I personally like the MD media, because they're so small, but you make a good point. With the increasing size of things like the Ipod, there's not much point to them anymore. Still, I think I could probably fit my entire CD collection on less than a shoebox full of minidiscs, so I guess if I were fanatic about having everything portable it would still be cool. I'm not, though.:) Of course, I probably like my MD thingie because it was free....
While I admit the interface furstrates me from time to time, I still use GIMP. Why? Because it's free, plain and simple. Yes, I might not make the same decision if I were a small-or-larger graphic arts shop, although I probably would if put in charge of the purchasing. The interface may be a bit clunky, but I will never plunk down whatever astronomical sum Adobe is charging for Photoshop nowadays. I can spend that money on a scanner, a drawing tablet, some nice paper, and a bunch of non-photo blue pencils. For a hobbyist or amateur artist (or just a bad one, like myself,)these are as much of a factor in deciding which program to go with.
Unlike a STM, which would be a wonderful albeit expensive conversation piece that I would probably never find a real use for, I could actually use a homemade PH meter for about a hundred different things. Does anyone have any more information on this? Links? Plans? Theory? Admonishments that there are Some Things Mankind Was Not Meant To Know(tm)?
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 1
Hear hear! My mother and several of my female friends would no doubt applaud you were they reading this thread. That said, it surprises me just how many "inappropriate gender attitudes" one runs into on an average day of reading Slashdot. Not so much reasonable debates like this one, but some very strange eyes peeking out from under the rocks in some of the backwater threads. History shows that something driven underground is not gone, merely not as visible. This is the trouble I have with the argument that feminism has accomplished its goals. I expect that in a generation or two we won't have this "say one thing, do the other" attitude toward women hardly at all, because what we say becomes what we do, over time, but for the time being women still run into a number of obstacles. (As do fairly androgynous heterosexual men, such as myself, but that's another thread and another discussion altogether.) The biggest one is not an active dislike of women in the workplace, or anything like that, but an assumption that still seems fairly strong to me (and my ex-girlfriend runs into on almost a daily basis, which drives her crazy) is one of simple incompetence: that, by virtue of gender alone women somehow are less able to handle certain types of situation. Here I cry bullshit. Social conditioning be damned - begin changing these things now, and it will be a spurious argument by the time our children's children are running our society. I have no doubt that women are just as capable of adjusting to a new social role given the need as men. They have already proven themselves proficient in that regard.
I don't mean to come across the wrong way on this, and believe me I do understand the caffiene headache phenomenon quite well, but all you people complaining about caffiene withdrawals should really try heavy amphetamine withdrawals for a couple of days. I promise you, that headache is nothing on one that lasts for three months, and is a subtle type of headache that you Just Can't Ignore(tm). Not to mention a very profound lack of energy for a very, very long time, a creative "inner voice" that keeps finding excuses to keep going with the addiction, and my personal favorite - deep, deep depression. After an experience like that (the relics of a misspent youth), caffiene seems pretty small potatoes. The interesting side effect is a great mistrust of all stimulants now, though. I don't really care for more than one cup of coffee every couple of days, and even then that's when I'm just not getting enough sleep. Massive amounts of water are my drug of choice nowadays.
That's a pretty tough one, really. I've heard both, and they're both pretty bad. I think Shatner's is worse by a very narrow margin, but Tiny Tim's version of Stairway to Heaven (same album), or the original song Fourteen (also same album) are known to cause spontaneous abortions in cattle. May be harmful to children. Be that as it may, Fourteen ranks far above Shatner's body of work as the second worst song I have ever heard. YMMV, of course.
Actually, there is a legally permissable amount that can be brought across the border, assuming you follow proper procedure. So not everyone buying drugs in pharmacies in good 'ol Mexico is doing so illegal. That said, I'm told by SWWM (someone who wasn't me) that it used to be fairly easy to circumvent the checks for these things, back about five or six years ago. There are certain things that have no permissable amounts, however, such as oxycodone and a few other severely abusable drugs. People go down to Mexico all the time to buy smart drugs like Deprenyl and Vassopressin(sp?), and my grandmother gets her blood pressure medicine from there. (Of course, she has a prescription stateside, but there are ways legally in place for legitimate reasons, such as a person getting sick in Mexico while on vacation.)
Preach it brother! I stopped watching TV when I moved out of my parents' house about four years ago, and until my new roommates got cable, the only time I ever watched television was the occasional movie every couple of months or so. My quality of life improved so much - I've learned to play guitar, taken up homebrewing (mmm, mead!), finished massage school and various carpal tunnel additonal courses, learned to cook gourmet dishes and historical cuisine, and had the time of my life. The TV is only useful for pornography and cartoons, in my opinion.
Insightful indeed! That should have been obvious to me to begin with, but it didn't occur to me. I mean, a trade embargo is one thing, but a *power* embargo? People get very testy without electricity.
An interesting point. If it's the sort of thing that makes people go insane just from reading it, then most certainly it should be classified.:) It would be interesting to observe a few people in similar positions and see if any odd patterns arise. Iff'n I recall the Lil' Abner cartoons correctly, however, the location of the Lost Valley of Shmoo is a closely guarded secret itself.:)
No, no....trust me. I live in Dallas, and have been a native Texan all my life, and trust me - it's okay to offend Texans. Everything does, anyhow.:) Well, not all of us, but if you get stuck in traffic in Dallas sometime, you'll realize that it certainly is the majority. Although Renee Zellweger.....Mmmmmmmmmm......
Double insightful, in some ways. I remember not too long ago hearing about someone who had built a device that produced amphetamines by some sort of electrochemical reaction. I believe it was in Australia. The gist of it was that it was made from a film cannister suspended inside a slightly larger container, very portable and requiring few to none difficult to obtain reagents.
It would have been, if it had come out earlier, say a month after Napster 1.0 shut down.
Re:Sadly, some of us can't see beyound the gloss.
on
The Substance of Style
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· Score: 1
Insightful point about the dress codes thing. I hadn't really thought about them in years, apart from a knee-jerk "this is idiotic" reaction. They're necessary when dealing with the customer face-to-face, but those of us who work in call centers shouldn't have to have such restrictive policies. As long as no one comes to work naked, and I'd make one or two exceptions to that rule in my office, I'm okay with whatever people want to wear. Purple dreadlocks and togas for all! With flip-flops!
Re:Sadly, many of us just don't get the truth of t
on
The Substance of Style
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· Score: 1
Yup. I remember when Windows first began making waves in the PC world. I and some of my friends who were into computers would sneer at the "training wheels" that just slowed the computer down needlessly and added almost no functionality. If we wanted a menu system, we wrote one with.BAT files, doggone it! And it worked! Of course, we never actually got around to doing that, since we had the entire filesystem memorized. I am forced to admit, however, that I have become spoiled by GUI interfaces over the years, and am forcing myself to learn linux so that I can return to my roots and begin dorking with a command line all over again. My command-line elitism days are over, though. *sigh*
That goes with that skinnable t-shirt idea I had. I have the same problem as the grandparent post. I have an awareness of clothing style and other things like that, but for some reason when I wear all the same things, it doesn't work for me. The only look I have mastered is the "business casual" look that is required at my job. *sigh* Oh, well. Maybe I'll get a job sometime that requires me to dress trendy, and I'll pick up the knack. Somehow I doubt it, though.
Yeah, exactly. And besides it all, the broadband we have today is still not universal. I just want a cable modem again, dangit - I'll worry about a terabit connection when it's offered by one of my existing utilities, or inexpensive enough to become one. Unfortunately, I can't afford any of the above right now, because fifty dollars a month is still a big chunk of my switchboard operator's budget.:(
I still want to get off of dialup at my apartment. And even when I had broadband, there were still sites that wouldn't load very quickly. The servers are going to need some upgrading as well, I think, before bandwidth becomes the only bottleneck. Still, that's really cool. I hope to see something approaching instant response within my lifetime. Besides my old DOS computer, way back when.:)
Probably relaxed. I mean, he's having fun, and he has made an undeniable mark on computer history. His name is known, at least to a certain subset of the population. I mean sure, keep plugging away and all, but there is no worrying about profit margins or market share for him. He wanted to make an operating system, he did, and a bit of history in the bargain. Maybe I'm reading a bit much into his motives, but Linus has never displayed any reaction to his fame except surprise and a refusal to let it go to his head. I think he just wanted to make an operating system, everyone else can worry about the rest because his problem is the operating system. At least, that's my interpretation without having RTFA.:)
I used to work for a mom & pop computer store that had a lot of service accounts in East Texas. One day we got a call from a bank, huge service contract because we had a guy who could do some EE testing on boards and whatnot. Turns out they wanted us to overhaul their WYSE terminals, about sixty of them. Took him almost a year to track down and replace burnt out resistors and various other little electronicky bits, but our (mostly insane) boss required this labor intensive approach. Poor guy, he managed to fix all but the one that had caught fire.
Yeah, I have one of those old Royal typewriters, too. Collecting antique typewriters is a fun hobby because they're not very expensive right now. I have one that I lug around in an old sewing machine case right now with a ream of paper - I call it my "laptop" because it's the most portable typing instrument I have right now. No power, just paper. Plus a satisfying "clunk" when the keys are pressed.:)
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I personally like the MD media, because they're so small, but you make a good point. With the increasing size of things like the Ipod, there's not much point to them anymore. Still, I think I could probably fit my entire CD collection on less than a shoebox full of minidiscs, so I guess if I were fanatic about having everything portable it would still be cool. I'm not, though. :) Of course, I probably like my MD thingie because it was free....
While I admit the interface furstrates me from time to time, I still use GIMP. Why? Because it's free, plain and simple. Yes, I might not make the same decision if I were a small-or-larger graphic arts shop, although I probably would if put in charge of the purchasing. The interface may be a bit clunky, but I will never plunk down whatever astronomical sum Adobe is charging for Photoshop nowadays. I can spend that money on a scanner, a drawing tablet, some nice paper, and a bunch of non-photo blue pencils. For a hobbyist or amateur artist (or just a bad one, like myself,)these are as much of a factor in deciding which program to go with.
Does it allow me to copy money? I hear programs like this are in short supply. :)
Unlike a STM, which would be a wonderful albeit expensive conversation piece that I would probably never find a real use for, I could actually use a homemade PH meter for about a hundred different things. Does anyone have any more information on this? Links? Plans? Theory? Admonishments that there are Some Things Mankind Was Not Meant To Know(tm)?
Hear hear! My mother and several of my female friends would no doubt applaud you were they reading this thread. That said, it surprises me just how many "inappropriate gender attitudes" one runs into on an average day of reading Slashdot. Not so much reasonable debates like this one, but some very strange eyes peeking out from under the rocks in some of the backwater threads. History shows that something driven underground is not gone, merely not as visible. This is the trouble I have with the argument that feminism has accomplished its goals. I expect that in a generation or two we won't have this "say one thing, do the other" attitude toward women hardly at all, because what we say becomes what we do, over time, but for the time being women still run into a number of obstacles. (As do fairly androgynous heterosexual men, such as myself, but that's another thread and another discussion altogether.) The biggest one is not an active dislike of women in the workplace, or anything like that, but an assumption that still seems fairly strong to me (and my ex-girlfriend runs into on almost a daily basis, which drives her crazy) is one of simple incompetence: that, by virtue of gender alone women somehow are less able to handle certain types of situation. Here I cry bullshit. Social conditioning be damned - begin changing these things now, and it will be a spurious argument by the time our children's children are running our society. I have no doubt that women are just as capable of adjusting to a new social role given the need as men. They have already proven themselves proficient in that regard.
I don't mean to come across the wrong way on this, and believe me I do understand the caffiene headache phenomenon quite well, but all you people complaining about caffiene withdrawals should really try heavy amphetamine withdrawals for a couple of days. I promise you, that headache is nothing on one that lasts for three months, and is a subtle type of headache that you Just Can't Ignore(tm). Not to mention a very profound lack of energy for a very, very long time, a creative "inner voice" that keeps finding excuses to keep going with the addiction, and my personal favorite - deep, deep depression. After an experience like that (the relics of a misspent youth), caffiene seems pretty small potatoes. The interesting side effect is a great mistrust of all stimulants now, though. I don't really care for more than one cup of coffee every couple of days, and even then that's when I'm just not getting enough sleep. Massive amounts of water are my drug of choice nowadays.
That's a pretty tough one, really. I've heard both, and they're both pretty bad. I think Shatner's is worse by a very narrow margin, but Tiny Tim's version of Stairway to Heaven (same album), or the original song Fourteen (also same album) are known to cause spontaneous abortions in cattle. May be harmful to children. Be that as it may, Fourteen ranks far above Shatner's body of work as the second worst song I have ever heard. YMMV, of course.
Actually, there is a legally permissable amount that can be brought across the border, assuming you follow proper procedure. So not everyone buying drugs in pharmacies in good 'ol Mexico is doing so illegal. That said, I'm told by SWWM (someone who wasn't me) that it used to be fairly easy to circumvent the checks for these things, back about five or six years ago. There are certain things that have no permissable amounts, however, such as oxycodone and a few other severely abusable drugs. People go down to Mexico all the time to buy smart drugs like Deprenyl and Vassopressin(sp?), and my grandmother gets her blood pressure medicine from there. (Of course, she has a prescription stateside, but there are ways legally in place for legitimate reasons, such as a person getting sick in Mexico while on vacation.)
Preach it brother! I stopped watching TV when I moved out of my parents' house about four years ago, and until my new roommates got cable, the only time I ever watched television was the occasional movie every couple of months or so. My quality of life improved so much - I've learned to play guitar, taken up homebrewing (mmm, mead!), finished massage school and various carpal tunnel additonal courses, learned to cook gourmet dishes and historical cuisine, and had the time of my life. The TV is only useful for pornography and cartoons, in my opinion.
Insightful indeed! That should have been obvious to me to begin with, but it didn't occur to me. I mean, a trade embargo is one thing, but a *power* embargo? People get very testy without electricity.
An interesting point. If it's the sort of thing that makes people go insane just from reading it, then most certainly it should be classified. :) It would be interesting to observe a few people in similar positions and see if any odd patterns arise. Iff'n I recall the Lil' Abner cartoons correctly, however, the location of the Lost Valley of Shmoo is a closely guarded secret itself. :)
No, no....trust me. I live in Dallas, and have been a native Texan all my life, and trust me - it's okay to offend Texans. Everything does, anyhow. :) Well, not all of us, but if you get stuck in traffic in Dallas sometime, you'll realize that it certainly is the majority. Although Renee Zellweger.....Mmmmmmmmmm......
Double insightful, in some ways. I remember not too long ago hearing about someone who had built a device that produced amphetamines by some sort of electrochemical reaction. I believe it was in Australia. The gist of it was that it was made from a film cannister suspended inside a slightly larger container, very portable and requiring few to none difficult to obtain reagents.
It would have been, if it had come out earlier, say a month after Napster 1.0 shut down.
Insightful point about the dress codes thing. I hadn't really thought about them in years, apart from a knee-jerk "this is idiotic" reaction. They're necessary when dealing with the customer face-to-face, but those of us who work in call centers shouldn't have to have such restrictive policies. As long as no one comes to work naked, and I'd make one or two exceptions to that rule in my office, I'm okay with whatever people want to wear. Purple dreadlocks and togas for all! With flip-flops!
Yup. I remember when Windows first began making waves in the PC world. I and some of my friends who were into computers would sneer at the "training wheels" that just slowed the computer down needlessly and added almost no functionality. If we wanted a menu system, we wrote one with .BAT files, doggone it! And it worked! Of course, we never actually got around to doing that, since we had the entire filesystem memorized. I am forced to admit, however, that I have become spoiled by GUI interfaces over the years, and am forcing myself to learn linux so that I can return to my roots and begin dorking with a command line all over again. My command-line elitism days are over, though. *sigh*
That goes with that skinnable t-shirt idea I had. I have the same problem as the grandparent post. I have an awareness of clothing style and other things like that, but for some reason when I wear all the same things, it doesn't work for me. The only look I have mastered is the "business casual" look that is required at my job. *sigh* Oh, well. Maybe I'll get a job sometime that requires me to dress trendy, and I'll pick up the knack. Somehow I doubt it, though.
Now that would make for some interesting code comments, don't ya think?
And national health care. How much is broadband over there in the UK?
Yeah, exactly. And besides it all, the broadband we have today is still not universal. I just want a cable modem again, dangit - I'll worry about a terabit connection when it's offered by one of my existing utilities, or inexpensive enough to become one. Unfortunately, I can't afford any of the above right now, because fifty dollars a month is still a big chunk of my switchboard operator's budget. :(
I still want to get off of dialup at my apartment. And even when I had broadband, there were still sites that wouldn't load very quickly. The servers are going to need some upgrading as well, I think, before bandwidth becomes the only bottleneck. Still, that's really cool. I hope to see something approaching instant response within my lifetime. Besides my old DOS computer, way back when. :)
Probably relaxed. I mean, he's having fun, and he has made an undeniable mark on computer history. His name is known, at least to a certain subset of the population. I mean sure, keep plugging away and all, but there is no worrying about profit margins or market share for him. He wanted to make an operating system, he did, and a bit of history in the bargain. Maybe I'm reading a bit much into his motives, but Linus has never displayed any reaction to his fame except surprise and a refusal to let it go to his head. I think he just wanted to make an operating system, everyone else can worry about the rest because his problem is the operating system. At least, that's my interpretation without having RTFA. :)
unfortunately for them, the proof is too big for them to fit in this margin...
I used to work for a mom & pop computer store that had a lot of service accounts in East Texas. One day we got a call from a bank, huge service contract because we had a guy who could do some EE testing on boards and whatnot. Turns out they wanted us to overhaul their WYSE terminals, about sixty of them. Took him almost a year to track down and replace burnt out resistors and various other little electronicky bits, but our (mostly insane) boss required this labor intensive approach. Poor guy, he managed to fix all but the one that had caught fire.
Yeah, I have one of those old Royal typewriters, too. Collecting antique typewriters is a fun hobby because they're not very expensive right now. I have one that I lug around in an old sewing machine case right now with a ream of paper - I call it my "laptop" because it's the most portable typing instrument I have right now. No power, just paper. Plus a satisfying "clunk" when the keys are pressed. :)