None of which, of course, says anything about the quality of either Tivo or ReplayTV.
Without getting into Tivo vs. ReplayTV wars, I think the main reason that Tivo had been selling better is that Tivo spent a lot more money on advertising. I, too, knew about ReplayTV before I knew about Tivo, but when I finally went in to buy a DVR, I had forgotten entirely the ReplayTV even existed.
Further, on a unit by unit comparison, Tivo looked cheaper at the time -- until you factored in the monthly cost. I suspect many people looked at the cheaper price and went no further.
On a last note, the salesmen seemed particularly uninformed about ReplayTV, while they could talk my ears off about Tivo. Ask the differences, and they refered to the signs in front of the displays.
If my experience was typical -- and I suspect it was, more or less -- then it's no wonder Tivo was outselling ReplayTV.
> If the the future is known in advance,
> logically, it must be pre-determined.
Uh, no, not if you're using "pre-determined" to mean "fated" or "forced" to do something.
Having advance knowledge of an event -- even of all events -- does not mean they are predetermined.
Let's go back to first cause. God makes humans.
He makes them with free will. He knows that by doing so, he is allowing them to choose a path contrary to what he would have choosen for them, however, he gives them free will anyway.
How does knowing the humans will choose a certain path equate with pre-determining they will choose that path? It doesn't, as long as you define predetermination as forknowledge.
Your question really doesn't even need God. The question is just as valid when asking whether we, as humans, have free will, or whether we are destined by our biology and upbringing and culture to make certain decisions. Forget God. Perhaps I'm the way I am because of 10,000 years of ancestors.
It's a fairly weighty philisophical question that I'm not really qualified to discuss at that level. Go read some philosophy books.
Not to discourage you, but I haven't seen many companies interested in hiring Linux hobbiests as sysadmins. In fact, I've seen job openings listed that said just that: "Real experience needed, no Linux hobby admins." Or something to that effect.
I think you can get into admining if that's what you really want, but I doubt many companies are going to take a chance on hiring a person for technical work that has no technical experience.
Heck, we declined to hire someone who *had* tech and unix admin experience because he wasn't technical enough.
Broadband won't go away. It may be more expensive, or harder to get, but it won't go away.
This is really a transition time for computer communication/web/distributed computing. People haven't really figured out what the web is good for, and companies haven't really figured out how to use it.
As the kids that are around ten years old today grow into adulthood -- kids that can't imagine life without computers, the net, and web -- these are the kids who'll first really see how it will all integrate into their lives.
Broadband will be part of it. I have no idea how it'll look, but it'll be there. My suspicion is that we'll have a single cable that handles all communications -- TV, Phone, Computers, new stuff -- and that things will become more and more networked within a home. Maybe not -- but I'm not worried about broadband in the long run.
Might worry about losing my current DSL connection though...
I enjoy programming. I have a lot of fun with creating and designing things that work for either myself or other people or both. And I got into programming knowing that I enjoyed it.
Problem is, most programming on a corporate level really isn't much fun.
What I did for a while was what someone else suggested -- I switched from programming to admin, then back again. In between I discovered what really does work for me.
Now I do unix admin work for my "real" job, and I write Palm software for fun. Their are lots of opportunities if you're willing to create *good* software. Good freeware is extremely hard to find, and even shareware is generally overpriced.
And if what you enjoy is creating software, it can be extremely rewarding.
But if what you've found is that you *don't* enjoy creating software, then get out. Find something you do enjoy, and do that for a living. Forget the money -- it's unlikely to be significant anyway. And the big money comes to people who are extremely good at their job -- and those people enjoy what they are doing.
I've dealt with too many people who came into this for the money and who had no idea why assembly language might be a good idea (a senior in CS) or
who didn't know the difference between RAM and disk space (an "experienced" Java programmer). These people don't belong in the field.
The point is, if you enjoy programming or admin type work, then you can find ways to earn a living doing things in the workforce that are tolerable and sometimes fun, then go home and do the really fun stuff. If you don't enjoy computers, it's time to find something you do enjoy. Save those of us on the outside who aren't interested in another bored consultant, and save yourself by finding something that excites you.
It does matter. You are tacitly condoning the labels putting out CDs that can't be played on a computer and of which MP3s can't be made. And you're doing it because you say people will get the music anyway.
I own a HDD MP3 player, but I never used Napster or any of it's clones. All my music came from CDs that I already own that I have ripped to MP3. If a copy protection scheme becomes standard, I'm either not going to be able to do that, I'm going to need even more specialized (and probably illegal) software, or I'm not going to be able to do DAE. I don't like any of these choices.
Worse, If this nsync CD is accepted by the majority, we'll be bringing up a generation of kids that think that copy protection on CDs is OK. They shouldn't have to put up with that.
Doubt it'll happen. I was/am also a Telocity customer, and I've already been migrated to an Ameritech line (I assume). The good news is that I wasn't forced onto PPPoE, which is what looked like would happen.
I gave it a lot of thought. Telocity/DirectTVDSL is the only service available to me that hands me a static IP, doesn't block ports, and doesn't mind if you set up a (small) network behind their router. There are enough good things there that I don't ming having ADSL instead of SDSL.
Of course, I don't upload multi-gig files, either....
These are all nice ideas, but how realistic are they? Three to six months warning for a layoff? I was laid off with two weeks warning last year, and this was in small company and bosses who were my friends. They just finally realized they could no longer pay me. I don't believe most companies plan layoffs that far in advance. Certainly some do, but those companies usually tell their employees.
Continuing health benefits? Those health benefits from CORBA aren't cheap. I think the estimate for continuing my benefits was on the order of $500 per month. Out of my pocket. So who's going to pay for those benefits? The laid off employee? Maybe some could -- I took my chances for a month until my next job's benefits were available. I doubt many jobless workers could afford it for long. The company? That's reasonable, but I doubt it'll happen. Cost is simply too high.
The real solution would be for companies to take a longer view. In the last four years I've worked for or at companies that had policies toword employees that didn't simply make sense. Those policies harmed the employees, and harmed the company in terms of losing good, knowledgable, and productive employees.
When companies stop looking at their employees as an easily replacable commodity, both they and the employees will be better off.
Now under the rule of an arguably undemocratically elected president (at least I would have quite a bit of trouble explaining the outcome to the ancient greeks who invented democracy)
Well, just to nitpick a bit, the US is not a democracy. It's a democratic republic. Assuming that the votes in Florida were tallied correctly (a point I'm not going to argue either way), then Bush was, for good or bad, elected by the rules of our system and by the rules common in a democratic republic.
I'd have to agree with the rest of the post, however.
Sean.
Re:So I will drive with my windows open, NEXT
on
Remote Breathalyzer
·
· Score: 1
Depends. Who owns the car? If the kid bought it, then yes, I'm opposed. If the parent bought it, then they can do what they want. (Yeah, I know, it's hard to tell who really owns a car a sixteen year old bought.)
What I'm really opposed to is the device contacting the police. Not allowing the car to start is a much better solution. That provides as much protection and doesn't violate privacy.
Sean.
Re:So I will drive with my windows open, NEXT
on
Remote Breathalyzer
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Why is it that people don't seem to GET IT?
This device is a gigantic invasion of privacy! "Simply a protection". Sheesh. Let's tap the phones -- you're not doing anything illegal, so you don't care, right? Let's put cameras everywhere -- your home, your office, the streets. If you're not doing anything illegal, then you won't care, right? I mean, it's for your protection!
Can't you understand that your freedoms are contingent upon you protecting those freedoms, and that the minute you decide to allow one of those freedoms to be taken from you, you create a path for others to be taken? It's already begun. If people won't fight for their freedoms, if they won't fight for the rights and freedoms of others, then we've lost.
Who created these style guides and why should I care?
I don't mind using 'e-mail', in fact, I usually do, but capitalize the 'e'? Why? It makes no sense and I won't do it. I also steadfastly refuse to put the ending punctuation mark within quotes unless the whole sentence is in quotes, as in "this is it". That doesn't make sense either.
Well, most of that may be true for the lower end stuff, but I see little competition in enterprise class boxes. We run three major platforms where I work. AIX, Solaris, and NT. We use a lot of enterprise class Sun hardware. Hardware that really has no competition from Intel or AMD.
For smaller, more workstation type servers that don't demand an enterprise class solution, we're beginning to put in the odd Linux system. But we're not always succesful. I was on the sidelines of an attempt to meld Red Hat 7.1, Coldfusion, and Oracle. It failed. I don't know the exact details, but it had to do with Oracle and Coldfusion not being able to talk, and support only for RH 6.X. The project got moved to Solaris, where it now flourishes.
The point being that while Linux can be used in a lot of applications, there are still problems with saying that it can overshadow Sun. Linux is still not as well supported by enterprise class applications as is Solaris, and currently Linux doesn't run the larger, faster, more stable enterprise class boxes like you can get from Sun.
I do think Sun is getting complacent and is due for a fall, but I don't think they're in much danger from Linux. Not yet anyway. If IBM releases an enterprise class version of Linux, then who knows?
Red hat 7.1 seems better, but under RH 5&6 I had to be darned careful what video card I bought, and sound cards were almost as much trouble. I use Linux for 99.9% of my real work, but I simply gave up try to use it for games.
I'm not saying it was impossible, but when I could reboot and easily have sound and decent graphics it simply wasn't worth the trouble to fight to get games working under Linux.
I eventually bought a 2nd PC just for running windows so that I didn't have to reboot my Linux box.
I know next to nothing about the electronics behind all the computers I admin, however, I
have noticed something odd.
I have a Visor Prism -- a rechargable model. On my Win2000 box at work I can cause the machine to crash by sliding the Prism sideways across the contacts while inserting it into the cradle.
It's been a while since I've done this (and I'm not testing it right now:-), but what I recall is that it took the machine down immediately -- as if I'd hit a reset button.
If it can do that, I guess I might believe that inserting it incorrectly might in some unusual cases, maybe damage the MB.
But like I said, I don't really know much about what's going on in there...
It's pretty much that simple -- I do all my development under Linux because I like doing development under a Unix environment, and I detest doing development under a Windows environment.
And just having looked at the price for Appforge -- around $1300 -- that seems like a big price to pay for something in which I'm not all that interested in doing. And that price doesn't include MS Visual Studio.
Palm development isn't my "real" job, so it needs to be fun. If I have to switch to doing development in a way that isn't fun, I'd better have a good reason for switching.
As a developer for the Palm platform, I can think of several reasons this matters.
Palmgear has over 11,000 apps available for the Palm platform. That number grows daily. With an emulator that could run 3.3 ROMS, the compatibility with those apps would be close to 100%. Those WinCE users would now have access to the Palm programs.
Think they don't want them? I know from personal experience they do. I've been asked more than once if I had an IPAQ version of one of my programs -- one person promised to purchase if it ever became available.
For us 3rd party Palm developers, it means, simply, money.
I still have a lot of questions. Like how does one hotsync the emulator and save your files? How do you install your software?
I also hesitate to believe that it would ever become that popular. Loading an emulator to run a program is probably too complex for the average person. If it can stay active in the background, maybe.
Nonetheless, if they get one that can handle the 3.3 ROMS, then I suspect it will increase sales of my and other developers applications.
But compared to computers, cars are easy.
The essential stuff is two pedals, one lever, and
a wheel. For maintenance you've got to add gas
once in a while. Okay, for status add two gauges:
gas and speed. Further, a car has one function for most people -- to transport them from place to place.
A computer, now that's complex. Start with functions. Email. Web browsing. Gaming. Word processing. Image processing. Checkbook balancing. And hundreds or thousands more.
That's just functions. In many cases, the UI interface for each function differs -- perhaps only slightly, but it differs from other apps. (Imagine if driving to work, your turn signal stem was on the left side of the steering column, but driving home it was on the right. And driving to the grocery store it was on the dash.)
And do we want to get into status? What status? for which computer part?
None of this is bad. A computer, being a much more versitile tool, is much more difficult to use. I don't completely disagree that currently many people are scared of computers because they weren't exposed to them at a young age, but I don't believe that computers can continue to be as versitile as they are now and have a significantly simpler UI.
Then blame any of the other myriad things that were introduced in the 1960's. Hmm, Kennedy mandated we'd fly to the moon, and we did. *That's* why people are so rude. The pill. Rock music. Sorry, it's not anything like science. It's just an observation made by a christain who'd like to believe lack of school prayer caused something. But's there's no proof.
Further, school prayer wasn't outlawed. *Organized* prayer was. You want your kid to pray in school, tell them to do so. No one will stop them unless they're being disruptive.
I don't believe in your God, I don't want my child forced to pray to your God, and I think that the further away government gets from religion the better off we'll all be.
While I'll agree that the founders were, in general Christians, I don't believe that there's anything that shows they intended the US to be a theocracy. I do believe there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. You seem to want a theocracy. I won't live in a place where I'm told what to believe.
Tough. Not all programming is the fun stuff. And anyone who's going to create a useful application is going to have to do the stuff that isn't much fun.
If a programmer expects to work for a company, then that person must expect and be willing to do tasks that really aren't very challenging or much fun to do.
If a programmer expects to create -- on their own -- a mostly bug-free program for use by anyone but his or her self, then there's drudgery involved.
No single program or application is going to be challenging 100% of development. Create a new window. Sure, you've done it 100 times before, but you need one now.
Anyone who can't do the boring stuff isn't going to produce much that's useful.
It's not micropayments. It's supply. Why should I pay for content I can get elsewhere? And right now it's difficult to find news content that isn't available several places on the web.
When people can't get content without paying for it, they'll pay. (But it has to be competitive with non-web sources.)
I do development for the Palm. I'm not sure I believe that a hack to move the scrollbar to the left side could work consistantly.
In the programs I write, I place the scrollbar exactly where I want it onscreen, then I place some additional stuff close to the scroll bar to look as it they were all part of the same thing. In other words, there's very little automatic about the placement of scrollbars.
If my scrollbars got moved to the left, it'd look extremely ugly and result in a loss of functionality.
I don't quite have the guts to try lefthack on my personal PDA. I'm afraid of what might happen. (Will try it on a test PDA when I get home. I am curious.)
At any one time I may be working a task that requires me to be one three or four machines simultaniously. I want to know at a glance which window is which. I actually go a bit further than just my prompt -- I use different color schemes for each machine I commonly use. That way if I'm in vi, I still know at a glance which machine I'm on. (Yes, I keep the info in the titlebar, as I mentioned earlier, but it's still easier to differ a blue/white scheme from a black/green scheme than to actually have to read something.)
Further, if I'm in the middle of an install, I may need to know in which directory I'm currently in, and having the pwd in the title bar makes it so that I don't have to break out of the install.
I've been doing Unix admining a long time. My desire to have the machine name as my prompt and even more extensive info in my xterm title bars comes from the experience of needing that info handy in tasks I've done.
But date? Why bother? Doesn't everyone keep a clock on screen anyway?:-)
But the path, now that's the fun thing. In xterms, my machine/path is always in the title bar, and when I vi a file, the filename gets added. Haven't found anyone else who likes that, but I could never stand my full path in my prompt. Too long.
Slashdot Mirror
Without getting into Tivo vs. ReplayTV wars, I think the main reason that Tivo had been selling better is that Tivo spent a lot more money on advertising. I, too, knew about ReplayTV before I knew about Tivo, but when I finally went in to buy a DVR, I had forgotten entirely the ReplayTV even existed.
Further, on a unit by unit comparison, Tivo looked cheaper at the time -- until you factored in the monthly cost. I suspect many people looked at the cheaper price and went no further.
On a last note, the salesmen seemed particularly uninformed about ReplayTV, while they could talk my ears off about Tivo. Ask the differences, and they refered to the signs in front of the displays.
If my experience was typical -- and I suspect it was, more or less -- then it's no wonder Tivo was outselling ReplayTV.
(After research, I chose ReplayTV.)
Sean.
Uh, no, not if you're using "pre-determined" to mean "fated" or "forced" to do something.
Having advance knowledge of an event -- even of all events -- does not mean they are predetermined.
Let's go back to first cause. God makes humans. He makes them with free will. He knows that by doing so, he is allowing them to choose a path contrary to what he would have choosen for them, however, he gives them free will anyway.
How does knowing the humans will choose a certain path equate with pre-determining they will choose that path? It doesn't, as long as you define predetermination as forknowledge.
Your question really doesn't even need God. The question is just as valid when asking whether we, as humans, have free will, or whether we are destined by our biology and upbringing and culture to make certain decisions. Forget God. Perhaps I'm the way I am because of 10,000 years of ancestors.
It's a fairly weighty philisophical question that I'm not really qualified to discuss at that level. Go read some philosophy books.
Sean.
Not to discourage you, but I haven't seen many companies interested in hiring Linux hobbiests as sysadmins. In fact, I've seen job openings listed that said just that: "Real experience needed, no Linux hobby admins." Or something to that effect.
I think you can get into admining if that's what you really want, but I doubt many companies are going to take a chance on hiring a person for technical work that has no technical experience.
Heck, we declined to hire someone who *had* tech and unix admin experience because he wasn't technical enough.
Good luck,
Sean.
This is really a transition time for computer communication/web/distributed computing. People haven't really figured out what the web is good for, and companies haven't really figured out how to use it.
As the kids that are around ten years old today grow into adulthood -- kids that can't imagine life without computers, the net, and web -- these are the kids who'll first really see how it will all integrate into their lives.
Broadband will be part of it. I have no idea how it'll look, but it'll be there. My suspicion is that we'll have a single cable that handles all communications -- TV, Phone, Computers, new stuff -- and that things will become more and more networked within a home. Maybe not -- but I'm not worried about broadband in the long run.
Might worry about losing my current DSL connection though...
Sean.
I enjoy programming. I have a lot of fun with creating and designing things that work for either myself or other people or both. And I got into programming knowing that I enjoyed it.
Problem is, most programming on a corporate level really isn't much fun.
What I did for a while was what someone else suggested -- I switched from programming to admin, then back again. In between I discovered what really does work for me.
Now I do unix admin work for my "real" job, and I write Palm software for fun. Their are lots of opportunities if you're willing to create *good* software. Good freeware is extremely hard to find, and even shareware is generally overpriced. And if what you enjoy is creating software, it can be extremely rewarding.
But if what you've found is that you *don't* enjoy creating software, then get out. Find something you do enjoy, and do that for a living. Forget the money -- it's unlikely to be significant anyway. And the big money comes to people who are extremely good at their job -- and those people enjoy what they are doing.
I've dealt with too many people who came into this for the money and who had no idea why assembly language might be a good idea (a senior in CS) or who didn't know the difference between RAM and disk space (an "experienced" Java programmer). These people don't belong in the field.
The point is, if you enjoy programming or admin type work, then you can find ways to earn a living doing things in the workforce that are tolerable and sometimes fun, then go home and do the really fun stuff. If you don't enjoy computers, it's time to find something you do enjoy. Save those of us on the outside who aren't interested in another bored consultant, and save yourself by finding something that excites you.
Sean.
I own a HDD MP3 player, but I never used Napster or any of it's clones. All my music came from CDs that I already own that I have ripped to MP3. If a copy protection scheme becomes standard, I'm either not going to be able to do that, I'm going to need even more specialized (and probably illegal) software, or I'm not going to be able to do DAE. I don't like any of these choices.
Worse, If this nsync CD is accepted by the majority, we'll be bringing up a generation of kids that think that copy protection on CDs is OK. They shouldn't have to put up with that.
Sean.
I gave it a lot of thought. Telocity/DirectTVDSL is the only service available to me that hands me a static IP, doesn't block ports, and doesn't mind if you set up a (small) network behind their router. There are enough good things there that I don't ming having ADSL instead of SDSL.
Of course, I don't upload multi-gig files, either....
Sean.
Continuing health benefits? Those health benefits from CORBA aren't cheap. I think the estimate for continuing my benefits was on the order of $500 per month. Out of my pocket. So who's going to pay for those benefits? The laid off employee? Maybe some could -- I took my chances for a month until my next job's benefits were available. I doubt many jobless workers could afford it for long. The company? That's reasonable, but I doubt it'll happen. Cost is simply too high.
The real solution would be for companies to take a longer view. In the last four years I've worked for or at companies that had policies toword employees that didn't simply make sense. Those policies harmed the employees, and harmed the company in terms of losing good, knowledgable, and productive employees.
When companies stop looking at their employees as an easily replacable commodity, both they and the employees will be better off.
Sean.
Now under the rule of an arguably undemocratically elected president (at least I would have quite a bit of trouble explaining the outcome to the ancient greeks who invented democracy)
Well, just to nitpick a bit, the US is not a democracy. It's a democratic republic. Assuming that the votes in Florida were tallied correctly (a point I'm not going to argue either way), then Bush was, for good or bad, elected by the rules of our system and by the rules common in a democratic republic.
I'd have to agree with the rest of the post, however.
Sean.
What I'm really opposed to is the device contacting the police. Not allowing the car to start is a much better solution. That provides as much protection and doesn't violate privacy.
Sean.
This device is a gigantic invasion of privacy! "Simply a protection". Sheesh. Let's tap the phones -- you're not doing anything illegal, so you don't care, right? Let's put cameras everywhere -- your home, your office, the streets. If you're not doing anything illegal, then you won't care, right? I mean, it's for your protection!
Can't you understand that your freedoms are contingent upon you protecting those freedoms, and that the minute you decide to allow one of those freedoms to be taken from you, you create a path for others to be taken? It's already begun. If people won't fight for their freedoms, if they won't fight for the rights and freedoms of others, then we've lost.
Sean.
I don't mind using 'e-mail', in fact, I usually do, but capitalize the 'e'? Why? It makes no sense and I won't do it. I also steadfastly refuse to put the ending punctuation mark within quotes unless the whole sentence is in quotes, as in "this is it". That doesn't make sense either.
Sean.
For smaller, more workstation type servers that don't demand an enterprise class solution, we're beginning to put in the odd Linux system. But we're not always succesful. I was on the sidelines of an attempt to meld Red Hat 7.1, Coldfusion, and Oracle. It failed. I don't know the exact details, but it had to do with Oracle and Coldfusion not being able to talk, and support only for RH 6.X. The project got moved to Solaris, where it now flourishes.
The point being that while Linux can be used in a lot of applications, there are still problems with saying that it can overshadow Sun. Linux is still not as well supported by enterprise class applications as is Solaris, and currently Linux doesn't run the larger, faster, more stable enterprise class boxes like you can get from Sun.
I do think Sun is getting complacent and is due for a fall, but I don't think they're in much danger from Linux. Not yet anyway. If IBM releases an enterprise class version of Linux, then who knows?
Sean.
Red hat 7.1 seems better, but under RH 5&6 I had to be darned careful what video card I bought, and sound cards were almost as much trouble. I use Linux for 99.9% of my real work, but I simply gave up try to use it for games.
I'm not saying it was impossible, but when I could reboot and easily have sound and decent graphics it simply wasn't worth the trouble to fight to get games working under Linux.
I eventually bought a 2nd PC just for running windows so that I didn't have to reboot my Linux box.
Sean.
Sean.
I have a Visor Prism -- a rechargable model. On my Win2000 box at work I can cause the machine to crash by sliding the Prism sideways across the contacts while inserting it into the cradle.
It's been a while since I've done this (and I'm not testing it right now :-), but what I recall is that it took the machine down immediately -- as if I'd hit a reset button.
If it can do that, I guess I might believe that inserting it incorrectly might in some unusual cases, maybe damage the MB.
But like I said, I don't really know much about what's going on in there...
Sean.
It's pretty much that simple -- I do all my development under Linux because I like doing development under a Unix environment, and I detest doing development under a Windows environment.
And just having looked at the price for Appforge -- around $1300 -- that seems like a big price to pay for something in which I'm not all that interested in doing. And that price doesn't include MS Visual Studio.
Palm development isn't my "real" job, so it needs to be fun. If I have to switch to doing development in a way that isn't fun, I'd better have a good reason for switching.
Sean.
Palmgear has over 11,000 apps available for the Palm platform. That number grows daily. With an emulator that could run 3.3 ROMS, the compatibility with those apps would be close to 100%. Those WinCE users would now have access to the Palm programs.
Think they don't want them? I know from personal experience they do. I've been asked more than once if I had an IPAQ version of one of my programs -- one person promised to purchase if it ever became available.
For us 3rd party Palm developers, it means, simply, money.
I still have a lot of questions. Like how does one hotsync the emulator and save your files? How do you install your software?
I also hesitate to believe that it would ever become that popular. Loading an emulator to run a program is probably too complex for the average person. If it can stay active in the background, maybe.
Nonetheless, if they get one that can handle the 3.3 ROMS, then I suspect it will increase sales of my and other developers applications.
Sean.
A computer, now that's complex. Start with functions. Email. Web browsing. Gaming. Word processing. Image processing. Checkbook balancing. And hundreds or thousands more. That's just functions. In many cases, the UI interface for each function differs -- perhaps only slightly, but it differs from other apps. (Imagine if driving to work, your turn signal stem was on the left side of the steering column, but driving home it was on the right. And driving to the grocery store it was on the dash.)
And do we want to get into status? What status? for which computer part?
None of this is bad. A computer, being a much more versitile tool, is much more difficult to use. I don't completely disagree that currently many people are scared of computers because they weren't exposed to them at a young age, but I don't believe that computers can continue to be as versitile as they are now and have a significantly simpler UI.
Sean.
Further, school prayer wasn't outlawed. *Organized* prayer was. You want your kid to pray in school, tell them to do so. No one will stop them unless they're being disruptive.
I don't believe in your God, I don't want my child forced to pray to your God, and I think that the further away government gets from religion the better off we'll all be.
While I'll agree that the founders were, in general Christians, I don't believe that there's anything that shows they intended the US to be a theocracy. I do believe there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. You seem to want a theocracy. I won't live in a place where I'm told what to believe.
Sean.
If a programmer expects to work for a company, then that person must expect and be willing to do tasks that really aren't very challenging or much fun to do.
If a programmer expects to create -- on their own -- a mostly bug-free program for use by anyone but his or her self, then there's drudgery involved.
No single program or application is going to be challenging 100% of development. Create a new window. Sure, you've done it 100 times before, but you need one now.
Anyone who can't do the boring stuff isn't going to produce much that's useful.
Sean.
When people can't get content without paying for it, they'll pay. (But it has to be competitive with non-web sources.)
Sean.
In the programs I write, I place the scrollbar exactly where I want it onscreen, then I place some additional stuff close to the scroll bar to look as it they were all part of the same thing. In other words, there's very little automatic about the placement of scrollbars.
If my scrollbars got moved to the left, it'd look extremely ugly and result in a loss of functionality.
I don't quite have the guts to try lefthack on my personal PDA. I'm afraid of what might happen. (Will try it on a test PDA when I get home. I am curious.)
Sean.
Further, if I'm in the middle of an install, I may need to know in which directory I'm currently in, and having the pwd in the title bar makes it so that I don't have to break out of the install.
I've been doing Unix admining a long time. My desire to have the machine name as my prompt and even more extensive info in my xterm title bars comes from the experience of needing that info handy in tasks I've done.
But date? Why bother? Doesn't everyone keep a clock on screen anyway? :-)
Sean.
But the path, now that's the fun thing. In xterms, my machine/path is always in the title bar, and when I vi a file, the filename gets added. Haven't found anyone else who likes that, but I could never stand my full path in my prompt. Too long.
Sean.