Your cell phone carrier is offloading the charges to pass that call through to another carrier. Think of it as a private highway intersecting to another private highway. You paid tolls to get on one, but what does that have to do wit passing through to another highway
But, again, my ISP for internet access has to do that as well. International internet access costs me the same as visiting my ISPs website.
As an alternative, they could be doing transparent web proxying in order to reduce their traffic load, and they could have a super crappy/overloaded proxy.
But I only notice it with Google searches. I suspect that I'm waiting for a database write. And like I said, I can load multiple pages before my 0.1-0.2 second Google search to return.
I'll sniff my network connection and see if anything looks funny. Thanks for the tip. Never thought I would have to spy on my ISP to see if they are spying on me:)
Explain to me why my cell phone company bills me by the minute then?
I do not understand why in the world local phone calls cost as much or more than international 24x7 internet access. Doubly so when one considers that the same people provide the lines and service.
I'm confused as well. For example, what does this mean? " Net neutrality by some, inasmuch as it not only outlaws service degradation, but would also prevent service providers from selling Quality of Service (QoS) to consumers."
So, is my upload and download speed now uncapped?
Is it illegal for my work to use QoS?
I have cable broadband (Cox), and I believe bittorents are QoSed, but I have no proof of it. I also believe that my ISP is spying on my Google searches. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but at work all google searches are instantaneous. I just did one, and the page basically came back as soon as I hit return, and it was a "slow" search by Google standards -- 0.44 seconds.
I've had many searches with Cox broadband where it takes 30-40 or so seconds for a Google search to display, yet the Google search time on the left is often 0.2 or so seconds. While waiting for the Google search to display, I can reload a page like slashdot and it displays before my Google search.
Alright, we are now officially playing armchair lawyer:)
FWI, you can't be found guilty of any of these things unless the other party proves they were somehow harmed by the slander or liable speech. If they can't prove it, you can still say it, even though its not true.
Actually, regarding things like defamation of character, liable, slander, etc, those are almost 100% civil, not criminal things and proof does not play in the civil court arena. In a criminal case with a jury trial, the government has to "prove" to the jury "beyond reasonable doubt" that said crime did happen by said person. The burden of proof is entirely on the state. In a civil case, there is no guilt or innocence verdict. It is not black and white, the defendant is found liable or not liable, and there are degrees of said liability which usually is translated into a payment of money. The infamous OJ trial where OJ was found "not guilty" in the criminal case, and he should have. Even though I believe and most everyone else believes he was guilty. OJ was later found pretty damn liable in a civil case where he was sued by the families of the victims, and OJ was found liable for "wrongful death".
I believe most conspircy laws state that you must go beyond talking; you actually have to take some step to executing your conspircy.
But the "steps" are usually plans, which are all in the realm of "speech". Conspiracy to commit murder and murder are two completely different animals. You can be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder without killing anybody. Something like giving a few grand to an undercover cop under the premise that he will kill somebody for you will usually do the trick.
FWIW, it shouldn't be the act of yelling fire that should be illegal; causing panic, wasting emergency responders' time, etc. is what should be illegal.
I don't like the yelling fire issue. I think its completely silly, and its only there for pretty dumb people to think a little.
So i could publicly accuse my hypothetical school of anything online?
No. The limits set in law in this country limit free speech all the time. These limits come when truth are not being spoken about. Slander, liable speech, defamation of character, conspiracy, all of these things are illegal, and yet they are merely "speech". Same goes for the infamous desire to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire!
Granted, there are laws about compulsory attendance of school, but those laws are typically for those between the age of 7 and 16, so at 17 he is clear of that. I don't know what this kids ambitions are, but if he was not planning to go beyond highschool, its a known fact that he will make more money than his classmates that don't go beyond a hs education if he starts working now instead of wasting his time in highschool.
I think everyone should be able to put together a system from hardware and install an operating system.
Bullshit.
Everyone should not be able to put together a house or car or a medical practice, why a computer?
I'm a sysadmin, and I'm pretty damn good, and I don't know how to put together a system from hardware and install an operating system on my SMC wireless router without prior research. Why should any person have to do such a thing for a computer?
Almost nobody puts together phone networks, VCRs, DVD players, TVs, DVRs, answering machines, or any of that.
Its complete vanity to expect everybody to do such a thing.
People have been using hierarchical paper files for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's a basic organizational system, and is a minimum for working sanely with large numbers of files.
Yes, I completely agree. Not necessarily hierarchical though. Lets say I own a doctors office. The patient files are not hierarchically above the payroll files or the inventory files. But they all are discrete and need to be organized by some human decipherable means. Type and date for inventory. Name for patient and payroll files. That kind of stuff.
However, most people simply are not that complex or organized. Even though I don't balance my checkbook, I have my bank do it for me with online banking. Many people pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year that they don't have because they cannot keep their bank book in order. These same people either now own a computer or at least people like them will.
OS X has this file separation pretty clear, and the best of any OS that I know of. The finder in OS X has a left hand side that has a separated list of local and networked drives, then a list of common folders with no hierarchy to them what so ever. There is desktop. Your user directory, or $HOME directory in UNIX speak, the Applications folder (which you do not have write access to unless you are an admin), Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures. I'm a "power user" and I added a "dl" folder by DNDing it to the left. "dl" is where I download files from the web.
Even when I click on the internal system disk that is labeled "Macintosh HD" not "C:", it "lies" to me about what is there. It lists Applications, Developer, Documents, Library, System, and Users. It does not show things like/usr/sbin/opt//Volumes/cores, and other things that a normal user has no business even knowing about. Also as a normal user, even if they were to stumble across them, they would not have write access to them.
Now, compare this to what is given to a typical Windows or Linux user. Those systems proudly show you things that you have write access to and have no business even looking at them unless "you know what you are doing".
Now, is it "technically" more correct to do it the Windows or Linux way? Absolutely, its honest upfront, and the stuff there is important for the computer. But 99.9% of the stuff that is not important to 99.9% of the people that use computers. Its also a damn good thing to protect that data from corruption and being overwritten by filesystem permissions.
Quite a rant about the state of pharmaceuticals... have you considered breaking out Occam's razor? Perhaps you're original diagnosis was wrong and you've been fine all this time? That would explain why the meds made you worse and also explain why something as simple as diet modification worked.
The original diagnosis was/is accurate for what I had. Bipolar disorder or manic depression. According to the literature on the disorder, there are stages of both the mania and depression. I have gone into what is called "manic psychosis" which is about 11 on a 1-10 scale of mania.
I have been prone to depression since I was a child. Now I take a variety of natural things that have almost instantly gotten rid of my symptoms, and I am much healthier than I have been in over 20 years. I can't say that this change will last, but from what I've read, the odds are very good. The _ONLY_ people I have read that have been cured of their conditions like mine have done what I have done. I'm talking about people that were up to taking 8 meds at one time to zero in 4 months, with no remission.
Personally, I blame our poor food for my early onset of the disorder, and the prevalence of "mental illness" in the US. I simply do not believe that with such a diverse gene pool here in the US, that genetics are failing and making people ill. Sure there are some societal aspects of it, but I believe its primarily food. I could be wrong, I just started researching about food. Never thought I needed to do such a thing.
Another anecdotal piece of change in my life, is that I have acquired more "friends" here on slashdot, and my posts get moderated higher than normal. Shit, I actually want to live again.
Oh, man, I hope you weren't counting on that one going away.
It already did. All of the bad side affects have gone away that I listed.
The drug in question was Zyprexa, an "atypical" anti-psychotic/mood stabilizer. Sure, it knocked me out at night, but the next day I looked like a good psych patient with dark, zombified eyes, and the obsessive song repeating was more focused in the mornings. It completely went away after I stopped taking the drug. Thanks doc! Another side affect is that it causes weight gain, and I've heard of one guy that had the problem of being schizophrenic, took this to help him out, and the bonus points came when the poor guy developed breasts!
I've seen decent looking girls that were amateur models go from cute to nasty, fat, zit-filled, zombies from this drug.
Oh, FWIW, the song that got me the most was that silly No Doubt, "Underneath it all" song. In fact, it was only two lines from the chorus "You're really lovely, Underneath it all", which I just learned what it says. I thought it was "You really love me, underneath it all". Those two lines would repeat over and over again in Gwen's voice. I mean, over and over again. Its an OK song, but over and over again. You get the point?
Let me tell you, these doctors are more psychotic than any of their patients.
Beta 2 is a good looking operating system with a number of new features, which will be familiar to you if you've played with recent versions of Apple's OS X.
Woops.
Now for the down and dirty:
A streamlined Start menu.
This has been needed for over 10 years.
Instant Search in every Explorer window.
This is a needed feature as well. Lets hope the UI is clean and it works well.
Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document.
OK. Any multi-user OS has done this for over 30 years. Even Microsoft ones.
Windows Sidebar puts frequently used information and tasks right on the desktop. This feature will remind OS X users of that system's Dashboard feature.
OK. I don't like OS X's dashboard, nor do I care for this kind of thing either taking up screen space. Dashboard takes up 0 screen space because it is a user initiated overlay on the screen.
Its pretty much a fact based on years of computer use by millions of people that they _DON'T_ want large things taking up real estate on their screens. If they did, there would be an example of one. Even stock tickers and stuff like that are squirreled away at the bottom of the screen or something so that other stuff can be visible. The only exception is for a basic, single purpose computer where the interface for that single purpose takes up most or all of the real estate on the computer screen.
Network Explorer puts all network connections -- like printers, other computers, and devices - into one centralized location.
Organization is nice.
Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from one place.
Sounds good so long as it works as advertised.
Tablet PC functionality is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista.
OK. I guess thats an extra bonus if you have a tablet PC, eh?
Windows Media Center 11, also standard in Vista, includes live and recorded television, music, photos and videos.
OK. Again, only good if it works as advertised.
Improved Windows Media Player.
OK.
New power management features for mobile computers to optimize battery performance.
OK.
Windows Defender regularly scans and removes spyware and other unwanted software.
Huh? Spyware and unwanted software does not come with Macs, Suns, Linux, *BSD, etc.. This must be a unique feature of Windows. This is the first piece of innovation I have heard of from the company. I bet the others will be soon to follow.
Classic Windows games, as well as several new ones.
Hearts and solitaire, and more!
Vista might be the beginning of the end for Microsoft in the OS realm.
To make matters worse, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Firefox (and anything that uses the standard file dialog common controls, as those embed Explorer) don't much care whether you use / or \. Try it out. Open up the run box and type "c:/program files". It works. Open up IE or Firefox and type "http:\\slashdot.org". That also works. so yes, you can interchange / with \ more or less indiscriminately
Microsoft has subtly screwed us on the whole forward/backward slash thing.
Forward and backward slashes are _almost_ interchangeable in Visual Studio, even with #includes and fopen() type calls.
To screw over the people even more, I just learned that in Windows XP, you have to precede a network printer with "http://". Yes, the printer does have an embedded web server, but you use that to configure the device, not print to it. And to make it even more clear to the now confused user, when you use File::Print from the menu, it shows the printer now as "\\http://printer.example.com". WTF?
Honestly, one of the ways to get people to be computer literate is for them to use consistent software that does not engage you in a game to alter your behavior in order for you to outthink the software in order to get your desired goal to happen. If that sentence makes any sense to you, then keep reading.
Products like Word that go behind your back and reformat things are a step backwards for computer literacy. Would you ever work with someone or even talk with them if they came behind you and corrected everything you did as you were doing it? Why should software do this?
If you want computer literacy, start at the command line. Its tough nowadays, but that is where consistency ends, and even it has some inconsistencies. Then go to the Mac UI. Do NOT introduce Microsoft products in the mix. I know that most people here are Microsoft sympathizers, but all in all they really make horrible software. Especially from the end user point of view.
And many people in the middle ages died because they couldn't wait 500 years for anti biotics to be invented. So fscking what?
Westerners have an irrational fascination with these new drugs and yes, they do prolong life, but quality of life is most of the time in no way shape or form improved. I've seen family members whose bodies have basically failed, but the doctors have kept them physically alive for another couple of years, for nothing, at the cost of between $10,000-100,000 a piece.
I've been a victim of the FDA approved drug bullshit for almost 20 years, and now that I realize that the drugs made me worse over the years, which has been supported by medical studies, I'm off of the drugs, and at least for now, I'm fine, and I feel healthier than I have in over 20 years since before I started taking these things.
I will give western medicine 4 things. 1) Improved success in living for mothers and children during child birth. 2) Physical repair of broken things like hips and joints. 3) Improved quality and longevity of life because of antibiotics. 4) Immunizations for nasty things.
I'm sure that someone will add to the list, and I did not come up with that list via hard hours of research, its just one I've put together over the past few months of thinking about the stuff.
I was labeled as being mentally ill when I was 18, and have taken between 8-10 different maintenance drugs to help me "manage" my condition. Well, between 6-8 of those drugs are documented for making me worse, which is what I said word for word the last time I saw my doctor. So, he gave me another handful of drugs, that I never took and I threw in the trash. I have altered my diet, and am taking quality (read, not Centrum or anything like that) vitamins, herbs, and supplements, and I'm essentially symptom free, and I have had friends and coworkers comment on how much better I seem.
The drugs that were given to me gave me 1) Chronic diarrhea for over 18 months 2) Headaches 3) Vertigo to the point of almost getting in serious car accidents twice. 4) Depression, anxiety, confusion, and mania (what the drugs were supposed to treat) 5) Obsessive thoughts, usually in the form of a cheesy pop song that I could not get one line out of my head. 5) Daily dry heaves. 6) Paranoia 7) Generally a lower state of cognition and well being.
Oh, and if you think all of those things don't affect your personal and professional life, well, in my case they did.
The trend here is for the pharmaceutical companies to make "maintenance medications", not a cure or something that will drastically increase the speed of recovery and then forgo taking the drug. I strongly recommend that nobody take a drug that is prescribed by a doctor that has no time frame for when you are to stop taking the drug. At least, do plenty of research, and get second and third opinions before taking any maintenance drug.
Another thing to look into, is what you are eating. Most of the food in this country is either void of nutrients or has additives or pollutants in it or comes from unhealthy, uncared for animals. This is for another discussion.
Um, the 1990's called, they want their business model back!
Oh, and this is started by the guy who built the @Home network. This is the same guy that had a pretty much monopoly on high-speed, almost nationwide coverage, that everybody wanted, but just couldn't seem to make any cash off of it.
- You won't pay $500 for a bogus/counterfeit ticket.
Real tickets from ticketmaster are printed on thermal paper, so a slight application of a cigarette cherry will turn it black and you're good.
Also, its customary at the shows I go to for the price to be face value, and not $500.
- You won't have to wait 3 days in line for front row tickets.
I haven't done that in almost 20 years. The easiest way to get tickets today for a quick to sellout show is via the phone. All ticketmasters start selling at the same time, so find the phone number of a place on the other side of the country and order the tickets from there. A roomful of people with cellphones can parallel process the event and you will get your tickets within an hour or so.
I pretty much always get into any show I want at the going rate or less.
Not running as admin should have been eliminated back when multiple users were first introduced with NT.
But hey, from what I hear this new Vista OS will have new features like using config files instead of the registry, shell scripting, regular updates to keep the thing working via a paid subscription, and other nifty new things.
What's next? A web browser that is not integrated with the entire operating system?
Given the generally awful text input systems on mobile devices, why create a TLD that is four characters long? It's still easier to type.com!
All this new TLD stuff is stupid. The only decent proposal that they won't adopt is.XXX.
Why do we need yet another TLD that needs to be registered and maintained when we can today go to mobi.slashdot.org and get a slightly different page? Why can't we just use CSS's @media handheld?
The problem is that a _company_ did the bad thing, not a "person". Can't put a company in prison, now can you?
Now, you can fine a company. I don't remember who, but if I remember correctly, a second company, not Sony, actually wrote and packaged the rootkit for Sony, and Sony was only wrong in that they did business with said company. We all know it was an innocent mistake, right?
The thing is that I don't hear anything about the company that created the thing, and what has been done to them, and what kind of precedent has been set if some other company tries to do the same thing.
Yes, I believe the parent comment "The best antivirus protection is not to be exposed to viruses." is true, and that is why I suggested Linux and FreeBSD first because they are free anti-virus choices. I offered OS X, but that was not free, and I mentioned that as well.
I see no reason to use "anti-virus" software per se. Its a temporary fix, just like putting fingers in the dike.
Slashdot Mirror
Name some other source of comparable entertainment (non-console) that costs less than that. Drugs? Hookers? Gambling? Booze?
Chess, checkers, needlepoint, cross-stitch, plenty of things.
However, I don't do any of those things, and I will probably buy a PS3.
Your cell phone carrier is offloading the charges to pass that call through to another carrier. Think of it as a private highway intersecting to another private highway. You paid tolls to get on one, but what does that have to do wit passing through to another highway
But, again, my ISP for internet access has to do that as well. International internet access costs me the same as visiting my ISPs website.
As an alternative, they could be doing transparent web proxying in order to reduce their traffic load, and they could have a super crappy/overloaded proxy.
:)
But I only notice it with Google searches. I suspect that I'm waiting for a database write. And like I said, I can load multiple pages before my 0.1-0.2 second Google search to return.
I'll sniff my network connection and see if anything looks funny. Thanks for the tip. Never thought I would have to spy on my ISP to see if they are spying on me
Your pay per byte scheme will never fly.
Explain to me why my cell phone company bills me by the minute then?
I do not understand why in the world local phone calls cost as much or more than international 24x7 internet access. Doubly so when one considers that the same people provide the lines and service.
I'm confused as well. For example, what does this mean? " Net neutrality by some, inasmuch as it not only outlaws service degradation, but would also prevent service providers from selling Quality of Service (QoS) to consumers."
So, is my upload and download speed now uncapped?
Is it illegal for my work to use QoS?
I have cable broadband (Cox), and I believe bittorents are QoSed, but I have no proof of it. I also believe that my ISP is spying on my Google searches. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but at work all google searches are instantaneous. I just did one, and the page basically came back as soon as I hit return, and it was a "slow" search by Google standards -- 0.44 seconds.
I've had many searches with Cox broadband where it takes 30-40 or so seconds for a Google search to display, yet the Google search time on the left is often 0.2 or so seconds. While waiting for the Google search to display, I can reload a page like slashdot and it displays before my Google search.
Should I get a new tin hat?
Alright, we are now officially playing armchair lawyer
FWI, you can't be found guilty of any of these things unless the other party proves they were somehow harmed by the slander or liable speech. If they can't prove it, you can still say it, even though its not true.
Actually, regarding things like defamation of character, liable, slander, etc, those are almost 100% civil, not criminal things and proof does not play in the civil court arena. In a criminal case with a jury trial, the government has to "prove" to the jury "beyond reasonable doubt" that said crime did happen by said person. The burden of proof is entirely on the state. In a civil case, there is no guilt or innocence verdict. It is not black and white, the defendant is found liable or not liable, and there are degrees of said liability which usually is translated into a payment of money. The infamous OJ trial where OJ was found "not guilty" in the criminal case, and he should have. Even though I believe and most everyone else believes he was guilty. OJ was later found pretty damn liable in a civil case where he was sued by the families of the victims, and OJ was found liable for "wrongful death".
I believe most conspircy laws state that you must go beyond talking; you actually have to take some step to executing your conspircy.
But the "steps" are usually plans, which are all in the realm of "speech". Conspiracy to commit murder and murder are two completely different animals. You can be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder without killing anybody. Something like giving a few grand to an undercover cop under the premise that he will kill somebody for you will usually do the trick.
FWIW, it shouldn't be the act of yelling fire that should be illegal; causing panic, wasting emergency responders' time, etc. is what should be illegal.
I don't like the yelling fire issue. I think its completely silly, and its only there for pretty dumb people to think a little.
So i could publicly accuse my hypothetical school of anything online?
No. The limits set in law in this country limit free speech all the time. These limits come when truth are not being spoken about. Slander, liable speech, defamation of character, conspiracy, all of these things are illegal, and yet they are merely "speech". Same goes for the infamous desire to yell fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire!
Granted, there are laws about compulsory attendance of school, but those laws are typically for those between the age of 7 and 16, so at 17 he is clear of that. I don't know what this kids ambitions are, but if he was not planning to go beyond highschool, its a known fact that he will make more money than his classmates that don't go beyond a hs education if he starts working now instead of wasting his time in highschool.
Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld?
Cheney you fucking moron.
I think everyone should be able to put together a system from hardware and install an operating system.
Bullshit.
Everyone should not be able to put together a house or car or a medical practice, why a computer?
I'm a sysadmin, and I'm pretty damn good, and I don't know how to put together a system from hardware and install an operating system on my SMC wireless router without prior research. Why should any person have to do such a thing for a computer?
Almost nobody puts together phone networks, VCRs, DVD players, TVs, DVRs, answering machines, or any of that.
Its complete vanity to expect everybody to do such a thing.
People have been using hierarchical paper files for hundreds if not thousands of years. It's a basic organizational system, and is a minimum for working sanely with large numbers of files.
/usr /sbin /opt/ /Volumes /cores, and other things that a normal user has no business even knowing about. Also as a normal user, even if they were to stumble across them, they would not have write access to them.
Yes, I completely agree. Not necessarily hierarchical though. Lets say I own a doctors office. The patient files are not hierarchically above the payroll files or the inventory files. But they all are discrete and need to be organized by some human decipherable means. Type and date for inventory. Name for patient and payroll files. That kind of stuff.
However, most people simply are not that complex or organized. Even though I don't balance my checkbook, I have my bank do it for me with online banking. Many people pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year that they don't have because they cannot keep their bank book in order. These same people either now own a computer or at least people like them will.
OS X has this file separation pretty clear, and the best of any OS that I know of. The finder in OS X has a left hand side that has a separated list of local and networked drives, then a list of common folders with no hierarchy to them what so ever. There is desktop. Your user directory, or $HOME directory in UNIX speak, the Applications folder (which you do not have write access to unless you are an admin), Documents, Movies, Music, and Pictures. I'm a "power user" and I added a "dl" folder by DNDing it to the left. "dl" is where I download files from the web.
Even when I click on the internal system disk that is labeled "Macintosh HD" not "C:", it "lies" to me about what is there. It lists Applications, Developer, Documents, Library, System, and Users. It does not show things like
Now, compare this to what is given to a typical Windows or Linux user. Those systems proudly show you things that you have write access to and have no business even looking at them unless "you know what you are doing".
Now, is it "technically" more correct to do it the Windows or Linux way? Absolutely, its honest upfront, and the stuff there is important for the computer. But 99.9% of the stuff that is not important to 99.9% of the people that use computers. Its also a damn good thing to protect that data from corruption and being overwritten by filesystem permissions.
None of this is important.
Stoner also designed the gun so that the...
I can't tell if its a good thing or a bad thing to have a gun designed by a Stoner.
Quite a rant about the state of pharmaceuticals... have you considered breaking out Occam's razor? Perhaps you're original diagnosis was wrong and you've been fine all this time? That would explain why the meds made you worse and also explain why something as simple as diet modification worked.
The original diagnosis was/is accurate for what I had. Bipolar disorder or manic depression. According to the literature on the disorder, there are stages of both the mania and depression. I have gone into what is called "manic psychosis" which is about 11 on a 1-10 scale of mania.
I have been prone to depression since I was a child. Now I take a variety of natural things that have almost instantly gotten rid of my symptoms, and I am much healthier than I have been in over 20 years. I can't say that this change will last, but from what I've read, the odds are very good. The _ONLY_ people I have read that have been cured of their conditions like mine have done what I have done. I'm talking about people that were up to taking 8 meds at one time to zero in 4 months, with no remission.
Personally, I blame our poor food for my early onset of the disorder, and the prevalence of "mental illness" in the US. I simply do not believe that with such a diverse gene pool here in the US, that genetics are failing and making people ill. Sure there are some societal aspects of it, but I believe its primarily food. I could be wrong, I just started researching about food. Never thought I needed to do such a thing.
Another anecdotal piece of change in my life, is that I have acquired more "friends" here on slashdot, and my posts get moderated higher than normal. Shit, I actually want to live again.
Oh, man, I hope you weren't counting on that one going away.
It already did. All of the bad side affects have gone away that I listed.
The drug in question was Zyprexa, an "atypical" anti-psychotic/mood stabilizer. Sure, it knocked me out at night, but the next day I looked like a good psych patient with dark, zombified eyes, and the obsessive song repeating was more focused in the mornings. It completely went away after I stopped taking the drug. Thanks doc! Another side affect is that it causes weight gain, and I've heard of one guy that had the problem of being schizophrenic, took this to help him out, and the bonus points came when the poor guy developed breasts!
I've seen decent looking girls that were amateur models go from cute to nasty, fat, zit-filled, zombies from this drug.
Oh, FWIW, the song that got me the most was that silly No Doubt, "Underneath it all" song. In fact, it was only two lines from the chorus "You're really lovely, Underneath it all", which I just learned what it says. I thought it was "You really love me, underneath it all". Those two lines would repeat over and over again in Gwen's voice. I mean, over and over again. Its an OK song, but over and over again. You get the point?
Let me tell you, these doctors are more psychotic than any of their patients.
Beta 2 is a good looking operating system with a number of new features, which will be familiar to you if you've played with recent versions of Apple's OS X.
Woops.
Now for the down and dirty:
A streamlined Start menu.
This has been needed for over 10 years.
Instant Search in every Explorer window.
This is a needed feature as well. Lets hope the UI is clean and it works well.
Search Pane lets you organize information by author, date, or type of document.
OK. Any multi-user OS has done this for over 30 years. Even Microsoft ones.
Windows Sidebar puts frequently used information and tasks right on the desktop. This feature will remind OS X users of that system's Dashboard feature.
OK. I don't like OS X's dashboard, nor do I care for this kind of thing either taking up screen space. Dashboard takes up 0 screen space because it is a user initiated overlay on the screen.
Its pretty much a fact based on years of computer use by millions of people that they _DON'T_ want large things taking up real estate on their screens. If they did, there would be an example of one. Even stock tickers and stuff like that are squirreled away at the bottom of the screen or something so that other stuff can be visible. The only exception is for a basic, single purpose computer where the interface for that single purpose takes up most or all of the real estate on the computer screen.
Network Explorer puts all network connections -- like printers, other computers, and devices - into one centralized location.
Organization is nice.
Sync Center helps users manage all their devices from one place.
Sounds good so long as it works as advertised.
Tablet PC functionality is integrated into most versions of Windows Vista.
OK. I guess thats an extra bonus if you have a tablet PC, eh?
Windows Media Center 11, also standard in Vista, includes live and recorded television, music, photos and videos.
OK. Again, only good if it works as advertised.
Improved Windows Media Player.
OK.
New power management features for mobile computers to optimize battery performance.
OK.
Windows Defender regularly scans and removes spyware and other unwanted software.
Huh? Spyware and unwanted software does not come with Macs, Suns, Linux, *BSD, etc.. This must be a unique feature of Windows. This is the first piece of innovation I have heard of from the company. I bet the others will be soon to follow.
Classic Windows games, as well as several new ones.
Hearts and solitaire, and more!
Vista might be the beginning of the end for Microsoft in the OS realm.
To make matters worse, Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, and Firefox (and anything that uses the standard file dialog common controls, as those embed Explorer) don't much care whether you use / or \. Try it out. Open up the run box and type "c:/program files". It works. Open up IE or Firefox and type "http:\\slashdot.org". That also works. so yes, you can interchange / with \ more or less indiscriminately
l t.mspx. Now try that on a UNIX web server.
Microsoft has subtly screwed us on the whole forward/backward slash thing.
Check out this URL: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/\/\/\/\/\/\defau
Forward and backward slashes are _almost_ interchangeable in Visual Studio, even with #includes and fopen() type calls.
To screw over the people even more, I just learned that in Windows XP, you have to precede a network printer with "http://". Yes, the printer does have an embedded web server, but you use that to configure the device, not print to it. And to make it even more clear to the now confused user, when you use File::Print from the menu, it shows the printer now as "\\http://printer.example.com". WTF?
Honestly, one of the ways to get people to be computer literate is for them to use consistent software that does not engage you in a game to alter your behavior in order for you to outthink the software in order to get your desired goal to happen. If that sentence makes any sense to you, then keep reading.
Products like Word that go behind your back and reformat things are a step backwards for computer literacy. Would you ever work with someone or even talk with them if they came behind you and corrected everything you did as you were doing it? Why should software do this?
If you want computer literacy, start at the command line. Its tough nowadays, but that is where consistency ends, and even it has some inconsistencies. Then go to the Mac UI. Do NOT introduce Microsoft products in the mix. I know that most people here are Microsoft sympathizers, but all in all they really make horrible software. Especially from the end user point of view.
6. If something you need to do on a frequent basis seems more difficult than it should be, then there is an easier, simpler way to do it.
People have the irrational belief that computers are inflexible, but its the users that are inflexible.
And many people in the middle ages died because they couldn't wait 500 years for anti biotics to be invented. So fscking what?
Westerners have an irrational fascination with these new drugs and yes, they do prolong life, but quality of life is most of the time in no way shape or form improved. I've seen family members whose bodies have basically failed, but the doctors have kept them physically alive for another couple of years, for nothing, at the cost of between $10,000-100,000 a piece.
I've been a victim of the FDA approved drug bullshit for almost 20 years, and now that I realize that the drugs made me worse over the years, which has been supported by medical studies, I'm off of the drugs, and at least for now, I'm fine, and I feel healthier than I have in over 20 years since before I started taking these things.
I will give western medicine 4 things. 1) Improved success in living for mothers and children during child birth. 2) Physical repair of broken things like hips and joints. 3) Improved quality and longevity of life because of antibiotics. 4) Immunizations for nasty things.
I'm sure that someone will add to the list, and I did not come up with that list via hard hours of research, its just one I've put together over the past few months of thinking about the stuff.
I was labeled as being mentally ill when I was 18, and have taken between 8-10 different maintenance drugs to help me "manage" my condition. Well, between 6-8 of those drugs are documented for making me worse, which is what I said word for word the last time I saw my doctor. So, he gave me another handful of drugs, that I never took and I threw in the trash. I have altered my diet, and am taking quality (read, not Centrum or anything like that) vitamins, herbs, and supplements, and I'm essentially symptom free, and I have had friends and coworkers comment on how much better I seem.
The drugs that were given to me gave me 1) Chronic diarrhea for over 18 months 2) Headaches 3) Vertigo to the point of almost getting in serious car accidents twice. 4) Depression, anxiety, confusion, and mania (what the drugs were supposed to treat) 5) Obsessive thoughts, usually in the form of a cheesy pop song that I could not get one line out of my head. 5) Daily dry heaves. 6) Paranoia 7) Generally a lower state of cognition and well being.
Oh, and if you think all of those things don't affect your personal and professional life, well, in my case they did.
The trend here is for the pharmaceutical companies to make "maintenance medications", not a cure or something that will drastically increase the speed of recovery and then forgo taking the drug. I strongly recommend that nobody take a drug that is prescribed by a doctor that has no time frame for when you are to stop taking the drug. At least, do plenty of research, and get second and third opinions before taking any maintenance drug.
Another thing to look into, is what you are eating. Most of the food in this country is either void of nutrients or has additives or pollutants in it or comes from unhealthy, uncared for animals. This is for another discussion.
Um, the 1990's called, they want their business model back!
Oh, and this is started by the guy who built the @Home network. This is the same guy that had a pretty much monopoly on high-speed, almost nationwide coverage, that everybody wanted, but just couldn't seem to make any cash off of it.
I want the 90s back!
- You won't pay $500 for a bogus/counterfeit ticket.
Real tickets from ticketmaster are printed on thermal paper, so a slight application of a cigarette cherry will turn it black and you're good.
Also, its customary at the shows I go to for the price to be face value, and not $500.
- You won't have to wait 3 days in line for front row tickets.
I haven't done that in almost 20 years. The easiest way to get tickets today for a quick to sellout show is via the phone. All ticketmasters start selling at the same time, so find the phone number of a place on the other side of the country and order the tickets from there. A roomful of people with cellphones can parallel process the event and you will get your tickets within an hour or so.
I pretty much always get into any show I want at the going rate or less.
Scientific evidence is overwhelming. And we need to do something about it.
Eat more chicken!
Here's a partial list of programs that require admin rights to run (not merely install):
/ HallOfShame.html
Here is a more complete list: http://www.pluralsite.com/wiki/default.aspx/Keith
Not running as admin should have been eliminated back when multiple users were first introduced with NT.
But hey, from what I hear this new Vista OS will have new features like using config files instead of the registry, shell scripting, regular updates to keep the thing working via a paid subscription, and other nifty new things.
What's next? A web browser that is not integrated with the entire operating system?
Given the generally awful text input systems on mobile devices, why create a TLD that is four characters long? It's still easier to type .com!
.XXX.
All this new TLD stuff is stupid. The only decent proposal that they won't adopt is
Why do we need yet another TLD that needs to be registered and maintained when we can today go to mobi.slashdot.org and get a slightly different page? Why can't we just use CSS's @media handheld?
This is a poor solution to a nonexistent problem.
Someone should be incarcerated over this.
The problem is that a _company_ did the bad thing, not a "person". Can't put a company in prison, now can you?
Now, you can fine a company. I don't remember who, but if I remember correctly, a second company, not Sony, actually wrote and packaged the rootkit for Sony, and Sony was only wrong in that they did business with said company. We all know it was an innocent mistake, right?
The thing is that I don't hear anything about the company that created the thing, and what has been done to them, and what kind of precedent has been set if some other company tries to do the same thing.
That is what I want to know.
So, the parent post now has 60% insightful mods and 40% offtopic mods.
My post saying the same thing gets offtopic and troll moderations:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186347&ci
Yes, I believe the parent comment "The best antivirus protection is not to be exposed to viruses." is true, and that is why I suggested Linux and FreeBSD first because they are free anti-virus choices. I offered OS X, but that was not free, and I mentioned that as well.
I see no reason to use "anti-virus" software per se. Its a temporary fix, just like putting fingers in the dike.
You might want to clarify that statement. "The government" does not make these standards for private high schools.
Untrue. Granted that it is up to each state for the requirements, and not the federal government (AFAIK).