Besides, it's so much safer, cheaper, and easier to get a desperate bum to do it for you, and they're just as dead in the end. Well, with the current administration, safer is not really a requirement. Its much more profitable if you just convince your own military to handle the assassination. Then you get to generate billions of dollars in contracts for your old drinkin' buddies!
Didn't windowing systems happen on Unix workstations before they happened on PCs, and wasn't Windows trying to be more like the workstations than like the Mac?
Actually no. Early on Bill gates was a huge fan of the Mac. He tried as hard as he could to get Steve Jobs to liscense the Mac so he could write software for it. When Steve refused, he amazingly convinced him to let Microsoft use the mac's look at feel in their applications. (for years apple deeply regretted signing that piece of paper and eventualy in the late 80's launched into the infamous 'look and feel' lawsuit vs MS). Bill Gates then used his new found power to push windows 3.0 out the door, then 3.1, then W95.. etc.. getting closer and closer to the Macs look at feel.
He had just about succeded in beating the Mac at its own gamel until Apple came along with OS X. Poor Bill...
I have to agree with this. I recently needed a second computer at home, so i broke out my old 400Mhz G3 PowerMac. I installed OS 10.3 on it and with only 128M of ram it's still pretty fast. It impresses me every time I use it. For web surfing and email there isint a whole lot of difference between it and my PowerBook G4 1Ghz.
I have to say that this is truly sad for the students of Kansas. Not only do they have to waste time learning something as stupid as Intelligent Design, but as they move on into College, they will now be the laughing stock of their class...
Leaving the ignition in the keys of your car does not justify someone stealing it (and its still illegal).
No, but if you leave the keys to your car in the ignition and it gets stolen. Its no longer Grand Theft Auto. Its just Theft. Amazingly the legal system is smart enough to realise that you are partly at fault for your car being stolen since you left the keys in it. What a conecpt. Accountability.
This is the same thing as writing the admin password on the bottom of the laptop.
The school officials should be charged for not properly securing public property.
Could you imagine if some highschool principal put the key to every door in a highschool under the door matt in front of each door. Once the school got robbed the general public would go ballistic when they learned the keys were everywhere. The principal would probably be brought up on charges for loosing thousands of dollars worth of school equipment.
But yet the same incident happens on a computer and nothing happens. Bizarre.
I agree 100%. Photoshop and Fireworks are companion products if anything. Anything larger than web resolution and Fireworks chokes and dies a horrible death. And Photoshop couldnt output a sub 50k jpg that looks decent if its life depended on it.
I use fireworks for all my web output and it is far and beyond Adobe's answer (ImageReady). I really hope they just kill off Image Ready and integrate PS & FW closer together.
Wasn't that supposed to be the big selling point for Li-ion battery's several years ago when they first appeared on the horizon. "No recharge memory like Ni-Cad!".
It might not be a 'memory' per se, but they sure do seem to turn to crap rather fast. I'd rather have a battery with a memory, at least its something I can prevent with care.
To me, this sounds remarkably less like a 'Turbine' and alot like a kids pinwheel with a small coil of wire and magnet stuck on the back.
To me, Turbine means a multi stage fan, that uses compression of the 'Air'.. If I have to hold it out the window at 60mph to get it to work, its a damn pinwheel.
Sounds great.. but dont forget this thing produces 4 watts.. thats 25x less energy than it takes to run a light bulb.
So scale it up, even by a factor of 1000x. (Say the turbine is 3" across.) Now its 250ft tall.. you are generating 4000 watts. That will power about 2 houses, maybe 4 if they are all careful.
For anyone out there who does not have a root password on their machine, I am pleased to annouce my new 'Computer Lockdown Service'. In today's crazy InterWeb age, you never can be too carefull when it comes to computer security.
Send me your IP address and a check or moneyorder for $49.00 and I'll take care of the rest.
To me, it simply seems to impossible to think that the universe and all that's in it, including us, is the result of some random roll of the cosmic dice.
But if someone else rolls the dice, it makes it all better and explains it all..
So you think that just because humans cant cause a positive mutation in a single species in a relatively short period of time ('a lot of years' does not an evolution make), is cause to discredit an entire scientific theory. I have news for you; evolution is based on the one constant that time is in abundance.
Maybe we have reached the point in human evolution where instead of teaching our children about simple mathematics till the age of 15 we start teaching them the basics and them teach them robotics. Or maybe how to work with technolgy at a more indepth level at a much earlier age. If blue collar jobs are doomed in the forseeable future, we need to start giving our children the skills they will need in 20 years instead of the skills we needed while we were in junior high school.
At a certian point, if automation (robotics) is the future, we need to stop teaching our children the the basics that we know and start teaching them how to build and learn their own future. Gym class isint helping any of our kids grow towards the future. Maybe we should be teaching them C programming or engineering in 6-7th grade.
Object to MS's business practices, criticize security models, but before you place your finger squarely at MS, realize that all OSs have a long way to go before they just work (like as simple as turning on your TV).
I find that comment almost offensive. I run a Apple Powerbook G4 w/OS 10.3 and I have to say it is just about as simple as turning on tv. NO crashes, NO bombs, NO BSOD, no making excuses to my friends "It must of been a bad driver, no worries!". It just works. It boggles the mind that windows users don't get that.
I never shut my laptop off. Uptimes usually around 30-45 days (OS Software update reboots). I run my machine VERY hard 8-12 hours a day. No crashes, no glitches, nothing. (Wow, kinda like my television...) If you ask any Mac user you will hear the same thing over and over.
Windows users are so blinded by ignorance that they are complacent with crap.
I've been a web designer for about 5 years professionally and I have to say that I got pretty lucky. All of my family are either artists or graphic designers by trade. That's how I grew up, listening to my dad talk about great design and watching him do hand layout graphic design. (Old skool, no computers). So growing up I got a great design sense.
When I started getting into web design I started working with programming/scripting and it came very naturally. I focused on programming as my primary skill for a couple years and it really comes in handy.
I would say one of the biggest assets I have is the ability to seamlessly blend code and interface design/layout together. It is so common that you come across other web designer's sites and work and they are usually one extreme or another. Great looking site that is horribly built (obviously a graphic designer out of his realm) or have amazing functionality and code but look like total shit (see: slashdot.org).
The ability to blend them together so that neither one of those elements jumps out at you is very hard.
To be a great web designer you have to have a great sense of layout and design but being able to make that design work is essential. PHP, JavaScript, css, blah, blah, blah... are just tools to get the job done. If you can tell they are there then you aren't a good web designer.
The other necessary skill is realizing the fact that your clients don't give a rat's ass about what technologies go into making their web site, and most of them wouldn't know what good design for their needs is if it crawled up and bit them on the ass. Study usability. Study advertising (those guys have studying consumers way longer than us web designers), and learn what really works and what doesn't work and learn what most people want but really doesn't work (like flash navigation menus).
Your clients will be much happier if you can build them what they need instead of what they want and do it without them knowing.
I think that this is going to be the biggest push for sub orbital flights.
Can you imagine SS3 taking people from Mojave to Japan in 2-3 hours? Or what about the US govt/DoD using it to deliver specalized troops anywhere in the world withing 4-5 hours. Hostage situation in Africa? SeAL's on the ground from the US to the target in 3 hours. Earthquake in Iran? Specalized rescue teams on site in hours and not days. It makes sense to send people around the globe just like you send ICBM's.
Imagine a first class airline service for people to needed to get from NY to London quickly (or just didnt want to sit on a long airline flight.) Sure, the flight would cost more, but its the same economics as first class compared to coach. If people are willing to pay more for faster speeds then eventually someone will find a way to make it financially viable.
I knew there were some of us left in Texas! It's so nice to hear from you!
I personally think Karl Rove is the worst thing to happen to this state in 100 years. Without him Bush would have never been a threat to anyone. He would of just sat out in West Texas sinking oil companies faster than a lead filled styrofoam cup.
Offtopic: Water will be the oil of the 21st century.
Lets not glance over the fact that this highway is a privately funded TOLL ROAD. This article seems to skim right over that fact.
financed mostly if not entirely with private money
What that means boys and girls is that our b@$t@%d Governor Rick Perry is being backed by a very large group of construction companies (Cintra) and has 'selected' a proposal that will net him the most brownie points with a large company after he leaves office.
The cooperation with the State of Texas just means that now the state can use its power to deems the land it needs as 'Blighted Land' and take control of it much easier with less court battles.
Im not sure how many slashdotters have recently taken a drive down I-35 from Dallas to San Antonio (the path this highway will parallel) , but it is a perfectly normal highway, only congested at 5:00pm in San Antonio and Dallas. 'Urban Gridlock' is not the reason to build 350 miles of new highway across Texas. (build bypass highways that 'bypass' the urban areas (all two of them)).
A drive from Oklahoma to Mexico down I-35 goes alot like this: 3 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic, 4 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic,5 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic,Mexico.
This is nothing more than a megacorp trying to make a buck over the next 50 years. (Not that there's anything wrong with that). But the State of Texas doesn't have a whole lot to do with this other than personal politics.
The fact that people refer to Bush as a Texan is personally insulting to me as a Native Born Texan.
Please, for the love of all that is good, don't believe that this fruit 'niktesla' is a accurate portrait of a Texan. This guy is is trying as hard as he can to be a 'Texan', but has no idea what that really means. Texans stick to their guns... Kinda like our greatGovernor Rick Perry (Gov. Hair Do) who was a Democrat until the 90's when Karl Rove took him over to the dark side. Way to stick to your guns big guy..
Also, Don't ever forget that this Great State of Texas was 100% Democrat until the late 80's early 90's when the Bush's came into the scene. 130+ years of consecutive Democratic rule completely forgotten because of 8 years of really bad Republicans as Governor.
There was a time when we took a guy like niktesla out back and shot him. Man I miss those days...
c- Tax payers will wonder what the hell they are doing putting wi-fi out in the middle of nowhere instead of giving wi-fi to rural Texas... where it might actually improve quality of life.
There are only a few problems.
1) Do you have any idea how big the state of Texas is? Come drive around in central (rural) Texas for a few days and you'll start to get a sense of it. Providing WiFi to the 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas would be a monumental task to say the least. The majority of the time in 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas there isint even line of sight to your closest neighbor even if you were standing on your roof. The headcount of base stations you would have to install would be insane, even if they had a several mile range. It would be much easier/cheaper to just run DSL to everyone in Texas, and thats a crazy thought.
2) Even if Texas was, in some very very very long ranging future plans, thinking of providing state wide wifi coverage, you cant just up and start installing a network that big. Its never been done. You would have to start in some small publically available, controlled environment where you could see the problems and issues that would arrise in a large public WiFi installation. Say, places like State Parks and TXDOT Road Side Rest stops. Hmm.. sounds like that is what they are doing to me.
3) Quality of Life - I have to say, most people who live in middle of nowhere Texas are either A) Not poor. (They moved there to get away from the crowds and traffic of the city) B) Happy living where they are and could give a rats ass about wireless internet. or C) Are Farmers, which for the most part can afford an internet connection on their own and dont need (or want) the states help with it.
State wide internet in Texas from Wifi is just a dumb idea. I'd rather spend the billions of dollars on the education system.
Just a thought, but maybe the education system is failing because the people teaching our children are products of that very system their selves.
Back 15 years ago or so, my 8th grade Texas history teacher argued with me that Dallas was the largest city in Texas and not Houston. (For y'all non Texans, The 2000 Census ranked Houston as the nations 4th largest city.)
That was the first time I realized I was more intelligent than most of my teachers.
I have to totally agree with the 'pen and paper' comment. In my district here in Texas we have a great voting method. The ballot is a full size sheet of paper with each race and its canidates listed on it. Next to each one is a "Scantron" like area that you fill in with a black permenant marker. Once you have filled out the ballot you go stick it in the voting machine and it does the optical scanning. Voila! Super easy.
You get the advantage of a quick count from the optical scanning, plus you get the advantage that the actual paper ballot the voter filled out is stored in a secure steel box. If there is any question about the count you simply go back over the ballots.
No need for printing a paper trail, let the people create the paper trail.
Slashdot Mirror
Didn't windowing systems happen on Unix workstations before they happened on PCs, and wasn't Windows trying to be more like the workstations than like the Mac?
Actually no. Early on Bill gates was a huge fan of the Mac. He tried as hard as he could to get Steve Jobs to liscense the Mac so he could write software for it. When Steve refused, he amazingly convinced him to let Microsoft use the mac's look at feel in their applications. (for years apple deeply regretted signing that piece of paper and eventualy in the late 80's launched into the infamous 'look and feel' lawsuit vs MS). Bill Gates then used his new found power to push windows 3.0 out the door, then 3.1, then W95.. etc.. getting closer and closer to the Macs look at feel.
He had just about succeded in beating the Mac at its own gamel until Apple came along with OS X. Poor Bill...
I have to agree with this. I recently needed a second computer at home, so i broke out my old 400Mhz G3 PowerMac. I installed OS 10.3 on it and with only 128M of ram it's still pretty fast. It impresses me every time I use it. For web surfing and email there isint a whole lot of difference between it and my PowerBook G4 1Ghz.
I have to say that this is truly sad for the students of Kansas. Not only do they have to waste time learning something as stupid as Intelligent Design, but as they move on into College, they will now be the laughing stock of their class...
poor, poor Kansas.
Leaving the ignition in the keys of your car does not justify someone stealing it (and its still illegal).
No, but if you leave the keys to your car in the ignition and it gets stolen. Its no longer Grand Theft Auto. Its just Theft. Amazingly the legal system is smart enough to realise that you are partly at fault for your car being stolen since you left the keys in it. What a conecpt. Accountability.
This is the same thing as writing the admin password on the bottom of the laptop.
The school officials should be charged for not properly securing public property.
Could you imagine if some highschool principal put the key to every door in a highschool under the door matt in front of each door. Once the school got robbed the general public would go ballistic when they learned the keys were everywhere. The principal would probably be brought up on charges for loosing thousands of dollars worth of school equipment.
But yet the same incident happens on a computer and nothing happens. Bizarre.
I agree 100%. Photoshop and Fireworks are companion products if anything. Anything larger than web resolution and Fireworks chokes and dies a horrible death. And Photoshop couldnt output a sub 50k jpg that looks decent if its life depended on it.
I use fireworks for all my web output and it is far and beyond Adobe's answer (ImageReady). I really hope they just kill off Image Ready and integrate PS & FW closer together.
Wasn't that supposed to be the big selling point for Li-ion battery's several years ago when they first appeared on the horizon. "No recharge memory like Ni-Cad!".
It might not be a 'memory' per se, but they sure do seem to turn to crap rather fast. I'd rather have a battery with a memory, at least its something I can prevent with care.
To me, this sounds remarkably less like a 'Turbine' and alot like a kids pinwheel with a small coil of wire and magnet stuck on the back.
To me, Turbine means a multi stage fan, that uses compression of the 'Air'.. If I have to hold it out the window at 60mph to get it to work, its a damn pinwheel.
Sounds great.. but dont forget this thing produces 4 watts.. thats 25x less energy than it takes to run a light bulb.
So scale it up, even by a factor of 1000x. (Say the turbine is 3" across.) Now its 250ft tall.. you are generating 4000 watts. That will power about 2 houses, maybe 4 if they are all careful.
Now imagine the airtank to turn a 250ft turbine..
Doesn't scale very well.
I hope you didn't lose too much hair as that joke flew over your head at the speed of sound.
Same Torrent file, same tracker, different http server.
./'ed and take 30 seconds to get a download slot.... sad..
http://www.keyholedesign.com/1984macintro.torrent
What is the world coming too when even 7k text files get
For anyone out there who does not have a root password on their machine, I am pleased to annouce my new 'Computer Lockdown Service'. In today's crazy InterWeb age, you never can be too carefull when it comes to computer security.
Send me your IP address and a check or moneyorder for $49.00 and I'll take care of the rest.
Thanks, Have a nice day!
Way to call me out AC. (Can't dispute his logic, but i'll get him on his english. ZING!...)
Thanks for adding to the conversation.
To me, it simply seems to impossible to think that the universe and all that's in it, including us, is the result of some random roll of the cosmic dice.
But if someone else rolls the dice, it makes it all better and explains it all..
Your fooling your self, hate to yell ya....
So you think that just because humans cant cause a positive mutation in a single species in a relatively short period of time ('a lot of years' does not an evolution make), is cause to discredit an entire scientific theory. I have news for you; evolution is based on the one constant that time is in abundance.
Time to read up on your science you moron.
Maybe we have reached the point in human evolution where instead of teaching our children about simple mathematics till the age of 15 we start teaching them the basics and them teach them robotics. Or maybe how to work with technolgy at a more indepth level at a much earlier age. If blue collar jobs are doomed in the forseeable future, we need to start giving our children the skills they will need in 20 years instead of the skills we needed while we were in junior high school.
At a certian point, if automation (robotics) is the future, we need to stop teaching our children the the basics that we know and start teaching them how to build and learn their own future. Gym class isint helping any of our kids grow towards the future. Maybe we should be teaching them C programming or engineering in 6-7th grade.
Just and Idea...
Object to MS's business practices, criticize security models, but before you place your finger squarely at MS, realize that all OSs have a long way to go before they just work (like as simple as turning on your TV).
I find that comment almost offensive. I run a Apple Powerbook G4 w/OS 10.3 and I have to say it is just about as simple as turning on tv. NO crashes, NO bombs, NO BSOD, no making excuses to my friends "It must of been a bad driver, no worries!". It just works. It boggles the mind that windows users don't get that.
I never shut my laptop off. Uptimes usually around 30-45 days (OS Software update reboots). I run my machine VERY hard 8-12 hours a day. No crashes, no glitches, nothing. (Wow, kinda like my television...) If you ask any Mac user you will hear the same thing over and over.
Windows users are so blinded by ignorance that they are complacent with crap.
I've been a web designer for about 5 years professionally and I have to say that I got pretty lucky. All of my family are either artists or graphic designers by trade. That's how I grew up, listening to my dad talk about great design and watching him do hand layout graphic design. (Old skool, no computers). So growing up I got a great design sense.
When I started getting into web design I started working with programming/scripting and it came very naturally. I focused on programming as my primary skill for a couple years and it really comes in handy.
I would say one of the biggest assets I have is the ability to seamlessly blend code and interface design/layout together. It is so common that you come across other web designer's sites and work and they are usually one extreme or another. Great looking site that is horribly built (obviously a graphic designer out of his realm) or have amazing functionality and code but look like total shit (see: slashdot.org).
The ability to blend them together so that neither one of those elements jumps out at you is very hard.
To be a great web designer you have to have a great sense of layout and design but being able to make that design work is essential. PHP, JavaScript, css, blah, blah, blah... are just tools to get the job done. If you can tell they are there then you aren't a good web designer.
The other necessary skill is realizing the fact that your clients don't give a rat's ass about what technologies go into making their web site, and most of them wouldn't know what good design for their needs is if it crawled up and bit them on the ass. Study usability. Study advertising (those guys have studying consumers way longer than us web designers), and learn what really works and what doesn't work and learn what most people want but really doesn't work (like flash navigation menus).
Your clients will be much happier if you can build them what they need instead of what they want and do it without them knowing.
I think that this is going to be the biggest push for sub orbital flights.
Can you imagine SS3 taking people from Mojave to Japan in 2-3 hours? Or what about the US govt/DoD using it to deliver specalized troops anywhere in the world withing 4-5 hours. Hostage situation in Africa? SeAL's on the ground from the US to the target in 3 hours. Earthquake in Iran? Specalized rescue teams on site in hours and not days. It makes sense to send people around the globe just like you send ICBM's.
Imagine a first class airline service for people to needed to get from NY to London quickly (or just didnt want to sit on a long airline flight.) Sure, the flight would cost more, but its the same economics as first class compared to coach. If people are willing to pay more for faster speeds then eventually someone will find a way to make it financially viable.
I knew there were some of us left in Texas! It's so nice to hear from you!
I personally think Karl Rove is the worst thing to happen to this state in 100 years. Without him Bush would have never been a threat to anyone. He would of just sat out in West Texas sinking oil companies faster than a lead filled styrofoam cup.
Offtopic: Water will be the oil of the 21st century.
Lets not glance over the fact that this highway is a privately funded TOLL ROAD. This article seems to skim right over that fact.
financed mostly if not entirely with private money
What that means boys and girls is that our b@$t@%d Governor Rick Perry is being backed by a very large group of construction companies (Cintra) and has 'selected' a proposal that will net him the most brownie points with a large company after he leaves office.
The cooperation with the State of Texas just means that now the state can use its power to deems the land it needs as 'Blighted Land' and take control of it much easier with less court battles.
Im not sure how many slashdotters have recently taken a drive down I-35 from Dallas to San Antonio (the path this highway will parallel) , but it is a perfectly normal highway, only congested at 5:00pm in San Antonio and Dallas. 'Urban Gridlock' is not the reason to build 350 miles of new highway across Texas. (build bypass highways that 'bypass' the urban areas (all two of them)).
A drive from Oklahoma to Mexico down I-35 goes alot like this:
3 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic, 4 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic,5 hours of 80mph boredom, 10 mins of city 65mph traffic,Mexico.
This is nothing more than a megacorp trying to make a buck over the next 50 years. (Not that there's anything wrong with that). But the State of Texas doesn't have a whole lot to do with this other than personal politics.
God dammit people like you piss me off!
The fact that people refer to Bush as a Texan is personally insulting to me as a Native Born Texan.
Please, for the love of all that is good, don't believe that this fruit 'niktesla' is a accurate portrait of a Texan. This guy is is trying as hard as he can to be a 'Texan', but has no idea what that really means. Texans stick to their guns... Kinda like our greatGovernor Rick Perry (Gov. Hair Do) who was a Democrat until the 90's when Karl Rove took him over to the dark side. Way to stick to your guns big guy..
Also, Don't ever forget that this Great State of Texas was 100% Democrat until the late 80's early 90's when the Bush's came into the scene. 130+ years of consecutive Democratic rule completely forgotten because of 8 years of really bad Republicans as Governor.
There was a time when we took a guy like niktesla out back and shot him. Man I miss those days...
c- Tax payers will wonder what the hell they are doing putting wi-fi out in the middle of nowhere instead of giving wi-fi to rural Texas... where it might actually improve quality of life.
There are only a few problems.
1) Do you have any idea how big the state of Texas is? Come drive around in central (rural) Texas for a few days and you'll start to get a sense of it. Providing WiFi to the 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas would be a monumental task to say the least. The majority of the time in 'Middle-of-Nowhere' Texas there isint even line of sight to your closest neighbor even if you were standing on your roof. The headcount of base stations you would have to install would be insane, even if they had a several mile range. It would be much easier/cheaper to just run DSL to everyone in Texas, and thats a crazy thought.
2) Even if Texas was, in some very very very long ranging future plans, thinking of providing state wide wifi coverage, you cant just up and start installing a network that big. Its never been done. You would have to start in some small publically available, controlled environment where you could see the problems and issues that would arrise in a large public WiFi installation. Say, places like State Parks and TXDOT Road Side Rest stops. Hmm.. sounds like that is what they are doing to me.
3) Quality of Life - I have to say, most people who live in middle of nowhere Texas are either A) Not poor. (They moved there to get away from the crowds and traffic of the city) B) Happy living where they are and could give a rats ass about wireless internet. or C) Are Farmers, which for the most part can afford an internet connection on their own and dont need (or want) the states help with it.
State wide internet in Texas from Wifi is just a dumb idea. I'd rather spend the billions of dollars on the education system.
Just a thought, but maybe the education system is failing because the people teaching our children are products of that very system their selves.
Back 15 years ago or so, my 8th grade Texas history teacher argued with me that Dallas was the largest city in Texas and not Houston. (For y'all non Texans, The 2000 Census ranked Houston as the nations 4th largest city.)
That was the first time I realized I was more intelligent than most of my teachers.
I have to totally agree with the 'pen and paper' comment. In my district here in Texas we have a great voting method. The ballot is a full size sheet of paper with each race and its canidates listed on it. Next to each one is a "Scantron" like area that you fill in with a black permenant marker. Once you have filled out the ballot you go stick it in the voting machine and it does the optical scanning. Voila! Super easy.
You get the advantage of a quick count from the optical scanning, plus you get the advantage that the actual paper ballot the voter filled out is stored in a secure steel box. If there is any question about the count you simply go back over the ballots.
No need for printing a paper trail, let the people create the paper trail.