It use to be that I'd first read this sort of news on slashdot, but either slashdot has fallen behind, or my local paper's improved greatly. I think the former. These days I read about it in the local paper first and a day or two later I read about it on slashdot. Then it gets duped a few days/weeks/months/years later.
Define quality. How long did the replacement monitor last? I'm betting it's an ex-monitor by now?
You'd have lost that bet. I use 19" CRT LG brand monitors day to day, but that 17" is still running fine on an older machine (when I bother to boot it). The case could use a good clean but apart from that its in prime condition.
Can someone explain to me why geeks fall in love with their gadgets despite the flaws? Aren't we smarter than being brand loyal sheep? Hey I'm sure there were some great Trinitrons but there were also some very defective units shipped from what I've read. I only ever owned one - a 15" computer monitor that's lasted almost 15 years and is still working at my mother's house but on its last legs. It was the most expensive monitor I've ever owned and was greatly surpassed in quality by a cheap (at less than half the price) CTX 17" monitor about 3 years later. There are plenty of bits of equipment that are classics because they don't get outdone, but for me this monitor isn't one of them. This is just about blind brand loyalty and the triumph of modern marketing over common sense.
Adjust business hours periodically. Don't change the freakin' clock and have an hour go missing every 6 months. It didn't even make sense when we were still hand plowing. It certainly doesn't now!!!
1. Write GPL software 2. Discover GPL software license has been violated 3. Post all over slashdot asking legal advice 4. Whine about why no lawyer will touch your case with a barge pole 5. ???? 6. Profit
If you're in a situation that might need a lawyer, contact one. Asking for help on/. is going to do your case more harm than good.
Well perhaps if manufacturers only had to build one driver instead of 6 for their hardware to work we'd have stability too. Or do you think newer drivers are going to be less buggy???
In any case, I was talking about security, not stability. Shift the goal posts somewhere else.
Our sleep deprivation, I would hazard to guess, is mostly voluntary (or semi-voluntary.) And overall it's not such a bad thing -- our time is short, and who can blame us for resenting the hours lost to sleep?
That's a false economy. If you walk around sleep deprived, you do so for your entire waking time. Instead of gaining 2 extra hours of life and vitality a day, you gain 2 sleep deprived hours at the expense of the other 16-18 hours also being sleep deprived. Not a good plan.
Oh for fuck sake, how many of the XP targeting virii that you've heard of lately have been due to holes in the video and audio driver model? This isn't about improving security for the customer, this is about locking down content through poorly implemented DRM. We could have kept our existing driver model instead of changing it YET AGAIN. How many changes in the last 20 odd years have we had? DOS drivers, Win 3.11 drivers, 95 drivers, 98 drivers, 2000/XP drivers, and now Vista drivers. What a waste of goddamn effort. Bad design is an understatement. Get it right and move on for fuck sake. We don't need a dozen incompatible driver models by the time I'm old.
Thank goodness someone's having a whinge about Myth Busters and isn't being modded down into oblivion. That show isn't science, it's special effects guys blowing things up. Mythbusters basically piss on the scientific method every time they put a show together. If it were presented as that I'd be fine with it. (I love the British show "Brainiac" for instance, which is presented as comedy) but it's presented as a serious show and it has a cult following even amongst those who should know better.
So you are just complaining for the sake of complaining. I assumed that you actually had some old Word documents that you were worried about supporting.
Woah. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something? I didn't say whether or not I have important documents. As it happens I do have documents that are in Word format that I consider important. That includes all my work from my Astronomy Masters a few years back. I don't believe I have anything in Word 2, but I do have stuff in Word 6 format that I'd prefer not to lose. Would it be the end of the world? No. Is it a good thing? No.
No matter, you must have been happy to hear that you still can open those old documents after all.
Yes, except that I have no confidence that will be the case in 10 years time.
And if they do eventually remove support for the file format, then you can either keep an old version of Office to convert them (perhaps under VMWare), or use OpenOffice.
Oh well that's okay then. Just as long as there is yet another computing task to waste my time that requires specialized software I should never have needed in the first place, then that's okay. I didn't have other things to do with my time at all.
Seriously, are you trying to be a jerk or does it come naturally? Grow up.
In related news Microsoft has issued a press release indicating that users looking up are taking revenue from Microsoft, who now owns the copyright to 100% of the sky. "As we all know DRM is a critical issue today. If people could just look up any time they pleased there would be no need for our new software. Innovation would be stiffled and we have scientists who say the sky might fall." said Microsoft product manager I M ATwat. "For many years we at Microsoft have endured casual astronomers looking up at the sky, and focused our efforts at prosecuting only professionals. However, today we will be launching an education campaign aimed at educating the public about the legal dangers of looking up. We are launching a new tool SGA - 'Sky Genuine Advantage' which will inform the user that piracy is illegal and won't be tolerated. Delivery will be via Microsoft Blimp. We at Microsoft look forward to providing our users with legal computerized views of the sky for a very reasonable price."
I doubt many people still be able to find any documents from that long ago anyway.
That's the problem. Throw away society. There's bound to be some important data in some Word 2 documents. I hate LaTex with a passion, but I'm sure glad MS Word isn't the standard for research journals (yet).
Office is certainly a cash cow, but the the document format lock-in that keeps it so is disappearing. Things like OpenOffice have pretty good interopability and Microsoft seem to be getting increasingly forced to open up their standards.
It's worse than that. In their hurry to force people to upgrade and maintain the facade of security, MS is dropping support for older Office formats from newer versions of Office. That means while Open Office will open up your Word 6 document, latest MS Office won't. They're also planning to drop VBA so that reduces compatibility even further. These guys have become expert at shooting themselves in the foot!
Science is not religion. You don't preach it. You expose children to the scientific method, and you do so in the most compelling way you can. It should come across as little more than a formalism of common sense. If they choose to ignore it and believe in a great sky god, there's very little you can do about it.
Credit cards are so incredibly insecure that the only reason people use them is that the banks so far have been willing to cover the costs of fraud (in most cases and as long as the card holder hasn't contributed to it through negligence).
Genesis 1. If interpreted literally, like it is within the protestant church, implies that Earth and it's life was created in 6 days and on the 7th day, God rested. Regardless of whether other people interpret it metaphorically or whatever, this is a serious claim.
Such a claim should be investigated and not rejected at its face value.
It has, by serious scientists, who have concluded that it is complete bunk. There is plenty of evidence for a much older earth and none for a young earth.
A summary is presented to the children. This is the right thing to do since presenting every possible hair brained idea anyone ever had about how the world may have formed would take a very long time and confuse the children. For example when you teach a child how to play a musical instrument you don't demonstrate every incorrect way to hold and play the thing.
I was also raised in a home with religious parents, and unfortunately mis-spent a lot of time reading the bible. The book is a mish-mash of inconsistent moral stories. Any co-incidental truth is just that. There is no science there and it is not an alternate theory. To believe the bible literally you have to believe all sorts of weird and unsupported things that aren't documented - virgin births, people coming back to the dead, sonic super-weapons, woman created from the rib of man. Gimme a break.
I learnt science in highschool and learnt about the scientific method. It basically says not to ignore the evidence that is right under your nose. Instead compare it to the facts you have. When I did that with the bible it came up ridiculously short.
Kids who choose not to believe evolution do it for one of three reasons: 1) They don't understand it. 2) Their parents have brainwashed them with creationist nonsense. 3) They find the idea of being related to other animals distasteful. (Usually also related to 1).
- No, not everyone is a lifelong learner. That's the ideal not the reality. Just look at how hard it is for some older people to pick up computers after 40.
- The religion that's indoctrinated them has done so since birth. You're going to ear bash them for an hour or two and expect them to change their lifelong beliefs? You'll only create resentment.
- You have a much better chance at reaching the parents through the children. However if you only reach the children, it simply won't be an issue in 40 years.
Limit going after the parents to insisting that science is taught in science classes and religion is not.
1. I can't do my job because of X. 2. Changing X would fix that problem. 3. Therefore, we should change X.
I propose we call this style of argument reductio ad incompentium. Otherwise, without random latin to throw at your opponent how are you going to sound important, educated and knowledgeable?
Slashdot Mirror
It use to be that I'd first read this sort of news on slashdot, but either slashdot has fallen behind, or my local paper's improved greatly. I think the former. These days I read about it in the local paper first and a day or two later I read about it on slashdot. Then it gets duped a few days/weeks/months/years later.
Define quality. How long did the replacement monitor last? I'm betting it's an ex-monitor by now?
You'd have lost that bet. I use 19" CRT LG brand monitors day to day, but that 17" is still running fine on an older machine (when I bother to boot it). The case could use a good clean but apart from that its in prime condition.
Can someone explain to me why geeks fall in love with their gadgets despite the flaws? Aren't we smarter than being brand loyal sheep? Hey I'm sure there were some great Trinitrons but there were also some very defective units shipped from what I've read. I only ever owned one - a 15" computer monitor that's lasted almost 15 years and is still working at my mother's house but on its last legs. It was the most expensive monitor I've ever owned and was greatly surpassed in quality by a cheap (at less than half the price) CTX 17" monitor about 3 years later. There are plenty of bits of equipment that are classics because they don't get outdone, but for me this monitor isn't one of them. This is just about blind brand loyalty and the triumph of modern marketing over common sense.
Adjust business hours periodically. Don't change the freakin' clock and have an hour go missing every 6 months. It didn't even make sense when we were still hand plowing. It certainly doesn't now!!!
1. Write GPL software
/. is going to do your case more harm than good.
2. Discover GPL software license has been violated
3. Post all over slashdot asking legal advice
4. Whine about why no lawyer will touch your case with a barge pole
5. ????
6. Profit
If you're in a situation that might need a lawyer, contact one. Asking for help on
I knew I could have scored better if there were no time limit!
Miss, I'd like 140 years to finish my paper!
What do you mean by unladen? A geek is always prepared. Maybe you meant unlaid?
He means without a pocket protector
Well perhaps if manufacturers only had to build one driver instead of 6 for their hardware to work we'd have stability too. Or do you think newer drivers are going to be less buggy???
In any case, I was talking about security, not stability. Shift the goal posts somewhere else.
Our sleep deprivation, I would hazard to guess, is mostly voluntary (or semi-voluntary.) And overall it's not such a bad thing -- our time is short, and who can blame us for resenting the hours lost to sleep?
That's a false economy. If you walk around sleep deprived, you do so for your entire waking time. Instead of gaining 2 extra hours of life and vitality a day, you gain 2 sleep deprived hours at the expense of the other 16-18 hours also being sleep deprived. Not a good plan.
Just need to wait a few more months and hopefully Microsoft will start paying people to use it.
Brother, there are easier and less painful ways to earn a living...Have you considered a career as a crack ho? No need to stoop to using Vista.
The virus is hungry. It needs "brrrraaaiiiinnnnnzzzz".
Anyone here ever played "Stubbs the Zombie". That was one funny game.
Oh for fuck sake, how many of the XP targeting virii that you've heard of lately have been due to holes in the video and audio driver model? This isn't about improving security for the customer, this is about locking down content through poorly implemented DRM. We could have kept our existing driver model instead of changing it YET AGAIN. How many changes in the last 20 odd years have we had? DOS drivers, Win 3.11 drivers, 95 drivers, 98 drivers, 2000/XP drivers, and now Vista drivers. What a waste of goddamn effort. Bad design is an understatement. Get it right and move on for fuck sake. We don't need a dozen incompatible driver models by the time I'm old.
Thank goodness someone's having a whinge about Myth Busters and isn't being modded down into oblivion. That show isn't science, it's special effects guys blowing things up. Mythbusters basically piss on the scientific method every time they put a show together. If it were presented as that I'd be fine with it. (I love the British show "Brainiac" for instance, which is presented as comedy) but it's presented as a serious show and it has a cult following even amongst those who should know better.
So you are just complaining for the sake of complaining. I assumed that you actually had some old Word documents that you were worried about supporting.
Woah. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something? I didn't say whether or not I have important documents. As it happens I do have documents that are in Word format that I consider important. That includes all my work from my Astronomy Masters a few years back. I don't believe I have anything in Word 2, but I do have stuff in Word 6 format that I'd prefer not to lose. Would it be the end of the world? No. Is it a good thing? No.
No matter, you must have been happy to hear that you still can open those old documents after all.
Yes, except that I have no confidence that will be the case in 10 years time.
And if they do eventually remove support for the file format, then you can either keep an old version of Office to convert them (perhaps under VMWare), or use OpenOffice.
Oh well that's okay then. Just as long as there is yet another computing task to waste my time that requires specialized software I should never have needed in the first place, then that's okay. I didn't have other things to do with my time at all.
Seriously, are you trying to be a jerk or does it come naturally? Grow up.
In related news Microsoft has issued a press release indicating that users looking up are taking revenue from Microsoft, who now owns the copyright to 100% of the sky. "As we all know DRM is a critical issue today. If people could just look up any time they pleased there would be no need for our new software. Innovation would be stiffled and we have scientists who say the sky might fall." said Microsoft product manager I M ATwat. "For many years we at Microsoft have endured casual astronomers looking up at the sky, and focused our efforts at prosecuting only professionals. However, today we will be launching an education campaign aimed at educating the public about the legal dangers of looking up. We are launching a new tool SGA - 'Sky Genuine Advantage' which will inform the user that piracy is illegal and won't be tolerated. Delivery will be via Microsoft Blimp. We at Microsoft look forward to providing our users with legal computerized views of the sky for a very reasonable price."
I doubt many people still be able to find any documents from that long ago anyway.
That's the problem. Throw away society. There's bound to be some important data in some Word 2 documents. I hate LaTex with a passion, but I'm sure glad MS Word isn't the standard for research journals (yet).
Office is certainly a cash cow, but the the document format lock-in that keeps it so is disappearing. Things like OpenOffice have pretty good interopability and Microsoft seem to be getting increasingly forced to open up their standards.
It's worse than that. In their hurry to force people to upgrade and maintain the facade of security, MS is dropping support for older Office formats from newer versions of Office. That means while Open Office will open up your Word 6 document, latest MS Office won't. They're also planning to drop VBA so that reduces compatibility even further. These guys have become expert at shooting themselves in the foot!
The whole idea of sending a customized anything to a central repair place screams out for a "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag.
That whole sentence screams out for a "you're spending too much time on slashdot" reply.
Science is not religion. You don't preach it. You expose children to the scientific method, and you do so in the most compelling way you can. It should come across as little more than a formalism of common sense. If they choose to ignore it and believe in a great sky god, there's very little you can do about it.
Credit cards are so incredibly insecure that the only reason people use them is that the banks so far have been willing to cover the costs of fraud (in most cases and as long as the card holder hasn't contributed to it through negligence).
This is just one more flaw.
Genesis 1. If interpreted literally, like it is within the protestant church, implies that Earth and it's life was created in 6 days and on the 7th day, God rested. Regardless of whether other people interpret it metaphorically or whatever, this is a serious claim.
Such a claim should be investigated and not rejected at its face value.
It has, by serious scientists, who have concluded that it is complete bunk. There is plenty of evidence for a much older earth and none for a young earth.
A summary is presented to the children. This is the right thing to do since presenting every possible hair brained idea anyone ever had about how the world may have formed would take a very long time and confuse the children. For example when you teach a child how to play a musical instrument you don't demonstrate every incorrect way to hold and play the thing.
I was also raised in a home with religious parents, and unfortunately mis-spent a lot of time reading the bible. The book is a mish-mash of inconsistent moral stories. Any co-incidental truth is just that. There is no science there and it is not an alternate theory. To believe the bible literally you have to believe all sorts of weird and unsupported things that aren't documented - virgin births, people coming back to the dead, sonic super-weapons, woman created from the rib of man. Gimme a break.
I learnt science in highschool and learnt about the scientific method. It basically says not to ignore the evidence that is right under your nose. Instead compare it to the facts you have. When I did that with the bible it came up ridiculously short.
Kids who choose not to believe evolution do it for one of three reasons:
1) They don't understand it.
2) Their parents have brainwashed them with creationist nonsense.
3) They find the idea of being related to other animals distasteful. (Usually also related to 1).
Actually, I read "superstar" and my mind translates to "prima donna". Do you actually want a prima donna working for you?
I also have to ask, why do you NEED superstars? Can't you organize the team to get the job done without a genius to pull it all together?
Three reasons:
- No, not everyone is a lifelong learner. That's the ideal not the reality. Just look at how hard it is for some older people to pick up computers after 40.
- The religion that's indoctrinated them has done so since birth. You're going to ear bash them for an hour or two and expect them to change their lifelong beliefs? You'll only create resentment.
- You have a much better chance at reaching the parents through the children. However if you only reach the children, it simply won't be an issue in 40 years.
Limit going after the parents to insisting that science is taught in science classes and religion is not.
1. I can't do my job because of X.
2. Changing X would fix that problem.
3. Therefore, we should change X.
I propose we call this style of argument reductio ad incompentium. Otherwise, without random latin to throw at your opponent how are you going to sound important, educated and knowledgeable?