I did that as well once about ten years ago, except that I believe I left off the "t" in dictionary. I worried for a couple of minutes because I thought dictionary.com had been hijacked until I looked at what I typed in.
Why? Pagination is a solved problem for most systems (desktop publishing, word processing, typesetting systems), there's no good reason why it should be any less solved for browsers. If worst comes to worst, develop a plugin for Opera (and other browsers) that supports one of the existing systems and therefore has known pagination rules.
This is a good point. I much prefer your plugin suggestion, because it circumvents the requirement that everyone adapt to paginated web sites. The plus side is that those who want pagination can go and get it, while the rest of us who feel that pagination is probably a tremendous step backward can continue doing what we're doing and finding ways to do it better, rather than having to work around yet another browser-specific oddity.
My argument is thus: Pagination is a somewhat archaic work-around for displaying content on a fixed-size media, like paper. It's no accident then that word processors and document exchange formats like PDFs are page-centric since they're typically designed to be printed. I don't have any comparative usability studies on hand, but I would argue that "flipping" a page on a screen-reading device rather than scrolling it is more likely to interrupt work flow--much like turning the page in a book.
Think about when you're reading a book before bed when you're quite tired. You flip the page, your mind wanders, then you have to turn back to reread the last three or four words on the previous page for the purpose of context, and then your entire mental flow is disrupted. Reading from the left page to the right page (in an LTR language) isn't as problematic as actively turning the page, because you're eyes can immediately scan to the top of the following text and continue reading. To this extent, I think scrolling is probably a reasonable compromise between active user actions and passive reading. With scrolling, it's feasible to keep the previous words on the screen for context, and you can continue reading from any point. The biggest disadvantage with scrolling, however, is that it's difficult with lengthy documents to flip back and forth between one section and another while keeping a finger propped between a few pages so you can compare material from an earlier chapter (hint: "flipping" pages on a screen-reading device doesn't have this specific advantage of a book).
I'd argue that flip gestures for turning pages on screen-based devices carries all of the disadvantages of a book while integrating few, if any, of the advantages. That said, Opera might surprise me and come up with an innovative solution that takes advantage of the screen, but the ultimate answer to this question shouldn't be solved by Opera but by a usability expert like Jakob Nielsen--someone who can do the studies to determine the relative advantages and disadvantages with real people.
Writing Dart-only websites is obviously a bad idea. Writing stuff that will work an order of magnitude slower on JS browsers could seem like a sensible lazy solution to many, especially if Chrome continues to gain market-share.
I don't think anyone has yet suggested writing "Dart-only websites." From the blog:
The Dart VM is not currently integrated in Chrome but we plan to explore this option.
"We plan to explore this option" could be interpreted in that light, but I take it to mean that they're still in a planning phase for a Chrome-integrated Dart roll-out, which might never take place.
In the worst case, this could lead to everybody having to implement Dart
Given Google's track record with new technologies as of late, I don't see anyone other than Google implementing Dart.
and the new de-facto standard scripting language being controlled by Google, who, running several of the world's most popular websites, can hardly be considered neutral.
You speak of this as if it's a bad thing (correct me if I'm wrong); there's one significant advantage to Google's command over the market which, I would argue, actually plays against your scenario. Specifically, with Google's market share on search and ownership of other sites like Youtube et al, interoperability is more important to Google than their new shiny language. After all, that's why they've written a cross-compiler for JS.
Now, I could feasibly see Google sites offering up Dart code to Chrome and JS to everyone else, but considering that most JS VMs are already reasonably fast--and getting faster--I don't see that as holding any significant advantage over JS-only implementations. Further, the argument they offer that Dart fixes unfixable problems with JS doesn't seem to hold much water when considered under the limitations of interoperability. After all, Dart may fix some of JavaScript's more embarrassing issues--and it may offer more control over what the browser can do--but what's the point if over half your visitors can't use that functionality anyway?
That Google isn't exactly a neutral party in this is probably a good thing, because they have every reason to maintain the status quo--or at least try. If MSIE6 and ActiveX was any indication, vendor-specific browser extensions are not only a pox upon the essence of the web, but I don't think any developers will be eager to repeat the mistakes of the late 90s and early 2000s that ultimately lead up to the disaster that Microsoft eventually brought into the world. Could it be that Google is fated to repeat the mistakes borne out of Redmond? Maybe, but I think Dart is more likely to be adopted by application developers on the server-side with client code persisting as JS for a long time to come.
Perhaps I should done my tinfoil hat, but I wonder how much of this is tied into Oracle's recent behavior while presiding over the JVM and the debacle with Dalvik?
I use Gmail. I used to use the labels for a while, but I got lazy with it. The search feature gets me what I want 99% of the time (1% is when I can't remember anything about the message I need to find). It's faster too---why click through folders or tags or labels when you can just type?
I use both: Labels for mailing lists or things that I don't particularly want to go into the inbox, and then search for everything else. Folders/tags/labels are mostly useful if you're not looking for anything in particular and are mostly interested in browsing, say, a mailing list. Although, I admit that I'm on several mailing lists and don't always through everything--especially higher volume ones--since there are some I only lurk for notifications related to breaking changes and such.
I personally think that, while it's not something that's motivated by bad impulses, it would have to be very carefully limited in order to not be abusive or anti-competitive, assuming that Valve actually opens new markets based on having the translations, and that Valve owns the translations. Those are, of course, assumptions.
I suspect Valve's lawyers would have cleared the way for this. As much as I dislike most of the litigation that occurs, I wouldn't be so naive as to suggest their attorneys wouldn't have made certain they aren't stepping on any toes. Then again, there have been circumstances under which corporations have been caught with their pants down (so to speak), either having chosen to ignore the law outright or consciously decided to ignore it. I have no idea what Valve's situation is in this case, and I can feasibly see it going either way.
That said, I can understand the motivations behind such translations being considered "abusive" if they were in fact used abusively (i.e. "forcing" people to partake or otherwise), but I'm not so sure that it would be easy to argue such value-added goods as anti-competitive. While a weak comparison, I would again point to the shareware market--and certainly open source--both of which are replete with volunteer translations. There's certainly a precedent--no matter how small--that has been set. On the other hand, if Valve were offering translations of games from other studios without necessarily sharing those, it's reasonable to imagine that these efforts could turn against them. Then again, since Steam (the platform) can be seen, again, as a value-added product or distribution channel, that might also be an unlikely case. After all, competitive advantages are not illegal, and if a game studio refuses to offer translations in, say, Russian or Italian, I can't really see a valid reason for them to go after Valve. Heck, for something that ludicrous, I'd consider arguing that Valve is simply covering for the civil rights of those who might want to play a particular title but can't because of the language barrier. (That was tongue-in-cheek, mostly, because I realize that while the legal system doesn't see things in that light, it's a fun prospect to consider.)
Of course, there's the issue of Valve possibly attributing the copyright of translation files to themselves for games they don't own. That would probably be a fun situation to watch unfold: They'd have both the volunteer translators and the game studios breathing down their necks.
I think you'll find that the correct reading (or at least a valid reading) is that these factors are applied in cases where the work in question is already determined to be for a qualifying entity. They aren't exceptions to the rule of "it has to be non-profit, humanitarian, religious, or public,"
Well, yes, and that's part of why I was careful (I believe, perhaps I wasn't) to point out that some of the sources I looked up pointed to these exclusions as applying only to public-sector labor and/or non-profit organizations, although I didn't point out that (in particular) the presentation applies to private-sector jobs. Perhaps it would have been of some utility to enumerate each one more closely with which sector it applied most to, but I think that's a minor detail that can be gleaned from reading the links themselves. However, some of the same general rules and recommendations seem to be repeated by various HR consultancy firms targeting corporations and other similar entities, so again, I would emphasize that I believe the spirit of the FLSA is well-covered in my points as not applying to these volunteers.
I think, though, judging from what I read last night, the vast array of interpretations over "volunteer" in the law is due in no small part to the rather loose language used in the FLSA statutes, which are arguably open for almost any interpretation, but for which I believe are intended mostly to prohibit co
Unless things have changed recently, here in Australia it is perfectly legal to play any media as long as you have acquired it legally even if you have to crack/ignore region settings/etc. Acquiring legally is as simple as buying the dvd from overseas from a legitimate dealer.
Most of my relatives live there or in the UK; they have a hard time fully appreciating the stupidity of such restrictions in the US. Thanks to our DMCA, I believe circumvention of region encoding is technically a violation. Not that anyone really pays much mind...
Further, since everyone is caught up in the notion that this applies to religious organizations and that they are the only ones exempt, it might also behoove you to read that specific part:
You don't mention non-profit or public sector here. If this wasn't an attempt to assert that I was saying that only religious organizations were exempt, I'm not sure what you were getting at.
To be fair, there were others further up the reply chain who were specifically mentioning religious institutions; although that I neglected to include all other edge cases seems moot considering my immediate quote from the FLSA site thereafter specifically points out non-profits, humanitarian organizations, and so forth.
I didn't gloss over your post - I read it carefully and it failed to effectively convince me of your point. Your blockquotes, in particular, don't actually constitute any sort of rebuttal to the statements I made, and you didn't explain why FLSA doesn't apply in this case. If you'd care to make that clear, I'll be glad to read it, but honestly, all you did was make an unfair claim about my comment and fail to back it up.
I recall quoting, from the FLSA link provided by one of the OPs, that SCOTUS declared that FLSA was not unnecessarily broad in that all volunteer labor could be classified as falling under its auspices, regardless of how it related to non-profits, religious organizations, and so forth. Unfortunately, the FLSA site seems to offer an extremely truncated review of both the ruling and the rules. My reading of the material provided in that link is mostly what lead me to believe that Valve would not fall under the scrutiny of FLSA, and why I believe that your speculation is incorrect. For instance:
While this mostly outlines public service, I believe it covers at least part of the spirit of the FLSA in regards to volunteer service by defining what is meant by "volunteer." Being as the translations were offered without "pressure or coercion" and that they are neither employees of Valve nor expect compensation for their labor, they are likely classified as volunteer labor.
Further, I also believe that the volunteer clause in the FLSA is intended to prevent companies from "forcing" employees to volunteer part of their time unfairly in effort to circumvent paying them overtime for their labor. This might also explain why the language used to define volunteers and their role for the organization is mostly concerned with compensation, their existing status with the company, and so forth. That said, according to this, it might be useful to Valve for those volunteers to sign a volunteer agreement, which would certainly give them legal backing if a suit were raised (I don't think one will be).
In particular, I could see where the Department of Labor may side with you since "the DOL has 'a long-standing policy of limiting volunteer status to those individuals performing charitable activities for not-for-profit organizations.'" So yes, you are absolutely correct that there are few exceptions to the rule. However, if you consider these factors listed:
To determine if a person is truly a volunteer and not an employee, the DOL ordinarily will consider the following factors:
1. How much the organization benefits from the services performed; 2. The time spent in the activity (the activity is less than a full-time occupation); 3. The individual's services are of the kind typically associated with volunteer work; and 4. The individual does not expect pay for the services.
I have to strongly disagree with you there, I hate it, but let's not do that discussion right now:)
Hah!
I admit, I absolutely resented Ribbon and everything it stood for when MS first announced it, and then included it in Office 2007. Perhaps the only reason I developed some fondness for it--much like one might grow fond of repeated lashings over time--is because of the circumstances; I had no choice! For simple tasks, it does seem to improve workflow. Though, the biggest annoyance of Ribbon for me was whenever I needed to access the 20% of use cases Ribbon doesn't address. I'm not sure if that was ignorance of Ribbon (on my part) or that it simply wasn't capable or written to expose certain features (possible).
That said, the last version of Office I've ever purchased was 2003. I still have '97 around somewhere, but I've generally stuck with using OOo wherever possible. Maybe I'm showing my age, but menu-driven interfaces make me feel more comfortable. At least I can find what I need fairly quickly.
I just wanted to say that I'd really like a search-as-you-type field like the one in the Start menu, but for the Office ribbon choices. I would have been able to find whatever I wanted in less than a second, I really don't know why the GUI gurus at Microsoft haven't made it an option. Come to think of it that'd be handy for some other applications (vlc?) as well.
Oh man, that would've made my life easier. That's been my biggest complaint about Ribbon: Finding those damnable options! Under a menu-driven interface, everything is reasonably well organized and condensed; under Ribbon, it's similar in a way to menu-driven--if you substitute menus with tabs--but the limited screen real estate greatly reduces the option density available since you can't exactly hide it in an intuitive manner that wouldn't outright confuse everyone.
You've got a good point. Why the UI designers at MS never considered doing something like that, most especially during the initial transitional period that Office 2007 greeted us with, almost boggles the mind. Providing some fairly intuitive and simple method of finding uncommon-but-necessary-options, particularly during a huge paradigm shift, almost seems like common sense (or hindsight?) material. Great idea, though!
It would nice if Apple acknowledged the shoulders it has stood on.
Yes, absolutely.
The designers of the RIO got no credit for being innovative, but they did get recognition from the RIAA, who sued them.
The ipod three years later got all sorts of awards for being an innovative _product_, however the most innovative thing about it was the fact they managed to do a deal with the RIAA and sell music online.
Make no mistake about it: I don't condone Apple's business practices, past or present, but I did feel that your original post was neglecting certain truths in the business world--and, well, innovation in general.
I do think that my reply to you was unnecessarily harsh, so I apologize for that. Other than that, I do agree with the point you're making.
The biggest problem with your original post, I think, is that you could have explained the detail (here, for instance) of your rationale and you didn't. I've done that before, and have gotten slammed, and oftentimes, we're not likely to spend a great deal of time crafting a lengthy post when there's a relatively simple kernel of thought behind what we're writing.:)
The problem with Slashdot in general is that short posts can be construed as trollish and inflammatory, which provokes a defensive reaction in people even if that wasn't the intent. Judging by other replies to you, I think that's likely what may have happened. Thank you for clarifying what you meant, though. I do agree; I don't feel that Apple necessarily acknowledges those whom they've borrowed from (although, no one else in the corporate tech world does, so it's not exclusive to Apple).
In the past people might throw a buck at a creator if they pirated something because they felt a little bad about it. Today, with piracy normalized (hey everyone does it), most people don't feel any nagging sense that they might have done something "not right" when they consume a creator's output without providing any form of compensation.
This is because deep down most people believe that entertainment is an optional extra. People make the rational decision when given the option of paying for it or not paying for it. They save their resources and pay for the necessities.
This is probably true, but I'm not sure how well the statistics back it up. It's both feasible and very likely that the majority of people would rather screw the content creator over rather than toss out a little bit of money in tribute. I do have some faith that people are generally honest, except in those cases where they feel they're paying for an inferior product or are getting screwed by the company selling it. I think that to a certain degree, that might be the mindset most people are currently in: e.g., "I'm limited with what I can do with this DVD, I can't copy it, I can do much with it, and it's inferior to pirated goods."
That said, anecdotal evidence from my own behavior and that of many of my peers suggests that if people like something, they'll generally be honest and buy it. All of my music acquisition, for example, over the last several years has been through online purchases with Amazon. It's relatively inexpensive, I like music, and it's exceedingly simple, straightforward, and painless. While I could have found the same things for free, I'm guaranteed to have a reasonable quality recording via a purchase (maybe not value-added, but you're not guaranteed to have any minimum level of quality if you pirate a song), and I'm now likely to leave it on Amazon's cloud to access elsewhere.
I realize we're comparing apples and oranges here, music versus movies, but I think it's a reasonable comparison. Both are optional and both are entertainment. Of course, I'm not about to assume that anyone but a handful of people exhibit the same consumption habits I do. The success of Amazon's MP3 service does hint that they do, but without any hard numbers to back it up, I can only speculate to add to the discussion.
Perhaps in the long run, people will be less likely to invest in creating expensive entertainment ( lets face it, the SyFy Channel has pretty much bailed on it already because their existing "make money on the DVD sales" model collapsed). Whether the lack of expensively produced entertainment is actually a bad thing is another discussion entirely.
This is a good point. Market forces--and certainly the economy--are going to probably force content creators toward inexpensive means of production. Maybe that would be a good thing, considering the average quality of most things coming out of Hollywood these days. Yet there's plenty of programs that were produced on a shoestring budget that were far better than more expensive films.
In a way, I'd rather hope that a lesser investment pool would produce fewer but higher quality products. Unfortunately, given the entertainment industry's behavior over the last 10-15 years, I don't feel particularly optimistic.
I wish this weren't true, but given the news that came out today regarding the Olson TZ database, it seems that more and more companies are moving toward litigation as a viable business model.
I can see it now. Welcome to America: Our only export is litigation. Oh, and we have a patent on that, too.
Make it global, nothing is more annoying (ok maybe not entirely true) than finding out you can't get particular content because your region isn't licensed for it.
This is a big issue with me. I've had relatives overseas in the past want to send DVDs only to find out that it's technically illegal, and the region encoding prohibits playback on standard DVD players. Obviously, it's trivial to circumvent and re-burn (or play under a Linux-based HTPC)--if need be--but that's probably a violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause.
What he did was copy other people advances and make them appeal to superficial people.
I know you're already going to get dragged over the coals for this, and you're probably trolling Slashdot somewhat, but seriously. That's a pretty shitty--and ignorant--position to take: All technology is built off the shoulders of giants. Innovation is usually a process of small steps on uncharted terrain, and very seldom giant leaps over mountains.
I'm no fan of Apple; I don't own any Apple products. But you know what? I bought my mum an iPod Touch precisely because she wanted something to carry around to play her music that would be easy for her to use, and frankly, some of Apple's offerings are far better than anything anyone else offers. Yes, Apple has smug fanboys and fangirls, but given the success of their mobile devices, Apple--thanks to Jobs--managed to do something no one else has yet. Indeed, I think that the success of Android can thank Apple for breaking new ground and the related paradigm shift that brought the appeal of smart phones to the masses.
The world has truly lost a visionary. Perhaps the saddest commentary on this, though, is that everyone including many here had been expecting--almost begging--for a big announcement from Apple yesterday. I guess they got what they were asking for today, and that's what's damn sad.
You were that easily fooled? It's exactly like saying - "Not to insult you or anything but you are an idiot." Just because they preface it by saying that they don't want to piss on the first amendment. If YOU read the whole thing you'll see they are trying to broaden a couple of decisions to be so all-encompassing and vague that even this message I am writing right now will be covered if there happens to be a minor reading it who gets offended.
The OP you're responding to worries me, but mostly because I don't think care was taken to consider other parts of the document. Instead, the OP mentions that there's a single, out of context quote (which I don't believe was taken out of context that much), yet avoids other, juicier claims.
To illustrate:
IN MANY WAYS, THE HARM CAUSED BY CYBERBULLYING MAY BE GREATER THAN THE HARM CAUSED BY TRADITIONAL BULLYING.
There's no citation, except for an article from Vanderbilt Law Review; there's no mention of peer-reviewed psychological studies. This is almost the very definition of a knee-jerk reaction to a real or imagined threat that has dangerous potential for abuse. We were all kids once, and I'm sure we've all said unpleasant things toward one or more of our peers during some part of our life. It isn't a very wise thing to criminalize the somewhat typical behavior of children simply because it has greater exposure, particularly when kids are not fully capable of rationalizing or appreciating the breadth of the impact their words might hold.
There are also other, perhaps more humorous implications. For instance, since exclusion is used as an example of "cyberbullying," it makes me wonder: Would we therefore, in a written forum like Slashdot, be excluding the illiterate? Yes, that's tongue-in-cheek, but it's not a far stretch to imagine in this political climate someone interpreting exclusion to mean something of that sort.
Ribbon isn't actually that bad once you get used to it. I didn't like it in Office 2007 much, but it was improved somewhat for 2010. While my experience with it was mostly limited to assignments at university when I didn't have access to OOo, it wasn't as terrible as some have made it out to be. In some ways, it's easier.
What I did see is on the whole much worse than Ribbon. If you've used the Windows 8 developer previews, it seems MS likes the idea of a full-screen tablet-esque scrollable thing for apps. Kinda like a tag cloud, but for applications, and much less usable. At the very least, it was hardly navigable with a mouse. Fortunately, there was a registry tweak to bring back the Win7 start menu, though I'm not sure if that will persist given this news.
To be honest, I use a mix of the taskbar's pinning feature as well as dragging everything else to the recently used apps menu, along with occasionally digging through the programs list for anything else that I might use very rarely. I don't really care much for clutter on the taskbar, but it's handy for things that I use with regularity, if I'm using Windows.
Eliminating the start menu seems rather silly to me.
If the economy falters, companies are bringing in less revenue
Seriously? What planet are you on?
Now, now, let's keep this civil.
I neglected to include the term generally speaking in that statement. However, I can't help but notice that most of the articles you pulled were from Q3 2010.
Some sectors (Yum! brands comes to mind) are bringing in record profits precisely because if the strength in international markets (China, for instance), so looking at the numbers without objective context may be mostly meaningless.
You missed my point. You have a left wing loon blaming Corporations and Government, but neglecting to notice the "government" is what they probably want (more or less). If this was Bush's economy, there would be no excuses, but this is Obama's so... we blame Bush. And it comes out in the GP poster's comments that they are sill in the this is Bush's Government.
I was agreeing with you in a tongue-in-cheek sense (and I do agree, don't mistake that otherwise). I apologize that I did not make that quite clear. I happened to want to rant, and your post was a good one to bounce off of, so...
So, you accuse me of cherry-picking, but fail to even read my reply closely enough to realize that I mentioned public-service and non-profit agencies as well as religious?
I believe you misread my comment, because I specifically lumped you in with the other individuals who believed the FLSA applied only to religious (and non-profit) organizations. If you read the statute, you'd understand that it doesn't; more importantly, if you read the parts of the link you provided that illustrate circumstances under which it did apply, you might also realize that it's no appropriate in this case.
While I'm inclined to believe this response was a knee-jerk reaction toward someone who disagrees with you, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume that you missed most of what I wrote in reply. Given the nature of the blockquotes I included, I strongly suspect you may have inadvertently glossed over part of my post.
When I signed up for hosting, I had no idea in advance that I'd want to run a specific app that does not support PostgreSQL, only MySQL or MariaDB.
Not to mention that, while the margin is shrinking, there's quite a few generic FOSS web apps out there that either 1) continue to lack support for PostgreSQL or 2) have exceedingly shoddy support for it.
While he didn't say it, you could argue that tepples was alluding to the fact that crummy PHP apps are pretty much responsible for the reason why so many providers offer only MySQL; to an extent, market forces (the market in this case being available apps) have over the years driven provides to use only one solution. It's not ideal, and it's a situation that's improving over time, but if anything it might be appropriate to shift the blame to projects like phpBB which for years had PostgreSQL support, but in the 2.x branch, performance was abysmal. Oh, and others, too, who supported only MySQL (or MySQLi, if you were lucky).
Although, I'm not sure how relevant all of this will be in a few years. VPS hosting is growing cheaper, and if you're offering a paid-for service, you're much less likely to go with a shared host unless your objective is to simply put up a gallery system for some relatives or something reasonably small.
Regardless: While tepples does seem to play devil's advocate more often than perhaps he otherwise should, he does have a point. There are a lot of providers who don't offer anything other than MySQL. Likewise, there's a lot of FOSS apps that foster the same, which is likely the reason many providers do what they do!
But they always exempted themselves anyways. I get cold calls all the fucking time from robocallers and phone pools for the local Republican turds trying to get reelected. It's one small reason among many that I won't vote for those corrupt goons.
The Democratic congress critters have been doing the same thing. Prior to the 2010 elections, one of our House reps (also a Dem at that time) had automated messages hitting me every evening.
I suspect it's not "Republican turds," but rather the consequence of political turds. Lots of reps do it--it's just that we complain less when it's someone with whom we agree.
When it comes to computer parts, Amazon's website is a freaking disaster zone. NewEgg's search engine has a few quirks, but it's still way better than Amazon's. And I don't find Amazon's pricing to be significantly cheaper, and their free shipping is WAAAYYY slower.
This is true. While I've noticed that Amazon is "cheaper" (for some value of cheap) for non-component parts (think cameras and accessories), their free shipping 1) requires a minimum purchase of $25 and 2) is 5-9 days, usually using the USPS which means you might be lucky to get the item in 2 weeks, and probably not intact.
I've seen more than a few items that were marginally more expensive on Newegg than Amazon, but they've invariably had "free" 3 day shipping (obviously included in the price) whereas the Amazon item either required paid shipping or was their super-saver 5-9 day shipping.
Of course, the reason I do this shopping online is because I currently live in a community that isn't well-serviced by large parts chains, and I often can't find certain esoteric components (cables, etc.) unless I wait for the local stores to order them or drive 80 miles away and spend $20 on gas for a $5 part.
As an aside, the UPS guy has told me on more than one occasion that he delivers a ton of stuff from Newegg, so while anecdotal, I think that's good evidence that Newegg is far from hurting!
I've built three home PCs in the last three years; two are servers and one's an Xbmc frontend. The low cost of PC components these days means there's no need to have just one.
I agree. That's why I suspect the submitter was trolling to a degree. Components are so cheap now that there's almost no reason to just stop with one system. Moreover, I've generally upgraded odds and ends over the years ranging from video cards to hard disks, never mind the big purchases. Heck, in the life time of my desktops, I probably swap out various components roughly every year for one or more systems.
I doubt tablets are going to eat into their margins that much. Besides, Newegg sells other odds and ends, including iPods and accessories. They're a little more expensive than, say, Amazon or your local brick and mortar but most items have free 3-day shipping so...
Slashdot Mirror
I did that as well once about ten years ago, except that I believe I left off the "t" in dictionary. I worried for a couple of minutes because I thought dictionary.com had been hijacked until I looked at what I typed in.
Never again!
This is a good point. I much prefer your plugin suggestion, because it circumvents the requirement that everyone adapt to paginated web sites. The plus side is that those who want pagination can go and get it, while the rest of us who feel that pagination is probably a tremendous step backward can continue doing what we're doing and finding ways to do it better, rather than having to work around yet another browser-specific oddity.
My argument is thus: Pagination is a somewhat archaic work-around for displaying content on a fixed-size media, like paper. It's no accident then that word processors and document exchange formats like PDFs are page-centric since they're typically designed to be printed. I don't have any comparative usability studies on hand, but I would argue that "flipping" a page on a screen-reading device rather than scrolling it is more likely to interrupt work flow--much like turning the page in a book.
Think about when you're reading a book before bed when you're quite tired. You flip the page, your mind wanders, then you have to turn back to reread the last three or four words on the previous page for the purpose of context, and then your entire mental flow is disrupted. Reading from the left page to the right page (in an LTR language) isn't as problematic as actively turning the page, because you're eyes can immediately scan to the top of the following text and continue reading. To this extent, I think scrolling is probably a reasonable compromise between active user actions and passive reading. With scrolling, it's feasible to keep the previous words on the screen for context, and you can continue reading from any point. The biggest disadvantage with scrolling, however, is that it's difficult with lengthy documents to flip back and forth between one section and another while keeping a finger propped between a few pages so you can compare material from an earlier chapter (hint: "flipping" pages on a screen-reading device doesn't have this specific advantage of a book).
I'd argue that flip gestures for turning pages on screen-based devices carries all of the disadvantages of a book while integrating few, if any, of the advantages. That said, Opera might surprise me and come up with an innovative solution that takes advantage of the screen, but the ultimate answer to this question shouldn't be solved by Opera but by a usability expert like Jakob Nielsen--someone who can do the studies to determine the relative advantages and disadvantages with real people.
And drafted largely by the Democrats who controlled both houses.
I don't think anyone has yet suggested writing "Dart-only websites." From the blog:
"We plan to explore this option" could be interpreted in that light, but I take it to mean that they're still in a planning phase for a Chrome-integrated Dart roll-out, which might never take place.
Given Google's track record with new technologies as of late, I don't see anyone other than Google implementing Dart.
You speak of this as if it's a bad thing (correct me if I'm wrong); there's one significant advantage to Google's command over the market which, I would argue, actually plays against your scenario. Specifically, with Google's market share on search and ownership of other sites like Youtube et al, interoperability is more important to Google than their new shiny language. After all, that's why they've written a cross-compiler for JS.
Now, I could feasibly see Google sites offering up Dart code to Chrome and JS to everyone else, but considering that most JS VMs are already reasonably fast--and getting faster--I don't see that as holding any significant advantage over JS-only implementations. Further, the argument they offer that Dart fixes unfixable problems with JS doesn't seem to hold much water when considered under the limitations of interoperability. After all, Dart may fix some of JavaScript's more embarrassing issues--and it may offer more control over what the browser can do--but what's the point if over half your visitors can't use that functionality anyway?
That Google isn't exactly a neutral party in this is probably a good thing, because they have every reason to maintain the status quo--or at least try. If MSIE6 and ActiveX was any indication, vendor-specific browser extensions are not only a pox upon the essence of the web, but I don't think any developers will be eager to repeat the mistakes of the late 90s and early 2000s that ultimately lead up to the disaster that Microsoft eventually brought into the world. Could it be that Google is fated to repeat the mistakes borne out of Redmond? Maybe, but I think Dart is more likely to be adopted by application developers on the server-side with client code persisting as JS for a long time to come.
Perhaps I should done my tinfoil hat, but I wonder how much of this is tied into Oracle's recent behavior while presiding over the JVM and the debacle with Dalvik?
I use both: Labels for mailing lists or things that I don't particularly want to go into the inbox, and then search for everything else. Folders/tags/labels are mostly useful if you're not looking for anything in particular and are mostly interested in browsing, say, a mailing list. Although, I admit that I'm on several mailing lists and don't always through everything--especially higher volume ones--since there are some I only lurk for notifications related to breaking changes and such.
I suspect Valve's lawyers would have cleared the way for this. As much as I dislike most of the litigation that occurs, I wouldn't be so naive as to suggest their attorneys wouldn't have made certain they aren't stepping on any toes. Then again, there have been circumstances under which corporations have been caught with their pants down (so to speak), either having chosen to ignore the law outright or consciously decided to ignore it. I have no idea what Valve's situation is in this case, and I can feasibly see it going either way.
That said, I can understand the motivations behind such translations being considered "abusive" if they were in fact used abusively (i.e. "forcing" people to partake or otherwise), but I'm not so sure that it would be easy to argue such value-added goods as anti-competitive. While a weak comparison, I would again point to the shareware market--and certainly open source--both of which are replete with volunteer translations. There's certainly a precedent--no matter how small--that has been set. On the other hand, if Valve were offering translations of games from other studios without necessarily sharing those, it's reasonable to imagine that these efforts could turn against them. Then again, since Steam (the platform) can be seen, again, as a value-added product or distribution channel, that might also be an unlikely case. After all, competitive advantages are not illegal, and if a game studio refuses to offer translations in, say, Russian or Italian, I can't really see a valid reason for them to go after Valve. Heck, for something that ludicrous, I'd consider arguing that Valve is simply covering for the civil rights of those who might want to play a particular title but can't because of the language barrier. (That was tongue-in-cheek, mostly, because I realize that while the legal system doesn't see things in that light, it's a fun prospect to consider.)
Of course, there's the issue of Valve possibly attributing the copyright of translation files to themselves for games they don't own. That would probably be a fun situation to watch unfold: They'd have both the volunteer translators and the game studios breathing down their necks.
Well, yes, and that's part of why I was careful (I believe, perhaps I wasn't) to point out that some of the sources I looked up pointed to these exclusions as applying only to public-sector labor and/or non-profit organizations, although I didn't point out that (in particular) the presentation applies to private-sector jobs. Perhaps it would have been of some utility to enumerate each one more closely with which sector it applied most to, but I think that's a minor detail that can be gleaned from reading the links themselves. However, some of the same general rules and recommendations seem to be repeated by various HR consultancy firms targeting corporations and other similar entities, so again, I would emphasize that I believe the spirit of the FLSA is well-covered in my points as not applying to these volunteers.
I think, though, judging from what I read last night, the vast array of interpretations over "volunteer" in the law is due in no small part to the rather loose language used in the FLSA statutes, which are arguably open for almost any interpretation, but for which I believe are intended mostly to prohibit co
Most of my relatives live there or in the UK; they have a hard time fully appreciating the stupidity of such restrictions in the US. Thanks to our DMCA, I believe circumvention of region encoding is technically a violation. Not that anyone really pays much mind...
To be fair, there were others further up the reply chain who were specifically mentioning religious institutions; although that I neglected to include all other edge cases seems moot considering my immediate quote from the FLSA site thereafter specifically points out non-profits, humanitarian organizations, and so forth.
I recall quoting, from the FLSA link provided by one of the OPs, that SCOTUS declared that FLSA was not unnecessarily broad in that all volunteer labor could be classified as falling under its auspices, regardless of how it related to non-profits, religious organizations, and so forth. Unfortunately, the FLSA site seems to offer an extremely truncated review of both the ruling and the rules. My reading of the material provided in that link is mostly what lead me to believe that Valve would not fall under the scrutiny of FLSA, and why I believe that your speculation is incorrect. For instance:
While this mostly outlines public service, I believe it covers at least part of the spirit of the FLSA in regards to volunteer service by defining what is meant by "volunteer." Being as the translations were offered without "pressure or coercion" and that they are neither employees of Valve nor expect compensation for their labor, they are likely classified as volunteer labor.
Further, I also believe that the volunteer clause in the FLSA is intended to prevent companies from "forcing" employees to volunteer part of their time unfairly in effort to circumvent paying them overtime for their labor. This might also explain why the language used to define volunteers and their role for the organization is mostly concerned with compensation, their existing status with the company, and so forth. That said, according to this, it might be useful to Valve for those volunteers to sign a volunteer agreement, which would certainly give them legal backing if a suit were raised (I don't think one will be).
In particular, I could see where the Department of Labor may side with you since "the DOL has 'a long-standing policy of limiting volunteer status to those individuals performing charitable activities for not-for-profit organizations.'" So yes, you are absolutely correct that there are few exceptions to the rule. However, if you consider these factors listed:
It could be argued thus
Hah!
I admit, I absolutely resented Ribbon and everything it stood for when MS first announced it, and then included it in Office 2007. Perhaps the only reason I developed some fondness for it--much like one might grow fond of repeated lashings over time--is because of the circumstances; I had no choice! For simple tasks, it does seem to improve workflow. Though, the biggest annoyance of Ribbon for me was whenever I needed to access the 20% of use cases Ribbon doesn't address. I'm not sure if that was ignorance of Ribbon (on my part) or that it simply wasn't capable or written to expose certain features (possible).
That said, the last version of Office I've ever purchased was 2003. I still have '97 around somewhere, but I've generally stuck with using OOo wherever possible. Maybe I'm showing my age, but menu-driven interfaces make me feel more comfortable. At least I can find what I need fairly quickly.
Oh man, that would've made my life easier. That's been my biggest complaint about Ribbon: Finding those damnable options! Under a menu-driven interface, everything is reasonably well organized and condensed; under Ribbon, it's similar in a way to menu-driven--if you substitute menus with tabs--but the limited screen real estate greatly reduces the option density available since you can't exactly hide it in an intuitive manner that wouldn't outright confuse everyone.
You've got a good point. Why the UI designers at MS never considered doing something like that, most especially during the initial transitional period that Office 2007 greeted us with, almost boggles the mind. Providing some fairly intuitive and simple method of finding uncommon-but-necessary-options, particularly during a huge paradigm shift, almost seems like common sense (or hindsight?) material. Great idea, though!
Yes, absolutely.
Make no mistake about it: I don't condone Apple's business practices, past or present, but I did feel that your original post was neglecting certain truths in the business world--and, well, innovation in general.
I do think that my reply to you was unnecessarily harsh, so I apologize for that. Other than that, I do agree with the point you're making.
The biggest problem with your original post, I think, is that you could have explained the detail (here, for instance) of your rationale and you didn't. I've done that before, and have gotten slammed, and oftentimes, we're not likely to spend a great deal of time crafting a lengthy post when there's a relatively simple kernel of thought behind what we're writing. :)
The problem with Slashdot in general is that short posts can be construed as trollish and inflammatory, which provokes a defensive reaction in people even if that wasn't the intent. Judging by other replies to you, I think that's likely what may have happened. Thank you for clarifying what you meant, though. I do agree; I don't feel that Apple necessarily acknowledges those whom they've borrowed from (although, no one else in the corporate tech world does, so it's not exclusive to Apple).
This is probably true, but I'm not sure how well the statistics back it up. It's both feasible and very likely that the majority of people would rather screw the content creator over rather than toss out a little bit of money in tribute. I do have some faith that people are generally honest, except in those cases where they feel they're paying for an inferior product or are getting screwed by the company selling it. I think that to a certain degree, that might be the mindset most people are currently in: e.g., "I'm limited with what I can do with this DVD, I can't copy it, I can do much with it, and it's inferior to pirated goods."
That said, anecdotal evidence from my own behavior and that of many of my peers suggests that if people like something, they'll generally be honest and buy it. All of my music acquisition, for example, over the last several years has been through online purchases with Amazon. It's relatively inexpensive, I like music, and it's exceedingly simple, straightforward, and painless. While I could have found the same things for free, I'm guaranteed to have a reasonable quality recording via a purchase (maybe not value-added, but you're not guaranteed to have any minimum level of quality if you pirate a song), and I'm now likely to leave it on Amazon's cloud to access elsewhere.
I realize we're comparing apples and oranges here, music versus movies, but I think it's a reasonable comparison. Both are optional and both are entertainment. Of course, I'm not about to assume that anyone but a handful of people exhibit the same consumption habits I do. The success of Amazon's MP3 service does hint that they do, but without any hard numbers to back it up, I can only speculate to add to the discussion.
This is a good point. Market forces--and certainly the economy--are going to probably force content creators toward inexpensive means of production. Maybe that would be a good thing, considering the average quality of most things coming out of Hollywood these days. Yet there's plenty of programs that were produced on a shoestring budget that were far better than more expensive films.
In a way, I'd rather hope that a lesser investment pool would produce fewer but higher quality products. Unfortunately, given the entertainment industry's behavior over the last 10-15 years, I don't feel particularly optimistic.
I wish this weren't true, but given the news that came out today regarding the Olson TZ database, it seems that more and more companies are moving toward litigation as a viable business model.
I can see it now. Welcome to America: Our only export is litigation. Oh, and we have a patent on that, too.
This is a big issue with me. I've had relatives overseas in the past want to send DVDs only to find out that it's technically illegal, and the region encoding prohibits playback on standard DVD players. Obviously, it's trivial to circumvent and re-burn (or play under a Linux-based HTPC)--if need be--but that's probably a violation of the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause.
More like: Good luck with the innovation--even if it's good, none of his peers will buy into it.
I know you're already going to get dragged over the coals for this, and you're probably trolling Slashdot somewhat, but seriously. That's a pretty shitty--and ignorant--position to take: All technology is built off the shoulders of giants. Innovation is usually a process of small steps on uncharted terrain, and very seldom giant leaps over mountains.
I'm no fan of Apple; I don't own any Apple products. But you know what? I bought my mum an iPod Touch precisely because she wanted something to carry around to play her music that would be easy for her to use, and frankly, some of Apple's offerings are far better than anything anyone else offers. Yes, Apple has smug fanboys and fangirls, but given the success of their mobile devices, Apple--thanks to Jobs--managed to do something no one else has yet. Indeed, I think that the success of Android can thank Apple for breaking new ground and the related paradigm shift that brought the appeal of smart phones to the masses.
The world has truly lost a visionary. Perhaps the saddest commentary on this, though, is that everyone including many here had been expecting--almost begging--for a big announcement from Apple yesterday. I guess they got what they were asking for today, and that's what's damn sad.
The OP you're responding to worries me, but mostly because I don't think care was taken to consider other parts of the document. Instead, the OP mentions that there's a single, out of context quote (which I don't believe was taken out of context that much), yet avoids other, juicier claims.
To illustrate:
There's no citation, except for an article from Vanderbilt Law Review; there's no mention of peer-reviewed psychological studies. This is almost the very definition of a knee-jerk reaction to a real or imagined threat that has dangerous potential for abuse. We were all kids once, and I'm sure we've all said unpleasant things toward one or more of our peers during some part of our life. It isn't a very wise thing to criminalize the somewhat typical behavior of children simply because it has greater exposure, particularly when kids are not fully capable of rationalizing or appreciating the breadth of the impact their words might hold.
There are also other, perhaps more humorous implications. For instance, since exclusion is used as an example of "cyberbullying," it makes me wonder: Would we therefore, in a written forum like Slashdot, be excluding the illiterate? Yes, that's tongue-in-cheek, but it's not a far stretch to imagine in this political climate someone interpreting exclusion to mean something of that sort.
Ribbon isn't actually that bad once you get used to it. I didn't like it in Office 2007 much, but it was improved somewhat for 2010. While my experience with it was mostly limited to assignments at university when I didn't have access to OOo, it wasn't as terrible as some have made it out to be. In some ways, it's easier.
What I did see is on the whole much worse than Ribbon. If you've used the Windows 8 developer previews, it seems MS likes the idea of a full-screen tablet-esque scrollable thing for apps. Kinda like a tag cloud, but for applications, and much less usable. At the very least, it was hardly navigable with a mouse. Fortunately, there was a registry tweak to bring back the Win7 start menu, though I'm not sure if that will persist given this news.
To be honest, I use a mix of the taskbar's pinning feature as well as dragging everything else to the recently used apps menu, along with occasionally digging through the programs list for anything else that I might use very rarely. I don't really care much for clutter on the taskbar, but it's handy for things that I use with regularity, if I'm using Windows.
Eliminating the start menu seems rather silly to me.
Hah!
I somehow suspect that's unlikely to achieve the desired result.
Now, now, let's keep this civil.
I neglected to include the term generally speaking in that statement. However, I can't help but notice that most of the articles you pulled were from Q3 2010.
Some sectors (Yum! brands comes to mind) are bringing in record profits precisely because if the strength in international markets (China, for instance), so looking at the numbers without objective context may be mostly meaningless.
I was agreeing with you in a tongue-in-cheek sense (and I do agree, don't mistake that otherwise). I apologize that I did not make that quite clear. I happened to want to rant, and your post was a good one to bounce off of, so...
I believe you misread my comment, because I specifically lumped you in with the other individuals who believed the FLSA applied only to religious (and non-profit) organizations. If you read the statute, you'd understand that it doesn't; more importantly, if you read the parts of the link you provided that illustrate circumstances under which it did apply, you might also realize that it's no appropriate in this case.
While I'm inclined to believe this response was a knee-jerk reaction toward someone who disagrees with you, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume that you missed most of what I wrote in reply. Given the nature of the blockquotes I included, I strongly suspect you may have inadvertently glossed over part of my post.
Not to mention that, while the margin is shrinking, there's quite a few generic FOSS web apps out there that either 1) continue to lack support for PostgreSQL or 2) have exceedingly shoddy support for it.
While he didn't say it, you could argue that tepples was alluding to the fact that crummy PHP apps are pretty much responsible for the reason why so many providers offer only MySQL; to an extent, market forces (the market in this case being available apps) have over the years driven provides to use only one solution. It's not ideal, and it's a situation that's improving over time, but if anything it might be appropriate to shift the blame to projects like phpBB which for years had PostgreSQL support, but in the 2.x branch, performance was abysmal. Oh, and others, too, who supported only MySQL (or MySQLi, if you were lucky).
Although, I'm not sure how relevant all of this will be in a few years. VPS hosting is growing cheaper, and if you're offering a paid-for service, you're much less likely to go with a shared host unless your objective is to simply put up a gallery system for some relatives or something reasonably small.
Regardless: While tepples does seem to play devil's advocate more often than perhaps he otherwise should, he does have a point. There are a lot of providers who don't offer anything other than MySQL. Likewise, there's a lot of FOSS apps that foster the same, which is likely the reason many providers do what they do!
The Democratic congress critters have been doing the same thing. Prior to the 2010 elections, one of our House reps (also a Dem at that time) had automated messages hitting me every evening.
I suspect it's not "Republican turds," but rather the consequence of political turds. Lots of reps do it--it's just that we complain less when it's someone with whom we agree.
This is true. While I've noticed that Amazon is "cheaper" (for some value of cheap) for non-component parts (think cameras and accessories), their free shipping 1) requires a minimum purchase of $25 and 2) is 5-9 days, usually using the USPS which means you might be lucky to get the item in 2 weeks, and probably not intact.
I've seen more than a few items that were marginally more expensive on Newegg than Amazon, but they've invariably had "free" 3 day shipping (obviously included in the price) whereas the Amazon item either required paid shipping or was their super-saver 5-9 day shipping.
Of course, the reason I do this shopping online is because I currently live in a community that isn't well-serviced by large parts chains, and I often can't find certain esoteric components (cables, etc.) unless I wait for the local stores to order them or drive 80 miles away and spend $20 on gas for a $5 part.
As an aside, the UPS guy has told me on more than one occasion that he delivers a ton of stuff from Newegg, so while anecdotal, I think that's good evidence that Newegg is far from hurting!
I agree. That's why I suspect the submitter was trolling to a degree. Components are so cheap now that there's almost no reason to just stop with one system. Moreover, I've generally upgraded odds and ends over the years ranging from video cards to hard disks, never mind the big purchases. Heck, in the life time of my desktops, I probably swap out various components roughly every year for one or more systems.
I doubt tablets are going to eat into their margins that much. Besides, Newegg sells other odds and ends, including iPods and accessories. They're a little more expensive than, say, Amazon or your local brick and mortar but most items have free 3-day shipping so...