TicketMaster's business practises and crappy system is as much the cause of outragous ticket pricing as the music industry. The system is so crap that you can't get tickets when they are released, but somehow the secondary market makers find access and sell it for crazy markups. It is the biggest scam going. Someone needs to do something about it.
TicketMaster is in violation of anti-trust laws, but nothing comes of it. They must be paying some K-street lobby firm a lotta cash to keep this racket going.
This seems to be mostly a physiological limitation of some sort, although practice can move one significantly closer to the "perfect pitch" end of the spectrum. (Personally, I don't have "traditional" perfect pitch in which I can hear a tone and tell if it middle C or not, but am fairly decent at discerning relative pitches... E.G. if one note is four steps above another, if one pitch is an octave double of another, etc etc.)
Just for your information, you seem to be under the impression that "perfect pitch" is something you have to be born with - it is a VERY common mis-conception.
I have tried the perfect pitch tapes by Dave Lucas-Burge, and you would be surprised to see that anyone (well most people) can learn perfect pitch. The first time you hear the difference you are amazed that each note on the chromatic scale has its own color to it. Some stand out more than others, but you can learn hear each note's own color with enough time and dedication.
I have not completed the program; and since I am out of practise I am not very good. But anytime I play an B-flat on the piano (single note - not good with chords yet), or often when I hear it in a song, I can feel the color of the note. It is pretty crazy - you should check it out.
Every single one of those people has studied patent law extensively. Have you? Can you prove that the patent is invalid, and if so, why haven't you been hired by eBay or their counsel?... You appear to believe that everybody involved in this case is an idiot,... Yet instead of posting a comprehensible explanation, you've chosen to leap headfirst into the rabble
I am not saying that the patent is invalid; I am saying the patent law that allows patenting of business practises (and software models) is ridiculus.
Patent law should protect INNOVATION that is not the result of OBVIOUS uses of available techology. Do you think the idea of a "buy now" button is innovative to the point of deserving protection from being copied?
Here is a patent that doesn't require an EE degree to see that it is ridiculous. I hope these cases keep coming and coming so political pressure mounts to reform a backwards intellectual property system.
The FISA court has a provision that allows court approval to be obtained after the fact. This invalidates the "need for speed" agrument. The very few times someone in the media has confronted an administration offical with this obvious logic, the response has always been regression into a vague discription of the current NSA program being "another valuable tool", or needing "every tool available" to keep the American people safe.
I have not had the misfortune of having listened to the latest set of talking points being pushed. But as far as I can see, there are only a few reasons to not use FISA:
because FISA leaves records of activity and the administration does not want to be held to account for their actions
because there is a standard of probable cause that the administration does not feel it can meet
Either of these motives is an indication of the Bush administration feeling that they need to operate outside the law.
If they really believe in the rule of law, they should move change the law to fit the times. If not, they are just showing their contempt for the rule of law.
I think the framers of the American Constitution are turning in their gaves right now.
I have used a Promise and 3Ware controllers on server setups (and they worked great), but now that software RAID has matured in Linux, I plan to save some money for my home setup and use software RAID.
I found an external case for 4 drives, without hot swap (which I'm told doesn't work that well with Linux software RAID anyways) for like $150. A 4 channel SATA controller is like $60, and the Multichannel bracket the external case's output back into 4 single SATAs is like $80 or so.
Once I confirm that I am happy with the RAID performence and reliability, I am going to pull the trigger and get some 7200.9 Seagates in the 300GB range. With RAID 5, I'll get 900GB storage and no more drive crashs causing data loss.
I will not ever use a Maxtor again. The only drives that I have had crash that weren't Maxtors were IBM Deskstars. Seagate has 5 year warranty on their drives.
Sharing to Windows is easy with Samba, and I have also configured rdiff-backup on cygwin to backup the local drives to UNIX.
The CRIA is a poorly funded wannabe RIAA that complains about everything. They already have enough supporting laws and programs on the books. And now that there is enough focus on these issues, they are not going to get anymore.
Canadians are taxed on all blank CDR media to offset the loss of piracy, and since the Canadian content laws under our version of the FCC are the only thing that keeps a lot of crappy Canadian content on the air, and since most of it is funded with our tax dollars, the CRIA can kiss my cold Canadian A*S!
Many Canadian content providers and distributers shield themselves from real competition thru backwards isolationalist-style trade-restriction-like programs and law.
Government funding allows tax dollars to be sophened to companies that produce content that usually SUCKS - as along as it meets the "Canadian content" requirements by mentioning curling or the Toronto Maple Leafs.
At the same time, broadcasters are limited in what they can show because they have to be inline with another set of rules that dictates a percentage limit on the amount of non-Canadian content they can broadcast.
So we have cable providers that suck, a lot of content that sucks, and it is all subsidized by our own tax dollars.
All that being said, aside from not being able to get American TV legally, and having the same climate as upstate New York (in Toronto at least), it is still the best place to live in the North America - IMHO.
With all of this Canada self-bashing, I should point out a couple of examples of Canadian content at its finest. Here are two artists that are proud to be Canadian, and are world class for sure - highly worth checking out:
1) Esthero - a voice and songwriter like no other
2) K-os - hip-hop with real instruments, who's quality is unmatched
"In my opinion Diebold's election system is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known, and the only way this will be exposed is with a Congressional investigation with subpoenas of not just Diebold officials but Diebold technicians."
Yes, I'd agree with that. But good luck with a congressional investigation, they probably won't even be able to get a real room to have meeting about it. Just like Downing Street. Karl Rove is a genius.
What butthole did the democrats have there heads up when let this scam be part of the 2004 election? They had 4 years! How you can have a company with the contract to build paperless voting machines being run by a loyalist to the incumbant party and not have the opposition do anything about it - IS RIDICULOUS!
I hope there is an upset in 2006, or it is going to be another 2 years of a radical Whitehouse running around unchecked, digging the US into deeper holes at every turn.
But really, were is the outrage? I mean this is your democracy?!
The Bush neoconservatives believe that their destiny is to mold the world as they see fit, and they don't care what they have to do or say to fulfill that goal. If that means lying about WMD, killing civilians, or sacrificing military personnel, then so be it. It is all for the greater good.
So don't expect them to give a crap about the cost to science by doing what the religous right demands, cause they need them to be in power in the first place.
Now if they could find a way to launder money out of R&D, like the defense, pharma, or oil industries, then you might get somewhere.
It is a UNIX sub-system for win32 and is a fairly complete and very easy to work with. One tip would be to install all the packages, not just the defaults.
Once you get it installed, you can setup an SSH service with:
ssh-host-config (and answer some questions) cygrunsrv -S sshd
This will start openssh as a service (and config for install on bootup). Make sure you adjust your firewall settings to allow port 22. Then make sure that you have a password set on the account you want to access. The ssh in and you got UNIX-style remote access. Only complaint I have is that it doesn't come with GNU screen.
I was told, I believe by an aviation instructor, that the reason the moon appears lower is because the light bends around the atmosphere when the moon is positioned low on the horizon.
The bending is caused by the difference in viscosity of the medium that the light is travelling through.
As the line of sight moves closer to the horizon, the amount of fluid (air) that it travels through increases. As such, differences in the atmospheric conditions also modify the effect.
Perception might be a factor, but there is physics at work as well.
Truly, the only people who deserve a complete helping of blame are the hackers. Let's not forget that they're the ones doing this to us. They're the ones who are annoying an entire planet. They're the ones who are costing us billions of dollars a year to secure our systems against them. They're the ones who place their desire for fun ahead of everyone on earth's desire for peace and the right to privacy."
Ok, but swap a hacker's desire for fun with a software companies desire to make money without properly taking responsiblity for securing their product and one could also write:
Truly, the only people who deserve a complete helping of blame are the software companies. Let's not forget that they're the ones doing this to us. They're the ones who are annoying an entire planet. They're the ones who are costing us billions of dollars a year to secure our systems against them. They're the ones who place their desire for profit ahead of everyone on earth's desire for peace and the right to privacy."
It is like a credit card company saying that if someone breaks into their systems and steals my credit card number, that is my responsibility - or maybe it is the hackers fault. Well sure, it is my fault for using a stupid bank, and the hackers fault for committing the crime - BUT SURELY the bank has to take some fault for making this whole possible - right?
If you have flown (and landed) a single engine Cessna, you'd probably agree that the hardest "stick and rudder" job is a strong cross-wind landing.
Well, with a helicopter, hovering, taxing (without wheels), take off, and any other state where you are going less than say 20 knots, it IMHO much harder than a bad cross-wind.
No a, STOVL jet it no doubt even harder.
So to summarize, there are many dimensions to consider in heli, and even more in a STOVL jet:
(in a heli) The altitude one that you mention, pitch, roll, yaw, wind direction, collective thrust, anti-torque, etc.
I take it you've never heard the expression, "If you owe the bank a grand, its your problem, if you owe the bank ten million, its the bank's problem"?
Are you suggesting that the US can just not pay it back and not have it affect the US economy?
The amount of money the US owes China is less an expression of need for a loan as it is a display of contempt for their ability to ever claim it back.
1) The US does need the loan at its current spending and trade deficit. Maybe they can get it from other usual places like Saudi Arabia and Japan, but we all know that they can't just print more money? (right?)
2) The US is not immune to the kind credit problems that causes mass economic and currency flux to bounce around between Asia, Russia, Mexico, etc.
The Chinese that I know, and there are many, I even speak a good deal of Cantonese, are so completely and utterly brainwashed by their upbringing that they will accept no criticism of their country, nor any discussion.
This could be said about a lot of countries, US included.
John Snow (the U.S. Treasury Secretary) fired a warning shot [iht.com] at China's currency fixing policies. Intellectual properties concerns, and trade issues like the one cited in TFA are also commonly voiced from the adminstration.
But with the trade deficit with China and budget deficit being funded by China, China is the one who holds the best cards in the coming tradewar that recent headlines hint at.
If China stops buying US bonds, or floods the market with what they already own, the US economy is screwed.
I think it is kinda funny that John Snow is making demands to China after getting so many loans from the Bank of China.
If I am going to bring legal action against someone, I am not going to go borrow money from them first - especially if I can't pay it back.
I don't know how you can claim that China is not gaining on the U.S., which would have to logically imply, even outside a zero sum game, that the "USA is losing it".
Look at 2 numbers:
1) the increasing trade deficit
2) the increasing federal deficit
I do not see how these designs are suppose to exceed the aerodynamic effienceny of an aeroplane.
And if they don't do that, then they are not going to use less fuel than an aeroplane.
Nor do I see how 65hp is suppose to allow vertical take off of a car that must weigh at least 1500lbs.
It takes probably over 100hp to do that in a small helicopter (like a Robinson R22). The only thing that would make this more effienct at vertical take off would be the lack of interaction between a helicopters main rotar and its tail rotar, and removing that isn't going to save you that much power.
In short: this would be nice, but if it was real, I think we would hear more about the science behind what makes this thing blow away the barriers of areodynamics that have been slowly expanding for the last century. Right now, this smells like a venture capital generating scam.
"Fair and balanced" would not be a sustainable slogan for a media organization like Fox news in any other country. Well maybe they would get away with the label, but people wouldn't actually buy it like they do in the US.
To me, this appointment, and most other US political activity, represents the failure of capitalism (at least morally).
To the world, it is just another line on the long list of hypocritical actions taken by the US government.
And the last thing the administration and its cronies want is real debate on anything. I suspect that they will get there wish.
Someone please tell me what I gain over Python?
on
RAD with Ruby
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I learned Python last winter and have not looked back to Java despite being a Java programmer since it was in wide-distribution.
And since Python makes win32 programming easy for those who don't use Visual Studio, I have learned to be a Windows programmer over the last couple of weeks.
What do I gain over Python by switching to Ruby? I see a lot of explainations, but as far as I can tell, in addition to the awesomeness of Python's language and libraries, these are the things that I need that I can't seem to find in Ruby(but might not be looking in the right place):
1) Java byte-code compiling (jython) 2) full win32 APIs 3) full win32 COM access 4) Complete Object Database implementation (ZODB) 5) List-comprehension
Someone please educate me on the advantages of Ruby over Python. Cause right now, it is hard to imagine a better language than the snake!
The problem with Bush's terrorism policy is that the neo-Cons think that if they kill enough of them they will win. But for everyone that they kill, more there is someone to take his place.
The only way to win in the long term is to take away their ability to recuit. And 100,000 civilan death's in Iraq by (by one study) is driving their recuitment through the roof. How anyone can think that the world is safer after going to Iraq the way Bush did it, is beyond me.
It is about oil! Even Kerry acknowledges that. Even Bush Sr. acknowledged that the first part of this war in 1992 was at least partially about oil in a television interview often shown on CNN.
Just because the Bush 43 Whitehouse repeats over and over that it is about bringing "terrorists to justice" or "liberating the Iraqi people" doesn't make it so.
While there may many factors playing into Iraq, one of them is no doubt oil.
I bought MS Pinky to use with my MOTU 828mkII firewire audio interface instead of Final Scratch. The software was $100 with the vinyl, and I didn't have to waste money on the Scratch Amp thing that is only good for Final Scratch. It is great! 10ms Latency on a G3 iBook, and much better quality than Final Scratch.
Oh yeah, it came with a program that does video scratching as well.
Check it out! If you already have a 4 input-channel soundcard, you only need to spend $100!
Sharing the knowledge is a worthy cause, but as you probably know, if the information is not presented in an attractive way, it is often discarded. It is always easier to get someone to listen to you if they know you are listening and reacting to what they are saying.
Slashdot Mirror
TicketMaster's business practises and crappy system is as much the cause of outragous ticket pricing as the music industry. The system is so crap that you can't get tickets when they are released, but somehow the secondary market makers find access and sell it for crazy markups. It is the biggest scam going. Someone needs to do something about it.
TicketMaster is in violation of anti-trust laws, but nothing comes of it. They must be paying some K-street lobby firm a lotta cash to keep this racket going.
This seems to be mostly a physiological limitation of some sort, although practice can move one significantly closer to the "perfect pitch" end of the spectrum. (Personally, I don't have "traditional" perfect pitch in which I can hear a tone and tell if it middle C or not, but am fairly decent at discerning relative pitches... E.G. if one note is four steps above another, if one pitch is an octave double of another, etc etc.)
Just for your information, you seem to be under the impression that "perfect pitch" is something you have to be born with - it is a VERY common mis-conception.
I have tried the perfect pitch tapes by Dave Lucas-Burge, and you would be surprised to see that anyone (well most people) can learn perfect pitch. The first time you hear the difference you are amazed that each note on the chromatic scale has its own color to it. Some stand out more than others, but you can learn hear each note's own color with enough time and dedication.
I have not completed the program; and since I am out of practise I am not very good. But anytime I play an B-flat on the piano (single note - not good with chords yet), or often when I hear it in a song, I can feel the color of the note. It is pretty crazy - you should check it out.
Every single one of those people has studied patent law extensively. Have you? Can you prove that the patent is invalid, and if so, why haven't you been hired by eBay or their counsel?... You appear to believe that everybody involved in this case is an idiot,
I am not saying that the patent is invalid; I am saying the patent law that allows patenting of business practises (and software models) is ridiculus.
Patent law should protect INNOVATION that is not the result of OBVIOUS uses of available techology. Do you think the idea of a "buy now" button is innovative to the point of deserving protection from being copied?
Here is a patent that doesn't require an EE degree to see that it is
ridiculous. I hope these cases keep coming and coming so political
pressure mounts to reform a backwards intellectual property system.
obtained after the fact. This invalidates the "need for speed"
agrument. The very few times someone in the media has confronted an
administration offical with this obvious logic, the response has
always been regression into a vague discription of the current NSA
program being "another valuable tool", or needing "every tool
available" to keep the American people safe.
I have not had the misfortune of having listened to the latest set of
talking points being pushed. But as far as I can see, there are only
a few reasons to not use FISA:
held to account for their actions
Either of these motives is an indication of the Bush administration
feeling that they need to operate outside the law.
If they really believe in the rule of law, they should move change the
law to fit the times. If not, they are just showing their contempt
for the rule of law.
I think the framers of the American Constitution are turning in their
gaves right now.
And proper English is like, you know... whatever!
Whatever buddy. Sometimes you got to hammer something out without
proof reading or even reading it over.
I don't have time to attain linguistic excellence with every slashdot
posting I make. Deal with it.
Sometimes you just want to get the information out incase it might
HELP someone, in contrast to your useless reply.
I have used a Promise and 3Ware controllers on server setups (and they worked great), but now that software RAID has matured in Linux, I plan to save some money for my home setup and use software RAID.
I found an external case for 4 drives, without hot swap (which I'm told doesn't work that well with Linux software RAID anyways) for like $150. A 4 channel SATA controller is like $60, and the Multichannel bracket the external case's output back into 4 single SATAs is like $80 or so.
Once I confirm that I am happy with the RAID performence and reliability, I am going to pull the trigger and get some 7200.9 Seagates in the 300GB range. With RAID 5, I'll get 900GB storage and no more drive crashs causing data loss.
I will not ever use a Maxtor again. The only drives that I have had crash that weren't Maxtors were IBM Deskstars. Seagate has 5 year warranty on their drives.
Sharing to Windows is easy with Samba, and I have also configured rdiff-backup on cygwin to backup the local drives to UNIX.
The CRIA is a poorly funded wannabe RIAA that complains about everything. They already have enough supporting laws and programs on the books. And now that there is enough focus on these issues, they are not going to get anymore.
Canadians are taxed on all blank CDR media to offset the loss of piracy, and since the Canadian content laws under our version of the FCC are the only thing that keeps a lot of crappy Canadian content on the air, and since most of it is funded with our tax dollars, the CRIA can kiss my cold Canadian A*S!
Many Canadian content providers and distributers shield themselves from real competition thru backwards isolationalist-style trade-restriction-like programs and law.
Government funding allows tax dollars to be sophened to companies that produce content that usually SUCKS - as along as it meets the "Canadian content" requirements by mentioning curling or the Toronto Maple Leafs.
At the same time, broadcasters are limited in what they can show because they have to be inline with another set of rules that dictates a percentage limit on the amount of non-Canadian content they can broadcast.
So we have cable providers that suck, a lot of content that sucks, and it is all subsidized by our own tax dollars.
All that being said, aside from not being able to get American TV legally, and having the same climate as upstate New York (in Toronto at least), it is still the best place to live in the North America - IMHO.
With all of this Canada self-bashing, I should point out a couple of examples of Canadian content at its finest. Here are two artists that are proud to be Canadian, and are world class for sure - highly worth checking out:
1) Esthero - a voice and songwriter like no other
2) K-os - hip-hop with real instruments, who's quality is unmatched
"In my opinion Diebold's election system is one of the greatest threats our democracy has ever known, and the only way this will be exposed is with a Congressional investigation with subpoenas of not just Diebold officials but Diebold technicians."
Yes, I'd agree with that. But good luck with a congressional investigation, they probably won't even be able to get a real room to have meeting about it. Just like Downing Street. Karl Rove is a genius.
What butthole did the democrats have there heads up when let this scam be part of the 2004 election? They had 4 years! How you can have a company with the contract to build paperless voting machines being run by a loyalist to the incumbant party and not have the opposition do anything about it - IS RIDICULOUS!
I hope there is an upset in 2006, or it is going to be another 2 years of a radical Whitehouse running around unchecked, digging the US into deeper holes at every turn.
But really, were is the outrage? I mean this is your democracy?!
The Bush neoconservatives believe that their destiny is to mold the world as they see fit, and they don't care what they have to do or say to fulfill that goal. If that means lying about WMD, killing civilians, or sacrificing military personnel, then so be it. It is all for the greater good.
So don't expect them to give a crap about the cost to science by doing what the religous right demands, cause they need them to be in power in the first place.
Now if they could find a way to launder money out of R&D, like the defense, pharma, or oil industries, then you might get somewhere.
Maybe some R&D project managers need to take
Jack Abramoff or Tom DeLay out for a few rounds of golf...
Step one in UNIX -> Win education is:
INSTALL cygwin from www.cygwin.com
It is a UNIX sub-system for win32 and is a fairly complete and very easy to work with. One tip would be to install all the packages, not just the defaults.
Once you get it installed, you can setup an SSH service with:
ssh-host-config (and answer some questions)
cygrunsrv -S sshd
This will start openssh as a service (and config for install on bootup). Make sure you adjust your firewall settings to allow port 22. Then make sure that you have a password set on the account you want to access. The ssh in and you got UNIX-style remote access. Only complaint I have is that it doesn't come with GNU screen.
I was told, I believe by an aviation instructor, that the reason the moon appears lower is because the light bends around the atmosphere when the moon is positioned low on the horizon.
The bending is caused by the difference in viscosity of the medium that the light is travelling through.
As the line of sight moves closer to the horizon, the amount of fluid (air) that it travels through increases. As such, differences in the atmospheric conditions also modify the effect.
Perception might be a factor, but there is physics at work as well.
Truly, the only people who deserve a complete helping of blame are the
hackers. Let's not forget that they're the ones doing this to
us. They're the ones who are annoying an entire planet. They're the
ones who are costing us billions of dollars a year to secure our
systems against them. They're the ones who place their desire for fun
ahead of everyone on earth's desire for peace and the right to
privacy."
Ok, but swap a hacker's desire for fun with a software companies
desire to make money without properly taking responsiblity for
securing their product and one could also write:
Truly, the only people who deserve a complete helping of blame are the
software companies. Let's not forget that they're the ones
doing this to us. They're the ones who are annoying an entire
planet. They're the ones who are costing us billions of dollars a year
to secure our systems against them. They're the ones who place their
desire for profit ahead of everyone on earth's desire for peace
and the right to privacy."
It is like a credit card company saying that if someone breaks into
their systems and steals my credit card number, that is my
responsibility - or maybe it is the hackers fault. Well sure, it is
my fault for using a stupid bank, and the hackers fault for committing
the crime - BUT SURELY the bank has to take some fault for making this
whole possible - right?
If you have flown (and landed) a single engine Cessna, you'd probably agree that the hardest "stick and rudder" job is a strong cross-wind landing.
Well, with a helicopter, hovering, taxing (without wheels), take off, and any other state where you are going less than say 20 knots, it IMHO much harder than a bad cross-wind.
No a, STOVL jet it no doubt even harder.
So to summarize, there are many dimensions to consider in heli, and even more in a STOVL jet:
(in a heli) The altitude one that you mention,
pitch, roll, yaw, wind direction, collective thrust, anti-torque, etc.
I take it you've never heard the expression, "If you owe the bank a grand, its your problem, if you owe the bank ten million, its the bank's problem"?
Are you suggesting that the US can just not pay it back and not have it affect the US economy?
The amount of money the US owes China is less an expression of need for a loan as it is a display of contempt for their ability to ever claim it back.
1) The US does need the loan at its current spending and trade deficit. Maybe they can get it from other usual places like Saudi Arabia and Japan, but we all know that they can't just print more money? (right?)
2) The US is not immune to the kind credit problems that causes mass economic and currency flux to bounce around between Asia, Russia, Mexico, etc.
The Chinese that I know, and there are many, I even speak a good deal of Cantonese, are so completely and utterly brainwashed by their upbringing that they will accept no criticism of their country, nor any discussion.
This could be said about a lot of countries, US included.
John Snow (the U.S. Treasury Secretary) fired a warning shot [iht.com] at China's currency fixing policies. Intellectual properties concerns, and trade issues like the one cited in TFA are also commonly voiced from the adminstration.
But with the trade deficit with China and budget deficit being funded by China, China is the one who holds the best cards in the coming tradewar that recent headlines hint at.
If China stops buying US bonds, or floods the market with what they already own, the US economy is screwed.
I think it is kinda funny that John Snow is making demands to China after getting so many loans from the Bank of China.
If I am going to bring legal action against someone, I am not going to go borrow money from them first - especially if I can't pay it back.
I don't know how you can claim that China is not gaining on the U.S., which would have to logically imply, even outside a zero sum game, that the "USA is losing it".
Look at 2 numbers:
1) the increasing trade deficit
2) the increasing federal deficit
I booted Linux under Virtual PC a while back.
All they are doing here is adding it as a supported functionality. Not that that doesn't count for something.
Now if we could just boot Windows virtual machine from a Linux host with near native performence, then you'd really haev a break through.
I do not see how these designs are suppose to exceed the aerodynamic effienceny of an aeroplane.
And if they don't do that, then they are not going to use less fuel than an aeroplane.
Nor do I see how 65hp is suppose to allow vertical take off of a car that must weigh at least 1500lbs.
It takes probably over 100hp to do that in a small helicopter (like a Robinson R22). The only thing that would make this more effienct at vertical take off would be the lack of interaction between a helicopters main rotar and its tail rotar, and removing that isn't going to save you that much power.
In short: this would be nice, but if it was real, I think we would hear more about the science behind what makes this thing blow away the barriers of areodynamics that have been slowly expanding for the last century. Right now, this smells like a venture capital generating scam.
IQ is not everything.
"Fair and balanced" would not be a sustainable slogan for a media organization like Fox news in any other country. Well maybe they would get away with the label, but people wouldn't actually buy it like they do in the US.
To me, this appointment, and most other US political activity, represents the failure of capitalism (at least morally).
To the world, it is just another line on the long list of hypocritical actions taken by the US government.
And the last thing the administration and its cronies want is real debate on anything. I suspect that they will get there wish.
I learned Python last winter and have not looked back to Java despite being a Java programmer since it was in wide-distribution.
And since Python makes win32 programming easy for those who don't use Visual Studio, I have learned to be a Windows programmer over the last couple of weeks.
What do I gain over Python by switching to Ruby? I see a lot of explainations, but as far as I can tell, in addition to the awesomeness of Python's language and libraries, these are the things that I need that I can't seem to find in Ruby(but might not be looking in the right place):
1) Java byte-code compiling (jython)
2) full win32 APIs
3) full win32 COM access
4) Complete Object Database implementation (ZODB)
5) List-comprehension
Someone please educate me on the advantages of Ruby over Python. Cause right now, it is hard to imagine a better language than the snake!
The problem with Bush's terrorism policy is that the neo-Cons think that if they kill enough of them they will win. But for everyone that they kill, more there is someone to take his place.
The only way to win in the long term is to take away their ability to recuit. And 100,000 civilan death's in Iraq by (by one study) is driving their recuitment through the roof. How anyone can think that the world is safer after going to Iraq the way Bush did it, is beyond me.
It is about oil! Even Kerry acknowledges that. Even Bush Sr. acknowledged that the first part of this war in 1992 was at least partially about oil in a television interview often shown on CNN.
Just because the Bush 43 Whitehouse repeats over and over that it is about bringing "terrorists to justice" or "liberating the Iraqi people" doesn't make it so.
While there may many factors playing into Iraq, one of them is no doubt oil.
I bought MS Pinky to use with my MOTU 828mkII firewire audio interface instead of Final Scratch. The software was $100 with the vinyl, and I didn't have to waste money on the Scratch Amp thing that is only good for Final Scratch. It is great! 10ms Latency on a G3 iBook, and much better quality than Final Scratch.
Oh yeah, it came with a program that does video scratching as well.
Check it out! If you already have a 4 input-channel soundcard, you only need to spend $100!
Sharing the knowledge is a worthy cause, but as you probably know, if the information is not presented in an attractive way, it is often discarded. It is always easier to get someone to listen to you if they know you are listening and reacting to what they are saying.