To make this more accurate, Congress didn't intend to stifle these activities at first. But then, the entertainment industry came along, started writing sizable checks to the Congresspeople for bri...err, "campaign contributions," and changed Congress's mind on this. Sure they intended to chill those.
I thought the same thing when I read it, but then realized it's just legalese. Everyone knows the bastards intended to stiffle free speach and kill democracy, but the word "chill" was chosen for a reason. That is the word the Supreme Court used to describe cases where the law was unconstitutional not because it outright banned a protected form of speach, but where instead it just scared potential speakers shitless and so stopped them from speaking. "Chill" and "Unintended Consequences" are the polite and politically correct terms for "the treasonous bastards controlling our government betrayed us with yet another un-American act."
Besides if the congress-critters knowingly passed an unconstitutional law they could technically be hung for treason. (Though I don't think the judicial branch has ever had the balls to do it, the congress-critters write their checks...)
Anyone that's studied the history of Mount Rushmore knows that one of the great things about it is that it was so hard to make.
You do know it was built as a turist trap for auto travelers and as a "Fuck You!" to the natives to whom the mountain was a major monument before it was, ummm, defaced?
I would think it hilarious if some vandal managed to carve Osama into the mountain, it shouldn't be destoyed if they manage it, just like the presidents shouldn't be taken off just because of the sad history of the place. Erasing the evidence of history doesn't make it go away.
While I would agree that it probably is just dumbfucks in the government not racism, those two sentences just don't make sense together after the 20th century.. Like, well, NAZI -- "Nationalist..." Milosovitch... Just about every murder in the last century was for nationalist reasons, millions upon millions of people... and there was a tinge of racism in both the cases I mentioned. As there was with Stalin, Jonson&Nixon, Truman, and most other nationalist war criminals.
Other schools I've looked at have said similar things; we take into account where you got your degree from, essentially.
They are scaring away applicants o purpose. Ph.D. admissions are generally done by the professors that might advise you. The admissions criteria fluctuate from year to year depending on who is doing the culling. One year numbers will be used to cull the list to a manegable amount before it is sent to the professors in the sub-field you're intereseted in, the next year someone who reads every application will be in charge and students who didn't finish their BS/BA but started a leading company in the field gets his application read and gets in.
When I applied I got into every school but my safety school, I think that tells you how arbritary it is. Once you realize that they are not even trying to be fair rejection letters don't have a huge effect on you. They are just trying to build a class of students that will satisfy the professors...and by in large they succeed at that goal.
Ok, DeCSS is useful because DVD's make economic sense to own... They are expensive, but for some of my favorite movies it makes sense when I can view them because of DeCSS. But, e-Books are too expensive even if I can view them. If they cost a 1/4 what the paper version cost, I might buy some. But right now you don't even get a free copy of the e-Book when you buy the paper book. These things make no economic sense except maybe for the tiny market of illiterate and blind who want to put these things through reader software.
If they cost $2 to $5 they would make sense when you can't afford the paper version, or for reference books when you don't have access to the internet.
I can see why figuring out the Microsoft e-book encoding could make a good intellectual excercise, but he doesn't even publish the source code, much less explain how it works. Does this even deserve our attention as a hack? Perhaps he cheated and just caught the output of the e-book reader to the internet explorer component, not figuring out how to decode it at all.(I don't know if they use the internet explorer component, but they prolly do use some shared library you can wrap for the displaying of the HTML.)
Sales people seem to be the only people in the world incapable of reading the body language that screams, "Get the hell away from me!"
That's prolly why they end up doing sales. They don't actually have to help you to get their commission. I may not want to help them, but a good customer in their eyes. I usually know exactly what I want and where to find it. Quick and easy for the salesdroid.
I've found that if you state exactly what you're looking for in precise language, they just tell you they don't carry it and then leave you in peace until you find it and the other stuff you're browsing for. It's important to be intimidating so have a good 2-3 minute spiel with no choices, just specs in it.
Re:How do you like the taste of shoe leather?
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Christmas in 2050
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· Score: 2
Restaurants with human cooks and service will be considered superpremium places and will have prices to match. I think it's more likely that all of us will have maids again. The only reason that kind of labor is expensive is because our borders are effectively closed. When we finally recognize the human right of migration again there will be plenty of people to take those jobs and send money home to improve the lot of their families.
Do you really think that videophones that can be attached to the network aren't going to be available for the price of a cheap one-piece deskphone now... There are already video phones. There's a guy in my lab that spends half his time talking with his family and friends on his laptop all day. Most of us don't want video phones, I for one have no desire to fix my hair and get dressed in the morning before calling someone. All we're really missing now is the gateways between internet phones and the POTS system, and these are appearing in the form commercial internet phone systems. At the moment those work like regular phones, but it won't be long before enough people have them that when they call each other they can have the option of video. So if we all do have video phones in 2, 20 or 200 years we'll still say "the camera seems to be broken."
The writer doesn't deal with space at all. One prediction I'm certain of. Either the human race will be exploiting the Solar System as a whole by then or nobody will have pleasant Xmases by then We won't be exploiting space by then. Our 1960's space program was much like the pyramids in Egypt, an extraordinary re-direction of reasources away from the people to achieve an engineering goal we're not ready for. We need to develop alternative energy sources before we really get into space. The chinese are the only ones serious about fusion, perhaps by 2050 they will have figured it out. That or something like it is a pre-requisite. Hey maybe we'll figure out a way to get more energy out of geothermal plants, I dunno. But we need massive amounts of energy to create the fuels to get us there, and figure out a way to get the fuels to get back. Between now and then we should be sending more probes and exploring.
Plus Anti-alias works much better on XP. Sure, at least in the distributions. If you really want aliasing there are some patches for XFT, and you can recompile Freetype with the font compiler...
I wouldnt blame XP, XPs requirements are more hefty compared to 98/NT/2K. Yes its bigger, it needs more, but that doesnt mean its not a good OS. My gaming PC/workstation is upgraded quite a bit more than my linux box. If I run KDE, I will want a faster video card, if blackbox, 4 meg pci video card works fine.
I'm not really blaming XP, any change of OS could have affected performance. In their case they were using a Quadro4 with some kind of dual Xeon system with 512 Meg of ram. Way overkill for my little program. I think it is probably some problem in the scheduler screewing up thread synchronization, but I didn't spend any time on it, it's a one off app so it's more than silly for me to port it to another OS when Win 2000 is still being supported.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! -- Patrick Henry
I wonder how many remember Poindexter and Iran/Contra? Iran/Contra was the last time the government broke the law in a "the ends justify the means" sense where they not only sold arms to Iran, which supported terrorism at the time, but used the money to support the Contras, a South American terrorist group, which they also helped sell cocaine in the US for even more terrorist money. All parts of the deal were illegal, the congress had told Reagan not to sell weapons to Iran, and not to give weapons or money to the terrorists; importing cocaine was illegal, though I think that took everyone by surprise.
I think there are few that would justify Poindexter's pro-terrorist ends in this day when we are at the unfortunate end of the terrorist gun. But, knowing that he was part of such a conspiracy tells you that he has a contempt for the law and so can expected not to follow any meagre protections that may remain in it.
The Gui KDE, and Back end Xserver is missing features, 3D features, Anti-aliasing, advanced hardware features.
What is it missing? I have anti-aliased fonts, I bet my 3D card is better than yours, granted I'm running with closed source drivers. X has many more features than XP, esp when it comes to multi-monitor support. I use Gnome as my GUI, but use the arts sound server because it just works with ALSA without any patches. I have a shitload of quality fonts, which admitedly didn't ship with Mandrake, but I imported them with their GUI tool. Plus, I have great programs like DVD:Rip and mplayer which let me watch two movies on a battery rather than one, with better sound than that crappy WinDVD thing I paid for but didn't get any support for when it stopped working.
I do run some programs under wine, specifically with the CrossOver version for office apps and the Transmeta version for games, which is annoying. But then they I'm always surprised when they run better than the same app on a Microsoft windows implementation. I don't understand the mindless move to XP either, I got a call the other day about a program I wrote for theatrical performance a while back. It was running half as fast as it used to. I ask the simple questions, same hardware, same supporting apps, same computer, etc. All yes, so I ask "What has changed?" "We upgraded to Windows XP" "Umm, do you run any other apps on this computer?" "No" "Go back to Windows 2000" "But XP is better!"
I think perhaps my frustration with XP is akin to yours with Gnome/KDE, I had to use Linux on my desktop for some applications a few years ago, now I'm comfortable with it, I know how to do all the things I do with it. Doing anything in XP is like trying to drive my uncle's Yugo on the interstate, but he'd prolly have the same problems driving my BMW, the quick steering alone could send him off the highway in a hurry. (2000, is like driving my old bicycle with the loose handlebars, I'll get there, I know it's quirks, but sometimes I'd prefer walking.)
Iraq's use of chemical weapons on Iran and the Kurds, for example.
That's just silly. Chemical weapons are nothing like a nuke. Chemical weapons were used by just about everyone in the Great War (WWI). They are less effective per pound than conventional munitions and unlike nukes have a legitamite, if ghastly, use in war.
Your point would have been stronger if you had talked about biological weapons. Those are worst for civilian populations, and as far as I know we haven't used them since we wiped out the Americans. No one defends that anymore, so it isn't as big a liability in trying to get people not to fear and hate us as our more recent war crimes.
I was just outside our borders recently, our use of nukes on an innocent civilian population is the reason people the world over think it's so strange when we condemn Saddam for using nasty weapons on civilians.
US attempts to avoid civilian casualties (hell, we could carpet bomb / nuke Afghanistan and Iraq and no one'd be able to do a thing about it)
Yes, the US is the only country in the world never to use the weapon of mass distruction on civilians.
Or, is that the other way around?
PS Am I the only to have great sense of irony and sadness when those "your drug habit supports terrorism ads" run? My tax paying habit supports terrorism, have you watched "Brazil" since 9/11?
Does anyone have the patent number?
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AOL Patents IM
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· Score: 2
From the descriptions in the story they haven't got a leg to stand on in court, but maybe it's a patent on some particular way to run the servers that makes them more efficient than the prior art. It's possible it is an overbroad patent, none of the earlier stuff was patented because it would have been unpatentable before the patent office decided to just let everything through and let the courts sort it out in the late 80's early 90's. Plus, in the early days of commercial software there were no big guys trying to kill capitalism, so the prior art on trivial things isn't documented anywhere an overworked, underpaid, undereducated and unexperienced patent clerk might look.
But without looking at the patent can we really just assume it's another bad patent?
More relevant is how the performance of C7 is markedly worse on the P3 platform than C6.
C7 defaults to -mcpu=pentium4, I bet he'd get different results with -mcpu=pentiumpro
These benchmarks aren't really for those that really need the fastest code, they will benchmark their own code. But, it is valid for what deciding what to compile all that other stuff. Though with gcc holding it's own on most of those benchmarks the ubiquity gcc gets through it's license is outweighs the small performance benefit, well in C surely. Hopefully someone will look at that wacky place in the C++ benchmarks where icc outperformed it by over 1000%, perhaps the fix for that could be pulled into -O3 or maybe -O6, like with pgcc... gcc 3.0 was mostly a standards release, 3.1 and 3.2 were mostly bug fixes, hopefully 3.3 will iron out the ABI interpretation differences between gcc and icc, then 3.4+ can be performance oriented.
Unfortunately the C++ from the two compilers is not compatible, yet. I think they are working on it, perhaps with gcc3.3 and Intel 9.0. Also, the being a different compiler it won't just compile a program that you've got working with gcc 2.x, gcc 3.2, and Visual C++ 6.0, esp if you have a long compat.h to do it.
I like icc, esp since I'm using a lot of floating point and gcc isn't too good with that on the PentiumIII & 4. But so far haven't had the time to unit test every component with my C++ project, and you can't just drop in icc compiled classes, it's all or nothin' (or lots of hacks and C code, but I'd rather put the work into a proper port at some point.) gcc 3.2 is also better than those benchmarks show, I've gotten a doubling in speed on some code compared to gcc 2.x. It's often a matter of trying different flags on each unit and rerunning your benchmark, I think the -Ox's aren't finely tuned yet on the gcc3.x series.
There is a real problem with compilation speed on gcc3.2, I thought it hung when I ran a "-g3" compile and it was stuck on one short file for 10 mins, nope, just REALLY slow. I modified my makefiles to do a non-debug compile to check for errors before doing a "-g" Then I only "-g3" the files I need, when I need them. I mention it mostly because it may explain why the -Ox flags aren't optimal yet.
That means our eyes get pulled out or supplimented with digital receivers because that last step in any system is a analog transmision from the screen to our eyes.
I think you're one step removed, even without eyes you might still have an illegal copy of the copyrighted work in your brain, damn memory. Although I'll be heading for Cuba before they remove mine.
New geek motto? Sure communism sucks, but the zombies suck your brains.
based on my experiences with Speakeasy and those of friencs, this is the exception, not the rule.
I have some friends that are happy with Speakeasy. I think it comes down to whether you have a problems that at the CO that the tech's can't fix. I've had another DSL provider since I canceled Speakeasy and since there's never been a problem I have no idea if their billing department is sane. Speakeasy had a stated policy that they wouldn't cancel a line unless you had three trouble tickets on it; so I actually kept the line, collecting trouble tickets, longer than I should have since they didn't want to honor that policy anyway. Though perhaps that helped convince them when the my credit card's bank went after em. I never got an apology or explanation for their behavior so I dunno. I can't fault their tech support either, they gave me the logs I needed to dispute their own company's billing and spent many hours on the phone handholding a Covad tech through the DSLAM debugging process. There had to have been some process problem there if the techs couldn't get one of their managers to pressure Covad, the fact that I never got an apology makes it hard to believe this process problem has been fixed, even if another DSL provider may have gotten Covad to fix the problem in my CO.
Anyone have any experience to share about speakeasy.net, specifically their customer service as well as how badly the bells abuse their monopoly when you sign up with an alternative dsl carrier?
Unfortunately there is bad news on this front. If you try to get an ADSL over your POTS line you might end up having a line that goes out for hours switches to your bell's DSL service for days at a time and Speakeasy will give you no support with that problem. My bell said there was a problem with the Covad equipment and Speakeasy's techs said there was a problem with either the Covad or the bell equipment, and billing told me I couldn't cancel the billing on the disconnected line without paying the $300 disconnection fee. I ended up pulling out much hair by trying to talk to several billing people before going to my credit card's ombundsman. I used the helpful evidence from their tech support people, plus some collected from logs by my sysadmin at work, and e-mails from other Covad ISPs to create a report showing the problem and all my efforts at getting the problem fixed. My credit card company reversed the charges and I stopped getting hounded by their billing department after a month or so. But I had to spend way more than $300 of my time and on the report and on learning a lot more about my attorney general, consumer affairs, etc. In case I had needed to go further.
The really sad thing is that if they hadn't treated me so badly over $300 I would have given them great PR because I felt they really had tried their best to get the line working before deciding it wasn't anything they could fix technically. I didn't agree with them on not confronting the bell, which I was very willing to help them with, but I understood that if they didn't have enough customers with this problem the cost of getting it fixed with lawyers would be greater than whatever money they might make off a few years of providing DSL to those customers. I saw this as a Covad - Verizon problem that they were only secondary actors in, I felt bad for them. Then they wanted me to pay the $300 Covad was going to charge them for a lemon line and had billing people with a phone attitude that had me infuriated. At that point, I was ready to spend years and thousands of dollars disputing the bill. I shrugged when my bike was stolen, I was mildly annoyed by the cost of the dental work when I was attacked in an attempted mugging, I was actually annoyed when a family member that had volunteered to pick up a last paycheck cashed it. It is not easy to get me past annoyed to angry. Speakeasy managed it.
There are many nice DSL providers outside of the local bell and Speakeasy in most cities. I've had a good experience with a local one that supported WiFi before Speakeasy did. You would serve yourself well to find a good local ISP too.
I almost always try to copy the citation from one of those citation databases or another paper. I usually do it with a 3 inch thick pile of printed papers sitting in my lap. Those might not have the page numbers or the journal they were in on the them. Even if when they do it's better to be consistent with other people referencing the work unless they are obviously wrong. Plus, it's a pain to format the TEX with umlouts and the like.
I have had to fix the spelling of my own name in a reference I copied...other than that it's a good thing. I try to be really careful when I have to type in the reference myself, usually a recent paper or something from another field. I have to decide whether to list all the authors or do an "et al" after who you think are the main authors. Whether to write out the complete name of the journal/conference or its common short name. I do try to proof read the reference, but sometimes I read the paper and used it but can't find it and the deadline is quickly approaching, it would be more wrong to leave it out than to use the possibly slightly off reference, esp if I used that reference to find the paper in the first place. If it had been far off enough to cause me trouble I would have remembered. Of course you want them to be correct since the editor will look at your references when looking for people to review your paper...
Re:Good For Them
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Mandrake News
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Um, Mandrake isn't a "not for profit" company. Why don't you donate some money to Ford, GE, or Microsoft while you're at it...
When Ford and GE start giving away cars, and Microsoft GPL's their software I might consider donating. Mandrake isn't asking for donations anyway, they still allow you to make donations. But as someone working for a not-for-profit I think that makes sense because institutions often have to transfer money in a certain way for accounting purposes. "not-for-profit" and "non-profit" are just labels, a not-for-profit can own a commercial company, they just don't have shareholders to pay dividends to and can't bribe politicians. A "non-profit" is a more restricted entity, it can't have profits for too long before losing it's status.
The only real reason to start an entity as a not-for/non-profit is if you expect the tax deduction on donations to get you more money, and you won't ever need political support. Mandrake is in France, I don't even know if a charity donation is tax-deductable there. Most donations are small and in cash anyway, so the tax deduction isn't really an issue, like it would be if BillG were considering a 6 billion dollar donation in stock that would normally be subject to a 20% gapital gains tax. We all also know Linux and open source in general can use all the political support we can afford to buy.
As long as they are contributing to open source there is nothing wrong with sending donations. Hell, if you're working for a company that makes use of XFS, what's wrong with sending a $50,000 donation to SGI? If you tell them why they might have an easier time justifying the programmer time next time someone wants to port something to Linux there. Think about how you TIP at your local bar; you probably TIP better than you have to for your conscience. You know you will get treated better the next time you come in and might even get a couple buy backs or be told when your favorite beer is a little flat and it's best to order something else.
If you're a programmer it might be better to work on some code. Or, you might know some other organization/person that will spend the money more productively; give your money there then. But if you are using Mandrake, maybe you think they are spending the money well? So what's wrong with giving them more? Is it so different from the time I spend working on OSS? Others use it for profit and it doesn't bother me, I've gotten a lot more value from OSS than my cost in time, writing the code. That code will end up creating a lot more value on other people's collective desks than I lost by working on it.
Nothing wrong with just signing up for MandrakeClub or buying a boxed set either.
Re:Given up on Mandrake
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Mandrake News
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· Score: 2
I tried to add a second IP address to my machine the other day using the GUI admin tools provided in Mandrake 9, and it was a total mess. I ended up just editing the files in/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, which is what I should have done in the first place. Desktop users shouldn't have to deal with that, though.
I started on Mandrake with 7.something, and I've been disappointed with their QA since, but this particular problem I solved with netconf. I'm sticking with Mandrake though. I installed RedHat on a server the a few months ago because I wanted a rock solid machine and I encountered the same problem that made me switch, too many "wha? there is no package, I have to install from source?"
I like the changes they made with their UI last time around, they just need to fix some of the bugs in the X configuration and maybe add a "download and install nVidia/ATI commercial driver" button. And more important, cope with more than one mouse. I encouraged a non-technical coworker to install Mandrake on his laptop -- instead of the supported RedHat. The mouse problem was his biggest hickup, the others were the need to install things like Java, Flash, Acrobat, and the Crossover plugin by command-line. Once he got going Mandrake was something he could administer himself, although I wish he downloaded patches more often...
If they are using a chemical decaffeination process [ineedcoffee.com] that would likely cause the stink.
You know most of the time I have pretty much a live and let live attitude. But something inside me just feels that de-cafe-inated cafe is wrong! I didn't want to write that exclamation point, but I simply could not help it. No one sells "water free mineral water", it just wouldn't be right. Even tofu burgers are clearly labeled. They are not sold as "debeefed beef patties." I think at the very least that drink made from removing the coffee from coffee should be sold under some other name.
I propose "nes-yuck" or "nes-crud" for the products of that evil company that makes "instant coffee" or for the generic name, a simple yet descriptive two worder, "nasty crap."
But really, if friggin pot and coke can be illegal cuz they make people feel good, why not such a great affront to nature as nasty crap?
"Please take me off your distribution list. Thanks!"
(Rather a LOT of replies in fact....)
Recently someone sent an e-mail about some wine tasting to all 200,000 living alumni at the university I went to (or at least those that have an e-mail on file.) The barrage of "please take me off the list" and the "please don't e-mail everyone on the list to take you off the list" felt very much like a denial of service attack. I don't know who at the alumni office authorized the list in the first place, their phones were also too busy for me to get through...the mailing list lasted but a few hours after it was first used. They have a current e-mail address of mine solely for forwarding e-mail from other alumni that might want to contact me. I'm now very glad I haven't updated my physical address since I last moved...
Then when somebody uses your open network to cause havoc and destruction, you should be held liable as a facillitator of their crimes.
I agree, we should start by executing all those business owners that allow parking to people that drive. Drivers are known to sometimes kill pedestrians, facilitating their car ownership makes you just as guilty as the murderer himself. Then we should arrest all those that sell or create lightbulbs or provide electricity, without these many crimes such as safe cracking or embezzlement would be a thing of the past. I've always wanted to arrest people who sell or rent buildings, these are known to provide "safe-houses" to criminals. We shouldn't stop there of course, anyone selling building materials other than non-privacy glass, or god forbid cloth, which could be used to construct curtains, should be shot. No need for even a trial there, their guilt is obvious.
Slashdot Mirror
To make this more accurate, Congress didn't intend to stifle these activities at first. But then, the entertainment industry came along, started writing sizable checks to the Congresspeople for bri...err, "campaign contributions," and changed Congress's mind on this. Sure they intended to chill those.
I thought the same thing when I read it, but then realized it's just legalese. Everyone knows the bastards intended to stiffle free speach and kill democracy, but the word "chill" was chosen for a reason. That is the word the Supreme Court used to describe cases where the law was unconstitutional not because it outright banned a protected form of speach, but where instead it just scared potential speakers shitless and so stopped them from speaking. "Chill" and "Unintended Consequences" are the polite and politically correct terms for "the treasonous bastards controlling our government betrayed us with yet another un-American act."
Besides if the congress-critters knowingly passed an unconstitutional law they could technically be hung for treason. (Though I don't think the judicial branch has ever had the balls to do it, the congress-critters write their checks...)
Anyone that's studied the history of Mount Rushmore knows that one of the great things about it is that it was so hard to make.
You do know it was built as a turist trap for auto travelers and as a "Fuck You!" to the natives to whom the mountain was a major monument before it was, ummm, defaced?
I would think it hilarious if some vandal managed to carve Osama into the mountain, it shouldn't be destoyed if they manage it, just like the presidents shouldn't be taken off just because of the sad history of the place. Erasing the evidence of history doesn't make it go away.
There is no saying it was racist.
Nationalist, sure, but that isn't the same thing.
While I would agree that it probably is just dumbfucks in the government not racism, those two sentences just don't make sense together after the 20th century.. Like, well, NAZI -- "Nationalist..." Milosovitch... Just about every murder in the last century was for nationalist reasons, millions upon millions of people... and there was a tinge of racism in both the cases I mentioned. As there was with Stalin, Jonson&Nixon, Truman, and most other nationalist war criminals.
Oops!
I did look at the web site, but thought the only download was an exe...so I didn't bother to get it.
Other schools I've looked at have said similar things; we take into account where you got your degree from, essentially.
They are scaring away applicants o purpose. Ph.D. admissions are generally done by the professors that might advise you. The admissions criteria fluctuate from year to year depending on who is doing the culling. One year numbers will be used to cull the list to a manegable amount before it is sent to the professors in the sub-field you're intereseted in, the next year someone who reads every application will be in charge and students who didn't finish their BS/BA but started a leading company in the field gets his application read and gets in.
When I applied I got into every school but my safety school, I think that tells you how arbritary it is. Once you realize that they are not even trying to be fair rejection letters don't have a huge effect on you. They are just trying to build a class of students that will satisfy the professors...and by in large they succeed at that goal.
Ok, DeCSS is useful because DVD's make economic sense to own... They are expensive, but for some of my favorite movies it makes sense when I can view them because of DeCSS. But, e-Books are too expensive even if I can view them. If they cost a 1/4 what the paper version cost, I might buy some. But right now you don't even get a free copy of the e-Book when you buy the paper book. These things make no economic sense except maybe for the tiny market of illiterate and blind who want to put these things through reader software.
If they cost $2 to $5 they would make sense when you can't afford the paper version, or for reference books when you don't have access to the internet.
I can see why figuring out the Microsoft e-book encoding could make a good intellectual excercise, but he doesn't even publish the source code, much less explain how it works. Does this even deserve our attention as a hack? Perhaps he cheated and just caught the output of the e-book reader to the internet explorer component, not figuring out how to decode it at all.(I don't know if they use the internet explorer component, but they prolly do use some shared library you can wrap for the displaying of the HTML.)
Sales people seem to be the only people in the world incapable of reading the body language that screams, "Get the hell away from me!"
That's prolly why they end up doing sales. They don't actually have to help you to get their commission. I may not want to help them, but a good customer in their eyes. I usually know exactly what I want and where to find it. Quick and easy for the salesdroid.
I've found that if you state exactly what you're looking for in precise language, they just tell you they don't carry it and then leave you in peace until you find it and the other stuff you're browsing for. It's important to be intimidating so have a good 2-3 minute spiel with no choices, just specs in it.
Restaurants with human cooks and service will be considered superpremium places and will have prices to match.
I think it's more likely that all of us will have maids again. The only reason that kind of labor is expensive is because our borders are effectively closed. When we finally recognize the human right of migration again there will be plenty of people to take those jobs and send money home to improve the lot of their families.
Do you really think that videophones that can be attached to the network aren't going to be available for the price of a cheap one-piece deskphone now...
There are already video phones. There's a guy in my lab that spends half his time talking with his family and friends on his laptop all day. Most of us don't want video phones, I for one have no desire to fix my hair and get dressed in the morning before calling someone. All we're really missing now is the gateways between internet phones and the POTS system, and these are appearing in the form commercial internet phone systems. At the moment those work like regular phones, but it won't be long before enough people have them that when they call each other they can have the option of video. So if we all do have video phones in 2, 20 or 200 years we'll still say "the camera seems to be broken."
The writer doesn't deal with space at all. One prediction I'm certain of. Either the human race will be exploiting the Solar System as a whole by then or nobody will have pleasant Xmases by then
We won't be exploiting space by then. Our 1960's space program was much like the pyramids in Egypt, an extraordinary re-direction of reasources away from the people to achieve an engineering goal we're not ready for. We need to develop alternative energy sources before we really get into space. The chinese are the only ones serious about fusion, perhaps by 2050 they will have figured it out. That or something like it is a pre-requisite. Hey maybe we'll figure out a way to get more energy out of geothermal plants, I dunno. But we need massive amounts of energy to create the fuels to get us there, and figure out a way to get the fuels to get back. Between now and then we should be sending more probes and exploring.
Plus Anti-alias works much better on XP.
;)
Sure, at least in the distributions. If you really want aliasing there are some patches for XFT, and you can recompile Freetype with the font compiler...
I wouldnt blame XP, XPs requirements are more hefty compared to 98/NT/2K. Yes its bigger, it needs more, but that doesnt mean its not a good OS. My gaming PC/workstation is upgraded quite a bit more than my linux box. If I run KDE, I will want a faster video card, if blackbox, 4 meg pci video card works fine.
I'm not really blaming XP, any change of OS could have affected performance. In their case they were using a Quadro4 with some kind of dual Xeon system with 512 Meg of ram. Way overkill for my little program. I think it is probably some problem in the scheduler screewing up thread synchronization, but I didn't spend any time on it, it's a one off app so it's more than silly for me to port it to another OS when Win 2000 is still being supported.
PS I run BlackBox on my playstation.
I wonder how many remember Poindexter and Iran/Contra? Iran/Contra was the last time the government broke the law in a "the ends justify the means" sense where they not only sold arms to Iran, which supported terrorism at the time, but used the money to support the Contras, a South American terrorist group, which they also helped sell cocaine in the US for even more terrorist money. All parts of the deal were illegal, the congress had told Reagan not to sell weapons to Iran, and not to give weapons or money to the terrorists; importing cocaine was illegal, though I think that took everyone by surprise.
I think there are few that would justify Poindexter's pro-terrorist ends in this day when we are at the unfortunate end of the terrorist gun. But, knowing that he was part of such a conspiracy tells you that he has a contempt for the law and so can expected not to follow any meagre protections that may remain in it.
The Gui KDE, and Back end Xserver is missing features, 3D features, Anti-aliasing, advanced hardware features.
What is it missing? I have anti-aliased fonts, I bet my 3D card is better than yours, granted I'm running with closed source drivers. X has many more features than XP, esp when it comes to multi-monitor support. I use Gnome as my GUI, but use the arts sound server because it just works with ALSA without any patches. I have a shitload of quality fonts, which admitedly didn't ship with Mandrake, but I imported them with their GUI tool. Plus, I have great programs like DVD:Rip and mplayer which let me watch two movies on a battery rather than one, with better sound than that crappy WinDVD thing I paid for but didn't get any support for when it stopped working.
I do run some programs under wine, specifically with the CrossOver version for office apps and the Transmeta version for games, which is annoying. But then they I'm always surprised when they run better than the same app on a Microsoft windows implementation. I don't understand the mindless move to XP either, I got a call the other day about a program I wrote for theatrical performance a while back. It was running half as fast as it used to. I ask the simple questions, same hardware, same supporting apps, same computer, etc. All yes, so I ask "What has changed?" "We upgraded to Windows XP" "Umm, do you run any other apps on this computer?" "No" "Go back to Windows 2000" "But XP is better!"
I think perhaps my frustration with XP is akin to yours with Gnome/KDE, I had to use Linux on my desktop for some applications a few years ago, now I'm comfortable with it, I know how to do all the things I do with it. Doing anything in XP is like trying to drive my uncle's Yugo on the interstate, but he'd prolly have the same problems driving my BMW, the quick steering alone could send him off the highway in a hurry. (2000, is like driving my old bicycle with the loose handlebars, I'll get there, I know it's quirks, but sometimes I'd prefer walking.)
That's just silly. Chemical weapons are nothing like a nuke. Chemical weapons were used by just about everyone in the Great War (WWI). They are less effective per pound than conventional munitions and unlike nukes have a legitamite, if ghastly, use in war.
Your point would have been stronger if you had talked about biological weapons. Those are worst for civilian populations, and as far as I know we haven't used them since we wiped out the Americans. No one defends that anymore, so it isn't as big a liability in trying to get people not to fear and hate us as our more recent war crimes.
I was just outside our borders recently, our use of nukes on an innocent civilian population is the reason people the world over think it's so strange when we condemn Saddam for using nasty weapons on civilians.
US attempts to avoid civilian casualties (hell, we could carpet bomb / nuke Afghanistan and Iraq and no one'd be able to do a thing about it)
Yes, the US is the only country in the world never to use the weapon of mass distruction on civilians.
Or, is that the other way around?
PS Am I the only to have great sense of irony and sadness when those "your drug habit supports terrorism ads" run? My tax paying habit supports terrorism, have you watched "Brazil" since 9/11?
From the descriptions in the story they haven't got a leg to stand on in court, but maybe it's a patent on some particular way to run the servers that makes them more efficient than the prior art. It's possible it is an overbroad patent, none of the earlier stuff was patented because it would have been unpatentable before the patent office decided to just let everything through and let the courts sort it out in the late 80's early 90's. Plus, in the early days of commercial software there were no big guys trying to kill capitalism, so the prior art on trivial things isn't documented anywhere an overworked, underpaid, undereducated and unexperienced patent clerk might look.
But without looking at the patent can we really just assume it's another bad patent?
C7 defaults to -mcpu=pentium4, I bet he'd get different results with -mcpu=pentiumpro
These benchmarks aren't really for those that really need the fastest code, they will benchmark their own code. But, it is valid for what deciding what to compile all that other stuff. Though with gcc holding it's own on most of those benchmarks the ubiquity gcc gets through it's license is outweighs the small performance benefit, well in C surely. Hopefully someone will look at that wacky place in the C++ benchmarks where icc outperformed it by over 1000%, perhaps the fix for that could be pulled into -O3 or maybe -O6, like with pgcc... gcc 3.0 was mostly a standards release, 3.1 and 3.2 were mostly bug fixes, hopefully 3.3 will iron out the ABI interpretation differences between gcc and icc, then 3.4+ can be performance oriented.
I like icc, esp since I'm using a lot of floating point and gcc isn't too good with that on the PentiumIII & 4. But so far haven't had the time to unit test every component with my C++ project, and you can't just drop in icc compiled classes, it's all or nothin' (or lots of hacks and C code, but I'd rather put the work into a proper port at some point.) gcc 3.2 is also better than those benchmarks show, I've gotten a doubling in speed on some code compared to gcc 2.x. It's often a matter of trying different flags on each unit and rerunning your benchmark, I think the -Ox's aren't finely tuned yet on the gcc3.x series.
There is a real problem with compilation speed on gcc3.2, I thought it hung when I ran a "-g3" compile and it was stuck on one short file for 10 mins, nope, just REALLY slow. I modified my makefiles to do a non-debug compile to check for errors before doing a "-g" Then I only "-g3" the files I need, when I need them. I mention it mostly because it may explain why the -Ox flags aren't optimal yet.
I think you're one step removed, even without eyes you might still have an illegal copy of the copyrighted work in your brain, damn memory. Although I'll be heading for Cuba before they remove mine.
New geek motto?
Sure communism sucks, but the zombies suck your brains.
I have some friends that are happy with Speakeasy. I think it comes down to whether you have a problems that at the CO that the tech's can't fix. I've had another DSL provider since I canceled Speakeasy and since there's never been a problem I have no idea if their billing department is sane. Speakeasy had a stated policy that they wouldn't cancel a line unless you had three trouble tickets on it; so I actually kept the line, collecting trouble tickets, longer than I should have since they didn't want to honor that policy anyway. Though perhaps that helped convince them when the my credit card's bank went after em. I never got an apology or explanation for their behavior so I dunno. I can't fault their tech support either, they gave me the logs I needed to dispute their own company's billing and spent many hours on the phone handholding a Covad tech through the DSLAM debugging process. There had to have been some process problem there if the techs couldn't get one of their managers to pressure Covad, the fact that I never got an apology makes it hard to believe this process problem has been fixed, even if another DSL provider may have gotten Covad to fix the problem in my CO.
Unfortunately there is bad news on this front. If you try to get an ADSL over your POTS line you might end up having a line that goes out for hours switches to your bell's DSL service for days at a time and Speakeasy will give you no support with that problem. My bell said there was a problem with the Covad equipment and Speakeasy's techs said there was a problem with either the Covad or the bell equipment, and billing told me I couldn't cancel the billing on the disconnected line without paying the $300 disconnection fee. I ended up pulling out much hair by trying to talk to several billing people before going to my credit card's ombundsman. I used the helpful evidence from their tech support people, plus some collected from logs by my sysadmin at work, and e-mails from other Covad ISPs to create a report showing the problem and all my efforts at getting the problem fixed. My credit card company reversed the charges and I stopped getting hounded by their billing department after a month or so. But I had to spend way more than $300 of my time and on the report and on learning a lot more about my attorney general, consumer affairs, etc. In case I had needed to go further.
The really sad thing is that if they hadn't treated me so badly over $300 I would have given them great PR because I felt they really had tried their best to get the line working before deciding it wasn't anything they could fix technically. I didn't agree with them on not confronting the bell, which I was very willing to help them with, but I understood that if they didn't have enough customers with this problem the cost of getting it fixed with lawyers would be greater than whatever money they might make off a few years of providing DSL to those customers. I saw this as a Covad - Verizon problem that they were only secondary actors in, I felt bad for them. Then they wanted me to pay the $300 Covad was going to charge them for a lemon line and had billing people with a phone attitude that had me infuriated. At that point, I was ready to spend years and thousands of dollars disputing the bill. I shrugged when my bike was stolen, I was mildly annoyed by the cost of the dental work when I was attacked in an attempted mugging, I was actually annoyed when a family member that had volunteered to pick up a last paycheck cashed it. It is not easy to get me past annoyed to angry. Speakeasy managed it.
There are many nice DSL providers outside of the local bell and Speakeasy in most cities. I've had a good experience with a local one that supported WiFi before Speakeasy did. You would serve yourself well to find a good local ISP too.
I have had to fix the spelling of my own name in a reference I copied...other than that it's a good thing. I try to be really careful when I have to type in the reference myself, usually a recent paper or something from another field. I have to decide whether to list all the authors or do an "et al" after who you think are the main authors. Whether to write out the complete name of the journal/conference or its common short name. I do try to proof read the reference, but sometimes I read the paper and used it but can't find it and the deadline is quickly approaching, it would be more wrong to leave it out than to use the possibly slightly off reference, esp if I used that reference to find the paper in the first place. If it had been far off enough to cause me trouble I would have remembered. Of course you want them to be correct since the editor will look at your references when looking for people to review your paper...
The only real reason to start an entity as a not-for/non-profit is if you expect the tax deduction on donations to get you more money, and you won't ever need political support. Mandrake is in France, I don't even know if a charity donation is tax-deductable there. Most donations are small and in cash anyway, so the tax deduction isn't really an issue, like it would be if BillG were considering a 6 billion dollar donation in stock that would normally be subject to a 20% gapital gains tax. We all also know Linux and open source in general can use all the political support we can afford to buy.
As long as they are contributing to open source there is nothing wrong with sending donations. Hell, if you're working for a company that makes use of XFS, what's wrong with sending a $50,000 donation to SGI? If you tell them why they might have an easier time justifying the programmer time next time someone wants to port something to Linux there. Think about how you TIP at your local bar; you probably TIP better than you have to for your conscience. You know you will get treated better the next time you come in and might even get a couple buy backs or be told when your favorite beer is a little flat and it's best to order something else.
If you're a programmer it might be better to work on some code. Or, you might know some other organization/person that will spend the money more productively; give your money there then. But if you are using Mandrake, maybe you think they are spending the money well? So what's wrong with giving them more? Is it so different from the time I spend working on OSS? Others use it for profit and it doesn't bother me, I've gotten a lot more value from OSS than my cost in time, writing the code. That code will end up creating a lot more value on other people's collective desks than I lost by working on it.
Nothing wrong with just signing up for MandrakeClub or buying a boxed set either.
I started on Mandrake with 7.something, and I've been disappointed with their QA since, but this particular problem I solved with netconf. I'm sticking with Mandrake though. I installed RedHat on a server the a few months ago because I wanted a rock solid machine and I encountered the same problem that made me switch, too many "wha? there is no package, I have to install from source?"
I like the changes they made with their UI last time around, they just need to fix some of the bugs in the X configuration and maybe add a "download and install nVidia/ATI commercial driver" button. And more important, cope with more than one mouse. I encouraged a non-technical coworker to install Mandrake on his laptop -- instead of the supported RedHat. The mouse problem was his biggest hickup, the others were the need to install things like Java, Flash, Acrobat, and the Crossover plugin by command-line. Once he got going Mandrake was something he could administer himself, although I wish he downloaded patches more often...
If they are using a chemical decaffeination process [ineedcoffee.com] that would likely cause the stink. You know most of the time I have pretty much a live and let live attitude. But something inside me just feels that de-cafe-inated cafe is wrong! I didn't want to write that exclamation point, but I simply could not help it. No one sells "water free mineral water", it just wouldn't be right. Even tofu burgers are clearly labeled. They are not sold as "debeefed beef patties." I think at the very least that drink made from removing the coffee from coffee should be sold under some other name. I propose "nes-yuck" or "nes-crud" for the products of that evil company that makes "instant coffee" or for the generic name, a simple yet descriptive two worder, "nasty crap." But really, if friggin pot and coke can be illegal cuz they make people feel good, why not such a great affront to nature as nasty crap?
Recently someone sent an e-mail about some wine tasting to all 200,000 living alumni at the university I went to (or at least those that have an e-mail on file.) The barrage of "please take me off the list" and the "please don't e-mail everyone on the list to take you off the list" felt very much like a denial of service attack. I don't know who at the alumni office authorized the list in the first place, their phones were also too busy for me to get through...the mailing list lasted but a few hours after it was first used. They have a current e-mail address of mine solely for forwarding e-mail from other alumni that might want to contact me. I'm now very glad I haven't updated my physical address since I last moved...
I agree, we should start by executing all those business owners that allow parking to people that drive. Drivers are known to sometimes kill pedestrians, facilitating their car ownership makes you just as guilty as the murderer himself. Then we should arrest all those that sell or create lightbulbs or provide electricity, without these many crimes such as safe cracking or embezzlement would be a thing of the past. I've always wanted to arrest people who sell or rent buildings, these are known to provide "safe-houses" to criminals. We shouldn't stop there of course, anyone selling building materials other than non-privacy glass, or god forbid cloth, which could be used to construct curtains, should be shot. No need for even a trial there, their guilt is obvious.