On top of that, how eager do you think the U.S. is to provide asylum for people who, apparently knowingly and willingly, break a law - then when they can no longer stand the heat, think they can simply get away with it by relocating to a country with more lax laws?
"Really? Rape is illegal here? How quaint. Well then, see ya! *books flight to Somethin'stan and requests asylum*"
But the smaller the chipsets, the larger - relatively - the packaging becomes. You can't just keep shrinking down the packaging, after all.. it would get far too flimsy. So what you'd really need to weigh is the actual PCB with components, but sans all but a sliver of the bit that is the connector (the copper strips etched into the PCB to function as such).
I bet you could find an original 100XT today and still get it running. Those were available.. what, mid-1980's? That's getting close to 27 years... though not quite yet, so can't be 100% sure. Just as you can't be 100% sure that if somebody keeps that dell laying about for 27 years, it won't start back up.
At least with the Dell, you won't have to worry about finding a display, etc. Just a power source.. that should still be doable in 27 years, long after the battery's died you can still hook it up to -a- power source that fits the bill.
Maybe it's popular to bash 'modern devices', claiming they were 'made to fail in 2 years, just after the warranty runs out'.. and there's sure to be some truth to it, but it's still mostly bashing.
( written from an Acer Aspire 2000 - 5 years old, long way to go to hit 27, but I'm guessing the only reason it's not going to hit that number under my ownership is because I happen to be looking for a replacement, and will trade this one in so it can be refurbished or, more likely, recycled )
I help host and run a Soldat server... if you're not familiar with Soldat, it's basically a real-time 2D counterstrike of sorts. Players connect to a server and play with/against other people depending on the exact game mode, etc.
In the soldat server we run, all of the guns are allowed, and there's very little in the way of 'rules' other than not allowing teamkilling/etc. ( For those who suggest that if something isn't allowed, it should just be prevented via game mechanics... Users -can- teamkill (it's part of the game -dynamic- to prevent just spraying like a madman), but there's a built-in penalty system and eventually we'll ban people if they do it systematically. )
Every once in a while, however, something similar to the following happens...
The folks in the game creatively and organically decided to set up their own customs opposed to the rules
...in that the players in the server, usually a small number, all agree to play only with knives, achieving kills only by stabbing the opponent/throwing the knife at them.
That's all good and well, until...
Twixt seems more like a street preacher who hates everyone because they don't follow the rules like he does.
...until another player comes along, thinking that by connecting to our server which allows all guns, he should be able to play with a gun.. and is likely to do so and probably slaughter half the opposing team until one of those players yells "KNIFE ONLY, or leave!", or skips that step entirely and just votes for them to get kicked; which usually succeeds given that the existing players had agreed to play only with knives.
However, I say 'screw that'. That's not how -we- set up those servers. We set them up to have all the guns available, so people should be allowed to play with all those guns.. their (temporary) agreement to play only with knives is subject to -those- rules. They want to play with knives, that's great, but I have no qualms banning users who then get their panties in a twist when another user does use a gun.
This applies to various other situations as well. I don't count this as 'griefing'.. the player's playing exactly by the server's definition, and those who want to play the game in a different fashion are welcome to do so on a server that caters to that need.
Now I understand that in City of Heroes, you don't really get a choice of servers with different mechanics and such.
All three describe battles between Heroes and Villains and whatnot. Not "Mingle socially and share recipes in our expansive game world".
Seems to me that those who do that are finding themselves on the wrong server.. and given that there's only one server as it were... in the wrong game.
Obviously this Twixt character was a jackass, but the other players should consider the (vulnerable) situation they put themselves in when they interact in the game in a manner different from what the creators, hosters, etc. seem to have envisioned. Either that, or get ncsoft to change the game description.
It still does. The only thing they changed is that they moved it to a separate list of 'available software' or however they phrased it*.
The really annoying thing is that you can -hide- those unwanted updates. But you can only do so by first -checking- those options you want to hide (or leaving them checked, rather), the go through the menu and tell it to ignore the selected items. Which means that if you do get a QuickTime update and it offers e.g. Safari, you have two routes to installation and hiding the Safari install..
A. Uncheck the QuickTime update, then tell it to hide the selected options (Safari), then proceed with installation. B. Uncheck the Safari option, proceed with installation, re-check Safari, then tell it to hide the selected options.
Apparently making it behave as "Ignore unchecked options" would just be too simple.
* Speaking of phrasing. The last QuickTime Update I downloaded came with this gem: ===== Title: QuickTime for Windows Body: Upgrading Quicktime requires installing the latest version of iTunes in order to play protected content purchased from the iTunes store. Continue? Buttons: Yes | No ===== Note the careful phrasing there which leads you to think that it is required in order to upgrade QuickTime. But it's not; you only need that if you purchased iTunes store content. This is how it could have been phrased instead without such ambiguity: "In order to play protected content purchased from the iTunes store, it is required that you install the latest version of iTunes. Continue with installation of iTunes?"
Note, of course, that iTunes store-purchased content playback issues would be a concern of iTunes, not of QuickTime, to begin with, meaning that this dialog should never even appear in a QuickTime update.
This isn't Windows - it's entirely up to the installer author whether or not to create icons (desktop, start menu, start menu favorites, quick launch bar (yeah, there's more...)).
Most installers give you the option to install them or not. Okay.. most -older- installers do. Ever since 'usability experts' decreed that users want -less- choice, things just get tossed everywhere, whether you like it or not. More user-friendly to have 20 icons in the quick launch bar, apparently? whatever.
But even if you don't give that option - there's no reason the installer can't detect whether the user removed the icons -after- installation when you're installing an update.. and just not re-install them (or prompt the user). It might not be able to easily figure out -where- a user relocated icons, if that's what they did, but presuming you're only upgrading and not changing anything, those old icons (shortcuts) should still work just fine from wherever the user put them.
The only reason most installers don't is per that usability stuff. Say you removed the icon for QuickTime, now you install the update, so you expect to have QuickTime available... but you search and search on your desktop (as the layman you are), and.. no QuickTime icon. "Did something go wrong during installation?", you might ask yourself, and re-install again. Still no icon. So poste hate-mail in a forum and give Apple some bad press; even though it'd be your own fault, as you decided at some point in the past that you didn't want that icon.
(subject line courtesy of "Journey of Man - A Genetic Oddysey")
Or... Could it be that that page is relatively new and most people who had IE7 went to a different page before* , where most people will have gotten their Google search provider; rather than this page.
Could it be that most people already know Google (and likely already have it installed) and are less-inclined to click on it than the more exotic search providers?
Could it be that Bing! was recently-launched, causing most people to click on it just to see what all the fuss was about?
* The old page sucked quite badly as well. I wanted to add Google from a Dutch IE7, which landed me at an English-language search providers page, and after adding Google it always landed the machine at google.co.uk(!). Took some manual registry mangling to get it to point to google.nl (not my machine, tyvm) instead. Looks like the IE8 points things to a dutch page, at least; though only 4 providers seem to be offered there... Wikipedia, Bing, 'Kenteken opzoeken' ( license plate search ) and Harware.Info price comparison visualiser, along with the 5th option of 'make your own search engine' (love the shoddy translations from English).
Naw, you're right, they probably tried burying the Google option. That's probably why they list it twice, too;)
The guy got this warning when he booted up his computer - then mentions that he didn't give permission to any search engine change. What, after he booted up? I guess not. Perhaps he did so before he shut it down? Perhaps he did so several days ago and whatever he installed* told him that the system would need rebooting to finish installation, and he ignored it (like most people).
* I'm saying "whatever he installed" because I'm looking at my Vista Business N 32bit install with Internet Explorer 8 (upgraded from 7 a day or two back), and.. - Google is still (it was in IE7) my first-listed search provider - I can find no "Windows Search Helper" service (there's a "Windows Search" service; different thing, presumably) - I can find no "Windows Search *anything*" in IE8's Add-ons list.
Hitting Google with "Windows Search Helper" yields the story and... well.. supposed anti-malware sites that are ever-so-useful in telling me what it is or where it comes from (sarcasm.)
So for all we know, he installed.. who knows what, something.. and that something may very well have asked him if he wanted to change the default search to Bing.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something like this.. but as of yet, my Vista machine isn't showing any evidence of it; nor does the article.
'course the other part of the article is 'sane'.. letting the google toolbar (if you have that installed anyway) make sure that your default search is Google if you're so-inclined as to have two search fields with the same provider (if I installed it, I'd set the IE8 one to Bing and leave the Google Toolbar one to Google, but that's me... then again, I tend to use Firefox), seems like a pretty good precaution to take.
"The advantage of using DIVs and CSS to format your page into columns is that you won't have a shit-ton of copy/pasting and code rearranging to do if you ever want to swap your columns around, or switch out some content from the right to the left." Really?
Presume I have two TDs, and I swap their content. Select all content from through to , cut, paste. Done. Now do the same with DIVs. - Copy the positioning information from one. - Paste into the other - Copy the other's now - Paste into the former Done?
"And from your CSS example, it shows. You do know about inline styles right ?" Should I take from that, that it shows you are horrible about your CSS? ----- <span style="font-style:italic">why<span> on <span style="font-style:italic">why<earth> would you re-use styles <span style="font-style:italic">why<in-line> when you can use a <span style="font-style:italic">document-wide rule<span>? -----
"Even XHTML 1.0 Strict has support for the B and I tags for Bold Text and Italic Text." Yes, 1.0 does. 1.1 does not. HTML5 does*, I'm suspecting the XHTML equivalent once again will not; as per the desire to separate content from presentation completely.
For those suggesting em and strong; those are meta data for the content wrapped. They do not state anything about presentation. One browser might render strong as bold, for example, while another underlines it. Both are perfectly acceptable, but only one gives the desired effect.
* Unfortunately, however, the HTML 5 specification clearly states: "Style sheets can be used to format b elements, just like any other element can be restyled. Thus, it is not the case that content in b elements will necessarily be boldened."
The above is -exactly- what my little rant is about. There is no more balance. There was a tag, <b>old, that did what it was supposed to do, in any browser that was at least -capable- of displaying bold text. Now, that same tag has been either deprecated entirely (XHTML 1.1), -or- neutered (HTML 5), allowing a browser to not do anything with it if it so pleases.
I've edited plenty of websites to know the advantages of CSS, including DIVs with a bunch of CSS for layout. Sometimes tables are simply easier and I daresay a better choice than DIV'd layout; neither, however, were particularly intended for page layout in any way from the get-go, and the "websites should be fluid so that they render appropriately on any device" crowd is holding this back in terms of standards. There's libs available that make things a lot easier for developers (much like jQuery filled a glaringy obvious hole in implementations), but I'd say that the vast majority of websites that are 'custom built' (so not just another Joomla! or Drupal or other CMS with a template slapped on and slightly modified) are done so through graphical editors which spit out a ton of code.. and usually for a good reason; you need that code if you want it working.
yes, but "zomg you're not supposed to use tables for layout!"
which of course has led to the similarly quaint removal of b, u, s and i tags for the sole reason that content and presentation should be separate. Nevermind that if you -now- want something to be bold, short of writing your own XML bits and pieces, you have do something insane like "<style>.b { font-weight:bold } </style>...<span class="b">this is bold</span>".
At some point, the scales tilted completely the other way and all balance was lost. Alas. The same applies to tables. Not that I think tables are appropriate for layout, but DIVs with a crapton of CSS aren't particularly it either.
Point A: Last recorded GPS position Point B: Current recorded GPS position
Those don't change in a tunnel... the last point will be just before signal drops, the current will be when it regains signal, and it can still calculate the distance based on that.. either 'as the crow flies' or if it were fancypants, using mapping data to get the length of the tunnel.
Unless your car can teleport you, I'm guessing that'll be accurate enough; short of a very serpentine looooooooong tunnel where the entrance is the exit.
...well I've already been modded flamebait (I'm only echoing what the Dutch MPs have already said about this as potentials, as it is still well on road (pardon the pun) to being implemented come 2012 (long haul trucks)/2018 (the rest of us).. so I guess our MPs are spewing flamebait:D Note: Posting impopular statements does not flamebait make.)...but just to address your points; I'd blame the GPS system in use if it has an accuracy less than 5m (which should be enough to differentiate), or the cartographer if the -map- has a shoddy accuracy. However, in those cases, there's always the option of not using such a system there.
alright, other uses; taxing more/less depending on: - type of road (dirt vs gravel vs concrete vs newly-laid bitumen, etc.) - congestion statistics - whether or not you're on a toll road - traveling speed relative to the speed limits on the road given (i.e. speeding, or slowing everybody else down. You can speed - 'go with the flow of traffic' - in the left lane, but it'll cost you extra. You can also go 60 where the limit is 70.. and it'll cost you extra.)
And... - fining for speeding;) - fining for running red lights - fining for failing to stop
You're right that no system is perfect, but an odometer doesn't really provide a heck of a lot of information that would allow these things.
On the up side, that also means it's far less open to abuse (tracking your car's whereabouts.. if they want to use it to determine if somebody's a -habitual- red-light-runner, more power to 'm).
In The Netherlands, when you buy something like a TV, computer, washing machine, etc. you have to pay a 'removal fee' ("Verwijderingsbijdrage"). e.g. a refrigerator carries a 18 fee, a DVD recorder a 3 fee, etc. The money gained this way is put to use especially on dealing with recycling electric/electronic products. It doesn't cover the bills, afaik, but it helps and keeps more generic taxes (municipal waste taxes, for example) down.
In addition, even for electric/electronic devices on which there is no such fee (such as mp3 players, etc.*), you can trade your old machine in when getting a new one. You're not getting a lower price that way (short of retailers' own decisions), but you -are- rid of the old machine without having to pay recycling charges yourself, dealing with transport, etc. So if you have a CRT TV and want to get a nice new LCD.. drop the CRT off at the retailer and it has become their problem.
This arrangement got some negative-turned-positive press a few years ago; some whiney newspaper reported figured out that a lot of these retailers were taking these trade-ins, refurbishing them, and selling them as 2nd hand (national and abroad). "Oh noes, what abuse!", right? Except most people figured 'good on them! better to see the things getting a 2nd life than ending up chopped for parts and the rest dumped on the landfills'.
* personally I'd be all for putting a fee on small electronics as well; especially cellphones, as people in NL seem to think you -need- a new phone every 4-8 months.
Ditto 'Amazing' Mike Levey (passed away many years ago). It's actually astounding when you think about it.. these are TV salesmen, home shopping network talking heads, etc. (in addition to being private individuals, of course) Yet we encounter them so often just flipping channels, and are sometimes so taken in either by them or by the prospect of them trying to sell (typically) junk, that we are compelled to watch them and their image remains with us.
e.g. YouTube. Ever see the news take YouTube videos, or even those 'funny video' programs with YouTube videos throughout the things?
Ever wondered "hold on.. are they paying these youtube uploaders for the right to use them in their money-generating program?" ?
Well, read the TOS, and quit wondering. You grant YouTube (google) a non-exclusive right to redistribute as they see fit, and that includes deals with big organisations that deal with broadcast (TV) material.
There's probably no real copyright breach here... I agree with posters up above that the newspaper might have been in the wrong (I don't know the -whole- story; if the teacher sent it in, but quoted the post, it's still a letter to the editor.. although the original author did not write the letter an sich, etc.), but there's probably no recourse on account of 'copyright'.
Even if there were, though, aren't we supposed to yell something about information wanting to be free (as in speech AND beer) here?
See also the 'spin' page for very common arguments (read: excuses) for why pricing in the EU (and other countries) is higher, along with debunking statements: http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe_spin.html
I do have to admit that Adobe has since then adjusted pricing a bit more favorably... I don't have current numbers, only from half a year ago; no good, and comparing their store prices takes a good 2 hours just to navigate, make sure you select the correct product (English language), etc... all non-parallel because their store gets confused when you are trying to see pricing for products in 2 different tabs.)...but it's still a pretty good chunk above the U.S. pricing.
Just to note: as of 2018 - supposedly - there will no longer be a 'a road use tax' (note that this is actually a fixed tax cost for any car owner, regardless of whether they drive it or not, and the height depends on the type of car, age, etc. as well as which province you live in), nor an additional tax on purchasing a car (currently: 40% on a passenger car/van, reduced by 1346 (minor details aside)), good for ~3.2B/year for the state - similar to the 'road use tax'.
Instead, people will be paying by the kilometer, which they plan on tracking via GPS and whatnot.. cue the 'potential for abuse' cries - I know, right? But because this will go straight to the state, and no longer to the provinces in part, the provinces will have to find new sources of getting moneys.. which essentially means raising taxes for eeeeeeeeeeeeeverybody; regardless of whether or not they even have a car.
Of course our gas is also heavily 'taxed' - which will remain. Dur.
Taxes are indeed incredibly high in NL and although we do get quite a bit in return, I can't help but feel that too much of it is utterly wasted on prestige projects, lining pockets, military 'defense', etc. Sadly, it seems it's only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.
Why not? It's possible, they can do it, so why not do it? I, for one, welcome custom camera firmwares. The more the merrier - I know I had a reply on Slashdot before where I asked if there was a programmable camera; lo and behold, there is.. and there's some very fun projects coming out of it. Why let the camera maker dictate what you can do with the camera, when you know that it is physically capable of so much more? E.g. why limit exposure times to 2 seconds, when there's no physical reason you couldn't keep the shutter open for an hour? )
As for HD.. an HD camera, 1080i/p, is 1920x1080.
The 5D Mark 2 is 5616x3744. That's larger than 4K cinema. Let me put it differently.. that's larger than practically every single movie you see on 'the big screen' today (which are often finished at 2K, or post-effected at 2K and upressed to 3K).
Sure, a consumer might not exactly -need- 4K. I'm not so sure they need HD - non-'HD' youtube resolution seems to be just fine for most people. But, again, it's possible.. so why not?
RED, at one point, decided that movies could he shot all-digital and made their behemoths based around fairly expensive sensors... now Canon, Nikon, Kodak, SONY, etc. are realizing that their sensors are getting fast enough to do movies as well.. and they're taking full advantage of it.
was that 'compact optical disk' refreshed continuously, with a secondary copy in case of corruption of the first? if so, then I dare say the picture on that disk is going to be better than your Kodachrome slide.
media deteriorates, whether we like it or not. That goes for negatives and photographic prints just as well as for 'digital media'. negatives and prints, in our eyes, deteriorate gracefully.. that is to say that if the colors fade a little, that's okay.. we can still see the overall picture. Whereas a flipped bit in a JPEG can be disastrous (a good reason not to use JPEG for archival storage of digital pictures, but see the above anyway).
On the other hand.. that faded picture is forever faded.. you're not going to get the original back, ever. You can scan it (hey look, now it's digital.. lol?) and then fix it in post and then.. make another print of it (hey look, your digital photo is now a print.. imagine that, I guess you can have the best of both worlds if you want, with digital), but it won't be the original anymore.
With digital, however, you'll always have that original. Short of disastrous corruption on both the original -and- the backup (and possibly a third backup, etc.), or somehow losing the means to read all the backup media entirely, you'll always have that original and nothing is ever lost unless you -let it- be lost.
Again.. you don't get that choice with film negatives and prints. There's nothing you can do to preserve the prints in original state - not even sealing it in vacuum light-blocking chamber.
You stated in another post up above that nobody's solved the digital archiving problem yet. That's simply not true - we have, years ago; the only issue is that it seems like it's more work (making backups, keeping up with next-gen storage, etc.) to do so. With negatives and prints, you can be relatively lazy about it, knowing full-well that in 20 years that photo might have faded a bit, and not giving a damn simply because it's a more graceful degradation. But really, that's when somebody's kidding themselves about the medium of choice and how serious they are about archiving.
=====
On a side-note.. I believe there was an article not too long ago on Slashdot about researching being able to zap a metal with a laser for some stupendously short amount of time and essentially make it change colors. Suppose you did that with, say, Platinum.. that could be one heck of an archival medium, then.. although the picture would look oddly metallic and shiny:)
Think about that for a moment, if you will. Would you let me follow you around, wherever you go, as long as it is in public places, of course, and not private establishments. I.e. I wouldn't follow you into your house per se - though I might stand at the side of your house on public property and catch a glimpse of you through your windows (you do have curtains, right).. I won't follow you into your place of occupation presuming that's a private company, etc.
I will follow you around the moment you leave your house, go into the street, get into your car, follow your car around, follow you into the library, check which books you're checking out, follow you into the pub, follow you out the back door that you might otherwise use to leave quietly, follow you all day long.
If you are not okay with that - then you shouldn't be okay with 'security camera' footage being shared between random individuals - or even the world - who have no business whatsoever seeing the feeds from those cameras, and being able to piece them together. Because that is -exactly- what the cameras allow, given enough cameras.
It's bad enough that some governments do this - but at least they have some limitation as to what they can do, what footage they can request from non-gov't cameras, etc. (for now, anyway). Like it or not - the common man is far more likely to abuse such a system (vigilantism, etc.) than any reasonably benign government is.
Slashdot Mirror
On top of that, how eager do you think the U.S. is to provide asylum for people who, apparently knowingly and willingly, break a law - then when they can no longer stand the heat, think they can simply get away with it by relocating to a country with more lax laws?
"Really? Rape is illegal here? How quaint. Well then, see ya! *books flight to Somethin'stan and requests asylum*"
But the smaller the chipsets, the larger - relatively - the packaging becomes. You can't just keep shrinking down the packaging, after all.. it would get far too flimsy.
So what you'd really need to weigh is the actual PCB with components, but sans all but a sliver of the bit that is the connector (the copper strips etched into the PCB to function as such).
I bet you could find an original 100XT today and still get it running. Those were available.. what, mid-1980's? That's getting close to 27 years... though not quite yet, so can't be 100% sure. Just as you can't be 100% sure that if somebody keeps that dell laying about for 27 years, it won't start back up.
At least with the Dell, you won't have to worry about finding a display, etc. Just a power source.. that should still be doable in 27 years, long after the battery's died you can still hook it up to -a- power source that fits the bill.
Maybe it's popular to bash 'modern devices', claiming they were 'made to fail in 2 years, just after the warranty runs out'.. and there's sure to be some truth to it, but it's still mostly bashing.
( written from an Acer Aspire 2000 - 5 years old, long way to go to hit 27, but I'm guessing the only reason it's not going to hit that number under my ownership is because I happen to be looking for a replacement, and will trade this one in so it can be refurbished or, more likely, recycled )
I help host and run a Soldat server... if you're not familiar with Soldat, it's basically a real-time 2D counterstrike of sorts. Players connect to a server and play with/against other people depending on the exact game mode, etc.
In the soldat server we run, all of the guns are allowed, and there's very little in the way of 'rules' other than not allowing teamkilling/etc.
( For those who suggest that if something isn't allowed, it should just be prevented via game mechanics... Users -can- teamkill (it's part of the game -dynamic- to prevent just spraying like a madman), but there's a built-in penalty system and eventually we'll ban people if they do it systematically. )
Every once in a while, however, something similar to the following happens...
That's all good and well, until...
However, I say 'screw that'. That's not how -we- set up those servers. We set them up to have all the guns available, so people should be allowed to play with all those guns.. their (temporary) agreement to play only with knives is subject to -those- rules. They want to play with knives, that's great, but I have no qualms banning users who then get their panties in a twist when another user does use a gun.
This applies to various other situations as well. I don't count this as 'griefing'.. the player's playing exactly by the server's definition, and those who want to play the game in a different fashion are welcome to do so on a server that caters to that need.
Now I understand that in City of Heroes, you don't really get a choice of servers with different mechanics and such.
However, that leaves me with the descriptions of City of Heroes:
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis_overiew.html
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/game_synopsis.html (hero)
http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/introduction/you_are_a_villain.html (villain)
All three describe battles between Heroes and Villains and whatnot. Not "Mingle socially and share recipes in our expansive game world".
Seems to me that those who do that are finding themselves on the wrong server.. and given that there's only one server as it were... in the wrong game.
Obviously this Twixt character was a jackass, but the other players should consider the (vulnerable) situation they put themselves in when they interact in the game in a manner different from what the creators, hosters, etc. seem to have envisioned.
Either that, or get ncsoft to change the game description.
It still does. The only thing they changed is that they moved it to a separate list of 'available software' or however they phrased it*.
The really annoying thing is that you can -hide- those unwanted updates. But you can only do so by first -checking- those options you want to hide (or leaving them checked, rather), the go through the menu and tell it to ignore the selected items. Which means that if you do get a QuickTime update and it offers e.g. Safari, you have two routes to installation and hiding the Safari install..
A. Uncheck the QuickTime update, then tell it to hide the selected options (Safari), then proceed with installation.
B. Uncheck the Safari option, proceed with installation, re-check Safari, then tell it to hide the selected options.
Apparently making it behave as "Ignore unchecked options" would just be too simple.
* Speaking of phrasing. The last QuickTime Update I downloaded came with this gem:
=====
Title: QuickTime for Windows
Body: Upgrading Quicktime requires installing the latest version of iTunes in order to play protected content purchased from the iTunes store. Continue?
Buttons: Yes | No
=====
Note the careful phrasing there which leads you to think that it is required in order to upgrade QuickTime. But it's not; you only need that if you purchased iTunes store content. This is how it could have been phrased instead without such ambiguity:
"In order to play protected content purchased from the iTunes store, it is required that you install the latest version of iTunes. Continue with installation of iTunes?"
Note, of course, that iTunes store-purchased content playback issues would be a concern of iTunes, not of QuickTime, to begin with, meaning that this dialog should never even appear in a QuickTime update.
This isn't Windows - it's entirely up to the installer author whether or not to create icons (desktop, start menu, start menu favorites, quick launch bar (yeah, there's more...)).
Most installers give you the option to install them or not. Okay.. most -older- installers do. Ever since 'usability experts' decreed that users want -less- choice, things just get tossed everywhere, whether you like it or not. More user-friendly to have 20 icons in the quick launch bar, apparently? whatever.
But even if you don't give that option - there's no reason the installer can't detect whether the user removed the icons -after- installation when you're installing an update.. and just not re-install them (or prompt the user).
It might not be able to easily figure out -where- a user relocated icons, if that's what they did, but presuming you're only upgrading and not changing anything, those old icons (shortcuts) should still work just fine from wherever the user put them.
The only reason most installers don't is per that usability stuff. Say you removed the icon for QuickTime, now you install the update, so you expect to have QuickTime available... but you search and search on your desktop (as the layman you are), and.. no QuickTime icon. "Did something go wrong during installation?", you might ask yourself, and re-install again. Still no icon. So poste hate-mail in a forum and give Apple some bad press; even though it'd be your own fault, as you decided at some point in the past that you didn't want that icon.
(subject line courtesy of "Journey of Man - A Genetic Oddysey")
Or...
Could it be that that page is relatively new and most people who had IE7 went to a different page before* , where most people will have gotten their Google search provider; rather than this page.
Could it be that most people already know Google (and likely already have it installed) and are less-inclined to click on it than the more exotic search providers?
Could it be that Bing! was recently-launched, causing most people to click on it just to see what all the fuss was about?
* The old page sucked quite badly as well. I wanted to add Google from a Dutch IE7, which landed me at an English-language search providers page, and after adding Google it always landed the machine at google.co.uk(!). Took some manual registry mangling to get it to point to google.nl (not my machine, tyvm) instead. Looks like the IE8 points things to a dutch page, at least; though only 4 providers seem to be offered there... Wikipedia, Bing, 'Kenteken opzoeken' ( license plate search ) and Harware.Info price comparison visualiser, along with the 5th option of 'make your own search engine' (love the shoddy translations from English).
Naw, you're right, they probably tried burying the Google option. That's probably why they list it twice, too ;)
The guy got this warning when he booted up his computer - then mentions that he didn't give permission to any search engine change. What, after he booted up? I guess not. Perhaps he did so before he shut it down? Perhaps he did so several days ago and whatever he installed* told him that the system would need rebooting to finish installation, and he ignored it (like most people).
* I'm saying "whatever he installed" because I'm looking at my Vista Business N 32bit install with Internet Explorer 8 (upgraded from 7 a day or two back), and..
- Google is still (it was in IE7) my first-listed search provider
- I can find no "Windows Search Helper" service (there's a "Windows Search" service; different thing, presumably)
- I can find no "Windows Search *anything*" in IE8's Add-ons list.
Hitting Google with "Windows Search Helper" yields the story and... well.. supposed anti-malware sites that are ever-so-useful in telling me what it is or where it comes from (sarcasm.)
So for all we know, he installed.. who knows what, something.. and that something may very well have asked him if he wanted to change the default search to Bing.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to do something like this.. but as of yet, my Vista machine isn't showing any evidence of it; nor does the article.
'course the other part of the article is 'sane'.. letting the google toolbar (if you have that installed anyway) make sure that your default search is Google if you're so-inclined as to have two search fields with the same provider (if I installed it, I'd set the IE8 one to Bing and leave the Google Toolbar one to Google, but that's me... then again, I tend to use Firefox), seems like a pretty good precaution to take.
"The advantage of using DIVs and CSS to format your page into columns is that you won't have a shit-ton of copy/pasting and code rearranging to do if you ever want to swap your columns around, or switch out some content from the right to the left."
Really?
Presume I have two TDs, and I swap their content. Select all content from through to , cut, paste. Done.
Now do the same with DIVs.
- Copy the positioning information from one.
- Paste into the other
- Copy the other's now
- Paste into the former
Done?
"And from your CSS example, it shows. You do know about inline styles right ?"
Should I take from that, that it shows you are horrible about your CSS?
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<span style="font-style:italic">why<span> on <span style="font-style:italic">why<earth> would you re-use styles <span style="font-style:italic">why<in-line> when you can use a <span style="font-style:italic">document-wide rule<span>?
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"Even XHTML 1.0 Strict has support for the B and I tags for Bold Text and Italic Text."
Yes, 1.0 does. 1.1 does not. HTML5 does*, I'm suspecting the XHTML equivalent once again will not; as per the desire to separate content from presentation completely.
For those suggesting em and strong; those are meta data for the content wrapped. They do not state anything about presentation. One browser might render strong as bold, for example, while another underlines it. Both are perfectly acceptable, but only one gives the desired effect.
* Unfortunately, however, the HTML 5 specification clearly states:
"Style sheets can be used to format b elements, just like any other element can be restyled. Thus, it is not the case that content in b elements will necessarily be boldened."
The above is -exactly- what my little rant is about. There is no more balance. There was a tag, <b>old, that did what it was supposed to do, in any browser that was at least -capable- of displaying bold text. Now, that same tag has been either deprecated entirely (XHTML 1.1), -or- neutered (HTML 5), allowing a browser to not do anything with it if it so pleases.
I've edited plenty of websites to know the advantages of CSS, including DIVs with a bunch of CSS for layout. Sometimes tables are simply easier and I daresay a better choice than DIV'd layout; neither, however, were particularly intended for page layout in any way from the get-go, and the "websites should be fluid so that they render appropriately on any device" crowd is holding this back in terms of standards. There's libs available that make things a lot easier for developers (much like jQuery filled a glaringy obvious hole in implementations), but I'd say that the vast majority of websites that are 'custom built' (so not just another Joomla! or Drupal or other CMS with a template slapped on and slightly modified) are done so through graphical editors which spit out a ton of code.. and usually for a good reason; you need that code if you want it working.
yes, but "zomg you're not supposed to use tables for layout!"
which of course has led to the similarly quaint removal of b, u, s and i tags for the sole reason that content and presentation should be separate. Nevermind that if you -now- want something to be bold, short of writing your own XML bits and pieces, you have do something insane like "<style>.b { font-weight:bold } </style>...<span class="b">this is bold</span>".
At some point, the scales tilted completely the other way and all balance was lost. Alas. The same applies to tables. Not that I think tables are appropriate for layout, but DIVs with a crapton of CSS aren't particularly it either.
Point A: Last recorded GPS position
Point B: Current recorded GPS position
Those don't change in a tunnel... the last point will be just before signal drops, the current will be when it regains signal, and it can still calculate the distance based on that.. either 'as the crow flies' or if it were fancypants, using mapping data to get the length of the tunnel.
Unless your car can teleport you, I'm guessing that'll be accurate enough; short of a very serpentine looooooooong tunnel where the entrance is the exit.
...well I've already been modded flamebait (I'm only echoing what the Dutch MPs have already said about this as potentials, as it is still well on road (pardon the pun) to being implemented come 2012 (long haul trucks)/2018 (the rest of us).. so I guess our MPs are spewing flamebait :D Note: Posting impopular statements does not flamebait make.) ...but just to address your points; I'd blame the GPS system in use if it has an accuracy less than 5m (which should be enough to differentiate), or the cartographer if the -map- has a shoddy accuracy. However, in those cases, there's always the option of not using such a system there.
alright, other uses; taxing more/less depending on:
- type of road (dirt vs gravel vs concrete vs newly-laid bitumen, etc.)
- congestion statistics
- whether or not you're on a toll road
- traveling speed relative to the speed limits on the road given (i.e. speeding, or slowing everybody else down. You can speed - 'go with the flow of traffic' - in the left lane, but it'll cost you extra. You can also go 60 where the limit is 70.. and it'll cost you extra.)
And... ;)
- fining for speeding
- fining for running red lights
- fining for failing to stop
You're right that no system is perfect, but an odometer doesn't really provide a heck of a lot of information that would allow these things.
On the up side, that also means it's far less open to abuse (tracking your car's whereabouts.. if they want to use it to determine if somebody's a -habitual- red-light-runner, more power to 'm).
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1287569&cid=28534437
Which, if you'd read the summary, is exactly what they'll be doing:
In The Netherlands, when you buy something like a TV, computer, washing machine, etc. you have to pay a 'removal fee' ("Verwijderingsbijdrage"). e.g. a refrigerator carries a 18 fee, a DVD recorder a 3 fee, etc. The money gained this way is put to use especially on dealing with recycling electric/electronic products. It doesn't cover the bills, afaik, but it helps and keeps more generic taxes (municipal waste taxes, for example) down.
In addition, even for electric/electronic devices on which there is no such fee (such as mp3 players, etc.*), you can trade your old machine in when getting a new one. You're not getting a lower price that way (short of retailers' own decisions), but you -are- rid of the old machine without having to pay recycling charges yourself, dealing with transport, etc. So if you have a CRT TV and want to get a nice new LCD.. drop the CRT off at the retailer and it has become their problem.
This arrangement got some negative-turned-positive press a few years ago; some whiney newspaper reported figured out that a lot of these retailers were taking these trade-ins, refurbishing them, and selling them as 2nd hand (national and abroad). "Oh noes, what abuse!", right? Except most people figured 'good on them! better to see the things getting a 2nd life than ending up chopped for parts and the rest dumped on the landfills'.
* personally I'd be all for putting a fee on small electronics as well; especially cellphones, as people in NL seem to think you -need- a new phone every 4-8 months.
Ditto 'Amazing' Mike Levey (passed away many years ago). It's actually astounding when you think about it.. these are TV salesmen, home shopping network talking heads, etc. (in addition to being private individuals, of course) Yet we encounter them so often just flipping channels, and are sometimes so taken in either by them or by the prospect of them trying to sell (typically) junk, that we are compelled to watch them and their image remains with us.
e.g. YouTube. Ever see the news take YouTube videos, or even those 'funny video' programs with YouTube videos throughout the things?
Ever wondered "hold on.. are they paying these youtube uploaders for the right to use them in their money-generating program?" ?
Well, read the TOS, and quit wondering. You grant YouTube (google) a non-exclusive right to redistribute as they see fit, and that includes deals with big organisations that deal with broadcast (TV) material.
There's probably no real copyright breach here... I agree with posters up above that the newspaper might have been in the wrong (I don't know the -whole- story; if the teacher sent it in, but quoted the post, it's still a letter to the editor.. although the original author did not write the letter an sich, etc.), but there's probably no recourse on account of 'copyright'.
Even if there were, though, aren't we supposed to yell something about information wanting to be free (as in speech AND beer) here?
...really, the only reason 'IT' companies get away with it is... because we let them. Adobe nearly stated as much. See:
http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe.html
See also the 'spin' page for very common arguments (read: excuses) for why pricing in the EU (and other countries) is higher, along with debunking statements:
http://www.amanwithapencil.com/adobe_spin.html
I do have to admit that Adobe has since then adjusted pricing a bit more favorably... .. all non-parallel because their store gets confused when you are trying to see pricing for products in 2 different tabs.) ...but it's still a pretty good chunk above the U.S. pricing.
I don't have current numbers, only from half a year ago; no good, and comparing their store prices takes a good 2 hours just to navigate, make sure you select the correct product (English language), etc.
Just to note: as of 2018 - supposedly - there will no longer be a 'a road use tax' (note that this is actually a fixed tax cost for any car owner, regardless of whether they drive it or not, and the height depends on the type of car, age, etc. as well as which province you live in), nor an additional tax on purchasing a car (currently: 40% on a passenger car/van, reduced by 1346 (minor details aside)), good for ~3.2B/year for the state - similar to the 'road use tax'.
Instead, people will be paying by the kilometer, which they plan on tracking via GPS and whatnot.. cue the 'potential for abuse' cries - I know, right?
But because this will go straight to the state, and no longer to the provinces in part, the provinces will have to find new sources of getting moneys.. which essentially means raising taxes for eeeeeeeeeeeeeverybody; regardless of whether or not they even have a car.
Of course our gas is also heavily 'taxed' - which will remain. Dur.
Taxes are indeed incredibly high in NL and although we do get quite a bit in return, I can't help but feel that too much of it is utterly wasted on prestige projects, lining pockets, military 'defense', etc. Sadly, it seems it's only going to get worse for the foreseeable future.
Why not?
It's possible, they can do it, so why not do it? I, for one, welcome custom camera firmwares. The more the merrier - I know I had a reply on Slashdot before where I asked if there was a programmable camera; lo and behold, there is.. and there's some very fun projects coming out of it. Why let the camera maker dictate what you can do with the camera, when you know that it is physically capable of so much more? E.g. why limit exposure times to 2 seconds, when there's no physical reason you couldn't keep the shutter open for an hour? )
As for HD.. an HD camera, 1080i/p, is 1920x1080.
The 5D Mark 2 is 5616x3744. That's larger than 4K cinema. Let me put it differently.. that's larger than practically every single movie you see on 'the big screen' today (which are often finished at 2K, or post-effected at 2K and upressed to 3K).
Sure, a consumer might not exactly -need- 4K. I'm not so sure they need HD - non-'HD' youtube resolution seems to be just fine for most people. But, again, it's possible.. so why not?
RED, at one point, decided that movies could he shot all-digital and made their behemoths based around fairly expensive sensors... now Canon, Nikon, Kodak, SONY, etc. are realizing that their sensors are getting fast enough to do movies as well.. and they're taking full advantage of it.
was that 'compact optical disk' refreshed continuously, with a secondary copy in case of corruption of the first?
if so, then I dare say the picture on that disk is going to be better than your Kodachrome slide.
media deteriorates, whether we like it or not. That goes for negatives and photographic prints just as well as for 'digital media'. negatives and prints, in our eyes, deteriorate gracefully.. that is to say that if the colors fade a little, that's okay.. we can still see the overall picture. Whereas a flipped bit in a JPEG can be disastrous (a good reason not to use JPEG for archival storage of digital pictures, but see the above anyway).
On the other hand.. that faded picture is forever faded.. you're not going to get the original back, ever. You can scan it (hey look, now it's digital.. lol?) and then fix it in post and then.. make another print of it (hey look, your digital photo is now a print.. imagine that, I guess you can have the best of both worlds if you want, with digital), but it won't be the original anymore.
With digital, however, you'll always have that original. Short of disastrous corruption on both the original -and- the backup (and possibly a third backup, etc.), or somehow losing the means to read all the backup media entirely, you'll always have that original and nothing is ever lost unless you -let it- be lost.
Again.. you don't get that choice with film negatives and prints. There's nothing you can do to preserve the prints in original state - not even sealing it in vacuum light-blocking chamber.
You stated in another post up above that nobody's solved the digital archiving problem yet. That's simply not true - we have, years ago; the only issue is that it seems like it's more work (making backups, keeping up with next-gen storage, etc.) to do so. With negatives and prints, you can be relatively lazy about it, knowing full-well that in 20 years that photo might have faded a bit, and not giving a damn simply because it's a more graceful degradation. But really, that's when somebody's kidding themselves about the medium of choice and how serious they are about archiving.
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On a side-note.. I believe there was an article not too long ago on Slashdot about researching being able to zap a metal with a laser for some stupendously short amount of time and essentially make it change colors. Suppose you did that with, say, Platinum.. that could be one heck of an archival medium, then.. although the picture would look oddly metallic and shiny :)
Think about that for a moment, if you will. Would you let me follow you around, wherever you go, as long as it is in public places, of course, and not private establishments. I.e. I wouldn't follow you into your house per se - though I might stand at the side of your house on public property and catch a glimpse of you through your windows (you do have curtains, right).. I won't follow you into your place of occupation presuming that's a private company, etc.
I will follow you around the moment you leave your house, go into the street, get into your car, follow your car around, follow you into the library, check which books you're checking out, follow you into the pub, follow you out the back door that you might otherwise use to leave quietly, follow you all day long.
If you are not okay with that - then you shouldn't be okay with 'security camera' footage being shared between random individuals - or even the world - who have no business whatsoever seeing the feeds from those cameras, and being able to piece them together. Because that is -exactly- what the cameras allow, given enough cameras.
It's bad enough that some governments do this - but at least they have some limitation as to what they can do, what footage they can request from non-gov't cameras, etc. (for now, anyway). Like it or not - the common man is far more likely to abuse such a system (vigilantism, etc.) than any reasonably benign government is.
It's very difficult to see the New Moon (most of the illumination of the thing being from 'Earth Shine'), especially when there's any light pollution.
here comes the airplane... vrrrrrrrrrrr http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/09/0035253 ...good boy!