(Also known as the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System)
Doesn't change the fact that I now own a Wii.... It's not "next gen" any more, because it's on the market now. They aren't still selling *new* PS2s. Whether games are still being made or not is irrelevant. They aren't still making them, therefore it's not still the current generation.
3. Xbox live is one of the few services that actually has a customer service line. IN THE US. Your dell, dude, doesn't even have that.
Psst.... Yes they do. well, not in the US. But in Canada. All XPS technical support for North America is done out of a call center in Ottawa, Ontario. That's for the US and Canada, in both English and French, Spanish is done out of Panama. Likewise, for the business line of products... that is Optiplex, some Dimension, Vostro, and Latitude systems, it's all done in NA.
Otherwise, I agree with you fully. Quite aside from that... a free video game is probably worth a lot more to the end user than any settlement they'd see out of a class action suit. And the fact that MS has already offered the video game of their own volition probably means that any class action would get thrown out of court. It's pretty hard to prove damages when you've already been offered a freebie that's worth more than the cost of a month's subscription, let alone the 5 days that it was actually out.
Obligatory disclaimer... I have an @dell.com e-mail address.:)
You mean, like, DVD Audio? A dual-layer DVD stores significantly more data than a standard CD, and you know something? A few years back the record companies tried releasing audio on DVDs. It supported up to 24-bit 192kHz sample rate (versus 16-bit 44.1kHz for a CD), and was backwards compatible with existing DVD players, or up to and including 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound.
Nobody bought it. And after a few months, titles pretty much dried up. These days, very little audio, if any, is released in DVD-A format. But it's been around since 2000. If you look *really* hard, you just might be able to find the occasional classical title in DVD-A format... but for modern pop, the music itself is so shitty that you'd never hear the difference between DVD-A and CD.
-No DirectX 10.x API for WinXP or Win2k. (The nature of the API to be a higher-level Application Programming Interface, I'd forgive not developing for Win2k as it is no longer for sale, but there's NO good reason to deny the API in WinXP, other than to force clearly Planned Obsolescence)
The reason it's not supported in XP is because the Driver model for Vista is completely different from the one in XP. Drivers are privileged in XP, and they're sandboxed in Vista... There's more to it than that, but basically, the reason that DirectX 10 doesn't work in XP is because the HAL, at which DirectX versions 1-9 operate, doesn't exist any more. There never was a version of DX9 for Windows Vista, and while you can install DX9 in Vista, the OS will actually catch the interface and force it to use DX10. The only reason to install DX9 is if you have a game that was stupidly written, and insists on a specific version of DX to be installed in order to load. One of the examples in my game library would be Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Amazing game, btw.:)
That isn't to say that they couldn't backport the interfaces and implement them in a WinXP version of DirectX, but some of the things that DX10 is capable of simply aren't possible with the driver model that XP uses. Of course, that desire to avoid being forced to upgrade to Vista is the reason I bought a Nintendo Wii.
-No IE7 for Win2k. (interestingly, Firefox still bests ALL versions of IE..)
IE7 is a piece of junk. I have it on my current laptop, running XP MCE 2005, but there's exactly two websites I visit with it: Windows Update, and ifit.com, which is a website which uses an ActiveX control through the sound card to download new programs and patterns to my treadmill. Everything else I visit gets loaded and works perfectly in Firefox.
-No Support on your year-old PC for Full Windows Vista use. (Again, why? Even Apple and Linux have pretty eye-candied desktops working on older hardware)
My old laptop was bought in February 2005. It's got an Athlon64 3500+, 1GB of RAM, and a Radeon XPress 200M with 128MB soldered on. Finally, it's got an 80GB hard drive, a built-in v.92 modem, 100mbit LAN, a cardreader, and built-in WLAN. Compaq Presario R4035CA if you want to look up the specs for yourself.
At one point, it was running Vista RC2. With Aero Glass enabled. And wasn't really that sluggish. This is a computer that was 2 years old when Vista was released, and is now almost 3 years old, and it was and still is capable of running Vista with all the bells and whistles enabled, while remaining perfectly usable. I tested it with the Vista version of Media Center, using a remote control (that didn't need any drivers), as a movie player, DVD player, TV out, playing games such as Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Jedi Academy, and used it in school. It worked fine. Right now, it's running Zenwalk Linux.
I'm not going to argue that planned obsolescense doesn't exist. It does. And MS is guilty of it. But you're exaggerating. By a long shot. Know whereof you speak.
And when was the last time you opened a document in Word 6 or WordPerfect 5.0 format? I mean, I still have some in WP5 format, but they're part of my grandfather's legacy. We keep them around because we need them to enforce some of his patents and to continue development of the project he was working on when he died (a very efficient hydraulic engine, suitable for power generation or in construction equipment), but we also keep an installation of WP5.0 for DOS, on a computer that's actually running DOS 6.22, specifically for that purpose. It's a P2-350 with 256MB of RAM, which we use to run his simulation software as well as open some of his documents.
I have Office 2003 with SP3 running on my laptop. And I haven't had a single document fail to open. Most of the important ones have already been converted to a more current format. PDF for the most part, since we don't want to do any actual editing of them, just viewing.
Ahh, the joys of having an inventor for a grandfather. And some of his inventions, or at least derivatives of them, are probably in your house right now.
But is it truly full spectrum, as opposed to the junk I have seen that is labeled "full spectrum" by the marketing droids? I've found most people can't even tell the difference. Those of us that can need the real thing. I'm one of those who can tell the difference, and I have not see a single one, yet, that is labeled "full spectrum", that really is full spectrum.
So what is the exact manufacturer and model you found? Maybe I could find that one and test it.
It's a Phillips, and it's about as full spectrum as they get.... see, calling it "full spectrum" is a misnomer. It fluoresces, and while it's not a perfect black body curve, neither is the sun, and its peak frequency is close enough to the sun's peak frequency that it looks and feels like daylight.
Or to put it another way... turning it on gives the same boost to your energy levels and level of consciousness that you get from exposure to sunlight. It's a natural stimulant, just like going outside. I only use it when I want to stay up late, or when I need a proper white balance for a crappy camera. But in both of those functions, it works perfectly.
Incidentally... this one isn't labelled "full spectrum". It's labelled "Day Glow". You will find that the lamps which better replicate the sun's output are either labelled as such, or are labelled as "Grow" lights, for plants.
I don't really care whether or not you believe that it's there. Doesn't change the fact that it's there. And your site is blocked... my corporate network doesn't like nyud.net, because it considers it to be an anonymizer. I'm assuming that it's a prism test, though? Wouldn't need to test that. There's one hanging on the wall behind my computer.
You do realize that there's fluorescent lights out there that don't use mercury vapour, right?
Well that sounds great but what happens when all of the IRC servers shut them out?
You're right... when the IRC servers shut them out, you're safe. But they can't exactly IP ban every client that's infected with the virus.... there's far too many. The servers could block the channels, but how would they know they've got all of them? Granted, all they have to do is block the main control channel, but that would require actually watching the traffic... you have any idea how many logs they'd have to go through to find out which channel is actually the control channel? And if the owner of the network is smart, he's going to connect from internet cafes, or better yet, throwaway dialup connections. And what if there's multiple control channels and multiple IRC networks? How about setting up the network so that *any* of the channels can function as a control channel.
Worse still, the network could lay dormant for months before any commands start being issued, making it very hard to track down which channels to shut down. If your default command on the virus (for when it has no commands) is to spread itself using a maximum of 5% of available bandwidth, then it could go for a very long time before it gets noticed by its victims.
Until there's full spectrum fluorescent lights, you're not going to pry incandescent bulbs out of my hands!
There... are. I have a 32W full spectrum CF light in a lamp by my computer that I affectionately call my "artificial sun". With an effective brightness equivalent to a 120W incandescent, it's quite good at keeping me awake long hours.
My last experiment with non-incandescent lighting didn't go so well. I bought a set of compact fluorescent lights. I put them in and a half hour later they started smoking and then quit working. I'd rather waste a little energy than increase the risk of burning my house down with crappy technology. I hope they come up with something better before then.
And yet I've been using them exclusively for almost 6 years now, without ever seeing the problems you're complaining about. Perhaps your problem was a defective batch, or there's an underlying problem with the wiring in your house? Maybe you have an overvoltage on your line, which wouldn't kill an incandescent bulb but would make it run hotter and shorten its life.
IRC... have a master channel, and configure the virus so it's able to connect to a slave channel and receive commands, or connect to the master channel and relay commands to its slave channel. Program the bot/virus so that it connects to a non-persistent "slave" channel. If it's automatically given moderator status, then it's the first bot in the channel, so it connects to the master channel and functions as a command/control herder. If it doesn't automatically get mod rights, then it functions as a slave and actually does the dirty work.
And by using a wide open IRC server, of which there's plenty, it's virtually impossible to shut down the network. All the main controller has to do is connect to his "master" control channel periodically to send out commands, and the rest of the herding gets done by his deputies.
$400 in Canada, where I'm based.... and that could have changed... I stopped working for the GM dealer a month after they hired me. Sucked royally. Working at a computer vendor now.
Who wants it anyway? I don't know a lot about this system, though, and maybe I'm missing something, but I see it like a spy in your car. Can someone tell me why some non-business drivers may want this stuff?
Roadside assistance. Remote entry (in case you lock your keys inside). Directions (GPS locator). Automatic 911 activation in the event of an accident. Car diagnostics. There's more.
There's a number of things the service offers that would be very useful to the average user. *shrugs* But it's worth pointing out that the $15 digital upgrade is a discounted price... the actual price is about $300, but you get it for $15 if you purchase a 1-year subscription to the OnStar service, at a cost of $400.
Coal power is an awful lot cleaner now than it was 100 years ago. It's not perfect, but the average coal plant produces *significantly* less pollution than the cars owned by the houses it powers.
And that's completely ignoring the fact that in California, the law requires that your power company provide you the option to buy "green" power: power produced by wind, solar, geothermal, or hydroelectric sources. It tends to be a little more expensive than normal power, but I'm guessing that the kind of person who wouldn't balk at buying a $30,000 car simply because it's electric (when you can get a *very* efficient gasoline car for less than half the price) probably wouldn't be all that concerned about an extra $0.02/kwh.
Haven't personally used an inkjet for about six years. Laser all the way. You can get colour networked laser for home use for about £300, with reasonable sized toners. I even have a Samsung that have a refillable combined toner/drum that's only on it's second actual toner/drum and has been refilled dozens and dozens of times from a £10 toner bottle. Perfect prints every time, used every single day.
You might wanna check your pricing there... on http://www.dell.ca/ you can find a colour laser printer for under $300. That particular one is network aware, but needs a $50 network adapter to connect it to a network. You can also buy a printer that's fully networked, and comes with the network adapter, for $479.
The price of the pound has come down a fair amount in comparison to the Canadian dollar, but I don't think it's come down to par just yet. Still pretty sure it's worth about $2.
...why the botnets are almost 100% Mac OS X machines and why they get all the viruses. Windows is just so much more secure
Only takes one vulnerability. Couple that with a market penetration that at one point approached 95% of desktops (and is still well over 75%), Macs simply aren't a decent target. There aren't enough of them out there to make writing viruses for them profitable, though proof of concept have already been demonstrated. Likewise for Linux.
I'm not saying that security through obscurity is the only thing keeping OS/X and Linux machines safe, but it's a major factor. Another major factor is the knowledge level of the users... and lemme let you in on a secret: if you know what you're doing it's entirely possible to secure a Windows box. I have had one or two in my house since the days of Windows 1.0, and have been on high speed Internet since 1995. My notebook is the one right now, my desktop on Linux. Despite that, I've *never* had a virus. Idiot users are what makes an OS insecure, and secret #2: they exist on OS/X and Linux platforms, too.
Y'know... there was a time when the golden ratio, also known as Pi, was considered to be a rational number. It was represented by fractions for a long time before we even started to calculate it with any degree of accuracy... for example, the greeks used to consider it to be exactly 22/7.
Math certainly isn't timeless. Theorems are constantly being proven and disproven, and we don't actually know for a fact that our number system is even valid; all of our math is based on an assumption that can't be proven. If that assumption is true, then we're good. If it's false, then we've been barking up the wrong tree for thousands of years.
I still think it should be on Wiki, but no knowledge is universal, certain, and timeless.
Vista is usable. It's relatively stable. However it's got a few idiosyncracies that add up to some major annoyances. Things like UAC are tolerable. Media Center crashing from time to time bearable. I was able to tolerate the wireless and Bluetooth just outright disappearing from the system periodically, though admittedly that was largely because I have a hard switch to turn them on/off on the side of my laptop.... That was annoying, but bearable. Ultimately, what killed it for me was the inability to customize some elements of the UI that have been customizable in previous versions. If you don't like black window decorations, good luck. There's no way to change the colour of the taskbar from black without disabling Aero. Likewise, even if you choose a different colour for the window decorations, they turn to black as soon as you maximize a window.
Perhaps that makes me shallow. But that's what the final straw was. I reformatted my laptop and installed MCE 2005. I have no intention of going back.
And before some zealot says "install Linux", I bought the laptop in the first place intending to run it, but my sound card isn't supported. That's a dealbreaker.
The problem with your suggestion is that some information is contested. Something that you or I may consider to be a fact may not actually be a fact. What's more... there's tons of cases where there's two or more conflicting theories, both of which explain events, but neither of which is compatible with the other.
And I'm not just talking about scientific inquiry here, either. I'm talking about things that you'd expect wouldn't have much of a margin of error, like history or news reporting. But as a case in point... what do American history books teach about the reason the White house was painted White? Do they still mention that originally it was painted blue? That it was painted white as a reminder of the costs of war? That the people who burned it down in the first place were Canadians? What do they teach about the war of 1812, and how does that differ from the Canadian/English perspective?
Or perhaps an example that's maybe a little less controversial... everybody remember how the Soviets invented television, radio, and coca-cola?
The bottom line is that you can't create a rule saying that they can sue you into oblivion if you post false information on the site, because what's a fact for me may not be a fact for you. And thanks to one of the peculiarities of logic, even if what you and I believe are 100% contradictory, we can still both be right.
Every business has that one coworker that nobody likes, and that nobody wants to work with. You know... the one who's so abrasive that the productivity of those around him/her goes down drastically just by virtue of them being around?
If you haven't noticed who it is.... *coughs*
Even at the bottom level, productivity and profitability goes *way* up when everybody likes each other works well together.
Slashdot Mirror
Coincidentally, my FamiCom still works....
(Also known as the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System)
Doesn't change the fact that I now own a Wii.... It's not "next gen" any more, because it's on the market now. They aren't still selling *new* PS2s. Whether games are still being made or not is irrelevant. They aren't still making them, therefore it's not still the current generation.
Psst.... Yes they do. well, not in the US. But in Canada. All XPS technical support for North America is done out of a call center in Ottawa, Ontario. That's for the US and Canada, in both English and French, Spanish is done out of Panama. Likewise, for the business line of products... that is Optiplex, some Dimension, Vostro, and Latitude systems, it's all done in NA.
Otherwise, I agree with you fully. Quite aside from that... a free video game is probably worth a lot more to the end user than any settlement they'd see out of a class action suit. And the fact that MS has already offered the video game of their own volition probably means that any class action would get thrown out of court. It's pretty hard to prove damages when you've already been offered a freebie that's worth more than the cost of a month's subscription, let alone the 5 days that it was actually out.
Obligatory disclaimer... I have an @dell.com e-mail address.
You mean, like, DVD Audio? A dual-layer DVD stores significantly more data than a standard CD, and you know something? A few years back the record companies tried releasing audio on DVDs. It supported up to 24-bit 192kHz sample rate (versus 16-bit 44.1kHz for a CD), and was backwards compatible with existing DVD players, or up to and including 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound.
Nobody bought it. And after a few months, titles pretty much dried up. These days, very little audio, if any, is released in DVD-A format. But it's been around since 2000. If you look *really* hard, you just might be able to find the occasional classical title in DVD-A format... but for modern pop, the music itself is so shitty that you'd never hear the difference between DVD-A and CD.
How can iTunes possibly have a monopoly on the download of digital music in a world where Limewire, Kazaa, and BitTorrent still exist?
Oh wait. They mean "legal" music downloads....
The reason it's not supported in XP is because the Driver model for Vista is completely different from the one in XP. Drivers are privileged in XP, and they're sandboxed in Vista... There's more to it than that, but basically, the reason that DirectX 10 doesn't work in XP is because the HAL, at which DirectX versions 1-9 operate, doesn't exist any more. There never was a version of DX9 for Windows Vista, and while you can install DX9 in Vista, the OS will actually catch the interface and force it to use DX10. The only reason to install DX9 is if you have a game that was stupidly written, and insists on a specific version of DX to be installed in order to load. One of the examples in my game library would be Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Amazing game, btw.
That isn't to say that they couldn't backport the interfaces and implement them in a WinXP version of DirectX, but some of the things that DX10 is capable of simply aren't possible with the driver model that XP uses. Of course, that desire to avoid being forced to upgrade to Vista is the reason I bought a Nintendo Wii.
IE7 is a piece of junk. I have it on my current laptop, running XP MCE 2005, but there's exactly two websites I visit with it: Windows Update, and ifit.com, which is a website which uses an ActiveX control through the sound card to download new programs and patterns to my treadmill. Everything else I visit gets loaded and works perfectly in Firefox.
My old laptop was bought in February 2005. It's got an Athlon64 3500+, 1GB of RAM, and a Radeon XPress 200M with 128MB soldered on. Finally, it's got an 80GB hard drive, a built-in v.92 modem, 100mbit LAN, a cardreader, and built-in WLAN. Compaq Presario R4035CA if you want to look up the specs for yourself.
At one point, it was running Vista RC2. With Aero Glass enabled. And wasn't really that sluggish. This is a computer that was 2 years old when Vista was released, and is now almost 3 years old, and it was and still is capable of running Vista with all the bells and whistles enabled, while remaining perfectly usable. I tested it with the Vista version of Media Center, using a remote control (that didn't need any drivers), as a movie player, DVD player, TV out, playing games such as Jade Empire, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Jedi Academy, and used it in school. It worked fine. Right now, it's running Zenwalk Linux.
I'm not going to argue that planned obsolescense doesn't exist. It does. And MS is guilty of it. But you're exaggerating. By a long shot. Know whereof you speak.
And when was the last time you opened a document in Word 6 or WordPerfect 5.0 format? I mean, I still have some in WP5 format, but they're part of my grandfather's legacy. We keep them around because we need them to enforce some of his patents and to continue development of the project he was working on when he died (a very efficient hydraulic engine, suitable for power generation or in construction equipment), but we also keep an installation of WP5.0 for DOS, on a computer that's actually running DOS 6.22, specifically for that purpose. It's a P2-350 with 256MB of RAM, which we use to run his simulation software as well as open some of his documents.
I have Office 2003 with SP3 running on my laptop. And I haven't had a single document fail to open. Most of the important ones have already been converted to a more current format. PDF for the most part, since we don't want to do any actual editing of them, just viewing.
Ahh, the joys of having an inventor for a grandfather. And some of his inventions, or at least derivatives of them, are probably in your house right now.
SOL = Shit Outta Luck.
It's a Phillips, and it's about as full spectrum as they get.... see, calling it "full spectrum" is a misnomer. It fluoresces, and while it's not a perfect black body curve, neither is the sun, and its peak frequency is close enough to the sun's peak frequency that it looks and feels like daylight.
Or to put it another way... turning it on gives the same boost to your energy levels and level of consciousness that you get from exposure to sunlight. It's a natural stimulant, just like going outside. I only use it when I want to stay up late, or when I need a proper white balance for a crappy camera. But in both of those functions, it works perfectly.
Incidentally... this one isn't labelled "full spectrum". It's labelled "Day Glow". You will find that the lamps which better replicate the sun's output are either labelled as such, or are labelled as "Grow" lights, for plants.
So... Auto Trader killed Newspaper, and Craig's List killed Auto Trader. duh! :-P
I don't really care whether or not you believe that it's there. Doesn't change the fact that it's there. And your site is blocked... my corporate network doesn't like nyud.net, because it considers it to be an anonymizer. I'm assuming that it's a prism test, though? Wouldn't need to test that. There's one hanging on the wall behind my computer.
You do realize that there's fluorescent lights out there that don't use mercury vapour, right?
You're right... when the IRC servers shut them out, you're safe. But they can't exactly IP ban every client that's infected with the virus.... there's far too many. The servers could block the channels, but how would they know they've got all of them? Granted, all they have to do is block the main control channel, but that would require actually watching the traffic... you have any idea how many logs they'd have to go through to find out which channel is actually the control channel? And if the owner of the network is smart, he's going to connect from internet cafes, or better yet, throwaway dialup connections. And what if there's multiple control channels and multiple IRC networks? How about setting up the network so that *any* of the channels can function as a control channel.
Worse still, the network could lay dormant for months before any commands start being issued, making it very hard to track down which channels to shut down. If your default command on the virus (for when it has no commands) is to spread itself using a maximum of 5% of available bandwidth, then it could go for a very long time before it gets noticed by its victims.
There... are. I have a 32W full spectrum CF light in a lamp by my computer that I affectionately call my "artificial sun". With an effective brightness equivalent to a 120W incandescent, it's quite good at keeping me awake long hours.
And yet I've been using them exclusively for almost 6 years now, without ever seeing the problems you're complaining about. Perhaps your problem was a defective batch, or there's an underlying problem with the wiring in your house? Maybe you have an overvoltage on your line, which wouldn't kill an incandescent bulb but would make it run hotter and shorten its life.
IRC... have a master channel, and configure the virus so it's able to connect to a slave channel and receive commands, or connect to the master channel and relay commands to its slave channel. Program the bot/virus so that it connects to a non-persistent "slave" channel. If it's automatically given moderator status, then it's the first bot in the channel, so it connects to the master channel and functions as a command/control herder. If it doesn't automatically get mod rights, then it functions as a slave and actually does the dirty work.
And by using a wide open IRC server, of which there's plenty, it's virtually impossible to shut down the network. All the main controller has to do is connect to his "master" control channel periodically to send out commands, and the rest of the herding gets done by his deputies.
$400 in Canada, where I'm based.... and that could have changed... I stopped working for the GM dealer a month after they hired me. Sucked royally. Working at a computer vendor now.
Roadside assistance. Remote entry (in case you lock your keys inside). Directions (GPS locator). Automatic 911 activation in the event of an accident. Car diagnostics. There's more.
There's a number of things the service offers that would be very useful to the average user. *shrugs* But it's worth pointing out that the $15 digital upgrade is a discounted price... the actual price is about $300, but you get it for $15 if you purchase a 1-year subscription to the OnStar service, at a cost of $400.
And if you go to tinyurl.com/34w34wa (or whatever that string of letters in the CSS was), it redirects here:
:)
http://groups.google.com/group/wanted-master-software-engineers
which seems to be related. It isn't really difficult, it's just annoying. I'm glad I already work for a major vendor with great benes.
120 MPC on the Typ-1 e, and 300 MPG on the Typ-1 h.
you know... "e" for Electric. "h" for Hybrid.
Coal power is an awful lot cleaner now than it was 100 years ago. It's not perfect, but the average coal plant produces *significantly* less pollution than the cars owned by the houses it powers.
And that's completely ignoring the fact that in California, the law requires that your power company provide you the option to buy "green" power: power produced by wind, solar, geothermal, or hydroelectric sources. It tends to be a little more expensive than normal power, but I'm guessing that the kind of person who wouldn't balk at buying a $30,000 car simply because it's electric (when you can get a *very* efficient gasoline car for less than half the price) probably wouldn't be all that concerned about an extra $0.02/kwh.
You might wanna check your pricing there... on http://www.dell.ca/ you can find a colour laser printer for under $300. That particular one is network aware, but needs a $50 network adapter to connect it to a network. You can also buy a printer that's fully networked, and comes with the network adapter, for $479.
The price of the pound has come down a fair amount in comparison to the Canadian dollar, but I don't think it's come down to par just yet. Still pretty sure it's worth about $2.
Only takes one vulnerability. Couple that with a market penetration that at one point approached 95% of desktops (and is still well over 75%), Macs simply aren't a decent target. There aren't enough of them out there to make writing viruses for them profitable, though proof of concept have already been demonstrated. Likewise for Linux.
I'm not saying that security through obscurity is the only thing keeping OS/X and Linux machines safe, but it's a major factor. Another major factor is the knowledge level of the users... and lemme let you in on a secret: if you know what you're doing it's entirely possible to secure a Windows box. I have had one or two in my house since the days of Windows 1.0, and have been on high speed Internet since 1995. My notebook is the one right now, my desktop on Linux. Despite that, I've *never* had a virus. Idiot users are what makes an OS insecure, and secret #2: they exist on OS/X and Linux platforms, too.
Y'know... there was a time when the golden ratio, also known as Pi, was considered to be a rational number. It was represented by fractions for a long time before we even started to calculate it with any degree of accuracy... for example, the greeks used to consider it to be exactly 22/7.
Math certainly isn't timeless. Theorems are constantly being proven and disproven, and we don't actually know for a fact that our number system is even valid; all of our math is based on an assumption that can't be proven. If that assumption is true, then we're good. If it's false, then we've been barking up the wrong tree for thousands of years.
I still think it should be on Wiki, but no knowledge is universal, certain, and timeless.
Vista is usable. It's relatively stable. However it's got a few idiosyncracies that add up to some major annoyances. Things like UAC are tolerable. Media Center crashing from time to time bearable. I was able to tolerate the wireless and Bluetooth just outright disappearing from the system periodically, though admittedly that was largely because I have a hard switch to turn them on/off on the side of my laptop.... That was annoying, but bearable. Ultimately, what killed it for me was the inability to customize some elements of the UI that have been customizable in previous versions. If you don't like black window decorations, good luck. There's no way to change the colour of the taskbar from black without disabling Aero. Likewise, even if you choose a different colour for the window decorations, they turn to black as soon as you maximize a window.
Perhaps that makes me shallow. But that's what the final straw was. I reformatted my laptop and installed MCE 2005. I have no intention of going back.
And before some zealot says "install Linux", I bought the laptop in the first place intending to run it, but my sound card isn't supported. That's a dealbreaker.
The problem with your suggestion is that some information is contested. Something that you or I may consider to be a fact may not actually be a fact. What's more... there's tons of cases where there's two or more conflicting theories, both of which explain events, but neither of which is compatible with the other.
And I'm not just talking about scientific inquiry here, either. I'm talking about things that you'd expect wouldn't have much of a margin of error, like history or news reporting. But as a case in point... what do American history books teach about the reason the White house was painted White? Do they still mention that originally it was painted blue? That it was painted white as a reminder of the costs of war? That the people who burned it down in the first place were Canadians? What do they teach about the war of 1812, and how does that differ from the Canadian/English perspective?
Or perhaps an example that's maybe a little less controversial... everybody remember how the Soviets invented television, radio, and coca-cola?
The bottom line is that you can't create a rule saying that they can sue you into oblivion if you post false information on the site, because what's a fact for me may not be a fact for you. And thanks to one of the peculiarities of logic, even if what you and I believe are 100% contradictory, we can still both be right.
Every business has that one coworker that nobody likes, and that nobody wants to work with. You know... the one who's so abrasive that the productivity of those around him/her goes down drastically just by virtue of them being around?
If you haven't noticed who it is.... *coughs*
Even at the bottom level, productivity and profitability goes *way* up when everybody likes each other works well together.