Incredibly enough, the software world is still a world where experts don't really have their say. It's a bit like if I, as a car driver, would dictate how GM creates its next car because I am the one who buys it, despite the fact that I don't know a thing in mechanics and how to build an engine.
Hmm, wasn't there a Simsons episode along those lines?
I realize DTv claims weather has no effect on the signal, but in Cleveland we can get some pretty good snow storms, have you ever had any problems?
Snow build up on the dish can be a problem, especially wet snow. Personally, I keep a spare ice scraper around in the winter although I'm sure you can buy a heater or rig something up with heat tape if you want.
The last time I tried to download Flash for Windows the license was really obscene. Among other things it gave Adobe the right to audit my computers and also came with a list of devices and OSs that it was not to be used with including Windows MCE. These are just nuggets among something like 7-9 pages of legelese. A few pages in I just gave up and decided I didn't really need the latest Flash that bad.
Yesterday I had mod points and nothing worth modding.....
I agree with most of whay you said but I'd add that I think some of religion comes from our need to understand everything, or at least have a working model even if we, at some level, know it's wrong. People just don't like "I don't know" and they don't like complicated explanations that they don't fully understand much better. I'm sure we've all seen this first hand when someone asks us "Why did my computer do that". I see it in politics too where a candidate with simple sounding (but really meaningless if you analize them) answers to everything is often prefered over one who tries to take a more thoughtful approach.
How much further can we take the concept that words and images have some power to damage the reader's mind irreparably? Should reading car magazines be equated with speeding?
That's not the logic behind making viewing child porn illegal. If it were then pictures featuring very young looking 18yr olds and claiming that they are really only 16 or whatever would also be illegal but they are not. The logic is that by buying or viewing child porn you are supporting the person that really did molest that child and making it more likely that they will do it again.
There is also UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD) which is basically BartPE + some additional tools. Good stuff although I still don't leave home without a Knoppix CD.
I don't know if it's just shitty componentry or ancient firmware revisions, but cablemodems DO NOT always time out unresponsive DHCP clients and make the address available again.
I'd take it a step further and say that cable modems USUALLY will only talk to the first MAC address that they see after they boot up. I don't know for sure why but my pet theory has been that it's a way to get customers to pay extra for having more than one computer hooked up.
Privatization of schools would give people a CHOICE as to where they want to send their kids.
As I said, maybe in a large metro area but in much of America the pouplation density just isn't high enough to support more than one or two schools effeciently. Your own stats seem to back that up too.
I don't doubt that on average current private schools tend to be better than public schools but that does not mean that if all schools were private that they would all be better. Current private schools are a premium item mostly serving people who either are fairly well off or are motivated enough to spend extra on their kids education. It's a huge leap of faith to assume that the Walmarts and Taco Bells of the education world would be as successful.
Secondly, let's say you live in a Mormon community, such as the state of Utah. Well, if 90% of the populace is Mormon, then some of their agenda will trickle down into their schools. It's only natural. But that's the problem with "community/governmental education".
I really don't see this as a problem, at least compared to the alternative of a one size fits all solution. I also don't see how privatization of schools would change this. Wouldn't private schools tend to do the same thing?
If one is Jewish, lives in Utah, and doesn't want their kids to be subjected to any Mormon agenda, they don't have a choice unless they send their kids to a private school.
Then they made a really poor choice of where to live. They knew they had kids, knew they wern't Mormon and yet..... The only thing that would help them is airline tickets. Maybe in an urban area with lots of schools a minority might find one that fits their wishes but in most places they'd still have a choice of only one school but with even less of a voice in how that one operated.
Private institutions are usually more respected and turn out better students than do governmental schools
I used to live just a couple miles from Liberyville, IL
Small world, me too.
Or just tell the parents. Let the parents know what their kids are doing online. That should probably be enough in a lot of cases
My town was so small that the school nurse also worked part time at the Post Office. You could pretty much forget getting away with skipping school without your parents finding out.
Very simple. You post illegal stuff online, its still free speech, but its the same as walking into a police station and shouting that you committed crime x, y and z.
The difference is that the police will have to give you due process. They'll actually have to convince a prosecutor that you did something illegal and he/she will have to convince a judge or jury. If the school wants to report illegal behavior to the police I wouldn't have much of a problem with it. It sounds like the school has decided that expediancy is more important than justice and that's probably not the best lesson to be teaching children.
No, you're still a liberal - liberalism does not tolerate governments interfering in the lives of individuals without a compelling State interests.
In practice most liberals seem to be able to find a "compelling State interest" in pretty much anything they want. Unfortunately most modern "conservitives" seem to have exactly the same problem.
A libertarian is a liberal who doesn't understand the idea that if somebody seizes resources beyond their needs and thereby deprives others of resources, then they are harming those others and depriving them of liberty.
A libertarian understands that perfectly well but they view the government as that "somebody".
Government schools are corrupt by their very nature. A school which is a branch of the government, will seek to achieve governmental agendas.
I'd agree if elementary schools were run at the federal or state level but for the most part they are run locally. If parents don't like school policy they have plenty of opportunity to make their feelings known at school board and pta meetings and by talking to other parents. In a town the size of Libertyville a concerned parent would actually stand a reasonable chance of getting on the school board themselves if they really wanted to and if other parents agreed with their views.
The best resource for making sure your software is usable is to watch people use it.
Agreed 100%. I'm not a real programmer, just a sysadmin who sometimes has to whip up small tools to fill the gaps in between the customer's real programs. It always surprises me just how often users to put my tools to use in ways I'd never considered and once a person decides they like a tool they try to use it for everything.
I'd only add though that even an individual user's expectations can/will change as they become more familiar with your program, especially if they have to use it all day long. I once put together a very simple crm type app for a customer who has several blind and low vision employees. The very first thing I learned from the prototype was that the people using screen readers HATED information presented in tables, especially with lots of columns. Once you get more than 4-5 columns it's really easy to loose track of where you are and you cannot just glance up the screen a bit to remind yourself which column you are in etc. So for the production version I added an alternate view that explicitly labeled each piece of data. At first they liked it a lot better but as time went on I started getting feedback that it was too verbose. No one want's to hear "Customer Name" 5000 times/day. By the time the year was up most of these same users had actually switched back to the table view and actually liked it better.
I guess I'm just saying that what is good for someone who is going to use something day in and day out may not be obvious the first time they look at it and they guy that says he prefers large, friendly, easily identifiable icons at first is going to be screaming for more screen realestate later.
There are probably more reasons but one was that they felt that competing with the chipset makers would just discourage them from supporting AMD at all.
Assuming that is the plan, then the risk isn't at the PC manufacturer. The risk is at the chipset manufacturer.
If anyone is in a position to use a counterfit chipset it would be the PC manufacturer and if anyone is capable of cloning an existing chipset with some minor modifications it would be China.
You may want your ISP to pass all traffic equally but I want my ISP to give priority to timing sensitive apps like VOIP and possibly gaming over things like email and bulk file transfers.
Which has nothing to do with the matter under discussion.
Congress has approximately zero chance of crafting a law that adequately differentiates between "Good" QOS shaping and "Bad" QOS shaping.
What's that? You only have one ISP available? Well then THAT's your problem.
But you wanting your timing-sensitive games and VOIP to work dependanbly is, apparently, everyone's problem.
Read what I said again and note which word is capitalized.
Is there any difference between choosing US congress or US big business ?
Yes, it's possible to choose which business to give your money to and there are ways to increase that choice further. THAT is where efforts should be focused, increasing the number of broadband providers and customer choice so that we can all find one that meets our needs and punish the ones that try to play stupid games. As a sysadmin what I don't want is to have to choose between obeying some poorly written law or providing the best possible service to the customer.
I think you'll find common people use spaces to indent everything, and manually insert the bullet characters.
Yes and because of this the auto-formatting features of OO seem to annoy a lot of users. People get surprisingly upset when OO turns
* Stuff
* More stuff
into a bulleted list. Never mind that at least some versions of MSO do exactly the same thing and the menu item to turn this on/off is in exactly the same place, it 's still the number one example that people give me when they say "I hate OO because..."
You're right, there's nothing at all wrong with Qwest charging more or less to different ISPs based on throughput. Customers SHOULD be able to choose different levels of service based on their needs and pay accordingly. I serve email for a number of small businesses, store backups remotely for some of them, have a dozen or so VPN connections connected to me at all times and a bunch of other things. It doesn't make any sense that I should pay the same or be subject to the same limitations as Grandma who only checks her Yahoo email once a day and that's about it.
If I want broadband in Seattle I basically have two choices, Comcast or Qwest.
If you have access to Qwest DSL then you probably can also get Speakeasy or one of a dozen or so other ISPs over that same line. Sure, Qwest still runs the physical line but the TOS is up to whatever ISP you choose.
You may want your ISP to pass all traffic equally but I want my ISP to give priority to timing sensitive apps like VOIP and possibly gaming over things like email and bulk file transfers. If you don't like how your ISP manages their bandwidth then switch to another ISP. What's that? You only have one ISP available? Well then THAT's your problem. Let's fix that rather than allowing congress critters to become our system admins.
That was about a year ago so it's possible things have changed. Also, if you ever have to deal with them in person there is a huge variation in the ability/willingness of their reps. to do things. If you don't like the answer they give you ask someone else.
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Incredibly enough, the software world is still a world where experts don't really have their say. It's a bit like if I, as a car driver, would dictate how GM creates its next car because I am the one who buys it, despite the fact that I don't know a thing in mechanics and how to build an engine.
Hmm, wasn't there a Simsons episode along those lines?
I realize DTv claims weather has no effect on the signal, but in Cleveland we can get some pretty good snow storms, have you ever had any problems?
Snow build up on the dish can be a problem, especially wet snow. Personally, I keep a spare ice scraper around in the winter although I'm sure you can buy a heater or rig something up with heat tape if you want.
The last time I tried to download Flash for Windows the license was really obscene. Among other things it gave Adobe the right to audit my computers and also came with a list of devices and OSs that it was not to be used with including Windows MCE. These are just nuggets among something like 7-9 pages of legelese. A few pages in I just gave up and decided I didn't really need the latest Flash that bad.
Yesterday I had mod points and nothing worth modding.....
I agree with most of whay you said but I'd add that I think some of religion comes from our need to understand everything, or at least have a working model even if we, at some level, know it's wrong. People just don't like "I don't know" and they don't like complicated explanations that they don't fully understand much better. I'm sure we've all seen this first hand when someone asks us "Why did my computer do that". I see it in politics too where a candidate with simple sounding (but really meaningless if you analize them) answers to everything is often prefered over one who tries to take a more thoughtful approach.
Sure but if any of these wire taping lawsuits gain traction you may not have to worry about it:)
How much further can we take the concept that words and images have some power to damage the reader's mind irreparably? Should reading car magazines be equated with speeding?
That's not the logic behind making viewing child porn illegal. If it were then pictures featuring very young looking 18yr olds and claiming that they are really only 16 or whatever would also be illegal but they are not. The logic is that by buying or viewing child porn you are supporting the person that really did molest that child and making it more likely that they will do it again.
Can't you just leave them switched on overnight and let God take care of things?
RMS doesn't make house calls.
There is also UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD) which is basically BartPE + some additional tools. Good stuff although I still don't leave home without a Knoppix CD.
Back then it was called Dejanews.
I don't know if it's just shitty componentry or ancient firmware revisions, but cablemodems DO NOT always time out unresponsive DHCP clients and make the address available again.
I'd take it a step further and say that cable modems USUALLY will only talk to the first MAC address that they see after they boot up. I don't know for sure why but my pet theory has been that it's a way to get customers to pay extra for having more than one computer hooked up.
Privatization of schools would give people a CHOICE as to where they want to send their kids.
As I said, maybe in a large metro area but in much of America the pouplation density just isn't high enough to support more than one or two schools effeciently. Your own stats seem to back that up too.
I don't doubt that on average current private schools tend to be better than public schools but that does not mean that if all schools were private that they would all be better. Current private schools are a premium item mostly serving people who either are fairly well off or are motivated enough to spend extra on their kids education. It's a huge leap of faith to assume that the Walmarts and Taco Bells of the education world would be as successful.
Agreed on your first point but..
Secondly, let's say you live in a Mormon community, such as the state of Utah. Well, if 90% of the populace is Mormon, then some of their agenda will trickle down into their schools. It's only natural. But that's the problem with "community/governmental education".
I really don't see this as a problem, at least compared to the alternative of a one size fits all solution. I also don't see how privatization of schools would change this. Wouldn't private schools tend to do the same thing?
If one is Jewish, lives in Utah, and doesn't want their kids to be subjected to any Mormon agenda, they don't have a choice unless they send their kids to a private school.
Then they made a really poor choice of where to live. They knew they had kids, knew they wern't Mormon and yet..... The only thing that would help them is airline tickets. Maybe in an urban area with lots of schools a minority might find one that fits their wishes but in most places they'd still have a choice of only one school but with even less of a voice in how that one operated.
Private institutions are usually more respected and turn out better students than do governmental schools
Correlation Causation
I used to live just a couple miles from Liberyville, IL
Small world, me too.
Or just tell the parents. Let the parents know what their kids are doing online. That should probably be enough in a lot of cases
My town was so small that the school nurse also worked part time at the Post Office. You could pretty much forget getting away with skipping school without your parents finding out.
Very simple. You post illegal stuff online, its still free speech, but its the same as walking into a police station and shouting that you committed crime x, y and z.
The difference is that the police will have to give you due process. They'll actually have to convince a prosecutor that you did something illegal and he/she will have to convince a judge or jury. If the school wants to report illegal behavior to the police I wouldn't have much of a problem with it. It sounds like the school has decided that expediancy is more important than justice and that's probably not the best lesson to be teaching children.
No, you're still a liberal - liberalism does not tolerate governments interfering in the lives of individuals without a compelling State interests.
In practice most liberals seem to be able to find a "compelling State interest" in pretty much anything they want. Unfortunately most modern "conservitives" seem to have exactly the same problem.
A libertarian is a liberal who doesn't understand the idea that if somebody seizes resources beyond their needs and thereby deprives others of resources, then they are harming those others and depriving them of liberty.
A libertarian understands that perfectly well but they view the government as that "somebody".
Government schools are corrupt by their very nature. A school which is a branch of the government, will seek to achieve governmental agendas.
I'd agree if elementary schools were run at the federal or state level but for the most part they are run locally. If parents don't like school policy they have plenty of opportunity to make their feelings known at school board and pta meetings and by talking to other parents. In a town the size of Libertyville a concerned parent would actually stand a reasonable chance of getting on the school board themselves if they really wanted to and if other parents agreed with their views.
The best resource for making sure your software is usable is to watch people use it.
Agreed 100%. I'm not a real programmer, just a sysadmin who sometimes has to whip up small tools to fill the gaps in between the customer's real programs. It always surprises me just how often users to put my tools to use in ways I'd never considered and once a person decides they like a tool they try to use it for everything.
I'd only add though that even an individual user's expectations can/will change as they become more familiar with your program, especially if they have to use it all day long. I once put together a very simple crm type app for a customer who has several blind and low vision employees. The very first thing I learned from the prototype was that the people using screen readers HATED information presented in tables, especially with lots of columns. Once you get more than 4-5 columns it's really easy to loose track of where you are and you cannot just glance up the screen a bit to remind yourself which column you are in etc. So for the production version I added an alternate view that explicitly labeled each piece of data. At first they liked it a lot better but as time went on I started getting feedback that it was too verbose. No one want's to hear "Customer Name" 5000 times/day. By the time the year was up most of these same users had actually switched back to the table view and actually liked it better.
I guess I'm just saying that what is good for someone who is going to use something day in and day out may not be obvious the first time they look at it and they guy that says he prefers large, friendly, easily identifiable icons at first is going to be screaming for more screen realestate later.
There are probably more reasons but one was that they felt that competing with the chipset makers would just discourage them from supporting AMD at all.
Assuming that is the plan, then the risk isn't at the PC manufacturer. The risk is at the chipset manufacturer.
If anyone is in a position to use a counterfit chipset it would be the PC manufacturer and if anyone is capable of cloning an existing chipset with some minor modifications it would be China.
Congress has approximately zero chance of crafting a law that adequately differentiates between "Good" QOS shaping and "Bad" QOS shaping.
Read what I said again and note which word is capitalized.
Yes, it's possible to choose which business to give your money to and there are ways to increase that choice further. THAT is where efforts should be focused, increasing the number of broadband providers and customer choice so that we can all find one that meets our needs and punish the ones that try to play stupid games. As a sysadmin what I don't want is to have to choose between obeying some poorly written law or providing the best possible service to the customer.
I think you'll find common people use spaces to indent everything, and manually insert the bullet characters.
..."
Yes and because of this the auto-formatting features of OO seem to annoy a lot of users. People get surprisingly upset when OO turns
* Stuff
* More stuff
into a bulleted list. Never mind that at least some versions of MSO do exactly the same thing and the menu item to turn this on/off is in exactly the same place, it 's still the number one example that people give me when they say "I hate OO because
You're right, there's nothing at all wrong with Qwest charging more or less to different ISPs based on throughput. Customers SHOULD be able to choose different levels of service based on their needs and pay accordingly. I serve email for a number of small businesses, store backups remotely for some of them, have a dozen or so VPN connections connected to me at all times and a bunch of other things. It doesn't make any sense that I should pay the same or be subject to the same limitations as Grandma who only checks her Yahoo email once a day and that's about it.
If I want broadband in Seattle I basically have two choices, Comcast or Qwest.
If you have access to Qwest DSL then you probably can also get Speakeasy or one of a dozen or so other ISPs over that same line. Sure, Qwest still runs the physical line but the TOS is up to whatever ISP you choose.
You may want your ISP to pass all traffic equally but I want my ISP to give priority to timing sensitive apps like VOIP and possibly gaming over things like email and bulk file transfers. If you don't like how your ISP manages their bandwidth then switch to another ISP. What's that? You only have one ISP available? Well then THAT's your problem. Let's fix that rather than allowing congress critters to become our system admins.
That was about a year ago so it's possible things have changed. Also, if you ever have to deal with them in person there is a huge variation in the ability/willingness of their reps. to do things. If you don't like the answer they give you ask someone else.