Vote in November? What the %^%&& is that supposed to do?
Well, at least it will add my opinion to the mass of opinions out there who out of the canidates should be President/Senator/Representative/Councilperson/etc . There isn't a great deal beyond voting that I can do to shape the government. I'm certainly not the type to be a canidate myself, nor am I willing to move to NH. Also, when we have 300,000,000 people milling about across 50 states, it is pretty much inevitable that people like George Bush and John Kerry rise to the top (campaigning in the USA ain't like selling Girlscout cookies).
While I wish you the best in NH, please realize that what works for smaller groups of people does not work for larger groups. If it did, then IBM would be run like a knitting club.
Just like zero-tolerance policies in schools, when a person puts themselves into a situation where they are governed by idiots (in this case, an idiot landlord or idiot repair people), just living their ordinary life becomes a risk.
E.g.: "Oh dear, little Johnny boy brought nail clippers or Advil to school, so we just have to punish and expel the bastard for his evil deeds. May little Johnny boy burn in eternal hell for wanting to be well groomed."
Be prepared to modify, a lot
on
Open Maps?
·
· Score: 1
Even commercial map software is, in my experience, quite inaccurate. I was looking at a certain area lately, and I picked out many errors in my county and some of the surrounding counties (blatent errors, too...). Trying to use mapping software for giving driving directions to other people is frustrating.
One thing I just thought of is that by eliminating OS licensing costs, Oracle salespeople can make a pitch for selling just a little more of Oracle's products. "Since you saved X by not buying Windows...how about adding in Oracle Extension Pack Y?" Most companies will simply choose to save the money, but any company choosing to shovel it over to Oracle is good for Oracle.
(given that it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on)
Apparently, you never experienced the joys of Oracle 8.1.5 on Windows NT. Oracle really is at home on UNIX/VMS; Windows is just window dressing for Oracle.
Caffeine put me in a perpetual up and down mode, swinging between being too lethargic to work to having an extremely short attention span for the hour after drinking a soda.
Actually, the 1000+ calories of high-glycemic-index carbohydrate in those 5 to 7 Dr. Peppers is responsible for your swings, lethargy, and short attention spans.
Just drinking just one non-diet soda can leave me feeling like shit for quite a while, while drinking a pot of regular coffee just makes me feel jittery and pee a lot. Both lead to a short attention span, but at least the coffee has some health benefits (soda has _none_).
And I thought autoconf was just a poor reinvention of portable makefiles because programmers are too lazy to give a damn about real portability and high-quality software. It seems that the most basic abstraction in software is beyond most programmers' grasp (yeah, let's write a precompiler precompiler...that's simply genius (famous last words)).
The benefit of autoconf/automake is that only the developers need to use it.
Developers use it, users suffer under it. I've spent so much time fighting with autoconf on non-vanilla-GNU/Linux systems that it would have saved time to just edit the fucking source code to get it to compile.
I would bet your lack of spam may actually be a side-effect of not signing up for sweepstakes (ever read the fine print on those?), opting out always (fine print!), not posting to crap TV show blogs or whatever, not registering every little product that comes with a registration card (remember to opt out!), telling cashiers to fuck off when they want your contact information to complete a sale, etc.
In short, I bet you are not a complete moron like most people, so the answer to your question is "no."
As a programming language it looks like crap next to C++.
???
Java has 1/10 the complexity of C++. JIT allows performance on par with C++. Java's APIs allow rather quick programming in several domains, such as 2D graphics (Java2D), networking (java.net.*), and GUIs (javax.swing.*), etc. Java's integrated threading model is a godsend. You'd have to pay for Qt to get similar functionality and ease in C++ under Linux, Solaris, Mac OS, and Windows. Also, Java doesn't have 1,000,000 different compiler and library implementations to contend with, as Sun does all the hard work for us. Any percieved deficencies with regard to C++ are being mostly addressed with JDK 1.4 and JDK 1.5. Really, I don't know of a reason to code in C++, unless history dictates (e.g., Mozilla and OpenOffice.org started out that way) or philisophical zealotry dictates (e.g., GPL or die).
Perhaps you need to find out who your local FBI contact is. If the FBI doesn't handle this (as in counterfeiting going to the Secret Service) then you need to find out who else to contact (maybe your gool ol' local sherriff could send you in the right direction).
My wet dream is a real, full-featured, modern O.S. middleware gaming engine. -ogg and s3m for music, a stripped-down python interpreter for script, ogl for 3d, semi-transparent networking, and in-engine design tools, and a nice auto-downloading filesystem using http references right in the package names so downloading is from the package-maker and not bogging down the server on which you're playing.
A lot of this is available in Java already: Java2D, Java3D, Java Sound, pretty easy networking, URL-based file requests, among other things. A lot of the other stuff could be handled by Blender, Rosegarden, and other free tools. Oh, and this is all a 100% Microsoft Free set of tools.
...does not work for 911.... The warning is huge....
It's good the warning is huge, because this is a huge problem. I'd hate to be in an all VoIP office when someone has a heart attack and someone has to either run around hoping to find a "real" telephone or run outside to get cell phone reception.
Basically, this means that it is impossible for an office to switch entirely over to VoIP, because, for liability reasons, there really needs to be a real phone present for 911 (we can't naively assume that someone will have a working cell phone at all times).
We are seeing an advance in medicine from one generation to the next. Over the last century, flossing really improved quality of life, where the health of the teeth allowed less disease and longer lifespans.
However, we are to a point where heart health is eclipsing tooth health in importance for avoiding disease and prolonging life, and flossing is actually one way to introduce bacteria into the bloodstream.
I expect there will be some mainstream debate about this over the next few decades. Especially given that people who don't floss still can have healthy teeth and gums and avoid bad breath (fluoridated water, good quality toothpaste, improved toothbrushes, low glycemic index diets becoming more popular, etc.).
Either that, or it is a well digested story about how democracy can fail if the citizens and representatives are too complacent and the high-level leadership is playing both sides of the fence. To top it off, the graphic design in Star Wars is best-of-breed, and the talent of a few of the cast really does come through. Whether or not the actors are well directed is really an annoyance rather than a major failing when taking the whole series of movies into consideration.
Yeah, that's what the salesman told me, but, when I rubbed the pope on my coffee table, all I got was a swift escort out of the building and my table wasn't shiny at all:(
and seem to be interested in computers, why not skip Computer Science (overrated, BTW, for most jobs that specify it) and look into things like computer-based art, music, or graphic design. Is your issue with math skills with math itself or with abstract thinking in general? Answering questions like these along with other introspection about your interests and ambitions should help guide you in making the right choice. Also, don't forget to plan how you will *pay* for college. Any more than a few years of post-college debt for a particular school means you need a cheaper school. People who allow themselves to get suckered into ten years of loan payments made a mistake and they typically regret it (speaking from experience).
It's the errosoin of middle class thats been going on since the 70s that made dual income families a requirement nowdays.
If the middle class is eroding, I don't think it is due to causes beyond our control. Many people are just striving too hard to buy things that they cannot afford. They want to _feel_ like they have more than they have, which is very dangerous and is actually rooted in envy, pride, greed, and gluttony (where have I heard those before...).
The "requirement" for a dual-income household is a myth created only by our mis-guided idealism.
People have been doing the "kids these days" rant for millenia.
This isn't a "kids these days" rant. Huge numbers of people are working harder than ever before, yet they are in more debt than ever before. The boom of credit counseling and unsecured loan companies (paycheck loans, etc.) are good evidence. Just among what I hear from friends and family, I know of several people who are filing for bankruptcy and other people who are in tens of thousands of dollars of unsecured debt, and my family is all solidly middle and upper income people. Simply earning more money is not the cure to all this...people need to quit wasting money on status luxuries like expensive cell phone plans and those shitty looking aftermarket wheels on their cars (I hope that fashion trend dies fast). The people among my friends and family who live modestly and within their means are all in very good financial health regarding debt levels and savings, and, guess what, they are also the happiest.
Actually, no one can AFFORD not to have a double-income household today.
That isn't true. Not everyone _needs_ a perfect house in the suburbs with a thoroughbred mutt, a TV in every room, a cellphone for everyone, digital cable, broadband internet, an SUV with premium gas, brand-name cereal, designer clothes, 5000 watt 7-channel audio, etc. etc. etc.
It is very possible to have a very good quality of life on one income, even a $40K/year income. In fact this just happens to be the median income in the USA. Saving for retirement would be hard, I know (but we have Social Security for that right? at least, that's where 7% of my income goes...), but just getting by pretty well month to month is perfectly doable.
Kids who cry about not getting every PS2 game hot off the presses need to be put in their places, anyway. Spouses who cry about not getting every piece of every place setting for "their pattern" need to have a sock stuffed in their trap. Neighbors who think they are superior because of their Honda lawnmower are just assholes. This really isn't rocket science, folks.
...yet they have no problem with 'hijacking' a man's wallet and life for 18+ years should she want to keep it and he not.
Yes, feminists are kings of the double standard. In fact, I would go as far to say that the feminist movement has destroyed a good part of our society as a result of their lobbying and highly-skewed advocacy. I truly don't care if the homemaker in a family is a man or a woman, but I care wholeheartedly that "homemaker" be respected as a full-time profession requiring not only hard work but real skill, too. The destruction of homemaker by the feminists as a widely-respected profession in the USA has led us to the double-income absentee-parents fucking-brat-kids miserable world we live in today.
I'm somewhat torn over salary surveys. While they are of a little use to see the extreme boundaries, I can't help but think they really don't measure the market value of the jobs they say they measure. For one, after the last two years of IT chaos, can anyone really say what IT salaries should be? Two, these surveys typically are not adjusted to eliminate cost of living as a variable. Three, they really don't fully factor out the differences between independent contractors and regular W-2 employees (what about employer payroll tax contributions, 401K contributions, office utilities costs, pizza at meetings, etc.).
In short, are these surveys worth anything at all in negotiating for a new job? In other words, newbies are still torn over whether to ask a modest $35/hour as a contractor or take the plunge and ask for $60+/hour.
Slashdot Mirror
Vote in November? What the %^%&& is that supposed to do?
c . There isn't a great deal beyond voting that I can do to shape the government. I'm certainly not the type to be a canidate myself, nor am I willing to move to NH. Also, when we have 300,000,000 people milling about across 50 states, it is pretty much inevitable that people like George Bush and John Kerry rise to the top (campaigning in the USA ain't like selling Girlscout cookies).
Well, at least it will add my opinion to the mass of opinions out there who out of the canidates should be President/Senator/Representative/Councilperson/et
While I wish you the best in NH, please realize that what works for smaller groups of people does not work for larger groups. If it did, then IBM would be run like a knitting club.
Just like zero-tolerance policies in schools, when a person puts themselves into a situation where they are governed by idiots (in this case, an idiot landlord or idiot repair people), just living their ordinary life becomes a risk.
E.g.: "Oh dear, little Johnny boy brought nail clippers or Advil to school, so we just have to punish and expel the bastard for his evil deeds. May little Johnny boy burn in eternal hell for wanting to be well groomed."
Even commercial map software is, in my experience, quite inaccurate. I was looking at a certain area lately, and I picked out many errors in my county and some of the surrounding counties (blatent errors, too...). Trying to use mapping software for giving driving directions to other people is frustrating.
One thing I just thought of is that by eliminating OS licensing costs, Oracle salespeople can make a pitch for selling just a little more of Oracle's products. "Since you saved X by not buying Windows...how about adding in Oracle Extension Pack Y?" Most companies will simply choose to save the money, but any company choosing to shovel it over to Oracle is good for Oracle.
(given that it's largely irrelevant what platform it runs on)
Apparently, you never experienced the joys of Oracle 8.1.5 on Windows NT. Oracle really is at home on UNIX/VMS; Windows is just window dressing for Oracle.
Caffeine put me in a perpetual up and down mode, swinging between being too lethargic to work to having an extremely short attention span for the hour after drinking a soda.
Actually, the 1000+ calories of high-glycemic-index carbohydrate in those 5 to 7 Dr. Peppers is responsible for your swings, lethargy, and short attention spans.
Just drinking just one non-diet soda can leave me feeling like shit for quite a while, while drinking a pot of regular coffee just makes me feel jittery and pee a lot. Both lead to a short attention span, but at least the coffee has some health benefits (soda has _none_).
And I thought autoconf was just a poor reinvention of portable makefiles because programmers are too lazy to give a damn about real portability and high-quality software. It seems that the most basic abstraction in software is beyond most programmers' grasp (yeah, let's write a precompiler precompiler...that's simply genius (famous last words)).
The benefit of autoconf/automake is that only the developers need to use it.
Developers use it, users suffer under it. I've spent so much time fighting with autoconf on non-vanilla-GNU/Linux systems that it would have saved time to just edit the fucking source code to get it to compile.
auto(conf|make) sucks badly
Worst understatement ever!
Are there other people like me out there?
I would bet your lack of spam may actually be a side-effect of not signing up for sweepstakes (ever read the fine print on those?), opting out always (fine print!), not posting to crap TV show blogs or whatever, not registering every little product that comes with a registration card (remember to opt out!), telling cashiers to fuck off when they want your contact information to complete a sale, etc.
In short, I bet you are not a complete moron like most people, so the answer to your question is "no."
As a programming language it looks like crap next to C++.
???
Java has 1/10 the complexity of C++. JIT allows performance on par with C++. Java's APIs allow rather quick programming in several domains, such as 2D graphics (Java2D), networking (java.net.*), and GUIs (javax.swing.*), etc. Java's integrated threading model is a godsend. You'd have to pay for Qt to get similar functionality and ease in C++ under Linux, Solaris, Mac OS, and Windows. Also, Java doesn't have 1,000,000 different compiler and library implementations to contend with, as Sun does all the hard work for us. Any percieved deficencies with regard to C++ are being mostly addressed with JDK 1.4 and JDK 1.5. Really, I don't know of a reason to code in C++, unless history dictates (e.g., Mozilla and OpenOffice.org started out that way) or philisophical zealotry dictates (e.g., GPL or die).
Perhaps you need to find out who your local FBI contact is. If the FBI doesn't handle this (as in counterfeiting going to the Secret Service) then you need to find out who else to contact (maybe your gool ol' local sherriff could send you in the right direction).
My wet dream is a real, full-featured, modern O.S. middleware gaming engine. -ogg and s3m for music, a stripped-down python interpreter for script, ogl for 3d, semi-transparent networking, and in-engine design tools, and a nice auto-downloading filesystem using http references right in the package names so downloading is from the package-maker and not bogging down the server on which you're playing.
A lot of this is available in Java already: Java2D, Java3D, Java Sound, pretty easy networking, URL-based file requests, among other things. A lot of the other stuff could be handled by Blender, Rosegarden, and other free tools. Oh, and this is all a 100% Microsoft Free set of tools.
...does not work for 911.... The warning is huge....
It's good the warning is huge, because this is a huge problem. I'd hate to be in an all VoIP office when someone has a heart attack and someone has to either run around hoping to find a "real" telephone or run outside to get cell phone reception.
Basically, this means that it is impossible for an office to switch entirely over to VoIP, because, for liability reasons, there really needs to be a real phone present for 911 (we can't naively assume that someone will have a working cell phone at all times).
Floss, or you die.
Or don't floss, or you die.
We are seeing an advance in medicine from one generation to the next. Over the last century, flossing really improved quality of life, where the health of the teeth allowed less disease and longer lifespans.
However, we are to a point where heart health is eclipsing tooth health in importance for avoiding disease and prolonging life, and flossing is actually one way to introduce bacteria into the bloodstream.
I expect there will be some mainstream debate about this over the next few decades. Especially given that people who don't floss still can have healthy teeth and gums and avoid bad breath (fluoridated water, good quality toothpaste, improved toothbrushes, low glycemic index diets becoming more popular, etc.).
...it's strictly entertainment.
Either that, or it is a well digested story about how democracy can fail if the citizens and representatives are too complacent and the high-level leadership is playing both sides of the fence. To top it off, the graphic design in Star Wars is best-of-breed, and the talent of a few of the cast really does come through. Whether or not the actors are well directed is really an annoyance rather than a major failing when taking the whole series of movies into consideration.
...the Pope is found to be Polish...
:(
Yeah, that's what the salesman told me, but, when I rubbed the pope on my coffee table, all I got was a swift escort out of the building and my table wasn't shiny at all
and seem to be interested in computers, why not skip Computer Science (overrated, BTW, for most jobs that specify it) and look into things like computer-based art, music, or graphic design. Is your issue with math skills with math itself or with abstract thinking in general? Answering questions like these along with other introspection about your interests and ambitions should help guide you in making the right choice. Also, don't forget to plan how you will *pay* for college. Any more than a few years of post-college debt for a particular school means you need a cheaper school. People who allow themselves to get suckered into ten years of loan payments made a mistake and they typically regret it (speaking from experience).
Baaaarrrrrf.....oh wait, sweaty cleavage...yay!
It's the errosoin of middle class thats been going on since the 70s that made dual income families a requirement nowdays.
If the middle class is eroding, I don't think it is due to causes beyond our control. Many people are just striving too hard to buy things that they cannot afford. They want to _feel_ like they have more than they have, which is very dangerous and is actually rooted in envy, pride, greed, and gluttony (where have I heard those before...).
The "requirement" for a dual-income household is a myth created only by our mis-guided idealism.
People have been doing the "kids these days" rant for millenia.
This isn't a "kids these days" rant. Huge numbers of people are working harder than ever before, yet they are in more debt than ever before. The boom of credit counseling and unsecured loan companies (paycheck loans, etc.) are good evidence. Just among what I hear from friends and family, I know of several people who are filing for bankruptcy and other people who are in tens of thousands of dollars of unsecured debt, and my family is all solidly middle and upper income people. Simply earning more money is not the cure to all this...people need to quit wasting money on status luxuries like expensive cell phone plans and those shitty looking aftermarket wheels on their cars (I hope that fashion trend dies fast). The people among my friends and family who live modestly and within their means are all in very good financial health regarding debt levels and savings, and, guess what, they are also the happiest.
Actually, no one can AFFORD not to have a double-income household today.
That isn't true. Not everyone _needs_ a perfect house in the suburbs with a thoroughbred mutt, a TV in every room, a cellphone for everyone, digital cable, broadband internet, an SUV with premium gas, brand-name cereal, designer clothes, 5000 watt 7-channel audio, etc. etc. etc.
It is very possible to have a very good quality of life on one income, even a $40K/year income. In fact this just happens to be the median income in the USA. Saving for retirement would be hard, I know (but we have Social Security for that right? at least, that's where 7% of my income goes...), but just getting by pretty well month to month is perfectly doable.
Kids who cry about not getting every PS2 game hot off the presses need to be put in their places, anyway. Spouses who cry about not getting every piece of every place setting for "their pattern" need to have a sock stuffed in their trap. Neighbors who think they are superior because of their Honda lawnmower are just assholes. This really isn't rocket science, folks.
...yet they have no problem with 'hijacking' a man's wallet and life for 18+ years should she want to keep it and he not.
Yes, feminists are kings of the double standard. In fact, I would go as far to say that the feminist movement has destroyed a good part of our society as a result of their lobbying and highly-skewed advocacy. I truly don't care if the homemaker in a family is a man or a woman, but I care wholeheartedly that "homemaker" be respected as a full-time profession requiring not only hard work but real skill, too. The destruction of homemaker by the feminists as a widely-respected profession in the USA has led us to the double-income absentee-parents fucking-brat-kids miserable world we live in today.
I'm somewhat torn over salary surveys. While they are of a little use to see the extreme boundaries, I can't help but think they really don't measure the market value of the jobs they say they measure. For one, after the last two years of IT chaos, can anyone really say what IT salaries should be? Two, these surveys typically are not adjusted to eliminate cost of living as a variable. Three, they really don't fully factor out the differences between independent contractors and regular W-2 employees (what about employer payroll tax contributions, 401K contributions, office utilities costs, pizza at meetings, etc.).
In short, are these surveys worth anything at all in negotiating for a new job? In other words, newbies are still torn over whether to ask a modest $35/hour as a contractor or take the plunge and ask for $60+/hour.
You know, the capacitors in a CRT monitor contain more than enough juice to kill a man. Just something to keep in mind...
Yes, just take a neon bulb power supply and one of those magic voltage multipliers from an old TV...mmmm, I love the smell of ozone in the morning.