I could see anti-social people being attracted to tech, but I'd think the loneliness, depression and negativity are more likely a product.
In my job, I can either go in to my (fairly social) office, or work at home (shuttered away with just a computer), pretty much at my option. At the office, people walked in every 5 minutes with some question or other. I couldn't get anything done. So I took to working from home almost all the time, and people would e-mail me questions (but not with nearly the frequency). Got huge amounts done, but almost went batty. From that experience, I'd say the article is right on. Now I work from home about a third of the time. But even when I'm at the office, I make it clear that if you want me to actually deal with something important, email me. (If you need a fourth for a foosball game, walk on in!)
Blah! Count me for a death threat. On second thought just a maiming.
Any time someone walks into my office with something they've obviously just printed out (frequently a 3 word error message) the first thing out of my mouth is "Could you email that to me?"
If it's on paper, I can't manipulate it, and in any case, I'll lose it.
"You're one of those people who believes you should follow every law to the letter, and just get it changed if you don't like it (but continue to adhere to it while working for change)."
Depends on the law. I too do not necessarily follow laws I consider unjust or stupid. I too would oppose the government monitoring my (or anyones) every move just in case we break the law. So we're really not that far apart here.
My original point was simply that I don't think the fact that a technology could possibly be used to make it harder for you to break the law is a very persuasive argument against that technology.
My further point that came up as the thread went on is that I hate arguments for non-enforcement. Where I live they ocasionally use photo-radar that snaps your picture if you're doing 10 miles over the limit. So some people got together and voted through an ordinace so that when they use it they have to put up these giant orange signs saying "Warning: Photo Radar Ahead". This is stupid. They should put one up just past the van that says "End Photo Radar: Resume Reckless Speed". The people who put that ordinance through should have lobbied to up all the speed limits. Really low levels of enforcement for certain laws breeds disrespect for even good laws, discriminatory enforcement, and stupid laws.
Monitoring of citizens every move just in case they break the law is bad bad bad. Focused monitoring that only detects anything when someone does break the law (such as photo radar) sounds good to me. I think several of the speed limits near me are too low. I can think of nothing that would get others to care enough to vote about it as quickly as consistant enforcement. Instead we all just break the law. Occasionally one of us randomly gets a fine (but probably not if you're a cute girl or a good talker, and more frequently if you're a minority). A photo radar rig that was up all the time, and no big signs, would fix the selective enforcement immediately, and the too low limit next election day.
Right. So reconcile that with the fact that you say you send "documents" (letters) by FedEx, UPS or courier. Anything I can send by first class mail, I can also send by FedEx or UPS (for many times the cost). A guy on my street even has a box in front of his house labeled "UPS". Right next to his USPS mailbox. So what the hell are you talking about?
"I hung up and called my sales rep. Nine times out of ten, that gets me the support I need."
Bingo. I don't even bother calling tech support for my home system. I know it's just going to be hours on hold and not fix the problem. At work I've got a simple script: Call tech support. Anytime five minutes go by without any apparent advance toward a solution or at least a diagnosis, just hang up on them and call the sales contact. The tech support guy is getting paid the same if he fixes my problem or not, and is directed to follow a script. The salesperson has his commission on a future sale to me at risk, and is directed to keep me happy.
As far as interface performance or memory footprint, I guess I wouldn't know, work keeps me on a pretty hot machine. I certainly haven't even thought about disk space used in the last several years. How much did it grow as a fraction of the 100 Gig drive that was standard when I got XP?
"Remote Desktop is nice but VNC under W2K is fine and you don't have to purchase Terminal Server CALs to make it work"
What are Terminal Server CALs? I just got a stock XP box as far as I know, and from any Win98+ box on the net I can connect to my work box. Even on my utra-lame box at home, it's indisinguisable from actually sitting at my desk (no interuptions from those pesky coworkers though). I don't know if VNC was equivalent, in any case I don't think I had it installed by default. I say it changed my life because previously I had only PCAnywhere, which is fine for brief tasks, but the delay on every screen update was just too much for actually working that way. Now it just doesn't matter if I'm in the office or my living room.
I've never needed to rollback (or otherwise think about) a driver. I'm guessing you're on older hardware, (or at least older than XP) which accounts for the difference in our experience. Good performance on less-than-latest hardware has certainly never been a strength of any Windows flavor.
"No, because NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO. The only thing the USPS will pick up from you (maybe, though good luck actually getting them to come within one hundred yards of your actual physical door) is a letter. They have a government mandated monopoly on delivering them. Period, full stop."
"I, too, send close to zero letters through the USPS and always have.... Documents are... couriered, sent Fed Ex or UPS,..."
Exactly what definition of "monopoly" are we dealing with here?
"WinXP is a step backward after Windows 2000 Professional"
How? It's not much different, once you set the desktop theme back to "classic" or whatever it's called. There's a bunch of minor tweaks, but I can only think of one I don't like. (The Services control panel defaults to a view that sucks down a bunch of extra screen real estate for no good reason, and I can't see how to make it default to the other way; hardly a show-stopper) And Remote Desktop has changed my life (OK, not radically, but a little). Anyway, I'm curious why you think it's a step backward. A fairly small step forward I'd agree with, but how backward?
Yeah those stamp rates are really exorbitant. All they do is come to your house, pick up a note, and take it anywhere in the country in a few days. I mean, that sounds pretty good, but do you realize what they charge for that? Thirty-Seven Cents! Where am I supposed to get that kind of money? Do they think I can just dig that out from behind my sofa cushions or something?
Can you name a private carrier who will deliver to every single US address, and who will pick up anything for under a dollar? The USPS is not a private business. They can't change their rates without jumping through more hoops than a circus tiger, and yet on average they come pretty close to breaking even, which is all they're supposed to do.
I was once a contractor working at USPS Headquarters (Damn you for making me think about that hell, by the way). The level of management inanity was just stupefying; made Dilbert look like a picnic. It seemed to largely stem from the fact that actual USPS employees were virtually impossible to fire. They could do massive layoffs based on senority, then create a new department just to handle the lawsuits. But they couldn't let someone go for say, incompetence, or for just playing solitaire all day, not even pretending to try to get any work done.
Anyway, the USPS certainly has the problems of any massive organization, and then some, but the stamp rates seem to stay shockingly reasonable.
"I send just as many paper letters now as I did before the advent of e-mail, which is none" How did you pay your bills? Or apply for jobs? Or move documents to remote business associates?Would I be right in guessing you weren't old enough to do these things before the advent of e-mail?
"First off, there is more to safety than crime. There is also running your car into an embankment because it is too dark to see anything"
Which is why cars are equipped with those lovely headlight things. A fine example of purpose lighting provided when and where needed, as opposed to spamming light all over just in case someone might need to see something.
As for the nuclear power plant, it's still really a steam plant, so just like the coal plant, why exactly does the steam have to be routed through turbines, or those turbines connected to anything?
"Um, the other difference is that we were designed to sleep during the night, not during the day"
Right. But my point is, "day" and "night" are just names for "the time with natural light" and "the time without natural light". Nightshift workers sleep is not disrupted, it just happens at a different time.
"Aside from the obvious safety factor of light at night"
The supposed link between streelights and less crime is discussed and dismissed in the article.
"streetlights are absolutely CRITICAL to the operation of a modern power grid. Generators require a certain load on them to release generated electricity. The plants CAN NOT be turned down low when it gets to be night with no demand"
That's just insane. Of course the amount of power being produced can be controlled. Power consumption goes way down at night even with the streetlights in any case, and fluctuates widely from morning through evening.
"You cant slow down a nuclear reaction" Of course you can. In fact you must constantly regulate the reaction is you want to have a power plant and not a bomb.
"you cant let a coal plant cool down because it needs to operate constantly at a minimum temperature." I don't know a lot about coal plants, but lets assume you're right (which seems awfully unlikely at this point). So you have to keep the coal fire burning at a certain temperature. Why exactly do you need to keep dumping water in the boiler, or routing the steam through turbines, or keep those turbines connected to generators?
"Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer." Before you tell me I've been trolled (which I suspect) some one slap around the guy who gave this an Informative a little bit.
"I don't buy that particular arguement since its probably caused by the person inverting they sleep schedule, not being exposed to light"
Inverting their sleep schedule relative to what exactly? They work at night and sleep during the day. And this seems to increase their cancer risk. If I had to guess, I'd say it was due to some difference between night and the day. I'm trying to think of all the differences between day and night, but I only come up with one biggie. Why exactly do you think light isn't a factor?
"So, you can be the first to have the transmitter placed on you."
No thanks. As I said, there are plenty of worrisome things about it making easier to track people. I just don't think "I might get caught speeding" is a persuasive argument.
"Accidentally hit 56mph in a 55 yesterday? Your $130 fine will be in the mail."
The example was 91. But for the sake of argument lets say the police put up photo-radar all over the place, so if you ever went even one mph over the limit (note that word: "limit") you got a hefty fine in the mail. What do you think would happen? I think people would become very aware of how fast they were driving. Many would drive a bit slower than the limit to avoid "accidents". But people would also actively lobby to have limits set to reasonable values, rather than just ignoring the limits.
"Accelerate too fast from that stop sign? Change lanes without signaling? Talk on your phone while driving?" By themselves, none of these are illegal.
"as a lawbreaker, you deserve to get fined." Yes. Absolutely. As someone who disagrees with a particular law, you should fight it in court or in the legislature, and get it changed. Then we can have good laws, and you won't need to argue for preventing effective enforcement, which just teaches everyone to try to get away with it.
"In fact, they are lucky to get 1 or 2 people out of a massive group (per police car)."
Which is too bad. If the entire group is breaking the law, they all deserve to get fined.
"You're personal opinion on how someone drives is irrelevant"
But the law is not irrelevant. Speeding is illegal. Look, there are plenty of worrisome things about people becoming more trackable, but when you're argument is "I won't be able to get away with speeding!", I say "Great!".
In any case, if you're using any sort of wireless communication device and you imagine you can't be easily tracked by anyone willing to put forth the effort, you're deluding yourself.
Well it's not to India, but the ~40 person company I work for has all us developer types in Colorado and everything else (Sales, Marketing, Management, Customer service) in California. It basically rocks. We're more productive than any other dev team I've been part of. I think I attended a meeting last month, but it might have been the month before...
But why exactly? Just because it's electrified and expensive?
The Segway may be a niftier gadget, but on my roller blades I'll:
- be faster
- be more manueverable
- be able to climb stairs (carefully)
- be able to throw my transportaion gear in a backpack weighing just a few pounds
- have my hand free
- have thousands of extra dollars
- be in better shape
I can't come up with a single advantage for the Segway over rollerblades (well, ok, it has breaks, but hey, got to keep life interesting) and I certainly don't see how it comes anywhere close to being as useful as a bike. Even compared to a conventional powered scooter, the only advantage is less length, which seems little to get in exchange for cutting your speed by a factor of four and not being able to carry a passenger or cargo.
"download time doesn't cost you money - you're still paying $20/month"
It costs the ISP money, and they presumably pass the cost on to me.
"the email download volume is a lot less than your web surfing volume"
Not even close. Just because you don't have a spam problem doesn't mean others don't.
I should not have to change my habits in any way so that someone can send me adds for penis enlargement at my or my ISPs expense.
"the spam level on my personal email account has grown, but it's still less than my routine work email"
This is the crux of why you don't see the problem. My work communications are almost entirely by email, yet my spam volume is several hundred times larger than my non-spam volume. Without filtering software email would be an unusable medium for me. My filters take out more than 95%, but that means that of the email I have to actually read the subject of and hit delete, less than 1 in 10 is non-spam. I could not begin to search the mail marked as spam for false positives. The situation is getting worse at an alarming rate. Please don't tell me spam isn't really a problem.
I have no idea, becasue I don't know what SSH is beyond a vauge belief that it stands for "Secure Shell". Feel free to laugh if I'm wrong. I'd imagine this means the answer to your question is one of the following:
A) No, because you're asking if I can do something the Linux way, but I'm on Windows where I do something equivalent the Windows way.
B) Yes, but I don't have to know or care that that is what's happening in the background.
C) Either Yes or No, but I don't know because I've never wanted to, but I would want to if I knew what cool thing I could do with that capability.
I'm actually curious which of these it is, so if anyone knows, speak up. If you think the answer is C, please try to explain the advantage in a way a poor Windows lUser like me can understand. (You know, small words...:)
All I know is when the file open dialog comes up I can type//server/path/filename and it will open the file if I have rights to do so. If I don't it will pop up a login dialog so I can connect to the remote machine with an Id that does have enough rights.
I'd be happy to. Right after the poster I replied to does. You did of course read the post I was replying to so you'd have a clue what I was talking about before responding right?
Sounds cool. Of course, I was replying to someone who was citing the ability to open a remote file in a single aplication as one of the reasons he gets much more work done on Linux than Windows. I didn't mean to imply you couldn't do the same on other systems.
In any case, I don't know Suns at all, but I think the relevant example would be opening a file that is remote relative to your local filesystem. In your case it sounds like your "local" filesystem is spread across a lot of servers. That's nifty, but can you open a file from outside that filesystem from the standard file dialog?
"What's wrong with waiting 30 seconds or a minute to download a bunch spam, as long as you don't have to see it ?"
The same thing that is wrong with waiting 3 seconds, 3 hours, or 3 days. It is my time, it is my money paying for the bandwidth. They are forcing me to pay to receive things I don't want. And with your 30sec-1min estimate you're also falling for the fallacy of assuming your spam volume is everyones. If I were on a slow dialup, spam would make it unusable.
Imagine the highway you drove to work on became a toll road. At the toll booth, you have to pay a quarter. This money is used to pay not for the road, but for a whole ton of leaflets advertising things you don't want, which are available at the toll booth. Would you be satisfied if the toll booth operator explained "Well it's only a quarter, and you don't have to take any leaflets, what's the problem"
IIRC: They weren't in the ultra-super-early compilers. They were added almost imediately by every copiler vendor worth mentioning, and were in just about the first draft of the standard. The standard commitee took basically forever hammering out other obscure details, so C++ wasn't an official ANSI standard until recently. So if you're talking the accepted standard, everything was non-standard until a year or two ago. If you're talking the draft and/or de-facto standard, you were right 20 years ago...
I'm not sure anything can be a good thing in VB, since it being in VB implies the existance of VB...
I'd say that's a perfect example of where exceptions are apropriate. You have a simple function (authenticate) that returns a simple value. If it can't return that simple value, it needs to alert the caller, and pass back an entirely different type of information.
Also, if the code that knows what to do if that exception occurs is several levels up the call stack or a several blocks scopes out, you don't need to write code at every level checking for the error and passing it along.
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I could see anti-social people being attracted to tech, but I'd think the loneliness, depression and negativity are more likely a product.
In my job, I can either go in to my (fairly social) office, or work at home (shuttered away with just a computer), pretty much at my option. At the office, people walked in every 5 minutes with some question or other. I couldn't get anything done. So I took to working from home almost all the time, and people would e-mail me questions (but not with nearly the frequency). Got huge amounts done, but almost went batty. From that experience, I'd say the article is right on. Now I work from home about a third of the time. But even when I'm at the office, I make it clear that if you want me to actually deal with something important, email me. (If you need a fourth for a foosball game, walk on in!)
Blah! Count me for a death threat. On second thought just a maiming.
Any time someone walks into my office with something they've obviously just printed out (frequently a 3 word error message) the first thing out of my mouth is "Could you email that to me?"
If it's on paper, I can't manipulate it, and in any case, I'll lose it.
"You're one of those people who believes you should follow every law to the letter, and just get it changed if you don't like it (but continue to adhere to it while working for change)."
Depends on the law. I too do not necessarily follow laws I consider unjust or stupid. I too would oppose the government monitoring my (or anyones) every move just in case we break the law. So we're really not that far apart here.
My original point was simply that I don't think the fact that a technology could possibly be used to make it harder for you to break the law is a very persuasive argument against that technology.
My further point that came up as the thread went on is that I hate arguments for non-enforcement. Where I live they ocasionally use photo-radar that snaps your picture if you're doing 10 miles over the limit. So some people got together and voted through an ordinace so that when they use it they have to put up these giant orange signs saying "Warning: Photo Radar Ahead". This is stupid. They should put one up just past the van that says "End Photo Radar: Resume Reckless Speed". The people who put that ordinance through should have lobbied to up all the speed limits.
Really low levels of enforcement for certain laws breeds disrespect for even good laws, discriminatory enforcement, and stupid laws.
Monitoring of citizens every move just in case they break the law is bad bad bad. Focused monitoring that only detects anything when someone does break the law (such as photo radar) sounds good to me. I think several of the speed limits near me are too low. I can think of nothing that would get others to care enough to vote about it as quickly as consistant enforcement. Instead we all just break the law. Occasionally one of us randomly gets a fine (but probably not if you're a cute girl or a good talker, and more frequently if you're a minority).
A photo radar rig that was up all the time, and no big signs, would fix the selective enforcement immediately, and the too low limit next election day.
Right. So reconcile that with the fact that you say you send "documents" (letters) by FedEx, UPS or courier.
Anything I can send by first class mail, I can also send by FedEx or UPS (for many times the cost). A guy on my street even has a box in front of his house labeled "UPS". Right next to his USPS mailbox. So what the hell are you talking about?
"I hung up and called my sales rep. Nine times out of ten, that gets me the support I need."
Bingo. I don't even bother calling tech support for my home system. I know it's just going to be hours on hold and not fix the problem. At work I've got a simple script: Call tech support. Anytime five minutes go by without any apparent advance toward a solution or at least a diagnosis, just hang up on them and call the sales contact. The tech support guy is getting paid the same if he fixes my problem or not, and is directed to follow a script. The salesperson has his commission on a future sale to me at risk, and is directed to keep me happy.
As far as interface performance or memory footprint, I guess I wouldn't know, work keeps me on a pretty hot machine. I certainly haven't even thought about disk space used in the last several years. How much did it grow as a fraction of the 100 Gig drive that was standard when I got XP?
"Remote Desktop is nice but VNC under W2K is fine and you don't have to purchase Terminal Server CALs to make it work"
What are Terminal Server CALs? I just got a stock XP box as far as I know, and from any Win98+ box on the net I can connect to my work box. Even on my utra-lame box at home, it's indisinguisable from actually sitting at my desk (no interuptions from those pesky coworkers though). I don't know if VNC was equivalent, in any case I don't think I had it installed by default. I say it changed my life because previously I had only PCAnywhere, which is fine for brief tasks, but the delay on every screen update was just too much for actually working that way. Now it just doesn't matter if I'm in the office or my living room.
I've never needed to rollback (or otherwise think about) a driver. I'm guessing you're on older hardware, (or at least older than XP) which accounts for the difference in our experience. Good performance on less-than-latest hardware has certainly never been a strength of any Windows flavor.
"No, because NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO. The only thing the USPS will pick up from you (maybe, though good luck actually getting them to come within one hundred yards of your actual physical door) is a letter. They have a government mandated monopoly on delivering them. Period, full stop."
... Documents are ... couriered, sent Fed Ex or UPS, ..."
"I, too, send close to zero letters through the USPS and always have.
Exactly what definition of "monopoly" are we dealing with here?
"WinXP is a step backward after Windows 2000 Professional"
How? It's not much different, once you set the desktop theme back to "classic" or whatever it's called. There's a bunch of minor tweaks, but I can only think of one I don't like. (The Services control panel defaults to a view that sucks down a bunch of extra screen real estate for no good reason, and I can't see how to make it default to the other way; hardly a show-stopper) And Remote Desktop has changed my life (OK, not radically, but a little). Anyway, I'm curious why you think it's a step backward. A fairly small step forward I'd agree with, but how backward?
Yeah those stamp rates are really exorbitant. All they do is come to your house, pick up a note, and take it anywhere in the country in a few days. I mean, that sounds pretty good, but do you realize what they charge for that? Thirty-Seven Cents! Where am I supposed to get that kind of money? Do they think I can just dig that out from behind my sofa cushions or something?
Can you name a private carrier who will deliver to every single US address, and who will pick up anything for under a dollar? The USPS is not a private business. They can't change their rates without jumping through more hoops than a circus tiger, and yet on average they come pretty close to breaking even, which is all they're supposed to do.
I was once a contractor working at USPS Headquarters (Damn you for making me think about that hell, by the way). The level of management inanity was just stupefying; made Dilbert look like a picnic. It seemed to largely stem from the fact that actual USPS employees were virtually impossible to fire. They could do massive layoffs based on senority, then create a new department just to handle the lawsuits. But they couldn't let someone go for say, incompetence, or for just playing solitaire all day, not even pretending to try to get any work done.
Anyway, the USPS certainly has the problems of any massive organization, and then some, but the stamp rates seem to stay shockingly reasonable.
"I send just as many paper letters now as I did before the advent of e-mail, which is none"
How did you pay your bills? Or apply for jobs? Or move documents to remote business associates?Would I be right in guessing you weren't old enough to do these things before the advent of e-mail?
"First off, there is more to safety than crime. There is also running your car into an embankment because it is too dark to see anything"
Which is why cars are equipped with those lovely headlight things. A fine example of purpose lighting provided when and where needed, as opposed to spamming light all over just in case someone might need to see something.
As for the nuclear power plant, it's still really a steam plant, so just like the coal plant, why exactly does the steam have to be routed through turbines, or those turbines connected to anything?
"Um, the other difference is that we were designed to sleep during the night, not during the day"
Right. But my point is, "day" and "night" are just names for "the time with natural light" and "the time without natural light". Nightshift workers sleep is not disrupted, it just happens at a different time.
"Aside from the obvious safety factor of light at night"
The supposed link between streelights and less crime is discussed and dismissed in the article.
"streetlights are absolutely CRITICAL to the operation of a modern power grid. Generators require a certain load on them to release generated electricity. The plants CAN NOT be turned down low when it gets to be night with no demand"
That's just insane. Of course the amount of power being produced can be controlled. Power consumption goes way down at night even with the streetlights in any case, and fluctuates widely from morning through evening.
"You cant slow down a nuclear reaction"
Of course you can. In fact you must constantly regulate the reaction is you want to have a power plant and not a bomb.
"you cant let a coal plant cool down because it needs to operate constantly at a minimum temperature."
I don't know a lot about coal plants, but lets assume you're right (which seems awfully unlikely at this point). So you have to keep the coal fire burning at a certain temperature. Why exactly do you need to keep dumping water in the boiler, or routing the steam through turbines, or keep those turbines connected to generators?
"Streetlights provide that load, and make us safer."
Before you tell me I've been trolled (which I suspect) some one slap around the guy who gave this an Informative a little bit.
"I don't buy that particular arguement since its probably caused by the person inverting they sleep schedule, not being exposed to light"
Inverting their sleep schedule relative to what exactly? They work at night and sleep during the day. And this seems to increase their cancer risk. If I had to guess, I'd say it was due to some difference between night and the day. I'm trying to think of all the differences between day and night, but I only come up with one biggie. Why exactly do you think light isn't a factor?
"So, you can be the first to have the transmitter placed on you."
No thanks. As I said, there are plenty of worrisome things about it making easier to track people. I just don't think "I might get caught speeding" is a persuasive argument.
"Accidentally hit 56mph in a 55 yesterday? Your $130 fine will be in the mail."
The example was 91. But for the sake of argument lets say the police put up photo-radar all over the place, so if you ever went even one mph over the limit (note that word: "limit") you got a hefty fine in the mail. What do you think would happen? I think people would become very aware of how fast they were driving. Many would drive a bit slower than the limit to avoid "accidents". But people would also actively lobby to have limits set to reasonable values, rather than just ignoring the limits.
"Accelerate too fast from that stop sign? Change lanes without signaling? Talk on your phone while driving?"
By themselves, none of these are illegal.
"as a lawbreaker, you deserve to get fined."
Yes. Absolutely. As someone who disagrees with a particular law, you should fight it in court or in the legislature, and get it changed. Then we can have good laws, and you won't need to argue for preventing effective enforcement, which just teaches everyone to try to get away with it.
"In fact, they are lucky to get 1 or 2 people out of a massive group (per police car)."
Which is too bad. If the entire group is breaking the law, they all deserve to get fined.
"You're personal opinion on how someone drives is irrelevant"
But the law is not irrelevant. Speeding is illegal. Look, there are plenty of worrisome things about people becoming more trackable, but when you're argument is "I won't be able to get away with speeding!", I say "Great!".
In any case, if you're using any sort of wireless communication device and you imagine you can't be easily tracked by anyone willing to put forth the effort, you're deluding yourself.
Well it's not to India, but the ~40 person company I work for has all us developer types in Colorado and everything else (Sales, Marketing, Management, Customer service) in California. It basically rocks. We're more productive than any other dev team I've been part of. I think I attended a meeting last month, but it might have been the month before...
But why exactly? Just because it's electrified and expensive?
The Segway may be a niftier gadget, but on my roller blades I'll:
- be faster
- be more manueverable
- be able to climb stairs (carefully)
- be able to throw my transportaion gear in a backpack weighing just a few pounds
- have my hand free
- have thousands of extra dollars
- be in better shape
I can't come up with a single advantage for the Segway over rollerblades (well, ok, it has breaks, but hey, got to keep life interesting) and I certainly don't see how it comes anywhere close to being as useful as a bike. Even compared to a conventional powered scooter, the only advantage is less length, which seems little to get in exchange for cutting your speed by a factor of four and not being able to carry a passenger or cargo.
"download time doesn't cost you money - you're still paying $20/month"
It costs the ISP money, and they presumably pass the cost on to me.
"the email download volume is a lot less than your web surfing volume"
Not even close. Just because you don't have a spam problem doesn't mean others don't.
I should not have to change my habits in any way so that someone can send me adds for penis enlargement at my or my ISPs expense.
"the spam level on my personal email account has grown, but it's still less than my routine work email"
This is the crux of why you don't see the problem. My work communications are almost entirely by email, yet my spam volume is several hundred times larger than my non-spam volume. Without filtering software email would be an unusable medium for me. My filters take out more than 95%, but that means that of the email I have to actually read the subject of and hit delete, less than 1 in 10 is non-spam. I could not begin to search the mail marked as spam for false positives. The situation is getting worse at an alarming rate.
Please don't tell me spam isn't really a problem.
I have no idea, becasue I don't know what SSH is beyond a vauge belief that it stands for "Secure Shell". Feel free to laugh if I'm wrong. I'd imagine this means the answer to your question is one of the following:
:)
//server/path/filename and it will open the file if I have rights to do so. If I don't it will pop up a login dialog so I can connect to the remote machine with an Id that does have enough rights.
A) No, because you're asking if I can do something the Linux way, but I'm on Windows where I do something equivalent the Windows way.
B) Yes, but I don't have to know or care that that is what's happening in the background.
C) Either Yes or No, but I don't know because I've never wanted to, but I would want to if I knew what cool thing I could do with that capability.
I'm actually curious which of these it is, so if anyone knows, speak up. If you think the answer is C, please try to explain the advantage in a way a poor Windows lUser like me can understand. (You know, small words...
All I know is when the file open dialog comes up I can type
I'd be happy to. Right after the poster I replied to does. You did of course read the post I was replying to so you'd have a clue what I was talking about before responding right?
Sounds cool. Of course, I was replying to someone who was citing the ability to open a remote file in a single aplication as one of the reasons he gets much more work done on Linux than Windows. I didn't mean to imply you couldn't do the same on other systems.
In any case, I don't know Suns at all, but I think the relevant example would be opening a file that is remote relative to your local filesystem. In your case it sounds like your "local" filesystem is spread across a lot of servers. That's nifty, but can you open a file from outside that filesystem from the standard file dialog?
"What's wrong with waiting 30 seconds or a minute to download a bunch spam, as long as you don't have to see it ?"
The same thing that is wrong with waiting 3 seconds, 3 hours, or 3 days. It is my time, it is my money paying for the bandwidth. They are forcing me to pay to receive things I don't want. And with your 30sec-1min estimate you're also falling for the fallacy of assuming your spam volume is everyones. If I were on a slow dialup, spam would make it unusable.
Imagine the highway you drove to work on became a toll road. At the toll booth, you have to pay a quarter. This money is used to pay not for the road, but for a whole ton of leaflets advertising things you don't want, which are available at the toll booth. Would you be satisfied if the toll booth operator explained "Well it's only a quarter, and you don't have to take any leaflets, what's the problem"
IIRC:
They weren't in the ultra-super-early compilers. They were added almost imediately by every copiler vendor worth mentioning, and were in just about the first draft of the standard. The standard commitee took basically forever hammering out other obscure details, so C++ wasn't an official ANSI standard until recently.
So if you're talking the accepted standard, everything was non-standard until a year or two ago. If you're talking the draft and/or de-facto standard, you were right 20 years ago...
I'm not sure anything can be a good thing in VB, since it being in VB implies the existance of VB...
I'd say that's a perfect example of where exceptions are apropriate. You have a simple function (authenticate) that returns a simple value. If it can't return that simple value, it needs to alert the caller, and pass back an entirely different type of information.
Also, if the code that knows what to do if that exception occurs is several levels up the call stack or a several blocks scopes out, you don't need to write code at every level checking for the error and passing it along.
A generally excelent discussion of why exceptions are nice, but I can't let this go by:
"thank god we don't have to deal with all those result-structs of C/C++"
C++ had exceptions & try/catch blocks many years before Java existed.