96F would produce a mildly worried look on your doctor's face, though it wouldn't result in a panic.
Really? My average body temperature (when I get up in the morning) is around 36C (that's about 96F). Of course, that could be because I've just slept for 6-8 hours but I do get cold very easily.
Anyway, this whole disagreement over what units to use is pointless and infantile; just use standard scientific units internally and change the units in the end user software based on user preference.
YYYY-MM-DD(ISO 8601) is the only correct format. When you specify dates in that format, you can sort things chronologically simply by sorting them alphanumerically.
Not to mention it's big endian, which is the only logical way to format numbers.
Yep, you definitely need a 4WD SUV to take the highway up the mountain to the paved turnoff leading to the trailhead parking lot. And while you're taking pictures, send me one of the Honda Civic and the VW Beetle parked next to you in the same lot. (I live in Colorado, BTW. See 'em parked side-by-side all the time.)
Yeah, in Colorado you can drive to the top of 14,000 ft mountains (Pike's Peak). Out where we have more challenging mountains (Sierra Nevadas), you can't always get to the trailhead (at 8000ft) without at least high clearance. That, and the fact that I used to get my 2WD 4cyl Ranger stuck all the damn time are what convinced me to switch to a 4Runner. One or two hikes back home at 3AM in November convinced me of that. Considering that it's paid off, I'm not replacing it until it dies, or I can get a hybrid/hydrogen/full electric SUV for $20,000 or less (maybe $40k if I'm convinced it will last longer than 10 years). I do need to start riding my bicycle to and from work again, though. Good exercise and keeps the wear and tear down on the 4Runner. I'm not too upset with the 20MPG the 4Runner gets, especially when I can pack five people (including myself) and day packs into it.
And I suspect their bosses would be glad to be rid of these prima donnas. Nothing says "value" like "I refuse to learn!".
Is it being a prima donna when you are the expert, you know what tool works best, yet your PHB is telling you to use an inferior tool? My response would be "well, if you know so much about writing software (and the tools to do it), you obviously don't need my expertise. Have fun writing your software without me!". It isn't about "refusing to learn"; I suspect that most programmers (like myself) have tried dozens, if not hundreds of editors and IDEs, and found one that works so well for them that using anything else is a productivity killer. Just because you haven't been through the learning curve (of trying those editors) doesn't mean that more experienced programmers haven't.
Sure, I'll try a new tool when you bring it to me (usually I've already tried it out six months earlier!). If it works better than what I have now, I'll use it. But if it's inferior and you try to force it on me because of "standards" or "streamlining the team" or just because you paid for it, you can find yourself another yes man. Nothing says "sunk cost fallacy" like "you will use this tool because we already paid for it!".
In most if not all cases, you will find applications that are as good as if not better than the PalmOS version.
Ah, but can I get the source? It's not essential, but it's a definite important feature for me.
TomTom - Exists for PalmOS and WM. In my opinion the WM version seems to work MUCH better and is far easier to set up.
I haven't tried this, but I was not aware that the GPS was usable by apps on Treo 650.
TCPMP media player - Exists for both platforms, has somewhat extended codec support compared to PalmOS on a Windows Mobile device
Yeah, I prefer TCPMP over RealPlayer, as TCPMP will play OGGs (which is what I rip to by default).
Web browser - The PalmOS web browser Just Plain Sucks in every way possible. Even Pocket IE is better and it isn't that hot (there are other options for WM)
Yes, which is why I've switched to Opera. I'm not happy that I can't get source to Opera, but I can't get source to any of the others and Opera seems to work better.
Java - The Java environment for PalmOS is utter and total crap and when I tried it on my Treo 650 not a single app I tried would work.
I managed to get ahold of the IMB java kit for PalmOS so I could run Opera. Seems to work pretty well, but then I don't use it for anything besides Opera; I'm not a big fan of Java myself.
GMail's Java app works great on my Tilt.
I run my own mail/web server, which seems to work fine with Opera and the mail client that comes with PalmOS. My only gripe there is that the PalmOS mail client doesn't support aliases.
Google Maps - Don't think there's a PalmOS client that can come anywhere close to Google's Windows Mobile native app
Don't know; haven't use the windows mobile version, but the PalmOS version of Google Maps seems to work fine for me.
Instant Messaging - Half of the PalmOS IM app vendors seem to have gone out of business or stopped supporting the app. I've found FAR more choices for WM.
IM isn't a priority for me (I hardly use it). I'm pretty sure there are open source IM clients for PalmOS however.
You don't exactly provide details of what apps you're using.
Here's a list:
Little John - Console emulator for playing classic games.
The thing is, PalmOS works very well for me, and is entirely compatible with Linux (or any other platform I choose to move to). If I were going to move to a new mobile platform, the last place I would look is to Microsoft (or Apple for that matter). Not only would I need to have the apps I use above (which I have source to, so I could port given a decent development environment that runs on my desktop of choice), but I would prefer to move to something more open, not less. Something more hackable, not something that gets in my way when I try to do something the big corps don't like.
If you knew more about plastic, you'd probably avoid it all (reasonable) costs.
And if you knew more about plastic you'd probably know about HDPE and other food safe plastics
As far as camping goes, aluminum is your friend.
No, it's not, I've already gone over this in another post, but I'll summarize here: aluminum is heavier than plastic and it doesn't have the flexibility to make it suitable for fold flat tableware. Lightness and flexibility are key to items you take with you on backpacking trips. And if we're going to go into leaching of toxic substances accusations, let's not forget that aluminum is linked to alzheimer's (the evidence for that is only slightly less credible than the evidence for plastics toxicity, so I don't hew to either theory).
OK, yeah, there's PalmOS too but I don't count it any more since it's painful and users/developers are leaving it in droves because it and the devices it runs on are obsolete.
(I'm a former Treo 650 owner. My Tilt is such a breath of fresh air after that limited and buggy POS.)
Not that I'm going to switch, but I'll pose the same questions to you that I did to the iphone people: where are the apps that I use everyday on PalmOS? I have source to the vast majority of them, but that would still require I port them; will I have to use a windows desktop to do that? Or can I compile and test them on any platform I choose?
As for lockdown, I know of at least one phone that (unlike android) is not locked down, and it already exists and is available for purchase.
It's really sad that the most open mobile phone platform out there is Windows Mobile. Everything else is a nightmare of signed applications and lockdown.
Funny, but the last dozen times I installed unsigned apps on my Treo 650 (running PalmOS), it never pestered me about running an unsigned app. AFAICT, PalmOS is still by far the most open mainstream mobile platform out there. The only reason Linux doesn't beat it is because of that qualifier "mainstream" (which Linux is not yet mainstream for mobile platforms).
You can also get lightweight stainless steel bowls. Work much nicer than plastic.
Not really. Steel (and titanium, and aluminum) don't fold flat, nor are they lighter than plastic. When backpacking, every ounce counts, and anything that is flexible beats things that aren't. As for toxins, that's why you use food safe plastics, and the "tastes fresh" concept is purely subjective; water tastes no different to me whether I'm drinking it from plastic, metal or glass. Though I will grant you that metal will last longer than plastic (including in a landfill), I have used fold-flat plastic tableware for years with no problems.
Personally, I think we should all refrain from offering any arguments in favor of plastic.
I think that we should take a level-headed, non prejudiced, rational approach to choice of materials. That includes not automatically precluding a material for all circumstances.
Is a ceramic cup better for use at home, where it's fragility, weight and requirement for cleaning due to reuse not factor in? Sure. But let's say I'm going backpacking for a week, 5-10 miles a day (minimum) with everything I need to live (excepting water I filter on the way) on my back. Am I going to choose a material for my dishes that is fragile and heavy? No, I'm going to go with plastic that I can reuse and weighs very little. Lightweight, durable, plastic tableware would be (and is) my choice. At home and the office, I try to avoid buying bottled water. Why buy bottled when you can just refill your (reusable, plastic) Nalgene bottle from the tap? Absolutism isn't just a bad idea for morals.
First and foremost, the OpenSSL bug would have happened no matter what level of "engineering" you threw at it. Debian is already leagues ahead of most software houses because they have processes in place to track changes, not to mention a fairly thorough vetting of developers and maintainers. The bug was due to human error, and you're never going to get rid of that. Some would even argue that the bug wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been scrutinizing the software so closely. After all, the bug was introduced as a "fix" to a "memory leak"!
Secondly, I don't believe for one minute that this financial miscalculation was a bug, at least not one introduced by sloppy programming. More likely, some management puke said "These numbers don't look right. Change the software until they do." In other words, we're looking at the number one reason software has problems: mis-management, not a failure of software engineering. Fixing that first would solve probably 90% of software failures, and at a much cheaper price than requiring all code monkeys to be engineers. Of course, even fixing that would not solve what is probably another factor in this debacle: greed. I'm willing to bet that someone thought I would be a good idea to tweak the numbers just long enough to make out like a bandit. As with human error, you're not going to fix that one anytime soon.
How do you make a mountain wheelchair accessible? If you answer "pave it", you've kinda missed the point of climbing the mountain in the first place.
You don't make a mountain wheelchair accessible because those in wheelchairs don't require access to it. Even so, there have been some outdoor areas that have been made wheelchair accessible, even though it's not necessary to modern life. However, just about everyone these days, disabled people included, requires access to bank and government webpages. Denying them access is flat out unethical, no matter how you cut it. Whether or not places like YouTube and MySpace should be accessible is arguable, but there are good arguments for it.
Web pages are a human construct, designed by humans, to serve humans. Are you seeing a pattern here? We can't easily pave every mountain on the planet, but it takes very little effort to design an accessible web page in standards that accounted for disabilities from the start. Standards that are not disability friendly reek to me the same way that proprietary formats (which are often the same) do: they will not survive because they are not flexible or open enough to adapt to the changing needs of the humans that use them.
The funny thing is, your arguments sound a lot to me like those against universal health care: I don't need it, so why should I pay for it? The truth is, you don't know for certain that you will never be disabled. In fact, it's highly likely that later on into your life, your eyesight will degrade enough that fine print will be impossible to read. If nothing else, you should consider that in fifty years (maybe less), you won't be able to access your web pages because you were so short-sighted (pun intended).
Your analogy brings up an interesting point, though: are you saying that you are such a poor web designer that you can't make a web page more accessible than a randomly eroded feature of natural geography? All those brains, and tools to make web pages accessible, and you can't design a web page more accessible than a really big rock?
As to your comment of "missing the point of climbing a mountain", there are reasons to climb a mountain other than the challenge.
They're the original Wiki as far as most of us are concerned.
I hate to be a pedant (too late), but I'm pretty sure the original wiki was the Portland Pattern Repository's Wiki. Really a neat site if you haven't seen it, and should be very enlightening to any software monkey out there. Not trying to be pedantic (really!), just hoping to be informative.
I assume the change was meant to be some sort of PR bullsh*t so as to avoid offending the sensibilities of the idiots out there....
Hmmm. I had always assumed the change was meant to be some sort of PR bullshit so as to avoid the question of why we need a department of war if we're not at war. You know, "idiots", as you call them, can get rather sensitive about a nation having a governmental department whose sole purpose is aggrandizement via violence.
Coding for several days only to realize that you need to throw everything you wrote away is one of the hardest skills for a developer to learn
It's also an extremely necessary skill to learn. For all my other shortcomings as a developer, it is one I've learned quite well. As a government employee writing much software that will never see the light of day and possibly never be used, I've consoled myself that at least it's a learning experience. On the flip side, if you think no one will ever have to maintain your code, you are wrong. Even if it does get thrown away, someone might pick it up again in thirty years and curse your name for your lack of consideration and waste of their time. The key to both these lessons? Egoless programming. I'm not religious (at all) or spiritual (much), but maybe Buddha had something right . . .
So it's very hard for you to make any "real" (Bill Gates type) money with GPL compared to lets say a proprietary CAD program that can charge $1000/seat/year.
The next question is whether anybody should be making "Bill Gates type" money.
There are both moral and ethical limits to desire for wealth.
The lack of open source software billionaires is by design. It's part of the intent of open source software -- to balance the scales by devaluing the obscene profit margins that exist in the commercial software business. Duplicating software is about as close to legally printing money as a company can get; profit margins regularly exceed 80 percent.
-- http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000842.html
To ask where the open source billionaires are is to demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of how open source software works. If you wanted to become obscenely rich by starting an open source software company, I'm sorry, but you picked the wrong industry. You'll make a living, perhaps even a lucrative one. But you won't become Bill Gates rich, or Paul Allen rich, by siphoning away the exorbitant profit margins commercial software vendors have enjoyed for so many years.
-- http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000842.html
I'd also like to prescription drugs prohibited from advertising on TV/web.
I remember seeing somewhere that pharma corps expenses are something like 80% advertising. I don't have anything to back this up with, but I wouldn't be surprised if the true cost is rather close to that. How much of medicine that we are paying for is going towards convincing us that we need it?
I still have documents in plain ASCII that I can open from over ten years ago. I've got a few.wri's that I can still open, thanks to reverse engineering efforts by the open source community. Older proprietary formats are now defacto open standards. The thing that can kill this off? Patents, for one. Trade secrets in the form of overly complicated proprietary formats for another.
And yes, I realize I'm not talking about GB's of "mission critical" data stored in some awkward database. You still have to admit it would be easier to convert data from a PostGreSQL database of ten years ago than an Sybase or FoxPro one.
CmdrTaco has said that he is not particularly concerned when some of the new features don't work in IE since most of the readers use Firefox.
It's also not his problem that one company decided to flagrantly violate web standards. If CmdrTaco is designing slashdot to the specs, then he need do nothing more than test with a compliant browser to make sure it comes out looking the way he wants. Not to mention that using IE is a choice that can be easily corrected, unlike most disabilities.
Before I begin, I'd like to address the following editorializing:
But now, with a Democratic Congress and a potentially Democratic administration next year, the arguments may gain more political traction.
Can you say "flamebait"? I knew you could. It's highly likely that Republicans would implement this tax as well, as it doesn't affect their core constituency (the uber-rich) one bit. Sales tax are arguably a regressive tax, and the Republicans have never had a problem with those, so let's not single out the Democrats for doing what any politician would do.
Now, the problem I see with states requiring businesses to collect sales tax for each state is the interstate commerce clause (not that the ICC has never been ignored or abused before). In my opinion, businesses should have been doing the logical thing from the beginning: charge sales tax for the state they are incorporated or operating in. Think about it: if you go to another state, do you not pay sales tax just because you are a non-resident? If you are from USA and you go to Europe, do you not pay VAT? Buying things on the Internet is like going somewhere and buying something, only a lot faster. Most people buy things on the Internet because it is cheaper or the product isn't available locally, and people have been doing that for a long time before the Internet existed, by going to a different locale.
It also makes sense from a scaling burden to the business POV: any business that has a store in different states charges different sales tax rates based on which store it was bought at. If the business is big enough that it has storefronts in different states, it can probably afford to manage different tax rates and is a small price to pay for the added benefit of a larger market. Setting up a store on the Internet, however, is trivially easy, and implies no large company with an accounting division that could easily handle multiple tax rates because they already have storefronts in multiple states. Why should small businesses be shut out? If anything, reduced competition is a bad thing.
1: Sorry, the vast majority of those burned at the stake really were burned for heresy -- that is, saying something against Church Doctrine. And in large part they said it because of a religious, not scientific, conviction.
How convenient that - "oh, they weren't burned at the stake because they were scientists - it was because they were heretics!" The mere fact that anything that didn't jive with church doctrine (which included science) was considered heresy doesn't make previous religious atrocities any less abhorrent.
2: Ancient Greece is largely where we get our understanding of religion FROM.
No, I believe you insinuated that Jesus christ was a scientist. It's a common tactic that is used by religionists to try and discredit those who would argue for faith and reason, but I'll respond nonetheless. Jesus, if he existed, was only one of many people who was crucified. To single him out as special based on faith in his divinity, while ignoring the anguish and suffering of countless others before and after him is as callous as it is ignorant. While his ideals are ones that most can agree are a good idea, he was not the first to express them, nor does his existence (or divinity) have any bearing on the validity of those ideals. They can be shown to be valid via more rational methods. No faith is required.
Okay, but who weaves on city streets anyway (except around obstructions, such as double-parked delivery trucks and cars turning left)? I'm a relatively aggressive driver myself, and even I don't do that!
Trust me, I've seen it - usually teenagers in a primer grey Honda Civic with a coffee can for muffler and an aluminum drag-racing spoiler or soccer moms talking on cell phones in SUV's too big for them. Although I have to admit, even I used to do it (though not terribly much). I think age (and ascending gas prices) have tempered my driving style, as I don't even accelerate that hard from stoplights anymore. At least I can still claim I'm learning/growing in a positive manner:)
but the slow traffic in the left lane is specifically disobeying the "slower traffic keep right" sign.
Last I checked, the "slower traffic keep right" signs were only on highways and the interstate. I'd always been taught that in cities, it's advisable to get in the lane you need to be in as soon as possible and go with the flow of traffic - neither going slower than the majority nor weaving in and out (which will ultimately cause more accidents than any meandering roadblocks in the form of slow pokes in the wrong lane).
This is because science, as we know it, only started in earnest in the last two hundred years.
This is because religion, as we know it, has been torturing and killing scientists at the stake for (at least) the last two thousand years. Here's a hint: don't ignore ancient Greece when you try to talk about science.
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Really? My average body temperature (when I get up in the morning) is around 36C (that's about 96F). Of course, that could be because I've just slept for 6-8 hours but I do get cold very easily.
Anyway, this whole disagreement over what units to use is pointless and infantile; just use standard scientific units internally and change the units in the end user software based on user preference.
Not to mention it's big endian, which is the only logical way to format numbers.
Yeah, in Colorado you can drive to the top of 14,000 ft mountains (Pike's Peak). Out where we have more challenging mountains (Sierra Nevadas), you can't always get to the trailhead (at 8000ft) without at least high clearance. That, and the fact that I used to get my 2WD 4cyl Ranger stuck all the damn time are what convinced me to switch to a 4Runner. One or two hikes back home at 3AM in November convinced me of that. Considering that it's paid off, I'm not replacing it until it dies, or I can get a hybrid/hydrogen/full electric SUV for $20,000 or less (maybe $40k if I'm convinced it will last longer than 10 years). I do need to start riding my bicycle to and from work again, though. Good exercise and keeps the wear and tear down on the 4Runner. I'm not too upset with the 20MPG the 4Runner gets, especially when I can pack five people (including myself) and day packs into it.
Is it being a prima donna when you are the expert, you know what tool works best, yet your PHB is telling you to use an inferior tool? My response would be "well, if you know so much about writing software (and the tools to do it), you obviously don't need my expertise. Have fun writing your software without me!". It isn't about "refusing to learn"; I suspect that most programmers (like myself) have tried dozens, if not hundreds of editors and IDEs, and found one that works so well for them that using anything else is a productivity killer. Just because you haven't been through the learning curve (of trying those editors) doesn't mean that more experienced programmers haven't.
Sure, I'll try a new tool when you bring it to me (usually I've already tried it out six months earlier!). If it works better than what I have now, I'll use it. But if it's inferior and you try to force it on me because of "standards" or "streamlining the team" or just because you paid for it, you can find yourself another yes man. Nothing says "sunk cost fallacy" like "you will use this tool because we already paid for it!".
Ah, but can I get the source? It's not essential, but it's a definite important feature for me.
I haven't tried this, but I was not aware that the GPS was usable by apps on Treo 650.
Yeah, I prefer TCPMP over RealPlayer, as TCPMP will play OGGs (which is what I rip to by default).
Yes, which is why I've switched to Opera. I'm not happy that I can't get source to Opera, but I can't get source to any of the others and Opera seems to work better.
I managed to get ahold of the IMB java kit for PalmOS so I could run Opera. Seems to work pretty well, but then I don't use it for anything besides Opera; I'm not a big fan of Java myself.
I run my own mail/web server, which seems to work fine with Opera and the mail client that comes with PalmOS. My only gripe there is that the PalmOS mail client doesn't support aliases.
Don't know; haven't use the windows mobile version, but the PalmOS version of Google Maps seems to work fine for me.
IM isn't a priority for me (I hardly use it). I'm pretty sure there are open source IM clients for PalmOS however.
Here's a list:
The thing is, PalmOS works very well for me, and is entirely compatible with Linux (or any other platform I choose to move to). If I were going to move to a new mobile platform, the last place I would look is to Microsoft (or Apple for that matter). Not only would I need to have the apps I use above (which I have source to, so I could port given a decent development environment that runs on my desktop of choice), but I would prefer to move to something more open, not less. Something more hackable, not something that gets in my way when I try to do something the big corps don't like.
And if you knew more about plastic you'd probably know about HDPE and other food safe plastics
No, it's not, I've already gone over this in another post, but I'll summarize here: aluminum is heavier than plastic and it doesn't have the flexibility to make it suitable for fold flat tableware. Lightness and flexibility are key to items you take with you on backpacking trips. And if we're going to go into leaching of toxic substances accusations, let's not forget that aluminum is linked to alzheimer's (the evidence for that is only slightly less credible than the evidence for plastics toxicity, so I don't hew to either theory).
Not that I'm going to switch, but I'll pose the same questions to you that I did to the iphone people: where are the apps that I use everyday on PalmOS? I have source to the vast majority of them, but that would still require I port them; will I have to use a windows desktop to do that? Or can I compile and test them on any platform I choose?
As for lockdown, I know of at least one phone that (unlike android) is not locked down, and it already exists and is available for purchase.
Funny, but the last dozen times I installed unsigned apps on my Treo 650 (running PalmOS), it never pestered me about running an unsigned app. AFAICT, PalmOS is still by far the most open mainstream mobile platform out there. The only reason Linux doesn't beat it is because of that qualifier "mainstream" (which Linux is not yet mainstream for mobile platforms).
Not really. Steel (and titanium, and aluminum) don't fold flat, nor are they lighter than plastic. When backpacking, every ounce counts, and anything that is flexible beats things that aren't. As for toxins, that's why you use food safe plastics, and the "tastes fresh" concept is purely subjective; water tastes no different to me whether I'm drinking it from plastic, metal or glass. Though I will grant you that metal will last longer than plastic (including in a landfill), I have used fold-flat plastic tableware for years with no problems.
I think that we should take a level-headed, non prejudiced, rational approach to choice of materials. That includes not automatically precluding a material for all circumstances.
Is a ceramic cup better for use at home, where it's fragility, weight and requirement for cleaning due to reuse not factor in? Sure. But let's say I'm going backpacking for a week, 5-10 miles a day (minimum) with everything I need to live (excepting water I filter on the way) on my back. Am I going to choose a material for my dishes that is fragile and heavy? No, I'm going to go with plastic that I can reuse and weighs very little. Lightweight, durable, plastic tableware would be (and is) my choice. At home and the office, I try to avoid buying bottled water. Why buy bottled when you can just refill your (reusable, plastic) Nalgene bottle from the tap? Absolutism isn't just a bad idea for morals.
Oh, now there's a REAL useful mod.
First and foremost, the OpenSSL bug would have happened no matter what level of "engineering" you threw at it. Debian is already leagues ahead of most software houses because they have processes in place to track changes, not to mention a fairly thorough vetting of developers and maintainers. The bug was due to human error, and you're never going to get rid of that. Some would even argue that the bug wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been scrutinizing the software so closely. After all, the bug was introduced as a "fix" to a "memory leak"!
Secondly, I don't believe for one minute that this financial miscalculation was a bug, at least not one introduced by sloppy programming. More likely, some management puke said "These numbers don't look right. Change the software until they do." In other words, we're looking at the number one reason software has problems: mis-management, not a failure of software engineering. Fixing that first would solve probably 90% of software failures, and at a much cheaper price than requiring all code monkeys to be engineers. Of course, even fixing that would not solve what is probably another factor in this debacle: greed. I'm willing to bet that someone thought I would be a good idea to tweak the numbers just long enough to make out like a bandit. As with human error, you're not going to fix that one anytime soon.
You don't make a mountain wheelchair accessible because those in wheelchairs don't require access to it. Even so, there have been some outdoor areas that have been made wheelchair accessible, even though it's not necessary to modern life. However, just about everyone these days, disabled people included, requires access to bank and government webpages. Denying them access is flat out unethical, no matter how you cut it. Whether or not places like YouTube and MySpace should be accessible is arguable, but there are good arguments for it.
Web pages are a human construct, designed by humans, to serve humans. Are you seeing a pattern here? We can't easily pave every mountain on the planet, but it takes very little effort to design an accessible web page in standards that accounted for disabilities from the start. Standards that are not disability friendly reek to me the same way that proprietary formats (which are often the same) do: they will not survive because they are not flexible or open enough to adapt to the changing needs of the humans that use them.
The funny thing is, your arguments sound a lot to me like those against universal health care: I don't need it, so why should I pay for it? The truth is, you don't know for certain that you will never be disabled. In fact, it's highly likely that later on into your life, your eyesight will degrade enough that fine print will be impossible to read. If nothing else, you should consider that in fifty years (maybe less), you won't be able to access your web pages because you were so short-sighted (pun intended).
Your analogy brings up an interesting point, though: are you saying that you are such a poor web designer that you can't make a web page more accessible than a randomly eroded feature of natural geography? All those brains, and tools to make web pages accessible, and you can't design a web page more accessible than a really big rock?
As to your comment of "missing the point of climbing a mountain", there are reasons to climb a mountain other than the challenge.
I hate to be a pedant (too late), but I'm pretty sure the original wiki was the Portland Pattern Repository's Wiki. Really a neat site if you haven't seen it, and should be very enlightening to any software monkey out there. Not trying to be pedantic (really!), just hoping to be informative.
Point. I'll shut up now :)
Hmmm. I had always assumed the change was meant to be some sort of PR bullshit so as to avoid the question of why we need a department of war if we're not at war. You know, "idiots", as you call them, can get rather sensitive about a nation having a governmental department whose sole purpose is aggrandizement via violence.
It's also an extremely necessary skill to learn. For all my other shortcomings as a developer, it is one I've learned quite well. As a government employee writing much software that will never see the light of day and possibly never be used, I've consoled myself that at least it's a learning experience. On the flip side, if you think no one will ever have to maintain your code, you are wrong. Even if it does get thrown away, someone might pick it up again in thirty years and curse your name for your lack of consideration and waste of their time. The key to both these lessons? Egoless programming. I'm not religious (at all) or spiritual (much), but maybe Buddha had something right . . .
I think a few quotes from one of my favorite articles ever explains this quite nicely:
I remember seeing somewhere that pharma corps expenses are something like 80% advertising. I don't have anything to back this up with, but I wouldn't be surprised if the true cost is rather close to that. How much of medicine that we are paying for is going towards convincing us that we need it?
Maybe proprietary formats were meant to die.
I still have documents in plain ASCII that I can open from over ten years ago. I've got a few .wri's that I can still open, thanks to reverse engineering efforts by the open source community. Older proprietary formats are now defacto open standards. The thing that can kill this off? Patents, for one. Trade secrets in the form of overly complicated proprietary formats for another.
And yes, I realize I'm not talking about GB's of "mission critical" data stored in some awkward database. You still have to admit it would be easier to convert data from a PostGreSQL database of ten years ago than an Sybase or FoxPro one.
It's also not his problem that one company decided to flagrantly violate web standards. If CmdrTaco is designing slashdot to the specs, then he need do nothing more than test with a compliant browser to make sure it comes out looking the way he wants. Not to mention that using IE is a choice that can be easily corrected, unlike most disabilities.
Before I begin, I'd like to address the following editorializing:
Can you say "flamebait"? I knew you could. It's highly likely that Republicans would implement this tax as well, as it doesn't affect their core constituency (the uber-rich) one bit. Sales tax are arguably a regressive tax, and the Republicans have never had a problem with those, so let's not single out the Democrats for doing what any politician would do.
Now, the problem I see with states requiring businesses to collect sales tax for each state is the interstate commerce clause (not that the ICC has never been ignored or abused before). In my opinion, businesses should have been doing the logical thing from the beginning: charge sales tax for the state they are incorporated or operating in. Think about it: if you go to another state, do you not pay sales tax just because you are a non-resident? If you are from USA and you go to Europe, do you not pay VAT? Buying things on the Internet is like going somewhere and buying something, only a lot faster. Most people buy things on the Internet because it is cheaper or the product isn't available locally, and people have been doing that for a long time before the Internet existed, by going to a different locale.
It also makes sense from a scaling burden to the business POV: any business that has a store in different states charges different sales tax rates based on which store it was bought at. If the business is big enough that it has storefronts in different states, it can probably afford to manage different tax rates and is a small price to pay for the added benefit of a larger market. Setting up a store on the Internet, however, is trivially easy, and implies no large company with an accounting division that could easily handle multiple tax rates because they already have storefronts in multiple states. Why should small businesses be shut out? If anything, reduced competition is a bad thing.
How convenient that - "oh, they weren't burned at the stake because they were scientists - it was because they were heretics!" The mere fact that anything that didn't jive with church doctrine (which included science) was considered heresy doesn't make previous religious atrocities any less abhorrent.
Duh - but let's not ignore Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Euclid, Hypatia (bonus points as she was killed by a Christian mob) and Pythagoras. I could go on all day, but that's what the search function on Wikipedia is for (try History of science in Classical Antiquity for starters). Now, why didn't science continue unabated between Ancient Greece and the Renaissance? Hmm, I wonder.
No, I believe you insinuated that Jesus christ was a scientist. It's a common tactic that is used by religionists to try and discredit those who would argue for faith and reason, but I'll respond nonetheless. Jesus, if he existed, was only one of many people who was crucified. To single him out as special based on faith in his divinity, while ignoring the anguish and suffering of countless others before and after him is as callous as it is ignorant. While his ideals are ones that most can agree are a good idea, he was not the first to express them, nor does his existence (or divinity) have any bearing on the validity of those ideals. They can be shown to be valid via more rational methods. No faith is required.
Trust me, I've seen it - usually teenagers in a primer grey Honda Civic with a coffee can for muffler and an aluminum drag-racing spoiler or soccer moms talking on cell phones in SUV's too big for them. Although I have to admit, even I used to do it (though not terribly much). I think age (and ascending gas prices) have tempered my driving style, as I don't even accelerate that hard from stoplights anymore. At least I can still claim I'm learning/growing in a positive manner :)
Last I checked, the "slower traffic keep right" signs were only on highways and the interstate. I'd always been taught that in cities, it's advisable to get in the lane you need to be in as soon as possible and go with the flow of traffic - neither going slower than the majority nor weaving in and out (which will ultimately cause more accidents than any meandering roadblocks in the form of slow pokes in the wrong lane).
This is because religion, as we know it, has been torturing and killing scientists at the stake for (at least) the last two thousand years. Here's a hint: don't ignore ancient Greece when you try to talk about science.