I would, but it so happens that I'm quite happy with QWERTY... and guess what? Every computer I've tried to use (so far) supports it with no configuration required! q:]
What would be nice is a program on a floppy disk (ok, on a USB storage device keychain these days) that you just plug into the computer you're using, and it remaps the keyboard to your preferred style.
That is NOT a difficult thing to do, if you want to do it...
>> If the company likes you enough to match the offer, and you are otherwise happy where you are, take it. All you've shown your company is that you have goals, too.
I'm of the view that if your company really values you and you're not a moron, you should never have been in this position in the first place.
If you're unhappy for whatever reason at any time, TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR BOSS. Don't mumble and complain behind their back then drop a competitive job offer on their desk as a threat (which would make you the above-mentioned moron),... they can't correct a situation if they don't know you're unhappy!
If they're unwilling or unable to address your problem when you raise it, then when you get a competitive job offer take it... don't use it as a bargaining chip, it won't get you anywhere in the long run except up $hit creek. It shouldn't take the threat of losing you to get a deserved pay raise. If it does, you're working for the wrong company and you should take the other job anyways.
>> One approach would be to count unique IP addresses (i.e., vhosted sites would not be counted twice).
Now, wouldn't that also pose problems of its own? I don't have numbers to prove it, but I firmly believe that you could host a significantly larger number of sites on one good Linux/Apache server than you could on an IIS server with the same hardware, due to efficiencies of both Apache and the OS.
However, you'd have the same limiting factor of bandwidth.
Ok, it's good to be concerned, but if you read the description, it's simply a method for a Flash movie to store information on your computer in a similar fashion as a web page stores information through a cookie.
This info is only available to other Flash movies from THE SAME SITE, similar to the protection provided for cookies.
It's simply a way to provide persistance from session to session at the same web site. I still wouldn't trust it with my credit card numbers, but Macromedia isn't Hitler reincarnated.
Isn't the USPTO liable for the damages it causes by recklessly granting frivolous patents such as those you mention?
Sure, they're a government agency, but they ARE doing harm by granting these patents. They ARE costing businesses money, and probably end up making some go bankrupt trying to fight these crap patents (or through paying silly license fees).
Can't they be sued for gross negligence or something similar... A good suit like that would go a LONG way towards stopping the endless stream of crap that they've granted.
Actually, when you first started your Gateway computer, it probably went through a "first-time run" sequence, which presented you with the EULA, as well as with other setup options, and probably asked you to enter your Windows serial number and such.
At least that's how it works now, might depend on how old your computer is.
Just because I'm bored, here's a quickie on how they work:
a laser beam is shone through a crystal at an angle
a piezo element on the side of the crystal introduces pressure waves (sound) into the crystal
the pressure waves diffract the laser beam
The frequency of the pressure wave determines the angle shift of the laser diffraction.
The amplitude of the pressure wave determines the percentage of the laser light that is diffracted.
So, you could "sweep" the laser by varying the frequency on the piezo... getting 2-axis sweeping might be a bit of a challenge though without any moving parts like a spinning mirror though.
It's called an "acoustic optical modulator", my old company uses them all the time in their laser photographic printers.
We modulate a laser beam on the order of 14 million times a second, actually a lot more than that. Check out www.cymbolic.com (LightJet / PlateJet products).
If they're so paranoid about deep-linking, fix your webserver to check the referrer property of the HTTP request, and direct them to the main page if it wasn't an internal link.
This is TRIVIAL to do on most webservers through cgi scripts... however you now have to deliver all your content through CGI (or SSI, or PHP, or ASP, or whatever), which is pretty common on websites these days anyways.
Stop bitchin if you can fix your own problem with minimal effort.
Any idea if there's any noticable lag / delay using this?
One thing that drives me batty using cell phones some times is the delay between the time you speak and when the other person hears you (or the other way around)... you end up talking over each other all the time, and conversations are just painfull!
Now, if you came up to me on the street (wearing a ski-mask so I have no way to identify you), and I gave you $1000 cash for item X that "you would run home and get for me right away", then you ran off with my money... that's the same thing.
Throw a brick at my window if you want... just wear your bulletproof vest while doing it.
There are online escrow services, like iEscrow and even BillPoint (I think) that's promoted directly by Ebay.
I've used iEscrow VERY happily for several high-dollar auctions ($2000+), and it's worked well. The drawbacks are there though... cost (they take a commission of course), processing time (it takes an extra week or two for the seller to get their money), and so on.
The problem is that people don't put the effort into using these services, or don't want to pay for them. They're there, if you don't use them and get screwed, it's your own damn fault.
MadCow.
(one of the salesmen at our company got hosed for $2500 on a digital camera because he didn't use escrow... I can't really feel sorry for him either!)
I was thinking more of translation into "concepts" rather than an actual language... it doesn't have to be a real spoken language. This of course is well suited to machine translation, not human translation.
Wouldn't all languages be possible to translate into concepts? I guess it would be highly contextual though, making the process difficult...
Is there some way to translate into a common universal "intermediary" language, then translate to the destination language?
I'm just thinking that most languages could relate more closely with an "iconographic" type language than with the idiosyncrosies of other languages. For concrete ideas this may work well, but for more conceptual ideas this may fall apart...
I think that companies like Symantec and McAfee should include these types of programs in their Virus definitions, because after-all, they're a type of Trojan. This is the most logical way to rid the earth of these applications.
At the very least, they should be identified to the user during a virus scan.
Just because the user "agreed" to some insignificant and cryptic blurb in a 14-page EULA, it doesn't mean that this type of software is legitimate. I'd guess that less than 0.1% of users actually READ the EULA anyways. Some of the less legitimate ones don't even have an EULA or "spyware" clause.
Slashdot Mirror
I would, but it so happens that I'm quite happy with QWERTY... and guess what? Every computer I've tried to use (so far) supports it with no configuration required! q:]
MadCow.
What would be nice is a program on a floppy disk (ok, on a USB storage device keychain these days) that you just plug into the computer you're using, and it remaps the keyboard to your preferred style.
That is NOT a difficult thing to do, if you want to do it...
Kevin.
I'm of the view that if your company really values you and you're not a moron, you should never have been in this position in the first place.
If you're unhappy for whatever reason at any time, TAKE IT UP WITH YOUR BOSS. Don't mumble and complain behind their back then drop a competitive job offer on their desk as a threat (which would make you the above-mentioned moron), ... they can't correct a situation if they don't know you're unhappy!
If they're unwilling or unable to address your problem when you raise it, then when you get a competitive job offer take it... don't use it as a bargaining chip, it won't get you anywhere in the long run except up $hit creek. It shouldn't take the threat of losing you to get a deserved pay raise. If it does, you're working for the wrong company and you should take the other job anyways.
Just my $0.02.
MadCow.
Now, wouldn't that also pose problems of its own? I don't have numbers to prove it, but I firmly believe that you could host a significantly larger number of sites on one good Linux/Apache server than you could on an IIS server with the same hardware, due to efficiencies of both Apache and the OS.
However, you'd have the same limiting factor of bandwidth.
Just something to think about,
MadCow.
Ok, it's good to be concerned, but if you read the description, it's simply a method for a Flash movie to store information on your computer in a similar fashion as a web page stores information through a cookie.
This info is only available to other Flash movies from THE SAME SITE, similar to the protection provided for cookies.
It's simply a way to provide persistance from session to session at the same web site. I still wouldn't trust it with my credit card numbers, but Macromedia isn't Hitler reincarnated.
Calm down. This has only been a test.
q:]
MadCow.
Isn't the USPTO liable for the damages it causes by recklessly granting frivolous patents such as those you mention?
Sure, they're a government agency, but they ARE doing harm by granting these patents. They ARE costing businesses money, and probably end up making some go bankrupt trying to fight these crap patents (or through paying silly license fees).
Can't they be sued for gross negligence or something similar... A good suit like that would go a LONG way towards stopping the endless stream of crap that they've granted.
Just my non-lawyerly $0.02.
MadCow.
Small businesses can band together in such a suit... much easier to afford that way.
MadCow.
Nimbda trashed our IIS webserver COMPLETELY, and to this day I still log about 10,000 hits a week from infected computers outside our network.
The good news is that IT has given the webserver responsibility to ME... it's now a fairly secure Linux box that I can play with all I like. q:]
MadCow.
If your shit was architected properly in the first place, it would be trivial to separate the "toys" from the kernel.
Now, if by removing the extras like IE we're crippling your OS, that's YOUR problem.
Do it and shut up so we can all go home.
MadCow.
Actually, when you first started your Gateway computer, it probably went through a "first-time run" sequence, which presented you with the EULA, as well as with other setup options, and probably asked you to enter your Windows serial number and such.
At least that's how it works now, might depend on how old your computer is.
MadCow.
Read your EULA. It will SPECIFICALLY state that M$ has the right to inspect/audit you at any time.
So, if Microsoft can prove that you EVER bought ANY Microsoft software, they can enter your premises and audit you.
Now, if you've NEVER bought anything legally from them, that's a different story... interesting...
MadCow.
So, you could "sweep" the laser by varying the frequency on the piezo... getting 2-axis sweeping might be a bit of a challenge though without any moving parts like a spinning mirror though.
Bored-ly yours, MadCow.
It's called an "acoustic optical modulator", my old company uses them all the time in their laser photographic printers.
We modulate a laser beam on the order of 14 million times a second, actually a lot more than that. Check out www.cymbolic.com (LightJet / PlateJet products).
MadCow.
PDF is VERY similar to PostScript, and is often referred to as PostScript Level 3 (not quite accurate).
Believe me... I've written PostScript by hand, as well as PDF. And no, it's not just a document format, it's a fairly robust programming language too!
I wish I had a link, but there was a guy that wrote an entire web server APPLICATION in PostScript... pretty cool stuff.
MadCow.
Actually, most lawyers are pretty good at SSI, and bill quite a bit for it.
SSI: Stupid Shit Included.
MadCow.
If they're so paranoid about deep-linking, fix your webserver to check the referrer property of the HTTP request, and direct them to the main page if it wasn't an internal link.
This is TRIVIAL to do on most webservers through cgi scripts... however you now have to deliver all your content through CGI (or SSI, or PHP, or ASP, or whatever), which is pretty common on websites these days anyways.
Stop bitchin if you can fix your own problem with minimal effort.
MadCow.
Any idea if there's any noticable lag / delay using this?
One thing that drives me batty using cell phones some times is the delay between the time you speak and when the other person hears you (or the other way around)... you end up talking over each other all the time, and conversations are just painfull!
MadCow.
I bet the SCUMWARE operators have much better statistics than this, maybe 5-50 million subjects, over all age ranges... :)
MadCow.
No, that's not quite the same thing.
Now, if you came up to me on the street (wearing a ski-mask so I have no way to identify you), and I gave you $1000 cash for item X that "you would run home and get for me right away", then you ran off with my money... that's the same thing.
Throw a brick at my window if you want... just wear your bulletproof vest while doing it.
MadCow.
There are online escrow services, like iEscrow and even BillPoint (I think) that's promoted directly by Ebay.
I've used iEscrow VERY happily for several high-dollar auctions ($2000+), and it's worked well. The drawbacks are there though... cost (they take a commission of course), processing time (it takes an extra week or two for the seller to get their money), and so on.
The problem is that people don't put the effort into using these services, or don't want to pay for them. They're there, if you don't use them and get screwed, it's your own damn fault.
MadCow.
(one of the salesmen at our company got hosed for $2500 on a digital camera because he didn't use escrow... I can't really feel sorry for him either!)
Just FYI, Photoshop will support any image up to 30,000x30,000 pixels in size, I've done it personally on a 512MB box.
For 10k^2, and 1GB ram like you say, it shouldn't be a problem (after all 10k^2 CMYK is only 381MB uncompressed).
Stick with an industry standard, full-featured program unless you can't.
MadCow.
Interesting...
I was thinking more of translation into "concepts" rather than an actual language... it doesn't have to be a real spoken language. This of course is well suited to machine translation, not human translation.
Wouldn't all languages be possible to translate into concepts? I guess it would be highly contextual though, making the process difficult...
Just-brainfarting-the-Friday-away-ly-yours...
MadCow.
named "BSOD"
MadCow.
Is there some way to translate into a common universal "intermediary" language, then translate to the destination language?
I'm just thinking that most languages could relate more closely with an "iconographic" type language than with the idiosyncrosies of other languages. For concrete ideas this may work well, but for more conceptual ideas this may fall apart...
Just my $0.02, being uneducated in linguistics...
MadCow.
I think that companies like Symantec and McAfee should include these types of programs in their Virus definitions, because after-all, they're a type of Trojan. This is the most logical way to rid the earth of these applications.
At the very least, they should be identified to the user during a virus scan.
Just because the user "agreed" to some insignificant and cryptic blurb in a 14-page EULA, it doesn't mean that this type of software is legitimate. I'd guess that less than 0.1% of users actually READ the EULA anyways. Some of the less legitimate ones don't even have an EULA or "spyware" clause.
MadCow.