebo 9000 is available for only $49.99.
The Placebo 9000 is NOT FDA approved, because the chemical makeup of the product is so incredibly advanced, FDA scientists can only find simple sugars in the product. This is a good thing, because you DON'T WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO KNOW you're taking the Placebo 9000.
If they find this out, they may decide to use more powerful radio-wave poisoning, which can lead to all of your symptoms to return. In this case, you'll need the Placebo 9210, which has been enhanced as an effective countermeasure to level 9B and above government produced interferences.
The Placebo 9210 is $149.99 for an adult's one month supply.
Written testimonies can be provided on request.
That would explain why most people think I'm dumb.
That's awesome!
They typically will refund your money if the movie really blows. I've done it twice. You walk out of the movie (not at the end, you can usually tell if the movie is awful 20-30 minutes into it).
When you walk out, ask to speak to the theatre manager, and tell them "This movie is awful. I want my money back".
It would be great if more people started doing this. If theatres starting realizing that screening truly awful peices of junk would cost them lots and lots of money, maybe they would just avoid screening a film altogether if it stinks despite how much money was spent on its promotion.
Now, if I could only figure out a way to get my money back for the $7 tub of popcorn a truly awful movie caused me to vomit up, I'd be even happier.