I only wish that Ratcliff was doing this on purpose, with the express intent of challenging the Patriot Act. Unfortunately, given his actions against the book collective, it doesn't seem so.
I love cooking, and I love having music on when I cook. (For me and many people here on/. you could substitute the word "code" for "cook") I saw in one of your online chats a discussion about Steeley Dan. Without getting into my personal feelings about said band, I'll ask if you like to listen to music while cooking/entertaining, and if so, what bands/songs/genres do you usually pull up in iTunes to entertain yourself and your guests?
He can't swim, but since when did you have to know how to swim to stand in the water? Go to where the fire line is, get in the water, walk around to where the fire isn't, get out.
Is it learning if it's just a really weird question?
so you end up drinking a lot, thinking it isn't effecting you, and then the caffeine wears off. The booze hits very hard, very fast, when that happens.
Uh oh. Better tell the Jack & Coke crowd. I'm sure they have no idea this happens....
...because it wasn't your average thousand-recipe cookbook. What caught my eye upon browsing through was the color diagram of how/why fried foods lose their batter/coating, and the science of it. And until I read the review, I guess I never thought of cooking as hacking, but that's pretty much what it is.
And, now that I think of it, I was thinking about it last night, why recipies aren't copyright-ed/able. I mean, we see companies and people filing for patents on "ways" doing things, connecting to information via links, etc. What makes a recipe any less of a creation? Not that I want that to happen by any stretch of the imagination, but just the opposite. We've all got the same tools and brains to deduce solutions, etc. Why, just because someone thought of a way of doing something first does that mean that they own that way of doing it? Build a better mousetrap! Don't copyright the "idea" of a mousetrap!!
Anyway, it looks like a cool book. I might have to get it now. Sorry for the tangent....
...and I *hated* the examples given in the book, Programming & Problem Solving w/ C++. To me, it was really dry, and would say things like "You should always* do this", and then have the * say "*There are exceptions to this, but we don't get into that in this chapter/book/etc". Very frustrating. Why bring it up? Also, the examples were pretty dry. Some of our class problems were straight out of the book, and I had no interest in them. In my previous college life (before computers became my main career interest), I was an English major, pretty much the type of person you're writing about.
When I heard about a list of examples that used many different programming languages to display the song "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall", I thought "Why can't we have examples like this?" It may have been all text based, but it was something I was interested in (beer), and something that was fairly universal (the song). I'm sure that you could come up with more creative examples for for other issues (functions, arrays, etc), but I would've loved more examples like this. (Had my teacher not been a hot South American lady, I probably wouldn't have made it to class that often...)
This is such crap. I understand about pirates and wareZ kids, but what about demo/trial software (a full package could easily run 14MB), software updates (again, most would start at 10MB at least), patches to games (the one I want to download is about 9MB, I think)? Not to mention legally streaming or downloading of music videos, songs, etc.
Broadband, while sparked by Napster et. al., is about more than just "stealing". It's the way software companies do business nowadays, and the broadband companies may want to take that into account before they do this.
And how come we never hear about these things w/DSL, only with cable modems?
Your comments remind me of something I saw at a home and garden show, basically pictures that are made to fit inside of basement window wells, so you're not looking at the corrugated metal outside the well. Pictures of undersea scapes, cityscapes, all sorts of things. Only a couple struck me as very clever, and I can't Google any examples. Most just looked tacky.
Some product placement is already done, obviously. I used to work for a software company that made a product that competed with ARCServe. Naturally, we always noticed the Computer Associates boxes very prominently placed on ER. Those boxes have no business being right there at the nursing station, but there they were, getting some screen time. It would be hard to believe that someone on the ER set just loved their product enough to put it out there. It's one of the only named products that you see directly on that show.
That's not that offensive to me, but hearing Aniston prattle on about how much she loves diet coke, that would get to me!
Explorer Gama
Sails to the Indian Shore
Trade Expands Markets
They would do other things too, like name hard drives after the brothers Karamazov, naming folders "Applications", "carbon dioxide", "CS", "Delivery Systems", "incendiaries", "methylene chloride", "Negotiations" and "propellants". There are other examples, but you get the idea. If you have a manual for Retro, just browse through the screenshots, you're bound to find something mildly amusing.
It will be like the "New Coke". They'll introduce the new versions, there will be an outcry, and they'll release the "Super Classic" first trilogy. More money for everyone except us Star Wars geeks.
I probly won't care about the tinkering so much as I'll be interested in seeing how he does it. But I'd prefer to have the *originals* on dvd as well as the "new & improved" versions.
Great idea, I had it when I started reading the responses on the Senate feedback board. Here's the e-mail I wrote and plan on sending to a large number of people (feel free to copy and paste):
I very rarely send info like this out, so please bear with me. This is something that's near & dear to my heart, but should be to everyone who enjoys their music/television/video digitally. To quote from the article at the link below, "This three-part agenda -- controlling digital media devices, controlling analog converters, controlling the Internet -- is a frightening peek at Hollywood's vision of the future."
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000113.html
The article has more info in layman's terms about different bills before Congress that are threatening to make technology companies adhere to the Motion Picture Assn of America/Recording Industry Assn of America's ideas about controlling music/video content in the digital age, taking away even "fair use" rights like making a mix CD/tape for yourself, copying tracks from a CD onto an iPod or other digital music device, or making copies of tv shows for yourself - including taping off the air. These rights are part of a larger issue toward copyright, which has extended from "14 years beyond invention/creation" to "life of creator PLUS something like 60 years". To put things into crystal-clear perspective, the copyright on Mickey Mouse is set to run out in the next few years. Disney has been a major competitor over the last few years to Sen. Fritz Holling's coffers, who is the author/sponsor of this bill.
Interestingly enough (to me), this bill is sponsored by 4 Democrats and 1 Republican.
Bills like this would probably be shot down as unconstitutional, but let's please not give it the chance to get to that point. Call or write your Senators and Representatives and request that they respect your rights as a customer and not the business model of major entertainment corporations to wring more money from music/videos you already own, on their terms.
There's an apt quote from Robert Heinlein that goes like this: "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit. "
the only ones i'll actually stay still for now are those funny blockbuster ones with the guinea pig and the rabbit
She had me until riiiiight there. Which goes to prove that one person's interesting/funny is another person's "throw something, ANYTHING at the TV to make it stop!!!" This ad was played so much during the holiday season and final four that I wanted to vow to never go to BlokBusta again. Except it's the closest vid rental store....
remove the 30-second skip feature and replace with a 2 or 3 minute skip feature. That way, you'll skip over all the commercials completely! It's funny how companies shoot themselves in the foot over things like this, ala the Big Record Companies and Napster. Those morons didn't realise that they had an automatic distribution system in place with Napster. The TV Networks can still sell ads, but now people have to skip over them one at a time. What happens if we just blow the whole block out?
I did like how the article pointed out what companies are doing to get around the potential, theoretical "loss of revenue". That at least shows that there are ways around it and that whining without action is just whining.
I'm sure it's a low number, and I'm not saying that it was the forces of the coaster. I'm just saying that for me, blacking out was kind of a sign that maybe coasters weren't for me, anymore, at least not the inverted-g's coasters. A normal up/down around-the-corner coaster is fine.
I guess what Im trying to say is that I might have been anemic at the time, which might have contributed to my blackout, but it had never happened before, so I just put coasters on hold.
I pretty much stopped riding coasters in my early 20's because I started to black out on them, which I determined for me, was not good.
So I stopped riding, I didn't need someone to tell me to stop riding. But perhaps I'm a bit more intelligent than some coaster-riding dopes who would say "hey, dude, I blacked out! Cool! Let's ride again" and end up hurting themselves.
Then again, that's why they're called the Darwin Awards....
I agree. I say just switch one computer per night, after the user has gone home, and see if they notice at all.:)
Serioulsy! I was really surprised at how easy it was to use KDE (using the Platinum theme that apes the Mac). Okay, there were a few things that weren't what I was used to, but for the most part it was pretty painless. I actually ended up using Linux more than my Mac at times. And once, when I had to completely rebuild my Mac (yes, this was at a place I used to work. It was a dream job and I'll be looking for something similar for the rest of my life...) I was on my Linux machine for a couple of days and got *really* used to it. I felt like I used my Mac even less after that. (Now I can't wait to get a Mac running OS X - almost the best of both worlds!)
Re:the power of cancellation
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Oh, yeah, fees can be "waived". I asked my manager where I work about why we charge a $10 fee to transfer a customer's service from one address to another. He said "to pay you?".
I mention the fees now, but I don't press them if the customer pushes back in the slightest.
Re:I Cancelled My Earthlink Account
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Tips 1. Hit 0 on the first menu.. there is almost never a Cancel service option in the voice menu and 0 usually sends you to a human right away.
Usually is the right word. The companies are getting smarter and are starting to have 0 not be an option. The great phone systems are the ones that come on and say "I'm sorry , that is not an option. Goodbye" and hang up the call.
I say if you know what you want to do and have the skills to do it, don't necessarily waste your time/money in college. I've said that since I graduated with my English degree back in '93. Not that I'm bitter - I loved the educational and social aspects of going to college. However, it seemed that it was something that was expected of me, and I just took a major in something that I had traditionally done well in. And I did, ending up with something like a 3.5 in classes in my major (probably a 2.7 overall, tho.)
My advice, standard and free, is:
If you know what you want to do and can do it (it sounds the asker is here), don't go, at least not yet. You may want/need to take some structured classes later to learn more. If you change your mind, you can maybe go later.
If you don't know what you want to do, don't go. It will waste your time and money. Spend some time looking for things that you're interested in doing. People get all tweaked out about getting married and being with the same person for the rest of their lives, but they'll do any old crap job forever. Do what you love!! At least you'll be happy. Not to say that you won't have to do a crap job for a short time now and again. (I'm doing that now, it sucks, but it makes me work harder to get a job I know I'll love)
If you know what you want to do and need the sort of education and experience that college will provide, go and have a great time. You could end up making some great conections, and for those in the tech industry, a university is a great place to exchange ideas and dig in in a learning environment. An employer might not be as forgiving as a professor.
If I had followed my own advice, I would have taken music or computer classes in college. I'm trying to make up for it now with community college classes, thinking about a CS degree, but it would take a lot of time and I have some professional experience already and just need to fill in some holes. Unfortunately, with a family and other things going on, I need the structure of an actual class to go to, with actual homework that I need to get done and hand in on a deadline. YMMV.
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I only wish that Ratcliff was doing this on purpose, with the express intent of challenging the Patriot Act. Unfortunately, given his actions against the book collective, it doesn't seem so.
I love cooking, and I love having music on when I cook. (For me and many people here on /. you could substitute the word "code" for "cook") I saw in one of your online chats a discussion about Steeley Dan. Without getting into my personal feelings about said band, I'll ask if you like to listen to music while cooking/entertaining, and if so, what bands/songs/genres do you usually pull up in iTunes to entertain yourself and your guests?
...It's called "a box in my basement."
Is it learning if it's just a really weird question?
Uh oh. Better tell the Jack & Coke crowd. I'm sure they have no idea this happens....
And, now that I think of it, I was thinking about it last night, why recipies aren't copyright-ed/able. I mean, we see companies and people filing for patents on "ways" doing things, connecting to information via links, etc. What makes a recipe any less of a creation? Not that I want that to happen by any stretch of the imagination, but just the opposite. We've all got the same tools and brains to deduce solutions, etc. Why, just because someone thought of a way of doing something first does that mean that they own that way of doing it? Build a better mousetrap! Don't copyright the "idea" of a mousetrap!!
Anyway, it looks like a cool book. I might have to get it now. Sorry for the tangent....
Brilliant set of 3 words. "Camping the Wookie". Should be a band name or *something*.
I'd say it's my favorite joke from that movie, but they're all so good. Thank god it's on DVD now. And CHEAP, too!
When I heard about a list of examples that used many different programming languages to display the song "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall", I thought "Why can't we have examples like this?" It may have been all text based, but it was something I was interested in (beer), and something that was fairly universal (the song). I'm sure that you could come up with more creative examples for for other issues (functions, arrays, etc), but I would've loved more examples like this. (Had my teacher not been a hot South American lady, I probably wouldn't have made it to class that often...)
Broadband, while sparked by Napster et. al., is about more than just "stealing". It's the way software companies do business nowadays, and the broadband companies may want to take that into account before they do this.
And how come we never hear about these things w/DSL, only with cable modems?
My bad.
Your comments remind me of something I saw at a home and garden show, basically pictures that are made to fit inside of basement window wells, so you're not looking at the corrugated metal outside the well. Pictures of undersea scapes, cityscapes, all sorts of things. Only a couple struck me as very clever, and I can't Google any examples. Most just looked tacky.
That's not that offensive to me, but hearing Aniston prattle on about how much she loves diet coke, that would get to me!
Explorer Gama
Sails to the Indian Shore
Trade Expands Markets
They would do other things too, like name hard drives after the brothers Karamazov, naming folders "Applications", "carbon dioxide", "CS", "Delivery Systems", "incendiaries", "methylene chloride", "Negotiations" and "propellants". There are other examples, but you get the idea. If you have a manual for Retro, just browse through the screenshots, you're bound to find something mildly amusing.
I probly won't care about the tinkering so much as I'll be interested in seeing how he does it. But I'd prefer to have the *originals* on dvd as well as the "new & improved" versions.
I very rarely send info like this out, so please bear with me. This is something that's near & dear to my heart, but should be to everyone who enjoys their music/television/video digitally. To quote from the article at the link below, "This three-part agenda -- controlling digital media devices, controlling analog converters, controlling the Internet -- is a frightening peek at Hollywood's vision of the future."
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000113.html
The article has more info in layman's terms about different bills before Congress that are threatening to make technology companies adhere to the Motion Picture Assn of America/Recording Industry Assn of America's ideas about controlling music/video content in the digital age, taking away even "fair use" rights like making a mix CD/tape for yourself, copying tracks from a CD onto an iPod or other digital music device, or making copies of tv shows for yourself - including taping off the air. These rights are part of a larger issue toward copyright, which has extended from "14 years beyond invention/creation" to "life of creator PLUS something like 60 years". To put things into crystal-clear perspective, the copyright on Mickey Mouse is set to run out in the next few years. Disney has been a major competitor over the last few years to Sen. Fritz Holling's coffers, who is the author/sponsor of this bill.
Interestingly enough (to me), this bill is sponsored by 4 Democrats and 1 Republican.
Bills like this would probably be shot down as unconstitutional, but let's please not give it the chance to get to that point. Call or write your Senators and Representatives and request that they respect your rights as a customer and not the business model of major entertainment corporations to wring more money from music/videos you already own, on their terms.
There's an apt quote from Robert Heinlein that goes like this: "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit. "
He wrote this in 1939. Think about it.
Thanks for your time and attention,
She had me until riiiiight there. Which goes to prove that one person's interesting/funny is another person's "throw something, ANYTHING at the TV to make it stop!!!" This ad was played so much during the holiday season and final four that I wanted to vow to never go to BlokBusta again. Except it's the closest vid rental store....
remove the 30-second skip feature and replace with a 2 or 3 minute skip feature. That way, you'll skip over all the commercials completely! It's funny how companies shoot themselves in the foot over things like this, ala the Big Record Companies and Napster. Those morons didn't realise that they had an automatic distribution system in place with Napster. The TV Networks can still sell ads, but now people have to skip over them one at a time. What happens if we just blow the whole block out?
I did like how the article pointed out what companies are doing to get around the potential, theoretical "loss of revenue". That at least shows that there are ways around it and that whining without action is just whining.
I guess what Im trying to say is that I might have been anemic at the time, which might have contributed to my blackout, but it had never happened before, so I just put coasters on hold.
So I stopped riding, I didn't need someone to tell me to stop riding. But perhaps I'm a bit more intelligent than some coaster-riding dopes who would say "hey, dude, I blacked out! Cool! Let's ride again" and end up hurting themselves.
Then again, that's why they're called the Darwin Awards....
Serioulsy! I was really surprised at how easy it was to use KDE (using the Platinum theme that apes the Mac). Okay, there were a few things that weren't what I was used to, but for the most part it was pretty painless. I actually ended up using Linux more than my Mac at times. And once, when I had to completely rebuild my Mac (yes, this was at a place I used to work. It was a dream job and I'll be looking for something similar for the rest of my life...) I was on my Linux machine for a couple of days and got *really* used to it. I felt like I used my Mac even less after that. (Now I can't wait to get a Mac running OS X - almost the best of both worlds!)
I mention the fees now, but I don't press them if the customer pushes back in the slightest.
Usually is the right word. The companies are getting smarter and are starting to have 0 not be an option. The great phone systems are the ones that come on and say "I'm sorry , that is not an option. Goodbye" and hang up the call.
...this is fucking brilliant. I never quite looked at it from the "big picture".
My advice, standard and free, is:
If you know what you want to do and can do it (it sounds the asker is here), don't go, at least not yet. You may want/need to take some structured classes later to learn more. If you change your mind, you can maybe go later.
If you don't know what you want to do, don't go. It will waste your time and money. Spend some time looking for things that you're interested in doing. People get all tweaked out about getting married and being with the same person for the rest of their lives, but they'll do any old crap job forever. Do what you love!! At least you'll be happy. Not to say that you won't have to do a crap job for a short time now and again. (I'm doing that now, it sucks, but it makes me work harder to get a job I know I'll love)
If you know what you want to do and need the sort of education and experience that college will provide, go and have a great time. You could end up making some great conections, and for those in the tech industry, a university is a great place to exchange ideas and dig in in a learning environment. An employer might not be as forgiving as a professor.
If I had followed my own advice, I would have taken music or computer classes in college. I'm trying to make up for it now with community college classes, thinking about a CS degree, but it would take a lot of time and I have some professional experience already and just need to fill in some holes. Unfortunately, with a family and other things going on, I need the structure of an actual class to go to, with actual homework that I need to get done and hand in on a deadline. YMMV.