We already have that option. Check prferences -> comments -> set the AC mod to -6 and your threshold preference to 0. Bam, you don't have to see ACs anymore -- but that doesn't mean they aren't there...
In addition, there are no GIMP binaries for OS X, or at least none that I could (easily) find. My time is sufficiently valuable and my needs sufficiently limited that it's easier for me to buy Photoshop Elements than download and compile a program that's hard to use and unattractive on a Mac anyway.
I like the idea of GIMP, but its execution (and name, too) leave much to be desired.
I think WoW has done a great deal to solve this problem through Bind-on-Pickup items and Instance Dungeons (level requirements for gear help too).
That's not to say farming won't become a problem and such, but Blizzard also incorporated enough in-game money sinks (buying skills, mounts, etc.) that I think inflation from farmers will be slower to develop in WoW that in other games.
Finally, keep in mind that the ultimate way to stop farming and such is to play on a PvP server -- because if you don't like the farmer, you can round up a group of buddies to put an end to the farmers.
Apparently you haven't been reading slashdot lately, or you'd know about the Mac mini, which can function perfectly as a DVR -- the MM has very small form factor, in addition to its inexpense easy set up.
I don't think this would work; imagine all those home users seeing "MICROSOFT.COM THANKS YOU-0231" on their Amex statement every month, and then wondering if there was another way.
Despite the availability of relatively inexpensive DVDs, consumers are still willing to pay their cable companies $X per month.
I think you underestimate the willingness of consumers to rent.
Prosperity of S. Korea combined with an internal assassination campaign is probably Washington's strategy. It's best to fight this one using spies and satellites, a conventional invasion would be pointless and unlike Iraq, we don't want to assert control over the region.
The real problem with NK is not necessarily that NK directly uses a nuclear weapon, because they know that in such a situation, NK would rapidly become a hole in the ground. Rather, the issue is what NK will do with its atomic weapons: if the answer is "sell one to the highest bidder" -- and the highest bidder could pay hundreds of millions of dollars for one -- then we have to worry about a third party detonating a bomb, as I indicated in an earlier post in this thread.
You do realize why MacArthur was pulled, right? His strategy for defeating the Chinese was to drop nuclear weapons up and down the coast until China stopped. I think removing MacArthur was the right thing to do.
If you're going to blame anyone, blame Clinton, who accepted the 1994 deal in which we gave NK resources to prop up their economy, in turn for them... keeping the nuclear material they already had! And us trusting them not to turn it into weapons! Brilliant!
Now, in the unlikely but still frighteningly plausible idea that we do have a war with NK, we have the pleasure of dealing with nuclear weapons in the hands of madmen, in addition to the gazillion pieces of artillery that will pound Seoul into dust.
I was, I must confess, rather surprised by what I found. Generally, in urban areas, the quality of life was good - party members lived comfortably, others less comfortably, but a lot better than much of what you'll see in the western world. We weren't allowed into the countryside, however, so.....
Did you see Camp 22? Or did they leave that part of their "way of life" out of the tour?
Juche is their way of life. They have no real wish to expand, they just want to be left alone. For now, at any rate.
Growing drugs and selling them on the international market is part of North Korea's effort to stay afloat. It's also exported missile technology to anyone with the cash. Given NK's penchant for selling anything to the highest bidder, one of the largest fears about NK having nuclear weapons is the possibility that they will sell one -- which some third-party will set off in London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles or Washington. NK will retain some degree of plausible deniability. The world will suffer with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualities, and the catastrophic economic consequences that would result.
Also, keep in mind that it was NK that invaded the South suddenly in 1950.
I just hope this is a trend that continues. Ignorant MBA weenies have completly run the United States into the ground. China is growing, the USA is shrinking. China's leader has a degree in engineering. Ours an MBA. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Um, the United States is growing -- see GDP figures here -- just not as fast as it was from 1994 - 2001. Even in those years, the American economy wasn't growing as fast as China, whose torrential growth will eventually have to slow down. That country only sees its growth explode as a percentage change because of the long term inefficiency and market hostility it showed.
I agree with parts of your post -- and am surprised you missed criticizing the education system, which is often up next -- but to write like the US is going to shrivel up and blow away is hyperbolic and doesn't help focus on deeper questions.
People look through you when you walk outside, and you're not sure whether this is because of your insignificance, or because you've become so pale from sitting inside that sun shines through you. You shop exclusively at second-hand places. To out-man the Linux guy, you mined your own metal and set up your own chemistry lab to get the raw components necessary to build simple chips, which you program in binary with a switch. The experience taught you to be more efficient, and the lack of an Internet connection makes your programs more secure anyway. You wonder understand "sadomasochistic" but wonder what "sex" means.
In 1069, the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar the Aetheling (Ethelred's great-grandson) and other English nobles, invaded the north and took York. Taking personal charge, and pausing only to deal with the rising at Stafford, William drove the Danes back to their ships on the Humber. In a harsh campaign lasting into 1070, William systematically devastated Mercia and Northumbria to deprive the Danes of their supplies and prevent recovery of English resistance. Churches and monasteries were burnt, and agricultural land was laid to waste, creating a famine for the unarmed and mostly peasant population which lasted at least nine years.
Charging family for services creates too much ill-will and too many possible incidents that might become part of family lore for decades. Instead, I've solved the tech support issue by telling family and friends that I'm more than happy to fix their computer problems -- as long as they have a Mac. Since the Mac users I know have very few problems, I create a positive Catch-22: by volunteering to fix computers that seldom have problems, I don't have to do much tech suport, but at the same time I don't reject people I know and appreciate.
I'm actually reminded of that scene in Ray Bradbury's _The Martian Chronicles_, in which a man and a Martian encounter each other, and each thinks he's headed to a place that the other guarantees does not exist. They pass each other, and never realize that both are right -- and wrong.
Mozilla and its derivatives can't "lose" the next browser war per se, because they're open source and protected by the GPL. More people can use them or few can, but either way they're here to stay. Talk of "defeat" for a foe that isn't a commerical company, can't be bought and is transmitted freely strikes me as somewhat ridiculous.
War metaphors don't work. If anything, IE will have to coexist peacefully with Mozilla, for trying to fight it makes no more sense than a single man trying to fight a mountain by climbing it. That's not the world's most beautiful metaphor either, but it works much better than those related to battle.
PowerBooks, anyway, are dual-voltage, which I researched before coming to England. I've had no problems with the power.
Also, though it may seem somewhat pedantic, it's Mac and not MAC, unless you're referring to a MAC (Machine Access Code is the acronym, IIRC) address. I, however, am typing on a Mac.
Perhaps someone could make an app that scrapes their web pages looking for the best deals (e.g. is it best to start with a high spec PC and customise the components downwards or is it better to start with a low spec PC and add the bits you want).
Someone does this for airline tickets in the form of Sidestep -- www.sidestep.com -- which will search its database for cheap airline tickets.
Good news: it might find less expensive tickets. Bad news: comes in infested with spyware. And it's Windows-only.
If someone wrote a similar search engine for Dell, I bet it would have the same problems.
Overall, though, you post reminds me of why I like buying from Apple: consistent pricing and no bullshit games.
Fifteen years ago, people were predicting that object oriented programming would revolutionize programming and ensure that people could just create their own programs by pulling little blocks of other programs together. Today, when I see people write useful programs, I by and large see them open... a text editor.
Fifteen years from now, we'll all have flying cars and robotic helpers and live forever because someone will have cured aging. In the meantime, I'll keep my hopes up for a word processor that doesn't crash constantly.
So Apple is bucking the trend, or their first versions of OS X were an inefficient piece of crap and they are just now optomizing it.
Considering how godawful 10.0 was, I'm not sure if Apple (or its users) should be proud of this accomplishment; if OS releases became any slower, I'd still be waiting for my PowerBook to process the "reply," button, and you wouldn't be reading this.
A ten year old NeXTSTEP computer probably cost $8,000 new, which is probably closer to $9,000 in today's dollars. Today, you can get a $3,000 2.5Ghz Mac that does more, comes with more pre-loaded programs and makes a badass machine for video editing or photo editing.
Well, gee, with the collusion of apathy and cheerleading amongst news sources, it becomes difficult for the common man to become educated enough about things like future Talibans in order to become concerned.
If you want, you can be concerned about North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, or China, which regularly threatens its democratic neighbor Taiwan with invasion, or Russia, which is rapidly sliding back toward dictatorship, or some of the Soviet satellite states, whih aren't so much states as collections of tribes, or Saudi Arabia, which may be heading toward revolution, or Syria, which may be harboring the next 9/11-style terrorists, or much of Africa, where the world's next great plague may emerge, or places like Zimbawe, where a dictator is busy looting the state and destroying wealth.
Point of this long laundry list of (relatively) obvious potential threats is that we don't know from what quarter problems will arise, and even the mythical CIA can't predict what will be the next big problem, let alone news sources. No man can perceive what the future will hold. Some of issues listed above may escalate, but most will probably peter out into nothing.
Slashdot Mirror
We already have that option. Check prferences -> comments -> set the AC mod to -6 and your threshold preference to 0. Bam, you don't have to see ACs anymore -- but that doesn't mean they aren't there...
That's right. He should install good hardware and software firewalls that only allow local access.
I like the idea of GIMP, but its execution (and name, too) leave much to be desired.
That's not to say farming won't become a problem and such, but Blizzard also incorporated enough in-game money sinks (buying skills, mounts, etc.) that I think inflation from farmers will be slower to develop in WoW that in other games.
Finally, keep in mind that the ultimate way to stop farming and such is to play on a PvP server -- because if you don't like the farmer, you can round up a group of buddies to put an end to the farmers.
Apparently you haven't been reading slashdot lately, or you'd know about the Mac mini, which can function perfectly as a DVR -- the MM has very small form factor, in addition to its inexpense easy set up.
Despite the availability of relatively inexpensive DVDs, consumers are still willing to pay their cable companies $X per month.
I think you underestimate the willingness of consumers to rent.
The real problem with NK is not necessarily that NK directly uses a nuclear weapon, because they know that in such a situation, NK would rapidly become a hole in the ground. Rather, the issue is what NK will do with its atomic weapons: if the answer is "sell one to the highest bidder" -- and the highest bidder could pay hundreds of millions of dollars for one -- then we have to worry about a third party detonating a bomb, as I indicated in an earlier post in this thread.
If you're going to blame anyone, blame Clinton, who accepted the 1994 deal in which we gave NK resources to prop up their economy, in turn for them... keeping the nuclear material they already had! And us trusting them not to turn it into weapons! Brilliant!
Now, in the unlikely but still frighteningly plausible idea that we do have a war with NK, we have the pleasure of dealing with nuclear weapons in the hands of madmen, in addition to the gazillion pieces of artillery that will pound Seoul into dust.
Did you see Camp 22? Or did they leave that part of their "way of life" out of the tour?
Juche is their way of life. They have no real wish to expand, they just want to be left alone. For now, at any rate.
Growing drugs and selling them on the international market is part of North Korea's effort to stay afloat. It's also exported missile technology to anyone with the cash. Given NK's penchant for selling anything to the highest bidder, one of the largest fears about NK having nuclear weapons is the possibility that they will sell one -- which some third-party will set off in London, Paris, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles or Washington. NK will retain some degree of plausible deniability. The world will suffer with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of casualities, and the catastrophic economic consequences that would result.
Also, keep in mind that it was NK that invaded the South suddenly in 1950.
Um, the United States is growing -- see GDP figures here -- just not as fast as it was from 1994 - 2001. Even in those years, the American economy wasn't growing as fast as China, whose torrential growth will eventually have to slow down. That country only sees its growth explode as a percentage change because of the long term inefficiency and market hostility it showed.
I agree with parts of your post -- and am surprised you missed criticizing the education system, which is often up next -- but to write like the US is going to shrivel up and blow away is hyperbolic and doesn't help focus on deeper questions.
The support page for the 1740 only lists Linux and Windows. Same thing with the 1750, which says it supports:
"Win 9x/NT 4.0/Me/2000/XP
Various Linux OS"
People look through you when you walk outside, and you're not sure whether this is because of your insignificance, or because you've become so pale from sitting inside that sun shines through you. You shop exclusively at second-hand places. To out-man the Linux guy, you mined your own metal and set up your own chemistry lab to get the raw components necessary to build simple chips, which you program in binary with a switch. The experience taught you to be more efficient, and the lack of an Internet connection makes your programs more secure anyway. You wonder understand "sadomasochistic" but wonder what "sex" means.
Corollary: Don't answer neither, or that Windows is better.
Quoth the article:
In 1069, the Danes, in alliance with Prince Edgar the Aetheling (Ethelred's great-grandson) and other English nobles, invaded the north and took York. Taking personal charge, and pausing only to deal with the rising at Stafford, William drove the Danes back to their ships on the Humber. In a harsh campaign lasting into 1070, William systematically devastated Mercia and Northumbria to deprive the Danes of their supplies and prevent recovery of English resistance. Churches and monasteries were burnt, and agricultural land was laid to waste, creating a famine for the unarmed and mostly peasant population which lasted at least nine years.
Problem solved.
I'm actually reminded of that scene in Ray Bradbury's _The Martian Chronicles_, in which a man and a Martian encounter each other, and each thinks he's headed to a place that the other guarantees does not exist. They pass each other, and never realize that both are right -- and wrong.
What he said. And with the link I was going to use anyway.
War metaphors don't work. If anything, IE will have to coexist peacefully with Mozilla, for trying to fight it makes no more sense than a single man trying to fight a mountain by climbing it. That's not the world's most beautiful metaphor either, but it works much better than those related to battle.
When someone writes one, or pays for one to be written.
Also, though it may seem somewhat pedantic, it's Mac and not MAC, unless you're referring to a MAC (Machine Access Code is the acronym, IIRC) address. I, however, am typing on a Mac.
Someone does this for airline tickets in the form of Sidestep -- www.sidestep.com -- which will search its database for cheap airline tickets.
Good news: it might find less expensive tickets. Bad news: comes in infested with spyware. And it's Windows-only.
If someone wrote a similar search engine for Dell, I bet it would have the same problems.
Overall, though, you post reminds me of why I like buying from Apple: consistent pricing and no bullshit games.
Fifteen years from now, we'll all have flying cars and robotic helpers and live forever because someone will have cured aging. In the meantime, I'll keep my hopes up for a word processor that doesn't crash constantly.
Considering how godawful 10.0 was, I'm not sure if Apple (or its users) should be proud of this accomplishment; if OS releases became any slower, I'd still be waiting for my PowerBook to process the "reply," button, and you wouldn't be reading this.
A ten year old NeXTSTEP computer probably cost $8,000 new, which is probably closer to $9,000 in today's dollars. Today, you can get a $3,000 2.5Ghz Mac that does more, comes with more pre-loaded programs and makes a badass machine for video editing or photo editing.
If you want, you can be concerned about North Korea, which has nuclear weapons, or China, which regularly threatens its democratic neighbor Taiwan with invasion, or Russia, which is rapidly sliding back toward dictatorship, or some of the Soviet satellite states, whih aren't so much states as collections of tribes, or Saudi Arabia, which may be heading toward revolution, or Syria, which may be harboring the next 9/11-style terrorists, or much of Africa, where the world's next great plague may emerge, or places like Zimbawe, where a dictator is busy looting the state and destroying wealth.
Point of this long laundry list of (relatively) obvious potential threats is that we don't know from what quarter problems will arise, and even the mythical CIA can't predict what will be the next big problem, let alone news sources. No man can perceive what the future will hold. Some of issues listed above may escalate, but most will probably peter out into nothing.