I used to live in Cambridge, MA, right on the border with Somerville, MA. Our next door neighbors got their cable TV for $5 a month less than us from the same company, because they were in Somerville and had the option of moving to a competing company.
So yes, the cable TV companies really are that sleazy.
Indeed. I saw a report that statistically, towns which have 2 competing cable companies have cable rates that average 9% lower than towns where there's a cable monopoly.
My problem with the tool is the source language. Yes, developing GUI applications using web standards is painful--but writing Java is painful too. I suspect people would be more enthusiastic about it if it used Python or Ruby.
I find your comments interesting, as your figures match my own preferences exactly.
If I see a CD from a band I know I like at $10, I'll buy it. At $15+, I'll wait until the price drops to around $10 ($12 with postage), unless I know it's truly exceptional.
A CD at $5 I'll try even if I'm unsure I'll like it.
6. OSTG accepts ads from known spammers, which means they appear here on slashdot.
For $10/mo I could get access to, say, Xbox Live.
You made an ethical argument against Slashdot, then immediately followed up by suggesting you'd be willing to give money to Microsoft? Yeah, that'll convince us.
Yes, one reason I try to avoid realistic dreams is that in retrospect it can be confusing trying to work out whether something happened in the real world or the dream world.
One time I asked someone if she'd finished with a cassette I'd loaned her. Turned out I hadn't loaned her anything, I'd just had a dream where I had... Sure enough, I checked the rack and the tape was there.
The average American has $8,000 in credit card debt. OK, yes, that's spread over multiple cards, but still...
I've only had credit in the USA for 9 years. I currently have a card with a credit limit that was over $16,000 last time I looked. I didn't at any stage ask for it to be increased, either.
Pay off your bills for a few months and banks will throw credit at you, to try and tempt you.
Using a credit card seems much safer than cash. If someone steals my cash, I'm out of luck. If someone steals my credit card or uses my account number without my authorization, I don't lose anything except the 10 minutes or so that I have to spend on the phone with the credit card company.
Until you try and buy a house, and find out the mortgage lender won't lend you any money because some asshole in Los Angeles you've never heard of has run up a $5000 unpaid bill in your name.
Depends on the bank. Some actually demand a matching name and delivery address. (e.g. MBNA and American Express). I've had merchants have to contact me because AmEx denied a transaction because they didn't recognize the address.
You sound like you're completely missing the point, which is that whether the collection classes and type system are OK or not, they have lots of redundancy.
Isn't that kind of the purpose of Java, one way to do it, don't reinvent the wheel?
+5 funny.
Java has arrays, Array objects, ArrayList objects, and Vector objects, all solving the same problem in subtly different and incompatible ways. Ditto Hashtable and HashMap. Then there's the type system with int and Integer, float and Float, and so on. SAX 1.0 vs SAX 2.0. Java has so many reinvented wheels.
I dunno, I don't think paying the guy off is ever a smart move. The thing is, writing software to generate clicks that appear to come from all over the Internet is really not that hard to do. The tough part is working out how to make money by doing it, without breaking the law and getting caught.
ClickOnce is more like Java Web Start. We've had that technology for years now, but for some reason, these web apps persist.
Well, to be honest, the reason we still see Java apps packaged as.exes and not available via JaWS is that Java hasn't been integrated well into Windows and Linux.
On the Mac, you really can click on a web link and have a Java application download and start. You can also download a.jar file and double click it and have it run.
On Windows, you need to have installed and configured Java first, which is a hurdle. Even then,.jar applications won't just run when you double-click them, though JaWS does work.
On Linux it's even worse, you can download and install Java and JaWS still won't work from Firefox until you manually set it up by fiddling with Firefox's preferences. Similarly, you can't just download a.jar and run it, without manually setting up a binfmt kernel extension and reconfiguring GNOME. I have a faint hope that this might improve once Sun actually release Java under the GPL and it gets made a part of standard Linux distros.
So no, it's not surprising that web applications persist.
American car manufacturers have ceded the car market to the Asians knowing that the markup and profit on a Ram or a S-10 is much higher than the cars the EPA force em to make.
Ford: $5.8 billion loss so far in 2006, making high markup profitable trucks.
GM: $3 billion loss so far in 2006, making high markup profitable trucks.
Honda: 4.8 billion profit in 2006, making those allegedly low markup high-MPG cars you disdain.
And Toyota, #2 after Honda for high-MPG cars, is the world's most profitable car company.
Oh, those poor Japanese. If only they were as smart as American manufacturers in going after profit margins, eh?
Slashdot Mirror
I can only assume you haven't seen any political campaign ads.
I used to live in Cambridge, MA, right on the border with Somerville, MA. Our next door neighbors got their cable TV for $5 a month less than us from the same company, because they were in Somerville and had the option of moving to a competing company.
So yes, the cable TV companies really are that sleazy.
Indeed. I saw a report that statistically, towns which have 2 competing cable companies have cable rates that average 9% lower than towns where there's a cable monopoly.
My problem with the tool is the source language. Yes, developing GUI applications using web standards is painful--but writing Java is painful too. I suspect people would be more enthusiastic about it if it used Python or Ruby.
I'm holding out for Henry VIII, which they say will come with multiple wife support.
I find your comments interesting, as your figures match my own preferences exactly.
If I see a CD from a band I know I like at $10, I'll buy it. At $15+, I'll wait until the price drops to around $10 ($12 with postage), unless I know it's truly exceptional.
A CD at $5 I'll try even if I'm unsure I'll like it.
You made an ethical argument against Slashdot, then immediately followed up by suggesting you'd be willing to give money to Microsoft? Yeah, that'll convince us.
Yes, one reason I try to avoid realistic dreams is that in retrospect it can be confusing trying to work out whether something happened in the real world or the dream world.
One time I asked someone if she'd finished with a cassette I'd loaned her. Turned out I hadn't loaned her anything, I'd just had a dream where I had... Sure enough, I checked the rack and the tape was there.
The average American has $8,000 in credit card debt. OK, yes, that's spread over multiple cards, but still...
I've only had credit in the USA for 9 years. I currently have a card with a credit limit that was over $16,000 last time I looked. I didn't at any stage ask for it to be increased, either.
Pay off your bills for a few months and banks will throw credit at you, to try and tempt you.
Until you try and buy a house, and find out the mortgage lender won't lend you any money because some asshole in Los Angeles you've never heard of has run up a $5000 unpaid bill in your name.
Happened to me.
Depends on the bank. Some actually demand a matching name and delivery address. (e.g. MBNA and American Express). I've had merchants have to contact me because AmEx denied a transaction because they didn't recognize the address.
What you want is a VIA Antaur system. It's like the VIA EPIA mini-ITX C3 systems, but tailored for laptop use.
e.g. http://www.sub300.com/port.htm
Sony eReader?
You sound like you're completely missing the point, which is that whether the collection classes and type system are OK or not, they have lots of redundancy.
Amen to that.
I've written applications in both, and oh how I wish Objective-C had killed C++.
I disagree. Modula-2 is a better Pascal than Pascal.
+5 funny.
Java has arrays, Array objects, ArrayList objects, and Vector objects, all solving the same problem in subtly different and incompatible ways. Ditto Hashtable and HashMap. Then there's the type system with int and Integer, float and Float, and so on. SAX 1.0 vs SAX 2.0. Java has so many reinvented wheels.
Umm, no.
Well, I'm running Java 1.4 for compatibility reasons. Maybe having .jar applications run on double click is something they fixed in 1.5.
I dunno, I don't think paying the guy off is ever a smart move. The thing is, writing software to generate clicks that appear to come from all over the Internet is really not that hard to do. The tough part is working out how to make money by doing it, without breaking the law and getting caught.
Well, to be honest, the reason we still see Java apps packaged as .exes and not available via JaWS is that Java hasn't been integrated well into Windows and Linux.
On the Mac, you really can click on a web link and have a Java application download and start. You can also download a .jar file and double click it and have it run.
On Windows, you need to have installed and configured Java first, which is a hurdle. Even then, .jar applications won't just run when you double-click them, though JaWS does work.
On Linux it's even worse, you can download and install Java and JaWS still won't work from Firefox until you manually set it up by fiddling with Firefox's preferences. Similarly, you can't just download a .jar and run it, without manually setting up a binfmt kernel extension and reconfiguring GNOME. I have a faint hope that this might improve once Sun actually release Java under the GPL and it gets made a part of standard Linux distros.
So no, it's not surprising that web applications persist.
1. Live in a house built after 1990.
2. Register the design copyright on the house, as per 17 USC Section 102.
3. Demand royalties from Microsoft if they want to reproduce images of your house's architecture.
4. Profit!
Clearly you aren't Ken Thompson.
Vampire cars!
Ford: $5.8 billion loss so far in 2006, making high markup profitable trucks.
GM: $3 billion loss so far in 2006, making high markup profitable trucks.
Honda: 4.8 billion profit in 2006, making those allegedly low markup high-MPG cars you disdain.
And Toyota, #2 after Honda for high-MPG cars, is the world's most profitable car company.
Oh, those poor Japanese. If only they were as smart as American manufacturers in going after profit margins, eh?