I've seen this in Game stores in the UK as well - I've bought GBA games which turned out to have saved game data on them already. Very underhand - these days I just go to Gamestation and buy games that I now are second hand.
One argument against product liability for software is that it would destroy the industry by placing unacceptable costs on developers, and that it would wipe out the open source movement in its current form since there is no way an organisation like the Mozilla Foundation could distribute Firefox for free under those terms.
But nobody bought a copy of Firefox, did they? The only way you should expect to have consumer rights is if you actually bought the product. In fact, why even mention free software at all in the article?
I think the MacosX market would be perfect for Staroffice. Mac users aren't likely to be fans of MS, are more likely to be open to alternatives and I've read complaints that MS Office for Mac has file transfer problems with the Windows version anyway. Combined, that surely should create a demand for a native OO.org version?
NeoOffice is a start, but it's far too slow and not properly native.
I've had the same experience. Graphics card fans seem to get noisier over time as well. I think it's something to do with the fact that in most tower cases the card fan is upside down - I've had fans that made horrendous noise when installed but ran fine when turned back the 'right' way round.
Or you could post a question to a website where thousands of knowledgable geeks with similar interests post every day, thereby creating a page that contains a large amount of information about the subject for Google to index.
More evidence for the "never buy the first revision of an Apple product" maxim? Didn't early versions of iBooks, powerbooks G4, iMac G5 and iPod Mini all have some reliability problems?
It's to do with the desktop because the sound daemon is part of the desktop - esd or arts. It's required as a hack to get round the problem of only one process being able to output to/dev/dsp at once. It's not really related to drivers and it is generally recognised as being a major problem on the Free software desktop. Latency and syncing issues are a big problem with the current daemons, in my experience, plus they make it more difficult to use apps which need to play sounds but don't use your sound daemon of choice.
Things like dmix present a solution, but I have yet to see a distro that comes with that properly configured and stable out of the box. And figuring out the arcane configuration files required to get them working is not much fun for an average desktop user.
Many times I was asked to "not worry" about the concept and just do the math
This is exactly the thing that completely killed my interest in engineering. I like to understand things on a basic level: to know, for example, roughly what a temperature gradient in a reactor will look like and why, without maths. It gives me a context in which to understand the maths and to understand its limitations.
My engineering classes just focused on the maths, which I could have looked up in a textbook, and ignored the reasoning behind it. Nobody ever understood what I meant when I complained - their answer was always "but the maths is what's in the exam, that's all I care about".
I did an engineering degree, and am now working in software. Large numbers of people from my course went into management consultancy, accountancy, IT, software, biochemistry - basically anything but engineering. So even out of the small number of people actualy doing engineering degrees, a large fraction don't want to do engineering for a living.
Why? The ~50% pay difference doesn't help. Neither does the memory of countless 3-hour lectures by bad lecturers, or the complete lack of status attached to engineers by companies and society.
I wonder if better ad-targeting will mean higher pay-per-click for the publishers? Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.
FFS, it's an advert for a game console. Slightly cleverer than your average "buy our product" advert, but an advert all the same. In what twisted world is that something big or newsworthy?
Re:Why should you.. or anyone care?: Slave Mentali
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Because the UK is a midpoint that seems to be working reasonably well. We have fairly good protection for employees, combined with pretty good economic performance. I agree that overly large socialist states are not a good thing - that doesn't mean that the opposite is any better. I believe Germany is going to be reforming to a less socialist system fairly soon, anyway.
Re:Why should you.. or anyone care?: Slave Mentali
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Sshh, they might hear:-)
Being serious for a moment, everything is above board, I spent many hours sorting everything out with the various accountants involved. When one client has enough work available that I could basically work 7 days a week for the next year and still have to cut features from the product, having more than one client is a little unnecessary.
Re:Why should you.. or anyone care?: Slave Mentali
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My girlfriend gets 37.5hrs/week flexitime, 5 weeks holiday, 'free' healthcare (actually National Insurance for ~£50/month, IIRC), a guaranteed state pension and got free education to Bachelors level (although that's changed now) in a junior admin position in the UK. I'm self-employed in the UK, but work entirely for a German company, so I see how well they treat their workers too.
I think the continental European countries do take the Socialist thing a bit far, but good working conditions aren't as bad for the economy as some Americans seem to think.
Re:Why should you.. or anyone care?: Slave Mentali
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 1
Take the UK as an example:
- unemployment 4.7% (USA is 4.9%) - Minimum holiday entitlement of 4 weeks for full time, people get 5-6 weeks with seniority - Large scale immigration of workers from EU countries, the Far East, Indian subcontinent - limit of 48 hours/week working. Most office jobs are 37.5-40 hours - Free education to 18, subsidised with capped fees to Masters level
Am I the only one that actually likes the Ubuntu version names? Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger: they're quite funny, easy to shorten and memorable. And "Hoary" is quite a common word, at least where I come from (South East UK). Linux distros don't have to be dull and corporate - just use "Ubuntu 5.10" to management if it bothers anyone that much.
Some LCD maufacturers have started claiming huge contrast ratios based on the TVs digital signal processing software - they call it "Dynamic Contrast" or something. I've seen ratios of up to 3000:1 claimed for TVs that are acually only 800:1. That said, I just bought a samsung LE32r41, which seems to have very good contrast.
I'm so looking forward to that game, but I can't seem to find anything about a UK release date. The best I can see is August 2005 "To be confirmed", and I can't find it in any UK retailer.
Slashdot Mirror
I've seen this in Game stores in the UK as well - I've bought GBA games which turned out to have saved game data on them already. Very underhand - these days I just go to Gamestation and buy games that I now are second hand.
One argument against product liability for software is that it would destroy the industry by placing unacceptable costs on developers, and that it would wipe out the open source movement in its current form since there is no way an organisation like the Mozilla Foundation could distribute Firefox for free under those terms.
But nobody bought a copy of Firefox, did they? The only way you should expect to have consumer rights is if you actually bought the product. In fact, why even mention free software at all in the article?
I think the MacosX market would be perfect for Staroffice. Mac users aren't likely to be fans of MS, are more likely to be open to alternatives and I've read complaints that MS Office for Mac has file transfer problems with the Windows version anyway. Combined, that surely should create a demand for a native OO.org version?
NeoOffice is a start, but it's far too slow and not properly native.
I've had the same experience. Graphics card fans seem to get noisier over time as well. I think it's something to do with the fact that in most tower cases the card fan is upside down - I've had fans that made horrendous noise when installed but ran fine when turned back the 'right' way round.
Or you could post a question to a website where thousands of knowledgable geeks with similar interests post every day, thereby creating a page that contains a large amount of information about the subject for Google to index.
More evidence for the "never buy the first revision of an Apple product" maxim? Didn't early versions of iBooks, powerbooks G4, iMac G5 and iPod Mini all have some reliability problems?
It's to do with the desktop because the sound daemon is part of the desktop - esd or arts. It's required as a hack to get round the problem of only one process being able to output to /dev/dsp at once. It's not really related to drivers and it is generally recognised as being a major problem on the Free software desktop. Latency and syncing issues are a big problem with the current daemons, in my experience, plus they make it more difficult to use apps which need to play sounds but don't use your sound daemon of choice.
Things like dmix present a solution, but I have yet to see a distro that comes with that properly configured and stable out of the box. And figuring out the arcane configuration files required to get them working is not much fun for an average desktop user.
Many times I was asked to "not worry" about the concept and just do the math
This is exactly the thing that completely killed my interest in engineering. I like to understand things on a basic level: to know, for example, roughly what a temperature gradient in a reactor will look like and why, without maths. It gives me a context in which to understand the maths and to understand its limitations.
My engineering classes just focused on the maths, which I could have looked up in a textbook, and ignored the reasoning behind it. Nobody ever understood what I meant when I complained - their answer was always "but the maths is what's in the exam, that's all I care about".
I did an engineering degree, and am now working in software. Large numbers of people from my course went into management consultancy, accountancy, IT, software, biochemistry - basically anything but engineering. So even out of the small number of people actualy doing engineering degrees, a large fraction don't want to do engineering for a living.
Why? The ~50% pay difference doesn't help. Neither does the memory of countless 3-hour lectures by bad lecturers, or the complete lack of status attached to engineers by companies and society.
I'm glad to hear that: I guess I didn't read the last "changes in terms of service" page carefully enough.
I wonder if better ad-targeting will mean higher pay-per-click for the publishers? Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.
People called Romanes they go the house?
"Something big is about to happen"
FFS, it's an advert for a game console. Slightly cleverer than your average "buy our product" advert, but an advert all the same. In what twisted world is that something big or newsworthy?
Because the UK is a midpoint that seems to be working reasonably well. We have fairly good protection for employees, combined with pretty good economic performance. I agree that overly large socialist states are not a good thing - that doesn't mean that the opposite is any better. I believe Germany is going to be reforming to a less socialist system fairly soon, anyway.
Sshh, they might hear :-)
Being serious for a moment, everything is above board, I spent many hours sorting everything out with the various accountants involved. When one client has enough work available that I could basically work 7 days a week for the next year and still have to cut features from the product, having more than one client is a little unnecessary.
My girlfriend gets 37.5hrs/week flexitime, 5 weeks holiday, 'free' healthcare (actually National Insurance for ~£50/month, IIRC), a guaranteed state pension and got free education to Bachelors level (although that's changed now) in a junior admin position in the UK. I'm self-employed in the UK, but work entirely for a German company, so I see how well they treat their workers too.
I think the continental European countries do take the Socialist thing a bit far, but good working conditions aren't as bad for the economy as some Americans seem to think.
Take the UK as an example:
- unemployment 4.7% (USA is 4.9%)
- Minimum holiday entitlement of 4 weeks for full time, people get 5-6 weeks with seniority
- Large scale immigration of workers from EU countries, the Far East, Indian subcontinent
- limit of 48 hours/week working. Most office jobs are 37.5-40 hours
- Free education to 18, subsidised with capped fees to Masters level
Are they insane? Stargate SG-1 at six? That programme is terrible: they took a bad film, added even hammier acting and produced an even worse series.
Am I the only one that actually likes the Ubuntu version names? Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger: they're quite funny, easy to shorten and memorable. And "Hoary" is quite a common word, at least where I come from (South East UK). Linux distros don't have to be dull and corporate - just use "Ubuntu 5.10" to management if it bothers anyone that much.
Some LCD maufacturers have started claiming huge contrast ratios based on the TVs digital signal processing software - they call it "Dynamic Contrast" or something. I've seen ratios of up to 3000:1 claimed for TVs that are acually only 800:1. That said, I just bought a samsung LE32r41, which seems to have very good contrast.
You can get replacement GBA SP batteries for around $10. You do need a mini-screwdriver to change them, though.
That's the one. Now, if you'll excuse me I have to go and play Black Hole Wars 2: Advance Rising.
I'm so looking forward to that game, but I can't seem to find anything about a UK release date. The best I can see is August 2005 "To be confirmed", and I can't find it in any UK retailer.
OK, Astro boy: omega factor, not omega boy. Great game, anyway.
I've always wondered how that page thing is meant to work. It just seems to do nothing - finding a comment that isn't on the first page is pure luck.