A lot of people out there (me included) run Linux on much older computers (in my case a p120). WMs like WindowMaker and BlackBox run perfectly acceptable on these systems. Will hardware accelerating Enlightenment perhaps give a ray of hope to those of us with slower cards, or will even not pushing all that graphics work into the video card not help us?
As a sidenote, what kind of graphics cards are we looking at here? Anything that has an accelerated X server (like, say, an old Mach64) or are we only talking high-end cards?
I saw this movie yesterday, just on a whim, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It's got a lot of very classic cartoon humor in it that has been missing from a lot of Disney films since Aladdin (classic example, Kronk (not Crank) getting a trap door opened beneath him, just standing there, then noticing it's open, dropping, and then his little angel buddies noticing, hugging, and falling after him.. that's classic stuff).
The major voices are John Goodman (as Panco), Eartha Kitt (as Yzma), Patrick Wharburton (aka Puddy from Seinfeld, as Kronk), and of course, David Spade (as Kuzco, the emperor turned llama). All are exceptionally perfect for their roles, and are drawn true to character. Wharburton is easily the comedic star of the film, from his opening appearance to right before the closing credits.
You will definitely laugh if you go see this movie (I guarantee it) and there's one reason for it: Disney designed it to be a comedy (mainly because of Spade's pushing). Originally, it was supposed to be a Prince-and-the-Pauper-set-in-Tenochtitlan type movie, with a number of song-and-dance routines written by Sting. Well, Disney execs decided that wasn't where they wanted the movie to go and scrapped the whole thing, but Spade, who had been brought on to do Kuzco, told them rework it as a comedy, scrap the musical crap, and bring in Tom Jones for any music. One of Sting's songs made it into the closing credits (a real sappy POS) and two or three others made it onto the soundtrack, but the whole thing was real messy (apparently).
The end result is an animated feature written to be a complete comedy, like the old-time Roadrunner cartoons, full of semi-slapstick action, great fast-paced lines, and a simple plot that allows the comedy to flow without getting bogged down in details.
In short, it's a joy, and yes, it's not typical Disney fare, mainly because they brought a very atypical Disney voice (Spade) into the project.
Did anyone notice that the article talking about BT suing Prodigy over hyperlinks was itself using hyperlinks?
And why go after web pages and ISPs? The real "implementation" of hyperlinks is in web browsers, and there's a much better case to made against Microsoft than there is against Prodigy. Why is BT suing the end-user and not the implementers?
I wasn't really talking about splitting off the source tree, just providing different source files. linux-2.2.18-i386.tar.bz2 is worth just as much to an Intel compiler as the entire tar ball. The source tree remains one, but for the purposes of smaller downloads, you only need to download the source of the architecture you're on.
And I'd love to delete some savegames et al from my machine because it would mean that the machine that I run Linux on could play games. The system is pretty stripped down bare-bones.
Pardon my naivete about things kernel-based, but I've noticed that the tar.bz2 file for the entire kernel is now a whopping 15+MB. That's a big file to download if you don't keep sources around with which to patch or are downloading a new kernel for the first time.
Would it be appropriate or even possible to break out all the architecture-dependent files into separate packages so that you could, say, download the source that would compile on Intel's chips only? Or is the the source so closely linked as to prevent this (I for one always delete all the architecture-dependent stuff after I'm done compiling, except for that of whatever machine I'm on).
Not good news for the Linux shrink-wrap software movement.
That's a load. This is great news for the Linux shrink-wrap software movement. The problem is that people in the community see this as "Oh, now, people aren't going to support Linux." What they should be seeing is that groups like id are giving very good feedback on why Linux isn't viable. The plethora of distros and kernel versions might give the people in charge of those distros the idea that maybe they should get together and standardize some of the basic parts of a Linux install, like the kernel or system configuration files or UI frontends. Obviously, Linux users will always have the choice and will maintain difference systems, but the people changing those things (and thus potentially causing headaches for support reps and developers) are not the people contacting id for tech support.
It's only a setback if you refuse to address it. Otherwise it's constructive criticism. id wants to market games to Linux users. They just want a more profitable experience doing it and they're letting the community know how to help them.
All right, flamebait, I'll bite, cause you're going into the world that is a little pet peeve of mine.
Any type of graphic presentation is dependent on the size of it's medium, be it print, film, or digital. Just because web pages are done in HTML does not mean that you have to ignore this fact.
If I take your example, Slashdot, and narrow my window, Slashdot induces horizontal scrollbars at around 690 pixels. That means, that if my monitor resolution is 640x480, I can't read from left to right continuously without scrolling. Of course, it's a rare resolution that can read Slashdot without vertical scrolling, but humans are accustomed to scrolling down a page (at least in most societies), so that's not a major issue, horizontal scrolling is.
Now, take your window frame. As a graphic display medium (which is what a web page is, regardless of what language it's written in), you want the parts of the page that are important to your design (whether that be blank space for the artsy fartsy types or the company sales droning for the business types) to be in the initial window, no scrolling. You have to know your resolutions to do this. If I'm operating within a 640x480 paradigm, I want that main content to be within that window. Yes, if I grow my window, I still want my web page to keep its purpose and flow, BUT, I still operate within that 640x480 area. When you have a PDA, that suddenly drops your area from 640x480 to something smaller than 320x240 (depends). Do you know how hard it is to get any kind of message across in that space? It's not impossible, it's just more challenging.
Yes, HTML is a markup language, but it has nothing to do with design. HTML is just the implentation. I know exactly what HTML is. I also know exactly what Flash is, and exactly what XML is, and exactly what plain text is, and all can be used to prepare a web site, but they're just languages used to implement a design, not the design itself, and what I'm talking about are confines on design.
Graphic material is always developed for a "screen size". With web pages, that screen size is variable, but you still have a minimum point at which you say, "Welp, they'll have to turn the page to see the rest of this content." And with PDAs, that minimum point is much lower.
I suspect that your whole post is simply flamebait (and if I could moderate it as so, I would), simply because you sound like you know nothing about design in general and web design in particular, but in the off-chance that you do know something, you are sorely lacking in that knowledge.
As a web developer, I'm constantly developing for the lowest common denominator, despite what may or may not make the site look ultra-cool. This typically means 640x480, and that's a pretty good size for a minimum size. You don't worry about smaller screens like those found on handhelds, because they generally have their own web translation tools, and sometimes even their own specific web sites (see Avantgo channels).
But now, what happens when someone embeds a full web browser into a PDA app? All the sudden, your lowest common denominator drops and you're screwed. Did you see the size of those screenshots?!
Personally, I think it's "cool" kind of like it's "cool" that someone flew around the world in a balloon, but I think it completely destroys the idea of a PDA when try to cram everything from something larger inside of it. But that's an opinion thing. I don't think I'll be looking forward to developing web pages for tiny screens.
Get it from ZDNet's download center, and since it's just the basic install file, use the UK's servers for your download. It went pretty fast for me.
First impressions: Yeah, all the bugs aren't fixed, which kind of sucks, cause there's a pretty nasty JS one that I posted about two weeks ago that hasn't been fixed in the nightlies and severely hampers some Intranet work I do. It also still renders Slashdot's spacer images in the titles of articles with a greenish line around them, so they look like little green squares.
If you've been using Mozilla for the past six months, you won't notice anything new, other than the fact that it takes up twice as much memory, loads a bunch of AOL shortcuts (I'm using the Win32 version) on your desktop and will allow you to integrate RealPlayer 8, Flash, etc. with your download.
Second Impressions: Why oh why do they need to do these damn small install files that go out on the 'Net and get everything? What I really want is a web interface that will let me pick my components and then send me an installer package custom made for my selections. It can't be that hard.
As the article states, no known material with a negative refraction index exists for the optical range. Au contraire. No solid material exists, but there is one liquid.
Beer.
And they already have lenses made of beer that you can try on TODAY. All you need to do is go down to your local pub, drink a good, oh, I dunno, 7 or 8 beers (varies depending on body weight, height, experience with such lenses, etc.) and then look around. You'll notice that everything seems just a little bit clearer; not just clearer, but better. Women (or men), who you couldn't make out before because the distortion caused by normal light activity rendered them hideous, are now showing their true features: beauty, sexuality, interest in YOU.
Beer 'goggles' (as these lense instruments are affectionately known, although heavens knows why; you can't even see them) don't just make your vision clearer, either. They make everything clearer and better: thought, sexual ability, golf scores, you name it! And the great thing is, beer has been used for millenia, so you know that any potentially damaging side effects[1] have already been worked out.
So don't believe the rubbish you read in the papers. Get your perfect lenses today at your local bar or pub[2]!
[1] Some people may have adverse reactions to beer including nausea, vomiting, dehydration, a condition known as 'hangover', decreased sexual ability, loss of vocal restraint, diarrhea, and social retardation. This is not beer's fault. It's the people's fault.
[2] Beer should not be consumed by pregnant women, people with heart conditions, people on heroin, cocaine, Tylenol, or any number of other drugs, or alcoholics currently enrolled in court-ordered rehabilitation program.
The article says:
The CIA is investigating 160 employees and contractors for exchanging "inappropriate" e-mail and off-color jokes in a secret chat room created within the agency's classified computer network and hidden from management.
And then it says:
If they were doing this with the KGB's computer system, we'd be giving them medals. Sadly, it was ours.
Umm, if they were sending around dirty e-mails and fart jokes around KGB computer systems, I doubt we'd be giving them a medal. I think it'd be more like "Why were you dicking around on their computer systems and not gathering information?"
And how come everyone who "thinks outside of the box" is automatically a geek and a hacker? Where I work (which is not the CIA), we reward people who think outside of the box, but we'll also fire in a heartbeat those people who abuse our systems, even if it's something minor. Why? The reason is that when someone abuses something for a harmless reason, there's no reason that they might someday cross the line and abuse it in a very damaging way. It's about responsibility and decision making capabilities. If they can't conduct themselves in a responsible manner, they're a potential liability. Whether they think "outside of the box" or not is irrelevant. Conduct and action do not have an effect on the ability to solve problems.
Frankly, I'm glad that the CIA is watching their internal networks and trying to maintain good employee conduct. I wouldn't want some care-free hacker in charge of maintaining information that, if put in the wrong hands, could endanger the welfare of the country, just like I wouldn't want some carefree hacker on my computer network doing things that could possibly make my work day more hectic.
Ok, what have we learned from Campaign 2000 - First, the media is irresponsible. The early projection of Florida was idiocy at its finest. This election was and is still too close to call, yet the media egos want to be the first one to call the winner, as if anyone cares who called it first. I think the media needs to examine the use of exit polls, and also needs to get back to reporting raw numbers.
So what you're saying is that the media called "First post!" and then got moderated down?
It depends on what you mean by online banking. I don't mind checking my account status, credit card balance, transfer funds between my bank's accounts (basically things that are internal to the bank) from online, especially since I have to go through two layers of security (site password, account PIN) and they have time limits on session inactivity, etc.
However, I don't let other organizations do direct debiting (like for bills, etc.) nor do I check my account from just anywhere. I trust my bank's internals, but I don't trust other people with access to my money. The only people who have outside access to my account are my employers, who have permission to direct debit my paycheck (hey, if they're putting money in...)
The same people who are saying that Netscape 6 shouldn't be released because it isn't standards compliant are the same people who just recently said that Netscape should've released an interim browser between 4.7x and 6.x that at least implemented some standards.
What's increasingly becoming important, though, is that the people doing this criticism are not programmers. They are web developers. mozillaZine's stance is largely taken because the people doing the majority of the flaming are not people actively involved in bettering the project. They're like Monday morning quarterbacks.
FWIW, I've been using the Mozilla nightly builds for at least 6 months and they've been, for the most part, rock-solid. Yes, every once in a while something crops up stylesheets or the DOM (there's a particularly annoying bug right now where DOM form objects contain element entries from other DOM form objects), but for the most part, the code is solid, and some of the improvements (like incrememtal table display) are beautiful to use.
I waited in line for half an hour to get my ballot. In front of me was an elderly lady, quite excited that she had to wait in line (to her, it meant that more people were getting out to vote; I didn't have the heart to tell her that it meant that more people had moved out to what was formerly the "outskirts"). Behind me were two mothers, talking about school, life, the special mock voting activities each parent's school was having for their students.
The voting went pretty smoothly. I voted for Prez/Veep, Senator, and US Rep, then proceeded to randomly fill in the bubbles for the rest of the candidates, sometimes chuckling to myself about what would happen if everyone voted like me. Then I stopped chuckling because I realized everyone really was voting like me.
On the way out, I picked up my 'I VOTED' sticker, proudly displaying the American flag. I'll probably use it to pick up chicks.
Election day's still an event, that's to be sure, but it definitely doesn't mean as much to someone of my age as to those of the generation or two ahead of me who fought for things like freedom and democracy. I hear people talk about how sick and tired they are of politics and how they don't have any choices. Think of what this country would be like if that were really true.
Unfortunately, when HR types interview people, they often do it alone or with other HR types. If you're ever interviewing for a job and this happens, this should throw up a red flag. You should be in an interview with other people who will be working with you. You obviously can't expect the truth from anyone in an interview ("So, what do you think of this company?" "It sucks, all I do is sit around on my ass and watch the marketers decide which sporting event to spend their money on next"), but you can tell a lot from enthusiasm, involvement, and whether the questions being asked are "I want to hire you" or "I don't want to hire you" type questions.
I prefer the latter type questions. If company employees come into the meeting with a "I don't want to hire you," kind of attitude, that means they want you to prove their worth to the company. That means they're looking for qualified people, not another warm body.
But I'm sure most of you know this already.
Re:Maybe this is what sunk the Kursk
on
Microsoft Cracked
·
· Score: 4
I've seen some pretty dumb things on Slashdot and I've seen some pretty offensive things on Slashdot, but never a post like this.
This ranks up there with the jokes that came out after the Challenger accident and after Oklahoma City. The Kursk was a tragedy. It may not seem that way to an American, but it shattered the emotions of the Russian people. To further imply that Microsoft had any part in that tragedy is simply childish.
I've always considered the majority of Slashdot readers to be brats, but this goes to show that whatever Microsoft may do to fight the open-source movement, they'll probably win. Why? Because for the most part, it's people like you who make up and support that movement, people lacking any amount of maturity and decency, and for movements to succeed, they must at least be honorable in the face of their enemy.
Just sickening. Whoever moderated this up for being funny should be shot. Mark me down for flamebait or what have you, but the fact remains, many open-source zealots and programmers are simply brats.
Wow, that's great. I downloaded some songs that I wanted to hear off Napster and then didn't buy the CDs because I already the songs I wanted to hear. Hmm...
If we go by your logic of how helpful Napster is, the RIAA could very well say that they lost 50% of the business of people who use Napsters.
Your comments mean nothing other than you bought some CDs because you heard songs you got off Napster. If you really want to make a point, link to studies that examine the buying habits of the majority of Napster users, not one pro-Napster user on a pro-Napster web site trying to make a pro-Napster point.
The more I hear about Napster, the more I agree with what Lars said during his Slashdot interview. There is nothing inherently wrong with people sharing music and it should be encouraged, but Napster is a for-profit distribution model, and Napster does not ask artists if they want to be a part of its distribution model. You can hear that echoed in TMBG's quote that Napster has broken the link between them and their fans. No one asked TMBG if they wanted to be part of this distribution model, and they've already got their own Internet-based service setup. Thus, I think they have a right to be miffed.
Most artists are in favor of people sharing music, and in fact, most artists encourage it. However, there's a fine line between 'sharing songs' and distribution, and Napster is walking that fine line (personally, I think they're a distribution service). They are performing a free service, but they are also making every attempt to make money off that service (contrast it with Gnutella to see a scheme that is more of a true sharing service). If an artist says, "Hey, I don't want my songs distributed through you because you're making money off of it, not me," Napster should respect that.
Of course, that really has no bearing on where the RIAA is fighting from, but I can see where artists, especially established artists with money and careers invested in their distribution chains, would be upset with Napster.
I am not an apathetic voter. In fact, I encourage everyone to vote, and look down on those who don't as unpatriotic. But, the fact remains, my vote does not matter in this election? Why? Because I live in Texas, and Texas is already sending its electoral college votes to Dubya (save for a comment from Bush along the lines of 'Who needs those dumb rednecks anyway?').
The only thing my vote matters to is in the next election, and even then, it's not something democratic, but rather some political party can get money. No power. No voice. Just money.
Does that strike anyone else as horribly wrong? I can effectively say that I have no voice in government. While I can support groups that want to change the system, changing the system is going to require voting, and I'm sure there are enough people out there who have realized that their vote doesn't matter and so they don't vote at all.
So what's my vote going to go for this election? I don't know. I was thinking me. Maybe then I will get some money from the government.
Umm, excuse my ignorance, but who is Don Becker, and why should it matter that he's the CTO? For one, titles are largely that, titles, and when someone tells me that I should be impressed by an upcoming product because of one person in a high-ranking position, I quickly sell any stock I might have in that company.
Don't get me wrong, I'm as excited as the next guy about the new release (the next guy's not that excited), but I don't really care who Don Becker if it's news that he's the CTO, it certainly isn't explained at all by this post.
I downloaded Opera 4 yesterday to test out some web pages I've been developing for my company. These pages are extremely rich in terms of CSS and stylesheets, so it's extremely important for me that I make things as cross-browser as possible. I find it quit amazing that IE4+, NS4+, and Mozilla all can render these rich pages while Opera cannot. Specifically, Opera seems to have problems with complex DOM-based JavaScript and applying CSSP/2 attributes to select widgets. Couple that with the fact that they take away my address entry field while loading a page, and the little nuisances soon become major annoyances, enough so that I see why they probably can't do much in the market, even if they were to give away the browser for free.
Apple didn't file the patent. Amazon is, and there is a relevant patent because at the middle of this discussion is whether Amazon has the right to patent the technology. In this case, Apple has licensed the technology from Amazon, which Slashdot has misconstrued as somehow lending credence to the patent.
a) Apple's licensing of the technology does not lend any validity to the patent. The patent is already completely valid. Apple's just making sure they can use the technology without getting sued for patent infringement
b) The only thing that's going to invalidate the patent is if someone shows prior art. Then, I'm sure, Apple would quit paying royalties.
I recall seeing '1-click' style mechanisms on several sites prior to Amazons patent.
Well then name one! This is what I'm talking about when I say a 'worthy challenge'. People are very quick to say, "Well, I remember seeing 1-click-style shopping" but they can't say where. That's what happens when someone patents what might be an obvious idea. Everyone says, "Well, duh, everyone did that," and then they can't think of anything. That's because what they're really thinking is that it's such a great idea that of course everyone should've been doing that. Of course, they weren't, and the patent holder jumped on it.
So, can you name a company that had '1-click' shopping before Amazon filed their patent? Or is it always going to be 'Well, I recall seeing...'?
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of people out there (me included) run Linux on much older computers (in my case a p120). WMs like WindowMaker and BlackBox run perfectly acceptable on these systems. Will hardware accelerating Enlightenment perhaps give a ray of hope to those of us with slower cards, or will even not pushing all that graphics work into the video card not help us?
As a sidenote, what kind of graphics cards are we looking at here? Anything that has an accelerated X server (like, say, an old Mach64) or are we only talking high-end cards?
I saw this movie yesterday, just on a whim, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It's got a lot of very classic cartoon humor in it that has been missing from a lot of Disney films since Aladdin (classic example, Kronk (not Crank) getting a trap door opened beneath him, just standing there, then noticing it's open, dropping, and then his little angel buddies noticing, hugging, and falling after him .. that's classic stuff).
The major voices are John Goodman (as Panco), Eartha Kitt (as Yzma), Patrick Wharburton (aka Puddy from Seinfeld, as Kronk), and of course, David Spade (as Kuzco, the emperor turned llama). All are exceptionally perfect for their roles, and are drawn true to character. Wharburton is easily the comedic star of the film, from his opening appearance to right before the closing credits.
You will definitely laugh if you go see this movie (I guarantee it) and there's one reason for it: Disney designed it to be a comedy (mainly because of Spade's pushing). Originally, it was supposed to be a Prince-and-the-Pauper-set-in-Tenochtitlan type movie, with a number of song-and-dance routines written by Sting. Well, Disney execs decided that wasn't where they wanted the movie to go and scrapped the whole thing, but Spade, who had been brought on to do Kuzco, told them rework it as a comedy, scrap the musical crap, and bring in Tom Jones for any music. One of Sting's songs made it into the closing credits (a real sappy POS) and two or three others made it onto the soundtrack, but the whole thing was real messy (apparently).
The end result is an animated feature written to be a complete comedy, like the old-time Roadrunner cartoons, full of semi-slapstick action, great fast-paced lines, and a simple plot that allows the comedy to flow without getting bogged down in details.
In short, it's a joy, and yes, it's not typical Disney fare, mainly because they brought a very atypical Disney voice (Spade) into the project.
Did anyone notice that the article talking about BT suing Prodigy over hyperlinks was itself using hyperlinks?
And why go after web pages and ISPs? The real "implementation" of hyperlinks is in web browsers, and there's a much better case to made against Microsoft than there is against Prodigy. Why is BT suing the end-user and not the implementers?
I wasn't really talking about splitting off the source tree, just providing different source files. linux-2.2.18-i386.tar.bz2 is worth just as much to an Intel compiler as the entire tar ball. The source tree remains one, but for the purposes of smaller downloads, you only need to download the source of the architecture you're on.
And I'd love to delete some savegames et al from my machine because it would mean that the machine that I run Linux on could play games. The system is pretty stripped down bare-bones.
Pardon my naivete about things kernel-based, but I've noticed that the tar.bz2 file for the entire kernel is now a whopping 15+MB. That's a big file to download if you don't keep sources around with which to patch or are downloading a new kernel for the first time.
Would it be appropriate or even possible to break out all the architecture-dependent files into separate packages so that you could, say, download the source that would compile on Intel's chips only? Or is the the source so closely linked as to prevent this (I for one always delete all the architecture-dependent stuff after I'm done compiling, except for that of whatever machine I'm on).
Not good news for the Linux shrink-wrap software movement.
That's a load. This is great news for the Linux shrink-wrap software movement. The problem is that people in the community see this as "Oh, now, people aren't going to support Linux." What they should be seeing is that groups like id are giving very good feedback on why Linux isn't viable. The plethora of distros and kernel versions might give the people in charge of those distros the idea that maybe they should get together and standardize some of the basic parts of a Linux install, like the kernel or system configuration files or UI frontends. Obviously, Linux users will always have the choice and will maintain difference systems, but the people changing those things (and thus potentially causing headaches for support reps and developers) are not the people contacting id for tech support.
It's only a setback if you refuse to address it. Otherwise it's constructive criticism. id wants to market games to Linux users. They just want a more profitable experience doing it and they're letting the community know how to help them.
All right, flamebait, I'll bite, cause you're going into the world that is a little pet peeve of mine.
Any type of graphic presentation is dependent on the size of it's medium, be it print, film, or digital. Just because web pages are done in HTML does not mean that you have to ignore this fact.
If I take your example, Slashdot, and narrow my window, Slashdot induces horizontal scrollbars at around 690 pixels. That means, that if my monitor resolution is 640x480, I can't read from left to right continuously without scrolling. Of course, it's a rare resolution that can read Slashdot without vertical scrolling, but humans are accustomed to scrolling down a page (at least in most societies), so that's not a major issue, horizontal scrolling is.
Now, take your window frame. As a graphic display medium (which is what a web page is, regardless of what language it's written in), you want the parts of the page that are important to your design (whether that be blank space for the artsy fartsy types or the company sales droning for the business types) to be in the initial window, no scrolling. You have to know your resolutions to do this. If I'm operating within a 640x480 paradigm, I want that main content to be within that window. Yes, if I grow my window, I still want my web page to keep its purpose and flow, BUT, I still operate within that 640x480 area. When you have a PDA, that suddenly drops your area from 640x480 to something smaller than 320x240 (depends). Do you know how hard it is to get any kind of message across in that space? It's not impossible, it's just more challenging.
Yes, HTML is a markup language, but it has nothing to do with design. HTML is just the implentation. I know exactly what HTML is. I also know exactly what Flash is, and exactly what XML is, and exactly what plain text is, and all can be used to prepare a web site, but they're just languages used to implement a design, not the design itself, and what I'm talking about are confines on design.
Graphic material is always developed for a "screen size". With web pages, that screen size is variable, but you still have a minimum point at which you say, "Welp, they'll have to turn the page to see the rest of this content." And with PDAs, that minimum point is much lower.
I suspect that your whole post is simply flamebait (and if I could moderate it as so, I would), simply because you sound like you know nothing about design in general and web design in particular, but in the off-chance that you do know something, you are sorely lacking in that knowledge.
As a web developer, I'm constantly developing for the lowest common denominator, despite what may or may not make the site look ultra-cool. This typically means 640x480, and that's a pretty good size for a minimum size. You don't worry about smaller screens like those found on handhelds, because they generally have their own web translation tools, and sometimes even their own specific web sites (see Avantgo channels).
But now, what happens when someone embeds a full web browser into a PDA app? All the sudden, your lowest common denominator drops and you're screwed. Did you see the size of those screenshots?!
Personally, I think it's "cool" kind of like it's "cool" that someone flew around the world in a balloon, but I think it completely destroys the idea of a PDA when try to cram everything from something larger inside of it. But that's an opinion thing. I don't think I'll be looking forward to developing web pages for tiny screens.
for Texans.
He won't be our governor for much longer.
Get it from ZDNet's download center, and since it's just the basic install file, use the UK's servers for your download. It went pretty fast for me.
First impressions:
Yeah, all the bugs aren't fixed, which kind of sucks, cause there's a pretty nasty JS one that I posted about two weeks ago that hasn't been fixed in the nightlies and severely hampers some Intranet work I do. It also still renders Slashdot's spacer images in the titles of articles with a greenish line around them, so they look like little green squares.
If you've been using Mozilla for the past six months, you won't notice anything new, other than the fact that it takes up twice as much memory, loads a bunch of AOL shortcuts (I'm using the Win32 version) on your desktop and will allow you to integrate RealPlayer 8, Flash, etc. with your download.
Second Impressions:
Why oh why do they need to do these damn small install files that go out on the 'Net and get everything? What I really want is a web interface that will let me pick my components and then send me an installer package custom made for my selections. It can't be that hard.
As the article states, no known material with a negative refraction index exists for the optical range. Au contraire. No solid material exists, but there is one liquid.
Beer.
And they already have lenses made of beer that you can try on TODAY. All you need to do is go down to your local pub, drink a good, oh, I dunno, 7 or 8 beers (varies depending on body weight, height, experience with such lenses, etc.) and then look around. You'll notice that everything seems just a little bit clearer; not just clearer, but better. Women (or men), who you couldn't make out before because the distortion caused by normal light activity rendered them hideous, are now showing their true features: beauty, sexuality, interest in YOU.
Beer 'goggles' (as these lense instruments are affectionately known, although heavens knows why; you can't even see them) don't just make your vision clearer, either. They make everything clearer and better: thought, sexual ability, golf scores, you name it! And the great thing is, beer has been used for millenia, so you know that any potentially damaging side effects[1] have already been worked out.
So don't believe the rubbish you read in the papers. Get your perfect lenses today at your local bar or pub[2]!
[1] Some people may have adverse reactions to beer including nausea, vomiting, dehydration, a condition known as 'hangover', decreased sexual ability, loss of vocal restraint, diarrhea, and social retardation. This is not beer's fault. It's the people's fault.
[2] Beer should not be consumed by pregnant women, people with heart conditions, people on heroin, cocaine, Tylenol, or any number of other drugs, or alcoholics currently enrolled in court-ordered rehabilitation program.
The article says:
The CIA is investigating 160 employees and contractors for exchanging "inappropriate" e-mail and off-color jokes in a secret chat room created within the agency's classified computer network and hidden from management.
And then it says:
If they were doing this with the KGB's computer system, we'd be giving them medals. Sadly, it was ours.
Umm, if they were sending around dirty e-mails and fart jokes around KGB computer systems, I doubt we'd be giving them a medal. I think it'd be more like "Why were you dicking around on their computer systems and not gathering information?"
And how come everyone who "thinks outside of the box" is automatically a geek and a hacker? Where I work (which is not the CIA), we reward people who think outside of the box, but we'll also fire in a heartbeat those people who abuse our systems, even if it's something minor. Why? The reason is that when someone abuses something for a harmless reason, there's no reason that they might someday cross the line and abuse it in a very damaging way. It's about responsibility and decision making capabilities. If they can't conduct themselves in a responsible manner, they're a potential liability. Whether they think "outside of the box" or not is irrelevant. Conduct and action do not have an effect on the ability to solve problems.
Frankly, I'm glad that the CIA is watching their internal networks and trying to maintain good employee conduct. I wouldn't want some care-free hacker in charge of maintaining information that, if put in the wrong hands, could endanger the welfare of the country, just like I wouldn't want some carefree hacker on my computer network doing things that could possibly make my work day more hectic.
Ok, what have we learned from Campaign 2000 - First, the media is irresponsible. The early projection of Florida was idiocy at its finest. This election was and is still too close to call, yet the media egos want to be the first one to call the winner, as if anyone cares who called it first. I think the media needs to examine the use of exit polls, and also needs to get back to reporting raw numbers.
So what you're saying is that the media called "First post!" and then got moderated down?
It depends on what you mean by online banking. I don't mind checking my account status, credit card balance, transfer funds between my bank's accounts (basically things that are internal to the bank) from online, especially since I have to go through two layers of security (site password, account PIN) and they have time limits on session inactivity, etc.
...)
However, I don't let other organizations do direct debiting (like for bills, etc.) nor do I check my account from just anywhere. I trust my bank's internals, but I don't trust other people with access to my money. The only people who have outside access to my account are my employers, who have permission to direct debit my paycheck (hey, if they're putting money in
The same people who are saying that Netscape 6 shouldn't be released because it isn't standards compliant are the same people who just recently said that Netscape should've released an interim browser between 4.7x and 6.x that at least implemented some standards.
What's increasingly becoming important, though, is that the people doing this criticism are not programmers. They are web developers. mozillaZine's stance is largely taken because the people doing the majority of the flaming are not people actively involved in bettering the project. They're like Monday morning quarterbacks.
FWIW, I've been using the Mozilla nightly builds for at least 6 months and they've been, for the most part, rock-solid. Yes, every once in a while something crops up stylesheets or the DOM (there's a particularly annoying bug right now where DOM form objects contain element entries from other DOM form objects), but for the most part, the code is solid, and some of the improvements (like incrememtal table display) are beautiful to use.
I waited in line for half an hour to get my ballot. In front of me was an elderly lady, quite excited that she had to wait in line (to her, it meant that more people were getting out to vote; I didn't have the heart to tell her that it meant that more people had moved out to what was formerly the "outskirts"). Behind me were two mothers, talking about school, life, the special mock voting activities each parent's school was having for their students.
The voting went pretty smoothly. I voted for Prez/Veep, Senator, and US Rep, then proceeded to randomly fill in the bubbles for the rest of the candidates, sometimes chuckling to myself about what would happen if everyone voted like me. Then I stopped chuckling because I realized everyone really was voting like me.
On the way out, I picked up my 'I VOTED' sticker, proudly displaying the American flag. I'll probably use it to pick up chicks.
Election day's still an event, that's to be sure, but it definitely doesn't mean as much to someone of my age as to those of the generation or two ahead of me who fought for things like freedom and democracy. I hear people talk about how sick and tired they are of politics and how they don't have any choices. Think of what this country would be like if that were really true.
By the way, hot Slashdot females, I voted.
(This goes for all job interviews, by the way)
Unfortunately, when HR types interview people, they often do it alone or with other HR types. If you're ever interviewing for a job and this happens, this should throw up a red flag. You should be in an interview with other people who will be working with you. You obviously can't expect the truth from anyone in an interview ("So, what do you think of this company?" "It sucks, all I do is sit around on my ass and watch the marketers decide which sporting event to spend their money on next"), but you can tell a lot from enthusiasm, involvement, and whether the questions being asked are "I want to hire you" or "I don't want to hire you" type questions.
I prefer the latter type questions. If company employees come into the meeting with a "I don't want to hire you," kind of attitude, that means they want you to prove their worth to the company. That means they're looking for qualified people, not another warm body.
But I'm sure most of you know this already.
I've seen some pretty dumb things on Slashdot and I've seen some pretty offensive things on Slashdot, but never a post like this.
This ranks up there with the jokes that came out after the Challenger accident and after Oklahoma City. The Kursk was a tragedy. It may not seem that way to an American, but it shattered the emotions of the Russian people. To further imply that Microsoft had any part in that tragedy is simply childish.
I've always considered the majority of Slashdot readers to be brats, but this goes to show that whatever Microsoft may do to fight the open-source movement, they'll probably win. Why? Because for the most part, it's people like you who make up and support that movement, people lacking any amount of maturity and decency, and for movements to succeed, they must at least be honorable in the face of their enemy.
Just sickening. Whoever moderated this up for being funny should be shot. Mark me down for flamebait or what have you, but the fact remains, many open-source zealots and programmers are simply brats.
Wow, that's great. I downloaded some songs that I wanted to hear off Napster and then didn't buy the CDs because I already the songs I wanted to hear. Hmm...
If we go by your logic of how helpful Napster is, the RIAA could very well say that they lost 50% of the business of people who use Napsters.
Your comments mean nothing other than you bought some CDs because you heard songs you got off Napster. If you really want to make a point, link to studies that examine the buying habits of the majority of Napster users, not one pro-Napster user on a pro-Napster web site trying to make a pro-Napster point.
The more I hear about Napster, the more I agree with what Lars said during his Slashdot interview. There is nothing inherently wrong with people sharing music and it should be encouraged, but Napster is a for-profit distribution model, and Napster does not ask artists if they want to be a part of its distribution model. You can hear that echoed in TMBG's quote that Napster has broken the link between them and their fans. No one asked TMBG if they wanted to be part of this distribution model, and they've already got their own Internet-based service setup. Thus, I think they have a right to be miffed.
Most artists are in favor of people sharing music, and in fact, most artists encourage it. However, there's a fine line between 'sharing songs' and distribution, and Napster is walking that fine line (personally, I think they're a distribution service). They are performing a free service, but they are also making every attempt to make money off that service (contrast it with Gnutella to see a scheme that is more of a true sharing service). If an artist says, "Hey, I don't want my songs distributed through you because you're making money off of it, not me," Napster should respect that.
Of course, that really has no bearing on where the RIAA is fighting from, but I can see where artists, especially established artists with money and careers invested in their distribution chains, would be upset with Napster.
I am not an apathetic voter. In fact, I encourage everyone to vote, and look down on those who don't as unpatriotic. But, the fact remains, my vote does not matter in this election? Why? Because I live in Texas, and Texas is already sending its electoral college votes to Dubya (save for a comment from Bush along the lines of 'Who needs those dumb rednecks anyway?').
The only thing my vote matters to is in the next election, and even then, it's not something democratic, but rather some political party can get money. No power. No voice. Just money.
Does that strike anyone else as horribly wrong? I can effectively say that I have no voice in government. While I can support groups that want to change the system, changing the system is going to require voting, and I'm sure there are enough people out there who have realized that their vote doesn't matter and so they don't vote at all.
So what's my vote going to go for this election? I don't know. I was thinking me. Maybe then I will get some money from the government.
Scyld's CTO is none other then Don Becker.
Umm, excuse my ignorance, but who is Don Becker, and why should it matter that he's the CTO? For one, titles are largely that, titles, and when someone tells me that I should be impressed by an upcoming product because of one person in a high-ranking position, I quickly sell any stock I might have in that company.
Don't get me wrong, I'm as excited as the next guy about the new release (the next guy's not that excited), but I don't really care who Don Becker if it's news that he's the CTO, it certainly isn't explained at all by this post.
I downloaded Opera 4 yesterday to test out some web pages I've been developing for my company. These pages are extremely rich in terms of CSS and stylesheets, so it's extremely important for me that I make things as cross-browser as possible. I find it quit amazing that IE4+, NS4+, and Mozilla all can render these rich pages while Opera cannot. Specifically, Opera seems to have problems with complex DOM-based JavaScript and applying CSSP/2 attributes to select widgets. Couple that with the fact that they take away my address entry field while loading a page, and the little nuisances soon become major annoyances, enough so that I see why they probably can't do much in the market, even if they were to give away the browser for free.
Apple didn't file the patent. Amazon is, and there is a relevant patent because at the middle of this discussion is whether Amazon has the right to patent the technology. In this case, Apple has licensed the technology from Amazon, which Slashdot has misconstrued as somehow lending credence to the patent.
a) Apple's licensing of the technology does not lend any validity to the patent. The patent is already completely valid. Apple's just making sure they can use the technology without getting sued for patent infringement
b) The only thing that's going to invalidate the patent is if someone shows prior art. Then, I'm sure, Apple would quit paying royalties.
I recall seeing '1-click' style mechanisms on several sites prior to Amazons patent.
...'?
Well then name one! This is what I'm talking about when I say a 'worthy challenge'. People are very quick to say, "Well, I remember seeing 1-click-style shopping" but they can't say where. That's what happens when someone patents what might be an obvious idea. Everyone says, "Well, duh, everyone did that," and then they can't think of anything. That's because what they're really thinking is that it's such a great idea that of course everyone should've been doing that. Of course, they weren't, and the patent holder jumped on it.
So, can you name a company that had '1-click' shopping before Amazon filed their patent? Or is it always going to be 'Well, I recall seeing