I'll go you one better. Have one or more video cameras mounted on the ceiling looking down. Looking straight down and using polarized lenses should minimize glare. Have a couple of cameras underwater too.
Put a monitor not only at the life guard chair but put them in various places around the facility: the locker rooms, snack bar etc. The more eyes the better. This should cost less 1/10 what the system described, making it cost effective for smaller facilities.
"but the trolls on Slashdot would cut you to pieces in their meaningless, retarded, airheaded corrections"
I've seen many corrections to poorly written articles and comments on Slashdot but I must have missed the "meaningless, retarded, [and] airheaded" corrections.
Not open source but free as in beer with no nags or ads. Made in Italy and available in English and Italian and more. It handles more than 20 compression formats and offers four encryption algorithms.
I've been writing long complex documents for more than twenty years. I've done complete (printed) newsletters, 100+ page technical manuals, press releases, a 300+ page book (which I submitted to my publisher as Word files--it was their requirement, btw), trifold brochures, flyers, ad mockups and much more using Word.
I'm not defending Word as a great program. It can be annoying and frustrating. But it's no more annoying and frustrating than most other programs I've used. Outside of the legal profession where WordPerfect holds on to some diehard loyalists it is the de facto standard for word processing in much of the world.
All that having been said I've tried AbiWord, OOO and a couple of other open source alternatives and none of them could match Word in the features I need.
As dismaying as you may find it, Word's power and its hegemony means it often is the right tool for the job.
But don't get too discouraged. The end of Word's hegemony is within our grasp. I'm convinced that a single word processor that can match Word feature-for-feature and apes its interface can topple Word. All it has to do is output files in pure XML using some schema that is open and widely accepted and Word will start to wither.
Typically techno-fascism. Don't let users select the tools they want to use. Force them to use the tools that make your job easier.
Word has lots of problems and annoyances but it's used by tens of millions of people around the world and is reasonably inexpensive when purchased with the academeic discount.
There are also a great many books, tutorials and other sources of information on it. And there is much information about it available for free on the Web.
End users don't exist to make techies' jobs easier. Techies exist to make end users' jobs easier.
How do you see that sentence as a syntax error? The two clauses are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one could argue that using a "better alternative browser" does indirectly demand better from Microsoft.
Dvorak is a bright guy. But he can't suss out the biggest single benefit of Creative Commons? Here it is, John:
I've made some songs with a program called Dance eJay.
By using the CC license I tell the world that if you want to listen to them on your iPod, swap them with your friends or whatever, that's fine.
But if Nike or Coca-Cola wants to use one of them in a commercial, they have to talk to me about it. And pay me what I demand or take a hike.
I don't want to put them in the public domain because if lightning strikes and some big company stumbles upon them and wants to use one, I want to get paid. But since that's not likely to happen, everybody wang chung tonight. Download your ass off.
This uberlaptop comes with a puny 40 gig drive. I know if you're not filling your machine with movies, pr0n and tunes a gig goes a long way. But still, it seems ridiculous to saddle it with such a small HD. At newegg a Samsung OEM 40GB 2.5" drive sells for $69 while a 60GB costs $13 more. I guess every buck counts.
Usage Note: Enormity is frequently used to refer simply to the property of being great in size or extent, but many would prefer that enormousness (or a synonym such as immensity) be used for this general sense and that enormity be limited to situations that demand a negative moral judgment, as in Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot's oppression. Fifty-nine percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of enormity as a synonym for immensity in the sentence At that point the engineers sat down to design an entirely new viaduct, apparently undaunted by the enormity of their task. This distinction between enormity and enormousness has not always existed historically, but nowadays many observe it. Writers who ignore the distinction, as in the enormity of the President's election victory or the enormity of her inheritance, may find that their words have cast unintended aspersions or evoked unexpected laughter.
It's rather depressing that someone from the Wall Street Journal doesn't make the distinction.
I use Firefox and Comcast broadband. Every time I go to Google Maps to view a map, the map sections come in rapidly except the last section or two, which never come(s) in! This isn't a matter of the sections not existing. It happens with virtually every map I pull up. And I can sit there and hit the Refresh button on my browser and often a different section or sections will be the ones to not come in.
But how would Quark make any money? AOL never made a dime from Netscape, remember. Or are you advocating they commit corporate suicide? (Which would be fine with me. I just don't think they' do it.)
The article referenced starts out "To anyone that has been following the Window's browser news lately.."
To anyone THAT? Why do people write this way these days? The proper form is, of course, "to anyone WHO..." Who. A person isn't a thing. A person is a person. When did using "who" in this context start to disappear? Does anyone know why it disappeared? Why do people use "that" instead of "who" when referring to human beings? It's weird and creepy.
I'm not an expert on Windows internals but I have long suspected that the two most troublesome aspects of Wintel are DLLs and the Registry.
(Of course Wintel has many other problems and fixing these two would be far from a panacea. But am I not right in believing that fixing them would go a long way towards stabilizing the platform?)
The logic behind DLLs is sound but it was implemented stupidly. And hasn't the time for DLLs past? Disk space is now cheap and plentiful.
Would the following idea help? If so, how hard would it be to implement it?
Upon installation check the CRCs of all the DLLs a program uses. If any of them are different copy your own versions of the DLLs you need to your own directory and use them instead.
And here's another idea:
Just say no to using the Registry! I have lots of little utilities that brag about a "clean install" that doesn't use the Registry. Just delete the folder to uninstall. Is there any reason a more sophisticated program (like word processor or browser) must use the Registry?
I'd love to hear comments from programmers on these two issues.
It is, in fact, utterly indisputable that this story was poorly written. As written it implies that the time to complete the task of development is eight hours. That is clearly wrong.
Evidently you did not comprehend that my use of the phrase "something along the lines of" obviates the need for me to supply a complete rewrite of the story. I simply suggested one of many possible alternatives that was limited to addressing the story's most significant fault.
Your use of the phrase "Aside from seeing no necessity for change, your suggested change..." is improperly formed. You are presumably the one seeing no necessity for change so that first clause cannot serve as an antecedent to "your suggested change."
It is not difficult to see why you could not see a "necessity for change."
Perhaps you should stick to topics on which you have some expertise.
It's by crypto genius Bruce Schneier, it uses Blowfish, it's open source and if you want that extra measure of security you can compile it yourself. It's for Windows but there are Unix/Linux versions too.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll go you one better. Have one or more video cameras mounted on the ceiling looking down. Looking straight down and using polarized lenses should minimize glare. Have a couple of cameras underwater too.
Put a monitor not only at the life guard chair but put them in various places around the facility: the locker rooms, snack bar etc. The more eyes the better. This should cost less 1/10 what the system described, making it cost effective for smaller facilities.
"but the trolls on Slashdot would cut you to pieces in their meaningless, retarded, airheaded corrections"
I've seen many corrections to poorly written articles and comments on Slashdot but I must have missed the "meaningless, retarded, [and] airheaded" corrections.
Grammar and spelling matter.
Not open source but free as in beer with no nags or ads. Made in Italy and available in English and Italian and more. It handles more than 20 compression formats and offers four encryption algorithms.
ZipGenius
I think it's pretty ironic that someone who "suffers from learning disabilities" is a better writer than 95% of slashdotters.
I'd hire you man.
Now if they could just do something about all those restaurants that give you Diet Pepsi when you ask for Diet Coke.
Old news for Nerds. Stuff that doesn't matter.
It may not be a perfect analogy but given Microsoft's history of antitrust problems it may be food for thought.
I've been writing long complex documents for more than twenty years. I've done complete (printed) newsletters, 100+ page technical manuals, press releases, a 300+ page book (which I submitted to my publisher as Word files--it was their requirement, btw), trifold brochures, flyers, ad mockups and much more using Word.
I'm not defending Word as a great program. It can be annoying and frustrating. But it's no more annoying and frustrating than most other programs I've used. Outside of the legal profession where WordPerfect holds on to some diehard loyalists it is the de facto standard for word processing in much of the world.
All that having been said I've tried AbiWord, OOO and a couple of other open source alternatives and none of them could match Word in the features I need.
As dismaying as you may find it, Word's power and its hegemony means it often is the right tool for the job.
But don't get too discouraged. The end of Word's hegemony is within our grasp. I'm convinced that a single word processor that can match Word feature-for-feature and apes its interface can topple Word. All it has to do is output files in pure XML using some schema that is open and widely accepted and Word will start to wither.
I have seen the future. And it is XML.
Are you trolling?
"No self-respecting academic uses MS Word"
Bombastic idiocy.
"Force users to use more sensible formats."
Typically techno-fascism. Don't let users select the tools they want to use. Force them to use the tools that make your job easier.
Word has lots of problems and annoyances but it's used by tens of millions of people around the world and is reasonably inexpensive when purchased with the academeic discount.
There are also a great many books, tutorials and other sources of information on it. And there is much information about it available for free on the Web.
End users don't exist to make techies' jobs easier. Techies exist to make end users' jobs easier.
How do you see that sentence as a syntax error? The two clauses are not mutually exclusive. In fact, one could argue that using a "better alternative browser" does indirectly demand better from Microsoft.
And according to all those Popular Science cover stories from the 1960s we should be commuting to work with jet packs or rocket boots by now.
I'll believe it when I see it.
The amount of new features in this version of the open source scalable vector graphics editor is astounding.
/. not everyone is going to know offhand what Inkscape is.
Even on
And excuse my ignorance but what's so "apt" about version number 0.42?
What!?!?! And miss all that important coverage of the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard!?!?!?
Dvorak is a bright guy. But he can't suss out the biggest single benefit of Creative Commons? Here it is, John:
I've made some songs with a program called Dance eJay.
By using the CC license I tell the world that if you want to listen to them on your iPod, swap them with your friends or whatever, that's fine.
But if Nike or Coca-Cola wants to use one of them in a commercial, they have to talk to me about it. And pay me what I demand or take a hike.
I don't want to put them in the public domain because if lightning strikes and some big company stumbles upon them and wants to use one, I want to get paid. But since that's not likely to happen, everybody wang chung tonight. Download your ass off.
What's so hard to understand about that?
This uberlaptop comes with a puny 40 gig drive. I know if you're not filling your machine with movies, pr0n and tunes a gig goes a long way. But still, it seems ridiculous to saddle it with such a small HD. At newegg a Samsung OEM 40GB 2.5" drive sells for $69 while a 60GB costs $13 more. I guess every buck counts.
Exactly.
Here's a usage note from Dictionary.com:
Usage Note: Enormity is frequently used to refer simply to the property of being great in size or extent, but many would prefer that enormousness (or a synonym such as immensity) be used for this general sense and that enormity be limited to situations that demand a negative moral judgment, as in Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot's oppression. Fifty-nine percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of enormity as a synonym for immensity in the sentence At that point the engineers sat down to design an entirely new viaduct, apparently undaunted by the enormity of their task. This distinction between enormity and enormousness has not always existed historically, but nowadays many observe it. Writers who ignore the distinction, as in the enormity of the President's election victory or the enormity of her inheritance, may find that their words have cast unintended aspersions or evoked unexpected laughter.
It's rather depressing that someone from the Wall Street Journal doesn't make the distinction.
Now I know why I was able to but MS Streets & Trips at Costco for $5.00 after rebates.
I use Firefox and Comcast broadband. Every time I go to Google Maps to view a map, the map sections come in rapidly except the last section or two, which never come(s) in! This isn't a matter of the sections not existing. It happens with virtually every map I pull up. And I can sit there and hit the Refresh button on my browser and often a different section or sections will be the ones to not come in.
WTF? Anyone else experience this?
But how would Quark make any money? AOL never made a dime from Netscape, remember. Or are you advocating they commit corporate suicide? (Which would be fine with me. I just don't think they' do it.)
The article referenced starts out "To anyone that has been following the Window's browser news lately.."
To anyone THAT? Why do people write this way these days? The proper form is, of course, "to anyone WHO..." Who. A person isn't a thing. A person is a person. When did using "who" in this context start to disappear? Does anyone know why it disappeared? Why do people use "that" instead of "who" when referring to human beings? It's weird and creepy.
I'm not an expert on Windows internals but I have long suspected that the two most troublesome aspects of Wintel are DLLs and the Registry.
(Of course Wintel has many other problems and fixing these two would be far from a panacea. But am I not right in believing that fixing them would go a long way towards stabilizing the platform?)
The logic behind DLLs is sound but it was implemented stupidly. And hasn't the time for DLLs past? Disk space is now cheap and plentiful.
Would the following idea help? If so, how hard would it be to implement it?
Upon installation check the CRCs of all the DLLs a program uses. If any of them are different copy your own versions of the DLLs you need to your own directory and use them instead.
And here's another idea:
Just say no to using the Registry! I have lots of little utilities that brag about a "clean install" that doesn't use the Registry. Just delete the folder to uninstall. Is there any reason a more sophisticated program (like word processor or browser) must use the Registry?
I'd love to hear comments from programmers on these two issues.
Because the carnivorous jaguars are much worse than the vegetarian jaguars, believe me!
I'm sorry, but you're absolutely wrong.
It is, in fact, utterly indisputable that this story was poorly written. As written it implies that the time to complete the task of development is eight hours. That is clearly wrong.
Evidently you did not comprehend that my use of the phrase "something along the lines of" obviates the need for me to supply a complete rewrite of the story. I simply suggested one of many possible alternatives that was limited to addressing the story's most significant fault.
Your use of the phrase "Aside from seeing no necessity for change, your suggested change..." is improperly formed. You are presumably the one seeing no necessity for change so that first clause cannot serve as an antecedent to "your suggested change."
It is not difficult to see why you could not see a "necessity for change."
Perhaps you should stick to topics on which you have some expertise.
It's by crypto genius Bruce Schneier, it uses Blowfish, it's open source and if you want that extra measure of security you can compile it yourself. It's for Windows but there are Unix/Linux versions too.
Password Safe
"Inventors will have just eight hours to extract at least 11 pounds of breathable oxygen from a simulated form of lunar soil."
This should be rewritten to something along the lines of:
"To win, a team will have to develop a process that can extract at least 11 pounds of oxygen in an eight hour period" The deadline is June 1, 2008.