I can only dream of that happening to snail mail junk too.
The difference here, of course, is that junk snail mail has to be paid for by the sender, and you can still ask your post office not to delivery any to you.
If, instead of making spam illegal, we could sign some rules into law and enforce them, the problem would go away. A separate delivery class for junk mail would be great, especially if I could ask my provider to trash anything in the "spam" delivery class. Unfortunately, tracking down the offenders is sometimes difficult and expensive.
Re:X (and other Window systems) reduce productivit
on
Who Needs XFree86?
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· Score: 1
Nah.... Fixed-length character strings limit productivity. (See subject).:-)
Re:Gotta love the way...
on
SCO DOS'ed
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· Score: 1
Yeah -- I gotta agree. Looks like you saw my favorite quote:
A DDoS attack is hitting below the belt, though, Stowell said. "It's one thing to have a complaint with SCO's lawsuit or with our position in terms of code being found in Linux. It's another thing to deal with that in an unprofessional way," he said.
Not that I support the DDoS attack, but pot and kettle keep coming to mind when they start talking about people being "unprofessional."
In OSNews [osnews.com] there is also a good review of SuSE 8.2 for a desktop user, comparing it with Redhat 9.
The osnews article slame Redhat 9 for how slow GNOME is. I'm currently running an older dist of Redhat and I'm about to do an upgrade. Since I'm familiar with Redhat, I'd rather stick with it. Does anybody know if system responsiveness on Redhat 9 is vastly improved when using KDE instead of GNOME?
You know, there's probably a simple way to stop this kind of nonsense without completely dismantling the USPO. I think it's obvious that the Patent Office can't employee enough people who have the technical background to prevent patents like this one from being granted. So they should instead employ a small team of technically savvy people to review cases like this where it appears that a patent is being abused. At first mention of a questionable application to a patent, this team can look through the patent filing and decide if it's appropriate. If they decide this is an abuse, they just revoke the patent. Similar things could happen with submarine patents. This way, the "expensive" people only get called in when there's a problem.
I believe that was always the policy, but maybe they are now being more "vocal" about it. Everytime I have flown, the rule was "no electronic devices during taxi, takeoff or landing." That means that once they push back from the gate, the devices (even games and laptops) have to be turned off. The non-wireless stuff can be turned back on once the plane is in the air.
...AMD planted this story to use/. brainpower to think of ways to prevent violations:) Next Intel will be posting about clock locking.
Personally, I much prefer this method of preventing overclocking than Intel's clock locking. My humble opinion is that if you run your processor beyond published specs and it dies, your warranty should be void. However, at least this still leaves the door open for those who really do want to overclock. They do so at their own risk. I have one system that is overclocked. When I made the decision to do so, I was willing to accept responsibility if I ended up melting down the processor.
Cell phones are only banned so the airlines can charge you a ridiculous amount of money to use the stupid sky phone. It's such a scam.
I'm not sure if I agree with this. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that cell phones will only work in an airplane while you're on or relatively near the ground. Once you reach cruising altitude, I don't think you can get a signal. Maybe it's different with the lower-flying planes. Anybody know for sure?
A parent can work to instill their values in the child to the point where they do not NEED to look over their child's shoulder every waking hour.
I'm not talking about a child old enough to be good at making decisions. I'm talking about a child who's still young enough that they can't even decide what they want for breakfast. My three year old can use the remote control to change channels, but I don't necessarily want him changing the channel and watching the scary parts of "The Mummy" while I'm in the bathroom. I enjoy spending time with him during the day but not all night while he's screaming from nightmares.
I have little sympathy for the point of view that as a parent you don't want to spend your time watching TV with your children, you don't want to be around when they're surfing the net, etc.
I very much resent the assumption you've made about how much time I spend with my children, as you know very little about me or my family. My wife and I spend tons of time with our kids, and quite frankly there is very little TV involved. However, there are times when we have to leave the room for five minutes to do something. It's also healthy for the child to be left to make his/her own decisions within a controlled environment.
...instead of fooling yourself that they aren't going to be smart enough to foil whatever technological blocks you put in their way.
When my children are old enough to defeat whatever technological blocks there are, it's time to stop using them. At that point, we have to hope that the values and good judgement we have taught have been well-learned.
You made a point that you feel your parents did a good job of instilling values in you. Unfortunately, your immediate criticism of my habits without any knowledge of the details doesn't seem to support that. Perhaps you were speaking "in general" about parents who don't want to spend time with their children, and I shouldn't have taken what you said personally. If so, I agree wholeheartedly. If you don't want to spend time with your kids, don't bother having them in the first place.
Seriously, I've thought this ever since people were upset kids were watching too much violence on TV or in computer games or seeing porn on the Internet. It's not technology's job to keep children safe...
Speaking as a parent, I agree with you, but there's something you need to consider. A parent cannot look over their child's shoulder during every waking hour. That's why parents want technology to help them. For instance, the ability to block certain channels or certain content (by rating) on TV. This prevents parents from having to sit in the room while their child is watching TV to make sure they don't change the channel to something inappropriate. For computer games, many parents just want stores to avoid selling games with certain ratings to children. With the internet, some parents want content filtering systems that help control what their child has access to. Everything I've mentioned is already available because parents have asked for it. So in that respect, technology CAN play a role in keeping children safe.
Having said that, I feel that (based on the article) Amazon is not really in the wrong. They actively attempt to protect children by removing personal information. If they are going to be required to do some sort of credit card lookup before letting people post reviews, etc, then we'd all better look out for the ripple effect. I like Slashdot, but I sure as heck am not going to provide my credit card number just so I can type this post.
Its simple. Open source is scratching an itch, right? Is the itch scratched? If yes, then its a success.
I agree. With any project, you have to define some goals. It's usually a pretty good idea at that time to try and figure out how you'll know when those goals are met. I would imagine that most open source projects don't have goals like "develop a product that takes 40% of the market in genre X," (although some do) but instead have a goal more like "develop a product that does x, y and z." You could then consider whether your project has achieved its goal, or is making steady enough progress that those interested in it (including yourself) aren't disappearing. If you answer "yes" to either, then your project is probably successful.
Most high end users who are concerned about image quality are still buying CRTs.
Can I assume that by "image quality", you mean color-trueness within images? I don't see resolution as driver in the high-end market. There are high-resolution LCD screens available for that. But color is definitely an issue.
...CAD/CAM...
Enlighten me. What's the issue there?
gaming
I think we had an article in the last week or so about this. Apparently, some of the new LCDs with faster refresh are winning over some gamers.
The price differential between CRT and LCD monitors is still enough that most larger businesses are still only buying CRTs for most of their users.
Although I agree with you, I'm not sure WHY this is true. At risk of giving the pointy-haired boss new ideas, I'd like to observe that by replacing monitors with LCDs, you can cut down on the total space per employee and squeeze in a few extra cubes. That may offset the cost enough to make it worth it -- especially if the alternative is to rent more space.:-)
Programmers are the only ones who actually make use of computers.
Then could somebody PLEASE get the message to the Linux folks that we DON'T need to concentrate on making Linux friendly for the desktop? Since only programmers will be making use of it, we can just stick to the command line. Anything else would just be a waste of time programming.:-)
No. It's whoever is currently responsible for making Windows more secure.... Makes me worry a bit about all those patches I've installed in the last couple weeks.
My question, though, is whether it takes longer to write software or to write a specification precise enough that the software-generator will actually produce the software that you want.
Actually, this is a pretty easy question to answer. It should take more time to implement a specification precise enough for even a human to produce the software you want. The majority of your time should be spent on developing a specification and testing, regardless of who (or what) is doing the programming. That's why there such a big interest in modeling tools.
Having said that, I know that in practice, this rarely happens. This is why most projects go over the estimated time and budget. Coding begins before specifications are really solid, and you have the "do it over" factor instead of the "do it right" factor. This will stop happening when management starts listening to the development staff about time estimates -- in other words, don't hold your breath.
Do trinitrons still have the two lines across the screen? I could NEVER have for this reason - I want the display to be as perfect as it can be...
Yes, they do. I use a Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 200 22" monitor (20" viewable) at work. It uses the aperture grill and I can faintly see the lines against a bright white display. But I can assure you that it's really not a problem. They are only SHADOWS from the wires that hold the grill in place. They aren't actually blocking the image. Your brain quickly learns to tune out the shadows, and there is a BIG difference between standard CRT technology and Trinitron technology, particularly on these large displays.
I had a similar situation years ago with a Sony monitor I bought with a Gateway computer. It was the trinitron technology. I went through two of them in less than a year. The first one just popped and stopped working. Shortly after I received it, the second one started having color jitters. A neat effect, but terribly distracting. The third one has been running just fine for nearly 7 years now.
To Gateway's credit, they shipped out replacement monitors (at their cost) very quickly. I heard somewhere that Sony was having trouble with some of their monitors that came from other companies that had been contracted to produce them, but I don't know whether there's any truth to that.
Read between the lines, you schools are not out to save you. Here is proof they are working with the RIAA and the RIAA is looking to "set examples"
That's not at all what I got out of it. Whether we agree with the law or not, Joe broke it. The University appears to be interested in protecting him (and all students) as much as possible. This would include disciplinary action by the school that would allow the student to move on after college rather than being burdened for the rest of his life by criminal charges and unjustified financial debts. Bear in mind that the RIAA may choose to smack down the University because their equipment was involved in this incident. Therefore, they have to play ball at least a little. They could have chosen to just tell Joe: "Sorry, you broke the law. Suffer the consequences. Try to enjoy what's left of your life." Instead, they at least had to guts to send an open letter which not only expresses their disappointment to the RIAA, but also informs the public and other universities about the situation. This can be a pretty powerful blow if other universities demand a written contract governing actions to be taken before they are willing to work with the RIAA on anything.
If colleges start banning RIAA-affiliated bands from performing on campus....
I'm not even sure they have to institute a ban, which would be interpreted negatively by the student body as a form of censorship. Most students are constantly on the lookout for something to "go activist" over. The University could simply hold a series of assemblies (or speak at a football game) and explain what happened, then ask the students who are disappointed in the RIAA to express their feelings by avoiding RIAA-sponsored material. While this might not have as big of an impact as an outright ban, it would probably still be noteworthy without damaging relations between the University and its students.
Unfortunatly you're right. The middle ground is not something (most) people rally too... I guess that why extremism is such a great part of our lives.
It's not so much that extremism is a great part of our individual lives. The problem is that extremism is what gets news coverage because it sells. We're actually entertained by the stuff, even though most of us don't fall into an extremist category. The sad truth is that anybody who has a cause to promote would get far more supporters by taking a moderate, well thought out middle ground -- if only they could get their message out to the public....
Slashdot Mirror
The difference here, of course, is that junk snail mail has to be paid for by the sender, and you can still ask your post office not to delivery any to you.
If, instead of making spam illegal, we could sign some rules into law and enforce them, the problem would go away. A separate delivery class for junk mail would be great, especially if I could ask my provider to trash anything in the "spam" delivery class. Unfortunately, tracking down the offenders is sometimes difficult and expensive.
Nah.... Fixed-length character strings limit productivity. (See subject). :-)
A DDoS attack is hitting below the belt, though, Stowell said. "It's one thing to have a complaint with SCO's lawsuit or with our position in terms of code being found in Linux. It's another thing to deal with that in an unprofessional way," he said.
Not that I support the DDoS attack, but pot and kettle keep coming to mind when they start talking about people being "unprofessional."
The osnews article slame Redhat 9 for how slow GNOME is. I'm currently running an older dist of Redhat and I'm about to do an upgrade. Since I'm familiar with Redhat, I'd rather stick with it. Does anybody know if system responsiveness on Redhat 9 is vastly improved when using KDE instead of GNOME?
You know, there's probably a simple way to stop this kind of nonsense without completely dismantling the USPO. I think it's obvious that the Patent Office can't employee enough people who have the technical background to prevent patents like this one from being granted. So they should instead employ a small team of technically savvy people to review cases like this where it appears that a patent is being abused. At first mention of a questionable application to a patent, this team can look through the patent filing and decide if it's appropriate. If they decide this is an abuse, they just revoke the patent. Similar things could happen with submarine patents. This way, the "expensive" people only get called in when there's a problem.
I believe that was always the policy, but maybe they are now being more "vocal" about it. Everytime I have flown, the rule was "no electronic devices during taxi, takeoff or landing." That means that once they push back from the gate, the devices (even games and laptops) have to be turned off. The non-wireless stuff can be turned back on once the plane is in the air.
Personally, I much prefer this method of preventing overclocking than Intel's clock locking. My humble opinion is that if you run your processor beyond published specs and it dies, your warranty should be void. However, at least this still leaves the door open for those who really do want to overclock. They do so at their own risk. I have one system that is overclocked. When I made the decision to do so, I was willing to accept responsibility if I ended up melting down the processor.
I'm not sure if I agree with this. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that cell phones will only work in an airplane while you're on or relatively near the ground. Once you reach cruising altitude, I don't think you can get a signal. Maybe it's different with the lower-flying planes. Anybody know for sure?
Yes, but network connections to third party software go through the OS, so the EULA still applies.
I'm not talking about a child old enough to be good at making decisions. I'm talking about a child who's still young enough that they can't even decide what they want for breakfast. My three year old can use the remote control to change channels, but I don't necessarily want him changing the channel and watching the scary parts of "The Mummy" while I'm in the bathroom. I enjoy spending time with him during the day but not all night while he's screaming from nightmares.
I have little sympathy for the point of view that as a parent you don't want to spend your time watching TV with your children, you don't want to be around when they're surfing the net, etc.
I very much resent the assumption you've made about how much time I spend with my children, as you know very little about me or my family. My wife and I spend tons of time with our kids, and quite frankly there is very little TV involved. However, there are times when we have to leave the room for five minutes to do something. It's also healthy for the child to be left to make his/her own decisions within a controlled environment.
When my children are old enough to defeat whatever technological blocks there are, it's time to stop using them. At that point, we have to hope that the values and good judgement we have taught have been well-learned.
You made a point that you feel your parents did a good job of instilling values in you. Unfortunately, your immediate criticism of my habits without any knowledge of the details doesn't seem to support that. Perhaps you were speaking "in general" about parents who don't want to spend time with their children, and I shouldn't have taken what you said personally. If so, I agree wholeheartedly. If you don't want to spend time with your kids, don't bother having them in the first place.
Speaking as a parent, I agree with you, but there's something you need to consider. A parent cannot look over their child's shoulder during every waking hour. That's why parents want technology to help them. For instance, the ability to block certain channels or certain content (by rating) on TV. This prevents parents from having to sit in the room while their child is watching TV to make sure they don't change the channel to something inappropriate. For computer games, many parents just want stores to avoid selling games with certain ratings to children. With the internet, some parents want content filtering systems that help control what their child has access to. Everything I've mentioned is already available because parents have asked for it. So in that respect, technology CAN play a role in keeping children safe.
Having said that, I feel that (based on the article) Amazon is not really in the wrong. They actively attempt to protect children by removing personal information. If they are going to be required to do some sort of credit card lookup before letting people post reviews, etc, then we'd all better look out for the ripple effect. I like Slashdot, but I sure as heck am not going to provide my credit card number just so I can type this post.
I agree. With any project, you have to define some goals. It's usually a pretty good idea at that time to try and figure out how you'll know when those goals are met. I would imagine that most open source projects don't have goals like "develop a product that takes 40% of the market in genre X," (although some do) but instead have a goal more like "develop a product that does x, y and z." You could then consider whether your project has achieved its goal, or is making steady enough progress that those interested in it (including yourself) aren't disappearing. If you answer "yes" to either, then your project is probably successful.
Yeah, I'm very attached to my 22" Diamondtron, too.
Can I assume that by "image quality", you mean color-trueness within images? I don't see resolution as driver in the high-end market. There are high-resolution LCD screens available for that. But color is definitely an issue.
Enlighten me. What's the issue there?
gaming
I think we had an article in the last week or so about this. Apparently, some of the new LCDs with faster refresh are winning over some gamers.
The price differential between CRT and LCD monitors is still enough that most larger businesses are still only buying CRTs for most of their users.
Although I agree with you, I'm not sure WHY this is true. At risk of giving the pointy-haired boss new ideas, I'd like to observe that by replacing monitors with LCDs, you can cut down on the total space per employee and squeeze in a few extra cubes. That may offset the cost enough to make it worth it -- especially if the alternative is to rent more space. :-)
I think you're just confirming what the parent said ... we're real close to replacing the CRT in most uses with LCD.
Then could somebody PLEASE get the message to the Linux folks that we DON'T need to concentrate on making Linux friendly for the desktop? Since only programmers will be making use of it, we can just stick to the command line. Anything else would just be a waste of time programming. :-)
No. It's whoever is currently responsible for making Windows more secure.... Makes me worry a bit about all those patches I've installed in the last couple weeks.
Actually, this is a pretty easy question to answer. It should take more time to implement a specification precise enough for even a human to produce the software you want. The majority of your time should be spent on developing a specification and testing, regardless of who (or what) is doing the programming. That's why there such a big interest in modeling tools.
Having said that, I know that in practice, this rarely happens. This is why most projects go over the estimated time and budget. Coding begins before specifications are really solid, and you have the "do it over" factor instead of the "do it right" factor. This will stop happening when management starts listening to the development staff about time estimates -- in other words, don't hold your breath.
Oh, that would STINK. Not only do you get fired, but you are forced to leave by the back door. :-)
You might consider going after a graduate degree.... Maybe you can find an assistantship.
Yes, they do. I use a Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 200 22" monitor (20" viewable) at work. It uses the aperture grill and I can faintly see the lines against a bright white display. But I can assure you that it's really not a problem. They are only SHADOWS from the wires that hold the grill in place. They aren't actually blocking the image. Your brain quickly learns to tune out the shadows, and there is a BIG difference between standard CRT technology and Trinitron technology, particularly on these large displays.
To Gateway's credit, they shipped out replacement monitors (at their cost) very quickly. I heard somewhere that Sony was having trouble with some of their monitors that came from other companies that had been contracted to produce them, but I don't know whether there's any truth to that.
That's not at all what I got out of it. Whether we agree with the law or not, Joe broke it. The University appears to be interested in protecting him (and all students) as much as possible. This would include disciplinary action by the school that would allow the student to move on after college rather than being burdened for the rest of his life by criminal charges and unjustified financial debts. Bear in mind that the RIAA may choose to smack down the University because their equipment was involved in this incident. Therefore, they have to play ball at least a little. They could have chosen to just tell Joe: "Sorry, you broke the law. Suffer the consequences. Try to enjoy what's left of your life." Instead, they at least had to guts to send an open letter which not only expresses their disappointment to the RIAA, but also informs the public and other universities about the situation. This can be a pretty powerful blow if other universities demand a written contract governing actions to be taken before they are willing to work with the RIAA on anything.
I'm not even sure they have to institute a ban, which would be interpreted negatively by the student body as a form of censorship. Most students are constantly on the lookout for something to "go activist" over. The University could simply hold a series of assemblies (or speak at a football game) and explain what happened, then ask the students who are disappointed in the RIAA to express their feelings by avoiding RIAA-sponsored material. While this might not have as big of an impact as an outright ban, it would probably still be noteworthy without damaging relations between the University and its students.
It's not so much that extremism is a great part of our individual lives. The problem is that extremism is what gets news coverage because it sells. We're actually entertained by the stuff, even though most of us don't fall into an extremist category. The sad truth is that anybody who has a cause to promote would get far more supporters by taking a moderate, well thought out middle ground -- if only they could get their message out to the public....