How about hooking up some low-power emergency lighting around the house - even LEDs would be useful to let you find your way around. You could also tap into the mains ring, so if power drops a small set of lights could come on. You might even be able to neatly recess some small bulbs into your skirting, or lower down in the wall.
I'm sure it would break the rules on any service plan with your landline provider, and may even be illegal, but if done well it would be very cool and also pretty useful.
This may not mean that "passwords are getting better." It may just prove once again that people care more about their personal things than other people's stuff.
Myspace users are likely to be younger, and although stereotypically they are not renowned for their spelling ability, they will be more technology aware than the average corporate user. Myspace users are comfortable with the internet and use it for leisure, whereas at work those who otherwise wouldn't mix well with technology are forced to cope.
If you're a computer newbee, the only thing you can judge a computer on is how it looks.
So just like with the iMac craze a number of years back, updating the look and feel of an OS every now and then, is a good idea from a commercial point of view.
Looks aren't only important for newbies. I've using computers for many years, but I prefer a user interface which feels modern and fresh, as well as one which takes advantage of the computer's graphic capabilities. Just as I feel happier working in an bright office environment in an interesting building. Aesthetics aren't important for everyone - as many sysadmins working on command lines in dingy basements will attest to - but to many others, visual aesthetics are vital for a good user experience.
According to Tom (the guy who runs Myspace, I think) spammers can use login credentials to send spam to friends of a user. There are also screenshots on Tom's blogpost - it seems the best workaround so far is instructing users to type myspace into the address bar themselves before logging in.
I don't know how many people have noticed this, but the only people who complain about incompatibilities (e.g. library versions, paths, etc.) between distros (and/or support the LSB) are the ones who want to sell closed-source software.
If they'd just make a GNU Autoconf script and let the sysadmin/user install the program himself as the parent just described, there would be no problem!
The incompatibilties I come across annoy me to no end. I get very fed up when I try to install a piece of software on Linux, having to figure out which config files need changing where, and locate versions of the required libraries that suit my system.
I don't want to make a GNU Autoconf script. I don't even know what a GNU Autoconf script is, and neither do I want to. I just want to use my program.
I never ever come across these problems on Windows or OSX, which is why I prefer not to use Linux at home - and I have no interest in selling closed-source software to anyone.
Why don't these polls include an "I don't know, I don't have time to check the facts, and it really doesn't matter in my everyday life" option? I think that would be the best response for a thinking non-scientist.
This poll did. I can't see the exact figures, but from the chart it looks like around 20% of americans chose that option. Countries nearer the top of the list, however, seemed to be a lot more confident about their selections.
Ok, joke is old. Enough is enough. I think we all are getting tired of the "OMG PONIES" crap now. It was funny the first 100 times, now it's just stupid. Switch the site back and freaking move on already... sheesh.
haha, leave it. earlier I was feeling a bit grumpy about slashdot wasting an entire day on 1/4 stories, but now I've lightened up! It's funny! Let's be honest about this - Slashdot has never been a serious news site. It's a blog, where you can often find little gems, but you have to wade through some mud to get there. Similarly no-one reads/. as a journal - it's somewhere to go to waste some time. And today I've been able to waste more time than usual!
Good going Taco - keep it up, and don't listen to the winging grumpy gits!:)
I'm grateful for the GP post pointing this out. I mis-read the article too. Most people don't read a single word at a time -- the important word year can be easily missed, Just as it's common to skip over over repeated words, such as the the. Whilst the summary is factually correct, it is written in a misleading way.
If you have rendered your document into PDF using a real PDF distiller (like the one from Acrobat), then the actual text will still be present in the document and it is quite possible for someone to do whatever they like with it in Acrobat
What you say may be technically true, but I doubt any recruiter will go to the trouble of editing a resumé in any format other than Word. Few people have Acrobat Pro installed on their desktop machine, and even if they did know how to edit the file otherwise, they won't go to the trouble. They're far more likely to not send your resumé out at all:)
Right now, the legal system allows these patents. The only way your company can protect itself is to use them - if they don't then someone else might. If the company doesn't get patents, it is acting against the interests of its shareholders, and also against the interests of employees, since it is failing to use a method of protection made available by the legal system.
I don't believe that software patents are a good idea, but if I developed anything patentable at work, I'd feel comfortable having my name put on the patent.
That said, I also feel that no matter how much you might feel that patents don't work for the software industry, and how much you may take up the torch to change the law, it is the law today and a fact of programming life as much as Microsoft, the instruction set of the machine we write for, the turning of the century number, and the need to pay for food. Ignoring them won't make them go away, nor protect you from those that do not have the same beliefs.
I hope you read the full article, especially the part at the end:
Though these conditions do share traits, there is a consensus that most geeks are arguably "variant normal" and do not exhibit autistic-spectrum behaviors. "Geeks" may exhibit an extreme professional or casual interest in computers, science, engineering and related fields, and may be introverted; however, they do not suffer from impairments per se. This does not imply that there is no overlap between "geeks" and Asperger's patients, but it should be noted that self-diagnosis is a dangerous practice, and one prone to error.
How exactly is Safari an alternative to IE7? If I am in a position to use IE7, then I'm not in a position to use Safari, unless he's suggesting I throw away my current computer to get rid of IE!
I don't know. I encourage everybody I know who builds web sites to let people know when they using a non compliant browser especially if it renders different then a compliant browser.
I'd prefer to make a website that renders well in all commonly used browsers, and at the very least degrades gracefully when certain features aren't available.
Every browser is non-compliant in some respect. I choose to use IE as it works best for me - displaying spammy messages asking me to use Firefox is irritating, and is no better than the lazy tactics used by designers who make IE only sites.
Re:Only going to work if it became standard
on
Advocating Dvorak
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· Score: 1
(oh, and the other other uses the Qwerty Smartboard!!)
Contrary to popular belief, qwerty wasn't invented to slow typists down, but to ensure the most often used keys are evenly distributed around the keyboard, thereby avoiding jams and speeding typists up.
"In 1956 a carefully designed study by the General Services Administration found that QWERTY typists were about as fast as Dvorak typists, or faster."
Dvorak himself played a large part perpetuating the myth that qwerty was designed to slow typists down, as he had a lot to gain from his Dvorak patent.
Either the author's machine is broken in some strange way, or he is simply lying. On my old Duron 750 with 384mb RAM, Word 2003 opens in ~5 seconds, while OO takes around 20. That's with all preloaders disabled.
The author also says he had planned to compare Word's HTML export with that of Dreamweaver. Of course he'll find that Word's exported HTML is far more bloated than that of Dreamweaver. Word makes no effort to optimise for file size - it's not intended to produce HTML that will be manually edited, and simply tries to preserve print layout as closely as possible, while Dreamweaver goes to great pains to produce tidy code. Apples and oranges!!
"Back before you had heard of Netscape, I was responsible for the Unix versions of Netscape Navigator through release 1.1."
"Before Netscape, I was primarily to blame for Lucid Emacs"
"...I was one of the folks who created and ran the Mozilla Organization during the first year of its life"
"But now I've taken my leave of that whole sick, navel-gazing mess we called the software industry. Now I'm in a more honest line of work: now I sell beer."
How did they figure out how to set the clock initially? Thanks.
Atomic clocks count the number of vibrations within an atom, so know how much time has passed to a high degree of accuracy. Absolute time however, cannot really be known, as we have no reference point to measure it from (unless we find someone who has been counting since the big bang happened!).
The standard day-to-day time system is UTC (rather mysteriously standing for Coordinated Universal Time) and it is based on the rotation of the earth. This is decided by the BIPM. As the length of a day is not precisely divisible by a second, leap seconds occasioanlly have to be added.
I suspect that they have a couple people who know nothing except pop music on their staff. Some guy (never a woman) just listens for about 10 seconds and say's what he thinks is the name of the song.
Yeah, your car is powered by thousands of hamsters under the bonnnet, there's a little man inside your TV when watch the news, and whenever you browse the web tiny fairies inside the monitor are holding pieces of paper up to the screen!
Really, it does exist. They've had it in the UK for years.
How many people are going to be willing to pay $1.00 USD to find out just the name of a song?
Possibly the same crazy demographic who are willing to shell out £2 or more for a sequence of beeps or a midi file on their phone. Their are millions of them!
I would disagree. As many other posters have said, most people will likely use VOIP as a replacement for there current fixed phone service. Few people will frequently travel around using it.
Even fpr those who do, a slightly unreliable 911 service is significantly more useful than none at all.
So, when you take your laptop with you to a different city, how will the VOIP provider know...
The article says that the ISP should have a system in place allowing users to update their geographic location. It is the user's responsibility to this, but the ISP must make it possible. There are no insurmountable technical issues here, and there is no excuse for VOIP providers continuing to avoid the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
How about hooking up some low-power emergency lighting around the house - even LEDs would be useful to let you find your way around. You could also tap into the mains ring, so if power drops a small set of lights could come on. You might even be able to neatly recess some small bulbs into your skirting, or lower down in the wall. I'm sure it would break the rules on any service plan with your landline provider, and may even be illegal, but if done well it would be very cool and also pretty useful.
According to Tom (the guy who runs Myspace, I think) spammers can use login credentials to send spam to friends of a user. There are also screenshots on Tom's blogpost - it seems the best workaround so far is instructing users to type myspace into the address bar themselves before logging in.
The incompatibilties I come across annoy me to no end. I get very fed up when I try to install a piece of software on Linux, having to figure out which config files need changing where, and locate versions of the required libraries that suit my system.
I don't want to make a GNU Autoconf script. I don't even know what a GNU Autoconf script is, and neither do I want to. I just want to use my program.
I never ever come across these problems on Windows or OSX, which is why I prefer not to use Linux at home - and I have no interest in selling closed-source software to anyone.
Good going Taco - keep it up, and don't listen to the winging grumpy gits! :)
For more ways of bending the truth, check out Darrell Huff's How to Lie With Statistics.
What you say may be technically true, but I doubt any recruiter will go to the trouble of editing a resumé in any format other than Word. Few people have Acrobat Pro installed on their desktop machine, and even if they did know how to edit the file otherwise, they won't go to the trouble. They're far more likely to not send your resumé out at all :)
I don't believe that software patents are a good idea, but if I developed anything patentable at work, I'd feel comfortable having my name put on the patent.
Dan Bricklin, the author of Visicalc, has written a thoughtful piece on his views on software patents.
How exactly is Safari an alternative to IE7? If I am in a position to use IE7, then I'm not in a position to use Safari, unless he's suggesting I throw away my current computer to get rid of IE!
I'd prefer to make a website that renders well in all commonly used browsers, and at the very least degrades gracefully when certain features aren't available.
Every browser is non-compliant in some respect. I choose to use IE as it works best for me - displaying spammy messages asking me to use Firefox is irritating, and is no better than the lazy tactics used by designers who make IE only sites.
(oh, and the other other uses the Qwerty Smartboard!!)
Contrary to popular belief, qwerty wasn't invented to slow typists down, but to ensure the most often used keys are evenly distributed around the keyboard, thereby avoiding jams and speeding typists up.
From http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id =356 :
Dvorak himself played a large part perpetuating the myth that qwerty was designed to slow typists down, as he had a lot to gain from his Dvorak patent.
The Mac Mini still costs $499 without a monitor, so it's got a long way to go.
The author also says he had planned to compare Word's HTML export with that of Dreamweaver. Of course he'll find that Word's exported HTML is far more bloated than that of Dreamweaver. Word makes no effort to optimise for file size - it's not intended to produce HTML that will be manually edited, and simply tries to preserve print layout as closely as possible, while Dreamweaver goes to great pains to produce tidy code. Apples and oranges!!
"Back before you had heard of Netscape, I was responsible for the Unix versions of Netscape Navigator through release 1.1."
"Before Netscape, I was primarily to blame for Lucid Emacs"
"...I was one of the folks who created and ran the Mozilla Organization during the first year of its life"
"But now I've taken my leave of that whole sick, navel-gazing mess we called the software industry. Now I'm in a more honest line of work: now I sell beer."
Slashdot lowers itself to new depths. Taco: you could've left this one.
I thought that at 330 pounds, that title was safely held by Kim Schmitz.
Atomic clocks count the number of vibrations within an atom, so know how much time has passed to a high degree of accuracy. Absolute time however, cannot really be known, as we have no reference point to measure it from (unless we find someone who has been counting since the big bang happened!).
The standard day-to-day time system is UTC (rather mysteriously standing for Coordinated Universal Time) and it is based on the rotation of the earth. This is decided by the BIPM. As the length of a day is not precisely divisible by a second, leap seconds occasioanlly have to be added.
You've just summed up Europe perfectly!
Yeah, your car is powered by thousands of hamsters under the bonnnet, there's a little man inside your TV when watch the news, and whenever you browse the web tiny fairies inside the monitor are holding pieces of paper up to the screen!
Really, it does exist. They've had it in the UK for years.
Possibly the same crazy demographic who are willing to shell out £2 or more for a sequence of beeps or a midi file on their phone. Their are millions of them!
Even fpr those who do, a slightly unreliable 911 service is significantly more useful than none at all.
The article says that the ISP should have a system in place allowing users to update their geographic location. It is the user's responsibility to this, but the ISP must make it possible. There are no insurmountable technical issues here, and there is no excuse for VOIP providers continuing to avoid the problem.