I don't think not being able to walk a minimum of 18 and a possible 36 holes of a very difficult golf course comes anywhere near a moderate distance. It's damn hard, actually, and not a basic quality of life question. My parents live just fine, and in fact take care of 8-10 race horses, but neither one of them could walk 18 holes of golf. That decision was plain wrong, and as you're probably starting to see, a real hot-button with me.
Really? Then how did Casey Martin score a golf cart out of the PGA using the ADA? Playing golf, especially professional golf, is not a basic life task IMHO.
I got a kick out of the following quote from the NY Times:
January 7, 2002
The Battle of the Boxes: PC vs. TV
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 -- The rivalry between the PC and TV over which is destined to become the hearth of the home will take on new urgency on Monday when three prominent technology executives sketch out competing visions of their digital product lines.
blah blah blah... here comes the good part:
Mr. Perlman said that after Microsoft acquired WebTV for $425 million in April 1997 he had stayed and tried to refine the product until it became clear that Microsoft's principal interest was in ensuring that its Windows CE operating system was in the box rather than improving the consumer experience.
When we were kids we'd break thermometers open and play with the mercury. But, then again, we had never paid any attention to seat belts, either. Things have sure changed!
There is no shortage of mercury filled glass thermometers, and mercury is pretty bad stuff too. People even put these things in their mouths (and I hear there's another likely area as well!), so I think the comparative risk between the two is small.
I do worse than that - I pay to not receive phone calls! In a master stroke of playing both sides of the field, Ameritech happily charges me $8/mo. to filter my calls through Privacy Manager. It works well, and I'm glad I have it, but it nags at me that I have to pay them for it.
Perhaps my opinion is colored by my personal circumstances. My entire user community uses an in-house developed data entry system consisiting of ASP pages displayed in a Netscape browser. Email comes through Lotus Notes. They require little to no interaction with Office documents. In this scenario, what is the difference between Win98 and Linux: o Netscape runs on both platforms - no difference o Notes runs on both - no difference o StarOffice is as easy to use as Word/Excel for most cases - no difference
Which is easier for me to administrate: o Windows lets them install any viral or just poorly coded piece of crap they can find, Linux does not. o Windows forces me (or at least attempts to) to upgrade to new versions constantly, Linux does not. o Windows makes me purchase a new OEM license on every machine I buy, which then needs to be upgraded to an open license so I can remove it and downgrade to older Windows releases, assuming they can even be found.
The bottom line is that for the large majority of my users, the only training required is what to do with the time they used to spend dorking up Windows. Their productive work is all abstracted away from the OS by our thin-client systems.
Why should they have a new learning curve when that costs money, and they've already got a workforce that is used to products that are adequate for the tasks that need to be done?
Because staying with Windows also costs money, and lots of it! You never, ever finish buying Windows. Once you think you're done and you have all of your systems built and all of your people trained, you get caught by the forced upgrade trap. Better (IMHO) to pay for the learning curve once, get it out of the way, and proceed to budget for ongoing upgrades and enhancements on a more predictable basis because you upgrade when and if YOU want to, not when Microsoft deliberately obsoletes your entire installation whenever the hell they want to.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Or, in the context of this topic, how does the CD producer know the difference between you boycotting them and you not buying any CDs because you don't like them? IOW, I couldn't boycott the latest hip-hop, boy-band, Britney crap because I would never have bought it anyway. How does the manufacturer know the difference?
Yeah, there're hundreds of them in any given newspaper every day. Look under 'used cars' and in particular those manufactured pre-1980. Most of 'em are pretty cheap, too.
Jesus, this is on the level of whining that you can't use the windshield wipers from your old car (which were brand new!) on a new car you just bought.
You couldn't legally do this anyway since those wipers were purchased on an OEM license, not an open license.
If we had all this, the costs of buying a car would be greatly increased, while the costs of law enforcement would remain unchanged. Also, if you were the happy owner of this uber-car, you would pretty much want to be the sole operator, wouldn't you. Wouldn't want your checking account depleted just because your irresponsible whatever-in-law drives like a maniac, would you?
This is all well and good, but really doesn't do much for the average commuter. People that have the inclination and ability to fly a plane are probably already doing so.
What I would like to see instead are automated flying boxcars. The technology exists today to allow a completely automated (no pilots) flight from point A to point B using GPS, WAAS, and sophisticated autopilots. Lets use those technologies to build flying package delivery drones, and reduce the number of semis that are tearing up our highways and causing the majority of traffic snarls.
These drones could be used to ferry routine cargo around at a much lower cost than FedEx, UPS, et al. These incumbents spend an absolute fortune on pilot salaries. The two pilots in any given FedEx jet are making in the range of $200k EACH! Multiply this by the hundreds or thousands of unionized pilots working for these organizations and it becomes clear why it costs so much to ship this way. Think about how many.coms went bust because people don't want to pay $10+ for shipping on top of purchase price and tax. Lower that cost to $2 or $3 and see if that works better!
Given that time probably isn't of the absolute essence, it would be possible to route these flights over rural areas and avoid the liability risks of flying umnanned aircraft over crowded urban areas. Most of these flights would happen at night when those 5000 general aviation airports NASA is talking about are essentially deserted, so the risk of a collision between one of these drones and a piloted GA plane is minimal, and could probably be addressed with the same technologies NASA is working on. The aircraft themselves would be cheaper to manufacture than commercial aircraft since pressurization wouldn't be needed.
Because that would result in a flood of data that would be useless 99.99999% of the time. It would also cost a ton, and that is money that can be better spent elsewhere. That said, there are airlines that monitor specific maintenance data on engines real-time so they can have repair crews standing by at the gate if a failure is detected.
Re:Whatever happened to the guy in the lawn chair?
on
Ballooning into Space
·
· Score: 1
You aren't 'trading' anything if you still retain the original to be 'traded' again. What you are actually doing is bootlegging and bartering copyrighted music. Rationalize it to yourself however you choose - at the end of the day you are stealing.
I think what happens is that programmer's focus changes. When I first started as a professional programmer 12 years ago, we concentrated on code size. The distribution media of choice back then was the floppy disk, and we really, really wanted to keep our app small enough to distribute on a floppy. That, and user's hard drives were small. Priority one was code size (and remember that this priority ultimately resulted in the Y2K debacle).
Eventually disk and memory became cheap, so responsiveness became the focus. "Don't worry about spending a few more bytes, just make it faster." Then processor power became cheap too.
Now that memory and performance are more than adequate on the platform, the priority has become features. "Don't worry about how big it will be, memory is cheap. Forget about how slow it is, everyone that matters has at least a Pentium III to run it. Just get some new features in there asap."
My point is that code is slow and bloated because no one cares about that anymore, at least with regard to the 'unwashed masses'.
It's a lot like the way you grow into your income. I bought a house nine years ago when I was making one-third of what I make now, yet I still seem to go paycheck-to-paycheck even though I'm still in the same house.
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I don't think not being able to walk a minimum of 18 and a possible 36 holes of a very difficult golf course comes anywhere near a moderate distance. It's damn hard, actually, and not a basic quality of life question. My parents live just fine, and in fact take care of 8-10 race horses, but neither one of them could walk 18 holes of golf. That decision was plain wrong, and as you're probably starting to see, a real hot-button with me.
Really? Then how did Casey Martin score a golf cart out of the PGA using the ADA? Playing golf, especially professional golf, is not a basic life task IMHO.
I got a kick out of the following quote from the NY Times:
January 7, 2002 The Battle of the Boxes: PC vs. TV By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 -- The rivalry between the PC and TV over which is destined to become the hearth of the home will take on new urgency on Monday when three prominent technology executives sketch out competing visions of their digital product lines.
blah blah blah... here comes the good part:
Mr. Perlman said that after Microsoft acquired WebTV for $425 million in April 1997 he had stayed and tried to refine the product until it became clear that Microsoft's principal interest was in ensuring that its Windows CE operating system was in the box rather than improving the consumer experience.
When we were kids we'd break thermometers open and play with the mercury. But, then again, we had never paid any attention to seat belts, either. Things have sure changed!
There is no shortage of mercury filled glass thermometers, and mercury is pretty bad stuff too. People even put these things in their mouths (and I hear there's another likely area as well!), so I think the comparative risk between the two is small.
but I shouldn't have to pay to not recieve e-mail
I do worse than that - I pay to not receive phone calls! In a master stroke of playing both sides of the field, Ameritech happily charges me $8/mo. to filter my calls through Privacy Manager. It works well, and I'm glad I have it, but it nags at me that I have to pay them for it.
Perhaps my opinion is colored by my personal circumstances. My entire user community uses an in-house developed data entry system consisiting of ASP pages displayed in a Netscape browser. Email comes through Lotus Notes. They require little to no interaction with Office documents. In this scenario, what is the difference between Win98 and Linux:
o Netscape runs on both platforms - no difference
o Notes runs on both - no difference
o StarOffice is as easy to use as Word/Excel for most cases - no difference
Which is easier for me to administrate:
o Windows lets them install any viral or just poorly coded piece of crap they can find, Linux does not.
o Windows forces me (or at least attempts to) to upgrade to new versions constantly, Linux does not.
o Windows makes me purchase a new OEM license on every machine I buy, which then needs to be upgraded to an open license so I can remove it and downgrade to older Windows releases, assuming they can even be found.
The bottom line is that for the large majority of my users, the only training required is what to do with the time they used to spend dorking up Windows. Their productive work is all abstracted away from the OS by our thin-client systems.
Why should they have a new learning curve when that costs money, and they've already got a workforce that is used to products that are adequate for the tasks that need to be done?
Because staying with Windows also costs money, and lots of it! You never, ever finish buying Windows. Once you think you're done and you have all of your systems built and all of your people trained, you get caught by the forced upgrade trap. Better (IMHO) to pay for the learning curve once, get it out of the way, and proceed to budget for ongoing upgrades and enhancements on a more predictable basis because you upgrade when and if YOU want to, not when Microsoft deliberately obsoletes your entire installation whenever the hell they want to.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Or, in the context of this topic, how does the CD producer know the difference between you boycotting them and you not buying any CDs because you don't like them? IOW, I couldn't boycott the latest hip-hop, boy-band, Britney crap because I would never have bought it anyway. How does the manufacturer know the difference?
Yeah, there're hundreds of them in any given newspaper every day. Look under 'used cars' and in particular those manufactured pre-1980. Most of 'em are pretty cheap, too.
Jesus, this is on the level of whining that you can't use the windshield wipers from your old car (which were brand new!) on a new car you just bought.
You couldn't legally do this anyway since those wipers were purchased on an OEM license, not an open license.
If we had all this, the costs of buying a car would be greatly increased, while the costs of law enforcement would remain unchanged. Also, if you were the happy owner of this uber-car, you would pretty much want to be the sole operator, wouldn't you. Wouldn't want your checking account depleted just because your irresponsible whatever-in-law drives like a maniac, would you?
Better leave early - I hear there's no parking lot!
Really? Some one can threaten to beat the crap out of me with a big stick, and that's not illegal?? If that's true, it kinda sucks.
And what have they gained? Now there's a database record of the proposed trip and route. How's that for privacy??
This is all well and good, but really doesn't do much for the average commuter. People that have the inclination and ability to fly a plane are probably already doing so.
.coms went bust because people don't want to pay $10+ for shipping on top of purchase price and tax. Lower that cost to $2 or $3 and see if that works better!
What I would like to see instead are automated flying boxcars. The technology exists today to allow a completely automated (no pilots) flight from point A to point B using GPS, WAAS, and sophisticated autopilots. Lets use those technologies to build flying package delivery drones, and reduce the number of semis that are tearing up our highways and causing the majority of traffic snarls.
These drones could be used to ferry routine cargo around at a much lower cost than FedEx, UPS, et al. These incumbents spend an absolute fortune on pilot salaries. The two pilots in any given FedEx jet are making in the range of $200k EACH! Multiply this by the hundreds or thousands of unionized pilots working for these organizations and it becomes clear why it costs so much to ship this way. Think about how many
Given that time probably isn't of the absolute essence, it would be possible to route these flights over rural areas and avoid the liability risks of flying umnanned aircraft over crowded urban areas. Most of these flights would happen at night when those 5000 general aviation airports NASA is talking about are essentially deserted, so the risk of a collision between one of these drones and a piloted GA plane is minimal, and could probably be addressed with the same technologies NASA is working on. The aircraft themselves would be cheaper to manufacture than commercial aircraft since pressurization wouldn't be needed.
wasn't redundant when I posted it grumble grumble grumble...
Can I blank out the boring parts and just leave the violence, sex, and nudity?
'Like' is easier to spell than 'approximately.' Us 'Yanks' are terrible at spelling, you know.
Because that would result in a flood of data that would be useless 99.99999% of the time. It would also cost a ton, and that is money that can be better spent elsewhere. That said, there are airlines that monitor specific maintenance data on engines real-time so they can have repair crews standing by at the gate if a failure is detected.
Here's a good link for this: Lawn Chair Guy
The guy in the lawn chair ended up committing suicide a few years ago.
This is the lamest argument in the world
Umm, that was his point. This is what is known as 'sarcasm' and he is using it to point out that this is a lame argument.
You aren't 'trading' anything if you still retain the original to be 'traded' again. What you are actually doing is bootlegging and bartering copyrighted music. Rationalize it to yourself however you choose - at the end of the day you are stealing.
I think what happens is that programmer's focus changes. When I first started as a professional programmer 12 years ago, we concentrated on code size. The distribution media of choice back then was the floppy disk, and we really, really wanted to keep our app small enough to distribute on a floppy. That, and user's hard drives were small. Priority one was code size (and remember that this priority ultimately resulted in the Y2K debacle).
Eventually disk and memory became cheap, so responsiveness became the focus. "Don't worry about spending a few more bytes, just make it faster." Then processor power became cheap too.
Now that memory and performance are more than adequate on the platform, the priority has become features. "Don't worry about how big it will be, memory is cheap. Forget about how slow it is, everyone that matters has at least a Pentium III to run it. Just get some new features in there asap."
My point is that code is slow and bloated because no one cares about that anymore, at least with regard to the 'unwashed masses'.
It's a lot like the way you grow into your income. I bought a house nine years ago when I was making one-third of what I make now, yet I still seem to go paycheck-to-paycheck even though I'm still in the same house.