I went to the Dell site, searched for "MXM slot", and the only place Dell mentioned it was in their Forums from 2004. If that is a currently available option on a laptop, I'd be interested in browsing the available models for something to purchase. Thank you!
My Grandmother is legally blind. She LOVES her Jitterbug flip phone because she can open it, hit one button (which is easy to find by feel) & tell the Jitterbug Operator which of her contacts she wants to call. The phone can be programmed with contacts in a "Speed Dial" arrangement, so she can do it herself, but if she can't remember which Speed Dial Number someone is, it's literally one button to get that info read to her by someone who seems to enjoy being a help. As she put it, it is THE best birthday present she's ever gotten. It allows her to keep in touch with her family & friends, even as her glaucoma gets worse, and all for a monthly charge that she can afford while living on her Retirement Funds.
If you have a blind family member, friend, relative, or coworker who wants a cell phone that works well, suggest a Jitterbug phone. I don't work for them, I have no association with the company, other than as the Grandson of a very happy Grandmother who enjoys her new phone. =)
Years ago we had two local papers, The Union, and The Sacramento Bee. Because they were in competition, you ALWAYS got a professionally assembled paper, on time every morning, & it was full of relevant news. If you didn't deliver a "professional looking product" NLT 6am every morning (7am on Sunday's), then they'd fire your butt & find someone who could. (I used to deliver both of them, and neither of them took ANY crap from their carriers.)
Now, years later, the Bee bought the Union. There is no competition. No matter how much we complain, we rarely get our paper before 7am, it is NEVER organized (the Front Page wrapped in the Classifieds, sections out of order, and *I* have to re-assemble it), and the "news paper" is nearly 80% *advertisements*. As in a two-page, full-colour spread every few pages (oh look, Macy's... now Dish Network... AT&T), and NO page other than the FRONT page is completely free of advertisements. You can't read a continuous story because it's broken up into two, three, or even four separate areas, with advertisements sprinkled like bird dung between all the bits.
On any given day, there may be eight sections, but of those, three are pure ads (Classified, Rental Properties, etc) and well-over-half of what's left is comprised of ads. On a Sunday it's even worse - there are literally POUNDS of paper being dumped on my door step, and of that, there are maybe five sections of "news", and the rest of it is nothing but fliers, inserts, and entire sections of ads.
We don't get a "News Paper" any more, we get an _advertising_supplement_ with some news stories thrown in for flavour.
To add insult to injury, as others have mentioned before, the news is stale. Everything, and I mean *EVERYTHING* I can read in the paper, I can get from online sources at LEAST 24 hours prior to seeing it in print, and sometimes I'll NEVER see it in print because the paper blows goats as far as actual REPORTING THE NEWS is concerned.
Stories about Britney Spears? Front Page, Above The Fold, full-colour, three pages worth. Stories how Bush & Company is raping the Country & shredding our Rights? That's buried in Section C, somewhere near the crease, in tiny type, no pictures, a single column blurb under 100 words, & buried in so it looks like it's part of an advertisement...
Newspapers are worthless. When they're allowed to become a Monopoly, the Public isn't given a choice of what to read. Yes all it takes is a few minutes online to get REAL news, but that's what the newspapers WERE supposed to be for, remember? =/
If you cut the Employees to Federal Minimum Wage, they are now legally qualified to collect Unemployment. (Because a reduction of more than X hours/week or $X/hour from your normal qualifies you for limited Unemployment benefits.)
Which means the money he "saved" from reducing their pay to FMW suddenly gets eaten by all the workers who start collecting Unemployment, Food Stamps, etc. Then, when the "emergency" is over, he has to pay them back the wages they are due. He will have, effectively, paid them *twice*. Good job, Arnie. *Dumb Ass*
As you said, I envision a LOT of people considering this their "walking papers" (which, as far as the Law & the Unemployment Office is concerned, they have been fired), selling short, & getting the hell out of California. Washington, Oregon, or Nevada can expect to see an influx of previous CA residents who are sick & f'ing tired of being raped by the very people they used to work for.
The fact that they can take what in CA is poverty-level retirement savings, move across the State line, & suddenly live closer to Royalty than Peasantry? Yeah, now THAT'S a great way to keep the government running, Arnie. =(
On a Compaq Presario V5201US. (2GHz, 2Gb RAM, 128Mb shared VRAM, Intel chipset, WiFi, ExpressCard 34/54, USB2.0)
Starting at around 0800Hrs Saturday morning. From booting from the DVD, formatting the 40Gig HD, ejecting the DVD & rebooting to a usable desktop took just under 30 minutes.
Downloading all the updates (still using 7.04, but everything else is current) took longer (1h45m) but that was STILL less than Windows XP SP1 trying to pull down & apply SP2. Configuring FF (importing bookmarks, setting up the GUI like I like it, etc), Thunderbird (importing the address book, configuring the GUI, etc), Pigdin (importing all my contacts, fiddling with the GUI, etc), and making sure OOo was configured the way I prefer it to be, took less than 15 minutes. Finished around 1115Hrs Saturday. So in under three hours I had a secure, working system with Ubuntu. That includes the video, WiFi, and Intel chipset support.
This was after having spent two DAYS installing XP to the same system, using a different HD. Started Thursday of last week, around noon. It took nearly 3 hours to format the fresh-from-the-shrink-wrap 40 Gig HD. (Finished around 1445-1450Hrs.)
It took nearly 2 hours to copy all the files from the cd to the HD, reboot, & finally tell me I could eject the disk. (Finished around 16:45Hrs.)
Applying all the drivers (video, WiFi, Chipset, Audio, etc) from CD that I had compiled & burned earlier for just this purpose. (17:30Hrs)
It took another hour to apply SP1, reboot, SP2, reboot, SP3, & reboot again. On a bare installation of XP (no other programs installed). (18:50Hrs)
Installing Office XP, Antivirus, Firewall, Firefox, Thunderbird, & Spybot (all from a cd) took another hour (including the required reboots). (1945Hrs)
THEN I attached it to the network & pointed it at the Windows update site. It spent the next/FOURTEEN HOURS/ downloading all the updates to the bits that MS determined were "out of date", rebooting multiple times, continuing to download more updates, rebooting, etc until it finally told me that it was completely patched. It finished just before 0900Hrs Friday morning.
So, granted this is only my experience, but an "old" copy of Ubuntu managed to nuke a drive, copy itself over, find the proper drivers, install said drivers, update itself from the main Repo, & hand me a usable computer in less than 3 hours. Windows XP took two DAYS to get to that same point, and it took an EXPONENTIAL more amount of hand-holding, preparation, & work to get it there.
How did you manage to get Windows to be functional in under an hour?
Ummm, yes there are. Per Top500.org, the most current listing is for 2004. (The 25th TOP500 is being released on June 21-24, 2005 in Heidelberg, Germany at the International Supercomputer Conference.)
The fastest computer they have listed is "BlueGene/L" with a peak of 91.75TF & sustained 70.72TF. The slowest computer they list, "SuperDome 875 MHz/HyperPlex" has a peak of 1.456TF & a sustained of 850GigaFLOPS.
Now remember, this is *LAST YEARS* list, and a critical point - the video game companies are probably using single precision for their claims. The Top 500 list uses _double_ precision. That's a *Big difference*.
March 26th, 2005 - BlueGene/L beats its own previous record. Sets new high score of **135.3 trillion floating point operations per second**
April 12, 2005 - Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have an experimental chip clocked at 600GHz, and they estimate it's capacity to be well over 1THz. (Yes, that's a *single chip* capable of 600GHz with the potential of 1THz.)
So a triple-CPU system capable of 2TFlops isn't THAT hard to believe, it's just not very likely to show up in what amounts to a *toy*.
Just MHO, but go with AVG. Configured properly, AVG has caught more virii than Symantec's ever THOUGHT of recognizing, much less protecting you against. I've *YET* to have a secondary-scan (via online, or live-cd AV routine) come across a virus AVG missed, yet my Symantec was constantly ignoring stuff that caused my systems to become, if not completely unusable, critically unstable. When Symantec's own knowledge base has an entire section dedicated to "How to repair us when a virus scrambles it's dependancies", and the "fix" amounts to running half a dozen third-party cleaner apps, re-installing the product, UNinstalling the product, and RE-re-installing the product - that joke lost it's punchline a LONG time ago... AVG does more, uses fewer resources, and has YET to do anything to my system, where Symantec has done nothing but cripple my systems to the point of rendering them worthless. I've not used Trend's products, so can't comment on them, but AVG has been in constant use (in both Free and paid-for versions) for the better part of two years and I can't say enough good things about them.
Case In Point: I filled out the CA MS Refund (as per the Class Action Suit re: over-charging for copies of Windows & Office software) over a YEAR ago. Repeated calls to Microsoft, visits to the web site listed in the paperwork, and emails requesting status have all gone unanswered.
They are NOT interested in helping anyone but their own bottomline. If it means it'll cost them money, they'll drag their feet until you die of old age. If it costs YOU money, they'll be all over you like stink on a corpse.
I hate to say it, but you're right - they can't agree among themselves, and sometimes can't even agree WITH themselves. I've been going to two different Endo centers here in town for nearly a decade now, and *between visits* they seem to change their target goals. One time it's "You need to keep your BSL's between 80-120, eat X carbs per meal, and lose X pounds." and the next time I go in, they've changed the target BSL, say that the X carbs was "too many", and that I'm now UNDERweight. ?O.o? WTF? (This isn't one center's opinion vs the other, mind you, this is each center's opinion changing from week to week!) If they can't even keep themselves straight (what's the target BSL? how many carbs to eat? what BMI do you REALLY want me to be at?) then how the HELL can the REST of "John Q. Public" expect to keep ourselves on track? Sometimes it gets to the point where the Cilexa just ain't cuttin it, and the desire to give 'em all The Finger overwhealms. If all I have to look forward to is a lifetime of reacting to doctors who can't give me the same answer twice in a row, then I think I'll chose to eat what I want, when I want, and just take the insulin as I go. You want to limit my carbs? *Bite me* When YOU can manage to give me a target that doesn't change every week, then I'll aim for the target. You want me to change my body to a better BMI, but then can't agree from week to week on what BMI it should be? *Get Bent* When YOU can show up every week with a new BMI and get told that, despite following doc's orders, you're completely wrong, then maybe you'll understand. Ok, I limit my sugar (to nearly zero), I only drink Diet soda's & water by the gallon, I've completely cut out sweets / treats / snacks / anything I used to love that even REMOTELY tasted good & replaced them all with "good for me" healthy stuff that all tastes like *crap*, and I test every four hours, round the clock... My quality of life is a resounding *fuck you*, and you expect me to want to live this way for the rest of my life? *MEH* Diabetes sucks, and the Endo's are NOT helping matters any.
I've been searching for a distro that, "out of the box", would just work. No "Oh, I'm sorry, you don't REALLY have a sound card installed", or "Ooops, your 256meg AGP 4x graphics card is only capable of DOS text mode", or "Well, we found everything, but all those pesky USB ports you can kiss goodbye." -type incompatabilities. No "Well, we found everything, but we REFUSE to believe that 3Com modem finds a dial tone.", or "What do you mean that's a 160Gig drive? I only see 79.82Gigs of it, and that's not even a valid FAT type..." (?!? It's ONE NEW Fat32 partition! WTF?!)
RC3, Debian, Mandrake, Knoppix, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD... God, I'd tried so many, to no avail, I was seriously considering scrubbing the whole "Switch to *NIX" idea as a lost cause...
Then I found XandrOS.
OMG, fresh hard drive (the 160Gig WD 7200RPM that the other distro only saw half of & then refused to install to), boot to the cd, watch it install as if the hardware were DESIGNED for the freakin distro, and the next thing I know, I've got a new OS.
No fuss, no muss, no migraine headaches trying to configure everything just to get minimal functionality out of ANYthing, much less EVERYthing.
Turn it on, let it install, and it works. *Period* Detected my ATI card & started at 1024x768 True Colour. Sound Blaster Audigy? Check... Oh, look, you've got the SPDIF in use... checking... Do you want to make full use of your 5.1? !WOOT! Ethernet DSL autodetected & able to get all the updates without having to configure a thing! Hard drive repartitioned into two 10Gig and two 60Gig chunks (Main Data / Mirored Backup, Programs / Mirrored Backup) and working just fine...
Within 30 minutes, I not only had updated all the installed packages, but picked a few more, added a firewall (and configured it), and am now in the process of trying to figure out which email system to use. (I want something like Outlook, because I'm not the only person who'll be using this machine, and the others will NOT be easy to teach, so the closer to an Outlook-like solution, the better.) Beyond that, I haven't hit any snags, and damn it, that makes me nearly want to weep for joy.
If I'd had this kind of experience with the first distro I'd tried oh-so-long ago, I'd've never had to switch to WinXP. I was SICK of Windows - I *AM* sick of Windows. But, until XandrOS, I hadn't found a *NIX solution that worked.
XandrOS is a distro I could hand the cd to ANYONE and be confident that it would install on relatively anything, properly the first time, and NOT cause my phone to ring off the hook with screaming cries for help because the OS caused something to puke.
Yeah, I know I probably sound like a paid shill for XandrOS (insert gleeming-smiling lady holding a steaming cup of coffee & gesturing decoratively at a computer screen with the XandrOS logo; complete with cheesy 1950's splash graphics reading "XandrOS! Let's Just Get It Done, Shall We?"), but I'm merely a VERY satisfied user who's ALL too happy to finish tweaking this distro to the point where I can safely Nuke & Pave WinXP off the old hard drive & put it back to use as more data storage for XandrOS...
Here's an experiment you should try sometime. Go find a PDF on your system... ANY PDF on your system, and copy it to a temp directory somewhere. Now, take that secondary copy, and make another copy, Rename the tertiary file *.TXT instead. Open the PDF, pick 10 random words from it, write them down, and close the file. Open Notepad and that TXT file. Search for those ten words you wrote down. Want to take a WILD guess as to how many of them you'll find? Here's a hint... It rhymes with NERO. Want to take a wild-ass guess as to WHY? Here's a hint... It rhymes with FRANTIC PILE... Which, by some odd coincidence, ALSO sums up your rebuttal.
PDF's are ONLY "text searchable" through the PDF front end. Running them through a text-parser set to search every file on your hard drive for the occurrence of a set of words, and it skips over certain file types by default because there is no text inside them for it to search through. Among those file types are EXE, SCR, COM, BMP, JPG, GIF, MP3, MPG, AVI, WMF, ASF, and (drum roll please) PDF... Want to guess Why?
"If you really see nothing in a DOS prompt, that's not in any evidence that the PDF is a graphics file; it's just evidence of the limitations of a DOS prompt. "
Really? Then why can I open MS Word DOC files and still find the text I see when I open that very same file from within Word? I can open DOC, BAT, WSH, JS, HTML, DB, and a ton of other file formats that, while "encoded" with header and formatting information, are still humanly readable from a DOS prompt. Dumping the raw data to my printer will result in a rather messy layout, but the text itself WILL be there and I can, eventually, read it. Try that same thing with a PDF, and the only readable text you get is the non-encoded header information. There IS no useable text from the document it represents.
"Take a look at a PDF on a *machine and you'll see what I mean. The markup information is readable as ASCII; the content is apparently stored as hex."
I -am- looking at it on a machine. Specifically, a machine instructed to read me just the text from within a given file. The machine, if it gets past the header area, gets to read me what? A hex-dump of an encoded file? That's about as useful as me sitting here at 2 O'Clock in the morning arguing with a damned troll. (I can't sleep, I don't feel well, and I get to sit up and LART your lame ass... Oh joy.)
"If JAWS can't read PDFs, that's not because PDFs are graphics files; it's just because JAWS can't read PDFs.""
And that's because, drum roll please, PDF's are, for all intents and purposes, graphic files. The ONLY place they're useable is from within Adobe. If I have a scanned legal document that's saved once as TIF and another copy as PDF, neither will be searchable, and for the exact same reason. Without a program front-end to decode the embedded information, there's nothing really to display - just some header text, and a giant hex-dump of stuff the screen reader pukes on. If you have the front-end, then SURE you see the text the original showed, but you STILL have the same problem with trying to "read" the text from an IMAGE FILE. This isn't a problem with JAWS, this is the inherent nature of the file types in question.
"As the earlier poster stated, this is something that really should be taken up with Adobe."
It already has been, and we get nothing from them but a bunch of auto-responding smoke blown up our ass. The few times we DO get a real human to reply, it STILL comes across as "You're a insignificant fringe market - we don't feel like catering to you, go away." This isn't customer service, it's bullshit.
"Certainly, there is no overwhelming technical reason why PDFs cannot be made readable by text to speech software; they are no uglier on the inside than, say, an MS Word file. If those can be read, then PDFs can be made readable as well."
Don't think PDF is a graphic file? Try loading one from a DOS prompt in a standard EDIT environment. Guess what you get? *Nothing*. There is no embedded text to read. PDF is, by definition, a graphic file - that's how they "assure lay-out consistancy" regardless of the system it's displayed upon. Yes, you can select text from within the program, *but only if you can see it to begin with*.
PDF's are unreadable in ANY screen reader program - if JAWS can't handle it, then it's *highly* doubtful any other SR program can, either. That's like saying "Well, if your HMMWV can't tackle that hill, why not try my Lamborghini Diablo?" - if the tool designed to tackle as much as possible can't handle the job, you're pretty much screwed unless you INVENT a new tool.
Oh, you mean like anyone using a screen reader program for the Blind or Visually Impaired?
PDF's and any other purely graphic file, have nothing in them for the SR's to vocalize, thus they're worthless for anyone who can't interact with your purely visual medium. And while Adobe CLAIMS they're newest versions are compatible with SOME SR's, *they lie*. I own the latest copy of JAWS, which is THE standard that the others are based upon, and it throws up every time you try to read a PDF.
So thanks for insulting millions of people in the US, and billions of people World-wide...
Incomming call turns out to be a telemarketer, charity, cold-call, predictive dialer, my Ex Mother In law, or other such ilk? Smile acidly & hit the button.
A "Communications" Satelite in L.E.O. catches the signal, checks the circuit routing, determines the location of the caller, and promptly spears a nuclear-pumped laser-pulse through that caller's location... Accurate to within +/- 6 inches. Kiss one telemarketer goodbye.
No fuss, no muss, and the "collateral damage" is minimal... (Ok, so the dipshit in the cubal right next to them may get fried, too, but like I care?)
And if it's a purely predictive dialer that hangs up before I get a chance to hit the button, the system traces the still-connected-from-my-end curcuit ANYWAY and increases the power output a thousand fold... Kiss one *building* goodbye.
Now, where's my shiny, red button and Killer ComSat?
I use Outlook Express 6 & MailWasher. Between the two, I don't download any piece of mail I don't want, don't view any HTML unless I choose to, and have *never* gotten a virii through my mail.
Express allows you to read all email as text only (Tools|Options|Read [X]Read All Message In Plain Text), and I've got that set as a button on the menu bar so I can toggle between the two states with but a single mouse click.
No images, no scripts, no buffer over-flows, no virii, no problem.
I, unfortunately, had to drive one for a few years... I don't know the model name/designation, but it had two doord, a hatchback, & was automatic... Crappy mileage, stank (were they SUPPOSED to smell like microwaved road-kill? Three different mechanic shoppes couldn't find the cause!), and looked like the POS it was... A friend bought me a "Go ahead, hit me! Of COURSE I'm suicidal, I'm driving a PINTO aren't I?!" bumper sticker which we mounted dead-center of the hatchback door... Couldn't get it to go over 65 without it shaking like an Epiletic having a Grande Mal... Accelleration? Maybe downhill, with a tailwind, and strapped to a JATO unit... AM only radio that only picked up two stations, neither of them in English... Dashboard interior lights never illuminated the guages enough to read them properly - had to use a flashlight. Someone suggested putting one of those goose-necked "map lights" in the cigarette lighter socket & aiming it at the cluster, but the damned socket only provided power when it FELT like it... Two mechanics were unable to find the short or determine why it would cut out, and three replacements didn't fix the issue... Cop once pulled me over & issued a speeding ticket. Wrote me up for doing 95 in a 65 zone. I took a picture of the Pinto where I had parked it in the Courthouse car-park, and asked the Judge "Is THIS a vehicle that can do 95 in anything other than *FREE FALL*?" Case Dismissed. Damned POS... Wasn't worth the gas I paid to keep it moving. (GRRrrrr...)
Personally, either I'll pay to purchase a physical copy of the game, OR I'll pay a subscription fee to play it purely online, but NEVER both.
Take EverQuest as an example:
I paid WAY too much for what I got, and then to be bent over a table and have my wallet ripped from me in order for me to be allowed to play it at all? No thanks, my money is better spent elsewhere.
Now, take Total Annihilation.
I bought the physical media for a decent price, and even after downloading the patches / updates / mods / etc, can (an do) still play it YEARS later without paying another penny for the "priveledge".
So, which is the better value?
EverQuest - the game I spent $50 to get, then was raped another $15 in order to play it before I could figure out I didn't like it, and wasn't able to return (oh look, an open software box? We'll exchange it for another copy, but All Your Cash Belongs To Us!)... It's stat unused and unopened in the back of a "Utter Crap!" box of similar bits of gaming fiasco, doing nothing but gathering dust & disgust.
Or Total Annihilation, which I spent $50 on *once*, and have played in single player, multi-player, and at LAN parties so many times I'd rate it one of the best games I've ever played...
Why? Because it's had INFINITELY more play-value than EQ, and a WHOLE lot more playability!
I love MMORPG's -having grown up on the Commodore 64 "Gold Box" AD&D series from SSI, it's a natural "step up"- but there is no WAY you can convince me that I have to both pay to get the game, and then pay again, on a monthly basis, in order to continue to play the game (or, as in the case of EQ, even play it at all!). One or the other, but not both. A one time $50 payment for a game that's been played for years, or $50 to buy + $15 to play it once & stuff it angrily in the closet to die?
They fire disabled workers when they get tired of paying for worker's comp... I know this for a fact. They fired me because I'd hurt my back lifting monitors (outfitting one of thier CNMC's) and they got sick of the fact that, despite doctor's orders requiring me to attend PhysTher once a week (which, after all the bending, stretching, etc required me to USE that Rx for 500mg Vicodin, despite the fact that the stuff puts me to sleep) and thus effectively "losing me for a day" because I refused to come back to work after the PhysTher appointments... Your choice - the Vicodin WILL put me to sleep, so do I take the day off under Workman's Comp, or do you pay me to sleep at my desk? Because I *WILL* be asleep either way... Yet they fired me. Fuck WilTel... May they rot in the eternal bowels of Satan's deepest latrine.
"Do you complain when your representative doesn't represent you?"
YES I get pissed off when the people I vote for don't get into office. That means the cretins I did NOT vote for ARE in office, therefore the people I believe best represent my opinions / beliefs / etc are NOT the ones in positions to further those ideals. YES I complain - it just doesn't do any damned good.
"You're paying for their work, even when it's as shoddy as we're growing accustomed to."
Yes I'm paying for them TO work - unfortunately, they're not doing the work they're paid to be doing. Instead of making America a better place for all American's, they're flushing our Rights down the toilet, selling out our resources to the highest bidders in return for kick-backs & future shares of profits, and generally making life hellish for those who elected them into Office.
"Politicians are different from police and firemen - their job is to talk, and to talk with you."
Then they're not doing thier job. If I wish to speak with my representative, the one I voted for, then it's fairly easy to get in touch, as they ARE interested in what "the little guy" has to say. However, if I want to get in touch with the putz who got elected, "thier time's too valuable" and we get pawned off on some flunky who takes a message and mails us back a boiler-plate reply that does nothing to further the discourse. Unless, of course, I'm going to contribute a massive wad of cash, in which case they're ALL too happy to sit and listen to me, at least until the cheque clears...
"When you ignore them, others like the media move into that power vacuum, totally unaccountable to you."
Except I don't completely ignore them, I merely make sure the message I get from them is the one the World see's, not the airbrushed clap-trap they want to feed me. And the media IS accountable - if they're proven to no longer be a viable source of data, they tend to get ignored *en masse*, which sends thier ratings into the toilet, thier advertisers stop dealing with them, and they tend to go bankrupt... OR, they clean up thier act, straighten-up-and-fly-right, get-thier-shit-together, and suddenly return to the domain of legitimate news sources. The Enquirer isn't a good source of political commentary, and you wouldn't use it to gain an idea of how a candidate works/thinks/acts, while CNN would be a better choice, see?
"Of course you're not limited to the messages coming from your representatives, you're much better off triangulating on multiple media sources, especially the Internet with its fast, easy search power."
Ahh, you CAN see reason...
"Global news is more like entertainment when you don't even know how the local school board is spending your money, training your neighbors who are kids in school."
Except my local news doesn't cover such things unless there's blood, money, or corruption involved. "If it ain't bleedin', dyin', or cryin', it ain't news." I already keep in touch with my local schools, as I'm rather fond of volunteering my time to help around campus, attending PTA meetings, helping host Bake Sales, etc; my son doesn't get away with much at school, because all his teachers know me on sight, have my home number at hand, and are perfectly willing to call me at the slightest hint of something out of the ordinary. I've lived in this community since 1981, am fairly active in it, and attend all the local LAFCO/City Hall style meetings, so your argument is a touch moot... Sorry.
"Politics is not like garbage hauling - leaving it exclusively to the specialists keeps you out of the loop, and therefore expendable."
Unfortunately, it IS like hauling garbage, or have you not been paying attention to all the trash they've been trying to dump down our throats & strap to our backs? Our children will be stuck with the largest bill in history; an environment that is so screwed I'm surprised Mother Nature hasn't tried to exterminate the entire race in disgust; politicians
Slashdot Mirror
I went to the Dell site, searched for "MXM slot", and the only place Dell mentioned it was in their Forums from 2004.
If that is a currently available option on a laptop, I'd be interested in browsing the available models for something to purchase.
Thank you!
My Grandmother is legally blind.
She LOVES her Jitterbug flip phone because she can open it, hit one button (which is easy to find by feel) & tell the Jitterbug Operator which of her contacts she wants to call.
The phone can be programmed with contacts in a "Speed Dial" arrangement, so she can do it herself, but if she can't remember which Speed Dial Number someone is, it's literally one button to get that info read to her by someone who seems to enjoy being a help.
As she put it, it is THE best birthday present she's ever gotten.
It allows her to keep in touch with her family & friends, even as her glaucoma gets worse, and all for a monthly charge that she can afford while living on her Retirement Funds.
If you have a blind family member, friend, relative, or coworker who wants a cell phone that works well, suggest a Jitterbug phone.
I don't work for them, I have no association with the company, other than as the Grandson of a very happy Grandmother who enjoys her new phone.
=)
GOD DAMN IT, Mod this MoFo UP!
+5 Informative/Insightful doesn't even BEGIN to cover it!
If I had points, you Sir would be getting them in droves.
Years ago we had two local papers, The Union, and The Sacramento Bee.
Because they were in competition, you ALWAYS got a professionally assembled paper, on time every morning, & it was full of relevant news.
If you didn't deliver a "professional looking product" NLT 6am every morning (7am on Sunday's), then they'd fire your butt & find someone who could.
(I used to deliver both of them, and neither of them took ANY crap from their carriers.)
Now, years later, the Bee bought the Union.
There is no competition.
No matter how much we complain, we rarely get our paper before 7am, it is NEVER organized (the Front Page wrapped in the Classifieds, sections out of order, and *I* have to re-assemble it), and the "news paper" is nearly 80% *advertisements*.
As in a two-page, full-colour spread every few pages (oh look, Macy's... now Dish Network... AT&T), and NO page other than the FRONT page is completely free of advertisements.
You can't read a continuous story because it's broken up into two, three, or even four separate areas, with advertisements sprinkled like bird dung between all the bits.
On any given day, there may be eight sections, but of those, three are pure ads (Classified, Rental Properties, etc) and well-over-half of what's left is comprised of ads.
On a Sunday it's even worse - there are literally POUNDS of paper being dumped on my door step, and of that, there are maybe five sections of "news", and the rest of it is nothing but fliers, inserts, and entire sections of ads.
We don't get a "News Paper" any more, we get an _advertising_supplement_ with some news stories thrown in for flavour.
To add insult to injury, as others have mentioned before, the news is stale.
Everything, and I mean *EVERYTHING* I can read in the paper, I can get from online sources at LEAST 24 hours prior to seeing it in print, and sometimes I'll NEVER see it in print because the paper blows goats as far as actual REPORTING THE NEWS is concerned.
Stories about Britney Spears? Front Page, Above The Fold, full-colour, three pages worth.
Stories how Bush & Company is raping the Country & shredding our Rights?
That's buried in Section C, somewhere near the crease, in tiny type, no pictures, a single column blurb under 100 words, & buried in so it looks like it's part of an advertisement...
Newspapers are worthless.
When they're allowed to become a Monopoly, the Public isn't given a choice of what to read.
Yes all it takes is a few minutes online to get REAL news, but that's what the newspapers WERE supposed to be for, remember?
=/
I used to live in Spokane.
'Nuff said.
=}
If you cut the Employees to Federal Minimum Wage, they are now legally qualified to collect Unemployment.
(Because a reduction of more than X hours/week or $X/hour from your normal qualifies you for limited Unemployment benefits.)
Which means the money he "saved" from reducing their pay to FMW suddenly gets eaten by all the workers who start collecting Unemployment, Food Stamps, etc.
Then, when the "emergency" is over, he has to pay them back the wages they are due.
He will have, effectively, paid them *twice*.
Good job, Arnie.
*Dumb Ass*
As you said, I envision a LOT of people considering this their "walking papers" (which, as far as the Law & the Unemployment Office is concerned, they have been fired), selling short, & getting the hell out of California.
Washington, Oregon, or Nevada can expect to see an influx of previous CA residents who are sick & f'ing tired of being raped by the very people they used to work for.
The fact that they can take what in CA is poverty-level retirement savings, move across the State line, & suddenly live closer to Royalty than Peasantry?
Yeah, now THAT'S a great way to keep the government running, Arnie.
=(
Tiger Direct dot com...
You're welcome. =)
On a Compaq Presario V5201US.
(2GHz, 2Gb RAM, 128Mb shared VRAM, Intel chipset, WiFi, ExpressCard 34/54, USB2.0)
Starting at around 0800Hrs Saturday morning.
From booting from the DVD, formatting the 40Gig HD, ejecting the DVD & rebooting to a usable desktop took just under 30 minutes.
Downloading all the updates (still using 7.04, but everything else is current) took longer (1h45m) but that was STILL less than Windows XP SP1 trying to pull down & apply SP2.
Configuring FF (importing bookmarks, setting up the GUI like I like it, etc), Thunderbird (importing the address book, configuring the GUI, etc), Pigdin (importing all my contacts, fiddling with the GUI, etc), and making sure OOo was configured the way I prefer it to be, took less than 15 minutes.
Finished around 1115Hrs Saturday.
So in under three hours I had a secure, working system with Ubuntu.
That includes the video, WiFi, and Intel chipset support.
This was after having spent two DAYS installing XP to the same system, using a different HD.
Started Thursday of last week, around noon.
It took nearly 3 hours to format the fresh-from-the-shrink-wrap 40 Gig HD.
(Finished around 1445-1450Hrs.)
It took nearly 2 hours to copy all the files from the cd to the HD, reboot, & finally tell me I could eject the disk.
(Finished around 16:45Hrs.)
Applying all the drivers (video, WiFi, Chipset, Audio, etc) from CD that I had compiled & burned earlier for just this purpose.
(17:30Hrs)
It took another hour to apply SP1, reboot, SP2, reboot, SP3, & reboot again.
On a bare installation of XP (no other programs installed).
(18:50Hrs)
Installing Office XP, Antivirus, Firewall, Firefox, Thunderbird, & Spybot (all from a cd) took another hour (including the required reboots).
(1945Hrs)
THEN I attached it to the network & pointed it at the Windows update site. /FOURTEEN HOURS/ downloading all the updates to the bits that MS determined were "out of date", rebooting multiple times, continuing to download more updates, rebooting, etc until it finally told me that it was completely patched.
It spent the next
It finished just before 0900Hrs Friday morning.
So, granted this is only my experience, but an "old" copy of Ubuntu managed to nuke a drive, copy itself over, find the proper drivers, install said drivers, update itself from the main Repo, & hand me a usable computer in less than 3 hours.
Windows XP took two DAYS to get to that same point, and it took an EXPONENTIAL more amount of hand-holding, preparation, & work to get it there.
How did you manage to get Windows to be functional in under an hour?
Ummm, yes there are.
Per Top500.org, the most current listing is for 2004. (The 25th TOP500 is being released on June 21-24, 2005 in Heidelberg, Germany at the International Supercomputer Conference.)
The fastest computer they have listed is "BlueGene/L" with a peak of 91.75TF & sustained 70.72TF.
The slowest computer they list, "SuperDome 875 MHz/HyperPlex" has a peak of 1.456TF & a sustained of 850GigaFLOPS.
Now remember, this is *LAST YEARS* list, and a critical point - the video game companies are probably using single precision for their claims. The Top 500 list uses _double_ precision. That's a *Big difference*.
March 26th, 2005 - BlueGene/L beats its own previous record. Sets new high score of **135.3 trillion floating point operations per second**
April 12, 2005 - Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have an experimental chip clocked at 600GHz, and they estimate it's capacity to be well over 1THz.
(Yes, that's a *single chip* capable of 600GHz with the potential of 1THz.)
So a triple-CPU system capable of 2TFlops isn't THAT hard to believe, it's just not very likely to show up in what amounts to a *toy*.
-Shrug-
Just MHO, but go with AVG.
Configured properly, AVG has caught more virii than Symantec's ever THOUGHT of recognizing, much less protecting you against.
I've *YET* to have a secondary-scan (via online, or live-cd AV routine) come across a virus AVG missed, yet my Symantec was constantly ignoring stuff that caused my systems to become, if not completely unusable, critically unstable.
When Symantec's own knowledge base has an entire section dedicated to "How to repair us when a virus scrambles it's dependancies", and the "fix" amounts to running half a dozen third-party cleaner apps, re-installing the product, UNinstalling the product, and RE-re-installing the product - that joke lost it's punchline a LONG time ago...
AVG does more, uses fewer resources, and has YET to do anything to my system, where Symantec has done nothing but cripple my systems to the point of rendering them worthless.
I've not used Trend's products, so can't comment on them, but AVG has been in constant use (in both Free and paid-for versions) for the better part of two years and I can't say enough good things about them.
...when it comes to Customer Service.
Case In Point:
I filled out the CA MS Refund (as per the Class Action Suit re: over-charging for copies of Windows & Office software) over a YEAR ago. Repeated calls to Microsoft, visits to the web site listed in the paperwork, and emails requesting status have all gone unanswered.
They are NOT interested in helping anyone but their own bottomline.
If it means it'll cost them money, they'll drag their feet until you die of old age.
If it costs YOU money, they'll be all over you like stink on a corpse.
And people wonder why I run Linux...???
I hate to say it, but you're right - they can't agree among themselves, and sometimes can't even agree WITH themselves.
I've been going to two different Endo centers here in town for nearly a decade now, and *between visits* they seem to change their target goals.
One time it's "You need to keep your BSL's between 80-120, eat X carbs per meal, and lose X pounds." and the next time I go in, they've changed the target BSL, say that the X carbs was "too many", and that I'm now UNDERweight. ?O.o? WTF?
(This isn't one center's opinion vs the other, mind you, this is each center's opinion changing from week to week!)
If they can't even keep themselves straight (what's the target BSL? how many carbs to eat? what BMI do you REALLY want me to be at?) then how the HELL can the REST of "John Q. Public" expect to keep ourselves on track?
Sometimes it gets to the point where the Cilexa just ain't cuttin it, and the desire to give 'em all The Finger overwhealms.
If all I have to look forward to is a lifetime of reacting to doctors who can't give me the same answer twice in a row, then I think I'll chose to eat what I want, when I want, and just take the insulin as I go.
You want to limit my carbs? *Bite me* When YOU can manage to give me a target that doesn't change every week, then I'll aim for the target.
You want me to change my body to a better BMI, but then can't agree from week to week on what BMI it should be? *Get Bent* When YOU can show up every week with a new BMI and get told that, despite following doc's orders, you're completely wrong, then maybe you'll understand.
Ok, I limit my sugar (to nearly zero), I only drink Diet soda's & water by the gallon, I've completely cut out sweets / treats / snacks / anything I used to love that even REMOTELY tasted good & replaced them all with "good for me" healthy stuff that all tastes like *crap*, and I test every four hours, round the clock...
My quality of life is a resounding *fuck you*, and you expect me to want to live this way for the rest of my life?
*MEH*
Diabetes sucks, and the Endo's are NOT helping matters any.
I've been searching for a distro that, "out of the box", would just work.
No "Oh, I'm sorry, you don't REALLY have a sound card installed", or "Ooops, your 256meg AGP 4x graphics card is only capable of DOS text mode", or "Well, we found everything, but all those pesky USB ports you can kiss goodbye." -type incompatabilities.
No "Well, we found everything, but we REFUSE to believe that 3Com modem finds a dial tone.", or "What do you mean that's a 160Gig drive? I only see 79.82Gigs of it, and that's not even a valid FAT type..." (?!? It's ONE NEW Fat32 partition! WTF?!)
RC3, Debian, Mandrake, Knoppix, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD... God, I'd tried so many, to no avail, I was seriously considering scrubbing the whole "Switch to *NIX" idea as a lost cause...
Then I found XandrOS.
OMG, fresh hard drive (the 160Gig WD 7200RPM that the other distro only saw half of & then refused to install to), boot to the cd, watch it install as if the hardware were DESIGNED for the freakin distro, and the next thing I know, I've got a new OS.
No fuss, no muss, no migraine headaches trying to configure everything just to get minimal functionality out of ANYthing, much less EVERYthing.
Turn it on, let it install, and it works.
*Period*
Detected my ATI card & started at 1024x768 True Colour.
Sound Blaster Audigy? Check... Oh, look, you've got the SPDIF in use... checking... Do you want to make full use of your 5.1? !WOOT!
Ethernet DSL autodetected & able to get all the updates without having to configure a thing!
Hard drive repartitioned into two 10Gig and two 60Gig chunks (Main Data / Mirored Backup, Programs / Mirrored Backup) and working just fine...
Within 30 minutes, I not only had updated all the installed packages, but picked a few more, added a firewall (and configured it), and am now in the process of trying to figure out which email system to use. (I want something like Outlook, because I'm not the only person who'll be using this machine, and the others will NOT be easy to teach, so the closer to an Outlook-like solution, the better.)
Beyond that, I haven't hit any snags, and damn it, that makes me nearly want to weep for joy.
If I'd had this kind of experience with the first distro I'd tried oh-so-long ago, I'd've never had to switch to WinXP. I was SICK of Windows - I *AM* sick of Windows. But, until XandrOS, I hadn't found a *NIX solution that worked.
XandrOS is a distro I could hand the cd to ANYONE and be confident that it would install on relatively anything, properly the first time, and NOT cause my phone to ring off the hook with screaming cries for help because the OS caused something to puke.
Yeah, I know I probably sound like a paid shill for XandrOS (insert gleeming-smiling lady holding a steaming cup of coffee & gesturing decoratively at a computer screen with the XandrOS logo; complete with cheesy 1950's splash graphics reading "XandrOS! Let's Just Get It Done, Shall We?"), but I'm merely a VERY satisfied user who's ALL too happy to finish tweaking this distro to the point where I can safely Nuke & Pave WinXP off the old hard drive & put it back to use as more data storage for XandrOS...
8-)
Is it readable text?
No.
Then it's either an executable, encrypted, corrupt, or graphics file data block.
All of which can't be read by screen readers.
PDF's aren't executable, usually aren't corrupt, which leaves encrypted and graphical.
Pick one.
Either way, it's worthless to a screen reader.
Now drop dead - come back when you have the balls to post under your own account.
*FOAD*
Here's an experiment you should try sometime.
Go find a PDF on your system...
ANY PDF on your system, and copy it to a temp directory somewhere.
Now, take that secondary copy, and make another copy,
Rename the tertiary file *.TXT instead.
Open the PDF, pick 10 random words from it, write them down, and close the file.
Open Notepad and that TXT file.
Search for those ten words you wrote down.
Want to take a WILD guess as to how many of them you'll find?
Here's a hint... It rhymes with NERO.
Want to take a wild-ass guess as to WHY?
Here's a hint... It rhymes with FRANTIC PILE...
Which, by some odd coincidence, ALSO sums up your rebuttal.
PDF's are ONLY "text searchable" through the PDF front end.
Running them through a text-parser set to search every file on your hard drive for the occurrence of a set of words, and it skips over certain file types by default because there is no text inside them for it to search through.
Among those file types are EXE, SCR, COM, BMP, JPG, GIF, MP3, MPG, AVI, WMF, ASF, and (drum roll please) PDF...
Want to guess Why?
"If you really see nothing in a DOS prompt, that's not in any evidence that the PDF is a graphics file; it's just evidence of the limitations of a DOS prompt. "
Really?
Then why can I open MS Word DOC files and still find the text I see when I open that very same file from within Word?
I can open DOC, BAT, WSH, JS, HTML, DB, and a ton of other file formats that, while "encoded" with header and formatting information, are still humanly readable from a DOS prompt.
Dumping the raw data to my printer will result in a rather messy layout, but the text itself WILL be there and I can, eventually, read it.
Try that same thing with a PDF, and the only readable text you get is the non-encoded header information. There IS no useable text from the document it represents.
"Take a look at a PDF on a *machine and you'll see what I mean. The markup information is readable as ASCII; the content is apparently stored as hex."
I -am- looking at it on a machine.
Specifically, a machine instructed to read me just the text from within a given file.
The machine, if it gets past the header area, gets to read me what?
A hex-dump of an encoded file?
That's about as useful as me sitting here at 2 O'Clock in the morning arguing with a damned troll.
(I can't sleep, I don't feel well, and I get to sit up and LART your lame ass... Oh joy.)
"If JAWS can't read PDFs, that's not because PDFs are graphics files; it's just because JAWS can't read PDFs.""
And that's because, drum roll please, PDF's are, for all intents and purposes, graphic files.
The ONLY place they're useable is from within Adobe.
If I have a scanned legal document that's saved once as TIF and another copy as PDF, neither will be searchable, and for the exact same reason.
Without a program front-end to decode the embedded information, there's nothing really to display - just some header text, and a giant hex-dump of stuff the screen reader pukes on.
If you have the front-end, then SURE you see the text the original showed, but you STILL have the same problem with trying to "read" the text from an IMAGE FILE.
This isn't a problem with JAWS, this is the inherent nature of the file types in question.
"As the earlier poster stated, this is something that really should be taken up with Adobe."
It already has been, and we get nothing from them but a bunch of auto-responding smoke blown up our ass. The few times we DO get a real human to reply, it STILL comes across as "You're a insignificant fringe market - we don't feel like catering to you, go away."
This isn't customer service, it's bullshit.
"Certainly, there is no overwhelming technical reason why PDFs cannot be made readable by text to speech software; they are no uglier on the inside than, say, an MS Word file. If those can be read, then PDFs can be made readable as well."
Except for the fact that Word DOCS are, still, b
Don't think PDF is a graphic file?
Try loading one from a DOS prompt in a standard EDIT environment. Guess what you get? *Nothing*. There is no embedded text to read.
PDF is, by definition, a graphic file - that's how they "assure lay-out consistancy" regardless of the system it's displayed upon.
Yes, you can select text from within the program, *but only if you can see it to begin with*.
PDF's are unreadable in ANY screen reader program - if JAWS can't handle it, then it's *highly* doubtful any other SR program can, either.
That's like saying "Well, if your HMMWV can't tackle that hill, why not try my Lamborghini Diablo?" - if the tool designed to tackle as much as possible can't handle the job, you're pretty much screwed unless you INVENT a new tool.
Oh, you mean like anyone using a screen reader program for the Blind or Visually Impaired?
PDF's and any other purely graphic file, have nothing in them for the SR's to vocalize, thus they're worthless for anyone who can't interact with your purely visual medium.
And while Adobe CLAIMS they're newest versions are compatible with SOME SR's, *they lie*.
I own the latest copy of JAWS, which is THE standard that the others are based upon, and it throws up every time you try to read a PDF.
So thanks for insulting millions of people in the US, and billions of people World-wide...
*Asshole*
...like anyone usng a screen reader program for the blind or visually impaired, perhaps?
Your graphics files equate to *NOTHING* coming out of the speaker except for the file name. Fat f'n lot o' good THAT does us.
You Lucky BASTARD! 8-D
Incomming call turns out to be a telemarketer, charity, cold-call, predictive dialer, my Ex Mother In law, or other such ilk? Smile acidly & hit the button.
A "Communications" Satelite in L.E.O. catches the signal, checks the circuit routing, determines the location of the caller, and promptly spears a nuclear-pumped laser-pulse through that caller's location... Accurate to within +/- 6 inches. Kiss one telemarketer goodbye.
No fuss, no muss, and the "collateral damage" is minimal... (Ok, so the dipshit in the cubal right next to them may get fried, too, but like I care?)
And if it's a purely predictive dialer that hangs up before I get a chance to hit the button, the system traces the still-connected-from-my-end curcuit ANYWAY and increases the power output a thousand fold... Kiss one *building* goodbye.
Now, where's my shiny, red button and Killer ComSat?
I use Outlook Express 6 & MailWasher.
Between the two, I don't download any piece of mail I don't want, don't view any HTML unless I choose to, and have *never* gotten a virii through my mail.
Express allows you to read all email as text only (Tools|Options|Read [X]Read All Message In Plain Text), and I've got that set as a button on the menu bar so I can toggle between the two states with but a single mouse click.
No images, no scripts, no buffer over-flows, no virii, no problem.
I, unfortunately, had to drive one for a few years...
I don't know the model name/designation, but it had two doord, a hatchback, & was automatic...
Crappy mileage, stank (were they SUPPOSED to smell like microwaved road-kill? Three different mechanic shoppes couldn't find the cause!), and looked like the POS it was...
A friend bought me a "Go ahead, hit me! Of COURSE I'm suicidal, I'm driving a PINTO aren't I?!" bumper sticker which we mounted dead-center of the hatchback door...
Couldn't get it to go over 65 without it shaking like an Epiletic having a Grande Mal...
Accelleration? Maybe downhill, with a tailwind, and strapped to a JATO unit...
AM only radio that only picked up two stations, neither of them in English...
Dashboard interior lights never illuminated the guages enough to read them properly - had to use a flashlight. Someone suggested putting one of those goose-necked "map lights" in the cigarette lighter socket & aiming it at the cluster, but the damned socket only provided power when it FELT like it... Two mechanics were unable to find the short or determine why it would cut out, and three replacements didn't fix the issue...
Cop once pulled me over & issued a speeding ticket. Wrote me up for doing 95 in a 65 zone. I took a picture of the Pinto where I had parked it in the Courthouse car-park, and asked the Judge "Is THIS a vehicle that can do 95 in anything other than *FREE FALL*?" Case Dismissed.
Damned POS... Wasn't worth the gas I paid to keep it moving.
(GRRrrrr...)
Personally, either I'll pay to purchase a physical copy of the game, OR I'll pay a subscription fee to play it purely online, but NEVER both.
Take EverQuest as an example:
I paid WAY too much for what I got, and then to be bent over a table and have my wallet ripped from me in order for me to be allowed to play it at all? No thanks, my money is better spent elsewhere.
Now, take Total Annihilation.
I bought the physical media for a decent price, and even after downloading the patches / updates / mods / etc, can (an do) still play it YEARS later without paying another penny for the "priveledge".
So, which is the better value?
EverQuest - the game I spent $50 to get, then was raped another $15 in order to play it before I could figure out I didn't like it, and wasn't able to return (oh look, an open software box? We'll exchange it for another copy, but All Your Cash Belongs To Us!)... It's stat unused and unopened in the back of a "Utter Crap!" box of similar bits of gaming fiasco, doing nothing but gathering dust & disgust.
Or Total Annihilation, which I spent $50 on *once*, and have played in single player, multi-player, and at LAN parties so many times I'd rate it one of the best games I've ever played...
Why? Because it's had INFINITELY more play-value than EQ, and a WHOLE lot more playability!
I love MMORPG's -having grown up on the Commodore 64 "Gold Box" AD&D series from SSI, it's a natural "step up"- but there is no WAY you can convince me that I have to both pay to get the game, and then pay again, on a monthly basis, in order to continue to play the game (or, as in the case of EQ, even play it at all!). One or the other, but not both. A one time $50 payment for a game that's been played for years, or $50 to buy + $15 to play it once & stuff it angrily in the closet to die?
Hummmmm... lemme think....
They fire disabled workers when they get tired of paying for worker's comp...
I know this for a fact.
They fired me because I'd hurt my back lifting monitors (outfitting one of thier CNMC's) and they got sick of the fact that, despite doctor's orders requiring me to attend PhysTher once a week (which, after all the bending, stretching, etc required me to USE that Rx for 500mg Vicodin, despite the fact that the stuff puts me to sleep) and thus effectively "losing me for a day" because I refused to come back to work after the PhysTher appointments...
Your choice - the Vicodin WILL put me to sleep, so do I take the day off under Workman's Comp, or do you pay me to sleep at my desk? Because I *WILL* be asleep either way...
Yet they fired me.
Fuck WilTel... May they rot in the eternal bowels of Satan's deepest latrine.
"Do you complain when your representative doesn't represent you?"
YES I get pissed off when the people I vote for don't get into office.
That means the cretins I did NOT vote for ARE in office, therefore the people I believe best represent my opinions / beliefs / etc are NOT the ones in positions to further those ideals.
YES I complain - it just doesn't do any damned good.
"You're paying for their work, even when it's as shoddy as we're growing accustomed to."
Yes I'm paying for them TO work - unfortunately, they're not doing the work they're paid to be doing. Instead of making America a better place for all American's, they're flushing our Rights down the toilet, selling out our resources to the highest bidders in return for kick-backs & future shares of profits, and generally making life hellish for those who elected them into Office.
"Politicians are different from police and firemen - their job is to talk, and to talk with you."
Then they're not doing thier job. If I wish to speak with my representative, the one I voted for, then it's fairly easy to get in touch, as they ARE interested in what "the little guy" has to say. However, if I want to get in touch with the putz who got elected, "thier time's too valuable" and we get pawned off on some flunky who takes a message and mails us back a boiler-plate reply that does nothing to further the discourse. Unless, of course, I'm going to contribute a massive wad of cash, in which case they're ALL too happy to sit and listen to me, at least until the cheque clears...
"When you ignore them, others like the media move into that power vacuum, totally unaccountable to you."
Except I don't completely ignore them, I merely make sure the message I get from them is the one the World see's, not the airbrushed clap-trap they want to feed me.
And the media IS accountable - if they're proven to no longer be a viable source of data, they tend to get ignored *en masse*, which sends thier ratings into the toilet, thier advertisers stop dealing with them, and they tend to go bankrupt... OR, they clean up thier act, straighten-up-and-fly-right, get-thier-shit-together, and suddenly return to the domain of legitimate news sources.
The Enquirer isn't a good source of political commentary, and you wouldn't use it to gain an idea of how a candidate works/thinks/acts, while CNN would be a better choice, see?
"Of course you're not limited to the messages coming from your representatives, you're much better off triangulating on multiple media sources, especially the Internet with its fast, easy search power."
Ahh, you CAN see reason...
"Global news is more like entertainment when you don't even know how the local school board is spending your money, training your neighbors who are kids in school."
Except my local news doesn't cover such things unless there's blood, money, or corruption involved. "If it ain't bleedin', dyin', or cryin', it ain't news." I already keep in touch with my local schools, as I'm rather fond of volunteering my time to help around campus, attending PTA meetings, helping host Bake Sales, etc; my son doesn't get away with much at school, because all his teachers know me on sight, have my home number at hand, and are perfectly willing to call me at the slightest hint of something out of the ordinary.
I've lived in this community since 1981, am fairly active in it, and attend all the local LAFCO/City Hall style meetings, so your argument is a touch moot... Sorry.
"Politics is not like garbage hauling - leaving it exclusively to the specialists keeps you out of the loop, and therefore expendable."
Unfortunately, it IS like hauling garbage, or have you not been paying attention to all the trash they've been trying to dump down our throats & strap to our backs? Our children will be stuck with the largest bill in history; an environment that is so screwed I'm surprised Mother Nature hasn't tried to exterminate the entire race in disgust; politicians