Disclaimer: since this is a blatantly off-topic post, I have already modded myself down (no +1 bonus). Hopefully this is an intelligent enough post that those nice cracked-out modders will find some more worthy flamebait or trolling.
You're right, of course. I hadn't thought this through very thoroughly, which was why I was careful to state that it was the trend of thinking in New Zealand, rather than my own opinion. As with many things in New Zealand (GE food being a major one), the good old Green Party uses ignorance and fud to spread misinformation, which turns into zealotry and close-mindedness much more easily than reasoned facts and rational evidence. It's amazing how many New Zealanders have nearly no conception of the real facts and information behind the issues they hold such vehement opinions on, and how they don't even question the emotive positions they take from those who should know better. Not that this is a New Zealand-specific thing; as long as humans are human this will continue to be the case.
Every time I see mass demonstrations against GE food I wish that the media would actually inform people on the issue instead of simply commentating on the opinions that different parties hold. I guess that's one reason I'm studying journalism next year...
Completely off-topic, I know. Sorry.
Getting back (vaguely) to ozone holes etc, another poster mentioned the need for alternate energy sources. I figured I'd reply in this post; basically I couldn't agree more. It would make a decent difference to the global warming problem (at least if we believe the majority of the scientists involved in the study thereof), it would probably make some impact on the ozone hole problem (although this seems to be improving, probably due to such things as the Montreal Protocol), it would wean Usia off oil long before shortage became a problem (and this would probably quickly expand to the rest of the first world), and it would also ensure that premature shortage due to tensions in the Middle East wouldn't cause as much damage as is potentially possible. It would probably also lead to a number of offshoot technological and scientific advances that may otherwise not happen for many years yet.
Frankly (and once again completely ot), I think there's basically only one thing in Bush's little brain. Money. And unfortunately, he's not smart enough to think long-term money either. Oh, and anyone wanting to flame me for "flaming" Bush...just think of all the speeches he has muffed. One of the speeches he made directly after the 11.09 attacks left me cringing as he completely screwed up a relatively common English word, then did it again, then corrected himself, and then did it again. Not the mark of a superior intellect to me.
The problem is, if the US doesn't lead the world in the adoption of alternate energy, cleaner-burning fuels etc, who will? Other countries still make the attempt, but the US is the world's most powerful economy by far. We need them if this is going to work.
..but I thought I'd throw in my 2c (0.8c US) as someone living in New Zealand. Although the ozone hole does affect South Africa, where I moved to New Zealand from, the problem is definitely worse in the Land of Sheep(tm). The sun is more intense, even late in the afternoon, and I find that while the shade is a good indicator of the real air temperature, I get much hotter in the sun than I did in South Africa, despite the fact that air temperatures average around 5 C cooler.
Just as a flame-worthy side note, there is a lot of antagonism in New Zealand towards the US because of Bush's decision to boycott the Kyoto(sp?) Protocol. The United States is demonstrably by far the worse offender with carbon dioxide emissions, and the general consenus in the scientific community is that these emissions are causing, or at least accelerating the hole in the ozone layer. To be honest, Usians aren't the most popular people (as a society, not individuals--I personally have met several and they were wonderful people), and this is just one more straw on the proverbial and cliched camel's back, with the United States saying what is effectively "Stuff you, we'll do what we want and who cares about your ozone hole causing rising skin cancer and medical costs".
I didn't mean that as a flame, just a point of view. I'd rather you respond than just mod me down...I'm aware that I am oversimplifying it; this is merely the general trend of thinking in Kiwiland.
The new cordless Wheelman owns me. Well worth the investement. Three month battery time, 2.1 m (7 foot) guaranteed range (actually it's a lot further than that in good conditions), faster response than a corded mouse (no idea how because latency used to be a problem in cordless mouses) and absolutely no tracking issues, guaranteed. My friend has one. I have a corded optical wheelman, quite similar, and it's great too. I never have the issues with tracking that you have with MS mouses, where you flick the mouse fast in a game and end up facing a random direction, or having your tracking stop altogether. I couldn't go back to a ball mouse if I tried, but there were a number of reasons I went to the trouble (in New Zealand it's hard to come by some Logitech equiment) of getting a Logitech over a Microsoft mouse. Firstly, I don't buy anything made by MS, on principle, secondly I find their mouses to be lacking ergonomically (the Explorer is too big for decent precision control in gaming imo), and thirdly every source I have says they're inferior quality.
I think my post may have given the wrong impression. I didn't intend to flame you, and pre-canned ideological positions have been driving me to depression further down this thread. I can, of course, only take your word that you are an analyst, but your comments seem to support the assertion.
Katz...yeah he's not the best journalist, you'll get no argument from me. I've never met the guy though, and from what I've read he does seem fairly earnest about his job, in spite of everything. My statement about journalists versus philosophers was probably worded slightly more strongly than I intended, possibly because I'm a writer (studying journo next year) and am aware that it isn't always easy putting your ideas up for general shredding. I figure Katz is either really brave or really self-centred; I know I'd be apprehensive writing a feature for SlashDot considering the number of people that are necessarily going to take exception to me and/or my work, some of whom really do know a lot more than I do on the topic(s).
I also didn't intend to use the Taleban (the E is replaceable with an I, right? Taliban, Taleban, it's all natively in another alphabet anyway...) as representative of the third world's leaders. Actually it was quite a bad example in hindsight, and I certainly wouldn't disagree that it takes some smarts to get/stay in power. However, based on my current knowledge, I would presume to assert that force still plays a notable role in third world power struggles..."power struggles" being the operative phrase. Of course, if I did some investigation I could well find that intelligent leadership comes before the aquisition and use of weapons, so yeah, if I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate like that I should be ready to eat my words;)
When I said your exact stance was vague, I didn't mean that was a bad thing--I just meant I wasn't sure what your exact stance was. It didn't really matter since I was responding more to points than some kind of overall view. It briefly entered my head that you might be a troll because of your balanced point of view, where you suggest that the United States needs friends in places it never cared existed. I agree, only I've not seen a lot of people who will actually say it, either for fear of being modded down as whining Eurotrash, or just because they're arrogant Usian pricks. I'm a New Zealander so technically I can't be whining Eurotrash or an arrogant Usian prick. I guess seeing an assertion that looked like it was asking for a downmodding kinda sparked this automatic response, like "Warning: possible troll detected". Nothing personal.
Oh, and about that absolute truth thing. I agree on that too, but I couldn't help myself. If someone asserts there's no such thing as absolute truth (or a variant thereof), asking them if that's absolutely true is just something one should never pass up doing, whether you agree with them or not. Yup.
In what way does it not make sense? What are you looking for? Some deep insightful truth about globalisation that no one has ever pondered before? Katz is a journalist, not a philosopher. This article is a brief commentary on the points he considers important to the topic of globalisation. That's all one could really ask from the guy isn't it? You don't have to like his features, or agree with the points he considers important, but it's a bit unfair to slam him for being a person on a time budget (although I'll be first to agree that he could use a spellchecker).
All beliefs in absolute revealled truth are bogus...
Is that absolutely true?
The leaders of the third world are not the morons that many posters appear to believe. Empirically it takes a lot more brains to become the leader of the average Third world or post-communist european country than President of the US.
What makes you so sure? I'd have said it takes a lot more weapons and followers. Look at the Taliban. I'm not saying they're stupid, but they got to their position of power after being trained by the US. They would never be where they are today if they had worked on intellect alone. I won't make any comments about GW mind you; he's clearly not the epitome of intelligence either; obviously President of the US has become more about money and sweet-talking, and brains are no longer important anywhere.
I'm not specifically disagreeing with many of your points; in fact I am finding myself nodding to much of what you say. But then your exact stance is very vague, and your post sounds almost like it could be a weird anti-US troll, so I dunno.
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!! Whatever company you say you are running is obviously NOTHING close to a real company. Ridle me this, batman, when you write up company standard procedure documents, do you really pitch AMD with "Not as evil, as Intel (although they are technically superior)"?
Perhaps he doesn't pitch it with "Not as evil, [sic] as Intel" but something more along the lines of "More friendly to small consumers; more emphasis on performance, less on marketing" and the like. I'd fairly say that a company that uses marketing and market domination to succeed is more evil than a company that creates good products at the expense of their marketing department.
You any-microsofties [sic again] are so silly the way you keep deluding and trying to convince yourself that Windows is no good.
To some extent, they are. Windows 2000 is a reasonable operating system that meets most users' needs. Windows 98 is a low-end home system. Windows 95 is too old to mention. Windows ME, on the other hand, is extremely unstable; and Windows NT has required seven service packs (including 6a as a separate one) I believe. That doesn't say "reliable operating system" to me.
Just stick to your own beans, and stop trying to convince the world and yourselves that your beans are better. Fact of the matter is that they're NOT. Microsoft's popularity and the HUGE support they get from corporations is proof alone.
Assuming that you're not a fourteen year old with no idea what he's talking about, and that you're not trolling (two pretty big assumptions), could you please cite some more reliable "proof"? OSS bigots are annoying, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that the previous poster didn't sound particularly bigoted, and that in general *nix systems are better than Windows ones. If one compares Linux (the kernel, not a specific distro) and Windows, one discovers certain things:
Linux has a huge number of independent programmers capable of contributing to its development, because it is open source. Windows has a select few (relatively), working for a corporation whose primary goal is to make money. This means that
there is no way for anyone except those at Microsoft, or people constricted by a Microsoft eula, to check the code for errors, bugs or holes, and subsequently hold Microsoft accountable for them. Compare to Linux, where the code can be freely changed by anyone with the necessary skills, and is under constant review and improvement by a huge community of programmers
Windows is based on the belief that, provided it does the job well enough to bring in revenue, there is no need to improve it. Compare to Linux, which is based on the belief that everyone should be able to have a say in what software they use, and what that software does
all Linux distributions are potentially more secure and stable than Windows ones. This can be seen in the huge number of Linux-flavour boxen used by small corporations who require reliable server operating systems that don't need to be patched or upgraded frequently, and in the number of Linux worms/viruses compared to Windows ones
Your assertion that Microsoft "must be better because they're more popular" is naive at best. Marketing has played a large part in Microsoft's continued dominance of the market, but more than this, their existing manopoly, built on anti-competitive business practices, is the real reason that their software is popular. From the time that DOS was engineered to deliberately cause competing software to be unstable, Microsoft has taken the market through unfair business practices, and held it by the same means, and through creating software that is "good enough". Their continued popularity is a snowball effect, enhanced by such things as license agreements that prevent oems from dual-booting other operating systems on machines that ship with Windows. I could answer your assertion more fully, but it would require an essay that would take up more than its fair share of space in this thread, and get me modded down anyway. It would be far easier if you read the article linked at the top of this thread for a very comprehensive description of exactly what I am talking about. This isn't even about which OSen are better; it's about business ethics and restricting the consumers' choice.
Get out of your bubles and realize that Microsoft has played a HUGE key role in the popularity of the PC which in turn has had huge economical impacts that filter down to almost everything. If it wasn't for Microsoft, the PC may still be a hobby of the socially-challenged.
That's a pretty big leap of logic. I think it was IBM, actually, who played the key role in the popularity of the PC, by opening the standards on the ISA bus, and other hardware companies that either opened their standards or created clones of the standards opened. Windows played a key role in making the PC more user friendly, yes, but it would be unfair to assert that this was due to Microsoft innovation. It was due to their opportunism, and nothing more. Windows 3.x was merely a bad copy of the existing gui already created by Apple, but because it ran on the IBM-PC, and because there was no immediate competition, it was successful. I don't think you can seriously make out that if it weren't for Microsoft the PC wouldn't be popular. That's simply ridiculous, since IBM's OS/2 would have filled the gap if Windows hadn't.
Maybe if your Linuxes/Unixes every rose up to support as much software/hardware as Windows does, maybe then it too would have some flaws in it's security.
Apart from wondering where you learned to speak English (since you could be foreign), I'm wondering what you mean by "support software/hardware". Operating systems don't support software; the software supports them. As for hardware, it may be true that Windows supports more than Linux, but that is beginning to change. Your idea that either of these factors has anything to do with security except very indirectly demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how an operating system is built. In fact, for the most part, it is not Windows (speaking of Windows 2000) that is insecure specifically, but the programs that run on top of it. Running IIS on Windows 2000 is a bad idea, because it has been demonstrated repeatedly to be a security nightmare (and yes, it is Microsoft's flagship web server, which hardly says a lot about the company's priorities), but running Apache (as I do) is pretty safe, because Apache is quite simply a more secure and superior product. You forget that when people say that Microsoft produces inferior software, they are not necessarily talking about Windows. In general, they are probably talking about the software that runs on Windows just as much as the OS itself, and this software has been repeatedly demonstrated, in one way or another, to either leave something to be desired, or be simply very badly designed.
Many of you individualize all Microsoft/Windows problems but Fail to realize EVERYTHING around them.
I presume by this comment you mean that people focus on the problems and not the bigger picture, or that people focus on the problems while forgetting about the good things. This is somewhat foolish considering you have already demonstrated that Microsoft is so popular, and that their "beans" are better. If their beans were better, surely there would be no problems to focus on? I can't think of any Linux problems I've seen lately. And assuming there were, wouldn't it be fair to call attention to problems with Microsoft software, since it has so much more potential for damage due to market share? I don't think you even understand what you just wrote there. Perhaps you meant generalise. If that's the case, then yes, attention is being called to the general trend displayed in most Microsoft products for either poor design, limited features or bad security.
Bottom line: Stop putting other people's success down because your Boat isn't floating that high.
I think I've already addressed this. The thing that people resent is that the Microsoft boat (cruiseliner? aircraft carrier?) isn't floating higher for the right reasons. I'll carry that aircraft carrier analogy: Microsoft is a stagnant company without any real innovation (see most of the features emerging in their products that have been available in others for months/years) that uses its mass and power (read: manopoly and money) to stay afloat, crushing the other wee boats if necessary.
Nonetheless, I am forced to ask, which sea are you referring to? Because Linux is floating a lot higher on the sea of freedom, choice, stability and security.
disclaimer I am a Windows user who has never even installed Linux. That doesn't mean I know nothing about open source software
Could you direct me to your website so I can check the code you used, please? I'm working on a couple of sites and may find a use for it, but at the moment basic html is about as far as my skills extend. Ta.
Technically speaking, I believe Outlook is an organiser application. Outlook Express, which is integrated into it, is the much smaller email application. But you're right; it would be useful. In my city council where I worked as a sysadmin, Outlook was used extensively for organisation and coordination between departments. It seems to be a very useful and, now, a very critical tool in keeping things running smoothly in most businesses, so it's surprising that the OpenOffice people haven't made some kind of a shot at it already.
Does anyone know if a project like this is in the works for OpenOffice, and just hasn't been completed yet? It would probably be a fairly extensive addition.
Moderators on crack again? You're not entirely unaccountable, oh ye insane modders. If I get this in metamod it's going back to +1; I mean, it's not exactly insightful or even informative, but it's hardly offtopic.
Could you please stop posting inane comments? You surely noticed the way your karma is so low that you're posting at 0 automatically; that's because you squat threads making stupid comments that you expect to be modded +1, funny. If you have nothing to say (read: nothing intelligent to say) don't say anything at all. People don't get karma to post with a +2 bonus by saying the kind of stuff you do. Notice your.sig? It's likely to get you less upmods as well, because it sounds stupid.
Basically you're trying too hard. In fact, it's hard to tell if you're trying to troll or karmawhore...whichever it is, you're not doing a good job of either.
Just a few tips, don't take it personally, and moderators, I did you the favour of not posting with a +1 bonus--go find someone more worthy of a -1, flamebait;P
That must be Fahrenheit, since absolute zero is around -273 C. Then again, -670 F is -390 C if I worked it out right...and you couldn't have meant Kelvin because there is no negative scale, since 0 K = absolute zero.
Erm...typo?
As for -40 C, that's the same as -40 F, which I figure you realised, only the way you said it made it look like you weren't sure whether the temperature you were looking for was in C or F...of course it doesn't matter either way since they're both equal so yeah...I'll just shut up now...
I believe I must be the most misunderstood person on slashdot. If you check my comment history you'll notice a trend:
I flame someone: +1, interesting
I post a stupid comment that should at best be funny: +1, informative
I engage in a long discussion with another user on the merits of Microsoft Word vs TeX etc, under a slashback article regarding licensing, Deep Space 1 and IIS: +1, informative (for several of the comments I made)
I believe I can see a pattern. I now have the added (dubious) distinction of being modded +1, funny for a quick post I did to make other non-Usian readers' lives easier...
Whatever fries your bacon moderators...how's the crack today?
Sheesh, how long are trolls gonna milk this for? You know, after about six weeks it's gonna start sounding pretty stupid. Not that it doesn't already. And I'm curious; where did you get the 50,000+ casualty figure from? Last I checked it was ~7,000. Of course, I'm just a sheep-shagging New Zealander.
My apologies for the confusion; in the groups I associate with (in New Zealand), "fascist" is a colloquialism based on, but unrelated from, political fascism. I didn't really think about it when I posted, mostly because, as another poster has pointed out, if these laws get passed then they do start resembling fascism within a democratic shell. I didn't intend to use it as a buzzword.
Since filesharing networks like KaZaA are technically illegal in most respects, I hardly think this is surprising. I have been counting the days until I read this news, and I'm not particularly optimistic that things will go differently to the Napster lawsuits.
One thing that interests me, however, is that KaZaA is much more than audio file sharing. You can download audio, video, software, images and documents, and only one of those categories applies to the RIAA. I suppose it only takes one category, but it's interesting that no other companies or industry representives have become involved (yet, to my knowledge). I wouldn't be too amazed if the MPAA joined the fray, not to mention numerous software companies.
The thing is...how long can this go on for? Someone sets up a filesharing network. The RIAA sues them, bringing their vast financial resources to bear, which means that any other resources they require can be bought. They close-mindedly bring about the destruction or complete alteration of the network, not taking into account many technicalities like the way that Napster was demonstrated to actually boost CD sales, and that the server owners should not be held responsible for the traffic on their network, just as ISPs cannot. But in this time, another network has popped up in its place. In fact, several networks.
How long can this continue? Surely the RIAA must realise that it is a futile proposition (at present) to attempt to take down every filesharing network that may allow access to copyrighted material? I suppose that's why they are attempting to pass more and more fascist laws, and are encouraging other countries to do the same, in order to maintain their somewhat archaically-based real-world manopoly. Surely there must be an easier way for record companies etc to protect their copyrights, within reason, but to allow filesharing like this within reason as well (and I'm not specifically thinking of subscription). It seems that the RIAA, MPAA et al, rather than go with the flow and try new avenues of profit on the net, are attempting to stand firm in a present system that is rapidly becoming a part of the past. I am reminded of the SG-1 Archive, which was recently featured in Showtime's magazine (since Showtime produces Stargate SG-1), where the site was apparently hailed as a source of information on the series, and yet a couple of weeks later the webmaster received a CAD letter from the MPAA and was forced to remove the episodes available for download. This would not be a problem, legally speaking, if Showtime had objected to the site; but they hadn't. They had praised it. Apparently the MPAA is simply doing the rounds, attempting to scare everyone into submission, and sue those who are brazen enough to resist, despite the wishes of the people producing the actual material (who the Stargate SG-1 copyrights actually belong to I am not entirely certain, but I believe it is MGM/Showtime).
Having said that, I fearlessly and without disclaimer (partly because slashdot thinks my IP is a 203.97 subnet, which it's not) acknowledge that all the software and mp3s on my computer are pirated, and that I feel little remorse. Being what I hope is a morally upright person, this disturbs me somewhat, but when I see the sort of things that Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA etc do, and the tactics they resort to, I seem to feel a lot better. As a writer, I put a certain value on intellectual property, and I also accept that people will copy and distribute my work illegally. This doesn't bug me particularly, partly because I'd be a hypocrite if it did, and partly because people will still buy my work, despite those who pirate it. When I look at how bloated with money MS, RIAA etc are, I hardly feel sympathic.
disclaimer My ideas and arguments are subject to minor alteration depending on circumstances, and are probably slightly bigoted and not as balanced as those that I normally produce. Taken completely objectively, you may well be able to tear holes in them. If you feel the inclination to do this I would be appreciative, as I am still formulating my own opinions in this matter; however, I ask that you don't flame simply for the sake of flaming...it doesn't tend to be conducive to constructive conversation.
Even trolls should know that nuclear fusion is clean-burning, since the only by-product is fused hydrogen (helium) which, if you have ever taken a party balloon to make your voice go squeaky, you will know is harmless.
Read the article. They talk about using water as fuel. Fusion is to fission what hydrogen fuel cells are to petrol generators.
One thing that interests me is that none of the domain names mentioned here have country codes attached to them (eg, http://drexel.edu.us). I was of the impression that if whoever is registering the domain does not have international reach, or may conflict with another person with equal claim to an international domain name, then surely they should use a country-specific domain. For example, at some stage I intend to set up a webserver with the domain name "eyris.com" but since I am in New Zealand, and have no claim to an international domain name, I will use http://eyris.com.nz.
I realise this is maybe slightly off topic, and I also realise that domains are registered on a first come, first served basis, and IANAL and all that, but I have noticed that the majority of sites in the US seem to use an international domain, as if the US is somehow entitled to these, while everyone else must use their own country codes. I don't mean to sound like a Usian-basher either, but I am curious.
"...it enables the Web server to establish
contact with a surfer's browser and then count the number of ads displayed on a screen."
If I hit "G" in Opera, every image on the page disappears. Yeah, all the nice ones like the picture of the foot, the mainboard, the greenback, the Apple logo...but also the "How many different development tools do you use? Click here" SourceForge banner ad up the top. If a site is well designed like slashdot (and I'll get a few flames on that no doubt) and has the alt= attribute set in the <img> tag, I can turn images off and still see "It's funny. Laugh." and "Technology" etc instead. Of course, this is hopeless for some sites, like AnandTech (which looks great with images turned on, but I think is poorly designed nonetheless), and sites where you want to see the pretty pictures (I'm thinking of news sites like BBC News; I don't know about you:P), and it also tends to be quite pointless in terms of blocking ads because it's rather like executing fifty people because you know one of them is a death row escapee, but I just thought I'd mention it, because it seems that this software would prevent you from even choosing to turn all images off in your browser. Frankly, I'd like to know how they do this considering the many different browser types out there, but I presume they can and do, using Java probably. If any web designers can enlighten me, please do.
My question is, how much right does a site have to tell me that I may not turn off images altogether? Technically I am not even blocking the ads; I am simply choosing to ignore all the <img src=""> on a site, and instead am displaying the <img alt="">, which prevents me from downloading the image itself. There's still a little box indicating an image, with "Click here" inside it if it's an ad. Does that count? It also seems ridiculous that a site can penalise you based on what browser you choose to view it with, because text-based browsers such as Lynx would surely be affected by any site running the software developed by GmbH. I realise that few people run Lynx or other text browsers any more, but it's still something to consider. I know sites need their revenue, but I can't believe they think forcing people to look at their ads is going to help. I for one already boycott sites with too many ads (although popups aren't a problem any more since I have disabled them, using Opera), and the more in-your-face an ad is, the more annoying I find it, and the less I feel inclined to click on it. As far as I can tell, this is about as in-your-face as you can get. Do sites honestly believe this is going to increase their revenue?
Thanks for the hints, once again. You're also right about html being abysmal for large documents. My largest document is only 1.3 MB or so in.doc format, but I have always intended to have a separate.html file for each chapter, since otherwise it becomes unmanageable on a website, and also takes a very long time to load on a dialup connection. Since, at the moment, I run my webserver on a dialup connection, I am even more conscious of the bandwidth aspect, but I don't intend to attempt epublishing until I have a static IP and at least 10 Mbps of bandwidth.
I'll look up TeX and see how things go, but if it's a right pain to use the chances are I'll avoid it. The results I get aren't too important in terms of their spectacularity, since all I want is the text for conversion into chapters on my site (one reason that an anchored selection system would be useful; I could then easily select entire chapters), but usability is much more critical. I suppose it would be a good idea to actually start a new document for each new chapter, in terms of redundancy, but it would be so inconvenient when proofing, and just for glancing back to catch a detail while working on another part of the book.
Anyhoo, I think we've mostly exhausted this conversation thread, and in the process we seemed to have gained a few karma points (yeah...it's just a number Taco;)), shared some views, I've gained some useful hints and info, and hey, it's been fun:)
Eeeyaaii, you've just scared me off Word forever now. Can't say I've ever experienced a macrovirus, either first- or second-hand, but considering how often I back up my work (not nearly damn often enough), if one decided to chew my novel/s, appendices or whatever, that would be about enough to send me over the edge and have a rooftop incident. The problem is that I haven't heard of any other decent word processors for Windows [insert immature Linux-bigot joke here]. I tried StarOffice at one stage and it just wasn't very nice, especially the lack of the "Blue background, white text" feature.
When StarOffice 6 comes out, I'll give it a go, but frankly I have a feeling that I may have to move to another operating system and be prepared to come out of my comfort zone for a while, while I search the alternative word processors and find one that suits me, and then become familiar with it. Anything with autocorrect, blue background (I find white backgrounds give me a headache after a few hours) and a similar sort of interface to Word would do. My main issue with Word at the moment is that it stores documents in a proprietary format, and that its "html" is, well...erm...check a FrontPage- or Word-generated html document, and you'll see what I mean.
I have a leaning towards basic html, in that it will probably be fully functional in terms of having readers available for it for years to come, and even when it is eventually superceded, it's still effectively plain text, so getting the content out isn't really a problem..doc and Word.html is a shocking mess;.doc seems to become outdated more often than new Word versions are released (actually the problem here is backwards compatibility; all my documents, of which I have around 37 relating to my first two novels alone, are stored in Word XP.doc format, so if I want my friend running Word 97 to read them, I have to resave every single one (afaik there is no quick way) into Word 95/97.doc format), and good luck to anyone trying to extract the content of the html files. Sure, I could store in plain text, but I have formatting (not a lot, but enough) in my documents that I don't want to lose.
Thinking long-term, I'd be happy to find another, simple, non-bloated word processor that does everything I need, without the added crap, and can store files in a decent format (most particularly, a decent html generator would be nice because I intend to publish privately online if possible, and the idea of converting a 130k-word document into html manually is something that fills me with fear). I found a really great (probably crappy, but I like it) html editor called AceHTML, which is exactly what I want for designing basic websites, and if I could find something that equates to the AceHTML of word processors (and runs on Windows preferably, because I don't feel any inclination to move to *nix, because it would be at best highly inconvenient) I would be very happy indeed. You've mentioned Describe and Amipro, but I presume they aren't ported to Win32; if you know of anything I'd be quite grateful for the opportunity to try it/them out. Since I'm doing a complete review/revision/rewrite of nearly all my material, this would be a great time to switch. Only thing is, I need to be sure that it's something that will work for the long term...don't wanna be switching every two months or something...
Btw, I presume you noticed the karma points we're getting from this discussion? I couldn't help laughing;)
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You're right, of course. I hadn't thought this through very thoroughly, which was why I was careful to state that it was the trend of thinking in New Zealand, rather than my own opinion. As with many things in New Zealand (GE food being a major one), the good old Green Party uses ignorance and fud to spread misinformation, which turns into zealotry and close-mindedness much more easily than reasoned facts and rational evidence. It's amazing how many New Zealanders have nearly no conception of the real facts and information behind the issues they hold such vehement opinions on, and how they don't even question the emotive positions they take from those who should know better. Not that this is a New Zealand-specific thing; as long as humans are human this will continue to be the case.
Every time I see mass demonstrations against GE food I wish that the media would actually inform people on the issue instead of simply commentating on the opinions that different parties hold. I guess that's one reason I'm studying journalism next year...
Completely off-topic, I know. Sorry.
Getting back (vaguely) to ozone holes etc, another poster mentioned the need for alternate energy sources. I figured I'd reply in this post; basically I couldn't agree more. It would make a decent difference to the global warming problem (at least if we believe the majority of the scientists involved in the study thereof), it would probably make some impact on the ozone hole problem (although this seems to be improving, probably due to such things as the Montreal Protocol), it would wean Usia off oil long before shortage became a problem (and this would probably quickly expand to the rest of the first world), and it would also ensure that premature shortage due to tensions in the Middle East wouldn't cause as much damage as is potentially possible. It would probably also lead to a number of offshoot technological and scientific advances that may otherwise not happen for many years yet.
Frankly (and once again completely ot), I think there's basically only one thing in Bush's little brain. Money. And unfortunately, he's not smart enough to think long-term money either. Oh, and anyone wanting to flame me for "flaming" Bush...just think of all the speeches he has muffed. One of the speeches he made directly after the 11.09 attacks left me cringing as he completely screwed up a relatively common English word, then did it again, then corrected himself, and then did it again. Not the mark of a superior intellect to me.
The problem is, if the US doesn't lead the world in the adoption of alternate energy, cleaner-burning fuels etc, who will? Other countries still make the attempt, but the US is the world's most powerful economy by far. We need them if this is going to work.
Just as a flame-worthy side note, there is a lot of antagonism in New Zealand towards the US because of Bush's decision to boycott the Kyoto(sp?) Protocol. The United States is demonstrably by far the worse offender with carbon dioxide emissions, and the general consenus in the scientific community is that these emissions are causing, or at least accelerating the hole in the ozone layer. To be honest, Usians aren't the most popular people (as a society, not individuals--I personally have met several and they were wonderful people), and this is just one more straw on the proverbial and cliched camel's back, with the United States saying what is effectively "Stuff you, we'll do what we want and who cares about your ozone hole causing rising skin cancer and medical costs".
I didn't mean that as a flame, just a point of view. I'd rather you respond than just mod me down...I'm aware that I am oversimplifying it; this is merely the general trend of thinking in Kiwiland.
The new cordless Wheelman owns me. Well worth the investement. Three month battery time, 2.1 m (7 foot) guaranteed range (actually it's a lot further than that in good conditions), faster response than a corded mouse (no idea how because latency used to be a problem in cordless mouses) and absolutely no tracking issues, guaranteed. My friend has one. I have a corded optical wheelman, quite similar, and it's great too. I never have the issues with tracking that you have with MS mouses, where you flick the mouse fast in a game and end up facing a random direction, or having your tracking stop altogether. I couldn't go back to a ball mouse if I tried, but there were a number of reasons I went to the trouble (in New Zealand it's hard to come by some Logitech equiment) of getting a Logitech over a Microsoft mouse. Firstly, I don't buy anything made by MS, on principle, secondly I find their mouses to be lacking ergonomically (the Explorer is too big for decent precision control in gaming imo), and thirdly every source I have says they're inferior quality.
Katz...yeah he's not the best journalist, you'll get no argument from me. I've never met the guy though, and from what I've read he does seem fairly earnest about his job, in spite of everything. My statement about journalists versus philosophers was probably worded slightly more strongly than I intended, possibly because I'm a writer (studying journo next year) and am aware that it isn't always easy putting your ideas up for general shredding. I figure Katz is either really brave or really self-centred; I know I'd be apprehensive writing a feature for SlashDot considering the number of people that are necessarily going to take exception to me and/or my work, some of whom really do know a lot more than I do on the topic(s).
I also didn't intend to use the Taleban (the E is replaceable with an I, right? Taliban, Taleban, it's all natively in another alphabet anyway...) as representative of the third world's leaders. Actually it was quite a bad example in hindsight, and I certainly wouldn't disagree that it takes some smarts to get/stay in power. However, based on my current knowledge, I would presume to assert that force still plays a notable role in third world power struggles..."power struggles" being the operative phrase. Of course, if I did some investigation I could well find that intelligent leadership comes before the aquisition and use of weapons, so yeah, if I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate like that I should be ready to eat my words ;)
When I said your exact stance was vague, I didn't mean that was a bad thing--I just meant I wasn't sure what your exact stance was. It didn't really matter since I was responding more to points than some kind of overall view. It briefly entered my head that you might be a troll because of your balanced point of view, where you suggest that the United States needs friends in places it never cared existed. I agree, only I've not seen a lot of people who will actually say it, either for fear of being modded down as whining Eurotrash, or just because they're arrogant Usian pricks. I'm a New Zealander so technically I can't be whining Eurotrash or an arrogant Usian prick. I guess seeing an assertion that looked like it was asking for a downmodding kinda sparked this automatic response, like "Warning: possible troll detected". Nothing personal.
Oh, and about that absolute truth thing. I agree on that too, but I couldn't help myself. If someone asserts there's no such thing as absolute truth (or a variant thereof), asking them if that's absolutely true is just something one should never pass up doing, whether you agree with them or not. Yup.
In what way does it not make sense? What are you looking for? Some deep insightful truth about globalisation that no one has ever pondered before? Katz is a journalist, not a philosopher. This article is a brief commentary on the points he considers important to the topic of globalisation. That's all one could really ask from the guy isn't it? You don't have to like his features, or agree with the points he considers important, but it's a bit unfair to slam him for being a person on a time budget (although I'll be first to agree that he could use a spellchecker).
Is that absolutely true?
What makes you so sure? I'd have said it takes a lot more weapons and followers. Look at the Taliban. I'm not saying they're stupid, but they got to their position of power after being trained by the US. They would never be where they are today if they had worked on intellect alone. I won't make any comments about GW mind you; he's clearly not the epitome of intelligence either; obviously President of the US has become more about money and sweet-talking, and brains are no longer important anywhere.
I'm not specifically disagreeing with many of your points; in fact I am finding myself nodding to much of what you say. But then your exact stance is very vague, and your post sounds almost like it could be a weird anti-US troll, so I dunno.
I dunno about anyone else, but I'd be kinda insulted if someone compared WinXP to any flavour of Unix. Duh, I know what timothy meant; just a thought.
Perhaps he doesn't pitch it with "Not as evil, [sic] as Intel" but something more along the lines of "More friendly to small consumers; more emphasis on performance, less on marketing" and the like. I'd fairly say that a company that uses marketing and market domination to succeed is more evil than a company that creates good products at the expense of their marketing department.
To some extent, they are. Windows 2000 is a reasonable operating system that meets most users' needs. Windows 98 is a low-end home system. Windows 95 is too old to mention. Windows ME, on the other hand, is extremely unstable; and Windows NT has required seven service packs (including 6a as a separate one) I believe. That doesn't say "reliable operating system" to me.
Assuming that you're not a fourteen year old with no idea what he's talking about, and that you're not trolling (two pretty big assumptions), could you please cite some more reliable "proof"? OSS bigots are annoying, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that the previous poster didn't sound particularly bigoted, and that in general *nix systems are better than Windows ones. If one compares Linux (the kernel, not a specific distro) and Windows, one discovers certain things:
Your assertion that Microsoft "must be better because they're more popular" is naive at best. Marketing has played a large part in Microsoft's continued dominance of the market, but more than this, their existing manopoly, built on anti-competitive business practices, is the real reason that their software is popular. From the time that DOS was engineered to deliberately cause competing software to be unstable, Microsoft has taken the market through unfair business practices, and held it by the same means, and through creating software that is "good enough". Their continued popularity is a snowball effect, enhanced by such things as license agreements that prevent oems from dual-booting other operating systems on machines that ship with Windows. I could answer your assertion more fully, but it would require an essay that would take up more than its fair share of space in this thread, and get me modded down anyway. It would be far easier if you read the article linked at the top of this thread for a very comprehensive description of exactly what I am talking about. This isn't even about which OSen are better; it's about business ethics and restricting the consumers' choice.
That's a pretty big leap of logic. I think it was IBM, actually, who played the key role in the popularity of the PC, by opening the standards on the ISA bus, and other hardware companies that either opened their standards or created clones of the standards opened. Windows played a key role in making the PC more user friendly, yes, but it would be unfair to assert that this was due to Microsoft innovation. It was due to their opportunism, and nothing more. Windows 3.x was merely a bad copy of the existing gui already created by Apple, but because it ran on the IBM-PC, and because there was no immediate competition, it was successful. I don't think you can seriously make out that if it weren't for Microsoft the PC wouldn't be popular. That's simply ridiculous, since IBM's OS/2 would have filled the gap if Windows hadn't.
Apart from wondering where you learned to speak English (since you could be foreign), I'm wondering what you mean by "support software/hardware". Operating systems don't support software; the software supports them. As for hardware, it may be true that Windows supports more than Linux, but that is beginning to change. Your idea that either of these factors has anything to do with security except very indirectly demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how an operating system is built. In fact, for the most part, it is not Windows (speaking of Windows 2000) that is insecure specifically, but the programs that run on top of it. Running IIS on Windows 2000 is a bad idea, because it has been demonstrated repeatedly to be a security nightmare (and yes, it is Microsoft's flagship web server, which hardly says a lot about the company's priorities), but running Apache (as I do) is pretty safe, because Apache is quite simply a more secure and superior product. You forget that when people say that Microsoft produces inferior software, they are not necessarily talking about Windows. In general, they are probably talking about the software that runs on Windows just as much as the OS itself, and this software has been repeatedly demonstrated, in one way or another, to either leave something to be desired, or be simply very badly designed.
I presume by this comment you mean that people focus on the problems and not the bigger picture, or that people focus on the problems while forgetting about the good things. This is somewhat foolish considering you have already demonstrated that Microsoft is so popular, and that their "beans" are better. If their beans were better, surely there would be no problems to focus on? I can't think of any Linux problems I've seen lately. And assuming there were, wouldn't it be fair to call attention to problems with Microsoft software, since it has so much more potential for damage due to market share? I don't think you even understand what you just wrote there. Perhaps you meant generalise. If that's the case, then yes, attention is being called to the general trend displayed in most Microsoft products for either poor design, limited features or bad security.
I think I've already addressed this. The thing that people resent is that the Microsoft boat (cruiseliner? aircraft carrier?) isn't floating higher for the right reasons. I'll carry that aircraft carrier analogy: Microsoft is a stagnant company without any real innovation (see most of the features emerging in their products that have been available in others for months/years) that uses its mass and power (read: manopoly and money) to stay afloat, crushing the other wee boats if necessary.
Nonetheless, I am forced to ask, which sea are you referring to? Because Linux is floating a lot higher on the sea of freedom, choice, stability and security.
disclaimer I am a Windows user who has never even installed Linux. That doesn't mean I know nothing about open source software
Could you direct me to your website so I can check the code you used, please? I'm working on a couple of sites and may find a use for it, but at the moment basic html is about as far as my skills extend. Ta.
Does anyone know if a project like this is in the works for OpenOffice, and just hasn't been completed yet? It would probably be a fairly extensive addition.
Moderators on crack again? You're not entirely unaccountable, oh ye insane modders. If I get this in metamod it's going back to +1; I mean, it's not exactly insightful or even informative, but it's hardly offtopic.
Basically you're trying too hard. In fact, it's hard to tell if you're trying to troll or karmawhore...whichever it is, you're not doing a good job of either.
Just a few tips, don't take it personally, and moderators, I did you the favour of not posting with a +1 bonus--go find someone more worthy of a -1, flamebait ;P
Erm...typo?
As for -40 C, that's the same as -40 F, which I figure you realised, only the way you said it made it look like you weren't sure whether the temperature you were looking for was in C or F...of course it doesn't matter either way since they're both equal so yeah...I'll just shut up now...
I believe I can see a pattern. I now have the added (dubious) distinction of being modded +1, funny for a quick post I did to make other non-Usian readers' lives easier...
Whatever fries your bacon moderators...how's the crack today?
top speed: 129.7 km/h
weight of bike: 27.3 kg
Sheesh, how long are trolls gonna milk this for? You know, after about six weeks it's gonna start sounding pretty stupid. Not that it doesn't already. And I'm curious; where did you get the 50,000+ casualty figure from? Last I checked it was ~7,000. Of course, I'm just a sheep-shagging New Zealander.
My apologies for the confusion; in the groups I associate with (in New Zealand), "fascist" is a colloquialism based on, but unrelated from, political fascism. I didn't really think about it when I posted, mostly because, as another poster has pointed out, if these laws get passed then they do start resembling fascism within a democratic shell. I didn't intend to use it as a buzzword.
My apologies; I'm rather ashamed of that.
Thanks, you saved me having to explain what I meant :)
One thing that interests me, however, is that KaZaA is much more than audio file sharing. You can download audio, video, software, images and documents, and only one of those categories applies to the RIAA. I suppose it only takes one category, but it's interesting that no other companies or industry representives have become involved (yet, to my knowledge). I wouldn't be too amazed if the MPAA joined the fray, not to mention numerous software companies.
The thing is...how long can this go on for? Someone sets up a filesharing network. The RIAA sues them, bringing their vast financial resources to bear, which means that any other resources they require can be bought. They close-mindedly bring about the destruction or complete alteration of the network, not taking into account many technicalities like the way that Napster was demonstrated to actually boost CD sales, and that the server owners should not be held responsible for the traffic on their network, just as ISPs cannot. But in this time, another network has popped up in its place. In fact, several networks.
How long can this continue? Surely the RIAA must realise that it is a futile proposition (at present) to attempt to take down every filesharing network that may allow access to copyrighted material? I suppose that's why they are attempting to pass more and more fascist laws, and are encouraging other countries to do the same, in order to maintain their somewhat archaically-based real-world manopoly. Surely there must be an easier way for record companies etc to protect their copyrights, within reason, but to allow filesharing like this within reason as well (and I'm not specifically thinking of subscription). It seems that the RIAA, MPAA et al, rather than go with the flow and try new avenues of profit on the net, are attempting to stand firm in a present system that is rapidly becoming a part of the past. I am reminded of the SG-1 Archive, which was recently featured in Showtime's magazine (since Showtime produces Stargate SG-1), where the site was apparently hailed as a source of information on the series, and yet a couple of weeks later the webmaster received a CAD letter from the MPAA and was forced to remove the episodes available for download. This would not be a problem, legally speaking, if Showtime had objected to the site; but they hadn't. They had praised it. Apparently the MPAA is simply doing the rounds, attempting to scare everyone into submission, and sue those who are brazen enough to resist, despite the wishes of the people producing the actual material (who the Stargate SG-1 copyrights actually belong to I am not entirely certain, but I believe it is MGM/Showtime).
Having said that, I fearlessly and without disclaimer (partly because slashdot thinks my IP is a 203.97 subnet, which it's not) acknowledge that all the software and mp3s on my computer are pirated, and that I feel little remorse. Being what I hope is a morally upright person, this disturbs me somewhat, but when I see the sort of things that Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA etc do, and the tactics they resort to, I seem to feel a lot better. As a writer, I put a certain value on intellectual property, and I also accept that people will copy and distribute my work illegally. This doesn't bug me particularly, partly because I'd be a hypocrite if it did, and partly because people will still buy my work, despite those who pirate it. When I look at how bloated with money MS, RIAA etc are, I hardly feel sympathic.
disclaimer My ideas and arguments are subject to minor alteration depending on circumstances, and are probably slightly bigoted and not as balanced as those that I normally produce. Taken completely objectively, you may well be able to tear holes in them. If you feel the inclination to do this I would be appreciative, as I am still formulating my own opinions in this matter; however, I ask that you don't flame simply for the sake of flaming...it doesn't tend to be conducive to constructive conversation.
Read the article. They talk about using water as fuel. Fusion is to fission what hydrogen fuel cells are to petrol generators.
I realise this is maybe slightly off topic, and I also realise that domains are registered on a first come, first served basis, and IANAL and all that, but I have noticed that the majority of sites in the US seem to use an international domain, as if the US is somehow entitled to these, while everyone else must use their own country codes. I don't mean to sound like a Usian-basher either, but I am curious.
Woops. Thanks for setting me straight on that without resorting to flaming :)
"...it enables the Web server to establish contact with a surfer's browser and then count the number of ads displayed on a screen."
If I hit "G" in Opera, every image on the page disappears. Yeah, all the nice ones like the picture of the foot, the mainboard, the greenback, the Apple logo...but also the "How many different development tools do you use? Click here" SourceForge banner ad up the top. If a site is well designed like slashdot (and I'll get a few flames on that no doubt) and has the alt= attribute set in the <img> tag, I can turn images off and still see "It's funny. Laugh." and "Technology" etc instead. Of course, this is hopeless for some sites, like AnandTech (which looks great with images turned on, but I think is poorly designed nonetheless), and sites where you want to see the pretty pictures (I'm thinking of news sites like BBC News; I don't know about you :P), and it also tends to be quite pointless in terms of blocking ads because it's rather like executing fifty people because you know one of them is a death row escapee, but I just thought I'd mention it, because it seems that this software would prevent you from even choosing to turn all images off in your browser. Frankly, I'd like to know how they do this considering the many different browser types out there, but I presume they can and do, using Java probably. If any web designers can enlighten me, please do.
My question is, how much right does a site have to tell me that I may not turn off images altogether? Technically I am not even blocking the ads; I am simply choosing to ignore all the <img src=""> on a site, and instead am displaying the <img alt="">, which prevents me from downloading the image itself. There's still a little box indicating an image, with "Click here" inside it if it's an ad. Does that count? It also seems ridiculous that a site can penalise you based on what browser you choose to view it with, because text-based browsers such as Lynx would surely be affected by any site running the software developed by GmbH. I realise that few people run Lynx or other text browsers any more, but it's still something to consider. I know sites need their revenue, but I can't believe they think forcing people to look at their ads is going to help. I for one already boycott sites with too many ads (although popups aren't a problem any more since I have disabled them, using Opera), and the more in-your-face an ad is, the more annoying I find it, and the less I feel inclined to click on it. As far as I can tell, this is about as in-your-face as you can get. Do sites honestly believe this is going to increase their revenue?
I'll look up TeX and see how things go, but if it's a right pain to use the chances are I'll avoid it. The results I get aren't too important in terms of their spectacularity, since all I want is the text for conversion into chapters on my site (one reason that an anchored selection system would be useful; I could then easily select entire chapters), but usability is much more critical. I suppose it would be a good idea to actually start a new document for each new chapter, in terms of redundancy, but it would be so inconvenient when proofing, and just for glancing back to catch a detail while working on another part of the book.
Anyhoo, I think we've mostly exhausted this conversation thread, and in the process we seemed to have gained a few karma points (yeah...it's just a number Taco ;)), shared some views, I've gained some useful hints and info, and hey, it's been fun :)
When StarOffice 6 comes out, I'll give it a go, but frankly I have a feeling that I may have to move to another operating system and be prepared to come out of my comfort zone for a while, while I search the alternative word processors and find one that suits me, and then become familiar with it. Anything with autocorrect, blue background (I find white backgrounds give me a headache after a few hours) and a similar sort of interface to Word would do. My main issue with Word at the moment is that it stores documents in a proprietary format, and that its "html" is, well...erm...check a FrontPage- or Word-generated html document, and you'll see what I mean.
I have a leaning towards basic html, in that it will probably be fully functional in terms of having readers available for it for years to come, and even when it is eventually superceded, it's still effectively plain text, so getting the content out isn't really a problem. .doc and Word .html is a shocking mess; .doc seems to become outdated more often than new Word versions are released (actually the problem here is backwards compatibility; all my documents, of which I have around 37 relating to my first two novels alone, are stored in Word XP .doc format, so if I want my friend running Word 97 to read them, I have to resave every single one (afaik there is no quick way) into Word 95/97 .doc format), and good luck to anyone trying to extract the content of the html files. Sure, I could store in plain text, but I have formatting (not a lot, but enough) in my documents that I don't want to lose.
Thinking long-term, I'd be happy to find another, simple, non-bloated word processor that does everything I need, without the added crap, and can store files in a decent format (most particularly, a decent html generator would be nice because I intend to publish privately online if possible, and the idea of converting a 130k-word document into html manually is something that fills me with fear). I found a really great (probably crappy, but I like it) html editor called AceHTML, which is exactly what I want for designing basic websites, and if I could find something that equates to the AceHTML of word processors (and runs on Windows preferably, because I don't feel any inclination to move to *nix, because it would be at best highly inconvenient) I would be very happy indeed. You've mentioned Describe and Amipro, but I presume they aren't ported to Win32; if you know of anything I'd be quite grateful for the opportunity to try it/them out. Since I'm doing a complete review/revision/rewrite of nearly all my material, this would be a great time to switch. Only thing is, I need to be sure that it's something that will work for the long term...don't wanna be switching every two months or something...
Btw, I presume you noticed the karma points we're getting from this discussion? I couldn't help laughing ;)