I hate spam, but that is why I don't post my e-mail all over the web and obfustcate it when I have to.
Sure, there must be a technological solution but it can't be owned by anyone.. and I need to be able to see the mail that is filtered.
The problem I see, and I've said this before here: If I have a Hotmail address do they have the right to toss out all of my mail that doesn't fit their filtering requirements?
If just one mail platform doesn't support this, all of those customers won't be able to send me mail. There are better ways of handling this, and I hope that if it is the "right" solution Microsoft just donates it to us all. That is the only way we will get widespread adaption. And widespread adaptation, no total, is the only way it will "take"
Lexmark was spun off of IBM, which is why many were sold under the IBM nameplate.
But still, I've got a bone to pick. Many people here are saying that Lexmark printers aren't "real" or "decent" printers, but why?
I often gaffed at people who owned Lexmark printers because I never had used one and I never had one myself. With my last computer I got a Lexmark for free and I let it sit in the box for a good month. I refused to hook it up.
But it works very, very well. It's an inkjet and after lots of bad experiences with HP and even Epson brand inkjets I'm convinced that that this one will stay on my desk. The ink is waterproof (dropped a piece of paper in the sink, you'd never know now), prints fast and yes... it's supported by Linux.
The trick with any printer under any operating system is knowning that most work the same. While there was no "driver" for my particular model it was easy to just test a few before finding the one that worked with mine (Z705). I think I tried a total of two before finding one that worked.
No matter. I find it silly to continue to support companies just because that is all you'll use. I was like this years ago when I thought that brand names were everything... but now that I've grown up a bit I've realized that performance is what matters.
Sure, I'll likely go with HP the first time I buy a laser printer but that all depends.
This kinda reminds me of a Gameboy add-on called the "Workboy". As a computer nerd I wanted this thing so bad because it basically turned your Gameboy into a PDA type of device. Ok, maybe I didn't have that many appointments at 12, but I was a computer nerd still.
The Workboy had a keyboard, a database management system (?) and more. A Google search for "Workboy" and Gameboy returned like five results, two Slashdot...
now the conspiracy theories about handing the election to bush (regardless of merit) may be political, the machines and their (lack of) adoption and use is Tech related.
Do you want your "eVote" machine to fall back into a Windows or Linux interface. (Us Slashdot'ers should boycott Diebold for their use of Windows, right?)
But seriously, there are plenty of non-profits out there that don't support either candidate that oppose electronic voting machines. I'm not sure of their slant, but look at Black Box Voting(.org) for a whole list of problems.
I'm no Luddite, but please let's not give the election away to anyone. Even if it's my candidate...
Yes, you are right: "each experience is personal" but what many books teach you is that the coping is what matters most.
You may realize that you are experiencing something similar to a novel you read; at that moment hopefully you will recall the novel and know what to do to cope with the experience.
Who cares about symbolism in Dickens? Dickens himself would be more interested in an essay about color or baseball.
Mind you I've haven't read Dickens since middle/high-school but I care.
It's not just the symbolism, it's the experience. I was watching some show on PBS and the host said something that I wish English teachers would have said to me. To paraphase; 'Reading a narrative is an exercise in building life experience. No one has written about that particular character at that place and time. Reading allows us to see the world through different eyes'
It makes perfect sense too. Whether it's Dickens or Dick (Philip K.) you are getting a point of view out of the book. Looking at it that way is much more rewarding. The host went on to say that reading lets you know that other people have had similar experiences and no experience is completely new.
Man, that would have helped in life. Not being a fan of fiction, I shunned most books that I was forced to read and never absorbed those experiences. Later in life I often wondered "why is this happening to me" or simply "I can't take this". I wish I would have read more as I was growing up and coming to maturity (Daniel Goleman says maturity ~ 15)
I think the reason that we were supposed to write those essays on Dickens and company were to share our view of the books, and to have us look deeper than the plot. Maybe I'm wrong, I usually am, and maybe I'm crazy... that has been proven.
By voting, I can bitch and moan about politics all I want, because I'm actively trying to change it with my little bit of power
I think a George Carlin quote (or two) is in order:
Next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election.
and my personal favorite:
Think it through: if you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they screw things up, then you're responsible for what they've done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain
I was doing a paper recently about "school violence" and I was suprised to find that most of our problems are because we've modeled schools after mental asylums.
When public schools were being developed in north eastern cities during the latter part of the nineteenth century, their architecture, organization and operation was profoundly influenced by the prevailing conception of the asylum. As the primary public institution designed to serve the needs of the indigent, the insane, the sick or the criminally inclined, the asylum had a profound influence upon the design and management of public schools. While the client base of the early prisons, almshouses and mental hospitals differed, they shared a common preoccupation with the need to control those in held in custody.... While there is some evidence that schools were challenged in fulfilling their task of social control , in most cases it seems that they succeeded in producing "docile bodies"; students who were prepared to accept their roles as citizens and workers.
The best quote from this paper is:
"...urban education in the nineteenth century did more to industrialize humanity than to humanize industry"
It was easy to make my case that metal detectors, and such, are no solution to the problems we face. Seems that only the intelligentsia get this as it's lost on school faculty.
Well, I can't afford a USB key but you know what I can afford? Two Gmail accounts!
Simply send your documents to the other account, maybe even carbon-copy one to yourself.
Works great with Yahoo! mail, not so good with Hotmail. Hotmail seems to update/check for new mail every 5 hours... so no good.
School has Internet access (of course) so just log onto Gmail/Yahoo! mail and get your documents. Another valuable tool is Yahoo!'s "notepad" function... cut and pasted plenty of SQL code into it and saved it from week to week.
I must admit that it was a bitch getting the thing to work under Mandrake 10 (but I'm using Mandrake, so shows what I know). Problem was picking the right driver/module to use and then realizing that I needed to update quite a few things (at the time I was using the Community release, not the Official... works in Official btw)
From the page linked to above: Linux nForce Driver - IA32 Version: 1.0-0283 Release Date: August 13, 2004 Release Highlights for 1.0-0283:
Added support for Linux Installer
Added support for SoundStorm (Hardware Mixing supported)
Added support AC3 pass-through
Added support for Ethernet driver statistics and configuration information through procfs
Added support for 2.6 series kernels
Added a new audio application, NVIDIA NVMixer, to do Volume control per channel, input selection, Speaker selection, Speaker cloning, Swap mic to Center/Lfe & LineIn to Surround L/R
NVMixer is nice, both under Windows (XP) and linux. Under XP it allows you to go through their speaker wizard. Makes for easy downmixing, making my 4.1 speaker system sound like 5.1
The computer is an *ducks* eMachines T3025. Works great in the sound area. Just plug the "back" speakers into the line-in and the center/sub into the microphone (even without the Nvmixer application, check these option in Windows mixer's advanced section under master)
Like I said, I've got a Cambridge Soundworks (now creative) brand 4.1 speaker option that performs nicely. They are old but work like anything bought today. In fact with the NVMixer application you really don't need 5 speakers and a subwoofer. Just tell it you've only got 4 (or two) and it will figure out where to put the sound. Remember it all depends on the timing. When you think something is coming from a certain point it's because when it hits your ears. The mixer just delays certain sounds and works flawlessly.
Very rarely do people care about excellent sound quality, though video quality is almost always something people are picky about.
I agree. While I don't have the phat cash like many out there on the 'net I've got particular taste. For example, my receiver used for watching movies cost more than my tv and dvd player (almost combined). While it isn't a several thousand dollar stereo system it works damn good. The worst thing about watching a DVD at a buddies house is the sound. I could care less about the *look* of the movie because the sound is what brings it all together.
Case in point: Band of Brother (and Saving Private Ryan for that matter). Both had realistic sound for rifle fire. Bullets literally wizzed past your head, an effect only noticible with 5.1 (or better). If there isn't DTS or Dolby Digital, I don't care.
That is really what got me hooked on DVD movies in the first place. The first time I saw a Star Trek movie in the local electronics store, I knew that hearing laser fire go past my face was the coolest.
The desktop I'm sitting at now is a *ducks* eMachines (T3025). Now I've had these 4(.1) speakers for years (about 3) but no grip to get a 4 channel sound card. But since the mainboard (nForce) has 5.1 support I finally get to watch movies on my PC with a 5.1 experience. Nvidia has released their own sound mixer (NVMixer) which allows for downmixing, which gives me 5.1 through their speaker wizard. Simply tell it you've got x amount of speakers and it does the math (literally).
With FPS games sound is important because if someone is shooting at you 5.1 will let you know where it's coming from. Sure, it's simulated on my machine but it works well through sofware emulation. Nforce boards are cheap, and many people knock them... but they do put out great sound.
Yahoo! for example allows you to rent games via their "Games on Demand" service... 3 bucks gets a game for 3 days, completely streamed to your PC.
But this is the same reason Microsoft killed Netscape, they were afraid that Netscape would become the interface for all new applications. I've already talked about this before on Slashdot, so I really don't feel like going into it all over again.
Simply: Microsoft is powerful because they provide the user-land. That is kernel+gui AFAIK. Netscape, with Java, plug-ins and javascript (Netscape's invention, not Sun's) was poised to provide what the next generation wanted: apps on demand.
Windows is dominant because it allows for middleware to be used without much work. If everything was going to open-standards based then all one would need was the browser (once that made it to your platform) and the OS (kernel) would be irrelevant.
It wasn't about the actual browser, it was about the future of applications. Openoffice.org should be a site which loads office applications into you browser, not a place to download it. If Microsoft wouldn't have started the browser war it would already be here.
Where is a complex mixer, system monitor, and other things
First I'll put my flame-proof suit on... but I regularly use XP for day to day stuff. I must admit that linux makes me more productive, but cheap hardware has kept me in windows most of the time (ironic isn't it? I like *nix windowing systems but it's the kernel of all things that keeps me coming back to Windows... well hardware support I guess. Backwards from what most people think).
Linux is a lot more friendly when it comes to "work" but who wants to work? Plus every app I use is open-source so I don't feel that guilty. Firefox, OpenOffice and others vindicate me I hope...
But on to the point. A "system monitor" is exactly what Windows needs. I've used some commercial ones but none quite match gKrellm (my fav) and the lack of a system monitor screen saver makes me angry. I'm someone who always want to have visuals on system usage, just because.
If I worked at Microsoft (or was a developer) I'd be working on this right away.
Applets is exactly what Windows needs. Well, the support for them.
What nobody mentions is that the restrictions placed on the police don't apply equally to citizens.
What is an illegal search and seizure to the police maybe breaking and entering to a citizen... but if the trepasser sees something illegal they are within their rights to submit that information in court.
Even though you had no legal right to enter my property, it's still admissible information in court (that I have 200 lbs. of pharmaceutical quality cocaine in my living room). You'll just be testifying in a prison jump-suit...
Authority? Sure, it's bound to have spam posted to it and honest mistakes, but who cares?
I love Wikipedia and have become an author there. But the true beauty is the fact that it is a wiki. If you are reading something about Hindu gods you can go through 20 articles, following the links, and get a really good understanding of the subject.
It's the coolest. The in-line links work for it. At the very least it can turn you on to topics that you'd never dream of being interested in. Then you go out and get a book on the subject, an authoritative one, and edit the mistakes.
It's being community supported isn't it's weakness, it is the strength of Wikipedia. If you put in that Pete Rose is from Seattle, someone who knows better will fix it. It will only get better by bringing in more experts. Plus, it isn't that hard to fact check these days.
For instance the article on Lou Rawls is a stub. Lou, thankfully, has his own website with a full biography. I'd assume that his own bio is authoritative and the Wikipeida article can be fleshed out thanks to his page.
If you just want a listing of the American presidents, it's there. If you want to know something about a dead religion it's there (I love comparative religios studies personally).
But let's not forget the real beauty... it's all released under the GNU FDL. This way, if you want to copy it word for word you can. I use this often on my wiki to put articles in quickly that provide people's backgrounds etc.... It's a nice, free, quick (wiki=quick) reference.
These factors is what kept me from getting a "TV Tuner" and decided on just a video/audio input system.
I'm quite happy with my VSTREAM "Xpert" DVD Maker USB 2.0. It's external, small, and supports resolutions up to 720x480. Sure, there is not a "tuner" but that is what my cable box, VCR and other things are for. Simply hook up a DVD player, PS2 or anything else that has A/V cables, even S-Video.
It's allowed me to copy VCR tapes (to XviD) and play console games on my PC. Since all it does is render the picture there isn't any extra work being done with the PC. Want closed captions? Turn that on at the VCR.
Let's me copy my camcorder movies, since their already on those tiny tapes it needs to be done anyway. In fact it's easy to put it onto a VCD or SVCD. It even comes with software to time-shift or set up timers to record shows at specific times. All that is left is to set the cable box to tune it at those times (easy on most cable boxes). If you don't have cable just put an antenna on the VCR and viola.
I'd like for there to be Linux support, but sadly there isn't. Of course it may just work, never tried... for the price though, you can't really beat it. The Windows software, while ugly, is pretty robust and if you don't like it just use VirtualDub (which is what I used to copy many camcorder recordings).
Puts the image on the screen and that is all I need.
My non-techy websites get about 7% Firefox, and about another 3% of Mozilla/Netscape 6/7 users. Is Firefox/Mozilla usage increasing? Yes, but it is not at 15%.
My political site gets hits from "weird" OS's but I don't think it's indicative of their rise in popularity:
OS/2 - 16 hits AmigaOS - 2 hits
Although "Mozilla" is the User-Agent over IE 2 to 1, but that is likely because I use Firefox and the stats program combines the two.
But I never test my site in IE. For god sakes, it can't do PNG right! (look at this PNG in Firefox, IE and an image viewer... which is right?) I don't care if I lose those viewers, Microsoft should follow standards and protocols. The End!
Slashdot Mirror
I hate spam, but that is why I don't post my e-mail all over the web and obfustcate it when I have to.
Sure, there must be a technological solution but it can't be owned by anyone.. and I need to be able to see the mail that is filtered.
The problem I see, and I've said this before here: If I have a Hotmail address do they have the right to toss out all of my mail that doesn't fit their filtering requirements?
If just one mail platform doesn't support this, all of those customers won't be able to send me mail. There are better ways of handling this, and I hope that if it is the "right" solution Microsoft just donates it to us all. That is the only way we will get widespread adaption. And widespread adaptation, no total, is the only way it will "take"
Lexmark was spun off of IBM, which is why many were sold under the IBM nameplate.
But still, I've got a bone to pick. Many people here are saying that Lexmark printers aren't "real" or "decent" printers, but why?
I often gaffed at people who owned Lexmark printers because I never had used one and I never had one myself. With my last computer I got a Lexmark for free and I let it sit in the box for a good month. I refused to hook it up.
But it works very, very well. It's an inkjet and after lots of bad experiences with HP and even Epson brand inkjets I'm convinced that that this one will stay on my desk. The ink is waterproof (dropped a piece of paper in the sink, you'd never know now), prints fast and yes... it's supported by Linux.
The trick with any printer under any operating system is knowning that most work the same. While there was no "driver" for my particular model it was easy to just test a few before finding the one that worked with mine (Z705). I think I tried a total of two before finding one that worked.
No matter. I find it silly to continue to support companies just because that is all you'll use. I was like this years ago when I thought that brand names were everything... but now that I've grown up a bit I've realized that performance is what matters.
Sure, I'll likely go with HP the first time I buy a laser printer but that all depends.
The Workboy had a keyboard, a database management system (?) and more. A Google search for "Workboy" and Gameboy returned like five results, two Slashdot...
Good description, picture won't load
"Retro Space", picture Translation
The first link says they are "rare" too bad, I still want one.
Conspiracy theories?
Well, no matter what about the Diebold machines out there that do malfunction...
Do you want your "eVote" machine to fall back into a Windows or Linux interface. (Us Slashdot'ers should boycott Diebold for their use of Windows, right?)
But seriously, there are plenty of non-profits out there that don't support either candidate that oppose electronic voting machines. I'm not sure of their slant, but look at Black Box Voting(.org) for a whole list of problems.
I'm no Luddite, but please let's not give the election away to anyone. Even if it's my candidate...
literally!
Quite literally indeed...
Yes, you are right: "each experience is personal" but what many books teach you is that the coping is what matters most.
You may realize that you are experiencing something similar to a novel you read; at that moment hopefully you will recall the novel and know what to do to cope with the experience.
See what I mean?
I'm tired so I may make 0 sense.
Bush Quote Today: "Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many O-B-G-Y-N's aren't able to practice their, their love with women all across this country."
Mind you I've haven't read Dickens since middle/high-school but I care.
It's not just the symbolism, it's the experience. I was watching some show on PBS and the host said something that I wish English teachers would have said to me. To paraphase; 'Reading a narrative is an exercise in building life experience. No one has written about that particular character at that place and time. Reading allows us to see the world through different eyes'
It makes perfect sense too. Whether it's Dickens or Dick (Philip K.) you are getting a point of view out of the book. Looking at it that way is much more rewarding. The host went on to say that reading lets you know that other people have had similar experiences and no experience is completely new.
Man, that would have helped in life. Not being a fan of fiction, I shunned most books that I was forced to read and never absorbed those experiences. Later in life I often wondered "why is this happening to me" or simply "I can't take this". I wish I would have read more as I was growing up and coming to maturity (Daniel Goleman says maturity ~ 15)
I think the reason that we were supposed to write those essays on Dickens and company were to share our view of the books, and to have us look deeper than the plot. Maybe I'm wrong, I usually am, and maybe I'm crazy... that has been proven.
My cheap ass RCA decodes them along with "SAP", that is spanish for most stations....
You can get cool stuff when you buy from crackheads. Everything is 40 bucks(... even DVD's for some reason)
I don't get it...
The sound made the lasers seem like they were going past my face...
Bad choice of words? I'm from Ohio so that might explain it.
I think a George Carlin quote (or two) is in order:
From Pedro Noguera's (Ph.D., professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley) paper: Preventing Violence in Schools Through the Production of Docile Bodies:
The best quote from this paper is:
It was easy to make my case that metal detectors, and such, are no solution to the problems we face. Seems that only the intelligentsia get this as it's lost on school faculty.
Simply send your documents to the other account, maybe even carbon-copy one to yourself.
Works great with Yahoo! mail, not so good with Hotmail. Hotmail seems to update/check for new mail every 5 hours... so no good.
School has Internet access (of course) so just log onto Gmail/Yahoo! mail and get your documents. Another valuable tool is Yahoo!'s "notepad" function... cut and pasted plenty of SQL code into it and saved it from week to week.
American flag?
I'm Canadian You Insensitive Clod!
(just kidding... but seriously what about non-Americans?)
I must admit that it was a bitch getting the thing to work under Mandrake 10 (but I'm using Mandrake, so shows what I know). Problem was picking the right driver/module to use and then realizing that I needed to update quite a few things (at the time I was using the Community release, not the Official... works in Official btw)
From the page linked to above:
Linux nForce Driver - IA32
Version: 1.0-0283
Release Date: August 13, 2004
Release Highlights for 1.0-0283:
Added support for Linux Installer
Added support for SoundStorm (Hardware Mixing supported)
Added support AC3 pass-through
Added support for Ethernet driver statistics and configuration information through procfs
Added support for 2.6 series kernels
Added a new audio application, NVIDIA NVMixer, to do Volume control per channel, input selection, Speaker selection, Speaker cloning, Swap mic to Center/Lfe & LineIn to Surround L/R
NVMixer is nice, both under Windows (XP) and linux. Under XP it allows you to go through their speaker wizard. Makes for easy downmixing, making my 4.1 speaker system sound like 5.1
The computer is an *ducks* eMachines T3025. Works great in the sound area. Just plug the "back" speakers into the line-in and the center/sub into the microphone (even without the Nvmixer application, check these option in Windows mixer's advanced section under master)
Like I said, I've got a Cambridge Soundworks (now creative) brand 4.1 speaker option that performs nicely. They are old but work like anything bought today. In fact with the NVMixer application you really don't need 5 speakers and a subwoofer. Just tell it you've only got 4 (or two) and it will figure out where to put the sound. Remember it all depends on the timing. When you think something is coming from a certain point it's because when it hits your ears. The mixer just delays certain sounds and works flawlessly.
Very rarely do people care about excellent sound quality, though video quality is almost always something people are picky about.
I agree. While I don't have the phat cash like many out there on the 'net I've got particular taste. For example, my receiver used for watching movies cost more than my tv and dvd player (almost combined). While it isn't a several thousand dollar stereo system it works damn good. The worst thing about watching a DVD at a buddies house is the sound. I could care less about the *look* of the movie because the sound is what brings it all together.
Case in point: Band of Brother (and Saving Private Ryan for that matter). Both had realistic sound for rifle fire. Bullets literally wizzed past your head, an effect only noticible with 5.1 (or better). If there isn't DTS or Dolby Digital, I don't care.
That is really what got me hooked on DVD movies in the first place. The first time I saw a Star Trek movie in the local electronics store, I knew that hearing laser fire go past my face was the coolest.
The desktop I'm sitting at now is a *ducks* eMachines (T3025). Now I've had these 4(.1) speakers for years (about 3) but no grip to get a 4 channel sound card. But since the mainboard (nForce) has 5.1 support I finally get to watch movies on my PC with a 5.1 experience. Nvidia has released their own sound mixer (NVMixer) which allows for downmixing, which gives me 5.1 through their speaker wizard. Simply tell it you've got x amount of speakers and it does the math (literally).
With FPS games sound is important because if someone is shooting at you 5.1 will let you know where it's coming from. Sure, it's simulated on my machine but it works well through sofware emulation. Nforce boards are cheap, and many people knock them... but they do put out great sound.
I was thinking the same thing.
Yahoo! for example allows you to rent games via their "Games on Demand" service... 3 bucks gets a game for 3 days, completely streamed to your PC.
But this is the same reason Microsoft killed Netscape, they were afraid that Netscape would become the interface for all new applications. I've already talked about this before on Slashdot, so I really don't feel like going into it all over again.
Simply: Microsoft is powerful because they provide the user-land. That is kernel+gui AFAIK. Netscape, with Java, plug-ins and javascript (Netscape's invention, not Sun's) was poised to provide what the next generation wanted: apps on demand.
Windows is dominant because it allows for middleware to be used without much work. If everything was going to open-standards based then all one would need was the browser (once that made it to your platform) and the OS (kernel) would be irrelevant.
It wasn't about the actual browser, it was about the future of applications. Openoffice.org should be a site which loads office applications into you browser, not a place to download it. If Microsoft wouldn't have started the browser war it would already be here.
Perfmon?
You've got to be kidding me...
Where is a complex mixer, system monitor, and other things
First I'll put my flame-proof suit on... but I regularly use XP for day to day stuff. I must admit that linux makes me more productive, but cheap hardware has kept me in windows most of the time (ironic isn't it? I like *nix windowing systems but it's the kernel of all things that keeps me coming back to Windows... well hardware support I guess. Backwards from what most people think).
Linux is a lot more friendly when it comes to "work" but who wants to work? Plus every app I use is open-source so I don't feel that guilty. Firefox, OpenOffice and others vindicate me I hope...
But on to the point. A "system monitor" is exactly what Windows needs. I've used some commercial ones but none quite match gKrellm (my fav) and the lack of a system monitor screen saver makes me angry. I'm someone who always want to have visuals on system usage, just because.
If I worked at Microsoft (or was a developer) I'd be working on this right away.
Applets is exactly what Windows needs. Well, the support for them.
While that comment is funny, my comment is 100% troll?
Actually you are rated "Insightful"
That is what I get about bitching about moderation.
My point was that I'm tired of hearing about lynx when it's mentioned in the *fine* article.
What nobody mentions is that the restrictions placed on the police don't apply equally to citizens.
What is an illegal search and seizure to the police maybe breaking and entering to a citizen... but if the trepasser sees something illegal they are within their rights to submit that information in court.
Even though you had no legal right to enter my property, it's still admissible information in court (that I have 200 lbs. of pharmaceutical quality cocaine in my living room). You'll just be testifying in a prison jump-suit...
My favorite was always with Tecmo Bowl (I) for the NES...
simply select a pass play and run all the way back to your 1 yard line and pass.. it was always caught for a touchdown.
Insightful? I hate to bitch about moderation but reading the article would let you know that it's already mentioned.
If possible, make this +5 Redundant because it's one of a million "lynx" comments...
Okay, my mistake.... I'll die now.
Authority? Sure, it's bound to have spam posted to it and honest mistakes, but who cares?
I love Wikipedia and have become an author there. But the true beauty is the fact that it is a wiki. If you are reading something about Hindu gods you can go through 20 articles, following the links, and get a really good understanding of the subject.
It's the coolest. The in-line links work for it. At the very least it can turn you on to topics that you'd never dream of being interested in. Then you go out and get a book on the subject, an authoritative one, and edit the mistakes.
It's being community supported isn't it's weakness, it is the strength of Wikipedia. If you put in that Pete Rose is from Seattle, someone who knows better will fix it. It will only get better by bringing in more experts. Plus, it isn't that hard to fact check these days.
For instance the article on Lou Rawls is a stub. Lou, thankfully, has his own website with a full biography. I'd assume that his own bio is authoritative and the Wikipeida article can be fleshed out thanks to his page.
If you just want a listing of the American presidents, it's there. If you want to know something about a dead religion it's there (I love comparative religios studies personally).
But let's not forget the real beauty... it's all released under the GNU FDL. This way, if you want to copy it word for word you can. I use this often on my wiki to put articles in quickly that provide people's backgrounds etc.... It's a nice, free, quick (wiki=quick) reference.
These factors is what kept me from getting a "TV Tuner" and decided on just a video/audio input system.
I'm quite happy with my VSTREAM "Xpert" DVD Maker USB 2.0. It's external, small, and supports resolutions up to 720x480. Sure, there is not a "tuner" but that is what my cable box, VCR and other things are for. Simply hook up a DVD player, PS2 or anything else that has A/V cables, even S-Video.
It's allowed me to copy VCR tapes (to XviD) and play console games on my PC. Since all it does is render the picture there isn't any extra work being done with the PC. Want closed captions? Turn that on at the VCR.
Let's me copy my camcorder movies, since their already on those tiny tapes it needs to be done anyway. In fact it's easy to put it onto a VCD or SVCD. It even comes with software to time-shift or set up timers to record shows at specific times. All that is left is to set the cable box to tune it at those times (easy on most cable boxes). If you don't have cable just put an antenna on the VCR and viola.
I'd like for there to be Linux support, but sadly there isn't. Of course it may just work, never tried... for the price though, you can't really beat it. The Windows software, while ugly, is pretty robust and if you don't like it just use VirtualDub (which is what I used to copy many camcorder recordings).
Puts the image on the screen and that is all I need.
My non-techy websites get about 7% Firefox, and about another 3% of Mozilla/Netscape 6/7 users. Is Firefox/Mozilla usage increasing? Yes, but it is not at 15%.
My political site gets hits from "weird" OS's but I don't think it's indicative of their rise in popularity:
OS/2 - 16 hits
AmigaOS - 2 hits
Although "Mozilla" is the User-Agent over IE 2 to 1, but that is likely because I use Firefox and the stats program combines the two.
But I never test my site in IE. For god sakes, it can't do PNG right! (look at this PNG in Firefox, IE and an image viewer... which is right?) I don't care if I lose those viewers, Microsoft should follow standards and protocols. The End!