If you were to apply that same reasoning to, oh, say, nicotine, which also causes random DNA breaks and errors in replication, then your argument would say that tobacco isn't in fact linked to lung cancer.
to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial
Most mutations are harmful, or neutral at best. To use the watchmaker analogy, chipping away at the gears of your watch is more likely to break something than to make your watch into an atomic clock.
The only problem with that is that MSIE still is buggy with alpha-transparancy.
The best - and basically only - solution I've found so far is to force MSIE to use a AlphaImageLoader, but that's a serious pain in the ass because you have to use a javascript call instead of just
var pngAlpha = false; var pngNormal = false;
// if IE5.5+ on Win32, then display PNGs with AlphaImageLoader // else if the browser can display PNGs normally, then do that if ((is_ie5_5up || is_ie6up) && is_win) { pngAlpha = true; } else if ((is_gecko) || (is_ie5up && is_mac) || (is_opera5up) || (is_webtv)) { pngNormal = true;}
Here's a funny little story. About a year ago, we started having weird problems with microsoft office2K at the company where I used to work. It seemed that, after installing the MS Office SP1 service pack, no office application would work. The splash screen would appear, and poof, the application would then mysteriously close.
After scratching our collective heads, my IT coworkers and I found this little article at the MSDN knowledge base :
When you start one of the Microsoft Office programs listed at the beginning of this article after you apply the Microsoft Office SR-1/SR-1a Update, the program quits immediately after it starts.
CAUSE
Office was installed by using a CD key that begins with GC6J3 .
[...]
If the product CD Key begins with GC6J3, the Product Key is not valid in Microsoft Office 2000 SR-1/SR-1a. Contact the reseller of your Office product to obtain a valid product CD key, or purchase a valid Microsoft Office 2000 product. After you obtain a valid product CD key, continue with the following steps.
It seemed that a group of people installed unlicenced versions of the office with a keygen they'd found on the net. It so happened that all the keys generated started with GC6J3.
As soon as the service pack was installed, nothing worked again. Coincidence? Uh huh. And swine are now flying out of my posterior...
Same thing happens if you install a free demo version of Visio2000 or MSProject2000 that some people get in the mail too:)
So I'm not really worried that microsoft is loosing sleep over the current keygen. Just wait for the 1st XP SP.
Granted, ebooks do have their advantages, but the're something inherently lacking in the concept.
I love books. I have so many that every time I move, my movers hate me. I love the sight of a book collection, the smell of it. That's something you can't have with an ebook. Sure, you can carry more than one at a time, but I don't know many people who read more than one book concurrently. Also, the concept of curling up with a good ebook just doesn't sound right and about the fact that your hands cramp up, I beg to differ. My carpal is bad enough these days without having to constantly keep fiddling with a stylus. Furthermore, the screen size of most palms, ipaqs or ebook readers is way to damned small to be comfortable to read for hours. Gimme dead tree anytime...
Lastly, a book doesn't have batteries that run out on you twenty pages from the ending when your recharging cable is back at the office and you're attending a week-long out-of-town convention DAG NABBIT!
I heard Dr. Conway talk at the OReilly BioInformatics Conference in Tucson, AZ. He gave a talk about the Quantum::Superpositions module. It was hilarious. He started his talk with the premise that, if we could program on quantum computers in infinite multiple universes and constant time, this is how it should look like. As the talk progressed, the audience really started to get into it.
I have to say that Conway is a brilliant speaker and truly funny. When he announced after a 3 hour talk that what he just spoke about isn't just a nice concept in theory but an actual perl module (only in a single universe and in real, often exponential time), the crowd just lost it and ROTFLed:)
Anyway, the'll never do it because most customer's are going to be so pissed off it'd be like shooting themselves in the feet.
Most people won't care, or more properly, most people won't know this could and most probably will, become a problem. Only the informed minority will try and raise a fuss, but it won't matter in the end.
I've been installing systems for years now for friends and family. For all of these people, once the system was up and running, their biggest concerns was not f*cking it up. Most people don't reformat their HD every few months or swap hardware for the fun of it. Hell, most people don't change their desktop bitmaps... They use their computer to check their emails and surf the web, maybe play a few games and the odd homework assignments for the kids. For the people who buy a computer-thingie 'cause the neighbours have one or they want to try out that new fangled Internet, I seriously doubt that they will complain about which OS comes with the package-deal computer they buy.
So what if they get a message once in a while telling them they need to connect to upgrade or get a bug fix. Most people will put up with it. Why? Because once something is done, apathy sets in and people start to rationalize. It's not so bad, it does that all the time. I just click, wait a few minutes and it goes away. I'll ask my son / friend / husband / etc... what it means when he comes home...if I remember.
Slashdot Mirror
mmmmm, ya, no.
If you were to apply that same reasoning to, oh, say, nicotine, which also causes random DNA breaks and errors in replication, then your argument would say that tobacco isn't in fact linked to lung cancer.
to remind me that mutations are almost always beneficial
Most mutations are harmful, or neutral at best. To use the watchmaker analogy, chipping away at the gears of your watch is more likely to break something than to make your watch into an atomic clock.
Here's a funny little story. About a year ago, we started having weird problems with microsoft office2K at the company where I used to work. It seemed that, after installing the MS Office SP1 service pack, no office application would work. The splash screen would appear, and poof, the application would then mysteriously close.
:)
After scratching our collective heads, my IT coworkers and I found this little article at the MSDN knowledge base :
OFF2000: Program Quits Immediately After Starting When SR-1/SR-1a Update Is Applied (Q255503)
SYMPTOMS
When you start one of the Microsoft Office programs listed at the beginning of this article after you apply the Microsoft Office SR-1/SR-1a Update, the program quits immediately after it starts.
CAUSE
Office was installed by using a CD key that begins with GC6J3 .
[...]
If the product CD Key begins with GC6J3, the Product Key is not valid in Microsoft Office 2000 SR-1/SR-1a. Contact the reseller of your Office product to obtain a valid product CD key, or purchase a valid Microsoft Office 2000 product. After you obtain a valid product CD key, continue with the following steps.
It seemed that a group of people installed unlicenced versions of the office with a keygen they'd found on the net. It so happened that all the keys generated started with GC6J3.
As soon as the service pack was installed, nothing worked again. Coincidence? Uh huh. And swine are now flying out of my posterior...
Same thing happens if you install a free demo version of Visio2000 or MSProject2000 that some people get in the mail too
So I'm not really worried that microsoft is loosing sleep over the current keygen. Just wait for the 1st XP SP.
Granted, ebooks do have their advantages, but the're something inherently lacking in the concept.
I love books. I have so many that every time I move, my movers hate me. I love the sight of a book collection, the smell of it. That's something you can't have with an ebook. Sure, you can carry more than one at a time, but I don't know many people who read more than one book concurrently. Also, the concept of curling up with a good ebook just doesn't sound right and about the fact that your hands cramp up, I beg to differ. My carpal is bad enough these days without having to constantly keep fiddling with a stylus. Furthermore, the screen size of most palms, ipaqs or ebook readers is way to damned small to be comfortable to read for hours. Gimme dead tree anytime...
Lastly, a book doesn't have batteries that run out on you twenty pages from the ending when your recharging cable is back at the office and you're attending a week-long out-of-town convention DAG NABBIT!
I heard Dr. Conway talk at the OReilly BioInformatics Conference in Tucson, AZ. He gave a talk about the Quantum::Superpositions module. It was hilarious. He started his talk with the premise that, if we could program on quantum computers in infinite multiple universes and constant time, this is how it should look like. As the talk progressed, the audience really started to get into it.
:)
I have to say that Conway is a brilliant speaker and truly funny. When he announced after a 3 hour talk that what he just spoke about isn't just a nice concept in theory but an actual perl module (only in a single universe and in real, often exponential time), the crowd just lost it and ROTFLed
Most people won't care, or more properly, most people won't know this could and most probably will, become a problem. Only the informed minority will try and raise a fuss, but it won't matter in the end.
I've been installing systems for years now for friends and family. For all of these people, once the system was up and running, their biggest concerns was not f*cking it up. Most people don't reformat their HD every few months or swap hardware for the fun of it. Hell, most people don't change their desktop bitmaps... They use their computer to check their emails and surf the web, maybe play a few games and the odd homework assignments for the kids. For the people who buy a computer-thingie 'cause the neighbours have one or they want to try out that new fangled Internet, I seriously doubt that they will complain about which OS comes with the package-deal computer they buy.
So what if they get a message once in a while telling them they need to connect to upgrade or get a bug fix. Most people will put up with it. Why? Because once something is done, apathy sets in and people start to rationalize. It's not so bad, it does that all the time. I just click, wait a few minutes and it goes away. I'll ask my son / friend / husband / etc... what it means when he comes home...if I remember.
Sad, but most probably true.