How nice would it be to goto a bar... and select your drink and you get it in 10 seconds.
However, this would be illegal or unwise in states where the bar owner is assumed to have liability for the actions of overly inebriated persons. Half of bartending school is how to recognize and handle customers who have had too much. Sad but true, in our litigious society.
Not to mention that you're a cheap bastard for not wanting to tip:-).
... rocks! It's gotta be one of the best amusement parks in America. I went there while in Ohio for a family reunion a couple of years ago and I had a great time. The lines sucked (as they do in all of these places) and stuff was overpriced (again, as they do in all of these places), but that's pretty much expected. The great thing was the variety of rides (unexpected) and the location (Sanduski, Ohio) of the place (also unusual). All I know is that I had a great time there and you could do worse for finding a day of rides.
if a company is willing to replace a damaged DVD--assuming they're the ones eating the shipping cost--then what would a buyer need to make backup copies
Out of print releases. Most companies will not make a new run of media (even for a "backup service") once an item goes out of print. Give me a guarantee that you'll allow me to get the bits 100 years from now, after my cherished DVD, bequeathed to my son, and given to his grandson has been scratched and then I'll accept the argument. Also, you better be willing to give me a DVD player once the technology goes obsolete. As long as I'm paying obscene amounts for the information, I want access to the information.
Most people don't need a Porsche either, but I sure as hell enjoy mine.
Yeah, but this isn't a Porsche - it's a tricked out '57 Chevy Coupe with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror. If you really want to drive that kind of clown car, I got true symapthy for you.
Maybe, but it would also remove a source of assurance. Doctors are human, too; sometimes they prescribe in error. Pharmacists are there to double-check prescriptions and dosages.
I assume that there will still be a human in the loop to check the prescription. With luck, that human will be able to do more checking and less counting.
Electronic prescription systems, incidentally, increase rates of error rather than decreasing them. It's a lot easier to type a "2" instead of a "3" than to write a prescription incorrectly in longhand.
And that's why well-designed systems of this type have checks built in to make sure that too much/little is not prescribed, drugs prescribed match the diagnosis, drugs in the proper form are prescribed, etc.
they make their cash off of services and support for overpriced hardware.
Overpriced? With respect to what measure? Most of the people who use IBM hardware do so because they can't find alternatives that provide the stability and service provided with an IBM solution. When you get me a PC platform where I can hot swap memory modules and CPUs we can talk. Plus make sure that the OS that it's running supports such usage. Self monitoring so that I don't have 75% of my scheduled jobs crashing before I found out CPU 3 has crashed would be nice, too. People who use these machines might find them overpriced if you want to talk MIPS, but most have other, very rational reasons to use these machines.
they never *did* license or sell the graphical environment or mouse technologies.
Wrong. Xerox's technology was licensed to many companies including, but not limited to Apple, Tektronix, and HP. The generic term "window" was in common use WRT computers screens in the early 80's, used by workstation vendors such as Masscomp, Ridge, Tektronix, Apollo, and Sun Microsystems. Besides, it means NOTHING that Xerox made no money from the technology. The only thing that matters is that the term was in common use well before Microsoft appropriated the name.
That being said, it's still possible that the judge might rule that the term was in specialized use previously and that "Windows" as a generic term only entered the consumer marketplace as a result of Microsoft's use of that name for their product and, therefore, Microsoft owns the right to use that name in the consumer OS space. I'm not sure that I, were I a judge, would want to go out that particular limb, but it does give MS an out WRT the name.
Not likely. You ain't gonna be able to snip the sensor wires without some consequence. This ain't like ripping the polution control equipment off of a '72 Mustang. You won't be able to remove the sensors without the ECM screaming bloody murder and disabling the auto after a while. If you're good at figuring out what code the ECM is using, you might be able to disable the checks in software - at least until they start encrypting the code in the ECM ROM's. Bottom line, a car is more a set of sensors and actuators on wheels these days, all controlled by your friend "software". Good luck, but I think the days of being able to randomly remove parts is numbered.
It's a large and messy framework made with no understandable purpose other than "making another Java", therefore it's mental masturbation squared (because Java design is mental masturbation -- all its original goals are either abandoned or became irrelevant at the moment when semi-usable implementation was released).
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I have to take issue with the above statement as a response to the original statement about the CLI.
The.NET framework may be messy, bloated, and obtuse, but the CLI is MUCH better than the JVM. The people who originally did the CLI put more thought and time into it than the two weeks (or so it seems) the Oak team spent in doing the JVM. It has a lot more functionality and a much cleaner and language-independent structure. Downtalk the.NET Framework all you want, but the CLI is a good piece of engineering.
Is there going to come a point where we will not actually own anything, merely own a license to use it?
Read the book The Age of Access by Jeremy Rifkin. His contention is that, unless we do something about this in a legal sense, the answer is "Yes". It's a good polemic and has some good ideas about what to do about this.
does anyone have any idea what this "new level of abstraction" might be?
Lisp.
There's even been an OS built in the language. Seemed to work just fine. Problem was, that in those days, you needed special purpose hardware to run a Lisp-based OS on. You don't anymore, but the code has been lost to people who could do something useful with it in the mist of time and bankruptcy. Google for Genera and OpenGenera. Hint - once the base code is built into the system, you cannot have buffer overflows, uncaught exceptions, or uncaught arithmetic overflows. It's a good environment (as I can attest, having it running on my Symbolics Lisp Machine at home).
Oh yeah, they have a great OO database, decent graphics, and all of the web crap you'll ever need, too.
The push for a one-size-fits-all desktop based on KDE/GNOME means that it is getting incresingly hard to administer a system that does not use either of those.
Real users use xterm for eveything:-).
I don't know about doing admin for desktop systems, but using the system as a server hsn't changed much. As far as systems go, I use a mix of RH 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 and I have a couple of Debian unstable distros for fun. I have KDE on some of them, Gnome on others and to be honest, I don't usually notice much difference. My main issue with RH is the odd placement of some config files. So it goes... Life's too short to bitch about desktops.
Re:I wonder how much of this is quality . . .
on
Critics Pan Nemesis
·
· Score: 2
Really? What? I've read all the plays...
If you really suffered through Coriolanus, I actually feel sorry for you...
Speaking as an engineer, I thank God for those individuals who pursue science for its own sake, who publish openly and forthrightly, and who make the world, in the long run, a better place. In industry, the *few* scientists who are actually allowed to do reasearch are usually so overworked trying to find the next profit center that they don't have time to actually find much that's an actual breakthrough. Science, like evolution, happens in bouts of puctuated equilibrium. The spikes in progress come from those few moments when some poor sap has time to make sure his brilliant new ideas are right before publishing them. In undustrial research labs, there isn't the time to do that.
My big fear is actually that - as an economically driven society - we're eating the research faster than we're making it. When the research runs out, there won't be any more engineering breakthroughs based on it and the economic wheels will grind to a halt. This is why I don't begrudge the scientists the pittance that the federal government hands out to them. The bottom line is that it's economic security for all of us.
P.S. Did you ever consider that the biologist working on the mating habits of fruit fies might be doing research that might lead to a breakthrough that could stop insects from breeding so much and save billions of dollars in crop damage? How about if his work led to a way to increase breeding rates in hard-to-grow crops? Or a way to get onco-rats to breed more quickly? If you really are a science major, I'd suggest you get a clue soon. Otherwise, you're likely to be trapped in a career that you are seriously non-suited for. Especially if you don't see the value in pure research.
You mean you are using a Thinkpad "i Series" (note the space) laptop. This is not a trivial distinction! A true IBM iSeries laptop would be quite a thing to have (even if it were not what you were expecting)!
I work for a large software company and we had a similar discussion about removal of functionality. Given the discussion we had, I think that you might very well have grounds for a class action suit, regardless of the EULAs you agreed to. I'd look INTU IT (ha ha), if I were you.
in either 2 or 6 years someone other than Bush will be in office
So? The Repubs don't have the balls or desire to stop the juggernaut they've created. The Demos don't have the guts to stand up and say that this was all a mistake and none of the Libs or Repubs would vote for them if they did. And the Greens and Libs don't have a chance in hell to field anyone who'd win. I mourn for my country and fear that it must soon be only my country of origin.
The application... will crash and burn like any other application.
People who write mission critical apps for mainframes program differently. They wear both belts and suspenders in their code. They do precise error condition tracking and recording and when the app does crash, they make sure that the data was not corrupted so it can restart. They test for months (hell, years) before putting new versions into production. They basically program as if reliability is their number 1 priority - because it is - forsaking speed, code cleverness, memory space, anything that would get in the way of targeting less than 30 s. of downtime per year or better. Oh yeah, it makes development slower, too. That's the hardest thing about developing reliable software - the pace is different. Shipping tomorrow, but sacrificing reliability, will kill you in this market. A lot of PC folk don't understand that. Software written for these environments are built like tanks. They may not be pretty and they may not get you there as fast, but the will get you there come Hell or high water. And that's why people still use these systems - not hardware, not software - but combined systems of the two.
Slashdot Mirror
However, this would be illegal or unwise in states where the bar owner is assumed to have liability for the actions of overly inebriated persons. Half of bartending school is how to recognize and handle customers who have had too much. Sad but true, in our litigious society.
Not to mention that you're a cheap bastard for not wanting to tip :-).
... rocks! It's gotta be one of the best amusement parks in America. I went there while in Ohio for a family reunion a couple of years ago and I had a great time. The lines sucked (as they do in all of these places) and stuff was overpriced (again, as they do in all of these places), but that's pretty much expected. The great thing was the variety of rides (unexpected) and the location (Sanduski, Ohio) of the place (also unusual). All I know is that I had a great time there and you could do worse for finding a day of rides.
Out of print releases. Most companies will not make a new run of media (even for a "backup service") once an item goes out of print. Give me a guarantee that you'll allow me to get the bits 100 years from now, after my cherished DVD, bequeathed to my son, and given to his grandson has been scratched and then I'll accept the argument. Also, you better be willing to give me a DVD player once the technology goes obsolete. As long as I'm paying obscene amounts for the information, I want access to the information.
Yeah, but this isn't a Porsche - it's a tricked out '57 Chevy Coupe with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror. If you really want to drive that kind of clown car, I got true symapthy for you.
I'd think of the Apple line as a Porsche.
I assume that there will still be a human in the loop to check the prescription. With luck, that human will be able to do more checking and less counting.
Electronic prescription systems, incidentally, increase rates of error rather than decreasing them. It's a lot easier to type a "2" instead of a "3" than to write a prescription incorrectly in longhand.
And that's why well-designed systems of this type have checks built in to make sure that too much/little is not prescribed, drugs prescribed match the diagnosis, drugs in the proper form are prescribed, etc.
You're asking the wrong crowd, dude. They'd probably try to whip out their Linux Business Card to impress them!
As for hair, I take comfort in knowing that Dr. Evil doesn't need hair when he has his Sharks with Lasers(TM).
Overpriced? With respect to what measure? Most of the people who use IBM hardware do so because they can't find alternatives that provide the stability and service provided with an IBM solution. When you get me a PC platform where I can hot swap memory modules and CPUs we can talk. Plus make sure that the OS that it's running supports such usage. Self monitoring so that I don't have 75% of my scheduled jobs crashing before I found out CPU 3 has crashed would be nice, too. People who use these machines might find them overpriced if you want to talk MIPS, but most have other, very rational reasons to use these machines.
Wrong. Xerox's technology was licensed to many companies including, but not limited to Apple, Tektronix, and HP. The generic term "window" was in common use WRT computers screens in the early 80's, used by workstation vendors such as Masscomp, Ridge, Tektronix, Apollo, and Sun Microsystems. Besides, it means NOTHING that Xerox made no money from the technology. The only thing that matters is that the term was in common use well before Microsoft appropriated the name.
That being said, it's still possible that the judge might rule that the term was in specialized use previously and that "Windows" as a generic term only entered the consumer marketplace as a result of Microsoft's use of that name for their product and, therefore, Microsoft owns the right to use that name in the consumer OS space. I'm not sure that I, were I a judge, would want to go out that particular limb, but it does give MS an out WRT the name.
Not likely. You ain't gonna be able to snip the sensor wires without some consequence. This ain't like ripping the polution control equipment off of a '72 Mustang. You won't be able to remove the sensors without the ECM screaming bloody murder and disabling the auto after a while. If you're good at figuring out what code the ECM is using, you might be able to disable the checks in software - at least until they start encrypting the code in the ECM ROM's. Bottom line, a car is more a set of sensors and actuators on wheels these days, all controlled by your friend "software". Good luck, but I think the days of being able to randomly remove parts is numbered.
Oh, I don't know... North Korea, Iran, Iraq? That's about the only ones I can think of, though...
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I have to take issue with the above statement as a response to the original statement about the CLI.
The .NET framework may be messy, bloated, and obtuse, but the CLI is MUCH better than the JVM. The people who originally did the CLI put more thought and time into it than the two weeks (or so it seems) the Oak team spent in doing the JVM. It has a lot more functionality and a much cleaner and language-independent structure. Downtalk the .NET Framework all you want, but the CLI is a good piece of engineering.
Read the book The Age of Access by Jeremy Rifkin. His contention is that, unless we do something about this in a legal sense, the answer is "Yes". It's a good polemic and has some good ideas about what to do about this.
In that case, you might as well list this (at least for the Slashdot crowd :-)...
Lisp.
There's even been an OS built in the language. Seemed to work just fine. Problem was, that in those days, you needed special purpose hardware to run a Lisp-based OS on. You don't anymore, but the code has been lost to people who could do something useful with it in the mist of time and bankruptcy. Google for Genera and OpenGenera. Hint - once the base code is built into the system, you cannot have buffer overflows, uncaught exceptions, or uncaught arithmetic overflows. It's a good environment (as I can attest, having it running on my Symbolics Lisp Machine at home).
Oh yeah, they have a great OO database, decent graphics, and all of the web crap you'll ever need, too.
Real users use xterm for eveything :-).
I don't know about doing admin for desktop systems, but using the system as a server hsn't changed much. As far as systems go, I use a mix of RH 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 and I have a couple of Debian unstable distros for fun. I have KDE on some of them, Gnome on others and to be honest, I don't usually notice much difference. My main issue with RH is the odd placement of some config files. So it goes... Life's too short to bitch about desktops.
If you really suffered through Coriolanus, I actually feel sorry for you...
Speaking as an engineer, I thank God for those individuals who pursue science for its own sake, who publish openly and forthrightly, and who make the world, in the long run, a better place. In industry, the *few* scientists who are actually allowed to do reasearch are usually so overworked trying to find the next profit center that they don't have time to actually find much that's an actual breakthrough. Science, like evolution, happens in bouts of puctuated equilibrium. The spikes in progress come from those few moments when some poor sap has time to make sure his brilliant new ideas are right before publishing them. In undustrial research labs, there isn't the time to do that.
My big fear is actually that - as an economically driven society - we're eating the research faster than we're making it. When the research runs out, there won't be any more engineering breakthroughs based on it and the economic wheels will grind to a halt. This is why I don't begrudge the scientists the pittance that the federal government hands out to them. The bottom line is that it's economic security for all of us.
P.S. Did you ever consider that the biologist working on the mating habits of fruit fies might be doing research that might lead to a breakthrough that could stop insects from breeding so much and save billions of dollars in crop damage? How about if his work led to a way to increase breeding rates in hard-to-grow crops? Or a way to get onco-rats to breed more quickly? If you really are a science major, I'd suggest you get a clue soon. Otherwise, you're likely to be trapped in a career that you are seriously non-suited for. Especially if you don't see the value in pure research.
So might your Athlon, son... So might your Athlon.
You mean you are using a Thinkpad "i Series" (note the space) laptop. This is not a trivial distinction! A true IBM iSeries laptop would be quite a thing to have (even if it were not what you were expecting)!
Yeah! And we had to share our bathrooms with dinosaurs! Uphill! Both ways!
I work for a large software company and we had a similar discussion about removal of functionality. Given the discussion we had, I think that you might very well have grounds for a class action suit, regardless of the EULAs you agreed to. I'd look INTU IT (ha ha), if I were you.
So? The Repubs don't have the balls or desire to stop the juggernaut they've created. The Demos don't have the guts to stand up and say that this was all a mistake and none of the Libs or Repubs would vote for them if they did. And the Greens and Libs don't have a chance in hell to field anyone who'd win. I mourn for my country and fear that it must soon be only my country of origin.
Marketing guy: Great! So we have Michael Jackson as a customer. Who else are we going to sell this thing to?
**RIMSHOT**
Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week!
People who write mission critical apps for mainframes program differently. They wear both belts and suspenders in their code. They do precise error condition tracking and recording and when the app does crash, they make sure that the data was not corrupted so it can restart. They test for months (hell, years) before putting new versions into production. They basically program as if reliability is their number 1 priority - because it is - forsaking speed, code cleverness, memory space, anything that would get in the way of targeting less than 30 s. of downtime per year or better. Oh yeah, it makes development slower, too. That's the hardest thing about developing reliable software - the pace is different. Shipping tomorrow, but sacrificing reliability, will kill you in this market. A lot of PC folk don't understand that. Software written for these environments are built like tanks. They may not be pretty and they may not get you there as fast, but the will get you there come Hell or high water. And that's why people still use these systems - not hardware, not software - but combined systems of the two.
Hey now! Be fair! He's pardoned two turkeys (one each Thanksgiving) since he's been in the White House.
But, then again, I guess that's not every day...