IRA Aggie wrote: "Go look at the currency in your pocket. Does it not have a mark upon it? can you buy or sell with out it?"
Well, no -- but if currency had no regular repeating marks (if it was more, say, like a European phone card with pretty picures and limited editions etc) then you could. US currency is different only in degree (regarding this aspect) from other recognizable currencies of the world, now and historically. (By this I exclude wampum, buillion and, say, the round South Pacific dowry stones, but include Chinese, Roman and other coins as well as paper money.)
For any money issued by a governing authority (that is, currency of realm), it'd be tough for it not to have "marks" (quoted to indicate things like variable-worth / rechargable instruments like all these damn galactic credits clogging my desk drawer. Earth is so backwards sometimes!).
So I don't think US paper money is the mark of the devil, though the Masons* certainly got their kicks in with the design;)
timothy
*Like my grandfather, who had nothing to do with designing money!
Yes, vaporware is frustrating and tantalizing. From Yopy to Red Hat set-topper broadband access boxes, all kinds of things promise to run Linux that still seem to be clever drawings and marketing.
But Yopy's devpmt kit is not available, and compaq has released as GPL the communications protocols for their portable 4.6 gig MP3 player, and uClinix which many people are referencing on here has linux running on a board the size of a DIMM, with ethernet, flash memory, video driver, and a dragonball. It's not vapor, even if it's not exactly what Reginald Consumer wants to stir his coffee with.
And do Linux boxes have to be ugly beige boxes? Absolutely not. In fact, an Apple G3 or G4 tower running Yellow Dog linux is pretty rockin', and iMacs can play too. Also, there are cases available in all kinds of colors and shapes. Run Linux on a nice Dell Inspiron bolted to the underside of your desk, and display on an external 17" flat panel monitor -- that would be stylish. Translucent cases, or ones in all black... you're not restricted to beige unless you want to be:) Also, computer cases take well to spraypaint -- sand first, use thin coats and plenty of drying time, but you could have a quintiple-buffed metal-flecked aggie case if you want. Or you could hang your computer from the ceiling as a mobile, as some slashdot readers have done.
I wonder if your last graf, including the line "there will be no incredible OSS contributions to things like wearables, and car/portable linux devices" means that I have been successfully trolled;)
my predictions usually end up wrong, so don't listen to anything I say;)
But since before they were called PDAs, when the height of technology was a calculator that allowed you to store memory when it was off, I always expected them to die. "Too small!" I scoffed. "Desk calculators are cheap and easy to use, have printers. Who would want to carry a less capable, clumbsier device?!"
Talk of handheld computers did the same thing "Why would you suffer the indignity of whatever painful input device you must use to input text, and forget about pictures or color! bah!"
Things like the Sharp Wizard and the various Casio gizmos only reinforced this -- either they had tiny QUERTY keyboard (bad enough) or else sequential numbers and letters which made text entry a horrible joke on the user.
I laughed at the Palm, too, when I first saw a picture and read about it, and even when I saw other people using them for things that I thought could be better done with an index card and a rollerball pen. Things like a tiny uCLinux-running credit card thing would have made my eyes roll back in my head.
Now I am converted. Afer playing with friends' Palms / Pilots over the past few years, I got a visor and discovered that numbers I have on the visor aren't subject to getting crumpled or smeared, that directions I have there don't mysteriously acquire chewing gum decorations, and games on it are disproportionately fun. (Parking Lot! Parking Lot!) Perfect to keep a travel journal, dream diary, contact info.
So though this ChipSlice thing looks destined for more specialized applications and a more focused userbase than the do-everything Palm and Visor, I'm much more optimistic than I would have been a few years ago that it can be useful and successful.
But please, Chipslice, if anyone there is listening -- use file formats that other people can use! Plain text! XML! html! Dots and Dashes!
Make it simple for someone to use one of these for data transfer (you do say it's USB compatible), as a download station for a digital camera, as a hotel-room key via expiring codes, as a million other things, but in some way that they don't have to worry about carrying tons of equipment for "compatibility" with cousin Joe or the New York office.
There is a fair degree of customization in that you can check slashboxes and change your threshold to limit your viewing to, say, nothing but News articles with a +5 threshhold. Do that in "lite" mode and you'll probably have a setup that few other readers do:)
Are you proposing that, say, all articles that have to do with Microsoft be part of a single, ongoing, threaded conversation?
The problem I see with that (and as someone with nothing to do with the slashcode itself, pleae understand) is that the resultant stories would be a) enormous and b) tough to categorize... would you really want/all/ stories having to do with the MS trial to be lumped into a single meta-story? How to separate non-trial MS stuff neatly from trial stuff, and link them appropriately under the MS umbrella?
In fact, the main page serves as a sort of list of threaded stories anyhow -- you can ignore the ones you don't want to read, and only click to read the threads of the ones you do want. Ja??
I think the current system is flawed... but less than any alternatives I can think of!
I hadn't considered a connotation of revenge, actually -- I was thinking of the skating / surfing / snowboarding move:) since it involves revisiting your recent position, but more gracefully than wiping out.
The problem with backslash is that it's already taken (it's the name of another, internal section of the slash site).
The other names I've thought about so far have been too lame to repeat (I know -- I just wrote them in and deleted 'em) but I'd be happy to consider others... no guarantees other than honest consideration, though.
MS products often annoy me, I will admit -- I've used windows upon occasion over the course of my life, but frankly for what I do and in my experience it's always been a second- or third-best solution.
Ever since I installed Slackware (which took forever and a lot of headscratching and growling), then Red Hat, then Mandrake (and some in between as well) I've been hooked on Linux, though I also admire and support the various BSD projects and anyone else with the guts to creat an OS.
I think in an open market, MS will change or die as better things emerge. For many people in many situations, there are Linux distros which beat any MS product all to pieces.
What worries me is establishing a mold of proper meekness and behavior for entrepreneurs / CEOs, rather than let the people who buy products make their own decisions / mistakes... lots of people insult Bill Gates as arrogant and smarmy -- well, OK, he's an imperfect guy:) But I'd not like to be raked over coals for an attitude that regulatory agencies don't like, because that would hurt. The attitude seems to be "Bill Gates should be forced to X..." and ideally, people shouldn't be forced to do things unless no moral alternative exists. Moral aren't the governement's strong suit, though.
Anyhow, now watch my karma jerk like a ragdoll for saying that;)
Col. Klink cited an instance of the attitude which bothers me about the process by which it looks like MS is about to get drawn and quartered:
"In the case of such Intellectual Property that is related to the Internet browser, the license shall not grant the Operating System Business any right to develop, license, or distribute modified or derivative versions of the Internet browser."
Bureaucracies tend / need to see all situations as fitting into their way of looking at the world. Discussions here on slashdot about "what *exactly* is an operating system" have drawn out the fact that there is no commonly accepted definition -- but there is a large gang of ones that are claimed to be universally accepted;)
Often it's tossed out as assertion that an operating system and a Web browser are inherently separate / separable things, which is why MS including IE integrated with their OS was seen as such a conniving move.
But ride with me down this slippery slope for a second...
Can a/file/ browser be part of an OS? That is not to say whether it's vital to the IO functions, but say in the way that most Linux distros come with quite a few file browsers... I think most people would say that a file browser is a legitimate / important part of a useable OS.
Given that, I don't see why a Web browswer oughtn't be a legitimate OS componenent -- just look at KDE, where nearly any window can be a Web browser, it seems:)
I'm not saying that a modern OS should of necessity have a Web browser, only that the DOJ isn't allowing enough room for ambiguity by defining OS and Web browser as irreconcilably different, when I don't think they have to be -- in fact, look at all the ways that people are planning to use / already using Mozilla. Definitions shift, tools get used differently, the impossible becomes the ordinary... I think allowing oversight and market division by the government just sets some dangerous precedent.
I'm saying all this with a sense of wonderment rather than zealotry; I'd just rather seem companies succeed or fail on their merits and faults... MS certainly would have plenty to worry about without masked men at the gate with guns -- no, wrong story;)
Though I bet there could be an automated search-engine function which scanned for other posts mentioning a certain story, updating/all/ stories which deserve it would really be an order of magnitude more difficult -- because really, *every* story usually deserves more than a quick paragraph, but that's (hopefully) what the comments are usually for:) This was an attempt to collate a few of the ones which drew some really interesting / informative new info that readers might not get by skimming the page the first time...
In the case of information that is misleading or could be damaging, you'll certainly continue to see corrections right in the story if it's still on the page (try/that/ with your copy of the morning paper!) but for more follow-up stories (like these), I think the time spent is hard to justify... also, I don't want to try to update stories that are already far off the front page, like the one to which the above mention of Jason Haas was a happy update.
I know it's not perfect, but until I can work out the deal with the millions of monkeys on the roof...;)
The VHS tapes came out in at least two major versions (special edition / normal) and I think there were others as well. I'm swearing off until the DVD is out -- but I've been saying that since I first heard of DVD, then when I saw pictures of players in the "upcoming technology" sections, then when I saw then in stores... DVD has been around for several years now, and is suceeding beyond my hopes and expectations. Wouldn't George Lucas like to release what would instantly and permanantly be one of the top selling DVDs ever? Millions of people are begging to let them give you money, George.
[Aside:] The first one certainly had a bigger impact on my mind than the subsequent ones.
Dear Santa Lucas: I want DVDs of the first three (episodes IV-VI), extra scenes, etc. I want a bonus disk of "The Making Of The Movie." But please, please make a concrete statement. For some reason, it's hard to place firm bets based on the word of a place called "the Rumor Mill."
wrenling wrote: "And the above will only happen IF the PARENTS of that kid decide to back him/her and go to bat for them. Many parents are just as scared of the school system as the kid is -- or honestly believe what the school is telling them, because they dont understand their child's motivation either."
Hear, hear!
I was an RA at a summer program for "gifted children" for 5 years, and met a lot of kids' parents. I also went to an suburban American high school, which like most high schools has a multi-variable social scene.
A lot of parents don't care about their kids, or t least not in ways the kids can appreciate. The militarist father next door in American Beauty is unfortunately not as unrealistic a character as I wish he were, though he's not the only variant on the theme of parents-who-never-grew-up. Those parents' kids tend to be surly and resentful. The biggest danger they pose is probably to themselves (because they're constantly mad and it distracts from their forward vision, metaphorically speaking) and to their own kids, who I fear they will treat the same way.
On the other hand, some parents clearly not only love their kids in the abstract, but establish loving bonds with them that mean the kids talk to their parents, grow up decently adjusted and primed to experience the world happily.
These things transcend "socio-economic level" (which usually means "economic" but that's another story)... rich parents are sometimes dulled by wordly concerns and general malaise, poor parents are often much wealthier in their relationship with their kids. And sometimes vice versa.
That's not to say that parents are the only factor, or that if you want happy kids you should forswear worldly possessions. Only that nothing an anonymous tipline (prizes or no) can ever do will affect the root causes of unhappy kids. But it might make a lot of otherwise OK kids miserable.
And you know what? All teenagers are unhappy at certain points, some more than others. You show me a teenager who is never unhappy, and I'll search his room for drugs while you lock him in the basement.
Mixing state involvement with education will have some perverse effects. In some cases, you may think those effects are worth it, in others you may not.
The issue is complicated, but for those interested in the argument that government-controlled, compulsory, tax-funded schooling is inherently wrong rather than only a matter of bad execution, you might be interested in the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, who take their cue from the phrase "separation of church and state" and in a sense for the same reasons.
Efforts like WAVE America expose the danger of trusting a bureaucracy to "care" for children in other than a cursory, bean-counting way. "Care" as euphemism, that is.
[Note: I am not endorsing -- nor do I agree with, so far as I know -- any or all religious beliefs of the founders of this organization. =) ]
The one that used to be up at hatless.com (I think that's where it was) also showed more information about how that info was obtained. Like what sizes of hard drive were available, what they cost for base model and for higher capacities. The SA chart is interesting in its speculation, but it's short on the details that actual end users would have to know.
Better than nothing, but I'm looking for a better one.
Which may make me part of the lowest low brow culinary culture, but I'm serious.
They're a really interesting engineering project. I'm talking about the ones that you heat with a galvanic reaction (am I thinking straight?)... the food is actually surprizingly good. I'd like to know where I can get some MREs to keep in my car, actually, in case I suffer a breakdown and have to wait a while for help. (Which has happened to me, and I was very glad to have the emergency car food along.)
The peaches and other fruit are good, so are the cookies. The crackers are... well, crackers. The chocobars are tasty, though no competition for the Lindt family of Switzerland. The fruit punch is bland, at least in the recommended concentration, but it's just like Kool-Aid: the recommendation is a joke played on you by the guy who designs the packages, and is to be ignored as a matter of course.
However, there's no excuse for any creamy dishes in MREs -- those are pretty foul. Chicken Ala King? barf. Chile? Turkey? They're goood! Please, if you don't like MREs, send me your extras:)
Of course, I am rarely tapped to work on the Michelen guides...
Computer Rennaisance actually has a cool idea... but from my experience badly executed.
Based on my while-ago experience, but also backed up by recent phone inquiries for specific things (like a used AMd K6-2 400) The sales guys... well, some were obviously skilled computer users, and some are straight out of a used car lot parody.
Now each CR store is separately owned, so I'm sure it depends which one you go to. I don't know the nature of their franchise / logo sharing / whatever, but it seems like the all the CR prices I've seen have been terrible. Added to which, if you open the case on one of their complete systems, you void the warranty -- you can't even be sure they've sold you what they say they have, or check which rev. of a cerain piece of hardware you have.
The used computer market has the potential to be really vibrant -- but at the prices used stores charge, they will be limited to the ignorant and helpless. (Ignorance can be overcome, but helplessness can't be helped;) ) Not a small demographic, but this makes them less useful to people who'd like abundant, local, cheap, non-cutting edge computer supplies.
Does anyone know of a site which graphically shows (pie graphs or whatnot) the dropping price of magnetic (or any other) storage?
Think about how much the first CD-ROM drives cost. The first writers. Now, $300 gets you a rewriter from Best Buy:)
To show the price drop, you have to keep dropping the appropriate scale, from "thousands of dollars per byte" to "hundreds of dollars per megabyte" to "dollars per gigabyte." That, or deal with figures so far in the decimals that you have to count on your fingers to make sure it's really/that/ much cheaper.
I think there used to be one at hatless.com, but it seems to have slipped into 404dom.
ufdraco wrote: "Prices can change, and this review gets archived. The two don't really work well together." Good point; the currency would definitely fade. But, I see nothing wrong with a data point here, like "As of 11th March 2000, this book cost $40 plus shipping at Thinkgeek." (Or other vendor, too of course.) Looking back at the archive in 90 years;), someone could know how much a book/had/ cost. And in the more immediate future, the book prices (unless remaindered or superseded by a new edition) are likely to be at least approximately right, eh? timothy
Agreed. For around $100, you can easily get a (cheapy, but working) 14-15" monitor in most American towns that can support three hamburger shops. (On the basis that they also have a WalMart);) You may have to wait for the monthly electronics sale circular, but I don't think that price is off base.
That monitor, though, is likely to have bad color, awful curvature, slow warm-up, bad controls, poor refresh rate and poor resolution. It may even rattle loudly when moved (loose guts of some sort) like the Magnavox SVGA I had the misfortune to buy from Computer Renaissance 2 years ago. For the screen size, it will also be incredibly bulky. [Yes, this is all hyphothetical, but I would love to be proved wrong;) ]
I think a small -- say as small as the i-opener -- flat screen display would be a much better low-end monitor than a low-end CRT. What it loses in screen space it gains in edge-to-edge consistency, quick warmup, ease of transport, ease of placement. Add some mounting holes (to suspend from the ceiling) and a tripod mount, too;)
Cheap LCDs' biggest problem is viewing angle -- the best ones from NEC have a much wider angle, and so do some of the newer ones from various other companies, at least so say hardware reviews.
But if someone (Netpliance would be nice, since though they may not have the production lines for this, certainly have lines on bulk LCDs of an appropriate size and a key to the back door of Circuit City) would market a smallish, cheapish LCD monitor, I wouldn't worry about screen angle too much. I would just be happy to slap a less space-intrusive output device on the old P-90. Again, I'm suggesting this would make a great low-entry-level display, nothing more.
Power savings from LCDs are a nice side benefit, too, but *most* users a) won't notice b) won't care and c) don't keep their computers on 24/7, and don't have a bedroom full of computers. Schools and businesses, though, are another story. There's a lot of snookering in "TCO" figures, naturally, but any place with hundreds of units has to take energy savings a little more seriously.
Masem wrote (in part): "... but if the police were to report on every incidence they cover, local papers would be rather thick..."
Well, papers aren't obligated to report all police incidents, but for many years, the police reports have been a staple of local reporting.
I agree with you that this isn't "censorship" in the way that a ruling would be that declared censorship the law of the land, but I think the Hitchikers Guide example is a good example of de facto censorship... obfuscation is as good as denial, if it takes more effort to penetrate than reasonable people are willing to give.
I'd like police reports to be open for one thing as a check on police power. If the police are harrassing someone, I don't want them to be able to (legally) deny their activities. Also, unless a system were utterly leakproof (and none is),/not/ having info. released could be used to smear someone as well as releasing it. "Now I'm not saying mr. Smith was arrested for kiddie porn, since I'm not allowed to say that, but just so you have something to think about, I might be inclined to say something like that." With a police report, smears would require at least a little more effort. (Of course, some depts are probably so used to planting evidence the consider it year-round arbor day...)
timothy
Negative Reviews, Funny
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Star Maker
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Submit your negative book reviews ;)
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Star Maker
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Signal 11 wrote: "When was the last time slashdot posted a BAD book review? I mean, comeon.. most sites that do this kind of thing have both good and bad reviews... like movie critics. When are we going to see a "zero star" on slashdot - something so god-awfully bad you want to go read it just to see how bad gets (the same affliction that made me see Army of Darkness three times *g*)."
a) send in your acerbic, laughter-inducing, wince-worthy book reviews, and they may run =) The problem is that sometimes folks who do negative reviews get a kick more out of playing the dozens then actually addressing the points in the books they pan, even if they really are genuinely bad. Take Cluetrain -- it's a well-intentioned book that probably does as good a job or better than any other at speaking to buzzword-addicted business types who want to understand what the Web actually means to them, or ought to. But it'd be pretty easy to make fun of -- it's got some lines which lend themselves to parody. A lot of the comments on the review of that book do just that. My brother once wrote on the back of a zine (I don't know whether he made it up) "Unfounded cynicism is the deepest form of naivete."
b) As a lot of other posters have pointed out, reviews on Slashdot are not generally there just to fill a "Oh, we gotta have a review" time slot -- more that a reviewer wants to let others in on a book he or she enjoyed. There are some out of print or otherwise overlooked books which surely deserve review, that their memes not dissappear.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, that should have said "But Yopy's devpmt kit is now available" rather than "not available." That puts exactly the wrong sense to my words!
mea culpa, bitte vergeben Sie mir,
timothy
IRA Aggie wrote: "Go look at the currency in your pocket. Does it not have a mark upon it? can you buy or sell with out it?"
Well, no -- but if currency had no regular repeating marks (if it was more, say, like a European phone card with pretty picures and limited editions etc) then you could. US currency is different only in degree (regarding this aspect) from other recognizable currencies of the world, now and historically. (By this I exclude wampum, buillion and, say, the round South Pacific dowry stones, but include Chinese, Roman and other coins as well as paper money.)
For any money issued by a governing authority (that is, currency of realm), it'd be tough for it not to have "marks" (quoted to indicate things like variable-worth / rechargable instruments like all these damn galactic credits clogging my desk drawer. Earth is so backwards sometimes!).
So I don't think US paper money is the mark of the devil, though the Masons* certainly got their kicks in with the design;)
timothy
*Like my grandfather, who had nothing to do with designing money!
Yes, vaporware is frustrating and tantalizing. From Yopy to Red Hat set-topper broadband access boxes, all kinds of things promise to run Linux that still seem to be clever drawings and marketing.
... you're not restricted to beige unless you want to be :) Also, computer cases take well to spraypaint -- sand first, use thin coats and plenty of drying time, but you could have a quintiple-buffed metal-flecked aggie case if you want. Or you could hang your computer from the ceiling as a mobile, as some slashdot readers have done.
But Yopy's devpmt kit is not available, and compaq has released as GPL the communications protocols for their portable 4.6 gig MP3 player, and uClinix which many people are referencing on here has linux running on a board the size of a DIMM, with ethernet, flash memory, video driver, and a dragonball. It's not vapor, even if it's not exactly what Reginald Consumer wants to stir his coffee with.
And do Linux boxes have to be ugly beige boxes? Absolutely not. In fact, an Apple G3 or G4 tower running Yellow Dog linux is pretty rockin', and iMacs can play too. Also, there are cases available in all kinds of colors and shapes. Run Linux on a nice Dell Inspiron bolted to the underside of your desk, and display on an external 17" flat panel monitor -- that would be stylish. Translucent cases, or ones in all black
I wonder if your last graf, including the line "there will be no incredible OSS contributions to things like wearables, and car/portable linux devices" means that I have been successfully trolled;)
If so, mach's nichts, still had to be said.
timothy
my predictions usually end up wrong, so don't listen to anything I say;)
But since before they were called PDAs, when the height of technology was a calculator that allowed you to store memory when it was off, I always expected them to die. "Too small!" I scoffed. "Desk calculators are cheap and easy to use, have printers. Who would want to carry a less capable, clumbsier device?!"
Talk of handheld computers did the same thing "Why would you suffer the indignity of whatever painful input device you must use to input text, and forget about pictures or color! bah!"
Things like the Sharp Wizard and the various Casio gizmos only reinforced this -- either they had tiny QUERTY keyboard (bad enough) or else sequential numbers and letters which made text entry a horrible joke on the user.
I laughed at the Palm, too, when I first saw a picture and read about it, and even when I saw other people using them for things that I thought could be better done with an index card and a rollerball pen. Things like a tiny uCLinux-running credit card thing would have made my eyes roll back in my head.
Now I am converted. Afer playing with friends' Palms / Pilots over the past few years, I got a visor and discovered that numbers I have on the visor aren't subject to getting crumpled or smeared, that directions I have there don't mysteriously acquire chewing gum decorations, and games on it are disproportionately fun. (Parking Lot! Parking Lot!) Perfect to keep a travel journal, dream diary, contact info.
So though this ChipSlice thing looks destined for more specialized applications and a more focused userbase than the do-everything Palm and Visor, I'm much more optimistic than I would have been a few years ago that it can be useful and successful.
But please, Chipslice, if anyone there is listening -- use file formats that other people can use! Plain text! XML! html! Dots and Dashes!
Make it simple for someone to use one of these for data transfer (you do say it's USB compatible), as a download station for a digital camera, as a hotel-room key via expiring codes, as a million other things, but in some way that they don't have to worry about carrying tons of equipment for "compatibility" with cousin Joe or the New York office.
That's all:)
timothy
Hmmm.
:)
... would you really want /all/ stories having to do with the MS trial to be lumped into a single meta-story? How to separate non-trial MS stuff neatly from trial stuff, and link them appropriately under the MS umbrella?
... but less than any alternatives I can think of!
There is a fair degree of customization in that you can check slashboxes and change your threshold to limit your viewing to, say, nothing but News articles with a +5 threshhold. Do that in "lite" mode and you'll probably have a setup that few other readers do
Are you proposing that, say, all articles that have to do with Microsoft be part of a single, ongoing, threaded conversation?
The problem I see with that (and as someone with nothing to do with the slashcode itself, pleae understand) is that the resultant stories would be a) enormous and b) tough to categorize
In fact, the main page serves as a sort of list of threaded stories anyhow -- you can ignore the ones you don't want to read, and only click to read the threads of the ones you do want. Ja??
I think the current system is flawed
timothy
Dear A.C.:
:) since it involves revisiting your recent position, but more gracefully than wiping out.
... no guarantees other than honest consideration, though.
I hadn't considered a connotation of revenge, actually -- I was thinking of the skating / surfing / snowboarding move
The problem with backslash is that it's already taken (it's the name of another, internal section of the slash site).
The other names I've thought about so far have been too lame to repeat (I know -- I just wrote them in and deleted 'em) but I'd be happy to consider others
timothy
MS products often annoy me, I will admit -- I've used windows upon occasion over the course of my life, but frankly for what I do and in my experience it's always been a second- or third-best solution.
Ever since I installed Slackware (which took forever and a lot of headscratching and growling), then Red Hat, then Mandrake (and some in between as well) I've been hooked on Linux, though I also admire and support the various BSD projects and anyone else with the guts to creat an OS.
I think in an open market, MS will change or die as better things emerge. For many people in many situations, there are Linux distros which beat any MS product all to pieces.
What worries me is establishing a mold of proper meekness and behavior for entrepreneurs / CEOs, rather than let the people who buy products make their own decisions / mistakes ... lots of people insult Bill Gates as arrogant and smarmy -- well, OK, he's an imperfect guy:) But I'd not like to be raked over coals for an attitude that regulatory agencies don't like, because that would hurt. The attitude seems to be "Bill Gates should be forced to X ..." and ideally, people shouldn't be forced to do things unless no moral alternative exists. Moral aren't
the governement's strong suit, though.
Anyhow, now watch my karma jerk like a ragdoll for saying that;)
timothy
"In the case of such Intellectual Property that is related to the Internet browser, the license shall not grant the Operating System Business any right to develop, license, or distribute modified or derivative versions of the Internet browser."
Bureaucracies tend / need to see all situations as fitting into their way of looking at the world. Discussions here on slashdot about "what *exactly* is an operating system" have drawn out the fact that there is no commonly accepted definition -- but there is a large gang of ones that are claimed to be universally accepted;)
Often it's tossed out as assertion that an operating system and a Web browser are inherently separate / separable things, which is why MS including IE integrated with their OS was seen as such a conniving move.
But ride with me down this slippery slope for a second ...
Can a /file/ browser be part of an OS? That is not to say whether it's vital to the IO functions, but say in the way that most Linux distros come with quite a few file browsers ... I think most people would say that a file browser is a legitimate / important part of a useable OS.
Given that, I don't see why a Web browswer oughtn't be a legitimate OS componenent -- just look at KDE, where nearly any window can be a Web browser, it seems:)
I'm not saying that a modern OS should of necessity have a Web browser, only that the DOJ isn't allowing enough room for ambiguity by defining OS and Web browser as irreconcilably different, when I don't think they have to be -- in fact, look at all the ways that people are planning to use / already using Mozilla. Definitions shift, tools get used differently, the impossible becomes the ordinary ... I think allowing oversight and market division by the government just sets some dangerous precedent.
I'm saying all this with a sense of wonderment rather than zealotry; I'd just rather seem companies succeed or fail on their merits and faults ... MS certainly would have plenty to worry about without masked men at the gate with guns -- no, wrong story;)
timothy
Christian Hosoi, Bill Danforth or Chris Miller at Upland skatepark,
or a photo of my brother Stephen snowboarding or surfing.
That's why I called it "backslash";)
timothy
Though I bet there could be an automated search-engine function which scanned for other posts mentioning a certain story, updating /all/ stories which deserve it would really be an order of magnitude more difficult -- because really, *every* story usually deserves more than a quick paragraph, but that's (hopefully) what the comments are usually for :) This was an attempt to collate a few of the ones which drew some really interesting / informative new info that readers might not get by skimming the page the first time ...
In the case of information that is misleading or could be damaging, you'll certainly continue to see corrections right in the story if it's still on the page (try /that/ with your copy of the morning paper!) but for more follow-up stories (like these), I think the time spent is hard to justify ... also, I don't want to try to update stories that are already far off the front page, like the one to which the above mention of Jason Haas was a happy update.
I know it's not perfect, but until I can work out the deal with the millions of monkeys on the roof ... ;)
timothy
When it comes down to it, the biggest question is what role you think coercion should play in the marketplace, and of what nature.
Long term, there are a lot of potential ill effects that could come out of a software marketplace which is regulated by a chamber of "wise men."
(Or more ...)
... DVD has been around for several years now, and is suceeding beyond my hopes and expectations. Wouldn't George Lucas like to release what would instantly and permanantly be one of the top selling DVDs ever? Millions of people are begging to let them give you money, George.
The VHS tapes came out in at least two major versions (special edition / normal) and I think there were others as well. I'm swearing off until the DVD is out -- but I've been saying that since I first heard of DVD, then when I saw pictures of players in the "upcoming technology" sections, then when I saw then in stores
[Aside:]
The first one certainly had a bigger impact on my mind than the subsequent ones.
Dear Santa Lucas: I want DVDs of the first three (episodes IV-VI), extra scenes, etc. I want a bonus disk of "The Making Of The Movie." But please, please make a concrete statement. For some reason, it's hard to place firm bets based on the word of a place called "the Rumor Mill."
timothy
wrenling wrote: "And the above will only happen IF the PARENTS of that kid decide to back him/her and go to bat for them. Many parents are just as scared of the school system as the kid is -- or honestly believe what the school is telling them, because they dont understand their child's motivation either."
Hear, hear!
I was an RA at a summer program for "gifted children" for 5 years, and met a lot of kids' parents. I also went to an suburban American high school, which like most high schools has a multi-variable social scene.
A lot of parents don't care about their kids, or t least not in ways the kids can appreciate. The militarist father next door in American Beauty is unfortunately not as unrealistic a character as I wish he were, though he's not the only variant on the theme of parents-who-never-grew-up. Those parents' kids tend to be surly and resentful. The biggest danger they pose is probably to themselves (because they're constantly mad and it distracts from their forward vision, metaphorically speaking) and to their own kids, who I fear they will treat the same way.
On the other hand, some parents clearly not only love their kids in the abstract, but establish loving bonds with them that mean the kids talk to their parents, grow up decently adjusted and primed to experience the world happily.
These things transcend "socio-economic level" (which usually means "economic" but that's another story)... rich parents are sometimes dulled by wordly concerns and general malaise, poor parents are often much wealthier in their relationship with their kids. And sometimes vice versa.
That's not to say that parents are the only factor, or that if you want happy kids you should forswear worldly possessions. Only that nothing an anonymous tipline (prizes or no) can ever do will affect the root causes of unhappy kids. But it might make a lot of otherwise OK kids miserable.
And you know what? All teenagers are unhappy at certain points, some more than others. You show me a teenager who is never unhappy, and I'll search his room for drugs while you lock him in the basement.
timothy
Mixing state involvement with education will have some perverse effects. In some cases, you may think those effects are worth it, in others you may not.
The issue is complicated, but for those interested in the argument that government-controlled, compulsory, tax-funded schooling is inherently wrong rather than only a matter of bad execution, you might be interested in the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, who take their cue from the phrase "separation of church and state" and in a sense for the same reasons.
Efforts like WAVE America expose the danger of trusting a bureaucracy to "care" for children in other than a cursory, bean-counting way. "Care" as euphemism, that is.
[Note: I am not endorsing -- nor do I agree with, so far as I know -- any or all religious beliefs of the founders of this organization. =) ]
timothy
Desmond Llewelyn, that is.
But here's his picture.
timothy
The one that used to be up at hatless.com (I think that's where it was) also showed more information about how that info was obtained. Like what sizes of hard drive were available, what they cost for base model and for higher capacities. The SA chart is interesting in its speculation, but it's short on the details that actual end users would have to know.
Better than nothing, but I'm looking for a better one.
timothy
Which may make me part of the lowest low brow culinary culture, but I'm serious.
... the food is actually surprizingly good. I'd like to know where I can get some MREs to keep in my car, actually, in case I suffer a breakdown and have to wait a while for help. (Which has happened to me, and I was very glad to have the emergency car food along.)
... well, crackers. The chocobars are tasty, though no competition for the Lindt family of Switzerland. The fruit punch is bland, at least in the recommended concentration, but it's just like Kool-Aid: the recommendation is a joke played on you by the guy who designs the packages, and is to be ignored as a matter of course.
...
They're a really interesting engineering project. I'm talking about the ones that you heat with a galvanic reaction (am I thinking straight?)
The peaches and other fruit are good, so are the cookies. The crackers are
However, there's no excuse for any creamy dishes in MREs -- those are pretty foul. Chicken Ala King? barf. Chile? Turkey? They're goood! Please, if you don't like MREs, send me your extras:)
Of course, I am rarely tapped to work on the Michelen guides
timothy
p.s. The little tobasco bottles are cool, too!
Computer Rennaisance actually has a cool idea ... but from my experience badly executed.
... well, some were obviously skilled computer users, and some are straight out of a used car lot parody.
Based on my while-ago experience, but also backed up by recent phone inquiries for specific things (like a used AMd K6-2 400) The sales guys
Now each CR store is separately owned, so I'm sure it depends which one you go to. I don't know the nature of their franchise / logo sharing / whatever, but it seems like the all the CR prices I've seen have been terrible. Added to which, if you open the case on one of their complete systems, you void the warranty -- you can't even be sure they've sold you what they say they have, or check which rev. of a cerain piece of hardware you have.
The used computer market has the potential to be really vibrant -- but at the prices used stores charge, they will be limited to the ignorant and helpless. (Ignorance can be overcome, but helplessness can't be helped;) ) Not a small demographic, but this makes them less useful to people who'd like abundant, local, cheap, non-cutting edge computer supplies.
timothy
Does anyone know of a site which graphically shows (pie graphs or whatnot) the dropping price of magnetic (or any other) storage?
/that/ much cheaper.
Think about how much the first CD-ROM drives cost. The first writers. Now, $300 gets you a rewriter from Best Buy:)
To show the price drop, you have to keep dropping the appropriate scale, from "thousands of dollars per byte" to "hundreds of dollars per megabyte" to "dollars per gigabyte." That, or deal with figures so far in the decimals that you have to count on your fingers to make sure it's really
I think there used to be one at hatless.com, but it seems to have slipped into 404dom.
Anyone know of a good replacement?
timothy
ufdraco wrote: "Prices can change, and this review gets archived. The two don't really work well together." Good point; the currency would definitely fade. But, I see nothing wrong with a data point here, like "As of 11th March 2000, this book cost $40 plus shipping at Thinkgeek." (Or other vendor, too of course.) Looking back at the archive in 90 years;), someone could know how much a book /had/ cost. And in the more immediate future, the book prices (unless remaindered or superseded by a new edition) are likely to be at least approximately right, eh? timothy
Agreed. For around $100, you can easily get a (cheapy, but working) 14-15" monitor in most American towns that can support three hamburger shops. (On the basis that they also have a WalMart) ;) You may have to wait for the monthly electronics sale circular, but I don't think that price is off base.
That monitor, though, is likely to have bad color, awful curvature, slow warm-up, bad controls, poor refresh rate and poor resolution. It may even rattle loudly when moved (loose guts of some sort) like the Magnavox SVGA I had the misfortune to buy from Computer Renaissance 2 years ago. For the screen size, it will also be incredibly bulky. [Yes, this is all hyphothetical, but I would love to be proved wrong;) ]
I think a small -- say as small as the i-opener -- flat screen display would be a much better low-end monitor than a low-end CRT. What it loses in screen space it gains in edge-to-edge consistency, quick warmup, ease of transport, ease of placement. Add some mounting holes (to suspend from the ceiling) and a tripod mount, too;)
Cheap LCDs' biggest problem is viewing angle -- the best ones from NEC have a much wider angle, and so do some of the newer ones from various other companies, at least so say hardware reviews.
But if someone (Netpliance would be nice, since though they may not have the production lines for this, certainly have lines on bulk LCDs of an appropriate size and a key to the back door of Circuit City) would market a smallish, cheapish LCD monitor, I wouldn't worry about screen angle too much. I would just be happy to slap a less space-intrusive output device on the old P-90. Again, I'm suggesting this would make a great low-entry-level display, nothing more.
Power savings from LCDs are a nice side benefit, too, but *most* users a) won't notice b) won't care and c) don't keep their computers on 24/7, and don't have a bedroom full of computers. Schools and businesses, though, are another story. There's a lot of snookering in "TCO" figures, naturally, but any place with hundreds of units has to take energy savings a little more seriously.
timothy
I fixed it.
mea culpa.
timothy
Masem wrote (in part): "... but if the police were to report on every incidence they cover, local papers would be rather thick ..."
... obfuscation is as good as denial, if it takes more effort to penetrate than reasonable people are willing to give.
/not/ having info. released could be used to smear someone as well as releasing it. "Now I'm not saying mr. Smith was arrested for kiddie porn, since I'm not allowed to say that, but just so you have something to think about, I might be inclined to say something like that." With a police report, smears would require at least a little more effort. (Of course, some depts are probably so used to planting evidence the consider it year-round arbor day ...)
Well, papers aren't obligated to report all police incidents, but for many years, the police reports have been a staple of local reporting.
I agree with you that this isn't "censorship" in the way that a ruling would be that declared censorship the law of the land, but I think the Hitchikers Guide example is a good example of de facto censorship
I'd like police reports to be open for one thing as a check on police power. If the police are harrassing someone, I don't want them to be able to (legally) deny their activities. Also, unless a system were utterly leakproof (and none is),
timothy
Jamie / Michael and Jon's Mission to Mars review had me laughing so hard I had to replace the chair.
...
That one worked. Some don't though
timothy
Signal 11 wrote: "When was the last time slashdot posted a BAD book review? I mean, comeon.. most sites that do this kind of thing have both good and bad reviews... like movie critics. When are we going to see a "zero star" on slashdot - something so god-awfully bad you want to go read it just to see how bad gets (the same affliction that made me see Army of Darkness three times *g*)."
a) send in your acerbic, laughter-inducing, wince-worthy book reviews, and they may run =) The problem is that sometimes folks who do negative reviews get a kick more out of playing the dozens then actually addressing the points in the books they pan, even if they really are genuinely bad. Take Cluetrain -- it's a well-intentioned book that probably does as good a job or better than any other at speaking to buzzword-addicted business types who want to understand what the Web actually means to them, or ought to. But it'd be pretty easy to make fun of -- it's got some lines which lend themselves to parody. A lot of the comments on the review of that book do just that. My brother once wrote on the back of a zine (I don't know whether he made it up) "Unfounded cynicism is the deepest form of naivete."
b) As a lot of other posters have pointed out, reviews on Slashdot are not generally there just to fill a "Oh, we gotta have a review" time slot -- more that a reviewer wants to let others in on a book he or she enjoyed. There are some out of print or otherwise overlooked books which surely deserve review, that their memes not dissappear.
timothy