(There might be better and cheaper ones around, probably, as you don't need to get "dvorak" stickers, afterall, just get regulars ones and stick them in the dvorak formation).
I just change my OS to handle both qwerty and dvorak.
I'm not a gamer. I like it better than Qwerty, my wrists don't hurt anymore. However, I used to touch type Qwerty, now I can't. This isn't a big deal but would someone point me if a USB device exists that could be plug in between the keyboard and the computer that could translate qwerty signals into dvorak ones? I would find this helpful on computers other than my own.
If you want to learn Dvorak, like a foreign language I would suggest to plunge in and stop using qwerty. Your muscle memory needs to get accustomed to the new system and changing in between is not helpful. I initially tried learning dvorak by taking online lessons in small doses. After six months, I wasn't getting anywhere. I switch cold turkey one weekend, and by Monday morning, was a touch typist again (I spent roughly 6 hours on online lessons that weekend and did all my other computer stuff in Dvorak).
There are potentially better layouts designed recently but I want to ask anyone with experience with the "Neo" Tastatur/Layout - is it better in your experience?
That would be nice but I'm already off the Windows platform 95%, but I there are a few windows only apps I need to run which my business depends on.
Rather than dual booting which just won't cut it because of time switching back and forth between my linux apps, I would rather run Virtual box and use something like XP Pro's rdesktop to get a seamless experience until a decent competitor to the apps I need comes into the Linux market, the apps get ported, or when they actually work in WINE.
Perhaps over-reported, but it's not baseless FUD against Microsoft. There is no real reason to require a more expensive license other than to prevent people from migrating to other platforms.
If there was a stronger DOJ without the current administration's meddling, at least I would have hope that they would interfere and infer that it would in violation of their monopoly position or 90's agreement.
(Have you never wondered why cell phone companies these days have to transfer your number if you move your service upon request? What if they charged you a higher price to transfer that number than your savings with the new company? Could stifle competition slightly, couldn't it?)
Until a robot can think, in such a way that it resembles how a human thinks, I think coming up with "laws" such as these are next to useless unless you want a philosophical discussion or a what-if scenario. We have hard enough time trying to get robots to recognize images for what they are (AFAIK some high end surveillance systems for the government can do this on a primitive level -- ie it can't learn to recognize much beyond it's programming) - how would you program such arbitrary, human concepts? Do we wave our hands and make it so?
I am not against voting Libertarian.... but when people going to stop and think who they are voting for? Vote independently of party and look at the person.
Small political parties are only devoid of corruption because they have no power yet. The conservatives swept into power in 1994 with the promise of reform -- look what happened. I guarantee the same corruption and shit will happen once the democrats are in power because this cycle is endless. Both sides are the same and we are on a giant merry-go-round with the same shit every time.
I think one of the best politicians recently was Jesse Ventura, and he ran as an Independent. Kept his word on many things and stepped out after 2 terms. Not a career politician by any means.
Contrast this with the average career politician willing to say anything publicly to get elected while toeing the party line while in office. Beholden to so many interests, its no wonder most suck.
If people ever started electing people without even looking at party affiliation, there would be no need for political parties. And a lot better job would get done. I would rather be for election reform if that meant that voting booths could just have the name of the person on the ticket, without party listed (do they list their every stance on issues in the booth too, I don't think so - this is a product of the 2 party system helping each other out - like they rig every other part of the electoral process). Then maybe people would be forced to look at who they are voting for rather than check it off all one party or another. Maybe then we'd getter better choices than between a douche and a turd.
Net neutrality is also about giving the customer what they paid for. The customer paid for the internet, not for a subset comcastnet, verizonnet, or any other connection. They didn't pay for the company to double dip on both sides.
It be like paying for phone service and getting only good connections to people who paid that also paid that specific phone company off.
There are situations where I feel running a red light is okay (for civilians).
Haven't you ever been caught in a rural shopping strip in middle of the night whose main exits have a light which is not on a blinking red for some reason (with the main street blinking yellow) but instead force you to wait 10 minutes for a 15 second green?
Are we supposed to abandon our brains entirely and wait that entire time when there is not one other car on the road? I'm against cameras for many reasons (they cause people to break and give they a higher chance of being rear-ended for one) but the main reason is that they can't practice discretion in cases. There just there solely to make money.
Sunlight has never really caught fire as a power source
Besides the bad pun... you obviously have never used magnifying glasses on poor helpless insects...
Re:again, seriously - so?
on
AMD's New DRM
·
· Score: 1
This has little to do with watching pirated movies for free on my computer.
It's about who controls my computer - I or some random 3rd party. (Since I run Linux, I'm pretty sure I do on all major levels). I'm pretty sure I don't want random 3rd parties to control my computer, especially as it becomes a security nightmare.
While you are anti-capitalist, I am pro-capitalist but only to the extent that companies can and should not infringe on the rights of people. If that means that they can't bear the burden of piracy without restricting others, you know what, get out of that business and start doing something else completely like construction (no piracy there, I'm sure). No one is forcing the movie studios to make their shitty movies.
Instead, they bribe politicians to pass shit like the DMCA. The DMCA basically states you can't do what you want to with what you paid for and own in the privacy of your own home. I believe that a basic principle has beenn violated here and if AMD goes this route without offering consumers a choice, I avoid their products and tell everyone else to do so as well.
Yes, it has uses in the corporation. But not my home. I don't care how much the content providers whine. Fuck them. This punishes only the people who have legit copies, as they have always done, while the pirate can sit back, laugh, and enjoy the product without restrictions.
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this?
on
The End is Nigh for XP
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Was Microsofts older versions of Windows phased out this fast too?
In the past, when a new version of Windows came out, there was no real need to phase out the old Windows - people wanted the newest version when they bought a new PC.
I guess this is a rather new situation for Microsoft (at least in the OS business.)
Now, it wouldn't seem that it should matter much to MS as long as someone pays the license, but I guess in the long run it could cost them money, not just from prolonged support, but people who already have a version of XP at home could start looking for an OS-less PC when they upgrade and just install what they have since drivers would undoubtedly be available for that hardware and not just Vista/nextGreatestOS.
I think this new Debian release is good news for Ubuntu which relies on it, so their next release can be on the 4.0 foundation.... but why would Debian want to compete with Ubuntu? They both have different goals in mind. I love Ubuntu to death, but with the 6 month release cycle, it feels like it's always advancing, but also not as stable as something that I would want to use on a server.
You're correct, I jumped the gun a bit. I looked at the article again and it is indeed referring to Graduate School students, and not undergraduate, where I believe they are usually at a level where such a warning is warranted.
Is this a good thing that students get protected from the random professor who preys on a student's work and makes it their own or are we teaching values and mistrust now at that are at odds with a mostly open society and education?
I'm not against students recieving credit, but as with patents, I'm against people ardently claiming credit for the most insignificant things.
I think groupthink is more of a problem on Digg, as I inhabit both. Digg has more frequent articles, some interesting and many frivolous, but reading the comments sections is like visiting the nerdy version of a lockerroom and the intelligence/groupthink that goes with such an environment..
In the mean time, they can still just sue the crap out of any entreprenuer, right or wrong,
Mabye in the nineties, but ever since the whole DOJ thing, I think MS has been careful about relying on the courts too much.
Also, the markets seems less oblivious to that kind of bullying than they used to and MS has large competitors that are willing to spend money to thwart it.
I think the biggest proof of that is that Linux continues to flourish under MS's nose...
Computing Intensive stuff like video editing, games, etc, are going to remain on your computer.
But word processing? I doubted it myself, but I really like Google Docs and Spreadsheets - it allows me to work on certain things on any computers without dragging files around - and I can collaborated on a word document or spreadsheet with a ton of people without a ton of file swapping happening - I just have to invite who I want to look or give them read/write access - and I can see their revisions easily.
However, I was looking to buy a new computer today on pricewatch, and the vast majority of independent builders still offer XP Home as a default and Vista as an upgrade that costs more $$$. I think this may slow the uptake of Vista in some circles (though I concede the volume sellers such as Dell seem to offer Vista as the default).
The recording industry will soon die, and eventually the only survivors will be the indie bands singing for the love of music. They'll end up as 21st century minstrels wandering from pub to pub, settling for a meager income and drinks on the house, regardless of their talent.
I think the Grateful Dead were one of the highest grossing bands on tour of all time yet they never had that many mainstream hits. They also allowed people to copy their music like crazy.
Even if the death of the CD and record industry comes, there will always be stadiums/concerts/etcetera that have to be filled. Artists of greater talent (or popularity) will fill the bigger venues, as it is now, and make their money this way. You have not really explained why this will die - people will always want to go to events.
I cringe to bring this example up, but the ratings of American Idol still show music is very much a profitable business (even if that is mixed with drama and whatnot).
Or you could have people paint their roofs white and use lighter tar on the streets white instead of the pitch black crap (would make night driving better too I assume), etcetera, to send back some solar energy once it gets on earth. You could genetically engineer grass to be light/white instead of green, and be "viral" so that entire patches of normal grass would be taken over by the stuff. It should also be emo grass, so it can cut itself.
That is why the melting of the artic/antartic would be a big problem - that white ice/snow reflects energy back to space, when it gets smaller, it effectively increases the amount of energy we recieve (I guess the oceans get warmer) and makes the whole warming process go that much faster.
Anyway, a few trillion gallons of white paint would be easier to procure and distribute than sending mega mirrors up to space -- even if they are made of mylar or something similiar.
The other problem is that by outsourcing your R&D, you are effectively building up your own competition, who, once they break away from you (in terms of employment) will leave you depleted of that knowledge (since it was outsourced) while competing with you with the latest know-how and for less.
It is one thing to outsourced certain operations like elementary customer help phonecenter overseas that probably will save the money in the long haul even with some lost customers, it is quite another to send your golden goose overseas just because they can "polish" it for less in the short term.
This has happened again and again in business. After World War II, Japan and Germany were greatly built up again first by being the outsourced manufacturer to American businesses (however they both long had industrial revolutions in the 18th Century) because they were relatively cheap, then they became competitors with their own exports.
However, there isn't much to indicate that there economies were built up at the loss of our middle class - to the contrary, but fears were widespread at the time with other concerns on attacks upon the lower/middle class job like automation - the 1960/70s in particular feared "robots" taking over all the work.
This time around though, it seems not the factory worker jobs at risk (since most of those are gone anyway) but almost any educated job is at risk - the only ones safe are low income menial jobs or bureacratic jobs (as it always has been). I would have said the service economy is safe but.... that may not be true either - I have read that some contract lawyer and doctor operations have been outsourced (doctors who analyze Cat scans and that type of thing).
Where does that leave America when our educated technical workforce becomes depleted and we are left with only a service economy while our competitors are built up with the latest know-how and the brightest workforce? Do we wait until we become a cheap economy again where things can be outsourced to us in a couple generations?
BTW, I don't believe in the viability of the purely service economy.
Slashdot Mirror
They have opaque and transparent ones:
S tore_Code=KBH&Product_Code=OV-0658
S tore_Code=KBH&Product_Code=OV-0658.
http://hooleon.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&
http://hooleon.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&
(There might be better and cheaper ones around, probably, as you don't need to get "dvorak" stickers, afterall, just get regulars ones and stick them in the dvorak formation).
I just change my OS to handle both qwerty and dvorak.
I'm not a gamer. I like it better than Qwerty, my wrists don't hurt anymore. However, I used to touch type Qwerty, now I can't. This isn't a big deal but would someone point me if a USB device exists that could be plug in between the keyboard and the computer that could translate qwerty signals into dvorak ones? I would find this helpful on computers other than my own.
m l
If you want to learn Dvorak, like a foreign language I would suggest to plunge in and stop using qwerty. Your muscle memory needs to get accustomed to the new system and changing in between is not helpful. I initially tried learning dvorak by taking online lessons in small doses. After six months, I wasn't getting anywhere. I switch cold turkey one weekend, and by Monday morning, was a touch typist again (I spent roughly 6 hours on online lessons that weekend and did all my other computer stuff in Dvorak).
There are potentially better layouts designed recently but I want to ask anyone with experience with the "Neo" Tastatur/Layout - is it better in your experience?
Neo Layout:
(German - has useful visual comparison to QWERTY, DVORAK, and other layouts)
http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout.php
If you never have heard of it:
English:
http://pebbles.schattenlauf.de/layout/index_us.ht
I always thought that this practice violated the Right of Assembly part of the Constitution.
I feel the same about Free Speech Zones...
That would be nice but I'm already off the Windows platform 95%, but I there are a few windows only apps I need to run which my business depends on.
Rather than dual booting which just won't cut it because of time switching back and forth between my linux apps, I would rather run Virtual box and use something like XP Pro's rdesktop to get a seamless experience until a decent competitor to the apps I need comes into the Linux market, the apps get ported, or when they actually work in WINE.
Perhaps over-reported, but it's not baseless FUD against Microsoft. There is no real reason to require a more expensive license other than to prevent people from migrating to other platforms.
If there was a stronger DOJ without the current administration's meddling, at least I would have hope that they would interfere and infer that it would in violation of their monopoly position or 90's agreement.
(Have you never wondered why cell phone companies these days have to transfer your number if you move your service upon request? What if they charged you a higher price to transfer that number than your savings with the new company? Could stifle competition slightly, couldn't it?)
Until a robot can think, in such a way that it resembles how a human thinks, I think coming up with "laws" such as these are next to useless unless you want a philosophical discussion or a what-if scenario. We have hard enough time trying to get robots to recognize images for what they are (AFAIK some high end surveillance systems for the government can do this on a primitive level -- ie it can't learn to recognize much beyond it's programming) - how would you program such arbitrary, human concepts? Do we wave our hands and make it so?
I am not against voting Libertarian.... but when people going to stop and think who they are voting for? Vote independently of party and look at the person.
Small political parties are only devoid of corruption because they have no power yet. The conservatives swept into power in 1994 with the promise of reform -- look what happened. I guarantee the same corruption and shit will happen once the democrats are in power because this cycle is endless. Both sides are the same and we are on a giant merry-go-round with the same shit every time.
I think one of the best politicians recently was Jesse Ventura, and he ran as an Independent. Kept his word on many things and stepped out after 2 terms. Not a career politician by any means.
Contrast this with the average career politician willing to say anything publicly to get elected while toeing the party line while in office. Beholden to so many interests, its no wonder most suck.
If people ever started electing people without even looking at party affiliation, there would be no need for political parties. And a lot better job would get done. I would rather be for election reform if that meant that voting booths could just have the name of the person on the ticket, without party listed (do they list their every stance on issues in the booth too, I don't think so - this is a product of the 2 party system helping each other out - like they rig every other part of the electoral process). Then maybe people would be forced to look at who they are voting for rather than check it off all one party or another. Maybe then we'd getter better choices than between a douche and a turd.
and you only have a single bucket. How do you stop the ship from sinking?
The answer? You don't. It's useless to try to stop the inevitable.
Net neutrality is also about giving the customer what they paid for. The customer paid for the internet, not for a subset comcastnet, verizonnet, or any other connection. They didn't pay for the company to double dip on both sides.
It be like paying for phone service and getting only good connections to people who paid that also paid that specific phone company off.
There are situations where I feel running a red light is okay (for civilians).
Haven't you ever been caught in a rural shopping strip in middle of the night whose main exits have a light which is not on a blinking red for some reason (with the main street blinking yellow) but instead force you to wait 10 minutes for a 15 second green?
Are we supposed to abandon our brains entirely and wait that entire time when there is not one other car on the road? I'm against cameras for many reasons (they cause people to break and give they a higher chance of being rear-ended for one) but the main reason is that they can't practice discretion in cases. There just there solely to make money.
Besides the bad pun... you obviously have never used magnifying glasses on poor helpless insects...
This has little to do with watching pirated movies for free on my computer.
It's about who controls my computer - I or some random 3rd party. (Since I run Linux, I'm pretty sure I do on all major levels). I'm pretty sure I don't want random 3rd parties to control my computer, especially as it becomes a security nightmare.
While you are anti-capitalist, I am pro-capitalist but only to the extent that companies can and should not infringe on the rights of people. If that means that they can't bear the burden of piracy without restricting others, you know what, get out of that business and start doing something else completely like construction (no piracy there, I'm sure). No one is forcing the movie studios to make their shitty movies.
Instead, they bribe politicians to pass shit like the DMCA. The DMCA basically states you can't do what you want to with what you paid for and own in the privacy of your own home. I believe that a basic principle has beenn violated here and if AMD goes this route without offering consumers a choice, I avoid their products and tell everyone else to do so as well.
Yes, it has uses in the corporation. But not my home. I don't care how much the content providers whine. Fuck them. This punishes only the people who have legit copies, as they have always done, while the pirate can sit back, laugh, and enjoy the product without restrictions.
In the past, when a new version of Windows came out, there was no real need to phase out the old Windows - people wanted the newest version when they bought a new PC.
I guess this is a rather new situation for Microsoft (at least in the OS business.)
Now, it wouldn't seem that it should matter much to MS as long as someone pays the license, but I guess in the long run it could cost them money, not just from prolonged support, but people who already have a version of XP at home could start looking for an OS-less PC when they upgrade and just install what they have since drivers would undoubtedly be available for that hardware and not just Vista/nextGreatestOS.
I think this new Debian release is good news for Ubuntu which relies on it, so their next release can be on the 4.0 foundation.... but why would Debian want to compete with Ubuntu? They both have different goals in mind. I love Ubuntu to death, but with the 6 month release cycle, it feels like it's always advancing, but also not as stable as something that I would want to use on a server.
You're correct, I jumped the gun a bit. I looked at the article again and it is indeed referring to Graduate School students, and not undergraduate, where I believe they are usually at a level where such a warning is warranted.
Is this a good thing that students get protected from the random professor who preys on a student's work and makes it their own or are we teaching values and mistrust now at that are at odds with a mostly open society and education?
I'm not against students recieving credit, but as with patents, I'm against people ardently claiming credit for the most insignificant things.
I think groupthink is more of a problem on Digg, as I inhabit both. Digg has more frequent articles, some interesting and many frivolous, but reading the comments sections is like visiting the nerdy version of a lockerroom and the intelligence/groupthink that goes with such an environment..
Mabye in the nineties, but ever since the whole DOJ thing, I think MS has been careful about relying on the courts too much.
Also, the markets seems less oblivious to that kind of bullying than they used to and MS has large competitors that are willing to spend money to thwart it.
I think the biggest proof of that is that Linux continues to flourish under MS's nose...
Computing Intensive stuff like video editing, games, etc, are going to remain on your computer.
But word processing? I doubted it myself, but I really like Google Docs and Spreadsheets - it allows me to work on certain things on any computers without dragging files around - and I can collaborated on a word document or spreadsheet with a ton of people without a ton of file swapping happening - I just have to invite who I want to look or give them read/write access - and I can see their revisions easily.
That is the unhyped, 0 buzzword reason I like it.
99% of PowerPoint presentations are forgotten about (by their owners) after they are presented.
And don't forget that the EU is forcing MS to release their protocols, and they seem serious about it.
However, I was looking to buy a new computer today on pricewatch, and the vast majority of independent builders still offer XP Home as a default and Vista as an upgrade that costs more $$$. I think this may slow the uptake of Vista in some circles (though I concede the volume sellers such as Dell seem to offer Vista as the default).
I think the Grateful Dead were one of the highest grossing bands on tour of all time yet they never had that many mainstream hits. They also allowed people to copy their music like crazy.
Even if the death of the CD and record industry comes, there will always be stadiums/concerts/etcetera that have to be filled. Artists of greater talent (or popularity) will fill the bigger venues, as it is now, and make their money this way. You have not really explained why this will die - people will always want to go to events.
I cringe to bring this example up, but the ratings of American Idol still show music is very much a profitable business (even if that is mixed with drama and whatnot).
Or you could have people paint their roofs white and use lighter tar on the streets white instead of the pitch black crap (would make night driving better too I assume), etcetera, to send back some solar energy once it gets on earth. You could genetically engineer grass to be light/white instead of green, and be "viral" so that entire patches of normal grass would be taken over by the stuff. It should also be emo grass, so it can cut itself.
That is why the melting of the artic/antartic would be a big problem - that white ice/snow reflects energy back to space, when it gets smaller, it effectively increases the amount of energy we recieve (I guess the oceans get warmer) and makes the whole warming process go that much faster.
Anyway, a few trillion gallons of white paint would be easier to procure and distribute than sending mega mirrors up to space -- even if they are made of mylar or something similiar.
The other problem is that by outsourcing your R&D, you are effectively building up your own competition, who, once they break away from you (in terms of employment) will leave you depleted of that knowledge (since it was outsourced) while competing with you with the latest know-how and for less.
It is one thing to outsourced certain operations like elementary customer help phonecenter overseas that probably will save the money in the long haul even with some lost customers, it is quite another to send your golden goose overseas just because they can "polish" it for less in the short term.
This has happened again and again in business. After World War II, Japan and Germany were greatly built up again first by being the outsourced manufacturer to American businesses (however they both long had industrial revolutions in the 18th Century) because they were relatively cheap, then they became competitors with their own exports.
However, there isn't much to indicate that there economies were built up at the loss of our middle class - to the contrary, but fears were widespread at the time with other concerns on attacks upon the lower/middle class job like automation - the 1960/70s in particular feared "robots" taking over all the work.
This time around though, it seems not the factory worker jobs at risk (since most of those are gone anyway) but almost any educated job is at risk - the only ones safe are low income menial jobs or bureacratic jobs (as it always has been). I would have said the service economy is safe but.... that may not be true either - I have read that some contract lawyer and doctor operations have been outsourced (doctors who analyze Cat scans and that type of thing).
Where does that leave America when our educated technical workforce becomes depleted and we are left with only a service economy while our competitors are built up with the latest know-how and the brightest workforce? Do we wait until we become a cheap economy again where things can be outsourced to us in a couple generations?
BTW, I don't believe in the viability of the purely service economy.
With murder you'd probably get a lot less. Maybe on par with being a serial killer.