You really don't like Apple and/or Macs, do you? Just wondering since due to the recent influx of Mac articles I've noticed you have been very vocal against Apple (and I remembered you since I occasionally visit your site). You're free to have your opinion, I was just wondering why you seem to dislike the company/computer so much. (Yes, I do own a Mac)
Ok people, Apple releases the iPod with only Firewire, but will release a PVR with only USB? Stop the crack smokin! If this is even remotely true, Apple will put in monster interfaces, not some crippled interface.
Just stop and think about it for a minute or 2, most of the complaints kinda vanish after rational thought.
So they still base their keyboards on 20 year old typewriters? I can see this being the original reason, but give me a fucking break about this why the keyboard is the way it is. Otherwise all our keyboards would have little dials on the side to scroll our text up so we could apply electronic white-out.
Funny?! How in the hell is this funny! Any idiot that has to use a caps lock key is... well, doing something I can't even imagine. Cheating at games, using AOL, something else as dumb?
I keep cramping my left pinky all the time by trying to use the left CTRL key for shortcuts.
Think about this- why does a keyboard NEED a caps lock key? For a mechanical typewriter (anyone remember those?), maybe. But for modern keyboards, why?
No no no! It's more like quantum mechanics- the particle is always there, but it is only influenced when observed by a mo-ron.
And yes I understand the ideas of zero-energy vacuums; I just highly doubt that anyone has the ability to even begin to understand how to make them feasible. Especially considering that the only the theory that is even plausible is zero-energy particles popping up on different sides of an event horizon, providing energy on a few magnitudes of Planck (~10^-30 to be generous).
Go rent Event Horizon (name? of film with artificial black hole) and dream about your perpetual energy machine.
"Lisa, in this household we observe the laws of thermodynamics!" (Forgive the paraphrasing)
No, I'd say that he is showing how inadequate humans are in grasping large numbers. We throw around all kinds of numbers from the 10's to the 100's to the trillions. But after a few 100's, people can't relate to the numbers without reverting to analogies (not sure if this is the proper word)- so many "Library of Congress", so many "sheets of paper to the moon and back", so many "miles from NYC to LA and back", etc.
I believe that this illustrates a problem that has been prevalent in (at least US) society for a few decades- there is not enough room for everything/everybody. Contrary to this, I find that when whatever group is denouncing whatever, they always leave out the vast areas of the planet that basically is not used. The Sahara(sp?) desert could hold all human waste for [insert ludicrous number of] years; but we would never do that because we would kill off a certain number of species by doing that. I believe that the most advanced species that natively lives in that desert are snakes. There have been at least 2 periods in the past when 90% of all species perished, yet we agonize over every single one? To the point that we want to make ourselves suffer? When insects (California) and fungus (Pennsylvania) supercede human rights, I think we have our priorities a little screwed**.
I have done a very little bit of travel in the US. I have been to 8 states, and those states are listed in the top 20 of populous states by capita (land/person). And when I drove around those areas, I saw dozens to hundreds of miles of nothing except trees/grass/water/desert/scrub/rock/mountains.
My final statement is that most people live in at least semi-populous areas, and just think that the whole world is this way. But in reality, the majority of the world's population are concentrated into city-type areas, and the minority are located in favorable areas, leaving probably a good half of the world available for less desirable stuff such as energy production. (Rough guess, no facts to back me up, feel free to correct me).
** There is a 2 lane road (about 25 miles length) between a medium city and a major univeristy in PA that is the quickest way between these 2 locations (about a total of 50 miles total). This is a rural location besides these 2 areas, so there are no other options (I lived there for 5 years, I know). This road is #5 in the US for fatal car accidents per year. A federal interstate was started that went for 20 miles before it was stopped because some super rare mushrooms were found in the path of the remaining planned interstate. A lawsuit was filed, and for 15 years the interstate has not been built becuase of some fungus. And thousands of people die and are injured every year on this road. The completed interstate part of the whole trek- at or below average federal accident levels every year. But hey, we have these rare mushrooms that no one can harm (or even harvest), so it must be ok to kill all these people every year, right?
And yes, they have added signs, cops, flashing signs, warning signs, and even traffic lights to try and reduce the accidents. Nothing has reduced the # of accidents in over 10 years.
At least as long as everyone gets to feel good about protecting something trivial, why not do it! Of course I would protect my dead coworker, but that isn't sexy enough for our current mass media.
I see why your name is "intern". If you've ever been to a meeting that had any level of management in it, or a sales guy, you would realize very quickly that all these guys do is waste the techie's time (yes, I'm a techie). Communication is done by those who really need to know, not think that they know. Most deals are done informally by a small group of people who know what's going on. Then they call the big meeting and let everyone else jibber-jabber so they can all feel good about themselves.
The guy who said incessant meetings are wasteful is totally correct.
I have the joy of this happening to me twice. The first time was when I got a new apartment in State College, PA (Penn State U). My new phone number was 1 digit off of the most popular local radio station (B101 or B103, something like that). At first me and my friends would just tell the people wrong number, etc. Then we would randomly tell the callers "Sure, we can play that for you!" or "sorry, you are not the 101st caller". Some of my more creative friends, when drunk/high/whatever, would hook the callers into detailed discussions. The funniest/saddest one was some guy calling in to request "Wing Beneath my Wings" or similar sappy song for his friend Bubba who was going to prison for 2 years the next day.
The 2nd time I kept getting voicemail on my cell from an older woman who wanted to order tickets to some play for a theatre in Chicago. I live in NJ. Since I never actually talked to her (when was she calling? 3:30 AM?!), I change my voicemail to slowly and clear state my name, my company name, and that I was not a ticketing agent for xxxxxx theatre. She left 3 more messages before I finally got to actually talk to her and explain. She seemed nice and fairly coherent, but must not have ever listened to the v-mail message!
Of course, I had fun explaining to my boss, friends, and coworkers why my v-mail was telling them I was not a ticketing agent!
Just wanted to point out that this story is about cell phones, which chew up your minutes even if they called you. Sounds kind of self defeating in this case.
Actually, by putting them in your house, locked or no, anyone that enters without your permission is tresspassing. If they take your burned CDs without your permission it's theft.
But what if you put up "DO NOT DOWNLOADS THESE SONGS UNLESS YOU OWN THEM!" on top of a webpage? (I know this isn't P2P, but since I don't use it I don't know if you can post this kind of warning on P2P networks) Yes, the songs are there, but you cross the line if you grab them without legal right.
Somewhat related- posting "No Tresspass" signs on your property when you have something of value in sight on your property. In both cases the item of value is easily obtainable, but both are guarded by signs saying "Don't do it!". Any thoughts on the legal differences?
According to the summary (always an iffy proposition), businesses would get to send you their e-spam at a per piece cost of 3/4 of their snail-spam rates. I would hazard a rough guess that the overall total the post office would get would be roughly the same (no numbers as proof, just a hunch).
I love how the other responders to your "shooting off the guns was dumb" remark- defending those people for firing the guns, for whatever reason. Yet if some group did that in the US, these very same responders would be ripping the US gun shooters a few new orifices, and would grin in pleasure if a US plane accidentally bombed them. (And don't gripe about it being illegal, I'm sure you can find at least one out of the way place where it is legal.)
Well, at least they are consistent in hating the US!
Technically true, but the Pres. can pass executive orders, which are basically illegal laws. Laws in the sense that it takes an act of Congress to repeal the order, and illegal because the Pres. can't pass a law. A very odd beast, the executive order is!
1) Mainstream media is all about the making money. 2) Mainstream America has an attention span of 20 seconds. 3) A vacuum of media critics.
I pretty much agree with the above, though recently you see the right and left sides of the media attacking/criticising each other. Limbaugh and Fox News vs. CNN and the Networks ("Let's get ready to ruuuuuummmmmmble!"), but this is even probably more suited for marketing rather than fair criticism. The fairest critic I've found, even though he is a conservative, is Sean Hannity. Obviously there are others that I just don't know about.
I think that the first two points really emphasize why web news is popular. For anything in depth you have to go someplace, while maybe biased, that at least doesn't leave out large chunks of the story and the background of the story. This depth is not sexy (ad friendly) nor quick to read and understand (shiny toy).
I can't stand TV news anymore; "3 dead in sex farm explosion", "look at all the pretty people", sports, weather, "feel good story about Foo-Foo the super bunny". Newspapers aren't much better. There are more stories and they are longer, but some of them read like a 14 year old wrote it.
For once Katz is pretty well on target, but could use some word chopping. More is not always neccesarily better.
Re:Possible MS Project Names
on
Microsoft Freon
·
· Score: 1
Unobtanium- Totally secure MS OS Sealed Bank Vault- New firewall system
Something like this, yet more perverse, happened to me only a few days ago. My yahoo mail had a "Undeliverable mail" message, and when I opened it up it was from my yahoo accout to an old AOL account I used to have! (long since deleted) Apparently I was trying to sell myself some kind of insurance into the past!
Slashdot Mirror
I see, and I agree there is much FUD throwing and shrillness on /. about PC vs. Mac.
Thanks for replying!
You really don't like Apple and/or Macs, do you? Just wondering since due to the recent influx of Mac articles I've noticed you have been very vocal against Apple (and I remembered you since I occasionally visit your site). You're free to have your opinion, I was just wondering why you seem to dislike the company/computer so much. (Yes, I do own a Mac)
Someone tell that to Dell.
"Dude, I want to smack that kid!"
Ok people, Apple releases the iPod with only Firewire, but will release a PVR with only USB? Stop the crack smokin! If this is even remotely true, Apple will put in monster interfaces, not some crippled interface.
Just stop and think about it for a minute or 2, most of the complaints kinda vanish after rational thought.
I would argue that sex is way better than the theory of sex....
So they still base their keyboards on 20 year old typewriters? I can see this being the original reason, but give me a fucking break about this why the keyboard is the way it is. Otherwise all our keyboards would have little dials on the side to scroll our text up so we could apply electronic white-out.
Funny?! How in the hell is this funny! Any idiot that has to use a caps lock key is... well, doing something I can't even imagine. Cheating at games, using AOL, something else as dumb?
I keep cramping my left pinky all the time by trying to use the left CTRL key for shortcuts.
Think about this- why does a keyboard NEED a caps lock key? For a mechanical typewriter (anyone remember those?), maybe. But for modern keyboards, why?
enough rant
No no no! It's more like quantum mechanics- the particle is always there, but it is only influenced when observed by a mo-ron.
And yes I understand the ideas of zero-energy vacuums; I just highly doubt that anyone has the ability to even begin to understand how to make them feasible. Especially considering that the only the theory that is even plausible is zero-energy particles popping up on different sides of an event horizon, providing energy on a few magnitudes of Planck (~10^-30 to be generous).
Go rent Event Horizon (name? of film with artificial black hole) and dream about your perpetual energy machine.
"Lisa, in this household we observe the laws of thermodynamics!" (Forgive the paraphrasing)
No, I'd say that he is showing how inadequate humans are in grasping large numbers. We throw around all kinds of numbers from the 10's to the 100's to the trillions. But after a few 100's, people can't relate to the numbers without reverting to analogies (not sure if this is the proper word)- so many "Library of Congress", so many "sheets of paper to the moon and back", so many "miles from NYC to LA and back", etc.
I believe that this illustrates a problem that has been prevalent in (at least US) society for a few decades- there is not enough room for everything/everybody. Contrary to this, I find that when whatever group is denouncing whatever, they always leave out the vast areas of the planet that basically is not used. The Sahara(sp?) desert could hold all human waste for [insert ludicrous number of] years; but we would never do that because we would kill off a certain number of species by doing that. I believe that the most advanced species that natively lives in that desert are snakes. There have been at least 2 periods in the past when 90% of all species perished, yet we agonize over every single one? To the point that we want to make ourselves suffer? When insects (California) and fungus (Pennsylvania) supercede human rights, I think we have our priorities a little screwed**.
I have done a very little bit of travel in the US. I have been to 8 states, and those states are listed in the top 20 of populous states by capita (land/person). And when I drove around those areas, I saw dozens to hundreds of miles of nothing except trees/grass/water/desert/scrub/rock/mountains.
My final statement is that most people live in at least semi-populous areas, and just think that the whole world is this way. But in reality, the majority of the world's population are concentrated into city-type areas, and the minority are located in favorable areas, leaving probably a good half of the world available for less desirable stuff such as energy production. (Rough guess, no facts to back me up, feel free to correct me).
** There is a 2 lane road (about 25 miles length) between a medium city and a major univeristy in PA that is the quickest way between these 2 locations (about a total of 50 miles total). This is a rural location besides these 2 areas, so there are no other options (I lived there for 5 years, I know). This road is #5 in the US for fatal car accidents per year. A federal interstate was started that went for 20 miles before it was stopped because some super rare mushrooms were found in the path of the remaining planned interstate. A lawsuit was filed, and for 15 years the interstate has not been built becuase of some fungus. And thousands of people die and are injured every year on this road. The completed interstate part of the whole trek- at or below average federal accident levels every year. But hey, we have these rare mushrooms that no one can harm (or even harvest), so it must be ok to kill all these people every year, right?
And yes, they have added signs, cops, flashing signs, warning signs, and even traffic lights to try and reduce the accidents. Nothing has reduced the # of accidents in over 10 years.
At least as long as everyone gets to feel good about protecting something trivial, why not do it! Of course I would protect my dead coworker, but that isn't sexy enough for our current mass media.
I see why your name is "intern". If you've ever been to a meeting that had any level of management in it, or a sales guy, you would realize very quickly that all these guys do is waste the techie's time (yes, I'm a techie). Communication is done by those who really need to know, not think that they know. Most deals are done informally by a small group of people who know what's going on. Then they call the big meeting and let everyone else jibber-jabber so they can all feel good about themselves.
The guy who said incessant meetings are wasteful is totally correct.
Carefull, you may ignite a spelling vs. grammar nazi war!
"I speek wit corecct grimmar!"
"Yes, but spell I correctly bombing when it was!"
(God forbid I if just made a mistake in the above!)
I have the joy of this happening to me twice. The first time was when I got a new apartment in State College, PA (Penn State U). My new phone number was 1 digit off of the most popular local radio station (B101 or B103, something like that). At first me and my friends would just tell the people wrong number, etc. Then we would randomly tell the callers "Sure, we can play that for you!" or "sorry, you are not the 101st caller". Some of my more creative friends, when drunk/high/whatever, would hook the callers into detailed discussions. The funniest/saddest one was some guy calling in to request "Wing Beneath my Wings" or similar sappy song for his friend Bubba who was going to prison for 2 years the next day.
The 2nd time I kept getting voicemail on my cell from an older woman who wanted to order tickets to some play for a theatre in Chicago. I live in NJ. Since I never actually talked to her (when was she calling? 3:30 AM?!), I change my voicemail to slowly and clear state my name, my company name, and that I was not a ticketing agent for xxxxxx theatre. She left 3 more messages before I finally got to actually talk to her and explain. She seemed nice and fairly coherent, but must not have ever listened to the v-mail message!
Of course, I had fun explaining to my boss, friends, and coworkers why my v-mail was telling them I was not a ticketing agent!
Just wanted to point out that this story is about cell phones, which chew up your minutes even if they called you. Sounds kind of self defeating in this case.
Actually, by putting them in your house, locked or no, anyone that enters without your permission is tresspassing. If they take your burned CDs without your permission it's theft.
Now if you put them on your sidewalk.....
Ah, but most libraries, and especially university libraries, have several photocopiers.
But what if you put up "DO NOT DOWNLOADS THESE SONGS UNLESS YOU OWN THEM!" on top of a webpage? (I know this isn't P2P, but since I don't use it I don't know if you can post this kind of warning on P2P networks) Yes, the songs are there, but you cross the line if you grab them without legal right.
Somewhat related- posting "No Tresspass" signs on your property when you have something of value in sight on your property. In both cases the item of value is easily obtainable, but both are guarded by signs saying "Don't do it!". Any thoughts on the legal differences?
According to the summary (always an iffy proposition), businesses would get to send you their e-spam at a per piece cost of 3/4 of their snail-spam rates. I would hazard a rough guess that the overall total the post office would get would be roughly the same (no numbers as proof, just a hunch).
You forgot cats and dogs living together, the end of traffic jams, tasty health food, and peace on earth.
Viva la postal!
Viva la postal!
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!"
20 PRESS BUTTON
30 GOTO 10
I love how the other responders to your "shooting off the guns was dumb" remark- defending those people for firing the guns, for whatever reason. Yet if some group did that in the US, these very same responders would be ripping the US gun shooters a few new orifices, and would grin in pleasure if a US plane accidentally bombed them. (And don't gripe about it being illegal, I'm sure you can find at least one out of the way place where it is legal.)
Well, at least they are consistent in hating the US!
Technically true, but the Pres. can pass executive orders, which are basically illegal laws. Laws in the sense that it takes an act of Congress to repeal the order, and illegal because the Pres. can't pass a law. A very odd beast, the executive order is!
1) Mainstream media is all about the making money.
2) Mainstream America has an attention span of 20 seconds.
3) A vacuum of media critics.
I pretty much agree with the above, though recently you see the right and left sides of the media attacking/criticising each other. Limbaugh and Fox News vs. CNN and the Networks ("Let's get ready to ruuuuuummmmmmble!"), but this is even probably more suited for marketing rather than fair criticism. The fairest critic I've found, even though he is a conservative, is Sean Hannity. Obviously there are others that I just don't know about.
I think that the first two points really emphasize why web news is popular. For anything in depth you have to go someplace, while maybe biased, that at least doesn't leave out large chunks of the story and the background of the story. This depth is not sexy (ad friendly) nor quick to read and understand (shiny toy).
I can't stand TV news anymore; "3 dead in sex farm explosion", "look at all the pretty people", sports, weather, "feel good story about Foo-Foo the super bunny". Newspapers aren't much better. There are more stories and they are longer, but some of them read like a 14 year old wrote it.
For once Katz is pretty well on target, but could use some word chopping. More is not always neccesarily better.
Unobtanium- Totally secure MS OS
Sealed Bank Vault- New firewall system
Something like this, yet more perverse, happened to me only a few days ago. My yahoo mail had a "Undeliverable mail" message, and when I opened it up it was from my yahoo accout to an old AOL account I used to have! (long since deleted) Apparently I was trying to sell myself some kind of insurance into the past!
I heard this story on WABC in New York. It ran once, maybe twice, and then I never heard of it again, either.