for a few years microsoft will try to beat linux and other open source projects down and after realizing that they are not going to win will embrace linux, come up with their version of winux and claim that they were the biggest supporters all along.
the fact that if people are really forced to think about having to renew a subscription for some software that does suit there needs, they won't.
Rather than sticking with some crappy office product because you bought it once for x number of years, people will have the chance to say is this really worth y dollars per year.
Who knows, somebody might start competing with microsoft's orifice.
He is not trying to bribe himself into having an easier go of it. Why else would a vast majority of companies contribute to the major political parties. I don't think that they do it because they are feeling generous or to help their social conscience.
but...For all of gate's billions, I understand that he has never once contributed any money to republican or democratic parties. We all know that this is a standard practice for many of the large corperations to ensure an easier time regardless of the election outcome. I am curious if he has experienced extra flak because of his unwillingness to "play ball" like the rest of corperate america.
I do not like gates or his shitty products, but if it is true that he has never contributed to the political parties, then that is worth some kudos and maybe even a little admiration
When you have a government like the one that is england this comes as no surprise. There is no constitution and hence no judicial review. The love to take giant shits over people's rights. Just look at their use of DNA technology.
It really comes as no surprise why those tea lovin freaks have been reduced to the stature of a third world shithole on the world power food chain.
I suggest that they stick with comedy and get a gaggle of monkeys fuckin footballs to improve their government.
And it is too damned bad that princess di died, now we are going to have to dig her up to get a piece of that action.
Once I flamed a slashdot article and there was that smell, that thick burning karma smell. It smelled like victory... some day this war is gonna end
A friend of mine does the same thing when ever he donates money. He will put in a fake middle name or initial and keeps a log of which name he gave to which organization. By doing this he can figure out if anyone is selling his name, and will not give the guilty party anymore money.
We all know that California is notorius for having strict environmental regulations. As such, there is a big push for having them operate their power plants at near there maximum output limits to cut down on the total number of plants that need to be operating. By doing this, the power plants do not have a safe buffer to deal with added load. In particular large transient loads. When too much load is added that is when there is a voltage collapse and subsequent brownouts occur.
Also, computers are not really the problem. Large induction motors (primarily used for heating and air conditioning) play hell with power distribution systems due to very large transient start up power demands. But do not take my word for it, please peruse the IEEE journals and power generation and distribution for articles on voltage collapse.
I disagree. I myself enjoy reading User Friendly and I also buy the compilation books as they are made available. As it is free the writer will not recieve an instant paycheck, but I think that will be more than compensated for by developing a good fan base. And while I have not endeavored to find a Dr. Fun book I am sure that if I ever stumbled across one I would by it.
I am not sure how much, if any, revenue is generated by people advertising on User Friendly, but that too can offset the cost and can feed that family of four.
All empires have pretty much brought their downfall upon themselves. I think that this will be the start of the demise of microsoft. I can just imagine Bill Gate in an Indecent Proposal like scene masturbating with 50 billion dollars and convincing himself what a good idea this is.
Of course, Mr. Bill is relying heavily on the fact that most of the people that own computers are inherintly lazy and don't want to really have to learn anything to run them. The power of the laziness of the masses to drive development should never be under estimated.
It is too bad though, I honestly think that this would be the end of the reign of Mr. Bill if it wasn't for the laziness factor.
I always thought that the moral of the story in Frankenstein was nature vs. nurture. Not one of those "don't fuck with technology you godless atheists lest you be damning us all with your short-sightedness" themes. Stephen J. Gould wrote about the message of Frankenstein in his book `Dinosaur in a Haystack.' I suggest Katz, and anyone else who has similar feeling about the theme of Frankenstein, read it.
Also how can anyone legitimately endorce the belief that the path of ignorance is better to be on than the path to enlightenment.
Of course as I write this I realize that his review should be moderated (not possible but needs to be) to Flamebait. Gee, lets write a review endorsing the luddite philosophy to group of technology lovers and see what happens.
I feel the Ender's Game is five star science fiction (e.g. Dune, just the first one, and the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove). It is a well written fast paced story, appeals to both young and old. The second, Speaker for the Dead, was again five star science fiction and superbly written. It has a slower pace than the first and dealt with politics. And then we have the third book, Xenocide.
This book had some great ideas (I was particularly impressed with the people that where way out of control obsessive-compulsive (even by obsessive-compulsive standards)), the story was good for a while, but there was damning flaw. I feel that Card wrote himself into a corner and pulled the old deus ex machina to get out of it. I was so PISSED. The story in Xenocide was good (not as good as the first two) and then it was severly dicked up in the ending. After that I never even bothered to pick up any of the rest, Ender's Shadow, I was a Teenage Ender, etc...
The reason I am bringing this to your attention is that those 5 chapters maybe wonderful (I don't know as I have not read them yet) but unless he has improved you might find yourself pissed off, and out 20 bucks if you buy this book based off of those first 5 chapters.
I think that Card is a very talented author but he needs to move on to greener pastures and stop beating this dead cow even more.
With the abundance of books to read and constraints on time I find myself very picky in what I read, and once an author pisses me off, it is very unlikely that I will read anymore of their work. I know some of you will disagree with my criticisms of the series. I could be wrong, but I have not heard any arguments convincing enough on why I should pick up the series again. So if you have any please enlighten me.
I live in New Mexico so I thought I might offer some insight, albeit fairly shallow, into how the process works.
On election morning the machines are put through a diagnostic process and there is a printout made of the system diagnostics. If everything is copacetic the machine is put into use. If it is not, that machince will not be used. After the diagnostics are completed the poll workers put in two votes across the board. The reason for this is to prevent people from learning how any one person voted. The reason I know this is that in the place where I voted, one of the machines was broke and a poll worker explained to me how it worked.
Although this does not explain the buggy software problem, it does explain some of how it works (or is supposed to anyway).
I am not sure that having a printout of how you voted is conducive to privacy. I think that by signing your name to get your ticket to vote you do provide a way dealing with possible errors. If the vote is screwed then by signing your name, you would be able to vote again, should the occasion arise.
On a different note, just the sight of those straigt party ticket buttons makes me shudder. I have never seen anything that encourages voter ignorance the way that crap does.
On another different point I think that it is absolutely ironic that if the entire student population of any large university would have voted we would not be in the mess that we are in now. Maybe all of this bullshit that is happening now will force the young people who think that their vote doesn't count to realize that it indeed does.
I think that it is a noble effort that Amaya is built to handle mathematics on the web. And when this issue gets resolved, it will be probably be its saving grace, until then here is a little story about me and Amaya.
I installed and ran their previous version of Amaya a few months ago. I had hoped that it would be a cure for what ails netscape, but it wasn't. Several features did not function properly if it all. I tried to cruise around the web and edit some mathematical formulas for a couple of hours, got fed up, and got rid of the sucker.
If somebody has tried out the latest version, please let me know what you thought of it.
While I think that this will be worthwhile book, there might be some danger the title. THe reason for this concern is akin to the book The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. While quantum physics is an important endeavor, people talking about metaphysics and trying to explain the existence of dog does not bode well a lot of the public and damaged funding for projects because of its metaphycical aims instead of scientific goals.
It is good to try and explain physics and open source to a lamen, but care needs to be taken in how it is done.
No I have not but I will look into it. I would also like to suggest David Wingrove's ``Chung Kuo'' series. The first book is wonderful and they continue getting better. The story spans about 40 years around 2200. The basic premise of the story is that China won. It is my humble opinion that this five star science fiction. What I really enjoy is that there are no clear cut good guys, everybody is loathsome in some way.
I am sorry, but I do not agree with you on your opinion of Crichton's writing prowess. I personally think he peaked on The Andromeda Strain (his first I believe) and went down hill after that. I have read a few others and was not nearly impressed. After that I completely gave up. With the abundance of material to read I find myself being awfully picky.
The main thing that pissed me off about the movie is the fact that they took DNA from a frog to patch the missing pieces. Birds are the closest living relative to the dinosaurs. I also think that the story about Stephen Jay Gould asking Crichton why he put a dinosaur not from the Jurassic era on a book titled Jurassic Park.
Harlan Ellison says never write down to your audience, make them look shit up. It is unfortunate that hollywood can not embrace this simple philosophy.
I just finished voting. Out of the fifty-seventy or so people waiting in line, the only two people under 30 were me and this other girl.
I hear all of this talk about how the young are disallusioned with the voting system and that is the reason why they don't vote. My question is how can they reason that apathy is a solution. Your votes do count for all of the state and local people/issues. And while I know that my vote will have no impact on who becomes president (primarily due to that parliment of whores known as the electoral college) at least I go and vote my conscience.
If you don't like how it works then get off your ass and go vote. The system we have may not be perfect, but it is the only system we have to inact change. So if think that ``it just doesn't matter,'' stop snivelling and do something about it because I can guarantee that nothing will change if your thumb is up your favorite orifice.
Another half-working, broke dick browser. That is exactly what this world needs. Woooohoooo! Where do I sign up? I actually think I might piss myself in anticipation.
Seriously, I have used netscape since I migrated to linux a little over a year ago. And I have not been impressed to say the least. The stability of it is about as flaky as my momma's best biscuits. I think that at this point the best strategy for them is to release a browser that works, does not bug out and shut down, and has fewer non-useful bells and whistles. They have already lost their chance at market share by putting half-assed browsers out there. It is abundantly obvious that their strategy so far has not worked that well. Maybe the should go quality instead of quantity.
I tried out one of the early version of beta 6.0 and could not get that damned side bar to go away. That, in itself, was enough to make me say piss on it and pray to the programming Gods that KDE's konqueror will be better.
Forgive my ignorance, by why were Myst and Riven ``notoriously controversial?'' I have played neither, and have not heard anything about this. Could someone please explain it to me?
Slashdot Mirror
for a few years microsoft will try to beat linux and other open source projects down and after realizing that they are not going to win will embrace linux, come up with their version of winux and claim that they were the biggest supporters all along.
say it aint so joe, say it aint so...
the fact that if people are really forced to think about having to renew a subscription for some software that does suit there needs, they won't.
Rather than sticking with some crappy office product because you bought it once for x number of years, people will have the chance to say is this really worth y dollars per year.
Who knows, somebody might start competing with microsoft's orifice.
Sorry, my bad. Would you happen to have a source for this information?
Thanks
He is not trying to bribe himself into having an easier go of it. Why else would a vast majority of companies contribute to the major political parties. I don't think that they do it because they are feeling generous or to help their social conscience.
but...For all of gate's billions, I understand that he has never once contributed any money to republican or democratic parties. We all know that this is a standard practice for many of the large corperations to ensure an easier time regardless of the election outcome. I am curious if he has experienced extra flak because of his unwillingness to "play ball" like the rest of corperate america.
I do not like gates or his shitty products, but if it is true that he has never contributed to the political parties, then that is worth some kudos and maybe even a little admiration
When you have a government like the one that is england this comes as no surprise. There is no constitution and hence no judicial review. The love to take giant shits over people's rights. Just look at their use of DNA technology.
It really comes as no surprise why those tea lovin freaks have been reduced to the stature of a third world shithole on the world power food chain.
I suggest that they stick with comedy and get a gaggle of monkeys fuckin footballs to improve their government.
And it is too damned bad that princess di died, now we are going to have to dig her up to get a piece of that action.
Once I flamed a slashdot article and there was that smell, that thick burning karma smell. It smelled like victory... some day this war is gonna end
A friend of mine does the same thing when ever he donates money. He will put in a fake middle name or initial and keeps a log of which name he gave to which organization. By doing this he can figure out if anyone is selling his name, and will not give the guilty party anymore money.
We all know that California is notorius for having strict environmental regulations. As such, there is a big push for having them operate their power plants at near there maximum output limits to cut down on the total number of plants that need to be operating. By doing this, the power plants do not have a safe buffer to deal with added load. In particular large transient loads. When too much load is added that is when there is a voltage collapse and subsequent brownouts occur.
Also, computers are not really the problem. Large induction motors (primarily used for heating and air conditioning) play hell with power distribution systems due to very large transient start up power demands. But do not take my word for it, please peruse the IEEE journals and power generation and distribution for articles on voltage collapse.
I disagree. I myself enjoy reading User Friendly and I also buy the compilation books as they are made available. As it is free the writer will not recieve an instant paycheck, but I think that will be more than compensated for by developing a good fan base. And while I have not endeavored to find a Dr. Fun book I am sure that if I ever stumbled across one I would by it.
I am not sure how much, if any, revenue is generated by people advertising on User Friendly, but that too can offset the cost and can feed that family of four.
All empires have pretty much brought their downfall upon themselves. I think that this will be the start of the demise of microsoft. I can just imagine Bill Gate in an Indecent Proposal like scene masturbating with 50 billion dollars and convincing himself what a good idea this is.
Of course, Mr. Bill is relying heavily on the fact that most of the people that own computers are inherintly lazy and don't want to really have to learn anything to run them. The power of the laziness of the masses to drive development should never be under estimated.
It is too bad though, I honestly think that this would be the end of the reign of Mr. Bill if it wasn't for the laziness factor.
I always thought that the moral of the story in Frankenstein was nature vs. nurture. Not one of those "don't fuck with technology you godless atheists lest you be damning us all with your short-sightedness" themes. Stephen J. Gould wrote about the message of Frankenstein in his book `Dinosaur in a Haystack.' I suggest Katz, and anyone else who has similar feeling about the theme of Frankenstein, read it.
Also how can anyone legitimately endorce the belief that the path of ignorance is better to be on than the path to enlightenment.
Of course as I write this I realize that his review should be moderated (not possible but needs to be) to Flamebait. Gee, lets write a review endorsing the luddite philosophy to group of technology lovers and see what happens.
I feel the Ender's Game is five star science fiction (e.g. Dune, just the first one, and the Chung Kuo series by David Wingrove). It is a well written fast paced story, appeals to both young and old. The second, Speaker for the Dead, was again five star science fiction and superbly written. It has a slower pace than the first and dealt with politics. And then we have the third book, Xenocide.
This book had some great ideas (I was particularly impressed with the people that where way out of control obsessive-compulsive (even by obsessive-compulsive standards)), the story was good for a while, but there was damning flaw. I feel that Card wrote himself into a corner and pulled the old deus ex machina to get out of it. I was so PISSED. The story in Xenocide was good (not as good as the first two) and then it was severly dicked up in the ending. After that I never even bothered to pick up any of the rest, Ender's Shadow, I was a Teenage Ender, etc...
The reason I am bringing this to your attention is that those 5 chapters maybe wonderful (I don't know as I have not read them yet) but unless he has improved you might find yourself pissed off, and out 20 bucks if you buy this book based off of those first 5 chapters.
I think that Card is a very talented author but he needs to move on to greener pastures and stop beating this dead cow even more.
With the abundance of books to read and constraints on time I find myself very picky in what I read, and once an author pisses me off, it is very unlikely that I will read anymore of their work. I know some of you will disagree with my criticisms of the series. I could be wrong, but I have not heard any arguments convincing enough on why I should pick up the series again. So if you have any please enlighten me.
I live in New Mexico so I thought I might offer some insight, albeit fairly shallow, into how the process works.
On election morning the machines are put through a diagnostic process and there is a printout made of the system diagnostics. If everything is copacetic the machine is put into use. If it is not, that machince will not be used. After the diagnostics are completed the poll workers put in two votes across the board. The reason for this is to prevent people from learning how any one person voted. The reason I know this is that in the place where I voted, one of the machines was broke and a poll worker explained to me how it worked.
Although this does not explain the buggy software problem, it does explain some of how it works (or is supposed to anyway).
I am not sure that having a printout of how you voted is conducive to privacy. I think that by signing your name to get your ticket to vote you do provide a way dealing with possible errors. If the vote is screwed then by signing your name, you would be able to vote again, should the occasion arise.
On a different note, just the sight of those straigt party ticket buttons makes me shudder. I have never seen anything that encourages voter ignorance the way that crap does.
On another different point I think that it is absolutely ironic that if the entire student population of any large university would have voted we would not be in the mess that we are in now. Maybe all of this bullshit that is happening now will force the young people who think that their vote doesn't count to realize that it indeed does.
maybe then they will understand a quote from Bridge of the River Kwai.
``Be happy in your work.''
I think that it is a noble effort that Amaya is built to handle mathematics on the web. And when this issue gets resolved, it will be probably be its saving grace, until then here is a little story about me and Amaya.
I installed and ran their previous version of Amaya a few months ago. I had hoped that it would be a cure for what ails netscape, but it wasn't. Several features did not function properly if it all. I tried to cruise around the web and edit some mathematical formulas for a couple of hours, got fed up, and got rid of the sucker.
If somebody has tried out the latest version, please let me know what you thought of it.
While I think that this will be worthwhile book, there might be some danger the title. THe reason for this concern is akin to the book The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. While quantum physics is an important endeavor, people talking about metaphysics and trying to explain the existence of dog does not bode well a lot of the public and damaged funding for projects because of its metaphycical aims instead of scientific goals.
It is good to try and explain physics and open source to a lamen, but care needs to be taken in how it is done.
No I have not but I will look into it. I would also like to suggest David Wingrove's ``Chung Kuo'' series. The first book is wonderful and they continue getting better. The story spans about 40 years around 2200. The basic premise of the story is that China won. It is my humble opinion that this five star science fiction. What I really enjoy is that there are no clear cut good guys, everybody is loathsome in some way.
I am sorry, but I do not agree with you on your opinion of Crichton's writing prowess. I personally think he peaked on The Andromeda Strain (his first I believe) and went down hill after that. I have read a few others and was not nearly impressed. After that I completely gave up. With the abundance of material to read I find myself being awfully picky.
The main thing that pissed me off about the movie is the fact that they took DNA from a frog to patch the missing pieces. Birds are the closest living relative to the dinosaurs. I also think that the story about Stephen Jay Gould asking Crichton why he put a dinosaur not from the Jurassic era on a book titled Jurassic Park.
Harlan Ellison says never write down to your audience, make them look shit up. It is unfortunate that hollywood can not embrace this simple philosophy.
I just finished voting. Out of the fifty-seventy or so people waiting in line, the only two people under 30 were me and this other girl.
I hear all of this talk about how the young are disallusioned with the voting system and that is the reason why they don't vote. My question is how can they reason that apathy is a solution. Your votes do count for all of the state and local people/issues. And while I know that my vote will have no impact on who becomes president (primarily due to that parliment of whores known as the electoral college) at least I go and vote my conscience.
If you don't like how it works then get off your ass and go vote. The system we have may not be perfect, but it is the only system we have to inact change. So if think that ``it just doesn't matter,'' stop snivelling and do something about it because I can guarantee that nothing will change if your thumb is up your favorite orifice.
Another half-working, broke dick browser. That is exactly what this world needs. Woooohoooo! Where do I sign up? I actually think I might piss myself in anticipation.
Seriously, I have used netscape since I migrated to linux a little over a year ago. And I have not been impressed to say the least. The stability of it is about as flaky as my momma's best biscuits. I think that at this point the best strategy for them is to release a browser that works, does not bug out and shut down, and has fewer non-useful bells and whistles. They have already lost their chance at market share by putting half-assed browsers out there. It is abundantly obvious that their strategy so far has not worked that well. Maybe the should go quality instead of quantity.
I tried out one of the early version of beta 6.0 and could not get that damned side bar to go away. That, in itself, was enough to make me say piss on it and pray to the programming Gods that KDE's konqueror will be better.
That probably is indeed true. But did you expect them to ``teach'' deep blue the strategies of Bo-bo the office boy?
/dev/null.
I am sure that idea of programming deep blue to lose to Kasparov was quickly redirected to
that is pretty damned funny.
Forgive my ignorance, by why were Myst and Riven ``notoriously controversial?'' I have played neither, and have not heard anything about this. Could someone please explain it to me?
thanks
Is did he cry like a three year old girl when he got his ass handed to him the same way when deep blue waxed him?