If the first thing that most serious under-the-hood-type users do is ditch Konquerer for another browser like Firefox or Opera doesn't Konquerer meet your criteria for what constitutes bloat?
I'm not looking to flame or troll, only looking for some objectivity.
OK, tell me how Sea Sparrows and CIWS will help you sneak up onto a suspected smuggling vessel?
This ship isn't built for offense. Heck, with a fibre glass hull it's not even built for defence. It's a large patrol boat, just like you've theorised. When you're a politically neutral country, with nothing but peaceful nations around you, why would you need anything more?
You punish people all the way along the trail. Of course you don't punish people for what you can't prove, you punish them for what you can prove - in that respect going after spammers is no different from going after drugs cartels or mafia organisations.
Where they affect US citizens and businesses, you also make US companies responsible for their the actions of their overseas subsidiaries. So, to use your example, Ford US can't outsource a bulk spamming job to Ford Elsewhere and skirt the law that way.
It's really quite simple: if you make spamming cost-ineffective by punishing the spammers more than they can make then the problem will go away.
Uh, you're post is complete and utter rubbish. STD (area) codes have always been specific to an area, dependent on where you're calling and never where you're calling from.
The reason why people would give out the name of the area that they lived in is that, back in the days when the system was set up when overlaying the alphabet onto the digits 0-9 had more significance in the UK, part of the name would correspond to the area code. In fact, the area codes themselves derived from the place names.
This area coding was taken so seriously that in some instances people wrote to the Post Office (because that's who ran the telephone system back then) to demand that their area codes were changed so that the numbers corresponded to more affluent places. For example, people living in the suburb of Anytown would rather have an area code refering to the posher neighbouring suburb of Sometown, so they'd petition for that area code to apply to them too. In many instances, because people in Anytown were reluctant to have a phone installed and answer the phone "Anytown 1212" (or whatever their number was) this held up uptake of telephony services to the point where the Post Office acquiesced and gave people the Sometown area code (or a derivation of it) that they wanted.
I learnt all this almost 15 years ago from a BT engineer of 20 years experience. Ask any older BT engineer and they'll confirm this for you.
First of all the cable companies will want to recoup their investment. Then they'll want to make a profit.
The only thing that will drive down prices is direct competition and, as I understand it, cable companies don't have a great deal of overlap. Now, if you were able to pick from half a dozen plus companies to provide broadband connectivity to your home (just as you're able to pick literally dozens of companies to provide narrowband connectivity to your home), then you'd have some active competition between companies, which would lead lower prices. But in a market where you're options are limited to one, two, maybe three companies tops then you're unlikely to see any really aggressive pricing.
And that's before you even start talking about what sort of value people attach to having broadband. If 19 out of 20 people have an expectation that broadband will cost $40/month then that's what it will cost. The fact that the last person in that group wouldn't pay more than $35/month for the service is irrelevant.
No, the solution isn't just in Russia and/or China, it's in the US too. Cut off the demand (by, say, making the use of unsolicited spam by businesses illegal) and you've solved the problem.
Saying that the solution to spam is only in Russia and/or China is like saying that the solution to the war on drugs (as stupid as that is) is only in Colombia, etc.
That's hardly an apples with apples comparison, is it?
The PCs you're talking about are entry level desktops with single 32-bit 2.4GHz Celeron processors, integrated graphics chipsets (as opposed to dedicated graphics cards), 48X CD-ROM drives and (according to you) 5,400 RPM Parallel ATA hard disk drives.
The Apple systems we're talking about are high level workstations, with dual 64-bit 2.5GHz G5 processors, either an ATI Radeon 9600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics card (either of which is normally capable of sounding like an afterburning jet engine just by itself), an Apple DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive and a 80-160GB 7,200 ROM Serial ATA hard disk drive.
That's like comparing a Mini and a Ferrari, hardly a valid exercise.
If you want to make a valid comparison, compare these Macs to their PC equivalents, such as Dual Xeon workstations from Dell, HP, IBM, etc.
Apple doesn't make the G5 CPUs. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, Apple has never made CPUs, just like they've never made graphics chipsets. They've always left all that to semiconductor companies like Motorola and IBM, so the efficiency or inefficiency of the G5 CPU design has nothing to do with Apple whatsoever.
Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. Using 21 different sensors, Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4 enclosure.
Nine fans and 21 sensors, generating half as many decibels. Now I'm not an Apple fan-boy but that's the level of attention to detail that seperates Apple from Dell, etc.
Taco's on record as saying that The Who are " the greatest band of all time", so he probably believes Townshend's version of events, just like Michael Jackson fans believe he's squeaky-clean too.
If you're really paranoid about your data then don't sell your hard drives, even if you have used US DoD-levels of formatting. Duh.
Rather than make a few tens of dollars selling an old drive, take it apart, and burn the platters until they're nothing more than dust. Problem solved.
The conversation wasn't about how much processing power J6P needs to run the latest version of Windows, but how much power he needs to do what he wants.
And what he wants to do is run Windows. Like it or not, that's the bottom line.
The average "luser", as you like to refer to the overwhelming majority of PC users, wants to run an OS that they are familiar with and that's current. I'd like to see you run something more powerful/recent than, say, Windows 98 on a 333MHz Pentium II and see how much time you'd waste just looking at the hourglass.
Oh, and newsflash for you: Joe Sixpack wants to do more on his PC nowadays than just word process and play solitaire.
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Chip and PIN is a potential nightmare.
Instead of mugging victims finding themselves relieved of their wallets and purses I can forsee muggers demanding PINs too, so that they can use the cards that they've stolen.
Right now, if a card is fraudulently used and the signature doesn't match that of the cardholder then the bill is footed by the credit card company, even if the card hasn't been reported stolen. Sure, the costs are passed onto the consumer (well, to those consumers that don't clear their card balances at least) but there's no chance of you suddenly being presented with a four- or five-figure debt for the spending that a card fraudster has run up on you card.
But, if you find yourself in a situation where you give an assailant your PIN, even if it's to avoid physical harm, then you're responsible for all spending they clock up before your card is eventually cancelled.
Frankly, as a credit card holder, this scenario frightens me, even though the chance of it actually happening to me is next to nothing.
Of course, the card issuers are being very quiet about all this, which is no great surprise.
What about Politically Incorrect, which was basically taken off the air because it dare voice opinions that were different from the groupthink that grasped most of the US post-September 11th?
There are other examples, but this one alone proves the grandparent poster's point.
Since when did a programmer becoming a parent pose any greater a challenge than anyone else becoming a parent?
Newsflash for you, people: becoming a parent is challenging. It doesn't become more or less challenging based on your chosen career path, especially if you're not the one who's actually had the baby.
Regardless of what you do for a living, you're life becomes less care-free and less flexible because you have, shock, horror, new responsibilities. If you work in a bar that means you can't hang around with everyone else for hours after closing time because you have a family to look after. Similarly, if you're a coder you can't casually decide to wave your evening goodbye by staying on for another four hours to finish the portion of code that you were working on because there are other more personal demands for your attention.
Whether you work in a bar or code in an office the bottom line is the same: work isn't the be-all and end-all of life when you have little mouths to feed. Start working to live and not living to work.
Now, is there any chance that we could see some "Ask Slashdot" questions that aren't remotely stupid?
Look, if you're not at all concerned about your professional reputation, what kind of reference someone will supply about you, your chances of them recommending you to someone who's after someone with your skillset, etc then, by all means, kid around. But if you care at all about these things, then be aware that what you consider to be a harmless and humourous way of saying goodbye might not go down that way with everyone.
Just remember this: as much as first impressions count, so do last ones.
Sony will continue to support all current customers worldwide for the life of the warranties on their handhelds.
Bear that in mind before you go hunting for a cheap Clie. If my Palm V, which is almost 6 years old, broke down I still could get it repaired by the manufacturer. But, with that wording, it's very much implied that after the warranty period has run out on the Clies sitting on retailers' shelves right now there will be little or no support from Sony for Clie owners. Caveat emptor.
Sorry but your entire argument breaks down if I point out that not every one who has brown skin is from the Middle East (and that's assuming that you believe that treating everyone from the Middle East like a wannabe terrorist is acceptable) and that some people from the Middle East don't have brown skin at all.
Furthermore, you thinking is flawed because you have assumed that any threat can only come from someone of Middle Eastern descent or with brown skin. Need I remind you that at least one member of Al Qaeda was a white American (John Walker Lindh) and that Al Qaeda has shown the ability to recruit people from all around the globe, including western democracies, into its ranks.
Terrorists adapt - as soon as you narrow your sights on one thing, then they will present you with another - so looking for potential terrorists only amongst people who fit a certain racial or social profile is one sure way of leaving yourself wide open to attacks from people who don't fit into those pigeonholes.
And, as I've probably stated previously, not all terrorism comes from the Middle East. The Unabomber may have been a mad loner but Timothy McVeigh certainly wasn't. One thing's for sure, there are far more McVeigh's-in-waiting equipped with their own legal arsenals all over the US than there are Al Qaeda operatives.
Slashdot Mirror
The hands. They're a dead giveaway, especially the fingers.
If the first thing that most serious under-the-hood-type users do is ditch Konquerer for another browser like Firefox or Opera doesn't Konquerer meet your criteria for what constitutes bloat?
I'm not looking to flame or troll, only looking for some objectivity.
OK, tell me how Sea Sparrows and CIWS will help you sneak up onto a suspected smuggling vessel?
This ship isn't built for offense. Heck, with a fibre glass hull it's not even built for defence. It's a large patrol boat, just like you've theorised. When you're a politically neutral country, with nothing but peaceful nations around you, why would you need anything more?
A submarine isn't a ship, it's a boat.
You punish people all the way along the trail. Of course you don't punish people for what you can't prove, you punish them for what you can prove - in that respect going after spammers is no different from going after drugs cartels or mafia organisations.
Where they affect US citizens and businesses, you also make US companies responsible for their the actions of their overseas subsidiaries. So, to use your example, Ford US can't outsource a bulk spamming job to Ford Elsewhere and skirt the law that way.
It's really quite simple: if you make spamming cost-ineffective by punishing the spammers more than they can make then the problem will go away.
Uh, you're post is complete and utter rubbish. STD (area) codes have always been specific to an area, dependent on where you're calling and never where you're calling from.
The reason why people would give out the name of the area that they lived in is that, back in the days when the system was set up when overlaying the alphabet onto the digits 0-9 had more significance in the UK, part of the name would correspond to the area code. In fact, the area codes themselves derived from the place names.
This area coding was taken so seriously that in some instances people wrote to the Post Office (because that's who ran the telephone system back then) to demand that their area codes were changed so that the numbers corresponded to more affluent places. For example, people living in the suburb of Anytown would rather have an area code refering to the posher neighbouring suburb of Sometown, so they'd petition for that area code to apply to them too. In many instances, because people in Anytown were reluctant to have a phone installed and answer the phone "Anytown 1212" (or whatever their number was) this held up uptake of telephony services to the point where the Post Office acquiesced and gave people the Sometown area code (or a derivation of it) that they wanted.
I learnt all this almost 15 years ago from a BT engineer of 20 years experience. Ask any older BT engineer and they'll confirm this for you.
First of all the cable companies will want to recoup their investment. Then they'll want to make a profit.
The only thing that will drive down prices is direct competition and, as I understand it, cable companies don't have a great deal of overlap. Now, if you were able to pick from half a dozen plus companies to provide broadband connectivity to your home (just as you're able to pick literally dozens of companies to provide narrowband connectivity to your home), then you'd have some active competition between companies, which would lead lower prices. But in a market where you're options are limited to one, two, maybe three companies tops then you're unlikely to see any really aggressive pricing.
And that's before you even start talking about what sort of value people attach to having broadband. If 19 out of 20 people have an expectation that broadband will cost $40/month then that's what it will cost. The fact that the last person in that group wouldn't pay more than $35/month for the service is irrelevant.
No, the solution isn't just in Russia and/or China, it's in the US too. Cut off the demand (by, say, making the use of unsolicited spam by businesses illegal) and you've solved the problem.
Saying that the solution to spam is only in Russia and/or China is like saying that the solution to the war on drugs (as stupid as that is) is only in Colombia, etc.
That's hardly an apples with apples comparison, is it?
The PCs you're talking about are entry level desktops with single 32-bit 2.4GHz Celeron processors, integrated graphics chipsets (as opposed to dedicated graphics cards), 48X CD-ROM drives and (according to you) 5,400 RPM Parallel ATA hard disk drives.
The Apple systems we're talking about are high level workstations, with dual 64-bit 2.5GHz G5 processors, either an ATI Radeon 9600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics card (either of which is normally capable of sounding like an afterburning jet engine just by itself), an Apple DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive and a 80-160GB 7,200 ROM Serial ATA hard disk drive.
That's like comparing a Mini and a Ferrari, hardly a valid exercise.
If you want to make a valid comparison, compare these Macs to their PC equivalents, such as Dual Xeon workstations from Dell, HP, IBM, etc.
Apple doesn't make the G5 CPUs. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, Apple has never made CPUs, just like they've never made graphics chipsets. They've always left all that to semiconductor companies like Motorola and IBM, so the efficiency or inefficiency of the G5 CPU design has nothing to do with Apple whatsoever.
From the Apple link:
Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. Using 21 different sensors, Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4 enclosure.
Nine fans and 21 sensors, generating half as many decibels. Now I'm not an Apple fan-boy but that's the level of attention to detail that seperates Apple from Dell, etc.
Taco's on record as saying that The Who are " the greatest band of all time", so he probably believes Townshend's version of events, just like Michael Jackson fans believe he's squeaky-clean too.
If you're really paranoid about your data then don't sell your hard drives, even if you have used US DoD-levels of formatting. Duh.
Rather than make a few tens of dollars selling an old drive, take it apart, and burn the platters until they're nothing more than dust. Problem solved.
The conversation wasn't about how much processing power J6P needs to run the latest version of Windows, but how much power he needs to do what he wants.
And what he wants to do is run Windows. Like it or not, that's the bottom line.
The average "luser", as you like to refer to the overwhelming majority of PC users, wants to run an OS that they are familiar with and that's current. I'd like to see you run something more powerful/recent than, say, Windows 98 on a 333MHz Pentium II and see how much time you'd waste just looking at the hourglass.
Oh, and newsflash for you: Joe Sixpack wants to do more on his PC nowadays than just word process and play solitaire.
Well if you're a real geek you value your data over your sperm. After all, what do you have more chance of actually using?
(This is why I'm not a real geek.)
In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Chip and PIN is a potential nightmare.
Instead of mugging victims finding themselves relieved of their wallets and purses I can forsee muggers demanding PINs too, so that they can use the cards that they've stolen.
Right now, if a card is fraudulently used and the signature doesn't match that of the cardholder then the bill is footed by the credit card company, even if the card hasn't been reported stolen. Sure, the costs are passed onto the consumer (well, to those consumers that don't clear their card balances at least) but there's no chance of you suddenly being presented with a four- or five-figure debt for the spending that a card fraudster has run up on you card.
But, if you find yourself in a situation where you give an assailant your PIN, even if it's to avoid physical harm, then you're responsible for all spending they clock up before your card is eventually cancelled.
Frankly, as a credit card holder, this scenario frightens me, even though the chance of it actually happening to me is next to nothing.
Of course, the card issuers are being very quiet about all this, which is no great surprise.
What about Politically Incorrect, which was basically taken off the air because it dare voice opinions that were different from the groupthink that grasped most of the US post-September 11th?
There are other examples, but this one alone proves the grandparent poster's point.
This is what "Ask Slashdot" has been reduced to?
Since when did a programmer becoming a parent pose any greater a challenge than anyone else becoming a parent?
Newsflash for you, people: becoming a parent is challenging. It doesn't become more or less challenging based on your chosen career path, especially if you're not the one who's actually had the baby.
Regardless of what you do for a living, you're life becomes less care-free and less flexible because you have, shock, horror, new responsibilities. If you work in a bar that means you can't hang around with everyone else for hours after closing time because you have a family to look after. Similarly, if you're a coder you can't casually decide to wave your evening goodbye by staying on for another four hours to finish the portion of code that you were working on because there are other more personal demands for your attention.
Whether you work in a bar or code in an office the bottom line is the same: work isn't the be-all and end-all of life when you have little mouths to feed. Start working to live and not living to work.
Now, is there any chance that we could see some "Ask Slashdot" questions that aren't remotely stupid?
Look, if you're not at all concerned about your professional reputation, what kind of reference someone will supply about you, your chances of them recommending you to someone who's after someone with your skillset, etc then, by all means, kid around. But if you care at all about these things, then be aware that what you consider to be a harmless and humourous way of saying goodbye might not go down that way with everyone.
Just remember this: as much as first impressions count, so do last ones.
Sony will continue to support all current customers worldwide for the life of the warranties on their handhelds.
Bear that in mind before you go hunting for a cheap Clie. If my Palm V, which is almost 6 years old, broke down I still could get it repaired by the manufacturer. But, with that wording, it's very much implied that after the warranty period has run out on the Clies sitting on retailers' shelves right now there will be little or no support from Sony for Clie owners. Caveat emptor.
An error in the summary? On Slashdot? Never!
Sorry but your entire argument breaks down if I point out that not every one who has brown skin is from the Middle East (and that's assuming that you believe that treating everyone from the Middle East like a wannabe terrorist is acceptable) and that some people from the Middle East don't have brown skin at all.
Furthermore, you thinking is flawed because you have assumed that any threat can only come from someone of Middle Eastern descent or with brown skin. Need I remind you that at least one member of Al Qaeda was a white American (John Walker Lindh) and that Al Qaeda has shown the ability to recruit people from all around the globe, including western democracies, into its ranks.
Terrorists adapt - as soon as you narrow your sights on one thing, then they will present you with another - so looking for potential terrorists only amongst people who fit a certain racial or social profile is one sure way of leaving yourself wide open to attacks from people who don't fit into those pigeonholes.
And, as I've probably stated previously, not all terrorism comes from the Middle East. The Unabomber may have been a mad loner but Timothy McVeigh certainly wasn't. One thing's for sure, there are far more McVeigh's-in-waiting equipped with their own legal arsenals all over the US than there are Al Qaeda operatives.
Population of the US: ~300 million.
Population of the UK: ~60 million.
Five times the population with at least 100 police deaths a year vs 70 total in 30 years. Those are still scary numbers.
I'll just refer you to my earlier post.