On the other hand, when these get to college they're weeded out fairly easily, and if you happen to be in classes with them, they make your grades look better. Unless you are a parent, there's not much to be done against the massive forces of MTV, IM and celebrity gossip. My sister is an example of this: she's taking intro liberal arts classes a big public university and being murdered by them because she lacks the intellectual ability that the higher performing students do.
Eventually US and People should lose their interest, because if they don't she won't be in school for long.
Are you going to claim that a mechanic who uses the computer in your car to tell him you have a bad sparkplug is a bad mechanic? Or are you going to be quietly grateful that he was able to fix your problem for $50 in 1/2 an hour instead of the old school "hard core" method of slowly replacing part after part until you figure out which was the broken one, which costs you lots of time and money?
Since this is/., I'm going to denounce anyone who buys pre-made cars instead of smelting and molding the steel themselves. Let's face it, those who don't design and implement the whole engine and drivetrain, on a lathe, by hand, are girly men at best. Furthermore, if you ever did use a mechanic, I'm going to question your worth as a human being and mock your nickname. In this case, I'll observe that the parent is named "captain craptacular," which hardly inspires confidence.
No one knows, because while you (and I) download it five times each, some people download a single binary to install on 20,000 machines, and some build from the source and then pass it out to friends. There could be 100 million Firefox installs. Ten million seems somewhat low but possible.
I'm arguing that OpenOffice isn't an option for everyone, or at the very least isn't ready to be used by everyone, including the millions of Mac users out there.
I'd consider it, and have, but OpenOffice for OS X in the form of NeoOffice isn't very good. It starts on my 1.5 Ghz PowerBook in about 30 seconds, compared to 3-4 for Word, and has inferior style support and lacks a unified toolbar. I also haven't been able to get it to do complex number patterns, like 2.c.iv., and have all of them increment appropriately. Finally, although NeoOffice is a noble effort, it's ugly on OS X. Although I've already tried your suggestion, I find that I do need MS Office.
Well, the article says that 45 million people have downloaded Bittorrent. It doesn't cite a source, but I'd imagine it means the offical client downloads. Plenty of other people download clients from other sources -- Azureus from Sourcefoge comes to mind -- so the real number may be much, much higher. Still, even if it isn't, and 45 million includes a lot of duplicates, I wouldn't be surprised if a few million people know what Bittorrent is. Certainly at least a few of my non-geek friends, the same ones who would give me a funny look if I said "Slashdot", know what Bittorrent is, which indicates to me that it's penetrated the mainstream at least somewhat.
Speaking of that, I remember when Java applets were also the rage, and I turned them off because they were slug-slow on my 56kb model. Low and behold, I tried "Writerly" and it is slug-slow on my 56kb modem. Would someone wake me up with an original that makes sense?
Web searches belong on the web. Office apps and Photoshop belong on my local machine. My data belongss wherever I wish to send it. Is that so terrible?
You make an important point. Some languages have separate words for the two meaning of free -- for example, I believe "libre" in Latin means free as in speech, and led to the English word "liberal." So "Liberal Arts" means "Free Arts," or those things practiced by free men, as opposed to slaves or serfs.
I'll say they're unlikely to keep at it, because the desktop computer market in the US and Western Europe, where Microsoft makes the vast majority of its profits, are saturated with computers. Unlike 1992, virtually everyone who wants or needs a computer now has one, and a powerful machine can be easily bought for $300. So the chief way Microsoft grew so fast -- through people buying new computers or first computers -- is tapped.
In addition, I'd argue that the improvements between versions of Office are now minor. I use Office 2004, and doubt I use all of the features from Office in 1998. If I didn't already own a copy of MS Office and were in need of an office suite today, I might pick NeoOffice. Given that I suspect few users even use as many features of their word processor as I do, I suspect the number of people who need to upgrade will be low.
2005 is considerably different than 1992, and Microsoft's stock price reflects that. They can no longer grow as they did, which doesn't mean they can't grow at all, but still.
I agree. Also, I have no need for color, so I bought a cheapo black and white USB laser printer, which I can share on the network using an Airport base station. It's somewhat noisy, but has a 3K per cartridge cycle, and the print quality is better thank inkjets.
You can also get a clone of the original, or near original, Apple keyboards, from Matias. Buying from some dealers, like Smalldog (www.smalldog.com), is cheaper though.
No offense, but the net is filled with terrible, unreadable novels, and if anything demonstrate the usefulness of real publishers, who ensure a certain level of value in what they produce. I downloaded the first part of your novel, and half the first paragraph is below:
I'd like to say that I rode back into town like the conquering hero, but that
would be a lie. I didn't even slink in through the back door. There was no
one who knew I was coming back, which I suppose echoes they way I left.
In the first sentence of your novel you use a cliche, and the third contains a glaring typo. Even the cliche is wrong -- it goes "like a conquering hero."
Given the obvious mistakes, I'm unsurprised that you found little traction in the traditional publishing world.
Also, "a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities.
The problem is, Apple is (soon to be was) the least expensive and most practical way for hackers and programmers to get machines running PPC Linux. Without Apple making PPC machines, it seems to me that fewer people will be developing software for PPC Linux, at least if we're still discussing traditional PCs.
(If the sentence above refers to set-top boxes of some kind, then my comment isn't as valid.)
We need to focus on fundamentlas, reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. They need to read more and write more, and be able to construct cogent arguments and analyses in both written and oral form.
So... tell me your opinion on the importance of spelling.
Most importantly to me, Amazon doesn't require the use of Paypal. After being burned by Paypal once, I will never use them again. Strangely enough, though, I got an e-mail from someone at Paypal about a FTC complaint I filed, claiming to be interested in the problem I had.
Still, I will never use Paypal, but I do buy things from Amazon on a somewhat regular basis, and have never had an issue, and have heard of fewer people who have had problems. I agree with the parent poster.
More importantly, Amazon discounts nearly every book and CD I've bought, and doesn't charge MA sales tax. As a college student who bought a lot of books, the savings and convenience over the campus book store was huge -- it could add up to more than $100 per semester.
You may want to consider using idle CPU power for something that will help, then, such as Stanford's Folding@Home or one of the cancer distributed projects.
Your other concerns are still valid, and I'm not trying to belittle those, but you may be able to provide more help to others and to yourself than you think.
Slashdot Mirror
Eventually US and People should lose their interest, because if they don't she won't be in school for long.
Since this is /., I'm going to denounce anyone who buys pre-made cars instead of smelting and molding the steel themselves. Let's face it, those who don't design and implement the whole engine and drivetrain, on a lathe, by hand, are girly men at best. Furthermore, if you ever did use a mechanic, I'm going to question your worth as a human being and mock your nickname. In this case, I'll observe that the parent is named "captain craptacular," which hardly inspires confidence.
No one knows, because while you (and I) download it five times each, some people download a single binary to install on 20,000 machines, and some build from the source and then pass it out to friends. There could be 100 million Firefox installs. Ten million seems somewhat low but possible.
I'm arguing that OpenOffice isn't an option for everyone, or at the very least isn't ready to be used by everyone, including the millions of Mac users out there.
I'd consider it, and have, but OpenOffice for OS X in the form of NeoOffice isn't very good. It starts on my 1.5 Ghz PowerBook in about 30 seconds, compared to 3-4 for Word, and has inferior style support and lacks a unified toolbar. I also haven't been able to get it to do complex number patterns, like 2.c.iv., and have all of them increment appropriately. Finally, although NeoOffice is a noble effort, it's ugly on OS X. Although I've already tried your suggestion, I find that I do need MS Office.
Well, the article says that 45 million people have downloaded Bittorrent. It doesn't cite a source, but I'd imagine it means the offical client downloads. Plenty of other people download clients from other sources -- Azureus from Sourcefoge comes to mind -- so the real number may be much, much higher. Still, even if it isn't, and 45 million includes a lot of duplicates, I wouldn't be surprised if a few million people know what Bittorrent is. Certainly at least a few of my non-geek friends, the same ones who would give me a funny look if I said "Slashdot", know what Bittorrent is, which indicates to me that it's penetrated the mainstream at least somewhat.
*until it farts or wants to get up and leave.
Explains your signature:
--
still looking for a wife...
I've installed a Dell XP OEM CD on VPC after wiping the install off the Dell HD and had MS activate it, so I don't think that's accurate.
For that matter, I doubt you'd even be able to read every computer book written in a single year if you had anohter to go through them all.
Web searches belong on the web. Office apps and Photoshop belong on my local machine. My data belongss wherever I wish to send it. Is that so terrible?
You make an important point. Some languages have separate words for the two meaning of free -- for example, I believe "libre" in Latin means free as in speech, and led to the English word "liberal." So "Liberal Arts" means "Free Arts," or those things practiced by free men, as opposed to slaves or serfs.
I'll say they're unlikely to keep at it, because the desktop computer market in the US and Western Europe, where Microsoft makes the vast majority of its profits, are saturated with computers. Unlike 1992, virtually everyone who wants or needs a computer now has one, and a powerful machine can be easily bought for $300. So the chief way Microsoft grew so fast -- through people buying new computers or first computers -- is tapped.
In addition, I'd argue that the improvements between versions of Office are now minor. I use Office 2004, and doubt I use all of the features from Office in 1998. If I didn't already own a copy of MS Office and were in need of an office suite today, I might pick NeoOffice. Given that I suspect few users even use as many features of their word processor as I do, I suspect the number of people who need to upgrade will be low.
2005 is considerably different than 1992, and Microsoft's stock price reflects that. They can no longer grow as they did, which doesn't mean they can't grow at all, but still.
8:) Also people building from the source -- I get my G4 optimized copies originally from here but now from elsewhere.
I agree. Also, I have no need for color, so I bought a cheapo black and white USB laser printer, which I can share on the network using an Airport base station. It's somewhat noisy, but has a 3K per cartridge cycle, and the print quality is better thank inkjets.
I use one of these new keyboards and love it.
Or wouldn't it just be easier to, say, I don't know, secure the site?
Defending mediocrity leads one on the road to nowhere. Shoddy proofreading is doubtlessly part of the problem, though.
I have gotten better traction than most first time authors.
If you're giving away all your nominal work on the net, then you're doing worse than real authors, who get paid.
YMMV. Don't shoot the messenger.
I'd like to say that I rode back into town like the conquering hero, but that would be a lie. I didn't even slink in through the back door. There was no one who knew I was coming back, which I suppose echoes they way I left.
In the first sentence of your novel you use a cliche, and the third contains a glaring typo. Even the cliche is wrong -- it goes "like a conquering hero."
Given the obvious mistakes, I'm unsurprised that you found little traction in the traditional publishing world.
Also, "a lucrative avenue for IBM in China, where the marriage of the Linux OS to PCs armed with [IBM] PowerPC chips presents some intriguing possibilities.
The problem is, Apple is (soon to be was) the least expensive and most practical way for hackers and programmers to get machines running PPC Linux. Without Apple making PPC machines, it seems to me that fewer people will be developing software for PPC Linux, at least if we're still discussing traditional PCs.
(If the sentence above refers to set-top boxes of some kind, then my comment isn't as valid.)
So... tell me your opinion on the importance of spelling.
Still, I will never use Paypal, but I do buy things from Amazon on a somewhat regular basis, and have never had an issue, and have heard of fewer people who have had problems. I agree with the parent poster.
More importantly, Amazon discounts nearly every book and CD I've bought, and doesn't charge MA sales tax. As a college student who bought a lot of books, the savings and convenience over the campus book store was huge -- it could add up to more than $100 per semester.
You may want to consider using idle CPU power for something that will help, then, such as Stanford's Folding@Home or one of the cancer distributed projects.
Your other concerns are still valid, and I'm not trying to belittle those, but you may be able to provide more help to others and to yourself than you think.
Hey, don't worry dude, because we all know how women like their /. UIDs: the smaller the better.
Fry's guy: We have a lot of Centrino.
Me: I don't care about the wireless chipset, I just care about the processor.
(So we look at the laptop selection. Some are Centrino bundles. I find a machine that uses a P-M w/o "Centrino".)
Me: This one.
Fry's: It doesn't have Centrino.
Me: I only care about the chip.
Fry's: I think you want this one. (It's $500 more).
Me: What's the difference between a P-M and Centrino?
Fry's: They're the same.
Me: Slams head into table.
This is in working on finding a laptop suitable for my sister. Eventually I retreat.