I've riffed on this a little bit in one of my own sites, but always find this an interesting topic so I'll re-hash. Daniel Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness talks about research showing that we see things with greater clarity "now" than in the "distant past" in much the same way we see things with detail closer up than things far away. I think one has to understand that it's uncomfortable for most people to think about things in the distant past in a detailed way. So if it doesn't effect my day-to-day life to think that the earth is 6000 years old (and to be realistic it doesn't effect most people's day to day life) then I've got no good reason to put myself through the discomfort of trying to visualize the evolutionary or cosmological process over millions and billions of years. To that end I think the key is going to be, as the authors of the original article seem to point out, finding common ground, and finding life relevant applications for this information.
David Sloan Wilson has some interesting things to say on the subject of religion, the "new atheists" and evolution (for those who don't know who he is, he's an atheist and evolutionary biologist who has written a couple books like Darwin's Cathedral and Evolution for Everyone). I think I can sum up part of one of his arguments in his recent Huffington Post series as "If you say 'screw them, we'll make them bow to the truth of our science' you lose the moral high-ground." In much the same way saying "their evil so it's OK if we torture THEM" does the same thing for a nation.
There's a problem with high-level scientific understanding, and that's that it is high-level. To "prove" to somebody X or Y you've got to first insure that they know enough about the subject to understand your argument (and the facts) in the first place. Because the vast majority of the population doesn't have an inclination, or vested interest in learning enough about science, or religion for that matter, they have to make the call on who to believe. For the most part what, to me, the Dawkins/Hitchens crowd seem to be saying is "trust us, we're scientists, the facts are on our side" in the same way that religious leaders say "trust us, we're pastors, God is on our side." Well, if my Grandmother told me God was right and Richard Dawkins told me Science was right, if I'm not getting too deep in personal investigation of the subjects, I'm more inclined to listen to the nice old lady than the prickly obnoxious scientist.
It's like the old saying (which has probably been mythbustered) "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we can make science useful and relevant to people's every day life, it's easier to teach it. And if you're competing with a church experience that, for all its flaws, includes friends who come take care of you when you're sick, and ask you how you're doing every weekend at services, and all of the GOOD things that religious experience brings to people's lives you're going to have a tough time selling a few crotchety atheists as ambassadors. To take an evolutionary tact with the same thought, how are you going to compete with groups of people that provide a medium to meet and breed (prolifically) with people of like beliefs. I'm not sure the numbers, but if your average atheist couple has 1.2 kids, and your average Christian couple has 2.3 kids you're going to have to win somebody over to not be overwhelmed by their numbers. I don't think Dawkins wins over many converts to athiesm because he preaches to the choir (to use a church metaphor).
Sagan didn't denounce astrology? He pretty soundly mocked it in the Cosmos DVDs I was just watching last month (I believe the line was something like to "To believe the stars or planets control your future is silly. The gravitational pull of the doctor had more effect on me at my birth than a planet millions of miles away.").
I used to run a small indie label and knew enough artists and their relationship with their labels that I feel qualified to... agree with the above poster. The basic business model is that:
A) Artists make their money on the concerts, which in turn sell records. B)The labels make their money on selling the records, which in turn act as advertisment for the touring band.
Hence, labels sponsor tours so the band gets new fans who want to buy the record, and the bands tour because that's how you make money. Of course there are exceptions to the rule like Madonna or the Stones, who are probably going to make more per CD and sell enough CDs to really make money from the album sales. But for the most part the money the bands get from record sales is minimal, and concerts are the way for them to make cash.
For an artist, the career would usually (assuming talent, skill, and desire to work at it of course) look something like this:
You start out small, you do small local shows, and sell a few records at the shows. Eventually you've put out a few small indie (or self-released) albums and gained a local or limited regional following, at which point you can then start to tour outside of your region, and maybe move to a larger indie label. The larger label won't necessarily pay you more, but will have more clout to get your record on the radio, and have some funds and resources to help you tour (which they want you to do so you get more fans and they can sell more records). This progression continues until you've got enough of a back catalog of records that people keep buying that you can reduce your touring somewhat, but have a fan base that will always come out to see you when you play in their region, and will always buy your new record.
If you get enough of a following a major label (or a major indie) will look to sign you and pay you a little more of an advance on your record sales. They will then have the clout to get you more and more airplay, and hence fans, and more organized touring financing (so maybe you start staying in nicer hotels instead of crashing at somebody's house in the town you're playing, play at larger venues instead of small bars and clubs, etc).
On average, throughout your career as a musician though, you're only going to be making about as much in a year on the record sales, as you do over the course of a handful of shows. The factors raise as you get more popular, but the record sales are a small percentage of your income as long as you're actively writing music, and performing it. The sales "lost" to P2P will amount to a smaller amount of cash in your pocket from CD sales, but will probably result in an increase in your ticket sales for your concerts (if you're good and develop fans from those songs downloaded of course).
Think of it this way (and I'm using round-ish figures here for the sake of arguement). Let's say you've got 10,000 fans who always buy one of your CDs and come to one show a year. On each CD you may make $0.50 (especially if you're on a major label, on an indie they may give more to the musicians, but on majors you're not going to get much more). On each concert ticket sold you'll get $5.
Now, let's say 500 of those fans stopped buying your CD because they can download it for free on P2P. You've lost $250 in income. But because it's on P2P you gain an extra 500 fans who won't buy your CD but will come see you when you play their town, you've gained $2500 in income.
THAT is why most small bands don't mind, and actually encourage, people sharing their music. The big names may make a bit more on their CD sales, but the real reason is probably that they're not looking for new fans really, they know most of their shows will sell out (and as somebody else pointed out, the market will obviously bare the price increase, hence tickets were probably under priced in the past). The other factor too is that so many of those "name" musicians are tied so closely to their record label (who DOES depend on those CD sales to make all of their profits) that the "artists" aren't going to rock the company boat.
I have to disagree that it's not for young children. But I define my 7 year-old as a young child and he LOVED it, wasn't scared a bit and thinks it's his new favorite movie (passing up Nemo and Peter Pan). I wouldn't take a 3-4 year old to see it probably... but just cause I wouldn't take a 3-4 year old to MOST movies... even Nemo (Attention span, etc).
This was a GREAT movie and I think it did a good job of having action and super-hero stuff for the kids (ok admittedly it's more the boys market)... while the relational stuff the Moms and Dads will be nodding to themselves over.
Obviously you have to know your kid, but I found this WAY more appropriate than the original Shrek was for the kids it was marketted to (because of that I haven't seen Shrek 2 yet so I'll reserve judgement on it).
Well, he actually didn't mean successors at all. He was referring to something Clinton had done. Somebody posted the info as a reply to a request for clarification here:
Q Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well. And that's why I made the decision.
So while people would LIKE to make that a Bush-ism, he really ment what he said and was correct in using the term predecessor.
Q Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well. And that's why I made the decision.
So while people would LIKE to make that a Bush-ism, he really ment what he said and was correct in using the term predecessor. There are enough bush-isms out there without making something that isn't wrong into one.
I recently purchased an iBook G4 and I'm dual-booting it with OS X and YDL. I wanted linux so I could A) keep in practice with the Linux world and B) so I could run Quanta for working on my websites (yes I can use Fink to run it... but it's a couple versions behind and not as smooth as it is on linux).
The problems I've had were that the graphics card didn't run X upon install. With the default kernel it would use the frame buffer driver for X and run with 4 colors (not so pretty or useful). I had to download a custom YDL 2.6 kernel from ppckernel.org and after THAT the sound and eth0 didn't work.
Bottom line is that it's going to take some tweaking to get your basic services to work. It may or may not be worth the effort. Fink is pretty good, and most things run fairly well on OS X (and the basic iLife and Open Office stuff should work well enough to serve MOST functions that aren't deeply involved in linux specifically.
My big problem with ALL of the linux on Mac distro's I've seen is that none of them take advantage of the more uniform hardware on a Mac. If you've got a mac... you usually know what model/version it is, you should be able to, during install, tell linux what system you're running and it should have all the settings "built-in" for the given hardware. Linux install on Apple hardware should be 10 times easier than it is on x86... but it isn't yet.
If you're committed to running linux in a dual-boot way you may want to go ahead and partition before you get too much running on OS X and then wait for YDL 4.0 which should be better and is a re-work from the ground up based on Fedora.
I'm also a writer and I thought about the dedicated word processors for about 12 seconds, and realized that they're over-priced and underpowered.
I'm currently using an old Palm IIIc with a folding keyboard that would only cost you about $80 off of ebay and would serve the purpose, but not be nearly as satisfying as a laptop. If you're only looking at word processing on it, you can get an older G3 iBook for about the same price as one of those dedicated word processors.
I'm saving for a 12" G4 iBook (the most bang for the buck in the small laptop market IMHO), but if you've got the money... the 12" powerbook or some of the tiny Sony Viao series would work as well. The dedicated WP market seems to rely on people who haven't done the math on how much you get for how much you pay compared with small laptops. IMHO the value just isn't there.
I've seen a few of the other Tycoon games mentioned but not Zoo Tycoon. Somebody picked it up for my son and it's pretty tame, but still pretty interesting. I guess that you can have troubles if you let the Lions live with the Antelope (somebody gets eaten), but I don't think THAT would spark parental/principal problems.
I don't think the issue is that they're trying to shelter the kids. I think the issue is that they're trying to cover their butt. I don't think anybody wants to be the principal who loses his job because a very conservative parent sues the school for exposing their child to something they didn't want.
I think the point is that the components aren't hard to come by, they've just not slapped enough of them together to meet the demand. Assembly time is the bottle neck not component availablity.
CharlesP
Re:4GB Compact Flash for $200?
on
iPod Mini Sells Out
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· Score: 3, Informative
It's actually a 4meg Microdrive that's CF compatable... not actual CF.
I learned a LOT of my HTML and related skills from webmonkey. They did good work, were always big advocates of standards, and a great resource no matter what your level of web work was. I personally am going to miss them greatly... makes me feel old (granted a LOT of things do that lately, but.. that's not the point now is it?).
will all the dotcommers get back together for a romp down memory lane in a few years? All those pets.com employees probably want to catch up on old times.
Seriously, I used to work for amazon.com and got laid off when they shut down the Atlanta facility and I wouldn't mind getting together with a few of the old co-workers... but I think that 20 years might be a bit of a long way off for this sort of thing. Then again I guess what we were doing wasn't as missed or as innovative as the classic video game people.
I don't think the lack of DVD playback hurt them all that much. When the PS2 hit it was a big selling point for it, but the next Nintendo machine doesn't need it at ALL. When the PS2 hit a DVD player was $100+ but now a new system isn't really needing DVD playback due to the cheapness of DVD players. In fact it would help Nintendo MUCH more if they KEPT the same format and had some backwards compatability built in. At least that's MY opinion.
I can't imagine going from something like medicine where you've got 8-10 years of college invested PLUS residency, into IT. Sure you could do it, and there are jobs that would pay you comparably, but the IT field is so unstable right now that it doesn't seem terribly wise. Of course the flip side is that if all medicine gets under govermental control you may be in a much less lucrative job than you are right now. I think that if you're serious you should look at the programming/CS degree while you're practicing medicine and then apply both specialties by developing applications for the medical field. It's specialty work like that, where it takes somebody with inside knowledge to really know what is going on with the end result and not just the programming, that will be more difficult to outsource. Also the potential for true innovation from somebody within the medical field attacking programming is enough that you might secure yourself a position with a large company.
It would be a gamble any way you look at it. If you're really into it then find an online part-time CS program and enroll. Take a few classes over the course of many years. It will take you much longer to get the degree due to the changing nature of CS degree requirements, BUT... you'll know better by the end if you really want to leave medicine AND you'll still have the knowledge to grow from later.
He talks about how in the movie Sarumon gives Gandalf grief about his smoking the halfling leaf, but in the books he himself smokes it. These are BOTH true statements. I've been reading the unfinished tales and some of the history stuff so I'm not sure it's not in those instead of the original cannon. BUT Saruman starts out giving Gandalf grief about the halfling leaf and continues to do so even after he himself has started using it.
Surprised that somebody so obviously anal about the books would miss something like this in the extras.
I have two of these and a TV tuner for each. The Turbo express was bar none the best portable video game machine until the GBA SP. It's ONLY drawback was the power consumption. The games were great on it and the screen is amazing. Not much can beat Blazing Lazers on that thing, good classic schmup action.
Granted I may be biased because I loved my TG-16, having purchased it myself in 8th grade (I think it was 8th grade). I was begging for one, as I was in the know and knew all about how good the PC Engine was doing in Japan. My mom sarcastically remarked that if I could pay for it myself I could have one... which of course sounded like a challenge to me. So I took my allowance money and bought cheap candy and snacks to sell from my desk at school for a profit and after about 3 months I managed to pull together the $200 needed. The TG-16 is one of the most under-rated systems of all times I think. There were some crappy games for it, but there were also some incredibly GOOD games for it as well (Bonk, Blazing Lazers, Legendary Axe, Chew-Man-Fu, etc), AND it was the first video game system to offer a CDRom drive.... ahh the good old days.
Yeah... but the problem is that all of those people are doing well, and have jobs, and are making money... but that money comes from the government taking it from everybody else. You can't base an economy on the government taking money from one group to give to another, even if it IS via a job.
Is it just me or is that the most crazy financial logic heard in a long time. You're going to have a government agency employing people so they have jobs? Their money coming from tax dollars... which would be coming from the population at large. You're not going to save an economy by employing MORE people from the tax dollars. It just won't work. Basically you're just recycling money, quickly the funding would dry up. Build up the deficit even quicker than it is now.
It does look sleek and sexy, but not the most practical. It fills in where a power user needs a PDA, and it seems to have the function built in to become a desktop. But the problem is that it's filling a pretty small niche of people who want more than a PDA but less than a laptop. It's not practical to use this as you primary work travel PC as the keyboard is a thumb-board and isn't good for quick entry. It is an ultimate PDA... but you've got to be a pretty high-roller to spend two grand on your glorified PDA. Sadly it's probably a niche market item. I hope they find a way to make those innovations really work with a practical product, but I fear they'll be innovating in the field but not financially leading it. I'd love to try one out but don't see it as a practical addition to my tech tool belt.
I'm trying to figure out how to get away with building a mame cabinet and you've got a buddy with enough space and spousal support to build a whole SKEE BALL?!?!? WOW! it would be pretty cool to have one... maybe in my home office instead of the guest bed... just let them lay a sleeping bag on the "alley" if anybody stays over.
Ya know... my first computer was a 1000 TX too... we had several other family computers before that... older TrashDos ones, but the 1000 TX was MINE and it ROCKED I played Space Quest and Thexder and Silpheed and pretty much anything Sierra On-Line put out that I could get my grubby little hands on. I remember using Q&A for word processing too.... ahhhh those were the days. My sister ended up with the SX which was actually a little slower and an 8086 chip whereas the TX I had was an early 286 which was crippled if I recall correctly... Oh the nostalgia
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I've riffed on this a little bit in one of my own sites, but always find this an interesting topic so I'll re-hash. Daniel Gilbert's book Stumbling on Happiness talks about research showing that we see things with greater clarity "now" than in the "distant past" in much the same way we see things with detail closer up than things far away. I think one has to understand that it's uncomfortable for most people to think about things in the distant past in a detailed way. So if it doesn't effect my day-to-day life to think that the earth is 6000 years old (and to be realistic it doesn't effect most people's day to day life) then I've got no good reason to put myself through the discomfort of trying to visualize the evolutionary or cosmological process over millions and billions of years. To that end I think the key is going to be, as the authors of the original article seem to point out, finding common ground, and finding life relevant applications for this information.
David Sloan Wilson has some interesting things to say on the subject of religion, the "new atheists" and evolution (for those who don't know who he is, he's an atheist and evolutionary biologist who has written a couple books like Darwin's Cathedral and Evolution for Everyone). I think I can sum up part of one of his arguments in his recent Huffington Post series as "If you say 'screw them, we'll make them bow to the truth of our science' you lose the moral high-ground." In much the same way saying "their evil so it's OK if we torture THEM" does the same thing for a nation.
There's a problem with high-level scientific understanding, and that's that it is high-level. To "prove" to somebody X or Y you've got to first insure that they know enough about the subject to understand your argument (and the facts) in the first place. Because the vast majority of the population doesn't have an inclination, or vested interest in learning enough about science, or religion for that matter, they have to make the call on who to believe. For the most part what, to me, the Dawkins/Hitchens crowd seem to be saying is "trust us, we're scientists, the facts are on our side" in the same way that religious leaders say "trust us, we're pastors, God is on our side." Well, if my Grandmother told me God was right and Richard Dawkins told me Science was right, if I'm not getting too deep in personal investigation of the subjects, I'm more inclined to listen to the nice old lady than the prickly obnoxious scientist.
It's like the old saying (which has probably been mythbustered) "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." When we can make science useful and relevant to people's every day life, it's easier to teach it. And if you're competing with a church experience that, for all its flaws, includes friends who come take care of you when you're sick, and ask you how you're doing every weekend at services, and all of the GOOD things that religious experience brings to people's lives you're going to have a tough time selling a few crotchety atheists as ambassadors. To take an evolutionary tact with the same thought, how are you going to compete with groups of people that provide a medium to meet and breed (prolifically) with people of like beliefs. I'm not sure the numbers, but if your average atheist couple has 1.2 kids, and your average Christian couple has 2.3 kids you're going to have to win somebody over to not be overwhelmed by their numbers. I don't think Dawkins wins over many converts to athiesm because he preaches to the choir (to use a church metaphor).
Sagan didn't denounce astrology? He pretty soundly mocked it in the Cosmos DVDs I was just watching last month (I believe the line was something like to "To believe the stars or planets control your future is silly. The gravitational pull of the doctor had more effect on me at my birth than a planet millions of miles away.").
I used to run a small indie label and knew enough artists and their relationship with their labels that I feel qualified to... agree with the above poster. The basic business model is that:
A) Artists make their money on the concerts, which in turn sell records.
B)The labels make their money on selling the records, which in turn act as advertisment for the touring band.
Hence, labels sponsor tours so the band gets new fans who want to buy the record, and the bands tour because that's how you make money. Of course there are exceptions to the rule like Madonna or the Stones, who are probably going to make more per CD and sell enough CDs to really make money from the album sales. But for the most part the money the bands get from record sales is minimal, and concerts are the way for them to make cash.
For an artist, the career would usually (assuming talent, skill, and desire to work at it of course) look something like this:
You start out small, you do small local shows, and sell a few records at the shows. Eventually you've put out a few small indie (or self-released) albums and gained a local or limited regional following, at which point you can then start to tour outside of your region, and maybe move to a larger indie label. The larger label won't necessarily pay you more, but will have more clout to get your record on the radio, and have some funds and resources to help you tour (which they want you to do so you get more fans and they can sell more records). This progression continues until you've got enough of a back catalog of records that people keep buying that you can reduce your touring somewhat, but have a fan base that will always come out to see you when you play in their region, and will always buy your new record.
If you get enough of a following a major label (or a major indie) will look to sign you and pay you a little more of an advance on your record sales. They will then have the clout to get you more and more airplay, and hence fans, and more organized touring financing (so maybe you start staying in nicer hotels instead of crashing at somebody's house in the town you're playing, play at larger venues instead of small bars and clubs, etc).
On average, throughout your career as a musician though, you're only going to be making about as much in a year on the record sales, as you do over the course of a handful of shows. The factors raise as you get more popular, but the record sales are a small percentage of your income as long as you're actively writing music, and performing it. The sales "lost" to P2P will amount to a smaller amount of cash in your pocket from CD sales, but will probably result in an increase in your ticket sales for your concerts (if you're good and develop fans from those songs downloaded of course).
Think of it this way (and I'm using round-ish figures here for the sake of arguement). Let's say you've got 10,000 fans who always buy one of your CDs and come to one show a year. On each CD you may make $0.50 (especially if you're on a major label, on an indie they may give more to the musicians, but on majors you're not going to get much more). On each concert ticket sold you'll get $5.
Now, let's say 500 of those fans stopped buying your CD because they can download it for free on P2P. You've lost $250 in income. But because it's on P2P you gain an extra 500 fans who won't buy your CD but will come see you when you play their town, you've gained $2500 in income.
THAT is why most small bands don't mind, and actually encourage, people sharing their music. The big names may make a bit more on their CD sales, but the real reason is probably that they're not looking for new fans really, they know most of their shows will sell out (and as somebody else pointed out, the market will obviously bare the price increase, hence tickets were probably under priced in the past). The other factor too is that so many of those "name" musicians are tied so closely to their record label (who DOES depend on those CD sales to make all of their profits) that the "artists" aren't going to rock the company boat.
I doubt it's enough to make me move away from Quanta just yet... but I'll certainly look at this as another option for web developing on my iBook.
CharlesP
I have to disagree that it's not for young children. But I define my 7 year-old as a young child and he LOVED it, wasn't scared a bit and thinks it's his new favorite movie (passing up Nemo and Peter Pan). I wouldn't take a 3-4 year old to see it probably... but just cause I wouldn't take a 3-4 year old to MOST movies... even Nemo (Attention span, etc).
This was a GREAT movie and I think it did a good job of having action and super-hero stuff for the kids (ok admittedly it's more the boys market)... while the relational stuff the Moms and Dads will be nodding to themselves over.
Obviously you have to know your kid, but I found this WAY more appropriate than the original Shrek was for the kids it was marketted to (because of that I haven't seen Shrek 2 yet so I'll reserve judgement on it).
CharlesP
Well, he actually didn't mean successors at all. He was referring to something Clinton had done. Somebody posted the info as a reply to a request for clarification here:
2 91 7&cid=10334640
9 -7 .html
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12
But the quote is from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001012
Q Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well. And that's why I made the decision.
So while people would LIKE to make that a Bush-ism, he really ment what he said and was correct in using the term predecessor.
Yep, you're right. He was referring to something else entirely. Somebody posted it as a reply to a request for clarification here:
2 91 7&cid=10334640
9 -7 .html
http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12
But the quote is from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001012
Q Why did you decide not to challenge the Clinton pardon, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, on Marc Rich? First of all, I didn't agree with the decision. I would not have made that decision myself. But the ability for a president to make decisions is -- a decision on pardons, is inviolate, as far as I'm concerned. It's an important part of the office. I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well. And that's why I made the decision.
So while people would LIKE to make that a Bush-ism, he really ment what he said and was correct in using the term predecessor. There are enough bush-isms out there without making something that isn't wrong into one.
CharlesP
I recently purchased an iBook G4 and I'm dual-booting it with OS X and YDL. I wanted linux so I could A) keep in practice with the Linux world and B) so I could run Quanta for working on my websites (yes I can use Fink to run it... but it's a couple versions behind and not as smooth as it is on linux).
The problems I've had were that the graphics card didn't run X upon install. With the default kernel it would use the frame buffer driver for X and run with 4 colors (not so pretty or useful). I had to download a custom YDL 2.6 kernel from ppckernel.org and after THAT the sound and eth0 didn't work.
Bottom line is that it's going to take some tweaking to get your basic services to work. It may or may not be worth the effort. Fink is pretty good, and most things run fairly well on OS X (and the basic iLife and Open Office stuff should work well enough to serve MOST functions that aren't deeply involved in linux specifically.
My big problem with ALL of the linux on Mac distro's I've seen is that none of them take advantage of the more uniform hardware on a Mac. If you've got a mac... you usually know what model/version it is, you should be able to, during install, tell linux what system you're running and it should have all the settings "built-in" for the given hardware. Linux install on Apple hardware should be 10 times easier than it is on x86... but it isn't yet.
If you're committed to running linux in a dual-boot way you may want to go ahead and partition before you get too much running on OS X and then wait for YDL 4.0 which should be better and is a re-work from the ground up based on Fedora.
CharlesP
I'm also a writer and I thought about the dedicated word processors for about 12 seconds, and realized that they're over-priced and underpowered.
I'm currently using an old Palm IIIc with a folding keyboard that would only cost you about $80 off of ebay and would serve the purpose, but not be nearly as satisfying as a laptop. If you're only looking at word processing on it, you can get an older G3 iBook for about the same price as one of those dedicated word processors.
I'm saving for a 12" G4 iBook (the most bang for the buck in the small laptop market IMHO), but if you've got the money... the 12" powerbook or some of the tiny Sony Viao series would work as well. The dedicated WP market seems to rely on people who haven't done the math on how much you get for how much you pay compared with small laptops. IMHO the value just isn't there.
CharlesP
I've seen a few of the other Tycoon games mentioned but not Zoo Tycoon. Somebody picked it up for my son and it's pretty tame, but still pretty interesting. I guess that you can have troubles if you let the Lions live with the Antelope (somebody gets eaten), but I don't think THAT would spark parental/principal problems.
CharlesP
I don't think the issue is that they're trying to shelter the kids. I think the issue is that they're trying to cover their butt. I don't think anybody wants to be the principal who loses his job because a very conservative parent sues the school for exposing their child to something they didn't want.
CharlesP
I think the point is that the components aren't hard to come by, they've just not slapped enough of them together to meet the demand. Assembly time is the bottle neck not component availablity.
CharlesP
It's actually a 4meg Microdrive that's CF compatable... not actual CF.
CharlesP
I learned a LOT of my HTML and related skills from webmonkey. They did good work, were always big advocates of standards, and a great resource no matter what your level of web work was. I personally am going to miss them greatly... makes me feel old (granted a LOT of things do that lately, but.. that's not the point now is it?).
CharlesP
will all the dotcommers get back together for a romp down memory lane in a few years? All those pets.com employees probably want to catch up on old times.
Seriously, I used to work for amazon.com and got laid off when they shut down the Atlanta facility and I wouldn't mind getting together with a few of the old co-workers... but I think that 20 years might be a bit of a long way off for this sort of thing. Then again I guess what we were doing wasn't as missed or as innovative as the classic video game people.
CharlesP
I don't think the lack of DVD playback hurt them all that much. When the PS2 hit it was a big selling point for it, but the next Nintendo machine doesn't need it at ALL. When the PS2 hit a DVD player was $100+ but now a new system isn't really needing DVD playback due to the cheapness of DVD players. In fact it would help Nintendo MUCH more if they KEPT the same format and had some backwards compatability built in. At least that's MY opinion.
CharlesP
I can't imagine going from something like medicine where you've got 8-10 years of college invested PLUS residency, into IT. Sure you could do it, and there are jobs that would pay you comparably, but the IT field is so unstable right now that it doesn't seem terribly wise.
Of course the flip side is that if all medicine gets under govermental control you may be in a much less lucrative job than you are right now. I think that if you're serious you should look at the programming/CS degree while you're practicing medicine and then apply both specialties by developing applications for the medical field. It's specialty work like that, where it takes somebody with inside knowledge to really know what is going on with the end result and not just the programming, that will be more difficult to outsource. Also the potential for true innovation from somebody within the medical field attacking programming is enough that you might secure yourself a position with a large company.
It would be a gamble any way you look at it. If you're really into it then find an online part-time CS program and enroll. Take a few classes over the course of many years. It will take you much longer to get the degree due to the changing nature of CS degree requirements, BUT... you'll know better by the end if you really want to leave medicine AND you'll still have the knowledge to grow from later.
CharlesP
He talks about how in the movie Sarumon gives Gandalf grief about his smoking the halfling leaf, but in the books he himself smokes it. These are BOTH true statements. I've been reading the unfinished tales and some of the history stuff so I'm not sure it's not in those instead of the original cannon. BUT Saruman starts out giving Gandalf grief about the halfling leaf and continues to do so even after he himself has started using it.
Surprised that somebody so obviously anal about the books would miss something like this in the extras.
CharlesP
I have two of these and a TV tuner for each. The Turbo express was bar none the best portable video game machine until the GBA SP. It's ONLY drawback was the power consumption. The games were great on it and the screen is amazing. Not much can beat Blazing Lazers on that thing, good classic schmup action.
Granted I may be biased because I loved my TG-16, having purchased it myself in 8th grade (I think it was 8th grade). I was begging for one, as I was in the know and knew all about how good the PC Engine was doing in Japan. My mom sarcastically remarked that if I could pay for it myself I could have one... which of course sounded like a challenge to me. So I took my allowance money and bought cheap candy and snacks to sell from my desk at school for a profit and after about 3 months I managed to pull together the $200 needed. The TG-16 is one of the most under-rated systems of all times I think. There were some crappy games for it, but there were also some incredibly GOOD games for it as well (Bonk, Blazing Lazers, Legendary Axe, Chew-Man-Fu, etc), AND it was the first video game system to offer a CDRom drive.... ahh the good old days.
CharlesP
Yeah... but the problem is that all of those people are doing well, and have jobs, and are making money... but that money comes from the government taking it from everybody else. You can't base an economy on the government taking money from one group to give to another, even if it IS via a job.
CharlesP
Is it just me or is that the most crazy financial logic heard in a long time. You're going to have a government agency employing people so they have jobs? Their money coming from tax dollars... which would be coming from the population at large. You're not going to save an economy by employing MORE people from the tax dollars. It just won't work. Basically you're just recycling money, quickly the funding would dry up. Build up the deficit even quicker than it is now.
CharlesP
CharlesP
It does look sleek and sexy, but not the most practical. It fills in where a power user needs a PDA, and it seems to have the function built in to become a desktop. But the problem is that it's filling a pretty small niche of people who want more than a PDA but less than a laptop. It's not practical to use this as you primary work travel PC as the keyboard is a thumb-board and isn't good for quick entry. It is an ultimate PDA... but you've got to be a pretty high-roller to spend two grand on your glorified PDA.
Sadly it's probably a niche market item. I hope they find a way to make those innovations really work with a practical product, but I fear they'll be innovating in the field but not financially leading it. I'd love to try one out but don't see it as a practical addition to my tech tool belt.
CharlesP
I'm trying to figure out how to get away with building a mame cabinet and you've got a buddy with enough space and spousal support to build a whole SKEE BALL?!?!? WOW! it would be pretty cool to have one... maybe in my home office instead of the guest bed... just let them lay a sleeping bag on the "alley" if anybody stays over.
CharlesP
Ya know... my first computer was a 1000 TX too... we had several other family computers before that... older TrashDos ones, but the 1000 TX was MINE and it ROCKED I played Space Quest and Thexder and Silpheed and pretty much anything Sierra On-Line put out that I could get my grubby little hands on. I remember using Q&A for word processing too.... ahhhh those were the days. My sister ended up with the SX which was actually a little slower and an 8086 chip whereas the TX I had was an early 286 which was crippled if I recall correctly... Oh the nostalgia
cause the oxymoronic nature of using MS and Security in the same vicinity... one would think it's just an all white blank sheet of paper.