I never understood how the size or success of an industry or individual was a judgement call against them. Because someone or some entity is large doesn't mean they are no longer entitled to the legal defense or representation.
If your arguement is against copyright, that copyright is bad or should be done away with, then make that arguement. Don't create a scarecrow for us to attack, don't categorize an individual or industry as 'Big' or some other word just to get emotions involved. Either your arguement will stand on its merits, or you'll be forced to skirt the issue with rhetoric.
Its very possible to provide half or more of your electrical needs, but the problem is a lot of homeowners don't want to make the (often large) initial investment. There's also maintenence over time. Oftentimes, its simply easier to rely on the large capital investment already made by the utilities. They already have trucks, equipment, manpower, and lines that they all maintain.
However, it would be cool if as new homes are built many are built with the investment already made, so that homeowners see it as an added value. If built at construction, it could be an easier sell.
So, the reason Federal Law Enforcement Agencies want this is because often times crime scences contain a fair amount of DNA evidence. They can quickly eliminate suspects if they know their DNA does not match.
I'm surprised at all the uproar over this. If you are arrested, but later cleared, your fingerprints are still kept. When is the last time your local police station returned your fingerprint card?
I have been arrested and later the charges were dropped. I didn't get my fingerprints back, and I'm pretty sure they could be in a municipal or state database. Fingerprints, like DNA, are unique. Its essentially the same thing.
I found the best way to avoid false incrimination is to not leave my DNA at crime scenes.
Well, its hard to say why someone hasn't stepped up. I think its because up until recently Standards boards have always been a step or two behind the developers and users. A great antecdotal example of this is the Javascript DOM model. When IE 4 and 5 were released, they had support for Event Model attachment using Microsoft specific methods and event handlers. There was a need to be able to dynamically affix javascript events, often more than one event to a certain user action on the page. Microsoft implemented a solution that worked pretty good. There were flaws, though, like being able to flag whether those events 'bubbled'. So when the Standards board wrote or rewrote the Javascript standards, they added the proper flags. To someone just getting into the game, it seems like Microsoft's approach is non-standards compliant and inferior. They're right, but its all they had at one point, and to say that people should hold off on new features until someone else writes a standard for them usually means you're not first-to-market with a solution.
Now don't get me wrong, I support standards so that people can use the same data across different platforms. But its hard to wait for standards to be written. Its also harder from a business standpoint to say that you're surrendering software development decisions to a body of people that might not have your business's interests in mind.
How you express your support for someone can transcend just saying that you support them. If you help a candidate organize by volunteering your time, or by signing a petition to get him/her on a ballot, you are just the same using 'speech'. To me, whether you donate money or help on the campaign doesn't matter; both are expressing speech. How would you feel if a new Campaign Finance law came down saying people couldn't donate their time, because the free labor was essentially 'buying' votes.
You'd be better served linking to statistics, instead of a new article blathering on about what one or two scientists said. Maybe a paper listing correlations of data. Real science isn't done in one pagelength by the BBC or any other news org.
I found it very informative when earlier posts linked directly to weather-data-gathering sites. I found the article you linked to heavy on opinion and wishy-washyness. this line is priceless:
What I think we can say is that the increase in intensity is probably accounted for by the increase in sea surface temperature and I think probably the sea surface temperature increase is a manifestation of global warming.
probably, twice. That's an awfully scientific word. Not only that, but this guy authored a study with a very small timeperiod: only since satellite records existed. That takes out everything before 1950 for sure, and probably since 1970 to be reasonable.
Anyways, I wish they linked to the paper this guy wrote, instead of his 'meeting minutes' on what he thought, because then maybe I could have made a more informed opinion.
I'm pretty sure the next generation of Windows Forms applications is going to support XML and XSL designed windows forms. I believe it's called xaml, and the link for it is here: http://www.xaml.net/ Basically it should allow developers to use a photoshop-like tool to graphically design form elements, and it will produce a markup that you can use in windows applications. I suppose it would be trivial to build an application extension that let you load custom xaml on the fly in an app.
In that sense, it wouldn't be that hard programmatically to change the look and feel of an interface. Also, it might bring windowing environment designers closer to HTML designers; since HTML is a form of XML
I find iPods just as durable as Discman portable CD players. Good for about a year or two of consistent, heavy use. I have discmans with broken lids, unspinnable motors, scratched lenses, missing battery covers, and broken buttons.
The thing is, the iPod is so convienent and easy to use that I find myself using it every day on my commute. If I get a year and a half / two years out of it, I'm happy.
Your points about MySQL are spot-on. If you set 'allow nulls' on an InnoDB database table fiend to be off, and fail to populate that field in an INSERT statement, MySQL puts in an empty string in that field. Logically, it should throw an error, I would assume.
I wouldn't mind a mode where I could choose how to handle non-nullable fields where no data is present (or write some sort of SQL error handling Stored Procedure).
Also missing are proper quoted / non-quoted syntax checking, so I don't try and stick an int value into a varchar field, etc. Heck, up until 4.1, you couldn't even do a
SELECT...
UNION
SELECT...
with either of those above SELECT's containing a subquery. Wasn't documented, either, and I had to pour through forums to find out why it didn't work.
However, some of the features I mentioned above are actually why people prefer mysql, they would prefer the database didn't bark at them, it allows for more rapid prototyping of web applications if you don't have to validate all those fields against empty string conditions.
Yeah, the problem with Thermal depolymerization is that it requires pressure and heat. Pressure and Heat are energy expenditures. How are we going to power the the machines that apply pressure and heat? probably by burning traditionally extracted fossil fuels.
I think that the monetary costs are always a factor, but the bigger factor is X units of energy in versus Y units out. If Y is less than X, we're wasting our time. Right now, with traditional drilling methods, we get a large Y for a reasonably small X. (Mother nature, over time, has taken sunlight and geological pressures to create all that potential energy for us). When we dig a hole in the ground, we reap all the benefits of thousands of years of pent-up energy. When we instead do things like pull CO2 from the air, we're trying to replicate the massive forces that existed in nature... essentially we have to expend a lot of energy to turn whatever we're working with into useable fuel.
its sort of the same debate that came up when superconductors are all the rage. Turns out, you can get near perfect efficiency in electrical transmission by supercooling the transmission path. However, its usually more expensive energy-wise to supercool the wires versus just losing the energy in transmission.
Wow, you know, that's the point of hiring people, is to DISCRIMINATE against those who don't have what you're looking for in a job. Now, you can argue that someone not hiring Yale grads is dumb, but aren't companies allowed to make dumb decisions? Aren't they allowed to set irrational criteria for hiring?
I mean, I agree that Certs make sense; But some might not, and maybe based on industry experience that someone rejects a candidate because he/she earnestly feels its better for the business. Doesn't he/she have the right to decline an employee for reasons they see fit? Its their job, afterall.
What if I owned a general store in a small town, and I knew most people. If I think a certain kid who applied for a job at my store is a jerk, or no good, or comes from a family whose parents I don't like, am I obliged to give him the job anyways? Is the job a charity, or a social resource, that everyone can lay claim to?
Standards -- For one thing, there are many different standards (the US & Europe, for example, use different frequencies). Increased globalization of supply chains will make this a royal PITA, and probably not cost-effective, for many retailers.
Hate to break it to you, but there are competing standards for barcodes, too. The Europeans and the USians have different standards . The solution? Most barcode readers read all standards. Gee, that was simple.
Once a standards body creates a definition like UPC (Universal Product Code, its how manufacturers avoid duplication of barcodes across differing products) for RFID comes about, then RFID will be more viable in a retail space. But for supply chain management, where packaging and other material often get in the way of scanning, RFID is ready to take hold now.
In blackjack, they use four-decks or six-decks, and deal multiple hands from these decks. The six-decks are known as a 'shoe', and the more decks they use, the worse it gets for the player to keep track.
In poker games, the rules dictate one deck of cards. When you sit down and watch the world poker championships, you're seeing one deck, and that's how the calculate a players winning percentage. during the stages of the game. The announcers or whomever are typing into a computer everyone's cards, and the computer is relaying the odds of victory based on cards that could be pulled at the next stage.
all playing WinHoldEm bots which are communicating with one another
This is the important thing, collaboration. In all scenarios, casinos, both real and online, factor in the odds or frequency of the player winning. For every percentage over 49% in favor of the player, the casino adjusts accordingly. It just doesn't make any sense for the casino to win less than 51% of the time. int he case of these poker sites, they take a certain percentage of the 'take' in any hand. In blackjack, the odds are in favor of the dealer about 51% of the time. Casinos have unlimited money and can continue to play, knowing in the long run statistically they'll win.
What scares Casinos is collusion. To any one player in blackjack, he has a 49% chance. However, multiple players sharing information changes those odds, in favor of the group over the casino . (this only applies to 'house' games, like blackjack) If you read Ben Mezrich's 'Bringing down the house', a group of students at MIT figured this out. They were able to play statistically and when they found a table whose odds leaned into the players, they called in a big fish who would bet more, knowing that the odds had swung.
The same collusion applies to Poker, except against other players, not the house. If I am dealt two Aces, and I collude with another player who indicates that he got one ace, I can tell two things... One, that no one else can match my aces, since there's a single ace somewhere else, and second, the other player can drop out, minimizing the loss of the teams.
The great thing about card games is that there's a finite number of cards dealt, and therefore statistical rules apply... the chances of drawing an Ace from a deck of cards increase for every non-Ace you draw. Since robots can keep track of every card dealt, they have an excellent chance to quickly calculate poker and blackjack situations. Collusion allows even more input to be gathered and for computers to make even more informed decisions
I really don't think that linux is becoming 'easier to use', but it isn't the Distros developers fault. Its mostly the application developers. The most popular applications for Linux, like the Apache webserver, are still config-file driven. Love it or hate it, the windows unified registry system has meant that windows application developers can do-away with config files and polish the applications to the point that everything is relatively clear.
Are there Apache Config File managers, or other gui-bolt-ons for command-line-only apps? Sure. But by the time your average user finds that out, he's already frustrated with the software.
I like linux, it makes a great server. It also forces you to understand computing, not just computers. But until the glue of applications that is Linux becomes more bonded, say with a registry-like system, then it will be harder for developers to make gui applications, and harder for linux desktop users to use them.
I think people are actually scared of Google because they don't know what to think of it. At first, everyone wanted to know how to achieve the golden orgasmic PageRank 10 from that little upstart search engine with such a simple friendly page. Now you have companies paying large sums of money to have 'experts' optimize their site for a seemingly great and monolithic Google, sometimes at the cost of ignoring all other search engines.
Thats because there ARE no other search engines. Google is so ridiculously popular that businesses are MADE or BROKEN by where people show up.
Quite simply, the Yellow Pages are dead. People find what they need on Google. I work for a company built on the results of searches for keywords from google. We recently got taken off of Google because a competitor submitted a complaint claiming we were 'spamming' or otherwise not playing by Google's rules, which we weren't. However, we weren't contacted or even given a chance to be heard; we were taken off. We have since been unblacklisted, but it will take us a long time to be reindexed and retrieve our old pagerank. Before we were blacklisted, we made 0 outgoing phone sales calls. Everyone found us, contacted us, and made us money. Now, we could have some problems; we could go under if we can't afford to hire a sales team.
Google is monolithic, so big in fact that we might see it fall under regulation someday, because it drives and is part of so much business in the world today. If google ever blacklists a large company, we'll probably see lawsuits and the beginning of regulation.
This isn't exactly High Definition Television, which is a video standard (1080i, 720p or 480p). This is a delivery method for HD resolution video, which is HDCP. HD is available over analog delivery through component video wires. I don't think that this CP will really affect most users.
Anyways, your $600 figure exists for 27 inch Samsung HD set. Actually, according to Sears the tv is $449.
HDTV got a lot of bad press; Most people still dont' know what it is, how to get it, and what it means for them.
I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that you'd be fine unless your phone switched APs... that's the problem with WiFi versus Cellular technologies.. Routing information through different towers is built into Cellular Tech, while it isn't built into IP/Ethernet.
About xbox launch time I had two friends working in what was then a FuncoLand. They aggressively steered people away from the Xbox, because they were anti-MS in general and pro-nintendo / sony.
However, the Xbox has been a great success. It pioneered hard disk drives and ethernet in systems as a requirement, and helped greatly bring about support for other-than-480i resolutions. Its also got some great games, albeit a smaller library than PS2.
a lot of people said the same thing in 1994. Big non-game company like Sony stepping into a market filled with old-faithfuls like nintendo and sega. But if done right, companies can be successful. I LOVE my xbox. I have a live subscription, I play MLB 2005, Crimson Skies, Halo 2, and Need For Speed very frequently. I can't WAIT for xbox2.
I think the problem you recall from your classes is a small subset of a larger problem.
Nations in Africa undergoing economic difficulty often have decent supplies of natural resources and ariable land. The problem is that the rule of law is very much dead in several countries, whose barbaric warlords steal and pillage from hardworking people. When taken for all they have, there's very little incentive to start over. The successful ones are stolen from, so why be successful? Without the rule of law in effect, there's very little reason for foreign companies to invest time and money , when they know it will be stolen from and their investment wasted.
What these nations need is a government of checks and balances, a police force not prone to corruption, and a populace willing to install the two. Then real education can happen.
I'm glad you let movies on the BBC, funded by a government supposedly 'in cahoots' with the Bush administration, guide your thoughts
Here's a suggestion. Why don't you present an arguement about your position, including reasoned ideas and points, instead of lampooning for some documentary you saw on TV.
Conforming to the WC3 standards will most always result in web pages that work in both browsers
Per my post, this isn't true. If you conform to the WC3 (or w3c, whatever) standard, your javascript won't work in IE when it comes to the event model.
Now, that microsoft doesn't support the standard is up for debate; I think they should. But my point was, the grandparent poster said to make compatible web applications, just follow the standards. But that isn't true; following the standards will often break the MS browser experience. The idea is you write for all browsers, the slashdot post could not mean that we should move from supporting one browser exclusively to supporting another exclusively.
Your point is especially wrong when it comes to event handling in IE versus Mozilla based (firefox). Firefox uses the w3c model of addEventListener(), IE uses attachEvent(). If I sat down with a spec and validated my javascript against it, my script STILL wouldn't run on IE.
The thing is, browsers just have different objects available to them and not available to them in their javascript/jscript implementations. The key is, as far up the chain as possible, identify the environment objects available and normalize those objects. An example of this is Scott Andrew's AddEvent and RemoveEvent functions, which create transparency for event handling for w3c and non-w3c event calls.
Also, checking to see which objects are available, not checking the user agent, is way better, since if IE7 fixes or converts or provides support for something w3c, then the code automatically knows this, because it will detect the objects needed, not the useragent string.
Slashdot Mirror
Big Entertainment
I never understood how the size or success of an industry or individual was a judgement call against them. Because someone or some entity is large doesn't mean they are no longer entitled to the legal defense or representation.
If your arguement is against copyright, that copyright is bad or should be done away with, then make that arguement. Don't create a scarecrow for us to attack, don't categorize an individual or industry as 'Big' or some other word just to get emotions involved. Either your arguement will stand on its merits, or you'll be forced to skirt the issue with rhetoric.
I'm pretty sure Sony's Magicgate Memory Stick beat this Sandisk product to market by about a few years.
Its very possible to provide half or more of your electrical needs, but the problem is a lot of homeowners don't want to make the (often large) initial investment. There's also maintenence over time. Oftentimes, its simply easier to rely on the large capital investment already made by the utilities. They already have trucks, equipment, manpower, and lines that they all maintain.
However, it would be cool if as new homes are built many are built with the investment already made, so that homeowners see it as an added value. If built at construction, it could be an easier sell.
So, the reason Federal Law Enforcement Agencies want this is because often times crime scences contain a fair amount of DNA evidence. They can quickly eliminate suspects if they know their DNA does not match.
I'm surprised at all the uproar over this. If you are arrested, but later cleared, your fingerprints are still kept. When is the last time your local police station returned your fingerprint card?
I have been arrested and later the charges were dropped. I didn't get my fingerprints back, and I'm pretty sure they could be in a municipal or state database. Fingerprints, like DNA, are unique. Its essentially the same thing.
I found the best way to avoid false incrimination is to not leave my DNA at crime scenes.
Well, its hard to say why someone hasn't stepped up. I think its because up until recently Standards boards have always been a step or two behind the developers and users. A great antecdotal example of this is the Javascript DOM model. When IE 4 and 5 were released, they had support for Event Model attachment using Microsoft specific methods and event handlers. There was a need to be able to dynamically affix javascript events, often more than one event to a certain user action on the page. Microsoft implemented a solution that worked pretty good. There were flaws, though, like being able to flag whether those events 'bubbled'. So when the Standards board wrote or rewrote the Javascript standards, they added the proper flags. To someone just getting into the game, it seems like Microsoft's approach is non-standards compliant and inferior. They're right, but its all they had at one point, and to say that people should hold off on new features until someone else writes a standard for them usually means you're not first-to-market with a solution.
Now don't get me wrong, I support standards so that people can use the same data across different platforms. But its hard to wait for standards to be written. Its also harder from a business standpoint to say that you're surrendering software development decisions to a body of people that might not have your business's interests in mind.
How you express your support for someone can transcend just saying that you support them. If you help a candidate organize by volunteering your time, or by signing a petition to get him/her on a ballot, you are just the same using 'speech'. To me, whether you donate money or help on the campaign doesn't matter; both are expressing speech. How would you feel if a new Campaign Finance law came down saying people couldn't donate their time, because the free labor was essentially 'buying' votes.
You'd be better served linking to statistics, instead of a new article blathering on about what one or two scientists said. Maybe a paper listing correlations of data. Real science isn't done in one pagelength by the BBC or any other news org.
I found it very informative when earlier posts linked directly to weather-data-gathering sites. I found the article you linked to heavy on opinion and wishy-washyness. this line is priceless:
What I think we can say is that the increase in intensity is probably accounted for by the increase in sea surface temperature and I think probably the sea surface temperature increase is a manifestation of global warming.
probably, twice. That's an awfully scientific word. Not only that, but this guy authored a study with a very small timeperiod: only since satellite records existed. That takes out everything before 1950 for sure, and probably since 1970 to be reasonable.
Anyways, I wish they linked to the paper this guy wrote, instead of his 'meeting minutes' on what he thought, because then maybe I could have made a more informed opinion.
I'm pretty sure the next generation of Windows Forms applications is going to support XML and XSL designed windows forms. I believe it's called xaml, and the link for it is here: http://www.xaml.net/ Basically it should allow developers to use a photoshop-like tool to graphically design form elements, and it will produce a markup that you can use in windows applications. I suppose it would be trivial to build an application extension that let you load custom xaml on the fly in an app.
In that sense, it wouldn't be that hard programmatically to change the look and feel of an interface. Also, it might bring windowing environment designers closer to HTML designers; since HTML is a form of XML
I find iPods just as durable as Discman portable CD players. Good for about a year or two of consistent, heavy use. I have discmans with broken lids, unspinnable motors, scratched lenses, missing battery covers, and broken buttons.
The thing is, the iPod is so convienent and easy to use that I find myself using it every day on my commute. If I get a year and a half / two years out of it, I'm happy.
Your points about MySQL are spot-on. If you set 'allow nulls' on an InnoDB database table fiend to be off, and fail to populate that field in an INSERT statement, MySQL puts in an empty string in that field. Logically, it should throw an error, I would assume.
...
...
I wouldn't mind a mode where I could choose how to handle non-nullable fields where no data is present (or write some sort of SQL error handling Stored Procedure).
Also missing are proper quoted / non-quoted syntax checking, so I don't try and stick an int value into a varchar field, etc. Heck, up until 4.1, you couldn't even do a
SELECT
UNION
SELECT
with either of those above SELECT's containing a subquery. Wasn't documented, either, and I had to pour through forums to find out why it didn't work.
However, some of the features I mentioned above are actually why people prefer mysql, they would prefer the database didn't bark at them, it allows for more rapid prototyping of web applications if you don't have to validate all those fields against empty string conditions.
Yeah, the problem with Thermal depolymerization is that it requires pressure and heat. Pressure and Heat are energy expenditures. How are we going to power the the machines that apply pressure and heat? probably by burning traditionally extracted fossil fuels.
I think that the monetary costs are always a factor, but the bigger factor is X units of energy in versus Y units out. If Y is less than X, we're wasting our time. Right now, with traditional drilling methods, we get a large Y for a reasonably small X. (Mother nature, over time, has taken sunlight and geological pressures to create all that potential energy for us). When we dig a hole in the ground, we reap all the benefits of thousands of years of pent-up energy. When we instead do things like pull CO2 from the air, we're trying to replicate the massive forces that existed in nature... essentially we have to expend a lot of energy to turn whatever we're working with into useable fuel.
its sort of the same debate that came up when superconductors are all the rage. Turns out, you can get near perfect efficiency in electrical transmission by supercooling the transmission path. However, its usually more expensive energy-wise to supercool the wires versus just losing the energy in transmission.
Wow, you know, that's the point of hiring people, is to DISCRIMINATE against those who don't have what you're looking for in a job. Now, you can argue that someone not hiring Yale grads is dumb, but aren't companies allowed to make dumb decisions? Aren't they allowed to set irrational criteria for hiring?
I mean, I agree that Certs make sense; But some might not, and maybe based on industry experience that someone rejects a candidate because he/she earnestly feels its better for the business. Doesn't he/she have the right to decline an employee for reasons they see fit? Its their job, afterall.
What if I owned a general store in a small town, and I knew most people. If I think a certain kid who applied for a job at my store is a jerk, or no good, or comes from a family whose parents I don't like, am I obliged to give him the job anyways? Is the job a charity, or a social resource, that everyone can lay claim to?
Standards -- For one thing, there are many different standards (the US & Europe, for example, use different frequencies). Increased globalization of supply chains will make this a royal PITA, and probably not cost-effective, for many retailers.
Hate to break it to you, but there are competing standards for barcodes, too. The Europeans and the USians have different standards . The solution? Most barcode readers read all standards. Gee, that was simple.
Once a standards body creates a definition like UPC (Universal Product Code, its how manufacturers avoid duplication of barcodes across differing products) for RFID comes about, then RFID will be more viable in a retail space. But for supply chain management, where packaging and other material often get in the way of scanning, RFID is ready to take hold now.
In blackjack, they use four-decks or six-decks, and deal multiple hands from these decks. The six-decks are known as a 'shoe', and the more decks they use, the worse it gets for the player to keep track.
In poker games, the rules dictate one deck of cards. When you sit down and watch the world poker championships, you're seeing one deck, and that's how the calculate a players winning percentage. during the stages of the game. The announcers or whomever are typing into a computer everyone's cards, and the computer is relaying the odds of victory based on cards that could be pulled at the next stage.
all playing WinHoldEm bots which are communicating with one another
This is the important thing, collaboration. In all scenarios, casinos, both real and online, factor in the odds or frequency of the player winning. For every percentage over 49% in favor of the player, the casino adjusts accordingly. It just doesn't make any sense for the casino to win less than 51% of the time. int he case of these poker sites, they take a certain percentage of the 'take' in any hand. In blackjack, the odds are in favor of the dealer about 51% of the time. Casinos have unlimited money and can continue to play, knowing in the long run statistically they'll win.
What scares Casinos is collusion. To any one player in blackjack, he has a 49% chance. However, multiple players sharing information changes those odds, in favor of the group over the casino . (this only applies to 'house' games, like blackjack) If you read Ben Mezrich's 'Bringing down the house', a group of students at MIT figured this out. They were able to play statistically and when they found a table whose odds leaned into the players, they called in a big fish who would bet more, knowing that the odds had swung.
The same collusion applies to Poker, except against other players, not the house. If I am dealt two Aces, and I collude with another player who indicates that he got one ace, I can tell two things... One, that no one else can match my aces, since there's a single ace somewhere else, and second, the other player can drop out, minimizing the loss of the teams.
The great thing about card games is that there's a finite number of cards dealt, and therefore statistical rules apply... the chances of drawing an Ace from a deck of cards increase for every non-Ace you draw. Since robots can keep track of every card dealt, they have an excellent chance to quickly calculate poker and blackjack situations. Collusion allows even more input to be gathered and for computers to make even more informed decisions
I really don't think that linux is becoming 'easier to use', but it isn't the Distros developers fault. Its mostly the application developers. The most popular applications for Linux, like the Apache webserver, are still config-file driven. Love it or hate it, the windows unified registry system has meant that windows application developers can do-away with config files and polish the applications to the point that everything is relatively clear.
Are there Apache Config File managers, or other gui-bolt-ons for command-line-only apps? Sure. But by the time your average user finds that out, he's already frustrated with the software.
I like linux, it makes a great server. It also forces you to understand computing, not just computers. But until the glue of applications that is Linux becomes more bonded, say with a registry-like system, then it will be harder for developers to make gui applications, and harder for linux desktop users to use them.
I think people are actually scared of Google because they don't know what to think of it. At first, everyone wanted to know how to achieve the golden orgasmic PageRank 10 from that little upstart search engine with such a simple friendly page. Now you have companies paying large sums of money to have 'experts' optimize their site for a seemingly great and monolithic Google, sometimes at the cost of ignoring all other search engines.
Thats because there ARE no other search engines. Google is so ridiculously popular that businesses are MADE or BROKEN by where people show up.
Quite simply, the Yellow Pages are dead. People find what they need on Google. I work for a company built on the results of searches for keywords from google. We recently got taken off of Google because a competitor submitted a complaint claiming we were 'spamming' or otherwise not playing by Google's rules, which we weren't. However, we weren't contacted or even given a chance to be heard; we were taken off. We have since been unblacklisted, but it will take us a long time to be reindexed and retrieve our old pagerank. Before we were blacklisted, we made 0 outgoing phone sales calls. Everyone found us, contacted us, and made us money. Now, we could have some problems; we could go under if we can't afford to hire a sales team.
Google is monolithic, so big in fact that we might see it fall under regulation someday, because it drives and is part of so much business in the world today. If google ever blacklists a large company, we'll probably see lawsuits and the beginning of regulation.
This isn't exactly High Definition Television, which is a video standard (1080i, 720p or 480p). This is a delivery method for HD resolution video, which is HDCP. HD is available over analog delivery through component video wires. I don't think that this CP will really affect most users.
Anyways, your $600 figure exists for 27 inch Samsung HD set. Actually, according to Sears the tv is $449.
HDTV got a lot of bad press; Most people still dont' know what it is, how to get it, and what it means for them.
I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that you'd be fine unless your phone switched APs... that's the problem with WiFi versus Cellular technologies.. Routing information through different towers is built into Cellular Tech, while it isn't built into IP/Ethernet.
Seriously, I think you're absolutely on target
About xbox launch time I had two friends working in what was then a FuncoLand. They aggressively steered people away from the Xbox, because they were anti-MS in general and pro-nintendo / sony.
However, the Xbox has been a great success. It pioneered hard disk drives and ethernet in systems as a requirement, and helped greatly bring about support for other-than-480i resolutions. Its also got some great games, albeit a smaller library than PS2.
a lot of people said the same thing in 1994. Big non-game company like Sony stepping into a market filled with old-faithfuls like nintendo and sega. But if done right, companies can be successful. I LOVE my xbox. I have a live subscription, I play MLB 2005, Crimson Skies, Halo 2, and Need For Speed very frequently. I can't WAIT for xbox2.
You know, NORMAL people might want to bring a woman along with the trip, not a monkey.
But hey, this is slashdot.
I think the problem you recall from your classes is a small subset of a larger problem.
Nations in Africa undergoing economic difficulty often have decent supplies of natural resources and ariable land. The problem is that the rule of law is very much dead in several countries, whose barbaric warlords steal and pillage from hardworking people. When taken for all they have, there's very little incentive to start over. The successful ones are stolen from, so why be successful? Without the rule of law in effect, there's very little reason for foreign companies to invest time and money , when they know it will be stolen from and their investment wasted.
What these nations need is a government of checks and balances, a police force not prone to corruption, and a populace willing to install the two. Then real education can happen.
I'm glad you let movies on the BBC, funded by a government supposedly 'in cahoots' with the Bush administration, guide your thoughts
Here's a suggestion. Why don't you present an arguement about your position, including reasoned ideas and points, instead of lampooning for some documentary you saw on TV.
Conforming to the WC3 standards will most always result in web pages that work in both browsers
Per my post, this isn't true. If you conform to the WC3 (or w3c, whatever) standard, your javascript won't work in IE when it comes to the event model.
Now, that microsoft doesn't support the standard is up for debate; I think they should. But my point was, the grandparent poster said to make compatible web applications, just follow the standards. But that isn't true; following the standards will often break the MS browser experience. The idea is you write for all browsers, the slashdot post could not mean that we should move from supporting one browser exclusively to supporting another exclusively.
Umm, no, actually.
Your point is especially wrong when it comes to event handling in IE versus Mozilla based (firefox). Firefox uses the w3c model of addEventListener(), IE uses attachEvent(). If I sat down with a spec and validated my javascript against it, my script STILL wouldn't run on IE.
The thing is, browsers just have different objects available to them and not available to them in their javascript/jscript implementations. The key is, as far up the chain as possible, identify the environment objects available and normalize those objects. An example of this is Scott Andrew's AddEvent and RemoveEvent functions, which create transparency for event handling for w3c and non-w3c event calls.
Also, checking to see which objects are available, not checking the user agent, is way better, since if IE7 fixes or converts or provides support for something w3c, then the code automatically knows this, because it will detect the objects needed, not the useragent string.