And yet the crusades still happened, didn't they? It's interesting how people will fight and die for what they have a 100% conviction of the way the world truly works, that is 100% unverifiable, (ie. Religion). If it weren't 100% unverifiable, they wouldn't *need* to fight and die for it, they'd just have to show the evidence for it.
That's the problem with Religion. EVERY religion. Not that this particular religion thinks that Saturday, rather than Sunday, should be the "Holy day of the week".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Apostasy in Islam punishable by either imprisonment or death? I believe the most recent case was in 2006 in the "liberated" Afghanistan. So, is Islam a cult?
May I suggest "Neverwinter Nights". It has several gaming aspects which may appeal to both of you. It's a combination of puzzle solving, adventuring, and action. Plus, you can work together through the single player game, building characters that complement each other, and fighting side by side.
She'll like the puzzle-solving role-playing aspect, and you might like the action and horde collecting.
It has a great user community creating scenarios. This guarentees tons of re-play value.
To top it all off, it has Linux support, if that's your thing.
I can see it now... The trial is over, IBM has won in a landslide. Right before being carted away, Darl McBride's mask begins to slip. One of the cops reaches over and pulls it off, and it's
RICHARD STALLMAN
RMS: And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you damn kids!
Let's all keep in mind that for thirty years, from about 1960 to about 1990, software was given away for free with the hardware. You'd make your money on the hardware, and give the software to make it work for free as part of the package.
I think this is the model we'll see ourselves returning to in about ten years. Apple is already doing this. They sell the computers, and pretty much give away the software. Even when they create a solely software based product, such as iTunes, it's really just a way to sell more iPods.
I don't think so./me is a command for ICQ. For example, rather than just typing "I wonder so and so", which would come out like Schmelter>I wonder so and so
I could type "/me wonders so and so" Which would come out like Schmelter wonders so and so
I have a suggestion. If you're looking for a good player for DVD's and video files, check out xine. http://xine.sourceforge.net It doesn't come packaged with a decrypter for encrypted DVD's, but one is easily downloadable and installable. So far, I've found few problems with it.
This is the perfect cas of why giving the RIAA powers to hack networks suspected of sharing files illegally. The fact is, even if they turn out to be right about hacking the correct network, there's no system in place for "innocent until proven guilty". Basically, the punishment, getting DOSed, is also the same as the method of investigation, getting hacked. It's even worse when the RIAA turns out to be wrong, with no recourse for the victim. What's the difference between the RIAA hacking a network because they think there might be illegal files and being wrong, and the RIAA hacking any ol' network for whatever reason and then not finding illegal files? And of course there's no system of warrants or documentation as to the RIAA's reason for hacking.
It took us approximately 2500 years to go from Hammurabi's Code of laws to our present law system, it's simply ludicrous to throw out all that advancement and give any corporation immunity from illegal acts in the name of justice.
PS: Is it that hard to tell the difference between a 2 Gig movie and a 20 k book report?!
No wonder my roomate has been screaming "I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. Thanks. " while throwing porn at me and defacing my website. Fortunately, I was able to powercycle him with a car-battery.
Just to nitpick, and refute your last statement, before the Anti-Trust trials began, Bill Gates hadn't given one red cent to charity. After all, you don't become a billionaire by writing a lot of cheques.
I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret I'm a Republican. You can flame me for this later. But being a Republican, I believe in the independence of the people from the government, and extend this independence for corporations as well. I believe in a fair, and open marketplace free of monopolies, which is exactly what the FTC was setup to enforce by enforcing the Sherman act of 1890. So, as a whole, I'm pro FTC.
This however, oversteps their bounds. What are they doing telling a non-government related business how to advertise, or what to put on their website? Don't they have a certain aspect of freedom of speech when it comes to composing and editing their websites as they see fit?
Now, of course I'm against any corporation defrauding the public as to what they do or how they operate, but is saying that a link was paid for really fraud? Yeah, it sucks that they can lie to you, but anyone can lie to you, it's your responsibility to be paying attention, not the government's to make sure that lies don't happen.
Now I'm not insane, I'm glad that I'll know that a particular link was a paid advertisement, but do we have to go to the lengths of legislating such a thing? Cut the red tape already...
Perhaps someone can remind me what the Slashdot should be here?
When Windows 98 was the standard, Microsoft allowed the JVM packaged with it to become way out of date. At the time, people complained that new code couldn't be written to take advantage of the newest features.
Then the Anti-trust court case came around, and Windows XP was developed. Microsoft decided to take the JVM out entirely, to hurt SUN and promote.NET. People then complained that it was their overbearing monopolistic powers at work, trying to destroy the competition to.NET.
Now they put Java back in... People will of course complain because that's what they always do, but of what this time? Oh yes, that they're not doing it out of the good of their heart, but for other, nefarious reasons.
Didn't we see this exact same thing happen about four years ago with iMacs? Macintosh comes up with some, IMHO, great computer designs, and gets ripped off by their cheaper competitors. The iMac begat the E-Machine. But where's the E-Machine now? The godawful things have been obliterated by Macintosh.
The same thing will happen to Toshiba. You just can't compete with Macintosh in this arena. Macintosh has the advertising, and the design, exactly what middle-America eats up like candy.
The only thing Toshiba has in their favor is compatibility with an x86 computer. If they're smart, they'll get the hell outta Macintoshes way and stick to an "iPod for x86" brand.
One of the main problems with writing software is the fact that it's always creation, never replication. The difference between making cars and software is that designing a car is easy, and manufacturing them is hard. With software, the reverse is true. Designs can take weeks, with writing it taking even longer. When it comes to creating many copies, just hit the ol' copy button, and bam, you can have 3 million copies on your hard drive in ten seconds. Add to this the fact that you never actually see the software being copied by the computer, as you would on an assembly line, and you begin to see the problem.
Re-use is also a problem. Sure, criticizing the software industry for not employing re-use is easy, but when it comes down to it, no piece of software is the same. Even with reused libraries, the most one can ever hope to achieve with code re-use is having 40% of a program already written. After that, it all has the massive potential for bugs.
To employ the car analogy again, realize that it's easy to see that a car has no wheels, but hard to see that a piece of software lacks a certain feature.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet the crusades still happened, didn't they? It's interesting how people will fight and die for what they have a 100% conviction of the way the world truly works, that is 100% unverifiable, (ie. Religion). If it weren't 100% unverifiable, they wouldn't *need* to fight and die for it, they'd just have to show the evidence for it. That's the problem with Religion. EVERY religion. Not that this particular religion thinks that Saturday, rather than Sunday, should be the "Holy day of the week".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Apostasy in Islam punishable by either imprisonment or death? I believe the most recent case was in 2006 in the "liberated" Afghanistan. So, is Islam a cult?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/AD051C73-2777-4497-9F13-1293C2293380.html
You know, there's a second interpretation to you needing a hanky and some time alone indicating your're a little TOO happy about all this...
May I suggest "Neverwinter Nights". It has several gaming aspects which may appeal to both of you. It's a combination of puzzle solving, adventuring, and action. Plus, you can work together through the single player game, building characters that complement each other, and fighting side by side.
She'll like the puzzle-solving role-playing aspect, and you might like the action and horde collecting.
It has a great user community creating scenarios. This guarentees tons of re-play value.
To top it all off, it has Linux support, if that's your thing.
Great... now I have to get one.
It better come with a good graphics accelerator.
I can see it now...
The trial is over, IBM has won in a landslide. Right before being carted away, Darl McBride's mask begins to slip. One of the cops reaches over and pulls it off, and it's
RICHARD STALLMAN
RMS: And I would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you damn kids!
(please be gentle on my ADSL connection!)
Get him!
Let's all keep in mind that for thirty years, from about 1960 to about 1990, software was given away for free with the hardware. You'd make your money on the hardware, and give the software to make it work for free as part of the package.
I think this is the model we'll see ourselves returning to in about ten years. Apple is already doing this. They sell the computers, and pretty much give away the software. Even when they create a solely software based product, such as iTunes, it's really just a way to sell more iPods.
7 inches! What the hell can we do with 7 inches?!
Hell, that's shorter than my penis.
As long as my penis.
Okay... longer than my penis...
*wheeps silently*
In Soviet Russia, future predicts You!
I should've posted anonymously...
I don't think so. /me is a command for ICQ. For example, rather than just typing "I wonder so and so", which would come out like
Schmelter>I wonder so and so
I could type "/me wonders so and so" Which would come out like
Schmelter wonders so and so
Wat you say? Males have half-brain?
Schmelter angry! Schmelter smash!
I have a suggestion. If you're looking for a good player for DVD's and video files, check out xine. http://xine.sourceforge.net It doesn't come packaged with a decrypter for encrypted DVD's, but one is easily downloadable and installable. So far, I've found few problems with it.
This is the perfect cas of why giving the RIAA powers to hack networks suspected of sharing files illegally. The fact is, even if they turn out to be right about hacking the correct network, there's no system in place for "innocent until proven guilty". Basically, the punishment, getting DOSed, is also the same as the method of investigation, getting hacked. It's even worse when the RIAA turns out to be wrong, with no recourse for the victim. What's the difference between the RIAA hacking a network because they think there might be illegal files and being wrong, and the RIAA hacking any ol' network for whatever reason and then not finding illegal files? And of course there's no system of warrants or documentation as to the RIAA's reason for hacking.
It took us approximately 2500 years to go from Hammurabi's Code of laws to our present law system, it's simply ludicrous to throw out all that advancement and give any corporation immunity from illegal acts in the name of justice.
PS: Is it that hard to tell the difference between a 2 Gig movie and a 20 k book report?!
Question: "Wouldn't it be better to call the system "Linux" and teach people its real origin with a ten-minute explanation?"
Answer: "It is not as effective as calling the system "GNU/Linux", and uses your time inefficiently."
This from people who think writing a 27 question FAQ about the name GNU/Linux is an efficient use of their time.
Great, another computer-engineered virus.
No wonder my roomate has been screaming "I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. Thanks. " while throwing porn at me and defacing my website. Fortunately, I was able to powercycle him with a car-battery.
Just to nitpick, and refute your last statement, before the Anti-Trust trials began, Bill Gates hadn't given one red cent to charity. After all, you don't become a billionaire by writing a lot of cheques.
I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret I'm a Republican. You can flame me for this later. But being a Republican, I believe in the independence of the people from the government, and extend this independence for corporations as well. I believe in a fair, and open marketplace free of monopolies, which is exactly what the FTC was setup to enforce by enforcing the Sherman act of 1890. So, as a whole, I'm pro FTC.
This however, oversteps their bounds. What are they doing telling a non-government related business how to advertise, or what to put on their website? Don't they have a certain aspect of freedom of speech when it comes to composing and editing their websites as they see fit?
Now, of course I'm against any corporation defrauding the public as to what they do or how they operate, but is saying that a link was paid for really fraud? Yeah, it sucks that they can lie to you, but anyone can lie to you, it's your responsibility to be paying attention, not the government's to make sure that lies don't happen.
Now I'm not insane, I'm glad that I'll know that a particular link was a paid advertisement, but do we have to go to the lengths of legislating such a thing? Cut the red tape already...
Perhaps someone can remind me what the Slashdot should be here?
.NET. People then complained that it was their overbearing monopolistic powers at work, trying to destroy the competition to .NET.
When Windows 98 was the standard, Microsoft allowed the JVM packaged with it to become way out of date. At the time, people complained that new code couldn't be written to take advantage of the newest features.
Then the Anti-trust court case came around, and Windows XP was developed. Microsoft decided to take the JVM out entirely, to hurt SUN and promote
Now they put Java back in... People will of course complain because that's what they always do, but of what this time? Oh yes, that they're not doing it out of the good of their heart, but for other, nefarious reasons.
Obligatory Simpson's quoute:
Grandpa Simpson: Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Obligatory Open Source Plug:
Get Mozilla, it comes with the a JVM.
Didn't we see this exact same thing happen about four years ago with iMacs? Macintosh comes up with some, IMHO, great computer designs, and gets ripped off by their cheaper competitors. The iMac begat the E-Machine. But where's the E-Machine now? The godawful things have been obliterated by Macintosh.
The same thing will happen to Toshiba. You just can't compete with Macintosh in this arena. Macintosh has the advertising, and the design, exactly what middle-America eats up like candy.
The only thing Toshiba has in their favor is compatibility with an x86 computer. If they're smart, they'll get the hell outta Macintoshes way and stick to an "iPod for x86" brand.
One of the main problems with writing software is the fact that it's always creation, never replication. The difference between making cars and software is that designing a car is easy, and manufacturing them is hard. With software, the reverse is true. Designs can take weeks, with writing it taking even longer. When it comes to creating many copies, just hit the ol' copy button, and bam, you can have 3 million copies on your hard drive in ten seconds. Add to this the fact that you never actually see the software being copied by the computer, as you would on an assembly line, and you begin to see the problem.
Re-use is also a problem. Sure, criticizing the software industry for not employing re-use is easy, but when it comes down to it, no piece of software is the same. Even with reused libraries, the most one can ever hope to achieve with code re-use is having 40% of a program already written. After that, it all has the massive potential for bugs.
To employ the car analogy again, realize that it's easy to see that a car has no wheels, but hard to see that a piece of software lacks a certain feature.