2) People see the OS as an enabler for the hardware, nothing more. People talk about Windows, it's the standard, they don't like the idea of paying for it, as if it's built into the cost of a PC as far as many consumers are concerned. A lot of people don't realise that they are paying for it when they purchase a new PC.
I can illustrate your point by my recent experience. My wife had a laptop that had Win2k on it. She used it during her Masters work, and after she was done with that, it was mine. (muahahaha) The networking was screwed up on it anyway, and I was unable to repair it with that stupid reinstall CD that came with it. I installed various Linux distros on it, it was my play machine. So I recently decided to make the leap to wireless. I had Mandrake 10.0 installed on the laptop, and bought an 802.11g card and router. I futzed with the card on that laptop for 3 days. Finally I found out that there was a reported bug with that chipset where the latest and greatest revision didn't work with the firmware that worked with previous cards. (It is a Netgear W511 with the Prism54 chipset) The bugzilla report said they couldn't fix it. So I was stuck. I could return the card and the router (since they came as a set) and buy another one, or I could bite the bullet and install Windows. I only have a copy of Win98, so I installed it and it worked. But the damn laptop kept locking up and going into Safe mode. So I *acquired* a full copy of Win2k, installed it, and everything is fine now. My wireless connection is great.
I have some issues with this scenario:
I wanted Linux on that laptop, but wasn't willing to jump through all the hoops to get wireless working. I know I just got a bad card, but it was a hassle that was getting on my nerves.
I was forced to acquire a copy of Win2k because the licensed copy of Windows I had (Win98) was unstable. TECHNICALLY the laptop came with Win2k, but those "reinstall" CDs are worthless. So did I already own a copy of Win2k? Probably not, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to fork over for a retail copy of it. If they ever fix those prizm54 drivers, I'll probably switch it back to Mandrake (test out the firmware with Knoppix first though)
Bottom line was that I wanted to use the laptop as a wireless workstation. To me, the OS was irrelevant. Unfortunately, in this scenario, MS was the enabler instead of Linux. But I would not have shelled out hundreds of dollars for an OS that I already owned a copy of (in theory)
Think this is kind of weird timing after Christopher's death?? Kind of like the HHGTTG movie timing. They had to wait for Douglas to die before they could go forward with what production wanted, (ie a money making movie, not a GOOD movie). Anybody else think Mr Reeve maybe had some say that the production didn't like, and now that he's gone it gives them the chance to go forward?? Just my 2 cents.
Honestly, I doubt Reeve would have contributed much. I will admit, I was a fan of the original Superman movie, but I was 9 years old. I would like to see this story told up to today's standards. The X-Men movies rocked. No Batman movie has come close but the first was the best of the lot. Spider-Man 1 and 2 were really good. I didn't see the Hulk, the CGI in the trailers was too corny for my taste. Daredevil got rented only for Jennifer Garner.
But come on, these are the easy ones! I want them to take on a tough super hero, one that isn't as obviously interesting. Do Aquaman. Do The Green Lantern. The Flash. Hmm, OK maybe not. If they can't get translate the "easy" ones into movies I am sure these would be real stinkers. I am surprised they haven't tried Captain America yet - other than the stinker in 1991. Red Skull and Baron Blood were scary when I was little reading the comics.
So my original post scores a 2 because of my karma. It was "mysteriously" modded to 0 (see parent comment). Now the original post is scored as a 1. It somehow gained a point with no other moderation. Maybe because the response to it came in as a 2?
Very interesting. Facts are now considered Flamebait. I wish there was a feature where moderators could insert comments, because I would really like to know why this post is considered flamebait. Unless it was auto-moderated down because of a keyword match, which I have suspected for a while is a "feature" of Slashdot.
1. Get a software engineering book, and study the concepts of software design. Even if you're just doing some small little "print a schedule" type assignment, thinking about how you would design a bigger project will help you.
AMEN BROTHER!!!
Better yet, take a software engineering course if it is offered. Granted, it was back in the early 90's when I was in college, but my software engineering course was what got me my first job out of college with a big company. I took my senior project with me on my interview and showed it to the first person I talked to - she said "show this to every person that interviews you today". There was ZERO code for this project. What it did have was requirements, design, budget, test plans, mock-ups, documentation outlines, etc. All the stuff that is done outside of actual coding. This is how things work in the real world. It was the most important class that I took in CS. I probably won't be coding in Pascal any time soon, but I still use the principles I learned in that Software Engineering class.
I will admit that it has been a while since I did any hardcore coding, but if you are doing any kind of project, design it first. Draw pictures. You'd be surprised how much easier it can be. I am still amazed after working in the industry after 10+ years how little software engineering education a lot of coders have. And there is a HUGE difference between a coder and a software engineer. Learn the concepts early and try to use them as much as possible. I couldn't write requirements to save my ass in college, but just the fact that I tried, and knew where they fit in the process made a huge difference. Do you know what a testing organization does and why? Where I work, we just got a set of issues out of a "lessons learned" session for our release that just went out. Many of the questions that came out of our development group were along the lines of "What does our QA group do, and why?" Some of these people have been coding for 10 years or more, and they don't understand why we have a QA group (QA and testing, which aren't the same thing)
this is the ITAA? Aren't they supposed to advocate GOOD software design? Guess what, if the user is making errors, then it's the problem of the software maker. Obviously they didn't design their interface right, obviously they didn't write their instructions well enough etc. The user isn't supposed to have to study a user's manual before voting.
Come on, this "blame the user" bs is getting really old. Appearently corporations are allowed to be totally incompetent with their own products, but it's always the users fault if they don't know how to use them......
Did I actually read this on Slashdot? What ever happened to RTFM?
Seriously though, I agree with what you said - I just wish that the OSS community understood this concept. I am not trolling, this is a serious issue with software in general, I am just pointing it out about OSS because we have to police ourselves. Believe me, I am a software tester, so I know how badly software can be designed. *I* am comfortable with reading man pages and the command line, but I understand that most people are not. As close as OSS software is to being "there", there are still some hurdles to get over. One of them is "ease of use" - but I temper that comment with this: only if we need OSS to take hold in the "real world". Things have to work more smoothly or people won't put up with it.
I am a victim of this too. I had a Mandrake 10.0 laptop, and recently purchased an 802.11g setup. I could NOT get the card working (Netgear WG511). After much searching on Google, I found out that there is a bug (reported in Bugzilla for Prism54) where the newest versions of the cards don't work, and they don't know how to fix it. So I was SOL with Linux. I could have returned the card (internet), wait for a fix, or just install Win2k. I gritted my teeth and installed Win2k. Now my wireless setup works, which is all I wanted in the first place. Maybe there was another solution, I don't know, but I got tired of fcking with it after 2 days.
This is just another example of how the elites at the top of the hieracrchy operate as some sort of parasitic sub-society, perched above us, exploiting the rest of us, feeding off of us.
You may think that my perspective is warped, paranoid, whatever. But I think it serves as a reality check and a balance to the omnipresent messages of confomuity that society and the media flood us with every day.
I actually didn't know that stuff about Gates. I thought he was just a sleazy businessman, but it turns out he was a connected sleazy businessman. Oh well. It isn't like I care much. It isn't what you know, blah blah. Like we need to be reminded of that during an election year. The stuff I know about Bush and his family scares the crap out of me in this regard, I don't even want to find out what I don't know. I know enough to despise him, just like Gates.
People are too busy striving for success instead of striving for happiness anyway. I love this country (USA), and we do have a rich culture and heritage (good and bad). Unfortunately, that isn't the way we present ourselves to others around the world and in our daily lives. We are caught up in this manufactured image of pseudo-culture.
You must be new here. Sal is recent, guys like Roland Piquepaille have been promoting their shit here well before he came along. I really think that subscribers should be able to VOTE on stories while they are in the mysterious future...
Hells bells, let's just give them the ability to edit the stories too, that way the editors wouldn't really have to do anything at all.
Seriously, I know the editors here get crap all the time for the grammar/spelling/duplicate stories, but isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? Don't they even read Slashdot themselves? I mean, this is a blatant example of a known abuser of the system, and the article was posted by Hemos himself. WTF? I don't WANT to wear a tinfoil hat, but I almost feel like I can't avoid it much longer.
I really dont think you could label Walmart as a monopoly by any stretch of the word. THere are plenty of competing businesses, Walmart is jsut the biggest.
Walmart is not a monopoly - but they have ruined their share of small businesses. They also treat their employees like garbage, and don't give back to the communities that they overtake. That is why many communitites protest and try to keep them from setting up shop there.
But realistically, in the end, people want the best prices on things. Walmart can offer the lowest price (usually) because they have such a huge operation and their costs are lower. Note the deal that they have with the RIAA - I am sure that nobody else gets that kind of discount. They aren't a monopoly, but they are one of the largest forces in retail. 5 of the top 10 richest people in the country are from the Walton family.
I have talked to people who have marketed products to Walmart. They are hard-asses about accepting your product into their stores, and they take a huge cut. It is very much like record labels - you give away the lion's share of your product sales in hopes that they'll stock your product on their shelves.
Every country practices espionage. EVERY country. The US, with its technical resources, has been very successful in the past in elint. The Soviets were particularly successful with their humint efforts.
I don't think anyone is saying the North Koreans don't have a 'right' to form their 'hackforce' (it's only leftists and liberals that talk about 'rights' in geopolitics anyway); I think the point is that their calling attention to it is the sort of attention-whoring that suggests that it's less a real exercise than cage-rattling.
Phbbt. Next you'll say that every country that posesses nuclear weapons is evil. What? WE have them. Oh yeah, nevermind.
Oh wait - Saddam wanted to use WMD. What? The U.S. is the only country to use a nuclear weapon in war? Hmm, forgot about that.
Oooo, how about any country that helped the terrorists of 9/11 should be... You mean that WE trained them on how to fly planes? Nevermind, I give up.
My reply to this post
on
OQO For Sale
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· Score: 1, Funny
Following is a link to my reply to this story. I am sure it will be modded +5 as it is a very extensive, earth-shattering reply. I expect this to be the most viewed post ever on Slashdot. For more information about me, and why I am so important, follow this link .
Every man and his dog is making an "iPod killer" these days. But none of em seem to get it.
Apple has already won, simply by the fact that every new device that comes out is compared against the iPod. I just hear "blah blah blah iPod". Free advertising for Apple every time a competitor is released and/or reviewed.
Having said all that, I don't own one but played with someone's once. It is a portable music player. It was really nicely made, but are these things really that great? They play music. I have had a Rio500 for a few years, and it does essentially the same function. I love gadgets, but I think portable music players are just trendy now. Years ago, it was the Walkman. I am really surprised that people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for these things. Are you that dependant on music?
I think Apple has done a marvelous job with the iPod. They marketed it (probably gave it away) to celebrities and whatnot to make it visible. They made a solid product at a price that, for reasons unknown to me, people are willing to pay for the new Walkman. They made it a wanted product, and as a country of consumer sheep, people lined up to get them. For some reason though, I just don't get it.
I don't want to yank my player out of the dash when I want to add songs. I want to drive my car into my garage and have it present on my home network. Then from my desktop I will drag/drop songs to the car.
A friend of mine has the older Rio car unit, and he loves it. But I wasn't so sure about getting one (and they went off the market). I ended up waiting a year or so to see how the MP3/CD players would fare. There were only a couple models out at the time, but now there are tons. I picked up a Blaupunkt for under $200, and it is awesome. Now I can carry several CDs of MP3s in my car and have hours of music. There's no skipping or risk of hard drive damage, and if a CD gets scratched I am just out a few cents.
The only thing I might like better is if it would read DVDs. Now DVD-Rs are cheap enough where I wouldn't mind having 4.7gig of music. But I am very happy with my purchase. It even has an AUX input if I ever wanted to play something from a portable. (or use one of those FM modulated add-ons) To me, that is a much more viable alternative because you can take the portable with you.
I was going to mod you down, but thought a response would be better.
I'm not religious, so I'm not saying "Don't play God", but it is the height of arrogance for scientists to say they understand genetics sufficiently to control GM.
Some GM stuff in labs can perhaps be controlled, but once modified geness are released into the RealWorld they are very difficult to control. The risk of doing bad things is great. We already see the effects of cross contamination of crops etc.
Funny how you say that they don't understand genetics, yet that is what they do for a living. I would venture a guess that they understand it just a wee bit better than YOU do. I also find the GM argument to be odd that people will say "You have to prove that it isn't harmful". To which scientists provide evidence that shows no harmful effects in studies. For some reason, that doesn't seem to be good enough. Sure, there is limited concern because for most of us, it is somewhat of an unknown. The idea of GM things are a little scary to us. But this is what they do. Your subject suggests that they don't understand their life's work. That is ridiculous.
You could almost liken it to the GPL. Don't release your software under the GPL, you don't know the ramifications of doing so. Don't treat GM products the way MS treats the GPL.
You know, after Sammy took over, the group just wasn't the same. They may have been an OK band for the time, but it just wasn't they same. They should have changed their name or something. But dude, that guy that came in after Sammy? WTF was up with that?
I for one will shed nary a tear to hear that the RIAA and the "big music" companies are hurting, evolution happens to us all. Better things come along, new ways of doing things, faster, cheaper, ways of doing things, and you adapt or die. Hello RIAA, meet the Dodo.
Well, to be fair the RIAA is not a music company. Seriously. They are a club that collects dues, nothing more. Read up on the RIAA, and ask this question: "What value do they offer?" None. All they do is collect dues from record labels. The music industry could exist fine without them. They only reason they exist is because they were necessary at some point, and have complete control over the music industry. The labels and certainly the artists don't need them anymore - but there is nothing they can do about it. The only way it would change is that the labels and hopefully the artists would make more money. I would like to think that they would pass that savings on to the customer.
Having said that, to offer my opinion on the music store debate...
I got a $10 Best Buy gift card several months ago, and went in to see if there was anything I wanted. I hadn't been in a Best Buy for a long time, and now I know why. For one, they didn't have what I was looking for at a reasonable price. I thought about getting one of those ReAir cans (rechargable spray air cans) but they didn't have them. I looked at memory card readers, but they only had ones that could read single formats, and they were all 2x what you can get them for online. I found nothing worth getting, so I was going to look in the music section. But they had the music playing in the store so loud that I couldn't hear myself think. My wife was standing 5 feet from me, and she had to yell very loudly to get my attention. I got so annoyed I just walked out. I did think about picking up a movie, since Fahrenheit 9/11 just came out and was only $19.99. But then I decided that I didn't want to give Best Buy my money. I guess that gift card won't get used, because I don't ever want to step foot back in that store.
I've used KDE and Gnome before, even somewhat recently, but just can't stand the overhead. They both look great, but I'm much happier in Fluxbox. All I do is work in xterms all day anyways.
I recently updated my main machine at home from RedHat 7.3 to Mandrake 10.0. Something I found very useful in KDE 3.2 was tabbed terminal windows. I am still getting used to it, but it is nice to have several terminal windows in one.
On the packaging note, I have found that Mandrake's packaging tool is pretty slick about telling you what dependencies there are when installing something, and you can automatically choose to install those as well.
That's for sure! I work for a division of Siemens AG. We're not just some small fry startup operating out of a garage. We're one of the ten largest companies in the world. Which I why I think this problem infects more than must my employer.
Wow. The person where I work that is leading the effort to achieve CMM Level 2 is a former Siemens employee. He was overly confident about how to achieve Level 2, saying "Oh, we did this all the time at Siemens." The problem was, all he wants to do is get that CMM rating. His processes are shit, and on top of that he circumvents them at every opportunity. I always wondered how the hell he ever survived at Siemens, but now I think I know.
Well, I certainly would not hire a Java programmer that did not have programming skills. It is possible to knowledge a programming language, i.e. language syntax, without having the broader knowledge and experience to make that language knowledge useful as a developer.
True, but that is kind of implied when you are interviewing for a Java programmer. You have to clearly spell out the specific skills you want.
When a job ad says they want networking skills, you should be able to deduce what sort of skills based on the job title (Network Administrator or Unix System Administrator), and the other keywords used in the ad. They are not likely looking for Novell experience / knowledge unless they mention it.
If they don't mention WANs or routers, network administration you likely don't need any Cisco IOS knowledge.
Well, it was for a QA Engineer position (not just testing) and tools development. And it turned out, the hiring manager had several Cisco certifications. He wanted someone with "networking skills" but he really wanted a Network Admin / QA Tools Developer. I know enough about networks to be dangerous, but not enough for what he was looking for. That was kind of what was driving my previous comments.
Hmm, let's see... Who wants to be able to program their TV to record TV from work?
Not me. There is nothing on TV that I have to absolutely watch. If there was, I would get a TiVO.
Who wants to program their lights to come on from work?
I can do that already - X10 module and ssh. I can also set a cronjob when away from home for an extended time.
Who wants to program their heat/AC to turn on/off from work?
I have my thermostat programmed, and I rarely change it.
Who wants their oven to preheat from work?
Not me. Too dangerous. Preheating takes 15 minutes. I can spare 15 minutes. And I actually do cook, so those 15 minutes are usually spent doing prep work of some kind.
I am all for technological advances, but honestly - it sounds like you are either extremely lazy, you work too much, or a little of both.
I caught the same story on NPR, and was overwhelmed by the depth of incidents they were able to uncover. People had their tickets taken away and torn up. Students were thrown out because one of them had a faded Kerry sticker on his wallet... and then their teacher was thrown out when he stepped in and tried to vouch for their behaviour!
That's right, I forgot about the ticket ripping part. Also, one woman was thrown out because she had something on it that was deemed "Pro-Choice". So not only was it anything Kerry related, but anything that Bush opposed. Amazing. But not really surprising I guess, considering who Bush is and what he believes in.
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I can illustrate your point by my recent experience. My wife had a laptop that had Win2k on it. She used it during her Masters work, and after she was done with that, it was mine. (muahahaha) The networking was screwed up on it anyway, and I was unable to repair it with that stupid reinstall CD that came with it. I installed various Linux distros on it, it was my play machine. So I recently decided to make the leap to wireless. I had Mandrake 10.0 installed on the laptop, and bought an 802.11g card and router. I futzed with the card on that laptop for 3 days. Finally I found out that there was a reported bug with that chipset where the latest and greatest revision didn't work with the firmware that worked with previous cards. (It is a Netgear W511 with the Prism54 chipset) The bugzilla report said they couldn't fix it. So I was stuck. I could return the card and the router (since they came as a set) and buy another one, or I could bite the bullet and install Windows. I only have a copy of Win98, so I installed it and it worked. But the damn laptop kept locking up and going into Safe mode. So I *acquired* a full copy of Win2k, installed it, and everything is fine now. My wireless connection is great.
I have some issues with this scenario:
I wanted Linux on that laptop, but wasn't willing to jump through all the hoops to get wireless working. I know I just got a bad card, but it was a hassle that was getting on my nerves.
I was forced to acquire a copy of Win2k because the licensed copy of Windows I had (Win98) was unstable. TECHNICALLY the laptop came with Win2k, but those "reinstall" CDs are worthless. So did I already own a copy of Win2k? Probably not, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to fork over for a retail copy of it. If they ever fix those prizm54 drivers, I'll probably switch it back to Mandrake (test out the firmware with Knoppix first though)
Bottom line was that I wanted to use the laptop as a wireless workstation. To me, the OS was irrelevant. Unfortunately, in this scenario, MS was the enabler instead of Linux. But I would not have shelled out hundreds of dollars for an OS that I already owned a copy of (in theory)
Honestly, I doubt Reeve would have contributed much. I will admit, I was a fan of the original Superman movie, but I was 9 years old. I would like to see this story told up to today's standards. The X-Men movies rocked. No Batman movie has come close but the first was the best of the lot. Spider-Man 1 and 2 were really good. I didn't see the Hulk, the CGI in the trailers was too corny for my taste. Daredevil got rented only for Jennifer Garner.
But come on, these are the easy ones! I want them to take on a tough super hero, one that isn't as obviously interesting. Do Aquaman. Do The Green Lantern. The Flash. Hmm, OK maybe not. If they can't get translate the "easy" ones into movies I am sure these would be real stinkers. I am surprised they haven't tried Captain America yet - other than the stinker in 1991. Red Skull and Baron Blood were scary when I was little reading the comics.
We'll have to see how this plays out....
Very interesting. Facts are now considered Flamebait. I wish there was a feature where moderators could insert comments, because I would really like to know why this post is considered flamebait. Unless it was auto-moderated down because of a keyword match, which I have suspected for a while is a "feature" of Slashdot.
AMEN BROTHER!!!
Better yet, take a software engineering course if it is offered. Granted, it was back in the early 90's when I was in college, but my software engineering course was what got me my first job out of college with a big company. I took my senior project with me on my interview and showed it to the first person I talked to - she said "show this to every person that interviews you today". There was ZERO code for this project. What it did have was requirements, design, budget, test plans, mock-ups, documentation outlines, etc. All the stuff that is done outside of actual coding. This is how things work in the real world. It was the most important class that I took in CS. I probably won't be coding in Pascal any time soon, but I still use the principles I learned in that Software Engineering class.
I will admit that it has been a while since I did any hardcore coding, but if you are doing any kind of project, design it first. Draw pictures. You'd be surprised how much easier it can be. I am still amazed after working in the industry after 10+ years how little software engineering education a lot of coders have. And there is a HUGE difference between a coder and a software engineer. Learn the concepts early and try to use them as much as possible. I couldn't write requirements to save my ass in college, but just the fact that I tried, and knew where they fit in the process made a huge difference. Do you know what a testing organization does and why? Where I work, we just got a set of issues out of a "lessons learned" session for our release that just went out. Many of the questions that came out of our development group were along the lines of "What does our QA group do, and why?" Some of these people have been coding for 10 years or more, and they don't understand why we have a QA group (QA and testing, which aren't the same thing)
Did I actually read this on Slashdot? What ever happened to RTFM?
Seriously though, I agree with what you said - I just wish that the OSS community understood this concept. I am not trolling, this is a serious issue with software in general, I am just pointing it out about OSS because we have to police ourselves. Believe me, I am a software tester, so I know how badly software can be designed. *I* am comfortable with reading man pages and the command line, but I understand that most people are not. As close as OSS software is to being "there", there are still some hurdles to get over. One of them is "ease of use" - but I temper that comment with this: only if we need OSS to take hold in the "real world". Things have to work more smoothly or people won't put up with it.
I am a victim of this too. I had a Mandrake 10.0 laptop, and recently purchased an 802.11g setup. I could NOT get the card working (Netgear WG511). After much searching on Google, I found out that there is a bug (reported in Bugzilla for Prism54) where the newest versions of the cards don't work, and they don't know how to fix it. So I was SOL with Linux. I could have returned the card (internet), wait for a fix, or just install Win2k. I gritted my teeth and installed Win2k. Now my wireless setup works, which is all I wanted in the first place. Maybe there was another solution, I don't know, but I got tired of fcking with it after 2 days.
I actually didn't know that stuff about Gates. I thought he was just a sleazy businessman, but it turns out he was a connected sleazy businessman. Oh well. It isn't like I care much. It isn't what you know, blah blah. Like we need to be reminded of that during an election year. The stuff I know about Bush and his family scares the crap out of me in this regard, I don't even want to find out what I don't know. I know enough to despise him, just like Gates.
People are too busy striving for success instead of striving for happiness anyway. I love this country (USA), and we do have a rich culture and heritage (good and bad). Unfortunately, that isn't the way we present ourselves to others around the world and in our daily lives. We are caught up in this manufactured image of pseudo-culture.
Hells bells, let's just give them the ability to edit the stories too, that way the editors wouldn't really have to do anything at all.
Seriously, I know the editors here get crap all the time for the grammar/spelling/duplicate stories, but isn't that what they are supposed to be doing? Don't they even read Slashdot themselves? I mean, this is a blatant example of a known abuser of the system, and the article was posted by Hemos himself. WTF? I don't WANT to wear a tinfoil hat, but I almost feel like I can't avoid it much longer.
How on earth did this comment get modded up Insightful? I meant for it to be funny. Damn.
She KNOWS you have been downloading porn. This will just let her find the evidence.
Walmart is not a monopoly - but they have ruined their share of small businesses. They also treat their employees like garbage, and don't give back to the communities that they overtake. That is why many communitites protest and try to keep them from setting up shop there.
But realistically, in the end, people want the best prices on things. Walmart can offer the lowest price (usually) because they have such a huge operation and their costs are lower. Note the deal that they have with the RIAA - I am sure that nobody else gets that kind of discount. They aren't a monopoly, but they are one of the largest forces in retail. 5 of the top 10 richest people in the country are from the Walton family.
I have talked to people who have marketed products to Walmart. They are hard-asses about accepting your product into their stores, and they take a huge cut. It is very much like record labels - you give away the lion's share of your product sales in hopes that they'll stock your product on their shelves.
Phbbt. Next you'll say that every country that posesses nuclear weapons is evil. What? WE have them. Oh yeah, nevermind.
Oh wait - Saddam wanted to use WMD. What? The U.S. is the only country to use a nuclear weapon in war? Hmm, forgot about that.
Oooo, how about any country that helped the terrorists of 9/11 should be... You mean that WE trained them on how to fly planes? Nevermind, I give up.
Following is a link to my reply to this story. I am sure it will be modded +5 as it is a very extensive, earth-shattering reply. I expect this to be the most viewed post ever on Slashdot. For more information about me, and why I am so important, follow this link .
Apple has already won, simply by the fact that every new device that comes out is compared against the iPod. I just hear "blah blah blah iPod". Free advertising for Apple every time a competitor is released and/or reviewed.
Having said all that, I don't own one but played with someone's once. It is a portable music player. It was really nicely made, but are these things really that great? They play music. I have had a Rio500 for a few years, and it does essentially the same function. I love gadgets, but I think portable music players are just trendy now. Years ago, it was the Walkman. I am really surprised that people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for these things. Are you that dependant on music?
I think Apple has done a marvelous job with the iPod. They marketed it (probably gave it away) to celebrities and whatnot to make it visible. They made a solid product at a price that, for reasons unknown to me, people are willing to pay for the new Walkman. They made it a wanted product, and as a country of consumer sheep, people lined up to get them. For some reason though, I just don't get it.
I thought that is what GW is for. I swear, he can make me go from crying for all humanity to laughing hysterically - and he intends neither.
A friend of mine has the older Rio car unit, and he loves it. But I wasn't so sure about getting one (and they went off the market). I ended up waiting a year or so to see how the MP3/CD players would fare. There were only a couple models out at the time, but now there are tons. I picked up a Blaupunkt for under $200, and it is awesome. Now I can carry several CDs of MP3s in my car and have hours of music. There's no skipping or risk of hard drive damage, and if a CD gets scratched I am just out a few cents.
The only thing I might like better is if it would read DVDs. Now DVD-Rs are cheap enough where I wouldn't mind having 4.7gig of music. But I am very happy with my purchase. It even has an AUX input if I ever wanted to play something from a portable. (or use one of those FM modulated add-ons) To me, that is a much more viable alternative because you can take the portable with you.
I'm not religious, so I'm not saying "Don't play God", but it is the height of arrogance for scientists to say they understand genetics sufficiently to control GM. Some GM stuff in labs can perhaps be controlled, but once modified geness are released into the RealWorld they are very difficult to control. The risk of doing bad things is great. We already see the effects of cross contamination of crops etc.
Funny how you say that they don't understand genetics, yet that is what they do for a living. I would venture a guess that they understand it just a wee bit better than YOU do. I also find the GM argument to be odd that people will say "You have to prove that it isn't harmful". To which scientists provide evidence that shows no harmful effects in studies. For some reason, that doesn't seem to be good enough. Sure, there is limited concern because for most of us, it is somewhat of an unknown. The idea of GM things are a little scary to us. But this is what they do. Your subject suggests that they don't understand their life's work. That is ridiculous.
You could almost liken it to the GPL. Don't release your software under the GPL, you don't know the ramifications of doing so. Don't treat GM products the way MS treats the GPL.
You know, after Sammy took over, the group just wasn't the same. They may have been an OK band for the time, but it just wasn't they same. They should have changed their name or something. But dude, that guy that came in after Sammy? WTF was up with that?
Well, to be fair the RIAA is not a music company. Seriously. They are a club that collects dues, nothing more. Read up on the RIAA, and ask this question: "What value do they offer?" None. All they do is collect dues from record labels. The music industry could exist fine without them. They only reason they exist is because they were necessary at some point, and have complete control over the music industry. The labels and certainly the artists don't need them anymore - but there is nothing they can do about it. The only way it would change is that the labels and hopefully the artists would make more money. I would like to think that they would pass that savings on to the customer.
Having said that, to offer my opinion on the music store debate...
I got a $10 Best Buy gift card several months ago, and went in to see if there was anything I wanted. I hadn't been in a Best Buy for a long time, and now I know why. For one, they didn't have what I was looking for at a reasonable price. I thought about getting one of those ReAir cans (rechargable spray air cans) but they didn't have them. I looked at memory card readers, but they only had ones that could read single formats, and they were all 2x what you can get them for online. I found nothing worth getting, so I was going to look in the music section. But they had the music playing in the store so loud that I couldn't hear myself think. My wife was standing 5 feet from me, and she had to yell very loudly to get my attention. I got so annoyed I just walked out. I did think about picking up a movie, since Fahrenheit 9/11 just came out and was only $19.99. But then I decided that I didn't want to give Best Buy my money. I guess that gift card won't get used, because I don't ever want to step foot back in that store.
Unless it was really Ron Jeremy on vacation.
I recently updated my main machine at home from RedHat 7.3 to Mandrake 10.0. Something I found very useful in KDE 3.2 was tabbed terminal windows. I am still getting used to it, but it is nice to have several terminal windows in one.
On the packaging note, I have found that Mandrake's packaging tool is pretty slick about telling you what dependencies there are when installing something, and you can automatically choose to install those as well.
Wow. The person where I work that is leading the effort to achieve CMM Level 2 is a former Siemens employee. He was overly confident about how to achieve Level 2, saying "Oh, we did this all the time at Siemens." The problem was, all he wants to do is get that CMM rating. His processes are shit, and on top of that he circumvents them at every opportunity. I always wondered how the hell he ever survived at Siemens, but now I think I know.
True, but that is kind of implied when you are interviewing for a Java programmer. You have to clearly spell out the specific skills you want.
When a job ad says they want networking skills, you should be able to deduce what sort of skills based on the job title (Network Administrator or Unix System Administrator), and the other keywords used in the ad. They are not likely looking for Novell experience / knowledge unless they mention it.
If they don't mention WANs or routers, network administration you likely don't need any Cisco IOS knowledge.
Well, it was for a QA Engineer position (not just testing) and tools development. And it turned out, the hiring manager had several Cisco certifications. He wanted someone with "networking skills" but he really wanted a Network Admin / QA Tools Developer. I know enough about networks to be dangerous, but not enough for what he was looking for. That was kind of what was driving my previous comments.
Who wants to be able to program their TV to record TV from work?
Not me. There is nothing on TV that I have to absolutely watch. If there was, I would get a TiVO.
Who wants to program their lights to come on from work?
I can do that already - X10 module and ssh. I can also set a cronjob when away from home for an extended time.
Who wants to program their heat/AC to turn on/off from work?
I have my thermostat programmed, and I rarely change it.
Who wants their oven to preheat from work?
Not me. Too dangerous. Preheating takes 15 minutes. I can spare 15 minutes. And I actually do cook, so those 15 minutes are usually spent doing prep work of some kind.
I am all for technological advances, but honestly - it sounds like you are either extremely lazy, you work too much, or a little of both.
That's right, I forgot about the ticket ripping part. Also, one woman was thrown out because she had something on it that was deemed "Pro-Choice". So not only was it anything Kerry related, but anything that Bush opposed. Amazing. But not really surprising I guess, considering who Bush is and what he believes in.