What is (most) every American's dream? Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.
Er, being rich doesn't make other people poor. That's like claiming that your neighbor shouldn't be allowed to grow tomatoes because you don't have any tomatoes. His gain is not your loss. Rich people don't hide their money in coffee cans buried under the back porch, you know.
I would like to live in a world where doing something is rewarded, rather than being the first to think of that something.
How about both? It's kinda hard to do something without thinking of it first. And often the people who are good at doing are not good at the theoretical work that needs to happen beforehand.
Until 1880 the patent office required a working model to be submitted along with the application. That clearly wouldn't work in every case (which is why the removed the requirement)but perhaps additional incentives could be given to encourage patents which can be demonstrated.
Of course, that should read: "The UN agreement under which the coaliation operated effectively prevented them from removing Saddam Hussein from power..."
What's that? You'd rather I had proof before I convicted you?
That's just crazy talk.
Jesus, what a stupid analogy. Perhaps you weren't alive waaay back then, but Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991. At that time Iraq had both gas and nerve agents in their arsenal. The invasion was forcibly repelled by an international coalition. The UN agreement under which the coaliation operated effectively prevented them from leaving Saddam Hussein in power, but imposed a cease-fire requiring him to disarm. He was required, under the conditions of the cease fire, to prove his compliance by destroying the weapons he was known to have and submitting to inspections to ensure that he didn't develop any new weapons. He did neither of those things.
The UN inspectors were not supposed to have to search the entire freakin' country for the weapons - Hussein was supposed to give them the weapons. Everyone from Hillary Clinton to Hans Blix was certain that he had not complied and agreed that he very likely had prohibited weapons.
If that's all too complicated for you, pretend that Hussein was on a violent criminal who was free on parole, and that records showed him as having a number of registered weapons and lots of ammo that he claimed to have suddenly "lost" after digging a bunch of holes late one night in his back yard. Under those circumstances the police don't have to prove you're guilty of a new crime - you have to prove you're not still committing the crime that you were already convicted of.
Note that Adderall can have some very unpleasant side effects, including some that may not be readily apparent to the person taking the drug. The worst - gradually rising paranoia and increasing agitation - can be easily rationalized away as normal responses to stress, especially if the drug actually does help the ADHD symptoms at first.
Remember that these are serious drugs. Before starting on a regimen of Adderall (or any similar drug) ask your friends and family to be frank with you about any behavior that might seem strange to them. Trust their judgement and if they tell you that something is wrong you should work with your doctor to discontinue the drug as soon as safely possible. Believe me, I speak from personal experience.
Probably. And it's not unreasonable, considering that statements made by random employees (who may or may not actually be knowledgable about certain details) could be damaging to them in court.
IBM has probably asked their employees not to comment on this matter, for the very same reasons.
the problem with libel and slander is that you have to enforce it in court..
So what? All laws ultimately have to be enforced in court, including this one. If the existing laws aren't having the effect they were originally intended to have then they need to be re-examined. Making another law, one even broader and more vague than the existing ones, will certainly not help.
Nor should the law presume that the defendant is a "media bully". Do you have any idea how many frivilous, wacky, crackpot lawsuits media outlets deal with all the time? Would you suggest that Bob Blogger should bear that same burden?
So true. Two weeks ago I was involved in a relatively low-speed accident in a parking lot. As I rounded a turn to leave the lot a car backed out of another space right next to my car and rammed my front fender. I slammed on my brakes and avoided swerving into anything or anyone else. Had I not been wearing my belt I'm sure that I would have been jostled enough that my feet would have been moved well away from the pedals and it would have taken more time for me to react.
In an accident, a car with an unbelted driver at the wheel often becomes, for a few critical seconds, a car without no driver at the wheel.
First and obviously, it will weaken the tendency for people to build isolated self-referential extremist commmunities of delusion, like fundamentalists, deconstructionists, ultralibertarians, etc., without linking to contrary evidence.
Huh? Whether that's a worthwhile goal or not, WTF business does any government have imposing rules on private individuals designed to control who can speak to whom about what? That's a horrible proposition, and completely unnecessary.
Nonsense. It's chilling because it imposes a penalty on free speech. Expressing my opinions does not carry with it the "responsibility" to express other people's opinions. Both Europe and the US already have libel and slander laws to address legally infinging speech. If someone doesn't like what I say and wants to say something different then they can get their own damn blog.
If every potentially controversial opinion carries with it legal penalties requiring that you spend untold hours allowing responses (and responses to responses) then people will naturally steer clear of expressing those opinions, and that's not a good thing. Just what we need: flamewars with byzantine EU bureacracies built right in.
No, but there sure is a small circle of executives who make those tough decisions while on the way to the golf club in their 7 series BMW for a nice lobster dinner. The company I work for just cut vacation. I get 1 week a year now. I also have to take it before the fiscal year end on 9/1. So there's now no time to accrue vacation before christmas. How nice. And those altruistic beings who are just looking out for the company? Let's see how quick they are to give back that benefit once the economy turns around.
Oops, your cynicism dial appears to be stuck at "11".
Sometimes you're right and the people in charge are stupid, selfish bastards who'd sell their own mothers for a bigger box on the org chart. But in far more cases those vile "executives" are just like you. They're doing their jobs as best they can given the resources at their disposal. It might feel better to pretend that everything they do is motivated by personal greed and callous disregard for the workin' man, but it probably isn't true.
Have you ever had a paycheck bounce? I have. Have you ever had your employer siezed by the IRS for failure to pay payroll taxes? I have. Have you ever been promised bonueses on eight separate occaisions and received a fraction on one only once? I have. Have you ever been fired because your manager thought you were better than him? I have. Have you ever gotten in trouble for not predicting the future or reading someone's mind? I have. Have you ever predicted a project's failure months and millions of dollars in advance? I have.
"Have you ever had your toes gnawed off by your bosses' rabid pet weasles, while he dances through the office snorting coke and singing opera off key? I have!"
Wow, bad run of luck there. Frankly, it sounds like you really need to choose your employers a bit more carefully. Or find a new career. And maybe a good therapist.
And you'll be the first to be laid off. Employers want sheep. If you want to keep your job, act like one. Tell them nothing because they're certainly not volunteering any information. If you don't like your job, find another one. But never let them know you're looking. Otherwise, they'll remove you before you have the next job lined up.
Yes, because all employers just love to fire good people who are dissatisfied! For no reason! And they love to expose themselves to legal liability and pay lots of money, too! Because they hate hate hate you!
But, hey, I'm a sheep who's got a nice job with a boss I actually like, so I'm clearly too far gone for my opinions to matter. Baaaa.
The work culture in this country sucks. And it's time for a change.
Slashdot: Changing the world one bitter rant at a time.
It's been proven time and time again that open source software is more secure as long as it's properly managed and vigilantly kept up to date.
And you're a rude idiot.
Even if the case for Windows/Linux was as clear as you seem to think it is (and it most certainly isn't), there are far more critical issues involved than what OS, email program, office suite you use.
Are any of the the apps that run the infrastructure you use every single day distributed as open source? Telephone switching systems? Firmware for routers and switches? Control systems for energy plants, power distribution networks, and water processing systems? Weather and communications satellite control systems? ATC?
The answer is "no". And those are the sorts of decisions that governments must consider. MS doesn't write that kind of software, and neither does your average open-source drone on Slashdot.
Jesus Chr*st that is NOT captialism. MS being an monopoly CANNOT sell it's products for $1 each in order to keep competitors from entering its market. That is illegal plain and simple.
Sure, but MS simply isn't doing that. If MS were selling below cost (that's what "dumping" means) to destroy the Lindows market then you'd have a point. Instead, they're allegedly offering a somehwat lower price to folks who've already bought Lindows. How can that prevent Lindows from entering the market? It doesn't, of course. All it can do is give the dissatisfied Lindows user a way out of a bad purchase.
Look, one of the good things about the increasing prominence of Linux and other open source efforts is that it's creating the perception (valid or not) of a viable alternative to Microsoft's offerings. Competition, in other words.
That's a good thing, because it's likely to persuade MS to change their ways to the benefit of the average consumer. And they'll do so not because of judicial fiat or overwrought editors on Slashdot, but because it makes financial sense for the company. Enlightened self-interest is a wonderful motivator.
One of those changes, probably the most noticable from the consumer perspective, is likely to be better pricing. Great, right? Yet when MS attempts to improve their pricing people complain because the picture for an arguably inferior commerical product (Lindows) is no longer quite so rosy. That makes no sense. Real competition in a free market can cut both ways.
Ah, so stringing together vague accusations of widespread corruption with random snippets of economic theories ripped out of context is "Insightful". I do like how you worked in the obligatory reference to Linux as the shining beacon of hope in a World Gone Mad. That sort of thing is always good for a little extra karma.
Plain text is fine for, well, plain text. And it works pretty well as a least-common-denominator format for exchanging information between otherwise incompatible systems. But there's no way the industry or the public will be happy with the limitations it imposes on how their electronic books are presented.
For one thing, straight ASCII has no capability to preserve the presentation of the original work, nor the flexibility to allow new electronic works to share the same richness that thousands of years of paper publishing have given us. These things do matter.
Nor does plain text allow for proper handling of standard elements like footnotes, equations, diagrams, images, or even (aside from ugly hacks) simple text formatting. Why would we even consider going backwards?
ASCII is popular because that's what Project Gutenberg has insisted on, but, frankly, I don't consider the texts you can download to Project Gutenberg to be accurate representations of the original work. The grunt work is done, but the details have been sacrificed for expediency, and details are important too.
However, I really don't think we need to waste time specifying a fancy new format. Either PDF or nice clean HTML with appropriate layout and style sheets will probably work just fine.
All of the same criticisms you direct at SUV's can apply equally well to minivans. In fact, many minivans are even more difficult to see around on the road, since they're generally wider. Are minivans also "evil"? Or have they received special dispensation?
According to www.fueleconomy.gov there are a number of SUV's that actually get better mileage than both minivans and sports-cars, contrary to your assertion.
And what good is a comparison between an SUV and a sports car, anyway? My friends motorcyle gets better mileage than my Subaru Impreza, but I don't plan to trade. It's meaningless.
If you never carry large loads, never tow anything, need to regularly transport more than four people, never negotiate poor roads or drive in bad weather, (and, of course, never combine any of those tasks) then a full-sized SUV is probably a waste of money and fuel. They should really consider something else, maybe a car-based SUV (a station wagon by a different name).
OTOH, if you do need to do any of those things on a regular basis, then an SUV is as good a choice as any.
I'd like that too. I think PVRs have a lot of untapped potential related to advertising.
For example, I'd like to rate advertisments with thumbs-up/down the same way shows can be rated, and the ability to add a TV show featured in a promo directly to the To Do list for later recording.
Further information about certain products (like that new car that caught your eye, or a new movie) could be downloaded as a "Showcase" item on request, and with some more effort that information could even be localized for the viewer (local dealers and sales offers, or local movie showtimes).
If we've got to have commercials (and I think we do) then let's focus on making them more useful. Not with hokey interactive features but by making them work for us in ways we already know and appreciate.
Just because it happens to be a game doesn't mean that no one is responsible for screwing things up. Try walking into the NBA playoffs and stealing the ball.
Good one mate. I needed a laugh, of course you have to ignore the massive quantities of nerve and biological agents funneled into Iraq by US sources.
The US did sell "dual-use" items to Iraq before they invaded Kuwait, some of which may have been illegally used to create chemical agents. They also gave them anthrax samples for medical research, just like the samples we gave to any other country that asked.
And well if you want to talk about providing training and technology to roge states, we can alaways ask who trained and armed Mr. Osama Bin Laden. Was it the French?
Bin Laden is not a "roge state" (or a rogue state, either). Now, he's a very wealthy terrorist. Twenty years ago, when he appeared to be a far more reasonable fellow, he and a number of other similar Afghanis were viewed by the CIA as a useful counterbalance against the Soviets who were invading Afganistan at the time. (You remember that part, right?) Given that the US was unwilling to get involved directly (as we did in Iraq), or simply allow the Soviets to take over the country and shore up their failing superpower status, well, it was a reasonable idea at the time.
Perhaps in your alternate dimension the US is responsible for everything bad in Iraq. Here on Earth Prime, it's clear that the Russians and French sold massive amounts of weapons to Iraq (see http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html and the accompanying SIPRI report). By any standard, other countries sold them far, far more than the US ever did. And they apparently continued to do so long after the sanctions made it illegal. And the Russians were actively involved in training Iraqi secret police, also in violation of UN sanctions.
Most of Iraq's millitary infrastructure was Russian made. The Baathist regime owed Russia about $8 billion in accumulated debt for past weapons purchases, the largest debt owed to any government. That's why Putin was being such a prick about writing off Iraqi debts, even though the various Russian republics have been quick to evade Soviet-era debts of their own.
As late as 1998 Mr. Chenney was doing business with Iraq for over $25M via his beloved Haliburton. Quite interesting that one of the guys that claimed Saddam was such a scum bag that needed to be stopped did in fact help that douche bag to rebuilt Iraq infraestructures
Imagine! An oil company doing business with a nation who's only legally exportable product was oil! Scandal! Those transactions were under the aegis of the UN administered "oil for food" program. Just like the multi-billion dollar oil contracts Iraq had with the Russians and with France's largest corporation, TotalFinaElf (which just happens to have close ties with the Prime Minister's family.)
Of course, the UN botched up the oil-for-food program like they do virtually everything else they manage, allowing the Iraqi gov't to purchase many prohibited items and allowing Saddam to funnel off billions in funds for his own private use, all while he continued to starve his people and force mothers to parade their dead babies for the sympathy of gullible westerners.
Because the US has never sold weapons to nobody, rigth? The US is the largest weapons manufacturer in the world, who do you think they sell their tock to the girl scouts?
Whatever. Look at the numbers. Look at the equipment the Iraqis were actually using in the war. Russian tanks and guns, French airplanes. No US-made equipment. There were lots of countries in the world for US-based weapons manufactureres to sell to that weren't controlled by sadistic meglomaniacal dictators or under UN sanctions. Apparently the French and Russians weren't nearly so choosy.
Like it or not, IE is current the de facto standard for web page compatibility. When you realize that 95% of the the people viewing your site are seeing it "incorrectly" I think it's time to re-evaluate what "correct" means in this context.
Gecko and KHTML all have their own quirks and bugs, and if they were as widely used as IE we'd see web designers railing against them just as loudly (minus that percentage that only complains when they can blame Microsoft.)
"Our computers are horrible power hogs for what they do. if you had to conserve your electrical power like they do in a 3rd world or even a 2nd world you would realize this."
If energy efficiency were the only factor in the equation then I might agree, but it obviously isn't. I'd certainly prefer to have many people using lots of cheap, relatively inefficient computers than fewer people using more expensive, somewhat more efficient computers.
Besides, a stable electrical grid is vital for lots of things besides computers. Like refrigeration, water purification, and electronic communications (with which to contact a doctor, for example.)
It has nothing to do with being lazy, friend. Stateside, one dollar bills are readily accepted by vending machines of all types; fives are not. If I have a five-dollar bill I have to find someone who will make change.
(rant) Please, God, no. Who still thinks that dollar coins are a good idea? And why? We've tried it twice now and nobody uses the damn things if they can help it.
I don't care if other countries use them, or if you like nice shiny things, or if they're more durable. Giant cubes of lead would be even more durable, but I don't want to carry them around in my pocket, either.
I have eight one-dollar bills in my wallet right now. Why in the name of heaven would I want to carry eight coins instead, in addition to the quarters, nickels, and dimes I already have in my pocket? People may eventually stop using $1 bills but it won't be because they prefer carrying the coins, and trying to force them into it makes no sense at all.
It's a dumb idea and it won't work. Go away. (/rant)
Re:The price of exploration
on
Shuttle Politics
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It's a problem of priority. There are some of us that feel that advancing human knowledge is worth more than producing more machines of warfare. What a senseless waste. Perhaps Darwin was on to something.
Yes, perhaps he meant that people who go defenseless would soon be dead but for the efforts of those who don't. Heck, even the United Federation of Planets needs Starfleet.
Your argument presents a false dichotomy. It's the same meaningless non-debate as when people complain about all that money "wasted" on the space program when have farmers going bankrupt/children starving/people out of work/etc.
And it's especially ironic considering that the technology behind space exploration has largely been driven by the very practical needs of those those bad ol' warmongers and their twisted priorities.
I don't like it when people like Uncle Pru get on their high horse and tell me that my goal should be to 'write things that are what the end user wants.'
But you're already taking his advice. It's just that in your case, you are the end user. So long as you're happy with that state of affairs then there's no problem. There is a problem, however, when people try to take such an app and turn it into something more than an itch-scratcher without considering what the new end users will want.
Slashdot Mirror
What is (most) every American's dream? Strike it rich and retire, even though this means that if you are rich many other people will be poor. I'm no communist, but this strike it rich mentality is just absurd.
Er, being rich doesn't make other people poor. That's like claiming that your neighbor shouldn't be allowed to grow tomatoes because you don't have any tomatoes. His gain is not your loss. Rich people don't hide their money in coffee cans buried under the back porch, you know.
I would like to live in a world where doing something is rewarded, rather than being the first to think of that something.
How about both? It's kinda hard to do something without thinking of it first. And often the people who are good at doing are not good at the theoretical work that needs to happen beforehand.
Until 1880 the patent office required a working model to be submitted along with the application. That clearly wouldn't work in every case (which is why the removed the requirement)but perhaps additional incentives could be given to encourage patents which can be demonstrated.
Drat, bad editing.
Of course, that should read: "The UN agreement under which the coaliation operated effectively prevented them from removing Saddam Hussein from power..."
What's that? You'd rather I had proof before I convicted you?
That's just crazy talk.
Jesus, what a stupid analogy. Perhaps you weren't alive waaay back then, but Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1991. At that time Iraq had both gas and nerve agents in their arsenal. The invasion was forcibly repelled by an international coalition. The UN agreement under which the coaliation operated effectively prevented them from leaving Saddam Hussein in power, but imposed a cease-fire requiring him to disarm. He was required, under the conditions of the cease fire, to prove his compliance by destroying the weapons he was known to have and submitting to inspections to ensure that he didn't develop any new weapons. He did neither of those things.
The UN inspectors were not supposed to have to search the entire freakin' country for the weapons - Hussein was supposed to give them the weapons. Everyone from Hillary Clinton to Hans Blix was certain that he had not complied and agreed that he very likely had prohibited weapons.
If that's all too complicated for you, pretend that Hussein was on a violent criminal who was free on parole, and that records showed him as having a number of registered weapons and lots of ammo that he claimed to have suddenly "lost" after digging a bunch of holes late one night in his back yard. Under those circumstances the police don't have to prove you're guilty of a new crime - you have to prove you're not still committing the crime that you were already convicted of.
Note that Adderall can have some very unpleasant side effects, including some that may not be readily apparent to the person taking the drug. The worst - gradually rising paranoia and increasing agitation - can be easily rationalized away as normal responses to stress, especially if the drug actually does help the ADHD symptoms at first.
Remember that these are serious drugs. Before starting on a regimen of Adderall (or any similar drug) ask your friends and family to be frank with you about any behavior that might seem strange to them. Trust their judgement and if they tell you that something is wrong you should work with your doctor to discontinue the drug as soon as safely possible. Believe me, I speak from personal experience.
Probably. And it's not unreasonable, considering that statements made by random employees (who may or may not actually be knowledgable about certain details) could be damaging to them in court.
IBM has probably asked their employees not to comment on this matter, for the very same reasons.
the problem with libel and slander is that you have to enforce it in court..
So what? All laws ultimately have to be enforced in court, including this one. If the existing laws aren't having the effect they were originally intended to have then they need to be re-examined. Making another law, one even broader and more vague than the existing ones, will certainly not help.
Nor should the law presume that the defendant is a "media bully". Do you have any idea how many frivilous, wacky, crackpot lawsuits media outlets deal with all the time? Would you suggest that Bob Blogger should bear that same burden?
So true. Two weeks ago I was involved in a relatively low-speed accident in a parking lot. As I rounded a turn to leave the lot a car backed out of another space right next to my car and rammed my front fender. I slammed on my brakes and avoided swerving into anything or anyone else. Had I not been wearing my belt I'm sure that I would have been jostled enough that my feet would have been moved well away from the pedals and it would have taken more time for me to react.
In an accident, a car with an unbelted driver at the wheel often becomes, for a few critical seconds, a car without no driver at the wheel.
First and obviously, it will weaken the tendency for people to build isolated self-referential extremist commmunities of delusion, like fundamentalists, deconstructionists, ultralibertarians, etc., without linking to contrary evidence.
Huh? Whether that's a worthwhile goal or not, WTF business does any government have imposing rules on private individuals designed to control who can speak to whom about what? That's a horrible proposition, and completely unnecessary.
Nonsense. It's chilling because it imposes a penalty on free speech. Expressing my opinions does not carry with it the "responsibility" to express other people's opinions. Both Europe and the US already have libel and slander laws to address legally infinging speech. If someone doesn't like what I say and wants to say something different then they can get their own damn blog.
If every potentially controversial opinion carries with it legal penalties requiring that you spend untold hours allowing responses (and responses to responses) then people will naturally steer clear of expressing those opinions, and that's not a good thing. Just what we need: flamewars with byzantine EU bureacracies built right in.
No, but there sure is a small circle of executives who make those tough decisions while on the way to the golf club in their 7 series BMW for a nice lobster dinner. The company I work for just cut vacation. I get 1 week a year now. I also have to take it before the fiscal year end on 9/1. So there's now no time to accrue vacation before christmas. How nice. And those altruistic beings who are just looking out for the company? Let's see how quick they are to give back that benefit once the economy turns around.
Oops, your cynicism dial appears to be stuck at "11".
Sometimes you're right and the people in charge are stupid, selfish bastards who'd sell their own mothers for a bigger box on the org chart. But in far more cases those vile "executives" are just like you. They're doing their jobs as best they can given the resources at their disposal. It might feel better to pretend that everything they do is motivated by personal greed and callous disregard for the workin' man, but it probably isn't true.
Have you ever had a paycheck bounce? I have. Have you ever had your employer siezed by the IRS for failure to pay payroll taxes? I have. Have you ever been promised bonueses on eight separate occaisions and received a fraction on one only once? I have. Have you ever been fired because your manager thought you were better than him? I have. Have you ever gotten in trouble for not predicting the future or reading someone's mind? I have. Have you ever predicted a project's failure months and millions of dollars in advance? I have.
"Have you ever had your toes gnawed off by your bosses' rabid pet weasles, while he dances through the office snorting coke and singing opera off key? I have!"
Wow, bad run of luck there. Frankly, it sounds like you really need to choose your employers a bit more carefully. Or find a new career. And maybe a good therapist.
And you'll be the first to be laid off. Employers want sheep. If you want to keep your job, act like one. Tell them nothing because they're certainly not volunteering any information. If you don't like your job, find another one. But never let them know you're looking. Otherwise, they'll remove you before you have the next job lined up.
Yes, because all employers just love to fire good people who are dissatisfied! For no reason! And they love to expose themselves to legal liability and pay lots of money, too! Because they hate hate hate you!
But, hey, I'm a sheep who's got a nice job with a boss I actually like, so I'm clearly too far gone for my opinions to matter. Baaaa.
The work culture in this country sucks. And it's time for a change.
Slashdot: Changing the world one bitter rant at a time.
You're a fucking idiot.
It's been proven time and time again that open source software is more secure as long as it's properly managed and vigilantly kept up to date.
And you're a rude idiot.
Even if the case for Windows/Linux was as clear as you seem to think it is (and it most certainly isn't), there are far more critical issues involved than what OS, email program, office suite you use.
Are any of the the apps that run the infrastructure you use every single day distributed as open source? Telephone switching systems? Firmware for routers and switches? Control systems for energy plants, power distribution networks, and water processing systems? Weather and communications satellite control systems? ATC?
The answer is "no". And those are the sorts of decisions that governments must consider. MS doesn't write that kind of software, and neither does your average open-source drone on Slashdot.
Jesus Chr*st that is NOT captialism. MS being an monopoly CANNOT sell it's products for $1 each in order to keep competitors from entering its market. That is illegal plain and simple.
Sure, but MS simply isn't doing that. If MS were selling below cost (that's what "dumping" means) to destroy the Lindows market then you'd have a point. Instead, they're allegedly offering a somehwat lower price to folks who've already bought Lindows. How can that prevent Lindows from entering the market? It doesn't, of course. All it can do is give the dissatisfied Lindows user a way out of a bad purchase.
Look, one of the good things about the increasing prominence of Linux and other open source efforts is that it's creating the perception (valid or not) of a viable alternative to Microsoft's offerings. Competition, in other words.
That's a good thing, because it's likely to persuade MS to change their ways to the benefit of the average consumer. And they'll do so not because of judicial fiat or overwrought editors on Slashdot, but because it makes financial sense for the company. Enlightened self-interest is a wonderful motivator.
One of those changes, probably the most noticable from the consumer perspective, is likely to be better pricing. Great, right? Yet when MS attempts to improve their pricing people complain because the picture for an arguably inferior commerical product (Lindows) is no longer quite so rosy. That makes no sense. Real competition in a free market can cut both ways.
Ah, so stringing together vague accusations of widespread corruption with random snippets of economic theories ripped out of context is "Insightful". I do like how you worked in the obligatory reference to Linux as the shining beacon of hope in a World Gone Mad. That sort of thing is always good for a little extra karma.
Plain text is fine for, well, plain text. And it works pretty well as a least-common-denominator format for exchanging information between otherwise incompatible systems. But there's no way the industry or the public will be happy with the limitations it imposes on how their electronic books are presented.
For one thing, straight ASCII has no capability to preserve the presentation of the original work, nor the flexibility to allow new electronic works to share the same richness that thousands of years of paper publishing have given us. These things do matter.
Nor does plain text allow for proper handling of standard elements like footnotes, equations, diagrams, images, or even (aside from ugly hacks) simple text formatting. Why would we even consider going backwards?
ASCII is popular because that's what Project Gutenberg has insisted on, but, frankly, I don't consider the texts you can download to Project Gutenberg to be accurate representations of the original work. The grunt work is done, but the details have been sacrificed for expediency, and details are important too.
However, I really don't think we need to waste time specifying a fancy new format. Either PDF or nice clean HTML with appropriate layout and style sheets will probably work just fine.
All of the same criticisms you direct at SUV's can apply equally well to minivans. In fact, many minivans are even more difficult to see around on the road, since they're generally wider. Are minivans also "evil"? Or have they received special dispensation?
According to www.fueleconomy.gov there are a number of SUV's that actually get better mileage than both minivans and sports-cars, contrary to your assertion.
And what good is a comparison between an SUV and a sports car, anyway? My friends motorcyle gets better mileage than my Subaru Impreza, but I don't plan to trade. It's meaningless.
If you never carry large loads, never tow anything, need to regularly transport more than four people, never negotiate poor roads or drive in bad weather, (and, of course, never combine any of those tasks) then a full-sized SUV is probably a waste of money and fuel. They should really consider something else, maybe a car-based SUV (a station wagon by a different name).
OTOH, if you do need to do any of those things on a regular basis, then an SUV is as good a choice as any.
I'd like that too. I think PVRs have a lot of untapped potential related to advertising.
For example, I'd like to rate advertisments with thumbs-up/down the same way shows can be rated, and the ability to add a TV show featured in a promo directly to the To Do list for later recording.
Further information about certain products (like that new car that caught your eye, or a new movie) could be downloaded as a "Showcase" item on request, and with some more effort that information could even be localized for the viewer (local dealers and sales offers, or local movie showtimes).
If we've got to have commercials (and I think we do) then let's focus on making them more useful. Not with hokey interactive features but by making them work for us in ways we already know and appreciate.
Just because it happens to be a game doesn't mean that no one is responsible for screwing things up. Try walking into the NBA playoffs and stealing the ball.
The US did sell "dual-use" items to Iraq before they invaded Kuwait, some of which may have been illegally used to create chemical agents. They also gave them anthrax samples for medical research, just like the samples we gave to any other country that asked.
Bin Laden is not a "roge state" (or a rogue state, either). Now, he's a very wealthy terrorist. Twenty years ago, when he appeared to be a far more reasonable fellow, he and a number of other similar Afghanis were viewed by the CIA as a useful counterbalance against the Soviets who were invading Afganistan at the time. (You remember that part, right?) Given that the US was unwilling to get involved directly (as we did in Iraq), or simply allow the Soviets to take over the country and shore up their failing superpower status, well, it was a reasonable idea at the time.
Perhaps in your alternate dimension the US is responsible for everything bad in Iraq. Here on Earth Prime, it's clear that the Russians and French sold massive amounts of weapons to Iraq (see http://www.command-post.org/archives/002978.html and the accompanying SIPRI report). By any standard, other countries sold them far, far more than the US ever did. And they apparently continued to do so long after the sanctions made it illegal. And the Russians were actively involved in training Iraqi secret police, also in violation of UN sanctions.
Most of Iraq's millitary infrastructure was Russian made. The Baathist regime owed Russia about $8 billion in accumulated debt for past weapons purchases, the largest debt owed to any government. That's why Putin was being such a prick about writing off Iraqi debts, even though the various Russian republics have been quick to evade Soviet-era debts of their own.
Imagine! An oil company doing business with a nation who's only legally exportable product was oil! Scandal! Those transactions were under the aegis of the UN administered "oil for food" program. Just like the multi-billion dollar oil contracts Iraq had with the Russians and with France's largest corporation, TotalFinaElf (which just happens to have close ties with the Prime Minister's family.)
Of course, the UN botched up the oil-for-food program like they do virtually everything else they manage, allowing the Iraqi gov't to purchase many prohibited items and allowing Saddam to funnel off billions in funds for his own private use, all while he continued to starve his people and force mothers to parade their dead babies for the sympathy of gullible westerners.
Whatever. Look at the numbers. Look at the equipment the Iraqis were actually using in the war. Russian tanks and guns, French airplanes. No US-made equipment. There were lots of countries in the world for US-based weapons manufactureres to sell to that weren't controlled by sadistic meglomaniacal dictators or under UN sanctions. Apparently the French and Russians weren't nearly so choosy.
Like it or not, IE is current the de facto standard for web page compatibility. When you realize that 95% of the the people viewing your site are seeing it "incorrectly" I think it's time to re-evaluate what "correct" means in this context.
Gecko and KHTML all have their own quirks and bugs, and if they were as widely used as IE we'd see web designers railing against them just as loudly (minus that percentage that only complains when they can blame Microsoft.)
Step -1: Observe user with eyes to locate target and analyze daily movement schedule. Clearly the existence of vision poses dire risks.
"Our computers are horrible power hogs for what they do. if you had to conserve your electrical power like they do in a 3rd world or even a 2nd world you would realize this."
If energy efficiency were the only factor in the equation then I might agree, but it obviously isn't. I'd certainly prefer to have many people using lots of cheap, relatively inefficient computers than fewer people using more expensive, somewhat more efficient computers.
Besides, a stable electrical grid is vital for lots of things besides computers. Like refrigeration, water purification, and electronic communications (with which to contact a doctor, for example.)
It has nothing to do with being lazy, friend. Stateside, one dollar bills are readily accepted by vending machines of all types; fives are not. If I have a five-dollar bill I have to find someone who will make change.
(rant)
Please, God, no. Who still thinks that dollar coins are a good idea? And why? We've tried it twice now and nobody uses the damn things if they can help it.
I don't care if other countries use them, or if you like nice shiny things, or if they're more durable. Giant cubes of lead would be even more durable, but I don't want to carry them around in my pocket, either.
I have eight one-dollar bills in my wallet right now. Why in the name of heaven would I want to carry eight coins instead, in addition to the quarters, nickels, and dimes I already have in my pocket? People may eventually stop using $1 bills but it won't be because they prefer carrying the coins, and trying to force them into it makes no sense at all.
It's a dumb idea and it won't work. Go away.
(/rant)
It's a problem of priority. There are some of us that feel that advancing human knowledge is worth more than producing more machines of warfare. What a senseless waste. Perhaps Darwin was on to something.
Yes, perhaps he meant that people who go defenseless would soon be dead but for the efforts of those who don't. Heck, even the United Federation of Planets needs Starfleet.
Your argument presents a false dichotomy. It's the same meaningless non-debate as when people complain about all that money "wasted" on the space program when have farmers going bankrupt/children starving/people out of work/etc.
And it's especially ironic considering that the technology behind space exploration has largely been driven by the very practical needs of those those bad ol' warmongers and their twisted priorities.
I don't like it when people like Uncle Pru get on their high horse and tell me that my goal should be to 'write things that are what the end user wants.'
But you're already taking his advice. It's just that in your case, you are the end user. So long as you're happy with that state of affairs then there's no problem. There is a problem, however, when people try to take such an app and turn it into something more than an itch-scratcher without considering what the new end users will want.