You then take this printed ballot that is both human and machine readable (maybe using a font like you find on the numbers of your checks) and put it in a box
Even easier.
Call up the Autotote corporation. They make the machines you use to bet at the horse-race tracks. Each time you bet, you get a receipt on a slip of paper; the font at the top is nice and readable, explaining your bet "#15 to win in race 7", and below that's a 2d barcode with the same info recorded.
When the race is over, you go to another machine and feed in your receipt; it scans the barcode, and pays out your winnings (Assuming you got some).
These machines already exist. Just change the menus on machine #1 to "one vote for Kerry/Bush/YourMom" instead of horses, and change the back-end of machine #2 to just count instead of pay-out.
The hardware's tested by thousands of people every day.
There's plenty of open source design tools. So it's not like they're losing money by you using theirs; you could've used others for free too.
But for those of us who don't have a board fab plant in our basement, and still need circuit boards made for us, it's nice to have people to pay to do it. And if these guys have a fully automated website with a one-week turnaround, that's even better.
1) "la" to "allvars" (fine) 2) ">" to "->" (sure, why not) 3) instead of piping to grep, "-find 'foo'"
And the reason #3 makes it MORE readable, but LESS usable:
Let's say I have a pair of scissors. If you give me napkins, I can cut them up. If you give me paper plates, I can cut them up. Cardboard boxes. My mail. You name it. My scissors can cut up anything made of tree pulp, and a large number of other things too (tin foil, saran wrap, whatever).
So what do I do when I get a letter I want to open? I reach for my scissors and cut off the top.
Now let's say you invented a new type of envelope that has its own letter opener knife attached to it with a chain in such a way that the letter opener knife can only be used against the top of that envelope. That's nice. It makes it more obvious how to open the envelope, since the letter opener's right there.
But it's no more USEABLE.
And what if I have some paper that I need cut in half? Oh, I guess its a good thing that pieces of paper come with little paper-cutting knives attached. Wait, they don't? Darn, Now I wish I had some sort of scissors or knife that could just cut -anything-.
And that's how UNIX is more usable than your suggestion, and Windows, and the Mac, in a great number of ways.
You have a million tools that are all good at doing ONE thing: Listing directories. Searching for lines of text. Etc.
And with each of these different tools, you can create a chain that does ANYTHING you want. You can list directories and find lines.
You can list directories and email the contents to someone using "ls -la | mail someone@somewhere -s 'contents of this directory'"
Should "dirlist" have a -mailto flag? If it has a -find flag, then it should have a mailto flag, just in case you want to email the directory listing somewhere, accordnig to your proposal.
Every tool can't and SHOULDN'T do everything. That makes it UNUSABLE (because dirlist might have -mailto, but printfile might have -sendemailto; different authors might choose different flags). But if I know that ANY output I have, I can just type "| mail someone@somewhere -s 'subject'", then that's more usable. I can just do it. I don't have to look and check "Can this program send its output as an email?" or "Can this program search for lines?". With grep, I can search -any- program's output for lines. With mail, I can send the output as an email to anyone.
OK, I'll grant you that the names of programs are cryptic. ls should be "dirlist". grep should be "findstr". But really, that's the only complaint that I have.
Just because it's not intuitive doesn't mean its not usable. Linux/UNIX's usablity is through the roof and piping is the reason why -- it makes everything a swiss army knife, and nothing a closed device.
(I'll disregard your flaming/trollful remarks about 'arcane mumbo jumbo' and especially perl.. If you'd really like, you can be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and file bug reports saying "rename switch -la to -longformat -allvars", or even patch it and submit the change yourself. Or you could just read a short book on the subject (or even the manual page; that's right, just type 'man anycommand' and it prints the manual for that command, right there.) )
1) ls -la Lists all files in the directory, showing all file information (that is, size, owner, permissions, access date) and not just the file name.
2) | '|' (pipe) means take output of one program, feed it as input to the next
3) grep foo Find all lines with the word 'foo' in it
4) > Take the output of this program, and save it to a file
5) foo.txt The file to save it to.
So, you're listing all files in the directory, getting their file size, date, permissions, and owner, searching for the ones with "foo" in the name, and saving that result to a file.
To do this in Windows, you'd have to go to start * search * files and folders
then search for "foo" in the folder you wanted.
Then for each entry, you'd have to right click the file, hit 'properties', and manually copy each line (because size, date, owner are all on separate lines and can't be selected together; only individually) and paste that into a file. (So you started notepad in the middle there, somewhere, too.)
That'd take orders of magnitude more time to do.
And I use grep every day. It's a wonderful tool and once you really get to know its power, especially when you take other program outputs (listings of ANYTHING can be piped into it), you can really search for and actually *FIND* information quickly.
Bill Nye (the science guy!) sat on one of the committees when they were designing the rovers. I got to meet him afterward and ask him a few questions.
I asked: If the rate limiting factor is the dust build up on the shields, why not have windshield wipers?
The answer: They've tried just about all of those sorts of things. Or at least thought about them. But suppose you have a wiper mounted on a mechanical arm. So now your solar plates will be always dust free, because the wiper brushes them off. But eventually dust will work itself into the joint in the mechanical arm. And the arm won't drag across the solar panel, and that's that.
So why not use compressed air? Well, an air tank will eventually run out. And the same problem occurs. Use a fan? Dust will clog the propeller, and then the solar panels.
The basic answer is, "if things move, they'll eventually stop moving because of dust." And things that move are a) heavy and b) expensive and c) can break down. So in the interest of engineering, they abandoned them all.
An interesting idea was "molting" solar panels... Mount a second set underneath the active ones. When the active panels are coated with dust, just drop 'em off. But that makes it bulkier, heavier, less efficient...
There's basically no "good" tradeoff; to extend the life of the panels, your weight and cost and complexity go up. Period. And the goal is to minimize all of those three parameters, so, we have the solar panels we have.
"Yeah, it's pretty sad when you have to stay up coding for so long that you don't even have time to shower."
My friends and I just sort of blinked and walked slowly backwards and away.
Seriously. If you go to the ECE lab at my Uni, you can tell how close it is to a major deadline when the place begins to get realllllllllllly funky smelling.
In a circuitry lab my friends and I had to take last year, we were developing circuits to monitor when events occurred... Our circuits were all hooked to speakers so they'd beep whenever the event triggered them. A lot of us also added an LED that would blink on at the same time. So in the front of the lab, next to the giant case of resistors and the giant case of capacitors was a small box of LEDs. Most of us just fished out a red one or a green one and stuck it in.
The professor was most amused by my friend, who deliberately grabbed the single purple LED and jammed it into his circuit. We think his grade was higher than ours only because it tickled the professor enough to watch that purple LED.
...Are they justified in charging him the amount just because their users didn't delete the junk soon enough or their filters are lame?
And how much money do you think it costs to hire a team of programmers to write good filtering software that's capable of handling AOL's volume of spam? A million bucks sounds not too unreasonable to me...
My friend is color-blind. He does it all by position.
And he says God help him if he gets to one of those intersections where one side only has a blinking yellow, and the other side only has a blinking red, without any other lights there for context. He just has to guess. (Usually he slows down and assumes he's got the red.)
I don't think prior art created by the patent filer counts.
Sure it does!
If you're going to patent something, you *must* keep it secret until you file your patent application. This is why drug companies keep their molecular formulas top secret until they've got the patent application out there, for example. Once anybody else has seen it -- actually, just telling other people about what you're going to patent is enough -- it's unpatentable, because it's "out there." A patent can (read: is supposed to) only be granted for the shiniest and newest things that have never been seen before by anyone besides the inventor(s).
Any competent programmer could come up with a method for doing the same thing in a few hours.
I already do it! HTML is XML compliant, no? Well, in my HTML documents, I have this tendency to put these little tags, like, <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT"> (some code in *gasp* the JavaScript scripting language...) </SCRIPT>
And though I don't personally use it, I have seen <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT"> (some code in *gasp* the VBScript scripting language...) </SCRIPT>
Isn't that what they just described in this patent? *scratches head*
As far as I can tell, the MusicXML license is just a BSD license. Give credit where it's due for the DTD and you can use it wherever you'd like. I really don't see the limitation there...
Just because it's not GPL doesn't mean it's useless.
Perhaps you're right about the Xbox controller's feel, and the raw tech specs. Fine, they're better than PS2's.
But the question was: Is the XBox innovative?
Putting slightly higher-spec'd gear into a console system isn't innovative.
It is not a quantum leap over the state of the art. While it may outpace the PS2 as you claim, it doesn't do so by any amount that really matters. (It's not like the Super Nintendo vs. the NES, for example.)
My argument from popularity is this: In a console system, it all comes down to: Do people really want to play the games for that system?
And frankly, at least among the college-age kids I know, the PS2 holds the line. More people have a PS2 than XBox. More kids get excited about playing PS2 games (the sole exception, it seems being Halo). So, is making a beefier box "innovative"? I'd say it's not. Because the system does not do what it should have been designed to do: Make everyone want to play console game systems on their console.
can you really claim Media Center PCs, Tablet PCs, Pocket PCs, the XBox, Media Player 9 (player and codecs), etc... stagnation?
Let's see...
Media Center PC -- What's that? I've yet to see anyone who has one.
Tablet PC -- A fantastic step backwards in design. If you're already lugging two pounds and something the size of a notebook around, why not just use a notebook PC? It does everything a tablet PC does and more, and has a much easier input interface.
Pocket PC -- Oh, huge innovation there. Apple beat them. Palm beat them. Handspring beat them. That's just another ripoff.
XBox -- Everyone's got a PS2. Sorry. Putting a P3-700 in a box with a harddrive and a TV-out running a stripped down windows kernel and DirectX doesn't count as "innovation". That's called "building a computer that plugs into the TV". And Sony's done it better.
Media Player 9 -- The player sucks. Sure, there are some good new codecs, but the best interface they ever had was in 6.4. Ever since spacebar-to-pause-and-play was removed, they've gone downhill. Whoever thought that was a good idea seriously needs a smack with the cluestick.
And I'm sure none of it has to do with Anno Hideki's (the writer's) suicidal depression. They actually basically kidnapped him at the end and sat him in a room where he could just finish the series, because he was totally going off the deep end. (Ever notice that the series' coherence goes rapidly downhill around episode 20 or so?)
I highly doubt he is up to writing more episodes. And probably out of respect, I bet there aren't too many authors willing to try to pick up where he left off.
I actually know many people (Hurrah for college students self-medicating) who, when they get a bad cold going, do mix the two about 50/50. Nyquil knocks you out, which isn't good, but if you take Dayquil, you can often get very jittery, and can't concentrate on studying, etc. If you mix them, though, it makes the effects pretty tolerable.
When you litter and get a $50 fine, it's not you "buying a ticket to litter" though that might be the effect.
Your analogy is flawed though -- the fine/ticket's given to you after you litter.
Different analogy: There's a park that's always getting filled with trash. Finally, the government puts a gate in front of the park, and charges everybody who enters it a $5 "trash fee" because they figure you're going to litter.
It's a bit out of your budget (I think it runs about $250-275 in most places), but it's a good beginning camera - I and many of my friends have one each. You might be able to pick up a used one for $200 or less. I'd strongly urge scrimping together the extra cash and laying out for one, though.
The lens it comes with stock (28-80mm zoom) isn't one of Canon's higher quality ones, but it still gets excellent shots when used properly - very good on the bang/buck ratio. I've taken some great pictures with it.
The camera has several modes, some of which are fully automatic (which I find useful at family gatherings or whenver I just want to take pictures of friends, etc, quickly), but has plenty of semi-automatic and fully manual modes that allow you to do more artistic stuff when you're into that too.
Plus, whenever you're ready to get more serious, all Canon EF-mount lenses will fit it. (A very wide selection is available.)
Frankly, though, this is the wrong place to ask -- look around on Google for "camera reviews"; there are many websites that discuss photography as or more in-depth than people here discuss linux distributions, and you'll get a better feel for what serious photo enthusiasts and professionals use/like/dislike/etc. photozone.de is a good place to start.
(For what it's worth, most reviews I've read of the Rebel-2000 only ever had complaints when they were comparing the camera to something like the Elan, or another camera that cost twice as much. Well, no crap it doesn't have as many features -- you're not paying to get them!;) When compared to other entry level cameras, it's certainly a heavyweight contender, despite its light body (it's only about 6 ounces). Many people are kind of turned off by this, claiming that it's fragile, but again, if you're an amateur, you're not taking this thing rock climbing with you, are you? If you actually want to do sports photography, or want to bring it into other situations where it needs to be pretty sturdy, you should be looking at pro-level cameras, like Nikon F-series anyway.
By far above anything else, however, the most important factor of a camera is: how does it feel to you? I took the Rebel over the entry-level Nikon because I just felt more comfortable with it. Most camera shops will let you shoot a roll or play with cameras they've got for sale -- you should only go to camera shops that will let you play with the merchendise. If you like a used Pentax over this, then go for it. If you'd prefer the Nikon, that'd be fine too -- you're the one who has to hold it and position it and line it all up: you better like doing it!
My other nanotech dream is that nanobots in my body could change me into a lesbian and I could go have hot lesbian sex each night, but I don't mention that one much
The problem with that one is that per your first nano-tech desire, you'd have to hit on hot, puke-green lesbians.
Slashdot Mirror
You then take this printed ballot that is both human and machine readable (maybe using a font like you find on the numbers of your checks) and put it in a box
Even easier.
Call up the Autotote corporation. They make the machines you use to bet at the horse-race tracks. Each time you bet, you get a receipt on a slip of paper; the font at the top is nice and readable, explaining your bet "#15 to win in race 7", and below that's a 2d barcode with the same info recorded.
When the race is over, you go to another machine and feed in your receipt; it scans the barcode, and pays out your winnings (Assuming you got some).
These machines already exist. Just change the menus on machine #1 to "one vote for Kerry/Bush/YourMom" instead of horses, and change the back-end of machine #2 to just count instead of pay-out.
The hardware's tested by thousands of people every day.
Nothing. But so what?
There's plenty of open source design tools. So it's not like they're losing money by you using theirs; you could've used others for free too.
But for those of us who don't have a board fab plant in our basement, and still need circuit boards made for us, it's nice to have people to pay to do it. And if these guys have a fully automated website with a one-week turnaround, that's even better.
So... what's your point again?
No, he means 'cat' like you mean it.
/dev/hda1 and include the inode data.
As in:
hcohen@src#cat - > hello.c
#include "stdio.h"
int main() { printf("hello, world"); };
^Z
hcohen@src#
Real men cat straight to
ooh, a troll; I'll bite.
ok, so your changes are:
1) "la" to "allvars" (fine)
2) ">" to "->" (sure, why not)
3) instead of piping to grep, "-find 'foo'"
And the reason #3 makes it MORE readable, but LESS usable:
Let's say I have a pair of scissors. If you give me napkins, I can cut them up. If you give me paper plates, I can cut them up. Cardboard boxes. My mail. You name it. My scissors can cut up anything made of tree pulp, and a large number of other things too (tin foil, saran wrap, whatever).
So what do I do when I get a letter I want to open? I reach for my scissors and cut off the top.
Now let's say you invented a new type of envelope that has its own letter opener knife attached to it with a chain in such a way that the letter opener knife can only be used against the top of that envelope. That's nice. It makes it more obvious how to open the envelope, since the letter opener's right there.
But it's no more USEABLE.
And what if I have some paper that I need cut in half? Oh, I guess its a good thing that pieces of paper come with little paper-cutting knives attached. Wait, they don't? Darn, Now I wish I had some sort of scissors or knife that could just cut -anything-.
And that's how UNIX is more usable than your suggestion, and Windows, and the Mac, in a great number of ways.
You have a million tools that are all good at doing ONE thing: Listing directories. Searching for lines of text. Etc.
And with each of these different tools, you can create a chain that does ANYTHING you want. You can list directories and find lines.
You can list directories and email the contents to someone using "ls -la | mail someone@somewhere -s 'contents of this directory'"
Should "dirlist" have a -mailto flag? If it has a -find flag, then it should have a mailto flag, just in case you want to email the directory listing somewhere, accordnig to your proposal.
Every tool can't and SHOULDN'T do everything. That makes it UNUSABLE (because dirlist might have -mailto, but printfile might have -sendemailto; different authors might choose different flags). But if I know that ANY output I have, I can just type "| mail someone@somewhere -s 'subject'", then that's more usable. I can just do it. I don't have to look and check "Can this program send its output as an email?" or "Can this program search for lines?". With grep, I can search -any- program's output for lines. With mail, I can send the output as an email to anyone.
OK, I'll grant you that the names of programs are cryptic. ls should be "dirlist". grep should be "findstr". But really, that's the only complaint that I have.
Just because it's not intuitive doesn't mean its not usable. Linux/UNIX's usablity is through the roof and piping is the reason why -- it makes everything a swiss army knife, and nothing a closed device.
(I'll disregard your flaming/trollful remarks about 'arcane mumbo jumbo' and especially perl.. If you'd really like, you can be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and file bug reports saying "rename switch -la to -longformat -allvars", or even patch it and submit the change yourself. Or you could just read a short book on the subject (or even the manual page; that's right, just type 'man anycommand' and it prints the manual for that command, right there.) )
The line: ls -la | grep foo > foo.txt
does the following:
1) ls -la
Lists all files in the directory, showing all file information (that is, size, owner, permissions, access date) and not just the file name.
2) |
'|' (pipe) means take output of one program, feed it as input to the next
3) grep foo
Find all lines with the word 'foo' in it
4) >
Take the output of this program, and save it to a file
5) foo.txt
The file to save it to.
So, you're listing all files in the directory, getting their file size, date, permissions, and owner, searching for the ones with "foo" in the name, and saving that result to a file.
To do this in Windows, you'd have to go to start * search * files and folders
then search for "foo" in the folder you wanted.
Then for each entry, you'd have to right click the file, hit 'properties', and manually copy each line (because size, date, owner are all on separate lines and can't be selected together; only individually) and paste that into a file. (So you started notepad in the middle there, somewhere, too.)
That'd take orders of magnitude more time to do.
And I use grep every day. It's a wonderful tool and once you really get to know its power, especially when you take other program outputs (listings of ANYTHING can be piped into it), you can really search for and actually *FIND* information quickly.
Bill Nye (the science guy!) sat on one of the committees when they were designing the rovers. I got to meet him afterward and ask him a few questions.
I asked: If the rate limiting factor is the dust build up on the shields, why not have windshield wipers?
The answer: They've tried just about all of those sorts of things. Or at least thought about them. But suppose you have a wiper mounted on a mechanical arm. So now your solar plates will be always dust free, because the wiper brushes them off. But eventually dust will work itself into the joint in the mechanical arm. And the arm won't drag across the solar panel, and that's that.
So why not use compressed air? Well, an air tank will eventually run out. And the same problem occurs. Use a fan? Dust will clog the propeller, and then the solar panels.
The basic answer is, "if things move, they'll eventually stop moving because of dust." And things that move are a) heavy and b) expensive and c) can break down. So in the interest of engineering, they abandoned them all.
An interesting idea was "molting" solar panels... Mount a second set underneath the active ones. When the active panels are coated with dust, just drop 'em off. But that makes it bulkier, heavier, less efficient...
There's basically no "good" tradeoff; to extend the life of the panels, your weight and cost and complexity go up. Period. And the goal is to minimize all of those three parameters, so, we have the solar panels we have.
...But we don't stink.
Honest to God quote from a classmate of mine:
"Yeah, it's pretty sad when you have to stay up coding for so long that you don't even have time to shower."
My friends and I just sort of blinked and walked slowly backwards and away.
Seriously. If you go to the ECE lab at my Uni, you can tell how close it is to a major deadline when the place begins to get realllllllllllly funky smelling.
In a circuitry lab my friends and I had to take last year, we were developing circuits to monitor when events occurred... Our circuits were all hooked to speakers so they'd beep whenever the event triggered them. A lot of us also added an LED that would blink on at the same time. So in the front of the lab, next to the giant case of resistors and the giant case of capacitors was a small box of LEDs. Most of us just fished out a red one or a green one and stuck it in.
The professor was most amused by my friend, who deliberately grabbed the single purple LED and jammed it into his circuit. We think his grade was higher than ours only because it tickled the professor enough to watch that purple LED.
...Are they justified in charging him the amount just because their users didn't delete the junk soon enough or their filters are lame?
And how much money do you think it costs to hire a team of programmers to write good filtering software that's capable of handling AOL's volume of spam? A million bucks sounds not too unreasonable to me...
What winning argument do I use to say "use WinAmp instead of..." to Windows users who ask?
:)
It really whips the llama's ass!
RIAA: Harvard SUCKS!
;)
O? I didn't know Hillary Rosen went to Cornell. Let's go Red!
(Chill, it's a joke...)
My friend is color-blind. He does it all by position.
And he says God help him if he gets to one of those intersections where one side only has a blinking yellow, and the other side only has a blinking red, without any other lights there for context. He just has to guess. (Usually he slows down and assumes he's got the red.)
I don't think prior art created by the patent filer counts.
Sure it does!
If you're going to patent something, you *must* keep it secret until you file your patent application. This is why drug companies keep their molecular formulas top secret until they've got the patent application out there, for example. Once anybody else has seen it -- actually, just telling other people about what you're going to patent is enough -- it's unpatentable, because it's "out there." A patent can (read: is supposed to) only be granted for the shiniest and newest things that have never been seen before by anyone besides the inventor(s).
Any competent programmer could come up with a method for doing the same thing in a few hours.
I already do it! HTML is XML compliant, no? Well, in my HTML documents, I have this tendency to put these little tags, like, <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT"> (some code in *gasp* the JavaScript scripting language...) </SCRIPT>
And though I don't personally use it, I have seen
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBSCRIPT"> (some code in *gasp* the VBScript scripting language...) </SCRIPT>
Isn't that what they just described in this patent? *scratches head*
"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the
:)
flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language."
The way I heard it was far drier humor: "C: The language combining the power of assembly with the ease of use of assembly."
I read both of those links.
As far as I can tell, the MusicXML license is just a BSD license. Give credit where it's due for the DTD and you can use it wherever you'd like. I really don't see the limitation there...
Just because it's not GPL doesn't mean it's useless.
Perhaps you're right about the Xbox controller's feel, and the raw tech specs. Fine, they're better than PS2's.
But the question was: Is the XBox innovative?
Putting slightly higher-spec'd gear into a console system isn't innovative.
It is not a quantum leap over the state of the art. While it may outpace the PS2 as you claim, it doesn't do so by any amount that really matters. (It's not like the Super Nintendo vs. the NES, for example.)
My argument from popularity is this: In a console system, it all comes down to: Do people really want to play the games for that system?
And frankly, at least among the college-age kids I know, the PS2 holds the line. More people have a PS2 than XBox. More kids get excited about playing PS2 games (the sole exception, it seems being Halo). So, is making a beefier box "innovative"? I'd say it's not. Because the system does not do what it should have been designed to do: Make everyone want to play console game systems on their console.
In that way, XBox fails at being innovative.
can you really claim Media Center PCs, Tablet PCs, Pocket PCs, the XBox, Media Player 9 (player and codecs), etc... stagnation?
Let's see...
Media Center PC -- What's that? I've yet to see anyone who has one.
Tablet PC -- A fantastic step backwards in design. If you're already lugging two pounds and something the size of a notebook around, why not just use a notebook PC? It does everything a tablet PC does and more, and has a much easier input interface.
Pocket PC -- Oh, huge innovation there. Apple beat them. Palm beat them. Handspring beat them. That's just another ripoff.
XBox -- Everyone's got a PS2. Sorry. Putting a P3-700 in a box with a harddrive and a TV-out running a stripped down windows kernel and DirectX doesn't count as "innovation". That's called "building a computer that plugs into the TV". And Sony's done it better.
Media Player 9 -- The player sucks. Sure, there are some good new codecs, but the best interface they ever had was in 6.4. Ever since spacebar-to-pause-and-play was removed, they've gone downhill. Whoever thought that was a good idea seriously needs a smack with the cluestick.
And I'm sure none of it has to do with Anno Hideki's (the writer's) suicidal depression. They actually basically kidnapped him at the end and sat him in a room where he could just finish the series, because he was totally going off the deep end. (Ever notice that the series' coherence goes rapidly downhill around episode 20 or so?)
I highly doubt he is up to writing more episodes. And probably out of respect, I bet there aren't too many authors willing to try to pick up where he left off.
At the very least, "Slashdotted" should be a 5xx code.
The codes are roughly:
1xx -- Not done yet
2xx -- You win
3xx -- You lose, but try again
4xx -- You lose; your fault
5xx -- You lose; my bad
I actually know many people (Hurrah for college students self-medicating) who, when they get a bad cold going, do mix the two about 50/50. Nyquil knocks you out, which isn't good, but if you take Dayquil, you can often get very jittery, and can't concentrate on studying, etc. If you mix them, though, it makes the effects pretty tolerable.
When you litter and get a $50 fine, it's not you "buying a ticket to litter" though that might be the effect.
Your analogy is flawed though -- the fine/ticket's given to you after you litter.
Different analogy: There's a park that's always getting filled with trash. Finally, the government puts a gate in front of the park, and charges everybody who enters it a $5 "trash fee" because they figure you're going to litter.
Can you litter then?
It's a bit out of your budget (I think it runs about $250-275 in most places), but it's a good beginning camera - I and many of my friends have one each. You might be able to pick up a used one for $200 or less. I'd strongly urge scrimping together the extra cash and laying out for one, though.
;) When compared to other entry level cameras, it's certainly a heavyweight contender, despite its light body (it's only about 6 ounces). Many people are kind of turned off by this, claiming that it's fragile, but again, if you're an amateur, you're not taking this thing rock climbing with you, are you? If you actually want to do sports photography, or want to bring it into other situations where it needs to be pretty sturdy, you should be looking at pro-level cameras, like Nikon F-series anyway.
The lens it comes with stock (28-80mm zoom) isn't one of Canon's higher quality ones, but it still gets excellent shots when used properly - very good on the bang/buck ratio. I've taken some great pictures with it.
The camera has several modes, some of which are fully automatic (which I find useful at family gatherings or whenver I just want to take pictures of friends, etc, quickly), but has plenty of semi-automatic and fully manual modes that allow you to do more artistic stuff when you're into that too.
Plus, whenever you're ready to get more serious, all Canon EF-mount lenses will fit it. (A very wide selection is available.)
Frankly, though, this is the wrong place to ask -- look around on Google for "camera reviews"; there are many websites that discuss photography as or more in-depth than people here discuss linux distributions, and you'll get a better feel for what serious photo enthusiasts and professionals use/like/dislike/etc. photozone.de is a good place to start.
(For what it's worth, most reviews I've read of the Rebel-2000 only ever had complaints when they were comparing the camera to something like the Elan, or another camera that cost twice as much. Well, no crap it doesn't have as many features -- you're not paying to get them!
By far above anything else, however, the most important factor of a camera is: how does it feel to you? I took the Rebel over the entry-level Nikon because I just felt more comfortable with it. Most camera shops will let you shoot a roll or play with cameras they've got for sale -- you should only go to camera shops that will let you play with the merchendise. If you like a used Pentax over this, then go for it. If you'd prefer the Nikon, that'd be fine too -- you're the one who has to hold it and position it and line it all up: you better like doing it!
Good luck!
I wonder if Oracle has done any research and development into the Object Oriented database field?
As a matter of fact, they have. Oracle 9i is specifically geared to be an object-oriented system.
My other nanotech dream is that nanobots in my body could change me into a lesbian and I could go have hot lesbian sex each night, but I don't mention that one much
The problem with that one is that per your first nano-tech desire, you'd have to hit on hot, puke-green lesbians.