At least the schools are using metric for the science measurements. The university research programs are using metric. It is a start, all be it a slow one.
A very slow one. I was taught the metric system in elementary school in 1974. We were also taught that the USA would be going metric soon.
The intrusive security behavior of the TSA has all kinds of negative economic consequences, discouraging people from flying hurts the airlines, it also makes conducting business harder, and it separates families (with secondary but significant financial consequences). I'm very reluctant to take my family anywhere, it's such a great hassle to have your lunch and medications interrogated and seized.
Yeah, but on the other hand, now I don't mind that my sneakers reek. I just put them in the basket on the conveyor belt with a smile.
It's an interesting idea, but a lousy implementation.
The biggest problem with the ribbon is not the design of it, but rather the removal of the menu option at all. Back when Office was trying to take market share away from Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect it offered the option to use their key commands. That, plus the new features offered made them very compelling.
The ribbon would be a great addition to the suite for people who would like a different view of options to see what's available (and who never read the manual). However, replacing the menu with the ribbon with no alternative is a slap in the face to users in a market that's reached saturation. Those of us who have muddled along for decades (okay, 19 years) just fine with the menus suddenly find all of that knowledge useless. I can get a license of Office 2007 for free through work, but I'm sticking with the previous version because I can get things done.
As a young professor, I prepared for my first interview by reading the last three published articles of everyone who was going to interview me. I noticed that one guy seemed to get published very frequently in a journal that I had never heard of, articles that should never have passed peer review, so I looked into it. Not only was he on the editorial board, but everyone else who was on the editorial board also had published bad articles frequently. And a little more investigation revealed that all of hem were associate professors.
It was then that I realized that this was a vanity journal, probably dreamed up by these folks over a few beers at a conference. Each of them had written enough to publish about one article a year, which, when combined with an annual publication in a legitimate journal, would probably be enough to get each of them promotion and tenure at their respective research universities.
1. When I started buying music, I bought used records. They were cheap in the college town I called home and CDs hadn't been invented yet. Were the artists getting any money from my purchase? Nope. 2. Years later, I started buying used CDs. Again, no money for artists. 3. Years after that, I ripped all of my CDs to MP3. Again, no money for artists. 4. Nowadays if I hear something that sounds good, maybe I'll download it as a leech. No matter how I get it, there's still no money for artists.
As far as my own moral code is concerned, items 1-3 are absolutely fair. As far as I'm concerned, #4 is an IP violation. (No, it's not theft because the original is still there, blah blah blah).
However, this is an IP violation with minimal harm to the artists for this IP violation because the probability that I would have actually bought the music new as opposed to buying it at a used CD store is close to zero (I've purchased maybe a dozen albums new in ~30 years).
So, yeah, I have music on my hard drive that I didn't pay for, but the "harm" to the artists is the same as if I had purchased the music used.
If these come out at $50, come with a library of great books (all free from Gutenberg et al.), and allow you to put whatever you like on them in some open format which the FOSS community can create converters for, why wouldn't it blow the iPOD sales records out of the water?
Because most people like to listen to music and/or watch movies and/or play games. Many fewer people like to read newspapers and books.
My guess is that Prof David Wiley is approaching retirement, has a final salary pension, and is spouting any old drivel in order to form a committee to boost his responsibilities, and therefore earnings, and therefore pension pot
In addition to the people pointing out that the guy is a baby professor, I'll also add that professors don't get paid extra for serving on committees, which is why university committees are usually populated solely by tenure-track assistants or those seeking promotion from associate to full professor.
People like to buy stuff from them. If Dell started to sell and support Apple PCs as just another product line, sales of Apple PCs would climb.
Maybe from the added "credibility" of being associated with Dell, but not because of how much gee whiz fun it is to buy from Dell's online store. Have you ever tried getting a straight price from them? You get different options and pricing depending on whether you go in via home or office or corporate or data center or whatever bullshit classification scheme they decide for you, then it's uselessly bare until you add to it, and then maybe there's a sale that day and maybe not, or maybe a "deal" and why the hell can't they just give you a straight price?
Try buying something from store.apple.com and compare the experience.
Some might argue that Dell is a better value because you're not paying the "Apple tax' for the user experience. That's true so long as you believe that the user experience is worthless.
If God is by his nature, supremely worthy of worship, then not worshipping him is a terrible wrong,
If God, by his nature, gave Man the ability to question Him, it would be a mockery of God not to use it. Anything else is just the idea of God as crap programmer who "knows" what he wants, but doesn't know how build it.
A lot of people don't like the Office 2007 interface because it's different and people don't like different, but in terms of ease of use for beginners and the productivity increases it brings it's a major innovation. The previous style toolbars have been running since the 80s and absolutely were not perfect so they deserve some credit for finally doing something to improve the good old toolbar in a way that does produce real, measureable productivity increases. Some common tasks that used to take an hour can be done in 30 seconds now. Sure the OOXML thing was a farce but that doesn't make the whole product bad when the new UI offers real benefits and you can save in other file formats anyway.
That sounds swell, but denying users with nearly two decades of experience selecting commands in the old menu system via muscle memory ("It's over here...") the ability to continue their ways is not just stupid, it's arrogant. In the old days when Excel was trying to take over from Lotus 1-2-3, Excel actually incorporated the option to use the 1-2-3 keystrokes to make transitions easier. The same happened with Word when it included WordPerfect's options. But now that Word rules the roost? No compromise, no need to make things easy.
I worked in a government agency that had been updated to Office 2007 and the entire staff was slowed trying to figure out how to use their old features unless they had memorized the key commands. (And how many workers really learn more key commands than than cut, copy, paste, print, and save?) That's a couple of hundred people wasting taxpayer time trying to figure out stuff like how to do a Save As. You want to explain to them that the reason why they can't get things done is because Microsoft, who has the monopoly on a mature industry, suddenly decided to worry about people who has never used its products and toss everyone else under the bus?
Don't get me wrong, some things about the ribbon were nice. However, denying the ability to have classic menus was an asshole move that alienated a lot of users.
I have similar thoughts. For me the whole point of a site like FaceBook is to get back in touch with those I may have lost contact with over the decades, but the way these social networking sites are designed they expect you to use it as the sole tool of communication and has all sorts of crap and activities to keep you in touch. That's not my style. If I want to share pictures, I can send email or put them on my own website. I don't want to spend my whole day knowing what all of my friends and colleagues are up to. As a result, I think most blogs and pretty much all of Twitter is a waste of time. I've used FaceBook but I don't have my own account.
I have a LinkedIn account. I have school and job information about me there, but I'm an academic so I make that stuff public anyway. People can get in touch with me, but I don't spend all day on the forums.
I have a classmates.com page. I put up a picture from hotchickswith douchebags.com and put my obscured email address up. If someone cares they can drop me a line. Maybe we'll talk on the phone or get together. And that's enough.
Slashdot Mirror
At least the schools are using metric for the science measurements. The university research programs are using metric. It is a start, all be it a slow one.
A very slow one. I was taught the metric system in elementary school in 1974. We were also taught that the USA would be going metric soon.
The intrusive security behavior of the TSA has all kinds of negative economic consequences, discouraging people from flying hurts the airlines, it also makes conducting business harder, and it separates families (with secondary but significant financial consequences). I'm very reluctant to take my family anywhere, it's such a great hassle to have your lunch and medications interrogated and seized.
Yeah, but on the other hand, now I don't mind that my sneakers reek. I just put them in the basket on the conveyor belt with a smile.
Just kinda writes itself, really.
It's an interesting idea, but a lousy implementation.
The biggest problem with the ribbon is not the design of it, but rather the removal of the menu option at all. Back when Office was trying to take market share away from Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect it offered the option to use their key commands. That, plus the new features offered made them very compelling.
The ribbon would be a great addition to the suite for people who would like a different view of options to see what's available (and who never read the manual). However, replacing the menu with the ribbon with no alternative is a slap in the face to users in a market that's reached saturation. Those of us who have muddled along for decades (okay, 19 years) just fine with the menus suddenly find all of that knowledge useless. I can get a license of Office 2007 for free through work, but I'm sticking with the previous version because I can get things done.
Considering that it for tax reasons isn't feasible to do farming in NH there has to be some kind of income.
Isn't that what Massachusetts is for?
So any object within that region of space, a mouse say, takes on the appearance of an elephant.
Nice. They'll be making condoms out of this stuff when?
Mr. Doctorow: "I really feel like my problem isn't piracy. It's obscurity."
There, there, Cory. People are paying attention to you now. It's okay.
As a young professor, I prepared for my first interview by reading the last three published articles of everyone who was going to interview me. I noticed that one guy seemed to get published very frequently in a journal that I had never heard of, articles that should never have passed peer review, so I looked into it. Not only was he on the editorial board, but everyone else who was on the editorial board also had published bad articles frequently. And a little more investigation revealed that all of hem were associate professors.
It was then that I realized that this was a vanity journal, probably dreamed up by these folks over a few beers at a conference. Each of them had written enough to publish about one article a year, which, when combined with an annual publication in a legitimate journal, would probably be enough to get each of them promotion and tenure at their respective research universities.
[HOW ABOUT NO bear picture here] /Slack muscle tone //And she did some guy named Thad
It depends on what you mean by doing wrong.
1. When I started buying music, I bought used records. They were cheap in the college town I called home and CDs hadn't been invented yet. Were the artists getting any money from my purchase? Nope.
2. Years later, I started buying used CDs. Again, no money for artists.
3. Years after that, I ripped all of my CDs to MP3. Again, no money for artists.
4. Nowadays if I hear something that sounds good, maybe I'll download it as a leech. No matter how I get it, there's still no money for artists.
As far as my own moral code is concerned, items 1-3 are absolutely fair. As far as I'm concerned, #4 is an IP violation. (No, it's not theft because the original is still there, blah blah blah).
However, this is an IP violation with minimal harm to the artists for this IP violation because the probability that I would have actually bought the music new as opposed to buying it at a used CD store is close to zero (I've purchased maybe a dozen albums new in ~30 years).
So, yeah, I have music on my hard drive that I didn't pay for, but the "harm" to the artists is the same as if I had purchased the music used.
Actually there was a time when Apple was hailed as the white knight in the shiny armor freeing us from the evil IBM empire.
Fixed that for you.
If these come out at $50, come with a library of great books (all free from Gutenberg et al.), and allow you to put whatever you like on them in some open format which the FOSS community can create converters for, why wouldn't it blow the iPOD sales records out of the water?
Because most people like to listen to music and/or watch movies and/or play games. Many fewer people like to read newspapers and books.
My guess is that Prof David Wiley is approaching retirement, has a final salary pension, and is spouting any old drivel in order to form a committee to boost his responsibilities, and therefore earnings, and therefore pension pot
In addition to the people pointing out that the guy is a baby professor, I'll also add that professors don't get paid extra for serving on committees, which is why university committees are usually populated solely by tenure-track assistants or those seeking promotion from associate to full professor.
Wrong wrong, I'm using the 'Pro' version of slashdot. In the Pro version, all grammar is corrected...where I right in the correct answer
Ouch.
It is thatMcDonalds could raise the temperature of coffee to a highly dangerous point knowing...
Lighten up, Francis.
Colbert's more important to the zeitgeist than Serenity, that's for sure.
But you can't rub one out thinking about the characters on The Daily Show.
Not only that, but what the dev team estimated would take them at least 2 months, Carmack did in four days.
And on the fifth, sixth, and seventh days, He rested.
People like to buy stuff from them. If Dell started to sell and support Apple PCs as just another product line, sales of Apple PCs would climb.
Maybe from the added "credibility" of being associated with Dell, but not because of how much gee whiz fun it is to buy from Dell's online store. Have you ever tried getting a straight price from them? You get different options and pricing depending on whether you go in via home or office or corporate or data center or whatever bullshit classification scheme they decide for you, then it's uselessly bare until you add to it, and then maybe there's a sale that day and maybe not, or maybe a "deal" and why the hell can't they just give you a straight price?
Try buying something from store.apple.com and compare the experience.
Some might argue that Dell is a better value because you're not paying the "Apple tax' for the user experience. That's true so long as you believe that the user experience is worthless.
If God is by his nature, supremely worthy of worship, then not worshipping him is a terrible wrong,
If God, by his nature, gave Man the ability to question Him, it would be a mockery of God not to use it. Anything else is just the idea of God as crap programmer who "knows" what he wants, but doesn't know how build it.
I hope it does well, since it's a beautiful and a LOT more versatile than the overpriced sheet metal that is the Air.
Really? I can run Windows on a MacBook Air. How well does an Adamo run OS X?
Good advice. Our medic was sniped in the glow of his iPod.
Poor guy never even heard it coming.
A lot of people don't like the Office 2007 interface because it's different and people don't like different, but in terms of ease of use for beginners and the productivity increases it brings it's a major innovation. The previous style toolbars have been running since the 80s and absolutely were not perfect so they deserve some credit for finally doing something to improve the good old toolbar in a way that does produce real, measureable productivity increases. Some common tasks that used to take an hour can be done in 30 seconds now. Sure the OOXML thing was a farce but that doesn't make the whole product bad when the new UI offers real benefits and you can save in other file formats anyway.
That sounds swell, but denying users with nearly two decades of experience selecting commands in the old menu system via muscle memory ("It's over here...") the ability to continue their ways is not just stupid, it's arrogant. In the old days when Excel was trying to take over from Lotus 1-2-3, Excel actually incorporated the option to use the 1-2-3 keystrokes to make transitions easier. The same happened with Word when it included WordPerfect's options. But now that Word rules the roost? No compromise, no need to make things easy.
I worked in a government agency that had been updated to Office 2007 and the entire staff was slowed trying to figure out how to use their old features unless they had memorized the key commands. (And how many workers really learn more key commands than than cut, copy, paste, print, and save?) That's a couple of hundred people wasting taxpayer time trying to figure out stuff like how to do a Save As. You want to explain to them that the reason why they can't get things done is because Microsoft, who has the monopoly on a mature industry, suddenly decided to worry about people who has never used its products and toss everyone else under the bus?
Don't get me wrong, some things about the ribbon were nice. However, denying the ability to have classic menus was an asshole move that alienated a lot of users.
For Safari try Pithhelmet.
Now my number is blocked. Now I am safe.
Yeah, breathe a sigh of relief that you can't call yourself.
I have similar thoughts. For me the whole point of a site like FaceBook is to get back in touch with those I may have lost contact with over the decades, but the way these social networking sites are designed they expect you to use it as the sole tool of communication and has all sorts of crap and activities to keep you in touch. That's not my style. If I want to share pictures, I can send email or put them on my own website. I don't want to spend my whole day knowing what all of my friends and colleagues are up to. As a result, I think most blogs and pretty much all of Twitter is a waste of time. I've used FaceBook but I don't have my own account.
I have a LinkedIn account. I have school and job information about me there, but I'm an academic so I make that stuff public anyway. People can get in touch with me, but I don't spend all day on the forums.
I have a classmates.com page. I put up a picture from hotchickswith douchebags.com and put my obscured email address up. If someone cares they can drop me a line. Maybe we'll talk on the phone or get together. And that's enough.