Well I know I'd have a lot more sympathy for these people if I could walk in and have damaged media replaced at cost once I paid for a license. I've already paid for a couple of my favourite shows more than once. (Entire 5 seasons of Babylon 5 first on video then DVD. Battlestar Galactica 1978 movie then 7 disc series including the movie). If I continue to be a fan of these shows and meet life expectancy I estimate I'll pay for them again 3 or 4 times before I die.
But hell I won't even buy the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator because once you've activated it twice online and once by phone you have to buy it again (unless you want to risk jail over a simulator/game)
Apparently that's fair according to this knucklehead. Then you have people who insist that these guys are just trying to protect their revenue and it's not their fault that people pirate. I bet I could sell them a license to a few bridges.
I thought the least recently modified web page was actually my personal home page still held on my old University programmer's society account. Thanks for the clarification.
What a self indulgent rant, and what a dangerous attitude.
I'm not president of the US, nor am I prime minister of my country and never have been. However when they start violating human rights and making decisions that have long term negative affects on me and mine you can bet I can, should and will criticise them. Likewise with IT leaders, if they do something stupid that has public ramifications they'll be criticised.
If you were only ever permitted to criticise people once you'd achieved equally great things we'd all be peons and surfs. Your little. What you're saying is the equivalent of telling someone to "shut up and do what you're told you insignificant piss-ant". What's worse is that you're trolling about trolling.
Do you really think that's all a small-town cop has to do? Small towns, like large ones, have domestic violence, mentally unstable people with weapons, robberies, rape, assault, dishonest businesses, unauthorized dumping of hazardous chemicals, racial discrimination, problems with crack and meth and alcoholism... and the list goes on.
Yes, with the cop doing all that, it leaves nothing at all for the criminal to do.
I have a friend who called the Moonlight Sonata "The Breastcancer song" because it was used for a breast cancer commercial here at some stage. (Well he was actually quite intelligent but I wouldn't call him cultured:-)) I think they should use that somewhere in Vista. Perhaps when DRM refuses access.
Do you really think it's a lack of money to pay engineers that prevents a company like GM or Microsoft from creating bug-free products?
You're making a couple of mistakes
1) You're assuming that company management has a long term focus. Repeatedly shown to be the exception not the rule. There are exceptions but in general upper management is greedy and wants to retire early. They couldn't care less what happens 6 months after they're out the door.
2) You're assuming competence at all levels.
3) You're assuming they give a damn about the customer. Profits and bottom lines are all that count for most companies these days. How else do you explain viscious copy protection and a willingness to cripple software if it fails repeated reactivation?
You sure know how to defend Microsoft when. UAC is a joke. Thousands of popups to nag me to death on normal everyday tasks is just not an acceptable tradeoff for secuirty. ASLR is a neat idea, but as you said not new nor worth an OS upgrade. Protected Mode is a lot more work for the admin and developer alike. WDM - they do this every time - new OS, new driver model. Breaks plenty of drivers that work well for some limited benefit with new ones. Windows update - you said it yourself we've had it for ages. Who cares if it useds a web browser and active X or some other interface. Not important.
Specialist put her on a drug that caused her ever increasing grand mal seizures. He kept uping the dosage despite seizures being a contra-indication. She started with occassional seizures and progressed to a couple a day. She'd had previously had brain surgery to remove an araknoid cyst some time before and was experiencing petite mal (blank staring) seizures and narcolepsy. (I now suspect that carbonmonoxide poisoning due to a faulty car exhaust was partly to blame and not the brain injury, nor subsequent treatment but the truth is I won't know). Anyway the drug was also killing her personality and making her moody and erratic. Unfortunately coming off the drug immediately leaves patients prone to being suicidal so we had to bring her down over a period of weeks.
Did the doctor work out what was going on? No the arrogant son of a bitch didn't bother to give the fact that his patient had developed seizures a second thought. Fucker wanted her to stay on the medication. I had googled it, and after we pointed out to him that it was a contraindication and asked to have her come off it for a while, he said okay. Again I'm the one who looked up the fact that suddenly stopping would have made her suicidal.
Three things were re-enforced for me: 1) Yes Google is only as good as the researcher. Using Google to find a specialist site is probably one of the better ways to go. Thing is you have to learn some of the lingo and understand what you're seeing. Takes a bit of plugging away to do that.
2) The medical profession is full of arrogant tossers. The only less practical, more corrupt systems I know of are our legal and political systems. Some doctors are good despite the system. However the system encourages self serving educated idiots who take no interest in themselves (not to mention overworked perpetually tired doctors making life and death decisions). Most doctors don't take kindly to being second guessed, think they know best even when they haven't considered something properly, and think themselves above using technology to diagnose a patient. In the 21st Century the medical profession remains very 16th Century.
3) Get a good doctor and they make you better. Get a bad one and they'll take a minor problem you have and kill you with their incorrect treatment. It is entirely possible to know better than your doctor. In that case you still do need someone medically trained. Get a second or third opinion. Your life can depend on it.
She was deteriorating so quickly that I have no doubt whatsoever that had I not worked out what was wrong with my fiancee she'd have been dead within about 6 months from the time I did work it out (if not sooner). Having a search engine there to be able to research her condition was literally a life saver. Google happened to be king of the hill at the time.
If Bush would just declare these crooks to be 'cyberterrorists' and start subjecting them to extraordinary renditions and gitmo treatment, I bet his popularity would surge. And he would be doing something good for the country with his remaining two lame duck years.
Wow! I think you're actually serious. There are so many things wrong with this proposition it's scarey that a grown adult doesn't understand.
1) Confusing the issue with terrorism means you've misdiagnosed both problems. When you do that your solutions for either aren't likely to be effective or competent
2) You don't mind handing more power to a government that's demonstrated corruption.
3) Two wrongs don't make a right. Society isn't going to get BETTER if your local law enforcement throw out any semblance of propriety and misapply laws left right and centre. Society would get WORSE, as this leads to massive widescale corruption in law enforcement.
4) You're advocating gitmo - a place known for human rights violations, that if perpetrated on the US by any other government would warrant an invasion.
You suggest some great things - sting operations on cybercriminals and even have a very basic idea of how it might work. (It's not as simple as you'd suggest of course, but law enforcement may well overcome those barriers). Why not focus on those instead? Your aim is not to harm people but to protect yourself.
You're smart enough to avoid cybercriminals but so ignorant about politics and law enforcement that your ideas are dangerous. Thing is you can cure ignorance, but not stupidty. I hope that means there's hope for people like you.
With Vista being so DRM ridden and such a hog you'll never want to use it. Therefore you'll never do anything with it, and never have data to protect on it. Hell if you try to type in anything more than a couple of characters, the UI will prevent you from doing so with "security popups". The new secret weapon is MS Clippy Nazi (tm) which will come up with phrases like "I'm sorry but you appear to be entering a credit card number. Zis vil not be tolerated." and "I refuse to accept responsibility for your data" and "You entered that data over 4 weeks ago. Please call Microsoft support to reactivate your data".
Cool putdown. Too bad the grandparent post was about Vista including IPv6 so we were talking about both. Please don't let silly things like facts or logic get in the way of a quick witted put down though....well quick is probably too strong a word.
I did not try to justify any illegal activity. I was clear in my condemnation of copyright infringement. Don't you dare accuse me of that. I compared theft vs copyright infringement to rape vs murder. If that's not condemnation what is? Please point to the paragraph where I said copyright infringment is justified because it isn't theft. You can't because I didn't. Your accusation is insulting to me and embarassing to you as it is proof that you're unable to make a solid logical argument.
What you don't seem to understand is that if you don't diagnose the problem correctly you have no chance of resolving or minimising it. If you had a faulty motherboard, would you call it a CPU failure and swap the CPU, then wonder why it didn't work? Why then do you expect to rid the world of software piracy (or minimise it) by calling it something that it is not. That would seem to me foolish and obtuse in the extreme.
The newer 400d has most of the features of the 30d at a much lower price (and a few of its own, like the anti-dust). If you're a beginner it's a better buy.
However if you're an absolute beginner or don't use your camera often and don't need the features of an SLR, the compacts have never been better value. What you won't get out of a compact is fast shutter speed (if you're shooting anything moving quickly like wildlife or sports, go for the DSLR), light sensititivity. With the DSLR you don't get movie mode, and though beginners can take nice shots on auto mode in good conditions, there's a lot more to master.
One other thing to consider is availability of lenses, servicing and accessories. Nikon make good cameras but I've had awful service experiences from their agents. What's worse good lenses tend to be scarce compared to say Canon. The ergonomics of the Nikon are fantastic though.
Before you buy always check out the review sites (and their forums) for the latest info. Some of the best.
DSLRs are still a pricey investment when you consider total cost of ownership, accessories etc. Be aware the shutters don't last forever (a few tens of thousands of shots before you need a service). Also be aware that if you want to go pro, or take razor sharp pictures you're going to have to invest big money in glass , particularly for longer focal lengths (typically a few thousand dollars though you won't have to buy it all at once - I'm still using crappy consumer lenses for this reason). Bottom line is that there's no other kind of camera that is quite so versatile particularly for action/wildlife.
DSLR advantages: - Very versatile, flexible - Image quality fantastic with the right lens and once you learn to use the camera - Must have for sports/action
DSLR disadvantages: - Only one I'm aware of with a movie mode. Don't buy a DSLR if you want to do video clips - Price (not just purchase price of camera, but accessories, maintenance) - Not as light weight as some of the compacts
The benefits outweigh the risks. In every great change, there will always be downsides and dissenters. It's an inevitable outcome of progress.
Risks: - Inherent and unknown risk of new unproven OS. - Inability to do business due to hosed OS. - Interoperability (incompatible older files) - Incompatible software, particularly custom software will need to be upgraded or replaced. - Underestimation of hardware required to run new hungry OS - Increased costs takes away from business spending to allocate new hardware, software and training.
Benefit: - Possibly a nicer looking OS. - New features (none of which change or contribute to business functions)
Where do I sign up? Seriously name one new thing this OS offers businesses that they don't have with XP. Please don't start with security because that's farcical. XP was more stable than 98 and refined the UI. 98 more stable than 95 and improved support for new hardware. 95 made 3.11 look like a toy. 3.11 moved you to a GUI.
Vista does what better? A 3D desktop you can flip through. Gimme a break! The desktop doesn't need improving. Improved IPv6. Not useful at this point to most businesses. 3D graphics improvements with DX10? Not needed. Most of the rest has been stripped out.
Your inability to distinguish between "common theft" and copyright infringement mean that not only are you an honest person but you're a FUD spreading honest simpleton.
Using something that others have toiled to make without compensating them for it may be wrong but it's not theft. Just as rape is not murder though both are wrong and abhorrent.
The article says "Put your naked pictures (not pornographic or erotic, just naked)"
This guy's been smoking OpenWeed. Your friendly local authorities might not think your privates dangling on your web page for kiddies to see are pornographic even if you don't. Besides if you put up something like this who are you kidding - you're going to w@nk at every opportunity.
Gimme a break. With my background, I have lots of respect for scientists that spend their life computer modelling. It ain't slashdot front page news, and even if that were arguable, you wouldn't know from the submission that was so badly written it should never have been accepted.
BBC news has the story of a scientist who has been using computational models of bacteria to advance our understanding of actual bacteria
So the story is a simulation that actually simulates what it's simulating? (Isn't that what a simulation's suppose to do? Model and echo what happens in the real world)
A copy of an email I wrote to my federal member of parliament. I don't have much faith that it will be acknowledged let alone acted upon.
*********** I am writing to you as my Federal representative on a matter that has caused me some concern and distress. Our household has been selected to take part in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006, and we were informed of this in writing roughly two weeks ago. On Monday October 23rd, an ABS employee named OMITTED came to our house and asked my partner questions for roughly 40 minutes, and left us with diaries which must be filled out on Sunday the 29th and Monday the 30th of October. I have no issue with providing the ABS with answers to questions which are of statistical significance, and taking the time and effort to do so accurately, however the nature of these diaries are extremely invasive.
The diaries require that we report, in five minute increments over the entire 48 hour period the following information (quoted from the diaries): - What was your main activity? - Who did you do this for? - What else were you doing at the same time? - Where were you? - Who was at home, or with you away from home?
The two example pages provided are very detailed and list personal main activities like "Had shower" and "Toilet". While intimacy and love making aren't explicitly included in the examples they are certainly implied since the following more mundane family activities are also listed: "Said goodbye to partner", "Dressed children", "Got kids ready for bed", "Read children a story".
I understand that this survey is compulsory under the Census and Statistics Act 1905. Section 14 provides penalties of $100 per day for refusing or failing to answer questions or fill out forms when requested to do so by the ABS unless one can cite religious beliefs. Section 10 specifically outlines the authority of the ABS to require that forms be filled out. Section 15 provides for penalties of $1000 for making false or misleading statements.
I have also been reading documentation on the ABS web site that household surveys can be done anonymously and that I am not required to provide my name. Documentation we were provided with also states that we are not forced to give the ABS staff member our names, nor allow entry into our home. However the ABS staff member did ask for first names, and the diary my partner and I have been provided with clearly includes our first names on the front page. When I called the number listed on the Time Use Survey documentation and asked how I could remove my name, I was told that my only option was to scratch it out. I was also explicitly told to leave all other information (which in connection with an address easily identifies me) in tact. Please see question 2 in the link below:
The information I have collected certainly seems to indicate that to comply with the law those included in the survey must provide detailed information on a wide gamut of things of a very personal nature including intimate dealings with others. Until recently I had no idea that a citizen not convicted or su
Nice piece of science fiction but the reality is there are orders of magnitude more things that can be done writing new pieces of code from scratch than just combining existing ones. People paying for the software tend to make sometimes ridiculous demands on customisation of everything from look and feel to algorithms for doing the actual work for everything from transaction processing, science or graphics. Therefore new snippets will continually need to be coded.
What we're talking about here is the reuse of libraries. It's actually good practice to find a library and use a tested piece of code if you're doing something, than to go out and re-write it from scratch. My experience is that most developers are bad at searching for and reusing code from their own projects let alone from some vast archive (aka the Internet). The tools and processes in place for finding code that you can trust and that does what you want are so poor that at present we're far from even this level of reuse. Hell coders keep re-writing string handling routines that exist aplenty. But where do I find test cases and results for the existing libraries that I can examine. The quality of the libraries varies widely by language and area of functionality. If I trust the libraries I end up writing code that doesn't work and cop flak for it.
For example nothing wrong with Java String handling, but have you ever tried to use the standard date parsing routines. Hint: Even with lenient=false it does try to guess what you've meant to enter if you enter something that's close to being a real date. If you want to reject incorrect input, you've got to write it yourself. This isn't an excercise in Java bashing - every language has areas of weakness in the libraries - but it does explain why programmers often prefer to write it themselves. Even if they do decide to reuse, if they're not careful to retest the algorithms, they are taking big risks in terms of getting working functionality at the end of the day.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I know I'd have a lot more sympathy for these people if I could walk in and have damaged media replaced at cost once I paid for a license. I've already paid for a couple of my favourite shows more than once. (Entire 5 seasons of Babylon 5 first on video then DVD. Battlestar Galactica 1978 movie then 7 disc series including the movie). If I continue to be a fan of these shows and meet life expectancy I estimate I'll pay for them again 3 or 4 times before I die.
But hell I won't even buy the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator because once you've activated it twice online and once by phone you have to buy it again (unless you want to risk jail over a simulator/game)
Apparently that's fair according to this knucklehead. Then you have people who insist that these guys are just trying to protect their revenue and it's not their fault that people pirate. I bet I could sell them a license to a few bridges.
I thought the least recently modified web page was actually my personal home page still held on my old University programmer's society account. Thanks for the clarification.
What a self indulgent rant, and what a dangerous attitude.
I'm not president of the US, nor am I prime minister of my country and never have been. However when they start violating human rights and making decisions that have long term negative affects on me and mine you can bet I can, should and will criticise them. Likewise with IT leaders, if they do something stupid that has public ramifications they'll be criticised.
If you were only ever permitted to criticise people once you'd achieved equally great things we'd all be peons and surfs. Your little. What you're saying is the equivalent of telling someone to "shut up and do what you're told you insignificant piss-ant". What's worse is that you're trolling about trolling.
Do you really think that's all a small-town cop has to do? Small towns, like large ones, have domestic violence, mentally unstable people with weapons, robberies, rape, assault, dishonest businesses, unauthorized dumping of hazardous chemicals, racial discrimination, problems with crack and meth and alcoholism ... and the list goes on.
Yes, with the cop doing all that, it leaves nothing at all for the criminal to do.
I have a friend who called the Moonlight Sonata "The Breastcancer song" because it was used for a breast cancer commercial here at some stage. (Well he was actually quite intelligent but I wouldn't call him cultured :-)) I think they should use that somewhere in Vista. Perhaps when DRM refuses access.
Do you really think it's a lack of money to pay engineers that prevents a company like GM or Microsoft from creating bug-free products?
You're making a couple of mistakes
1) You're assuming that company management has a long term focus. Repeatedly shown to be the exception not the rule. There are exceptions but in general upper management is greedy and wants to retire early. They couldn't care less what happens 6 months after they're out the door.
2) You're assuming competence at all levels.
3) You're assuming they give a damn about the customer. Profits and bottom lines are all that count for most companies these days. How else do you explain viscious copy protection and a willingness to cripple software if it fails repeated reactivation?
Inmate 1: Why are you here? What're you in for?
Inmate 2: Lawyer^H^H^H^H^H^HComputer fucked me!
With the DRM, some here would argue that's appropriate. ;-)
You sure know how to defend Microsoft when.
UAC is a joke. Thousands of popups to nag me to death on normal everyday tasks is just not an acceptable tradeoff for secuirty. ASLR is a neat idea, but as you said not new nor worth an OS upgrade. Protected Mode is a lot more work for the admin and developer alike. WDM - they do this every time - new OS, new driver model. Breaks plenty of drivers that work well for some limited benefit with new ones. Windows update - you said it yourself we've had it for ages. Who cares if it useds a web browser and active X or some other interface. Not important.
Stop drinking the cool aid before it's too late.
I said basically the same thing yesterday and got modded troll instead of funny. What's your secret?
Specialist put her on a drug that caused her ever increasing grand mal seizures. He kept uping the dosage despite seizures being a contra-indication. She started with occassional seizures and progressed to a couple a day. She'd had previously had brain surgery to remove an araknoid cyst some time before and was experiencing petite mal (blank staring) seizures and narcolepsy. (I now suspect that carbonmonoxide poisoning due to a faulty car exhaust was partly to blame and not the brain injury, nor subsequent treatment but the truth is I won't know). Anyway the drug was also killing her personality and making her moody and erratic. Unfortunately coming off the drug immediately leaves patients prone to being suicidal so we had to bring her down over a period of weeks.
Did the doctor work out what was going on? No the arrogant son of a bitch didn't bother to give the fact that his patient had developed seizures a second thought. Fucker wanted her to stay on the medication. I had googled it, and after we pointed out to him that it was a contraindication and asked to have her come off it for a while, he said okay. Again I'm the one who looked up the fact that suddenly stopping would have made her suicidal.
Three things were re-enforced for me:
1) Yes Google is only as good as the researcher. Using Google to find a specialist site is probably one of the better ways to go. Thing is you have to learn some of the lingo and understand what you're seeing. Takes a bit of plugging away to do that.
2) The medical profession is full of arrogant tossers. The only less practical, more corrupt systems I know of are our legal and political systems. Some doctors are good despite the system. However the system encourages self serving educated idiots who take no interest in themselves (not to mention overworked perpetually tired doctors making life and death decisions). Most doctors don't take kindly to being second guessed, think they know best even when they haven't considered something properly, and think themselves above using technology to diagnose a patient. In the 21st Century the medical profession remains very 16th Century.
3) Get a good doctor and they make you better. Get a bad one and they'll take a minor problem you have and kill you with their incorrect treatment. It is entirely possible to know better than your doctor. In that case you still do need someone medically trained. Get a second or third opinion. Your life can depend on it.
She was deteriorating so quickly that I have no doubt whatsoever that had I not worked out what was wrong with my fiancee she'd have been dead within about 6 months from the time I did work it out (if not sooner). Having a search engine there to be able to research her condition was literally a life saver. Google happened to be king of the hill at the time.
If Bush would just declare these crooks to be 'cyberterrorists' and start subjecting them to extraordinary renditions and gitmo treatment, I bet his popularity would surge. And he would be doing something good for the country with his remaining two lame duck years.
Wow! I think you're actually serious. There are so many things wrong with this proposition it's scarey that a grown adult doesn't understand.
1) Confusing the issue with terrorism means you've misdiagnosed both problems. When you do that your solutions for either aren't likely to be effective or competent
2) You don't mind handing more power to a government that's demonstrated corruption.
3) Two wrongs don't make a right. Society isn't going to get BETTER if your local law enforcement throw out any semblance of propriety and misapply laws left right and centre. Society would get WORSE, as this leads to massive widescale corruption in law enforcement.
4) You're advocating gitmo - a place known for human rights violations, that if perpetrated on the US by any other government would warrant an invasion.
You suggest some great things - sting operations on cybercriminals and even have a very basic idea of how it might work. (It's not as simple as you'd suggest of course, but law enforcement may well overcome those barriers). Why not focus on those instead? Your aim is not to harm people but to protect yourself.
You're smart enough to avoid cybercriminals but so ignorant about politics and law enforcement that your ideas are dangerous. Thing is you can cure ignorance, but not stupidty. I hope that means there's hope for people like you.
With Vista being so DRM ridden and such a hog you'll never want to use it. Therefore you'll never do anything with it, and never have data to protect on it. Hell if you try to type in anything more than a couple of characters, the UI will prevent you from doing so with "security popups". The new secret weapon is MS Clippy Nazi (tm) which will come up with phrases like "I'm sorry but you appear to be entering a credit card number. Zis vil not be tolerated." and "I refuse to accept responsibility for your data" and "You entered that data over 4 weeks ago. Please call Microsoft support to reactivate your data".
Problem solved. No need for Antivirus.
...might not be the most intelligent insult you can use.
Cool putdown. Too bad the grandparent post was about Vista including IPv6 so we were talking about both. Please don't let silly things like facts or logic get in the way of a quick witted put down though....well quick is probably too strong a word.
Dear Honest Person,
I did not try to justify any illegal activity. I was clear in my condemnation of copyright infringement. Don't you dare accuse me of that. I compared theft vs copyright infringement to rape vs murder. If that's not condemnation what is? Please point to the paragraph where I said copyright infringment is justified because it isn't theft. You can't because I didn't. Your accusation is insulting to me and embarassing to you as it is proof that you're unable to make a solid logical argument.
What you don't seem to understand is that if you don't diagnose the problem correctly you have no chance of resolving or minimising it. If you had a faulty motherboard, would you call it a CPU failure and swap the CPU, then wonder why it didn't work? Why then do you expect to rid the world of software piracy (or minimise it) by calling it something that it is not. That would seem to me foolish and obtuse in the extreme.
The newer 400d has most of the features of the 30d at a much lower price (and a few of its own, like the anti-dust). If you're a beginner it's a better buy.
However if you're an absolute beginner or don't use your camera often and don't need the features of an SLR, the compacts have never been better value. What you won't get out of a compact is fast shutter speed (if you're shooting anything moving quickly like wildlife or sports, go for the DSLR), light sensititivity. With the DSLR you don't get movie mode, and though beginners can take nice shots on auto mode in good conditions, there's a lot more to master.
One other thing to consider is availability of lenses, servicing and accessories. Nikon make good cameras but I've had awful service experiences from their agents. What's worse good lenses tend to be scarce compared to say Canon. The ergonomics of the Nikon are fantastic though.
Before you buy always check out the review sites (and their forums) for the latest info. Some of the best.
http://www.dpreview.com/
http://www.steves-digicams.com/
http://www.dcresource.com/
DSLRs are still a pricey investment when you consider total cost of ownership, accessories etc. Be aware the shutters don't last forever (a few tens of thousands of shots before you need a service). Also be aware that if you want to go pro, or take razor sharp pictures you're going to have to invest big money in glass , particularly for longer focal lengths (typically a few thousand dollars though you won't have to buy it all at once - I'm still using crappy consumer lenses for this reason). Bottom line is that there's no other kind of camera that is quite so versatile particularly for action/wildlife.
DSLR advantages:
- Very versatile, flexible
- Image quality fantastic with the right lens and once you learn to use the camera
- Must have for sports/action
DSLR disadvantages:
- Only one I'm aware of with a movie mode. Don't buy a DSLR if you want to do video clips
- Price (not just purchase price of camera, but accessories, maintenance)
- Not as light weight as some of the compacts
The benefits outweigh the risks. In every great change, there will always be downsides and dissenters. It's an inevitable outcome of progress.
Risks:
- Inherent and unknown risk of new unproven OS.
- Inability to do business due to hosed OS.
- Interoperability (incompatible older files)
- Incompatible software, particularly custom software will need to be upgraded or replaced.
- Underestimation of hardware required to run new hungry OS
- Increased costs takes away from business spending to allocate new hardware, software and training.
Benefit:
- Possibly a nicer looking OS.
- New features (none of which change or contribute to business functions)
Where do I sign up? Seriously name one new thing this OS offers businesses that they don't have with XP. Please don't start with security because that's farcical. XP was more stable than 98 and refined the UI. 98 more stable than 95 and improved support for new hardware. 95 made 3.11 look like a toy. 3.11 moved you to a GUI.
Vista does what better? A 3D desktop you can flip through. Gimme a break! The desktop doesn't need improving. Improved IPv6. Not useful at this point to most businesses. 3D graphics improvements with DX10? Not needed. Most of the rest has been stripped out.
Dear Honest Person,
Your inability to distinguish between "common theft" and copyright infringement mean that not only are you an honest person but you're a FUD spreading honest simpleton.
Using something that others have toiled to make without compensating them for it may be wrong but it's not theft. Just as rape is not murder though both are wrong and abhorrent.
The article says "Put your naked pictures (not pornographic or erotic, just naked)"
This guy's been smoking OpenWeed. Your friendly local authorities might not think your privates dangling on your web page for kiddies to see are pornographic even if you don't. Besides if you put up something like this who are you kidding - you're going to w@nk at every opportunity.
Gimme a break. With my background, I have lots of respect for scientists that spend their life computer modelling. It ain't slashdot front page news, and even if that were arguable, you wouldn't know from the submission that was so badly written it should never have been accepted.
Two ACs? This is slashdot. It's probably just the one guy having a verbal w@nk.
BBC news has the story of a scientist who has been using computational models of bacteria to advance our understanding of actual bacteria
So the story is a simulation that actually simulates what it's simulating? (Isn't that what a simulation's suppose to do? Model and echo what happens in the real world)
How stimulating.
A copy of an email I wrote to my federal member of parliament. I don't have much faith that it will be acknowledged let alone acted upon.
***********
I am writing to you as my Federal representative on a matter that has caused me some concern and distress. Our household has been selected to take part in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 2006, and we were informed of this in writing roughly two weeks ago. On Monday October 23rd, an ABS employee named OMITTED came to our house and asked
my partner questions for roughly 40 minutes, and left us with diaries which must be filled out on Sunday the 29th and Monday the 30th of October. I have no issue with providing the ABS with answers to questions which are of statistical significance, and taking the time
and effort to do so accurately, however the nature of these diaries are
extremely invasive.
The diaries require that we report, in five minute increments over the entire 48 hour period the following information (quoted from the diaries):
- What was your main activity?
- Who did you do this for?
- What else were you doing at the same time?
- Where were you?
- Who was at home, or with you away from home?
The two example pages provided are very detailed and list personal main activities like "Had shower" and "Toilet". While intimacy and love making aren't explicitly included in the examples they are certainly implied since the following more mundane family activities are also listed: "Said goodbye to partner", "Dressed children", "Got kids ready for bed", "Read children a story".
I understand that this survey is compulsory under the Census and Statistics Act 1905. Section 14 provides penalties of $100 per day for refusing or failing to answer questions or fill out forms when requested to do so by the ABS unless one can cite religious beliefs. Section 10
specifically outlines the authority of the ABS to require that forms be filled out. Section 15 provides for penalties of $1000 for making false or misleading statements.
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/580/to p.htm
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/580/0/ PA000200.htm
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/580/0/ PA000210.htm
http://scaleplus.law.gov.au/html/pasteact/1/580/0/ PA000160.htm
I have also been reading documentation on the ABS web site that household surveys can be done anonymously and that I am not required to provide my name. Documentation we were provided with also states that we are not forced to give the ABS staff member our names, nor allow entry into our home. However the ABS staff member did ask for first names, and the diary my partner and I have been provided with clearly includes our first names on the front page. When I called the number listed on the Time Use Survey documentation and asked how I could remove my name, I was told that my only option was to scratch it out. I was also
explicitly told to leave all other information (which in connection with an address easily identifies me) in tact. Please see question 2 in the link below:
http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/d3310114.nsf/4a25 6353001af3ed4b2562b760d9c9fca2571060079d60a!OpenDo cument
The information I have collected certainly seems to indicate that to
comply with the law those included in the survey must provide detailed information on a wide gamut of things of a very personal nature including intimate dealings with others. Until recently I had no idea that a citizen not convicted or su
Nice piece of science fiction but the reality is there are orders of magnitude more things that can be done writing new pieces of code from scratch than just combining existing ones. People paying for the software tend to make sometimes ridiculous demands on customisation of everything from look and feel to algorithms for doing the actual work for everything from transaction processing, science or graphics. Therefore new snippets will continually need to be coded.
What we're talking about here is the reuse of libraries. It's actually good practice to find a library and use a tested piece of code if you're doing something, than to go out and re-write it from scratch. My experience is that most developers are bad at searching for and reusing code from their own projects let alone from some vast archive (aka the Internet). The tools and processes in place for finding code that you can trust and that does what you want are so poor that at present we're far from even this level of reuse. Hell coders keep re-writing string handling routines that exist aplenty. But where do I find test cases and results for the existing libraries that I can examine. The quality of the libraries varies widely by language and area of functionality. If I trust the libraries I end up writing code that doesn't work and cop flak for it.
For example nothing wrong with Java String handling, but have you ever tried to use the standard date parsing routines. Hint: Even with lenient=false it does try to guess what you've meant to enter if you enter something that's close to being a real date. If you want to reject incorrect input, you've got to write it yourself. This isn't an excercise in Java bashing - every language has areas of weakness in the libraries - but it does explain why programmers often prefer to write it themselves. Even if they do decide to reuse, if they're not careful to retest the algorithms, they are taking big risks in terms of getting working functionality at the end of the day.