Please consider suicide rather than subjecting yourself to the utter trash that is CR. I swear to God, it is the WORST software of ANY kind I have EVER used.
Part of problem was that it kept crashing on us (literally at least once an hour on 4 different machines, often as much as once every 10 minutes). I can't entirely blame CR for this, part of it was the ODBC drivers. But still.
The rest of the problem is the lameness of the software itself. User-defined fields are FAR weaker than they are in Access. The formatting was nearly impossible to get right (or keep right). The UI is nice in some spots but just plain weird in others (why aren't fields listed in some kind of ORDER??).
At least promise me this: Try an evaluation version of the software before buying it. And when you do a sample report, make it act and work EXACTLY like you will when you "go live". With Crystal, making a "quick and dirty" report is pretty easy. Making a known accurate and correctly-formatted report is a nightmare.
CR is probably just barely usable for a small company, provide you put ALL of your user-defined/calculated fields in the DB itself. -- MailOne
The Company sent me on a business trip, but I couldn't see the point of it. My instructions were to have a picnic, then go to the theater. The picnic was on this grassy knoll and I found a rifle in the picnic basket! Later, in the theater there was a bunch of ruckus in the basement and I saw some of my coworkers--they didn't say "hi" though. Nowadays, especially in the commie areas of the country, people will tell you to just "jump ship". But this was Texas in 1963--I stayed loyal to The Company. You should, too. -- MailOne
Many many MANY people talked about this on your very own website. Why not just read the posts?
Here's the upshot for the lazy: The Post Office used to be required to deliver anything with an address (and conforming to some size/weight/safety restrictions). But in the case of junkmail/magazine-tearouts affixed to bricks and so forth, postal workers generally toss the item in the trash, "According to rule 917.243(b) in the Domestic Mail Manual". Source
Anyway, I still suggest you go through and read the posts yourself, there are a few good links in there (like the Improbable Research item about sending odd items through the mail)
-- MailOne
I also note that having a high rating does NOT automatically admit one into the (supposedly) sacred realm of Moderator-hood. My Karma hasn't dipped below 47 in at least 6 months, but I've never been a moderator (with this account).
I was on a two month hiatus (internet access down while company moved, then idiot provider couldn't hook us back up) and during that I time I notice that meta-moderation has apparently gone away, too.
And while we're on the topic: Karma Kaps are just wrong. The ONLY incentive I used to have (as FascDot) was an ever growing (IIRC I was above 600) karma. Now that it's practically impossible to lose a +2 bonus and it's long been actually impossible to rise above the noise around here, I've found myself at Kuro5hin more and more (despite the stupid name and incomprehensible "sections" layout). -- MailOne
Who on earth came up with the brain-dead design of the shuttle? ANY competent engineer will tell you that designing for two *largely incompatible* goals is a recipe for disaster. The shuttle is designed to launch vertically, be a spaceship and then land like a plane. Why why why? Reusable is fine, but why land like a plane? Why not just drop into the ocean, retrieve and reuse? Idiots. -- MailOne
"...cancer, diabetes, arthritis and heart disease."
Diabetes isn't related to the immune system, is it? For that matter, neither is arthritis or hear "disease".
The immune system deals with foreign matter in the body. Diabetes is just malfunctioning insulin (either missing or ineffective). Arthritis is a simple mechanical problem of the joints (although maybe the mechanical problem is caused by something the immune system is related to--or even by the immune system itself). And heart "disease" is just junk building up in the arteries and such, isn't it? -- MailOne
I would say that an eye for an eye is simply an enforced version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And trusteth me, they will if you do.
And of course the Golden Rule is also reflected in Kant's Categorical Imperitive. When deciding if something is ethical, ask yourself "what if everybody did it?"
And another reflection: Axelrod's work on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Someone who knows the phrase "Lex Talionis" has probably heard about this, so I'll leave you with this unexplained remark: Tit for Tat won.
Philosophers and scientists agree, an eye for an eye is OK and workable. Get into the 21st Century, man. -- MailOne
That was a great site! The scientific language kills me. They neglected a fruitful area of inquiry though: malformed addresses on otherwise normal items of mail. Heinlein commented in one of his books about receiving an (international!) piece of mail addressed to "Robert Heinlein, The United States". That was the sole address and (obviously) it got to him. -- MailOne
Empty? No, tape them to hunks of steel or large bricks. Then you cost them a couple of bucks instead of a measly $.30. Apparently some (all?) postmasters will refuse to deliver these, but I suspect that isn't strictly legal. Anyway, it puts pressure on the PO to get things changed as well. -- MailOne
Learn some history, dammit!
on
Antitrust
·
· Score: 5
"It may, however, be the first film in history to prominently feature the GNOME desktop."
Edison's first film back in the early 1900's/late 1800's was "Fred Ott's Sneeze" which featured a several second clip of a man sneezing. Everyone already knows this. What I thought everyone ALSO knew was that Edison's second film was "Fred Ott's Linux Desktop Session Manager" featuring...you guessed it, GNOME. Sure this was back before 1.0, but all the major features were there. Fred even demonstrates an early version of Mozilla (although it core dumps when he tries to load the Java on Standard Oil's website). -- MailOne
Wasn't Einstein's Nobel for his work on Brownian motion? -- MailOne
Re:Walking FTL! Care to explain ?
on
Stop, Light.
·
· Score: 2
C is a constant defined as "the speed of light in a vacuum". You can't just take any light you happen to have lying around (in gas chambers or underwater or wherever). Light slows down going through ANY substance. -- MailOne
This reminds me of the "slow glass" stories. For the uninitiated: Slow glass is just like regular glass but the thicker it is, the longer it takes for light to pass through. So for a 1 inch thick piece it may take, say, 20 years. They put the glass out in the forest for 20 years, then install it in a house. Now the inhabitants have a 20 year forest scene streaming in the window. Other stories put the glass to other uses.
Anyway, my REAL point: what about heisenberg's uncertainty principle? As the photon slows shouldn't it's position become more and more indeterminable? And when it stops, how do they know where it is? -- MailOne
I see a lot of Luddites (yes, Luddites) who are ready to run for the hills because of the perils of "playing God" (some of the slightly more rational are instead fearing about population growth instead of nebulous mythological concepts).
Back up the truck, Nellie. What we have here is a claim about a procedure that may be the first step on the road towards a treatment that could turn out to have some negative sides. Let's don't any of us panic until we have something to panic about.
Do we really think that a species that can conquer aging (once we do) will let a little thing like population size stop us? -- MailOne
Do Californians use electrical devices that are not computers OR use their computers for non-net activities? Of course not. Then the answer is no, the net is not the cause of their "energy shortage". -- MailOne
"Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art."
Taco intended this as a comment about the site, but it works even better as a comment about the book. Rama (especially the sequels, but even the first book) is the main reason I've stopped reading Clarke. Think about it, what's the plot: Some people explore a big can in space. No conflict. There's mystery, but the solution isn't given so no drama there. No characterization. Nothing except pure "Ooohh" factor.
On the other hand, if the purpose is to attract crowds with special effects, I have to admit there's nothing in Rama that will get in the way of that... -- MailOne
No, I'm not thinking of Wang's Carpets. The story I'm thinking of was on Egan's website. The story is called "Oceanic" as someone else pointed out.
I might have read the story called "Luminous", but I can't find a collection called "Luminous" on Amazon.com. Another odd thing is that Egan's biblio on his website lists "Reasons to be Cheerful" (which I'm sure I've read) as being in "Luminous" (which I know I haven't read) and NOT in "Axiomatic" (which I own). It also lists "Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies" (which I don't recognize the title of) as being in Axiomatic.
Maybe I'll have to write directly to him to find out where I can get these books... -- MailOne
"I always thought that Niven's best work was the stuff he did with Mr. Pournelle."
*shudder* I've never gotten past page 15 of ANY Niven collaboration (or page 5 of anything with "Steven Barnes", scare quotes indicate my skepticism that this name refers to a human rather than an experiment in poor writing skills) -- MailOne
Haven't yet read any Card so I can't say what I think about it.
I agree that early Niven is way better than late Niven, but that's not to say that early Niven is good. Just bearable. Ringworld had no plot, it was just a series of "wonders". Some of his short stories are good, though.
I agree that Teranesia is no "Permutation City" (one of the best books ever, IMHO) but I wouldn't call it trash. I think he should have made it a short story--the idea was good, but there was too much unrelated junk at the beginning and the actual sci-fi aspect wasn't really introduced until near the end. BTW, if you liked "Luminous" (that's the one about the aquatic culture, isn't it?) then you should run out right now and buy his short story collection "Axiomatic". -- MailOne
The plot wasn't just simplistic, it was outright boneheaded. Robots have creating an incredibly complex and rich VR environment just to harvest the electricity from our bodies? Why not just kill the humans and burn the food in a reactor? Or, if you need the humans for something (what?), give them all lobotomies so you can shut off your main power drain: the Matrix.
I will admit the special effects were well done. But like the OP said, they've been done to death now (even before the Matrix was out, I note). -- MailOne
You got your laptop in my notepad!
You got your notepad in my laptop!
Seriously, how useful is this? Pen entry is good on a small device where adding a keyboard would be impossible. But the device is the size of a laptop already (bigger, because they added a notepad). What does the pen entry add, really? It sure ain't speed or accuracy.
The only possible consumer is people who can't type. And even they can only get data into the device. What am I going to do to perform a search or print a report? Write all the specs with pen on paper to get it into the laptop? Why not just hire an assistant that knows how to work a laptop and write notes to him/her--it's the same effect, plus you can have sex on business trips. -- MailOne
I heard about this on the news this morning and I couldn't believe how stupid the requirements (that I heard) were:
1) AOL has to make Instant Messaging work with other versions.
Hey, can you also make sure they keep putting orange lightning rods on the free CD cases? It's about as meaningful as Instant Messaging.
2) TimeWarner's content has to be available to other ISPs.
Leaving aside the question of whether TimeWarner actually produces any "content" worthy of the name, why WOULDN'T they make it widely available. It's widely available now, restricting it to just AOL users just reduces the market share.
I guess my whole argument boils down to this: As people get more technically savvy, AOL's membership is going to decrease, making this all meaningless.
-- MailOne
"By definition, no astronomical object other than a black hole can possess an event horizon. The discovery comes from a detailed statistical analysis of a 1992 observation of one of the first black holes ever discovered, Cygnus XR-1, which lies 6,000 light-years from Earth..."
Also "by definition": statistical analysis of data from a black hole will give evidence of a black hole. -- MailOne
I just downloaded Mozilla 0.7 a few hours ago and setup my email with it. I haven't used the feature yet, but it claims to allow multiple outgoing SMTP servers. -- MailOne
Slashdot Mirror
Please consider suicide rather than subjecting yourself to the utter trash that is CR. I swear to God, it is the WORST software of ANY kind I have EVER used.
Part of problem was that it kept crashing on us (literally at least once an hour on 4 different machines, often as much as once every 10 minutes). I can't entirely blame CR for this, part of it was the ODBC drivers. But still.
The rest of the problem is the lameness of the software itself. User-defined fields are FAR weaker than they are in Access. The formatting was nearly impossible to get right (or keep right). The UI is nice in some spots but just plain weird in others (why aren't fields listed in some kind of ORDER??).
At least promise me this: Try an evaluation version of the software before buying it. And when you do a sample report, make it act and work EXACTLY like you will when you "go live". With Crystal, making a "quick and dirty" report is pretty easy. Making a known accurate and correctly-formatted report is a nightmare.
CR is probably just barely usable for a small company, provide you put ALL of your user-defined/calculated fields in the DB itself.
--
MailOne
The Company sent me on a business trip, but I couldn't see the point of it. My instructions were to have a picnic, then go to the theater. The picnic was on this grassy knoll and I found a rifle in the picnic basket! Later, in the theater there was a bunch of ruckus in the basement and I saw some of my coworkers--they didn't say "hi" though. Nowadays, especially in the commie areas of the country, people will tell you to just "jump ship". But this was Texas in 1963--I stayed loyal to The Company. You should, too.
--
MailOne
"And yet, I have two upcoming job offers that are both well paying and good career moves, and offers don't last forever."
Why do you have offers coming in? Did you put your resume out? Surely you must have at least interviewed with them.
I suspect you've already made the decision to leave and want us to provide some conscience-salving justifications for it.
--
MailOne
Many many MANY people talked about this on your very own website. Why not just read the posts?
Here's the upshot for the lazy: The Post Office used to be required to deliver anything with an address (and conforming to some size/weight/safety restrictions). But in the case of junkmail/magazine-tearouts affixed to bricks and so forth, postal workers generally toss the item in the trash, "According to rule 917.243(b) in the Domestic Mail Manual". Source
Anyway, I still suggest you go through and read the posts yourself, there are a few good links in there (like the Improbable Research item about sending odd items through the mail)
--
MailOne
I also note that having a high rating does NOT automatically admit one into the (supposedly) sacred realm of Moderator-hood. My Karma hasn't dipped below 47 in at least 6 months, but I've never been a moderator (with this account).
I was on a two month hiatus (internet access down while company moved, then idiot provider couldn't hook us back up) and during that I time I notice that meta-moderation has apparently gone away, too.
And while we're on the topic: Karma Kaps are just wrong. The ONLY incentive I used to have (as FascDot) was an ever growing (IIRC I was above 600) karma. Now that it's practically impossible to lose a +2 bonus and it's long been actually impossible to rise above the noise around here, I've found myself at Kuro5hin more and more (despite the stupid name and incomprehensible "sections" layout).
--
MailOne
Who on earth came up with the brain-dead design of the shuttle? ANY competent engineer will tell you that designing for two *largely incompatible* goals is a recipe for disaster. The shuttle is designed to launch vertically, be a spaceship and then land like a plane. Why why why? Reusable is fine, but why land like a plane? Why not just drop into the ocean, retrieve and reuse? Idiots.
--
MailOne
"...cancer, diabetes, arthritis and heart disease."
Diabetes isn't related to the immune system, is it? For that matter, neither is arthritis or hear "disease".
The immune system deals with foreign matter in the body. Diabetes is just malfunctioning insulin (either missing or ineffective). Arthritis is a simple mechanical problem of the joints (although maybe the mechanical problem is caused by something the immune system is related to--or even by the immune system itself). And heart "disease" is just junk building up in the arteries and such, isn't it?
--
MailOne
I would say that an eye for an eye is simply an enforced version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And trusteth me, they will if you do.
And of course the Golden Rule is also reflected in Kant's Categorical Imperitive. When deciding if something is ethical, ask yourself "what if everybody did it?"
And another reflection: Axelrod's work on the Prisoner's Dilemma. Someone who knows the phrase "Lex Talionis" has probably heard about this, so I'll leave you with this unexplained remark: Tit for Tat won.
Philosophers and scientists agree, an eye for an eye is OK and workable. Get into the 21st Century, man.
--
MailOne
That was a great site! The scientific language kills me. They neglected a fruitful area of inquiry though: malformed addresses on otherwise normal items of mail. Heinlein commented in one of his books about receiving an (international!) piece of mail addressed to "Robert Heinlein, The United States". That was the sole address and (obviously) it got to him.
--
MailOne
Empty? No, tape them to hunks of steel or large bricks. Then you cost them a couple of bucks instead of a measly $.30. Apparently some (all?) postmasters will refuse to deliver these, but I suspect that isn't strictly legal. Anyway, it puts pressure on the PO to get things changed as well.
--
MailOne
"It may, however, be the first film in history to prominently feature the GNOME desktop."
Edison's first film back in the early 1900's/late 1800's was "Fred Ott's Sneeze" which featured a several second clip of a man sneezing. Everyone already knows this. What I thought everyone ALSO knew was that Edison's second film was "Fred Ott's Linux Desktop Session Manager" featuring...you guessed it, GNOME. Sure this was back before 1.0, but all the major features were there. Fred even demonstrates an early version of Mozilla (although it core dumps when he tries to load the Java on Standard Oil's website).
--
MailOne
Wasn't Einstein's Nobel for his work on Brownian motion?
--
MailOne
C is a constant defined as "the speed of light in a vacuum". You can't just take any light you happen to have lying around (in gas chambers or underwater or wherever). Light slows down going through ANY substance.
--
MailOne
This reminds me of the "slow glass" stories. For the uninitiated: Slow glass is just like regular glass but the thicker it is, the longer it takes for light to pass through. So for a 1 inch thick piece it may take, say, 20 years. They put the glass out in the forest for 20 years, then install it in a house. Now the inhabitants have a 20 year forest scene streaming in the window. Other stories put the glass to other uses.
Anyway, my REAL point: what about heisenberg's uncertainty principle? As the photon slows shouldn't it's position become more and more indeterminable? And when it stops, how do they know where it is?
--
MailOne
Yes I would, Kent.
I see a lot of Luddites (yes, Luddites) who are ready to run for the hills because of the perils of "playing God" (some of the slightly more rational are instead fearing about population growth instead of nebulous mythological concepts).
Back up the truck, Nellie. What we have here is a claim about a procedure that may be the first step on the road towards a treatment that could turn out to have some negative sides. Let's don't any of us panic until we have something to panic about.
Do we really think that a species that can conquer aging (once we do) will let a little thing like population size stop us?
--
MailOne
Do Californians use electrical devices that are not computers OR use their computers for non-net activities? Of course not. Then the answer is no, the net is not the cause of their "energy shortage".
--
MailOne
"Nothing too meaty here yet - mostly concept art."
Taco intended this as a comment about the site, but it works even better as a comment about the book. Rama (especially the sequels, but even the first book) is the main reason I've stopped reading Clarke. Think about it, what's the plot: Some people explore a big can in space. No conflict. There's mystery, but the solution isn't given so no drama there. No characterization. Nothing except pure "Ooohh" factor.
On the other hand, if the purpose is to attract crowds with special effects, I have to admit there's nothing in Rama that will get in the way of that...
--
MailOne
No, I'm not thinking of Wang's Carpets. The story I'm thinking of was on Egan's website. The story is called "Oceanic" as someone else pointed out.
I might have read the story called "Luminous", but I can't find a collection called "Luminous" on Amazon.com. Another odd thing is that Egan's biblio on his website lists "Reasons to be Cheerful" (which I'm sure I've read) as being in "Luminous" (which I know I haven't read) and NOT in "Axiomatic" (which I own). It also lists "Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies" (which I don't recognize the title of) as being in Axiomatic.
Maybe I'll have to write directly to him to find out where I can get these books...
--
MailOne
"I always thought that Niven's best work was the stuff he did with Mr. Pournelle."
*shudder* I've never gotten past page 15 of ANY Niven collaboration (or page 5 of anything with "Steven Barnes", scare quotes indicate my skepticism that this name refers to a human rather than an experiment in poor writing skills)
--
MailOne
Haven't yet read any Card so I can't say what I think about it.
I agree that early Niven is way better than late Niven, but that's not to say that early Niven is good. Just bearable. Ringworld had no plot, it was just a series of "wonders". Some of his short stories are good, though.
I agree that Teranesia is no "Permutation City" (one of the best books ever, IMHO) but I wouldn't call it trash. I think he should have made it a short story--the idea was good, but there was too much unrelated junk at the beginning and the actual sci-fi aspect wasn't really introduced until near the end. BTW, if you liked "Luminous" (that's the one about the aquatic culture, isn't it?) then you should run out right now and buy his short story collection "Axiomatic".
--
MailOne
The plot wasn't just simplistic, it was outright boneheaded. Robots have creating an incredibly complex and rich VR environment just to harvest the electricity from our bodies? Why not just kill the humans and burn the food in a reactor? Or, if you need the humans for something (what?), give them all lobotomies so you can shut off your main power drain: the Matrix.
I will admit the special effects were well done. But like the OP said, they've been done to death now (even before the Matrix was out, I note).
--
MailOne
You got your laptop in my notepad!
You got your notepad in my laptop!
Seriously, how useful is this? Pen entry is good on a small device where adding a keyboard would be impossible. But the device is the size of a laptop already (bigger, because they added a notepad). What does the pen entry add, really? It sure ain't speed or accuracy.
The only possible consumer is people who can't type. And even they can only get data into the device. What am I going to do to perform a search or print a report? Write all the specs with pen on paper to get it into the laptop? Why not just hire an assistant that knows how to work a laptop and write notes to him/her--it's the same effect, plus you can have sex on business trips.
--
MailOne
I heard about this on the news this morning and I couldn't believe how stupid the requirements (that I heard) were:
1) AOL has to make Instant Messaging work with other versions.
Hey, can you also make sure they keep putting orange lightning rods on the free CD cases? It's about as meaningful as Instant Messaging.
2) TimeWarner's content has to be available to other ISPs.
Leaving aside the question of whether TimeWarner actually produces any "content" worthy of the name, why WOULDN'T they make it widely available. It's widely available now, restricting it to just AOL users just reduces the market share.
I guess my whole argument boils down to this: As people get more technically savvy, AOL's membership is going to decrease, making this all meaningless.
--
MailOne
"By definition, no astronomical object other than a black hole can possess an event horizon. The discovery comes from a detailed statistical analysis of a 1992 observation of one of the first black holes ever discovered, Cygnus XR-1, which lies 6,000 light-years from Earth..."
Also "by definition": statistical analysis of data from a black hole will give evidence of a black hole.
--
MailOne
I just downloaded Mozilla 0.7 a few hours ago and setup my email with it. I haven't used the feature yet, but it claims to allow multiple outgoing SMTP servers.
--
MailOne