Um yes, that was my evil plan - make up shit about the MBTA and hope that no one else lives in Boston.
They did scale back the creepy voice lately, but for many months I would hear the message 3-4 times during my half hour commute on the Red Line. Now the more frequent message seems to be the "no smoking on the T" lady reminding us to report unattended packages "to a uniformed MBTA eployee."
I don't know what goes on on the other lines, but on the red this stuff's kinda hard to miss. This brochure has their basic "eye and mouth" logo - when that thing is plastered all over the inside of a train car (they like to do that sometimes - take the same poster and fill every single ad spot in the car with it), it's quite unsettling.
Oh and the "creepy voice" (I think it belongs to Michael Mulhern, MBTA general manager; I am not sure), really is quite creepy.
Ok, that is going to rize up against us and establish and new perfect society of our mechanical superiors? I don't think so. It's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, I'll grant you that, but if they want to fulfill that multitude of hysterical science fiction prediction they are going to have to try a little harder.
Living in Boston I can say that the MBTA has really taken the task of stirring up paranoia and hysteria to heart.
That creepy voice imploring you "if you see something, say something" is on the subway PA about every 15 minutes.
The stations and trains are covered in posters depicting "vigilant" citizens doing their part to protect Freedom, close-ups of an eye reminding you that our enemies only wait for you to drop your guard - really straight out of some cheesy science fiction movie about a semi-futuristic totalitarian regime.
Now apparently they are going to be doing random bag-checks for the DNC (I think they've decided on bag screens now, not sure if that's better or worse), and I am sure that's going to stop right after the DNC is over.
So yeah, the MBTA is definitely doing their part in the whole fear mongering campaign.
This shrill scream of "1984" all time just weakens it's real meaning.
Considering that screaming "1984!" when it is undeniably appropriate is a tad too late, we want to get a bit of a head start. Admittedly, it's probably too late anyway - at least there'll be some screaming for a while yet.
Yeh, you need a great bushy beard to pronounce SQL squirrel.
Another good example is Linux - I personally haven't heard anyone pronounce it "properly" (ie same way as "Linus") in many years. Of course the most elusive and by far the most correct appelation would be "GNU/L-AI-nux".
What about the argument that JIF just sounds absolutely awful? Sure they can specify any pronounciation they want for their format (well, in two years it's going to be theirs), but that doesn't mean that everybody is going to adopt the aesthetically unappealing recommendation.
I realize that there's no laws against it, but wouldn't the other MPAA members worry that this guy's kid works for only one of the member companies?
The beauty of it is that their interests don't actually conflict - MPAA is a lobby group, ipso facto (really wanted to use that somewhere) it's designed to push the interests of the industry as a whole, benefitting all the member companies.
makes it worth the small amount of extra effort it takes to get it up and running.
I'm curious about what that extra effort is. I develop on postgres and manage about 6 instances with a few dozen databases, and I've never had to do more than "./configure && make install" and maybe cp the "large database" config example. Can't really see how it could get simpler.
One important difference - displays are inherently 2D. People have been trying to cram 3D functionality onto a 2D display for a long time now; it just doesn't work all that well.
Oh no - flash is an abomination, not "the times." They want me to install a viewer for their non-standard animation format and then block %99.9 of what that viewer displays, just so I can click on the three links on the home page of their site?
No, that's certifiably retarded, there's not much room for uncertainty there.
Do you really need flash for a title, a release date and three links? If you REALLY want that swishy effect for the title (which I'll agree, is just groingrabbingly fantastic!), is it so hard to put the three freaking links outside the flash thing, as well?
Senator, you're a schmuck and a tool. The afterlife, if it exists, will most likely be a very unpleasant place for you.
So, we don't really know that they don't have the afterlife in their pocket even more than they do with this world, do we? It would only make sense really... it might just turn out that our afterlives will be made entirely disagreeable.
I think that's just going too far - who cares about the exploitation of unlawful children? It's the lawful children we need to protect.
But it is kinda funny, nowadays they just slap something about child exploitation or national security on any bill whatsoever, without even pretending that it has some remote relevance in the context. It's kinda amusing when these people discard their false modesty and just screw you openly; well, amusing in a creepy kinda way.
He is protecting (and furthering) the financial interests of American corporations, which have alway trumped things like the First Amendment, it's just that the two have never really been in such clear opposition to each other before.
He's really just about as Pro-American as one can get - whether that's a good or a bad thing is certainly a personal judgement (well, for the time being at least).
It's similar to when people used to had to start cars by turning the crank. Worked great, right? Functional, no batteries needed, etc. But people see the battery as a replacement, even though it generates more waste and costs more.
That's a very bad analogy - the battery (and the actual starter) is a replacement for the crank, there is nothing, functionally the crank did which the new system doesn't. GUIs and CLIs on the other hand are, as I've said, complementary, with some overlap in functionality which one does better than the other. Take file management for instance, GUIs are absolutely pathetic at it: renaming, searching, sorting, etc. - anything that involves more than a few files at a time is an absolute pain in the ass with GUIs.
In any case, geeks (and I) are as much people, and as much computer users as your vaunted secretaries. I wasn't talking about what "they" "see" as "advancements", I was talking about real usablity and functionality: the two systems have different advantages and solve different problems, they are in no way mutually exclusive.
but like all advances (Word 5.1 up to 2003, CLI to GUI, etc.) it's really more a form of nostalgia than praise
You just had to drag that into it, didn't you?
The GUI is not and improvement over the CLI nor is it a replacement for it - the two are separate and complementary entities. The GUI does not provide the vast majority of the functionality of a CLI (nor does the CLI do much of the stuff that a GUI does).
Just because MS has decreed that only one of the two shall be included with their OS (their current shell doesn't really count) does not mean the other is somehow broken.
I just came across the Web Developer plugin - I think this just may be the happiest day of my life. From little things like resizing the window quickly to popular resolutions, to the live CSS editing, it's hard to overstate how useful this plugin is for web development.
Someone's gonna mod me down for trolling because I don't echo the Slashdot groupspeak on this. Oh well.
Why do people insist on this idiotic preface - it's the only part of your post that makes me want to mod it down.
To answer your question: I rip my CDs exclusively to vorbis. Even I can notice the difference in quality with MP3 (and I am certainly not paying for MP3 Pro). I am quite a fan of the whole software libre thing as well. I can't think of a single advantage to encoding my own stuff in MP3, so it's kind of a no brainer.
As for portability, my Karma plays it beautifully and since it never (ever!) leaves my side, I don't really know where else I'd play it.
Slashdot Mirror
I am trying to decide if you are serious or not. Any hints?
They did scale back the creepy voice lately, but for many months I would hear the message 3-4 times during my half hour commute on the Red Line. Now the more frequent message seems to be the "no smoking on the T" lady reminding us to report unattended packages "to a uniformed MBTA eployee."
I don't know what goes on on the other lines, but on the red this stuff's kinda hard to miss. This brochure has their basic "eye and mouth" logo - when that thing is plastered all over the inside of a train car (they like to do that sometimes - take the same poster and fill every single ad spot in the car with it), it's quite unsettling.
Oh and the "creepy voice" (I think it belongs to Michael Mulhern, MBTA general manager; I am not sure), really is quite creepy.
Ok, that is going to rize up against us and establish and new perfect society of our mechanical superiors? I don't think so. It's one of the creepiest things I've ever seen, I'll grant you that, but if they want to fulfill that multitude of hysterical science fiction prediction they are going to have to try a little harder.
That creepy voice imploring you "if you see something, say something" is on the subway PA about every 15 minutes.
The stations and trains are covered in posters depicting "vigilant" citizens doing their part to protect Freedom, close-ups of an eye reminding you that our enemies only wait for you to drop your guard - really straight out of some cheesy science fiction movie about a semi-futuristic totalitarian regime.
Now apparently they are going to be doing random bag-checks for the DNC (I think they've decided on bag screens now, not sure if that's better or worse), and I am sure that's going to stop right after the DNC is over.
So yeah, the MBTA is definitely doing their part in the whole fear mongering campaign.
Considering that screaming "1984!" when it is undeniably appropriate is a tad too late, we want to get a bit of a head start. Admittedly, it's probably too late anyway - at least there'll be some screaming for a while yet.
Another good example is Linux - I personally haven't heard anyone pronounce it "properly" (ie same way as "Linus") in many years. Of course the most elusive and by far the most correct appelation would be "GNU/L-AI-nux".
How many people say My Es Que El?
The beauty of it is that their interests don't actually conflict - MPAA is a lobby group, ipso facto (really wanted to use that somewhere) it's designed to push the interests of the industry as a whole, benefitting all the member companies.
I'm curious about what that extra effort is. I develop on postgres and manage about 6 instances with a few dozen databases, and I've never had to do more than "./configure && make install" and maybe cp the "large database" config example. Can't really see how it could get simpler.
Judging by my Yahoo inbox, all they will get from this is the world's most gigantic penis.
Wait, a geek what?
I gotta know - what exactly is "interesting" about the parent? I can't even tell where the sarcasm stops and the bad grammar begins.
One important difference - displays are inherently 2D. People have been trying to cram 3D functionality onto a 2D display for a long time now; it just doesn't work all that well.
Oh no - flash is an abomination, not "the times." They want me to install a viewer for their non-standard animation format and then block %99.9 of what that viewer displays, just so I can click on the three links on the home page of their site?
No, that's certifiably retarded, there's not much room for uncertainty there.
What's wrong with these people?
Wha? What exactly should he be receiving money for?
There's software for windows made by companies other than microsoft? Never realized that...
So, we don't really know that they don't have the afterlife in their pocket even more than they do with this world, do we? It would only make sense really... it might just turn out that our afterlives will be made entirely disagreeable.
But it is kinda funny, nowadays they just slap something about child exploitation or national security on any bill whatsoever, without even pretending that it has some remote relevance in the context. It's kinda amusing when these people discard their false modesty and just screw you openly; well, amusing in a creepy kinda way.
He's really just about as Pro-American as one can get - whether that's a good or a bad thing is certainly a personal judgement (well, for the time being at least).
That's a very bad analogy - the battery (and the actual starter) is a replacement for the crank, there is nothing, functionally the crank did which the new system doesn't. GUIs and CLIs on the other hand are, as I've said, complementary, with some overlap in functionality which one does better than the other. Take file management for instance, GUIs are absolutely pathetic at it: renaming, searching, sorting, etc. - anything that involves more than a few files at a time is an absolute pain in the ass with GUIs.
In any case, geeks (and I) are as much people, and as much computer users as your vaunted secretaries. I wasn't talking about what "they" "see" as "advancements", I was talking about real usablity and functionality: the two systems have different advantages and solve different problems, they are in no way mutually exclusive.
You just had to drag that into it, didn't you?
The GUI is not and improvement over the CLI nor is it a replacement for it - the two are separate and complementary entities. The GUI does not provide the vast majority of the functionality of a CLI (nor does the CLI do much of the stuff that a GUI does).
Just because MS has decreed that only one of the two shall be included with their OS (their current shell doesn't really count) does not mean the other is somehow broken.
A good start, basically?
I just came across the Web Developer plugin - I think this just may be the happiest day of my life. From little things like resizing the window quickly to popular resolutions, to the live CSS editing, it's hard to overstate how useful this plugin is for web development.
Why do people insist on this idiotic preface - it's the only part of your post that makes me want to mod it down.
To answer your question: I rip my CDs exclusively to vorbis. Even I can notice the difference in quality with MP3 (and I am certainly not paying for MP3 Pro). I am quite a fan of the whole software libre thing as well. I can't think of a single advantage to encoding my own stuff in MP3, so it's kind of a no brainer.
As for portability, my Karma plays it beautifully and since it never (ever!) leaves my side, I don't really know where else I'd play it.