It might be prohibition, but it exists for a reason. Incandescents are obviously gateway electric light producers. Many, many people get hooked on incandescents and begin using them compulsively. They leave them on while they sleep or fill a room with Christmas lights and dance about in radiant ecstasy.
From there, it's just a small step to even bigger energy wasters. Kerosene lamps, then candles, then sterno. Eventually, entire neighborhoods are set ablaze to fulfill the cravings of these light-loving energy wasters.
For better or worse, languages change over time (although the French think they can stop it!). The increasing informality of American English may just be part of that transition.
That's an interesting speculation. A couple hundred years ago, many English words didn't have universally agreed upon spelling. (Think email vs. e-mail, except for many, many more words.)
As schooling became more and more common, standardization of spelling and grammar increased steadily. Now that the percentage of the population that attends school has plateaued, perhahps formal language has as well.
Children don't have to formally learn grammar. A child learning a language natively will by definition speak with perfect grammar even without schooling, because in the science of linguistics rules of grammar are based on what is heard in the vernacular of the language in question, not what some pundit sets down by fiat.
Sorry, this is oversimplification. I've heard this before, and too often this argument is used to justify sloppy language education.
One of the great benefits of academia is the common language and grammar that it shared among multiple disciplines. Though humans can and do function perfectly well without being taught grammar, they will not do nearly as well in higher education, and will never become academics without at least a basic foundation of commonly accepted grammar.
A set of rules that is universally agreed upon reduces the opportunity for confusion and minimizes misunderstandings. That is why academic English exists, to help make abstract ideas clear.
This is very true. Back in the daaaay, I used to make those simple electronic sign animations that you see in front of shopping centers and so on. These signs were sold nationally. I did some rough calculations one time and realized that my work had been seen hundreds of millions of times, far more than any of my old film school peers' movies.
I've been elbow deep in pdf formats, Acrobat software, postscript, ghostscript, software alternatives and workarounds for years.
Adobe got in early with the format, and it became successfull because of the free reader. Far superior opportunities exist now (xml, anyone?), but, sadly, we're locked in to the ever "evolving" pdf format because of history.
I wish we could just scrap it and start over.
Hundreds of dollars is actually getting off cheap compared to the ridiculous amount of time I've spent trying to find alternatives.
I've tried. I've really, really tried to like dashboards, widgets, push info, whatever. You see, the thing is, there is only so much stuff I want to know on a CONSTANT basis. Clocks are nice, but guess what, THERE'S ALREADY A CLOCK ON MY COMUPUTER. Oh, well the widget clock looks analog? Well, that just justifies everying.
Weather? I'm inside! I'll check the weather when I leave. Stock reports? I'm not a day trader. The bubble burst. Remember? CPU, memory usage? Ok, I'm a geek, but not that much of a geek.
When I need to find something out, I'll look it up. Thanks anyway.
Pessimist: "That glass is half empty." Optimist: "That glass is half full." Kurzweil: "The self-cloning milk in that glass will replicate thanks to nanobots and end world hunger."
Not to pimp my own site too much, but the entire site is dedicated to free tools to improve Windows. It includes many of the tools just listed here. nedwolf.com
Re:Data encryption on portable device?
on
Portable Storage Guide
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've got a review of it here, if you're interested, as well as some other portable security tools. I've a bigger list portable software tools as well. (shameless link, but on topic)
Opera is exploding right now. My logs show an increase of Opera over the past week of about 500%. After the buzz of "free Opera" dies down, who knows if it will maintain?
Most geeks love Firefox extensions (I do), but Joe User just isn't interested in dealing with that stuff. Opera offers more functionality straight out of the box, and almost nobody outside the tech community cares at all about open source.
I think Firefox might have reached market saturation. I wish it weren't the case, but I fear it may be true.
There was a fluff piece I wrote a little while ago about Opera vs. Firefox that addresses some of this.
The part that always concerned me about the do-not-call exemption was the allowance of getting calls from a business that you had a pre-existing relationship with.
What constitutes a pre-exiting relationship? I get calls from a local suto dealerchip's service center "reminding" me to get my car serviced.
What if they get bought by a corporation that owns credit card companies? Does this mean the credit card company would be able to solicit me?
Everything about the article's premise is simply incorrect. One of the main reasons that transparent and fluid dissemination of information is good is that it more readily allows for review. If the courts have been producing skewed decisions based on arbitrary results, well then, let's see it! Open the doors, and shine the light on the subject. Hopefully, some self-review will occur.
The "problem" is not too much information, it's too limited availability of information. It's the advantage gained by those who wish to disallow others from having it. In war, it's necessary. In political and government operations, it's anathema.
The other, obvious advantage of ready access to information is increasing the fluidity of the economy. It helps to level the playing field. Instead of over-reliance on PR and advertising, businesses and consumers can make more informed decisions.
The most irritating new trend, in my opinion, is not the whiny / kitty blogs, which are readily identified, but the "clip" blogs, sites that take a headline of a topic from digg.com or del.icio.us, or some other social bookmarking site, and link to the article with no new content whatsoever. It's as if the blogger is using their site as their own, personal bookmark list, nothing more.
I have had a site listed on clip blogs quite a few times. While I appreciate the effort that people make to link to it (and, I suppose, the Google traffic), it really is just noise on the net.
In fact, if I recall, the state of Nevada was a little while ago in the awkward position of having vastly superior standards enforced for gambling devices than they had for voting machines
The quality control on gaming machines is crazy high. You know why? If there was any faintest whisper that the gaming corporations were not playing a fair game with the suckers, I mean gamblers, people would play less.
But voting? Nevada cares far more about the bottom line than it does about the politician of the week.
I've actually read most of the essays listed in this link. The book is over 300 pages, and I know that there is no way all the essays can add up to that much. I wonder how much has actually been added to the print edition.
Slashdot Mirror
Seach PirateBay for a torrent called 'iowa'
I would, but I would probably get sued by RIAA for supposedly downloading Iowa State Marching Band songs or something.
Yep. Corn gives you gas.
Either he's asleep 23 hours a day or he spends every waking moment staring into space.
I, too, photoshopped liquid onto Jennifer Connely's face.
It might be prohibition, but it exists for a reason. Incandescents are obviously gateway electric light producers. Many, many people get hooked on incandescents and begin using them compulsively. They leave them on while they sleep or fill a room with Christmas lights and dance about in radiant ecstasy.
From there, it's just a small step to even bigger energy wasters. Kerosene lamps, then candles, then sterno. Eventually, entire neighborhoods are set ablaze to fulfill the cravings of these light-loving energy wasters.
That's an interesting speculation. A couple hundred years ago, many English words didn't have universally agreed upon spelling. (Think email vs. e-mail, except for many, many more words.)
As schooling became more and more common, standardization of spelling and grammar increased steadily. Now that the percentage of the population that attends school has plateaued, perhahps formal language has as well.
This is very true. Back in the daaaay, I used to make those simple electronic sign animations that you see in front of shopping centers and so on. These signs were sold nationally. I did some rough calculations one time and realized that my work had been seen hundreds of millions of times, far more than any of my old film school peers' movies.
Uh... not allow hotlinking to wmf files?
I've been elbow deep in pdf formats, Acrobat software, postscript, ghostscript, software alternatives and workarounds for years.
Adobe got in early with the format, and it became successfull because of the free reader. Far superior opportunities exist now (xml, anyone?), but, sadly, we're locked in to the ever "evolving" pdf format because of history.
I wish we could just scrap it and start over.
Hundreds of dollars is actually getting off cheap compared to the ridiculous amount of time I've spent trying to find alternatives.
I've tried. I've really, really tried to like dashboards, widgets, push info, whatever. You see, the thing is, there is only so much stuff I want to know on a CONSTANT basis. Clocks are nice, but guess what, THERE'S ALREADY A CLOCK ON MY COMUPUTER. Oh, well the widget clock looks analog? Well, that just justifies everying.
Weather? I'm inside! I'll check the weather when I leave. Stock reports? I'm not a day trader. The bubble burst. Remember? CPU, memory usage? Ok, I'm a geek, but not that much of a geek.
When I need to find something out, I'll look it up. Thanks anyway.
Not to totally plug my own article, but I have a detailed comparison between the two here that some might be interested in.
.. ability to double as a DVD player, play music from an MP3 player through a television's speakers and even display digital photos on a TV
I have a DVD player that cost me $30 that does all this.
Pessimist: "That glass is half empty."
Optimist: "That glass is half full."
Kurzweil: "The self-cloning milk in that glass will replicate thanks to nanobots and end world hunger."
Not to pimp my own site too much, but the entire site is dedicated to free tools to improve Windows. It includes many of the tools just listed here. nedwolf.com
For Windows, the best option is TrueCrypt.
I've got a review of it here, if you're interested, as well as some other portable security tools. I've a bigger list portable software tools as well. (shameless link, but on topic)
Opera is exploding right now. My logs show an increase of Opera over the past week of about 500%. After the buzz of "free Opera" dies down, who knows if it will maintain?
Most geeks love Firefox extensions (I do), but Joe User just isn't interested in dealing with that stuff. Opera offers more functionality straight out of the box, and almost nobody outside the tech community cares at all about open source.
I think Firefox might have reached market saturation. I wish it weren't the case, but I fear it may be true.
There was a fluff piece I wrote a little while ago about Opera vs. Firefox that addresses some of this.
The part that always concerned me about the do-not-call exemption was the allowance of getting calls from a business that you had a pre-existing relationship with.
What constitutes a pre-exiting relationship? I get calls from a local suto dealerchip's service center "reminding" me to get my car serviced.
What if they get bought by a corporation that owns credit card companies? Does this mean the credit card company would be able to solicit me?
Maybe he has a point. After all, it must be wrong since it feels so right.
Everything about the article's premise is simply incorrect. One of the main reasons that transparent and fluid dissemination of information is good is that it more readily allows for review. If the courts have been producing skewed decisions based on arbitrary results, well then, let's see it! Open the doors, and shine the light on the subject. Hopefully, some self-review will occur.
The "problem" is not too much information, it's too limited availability of information. It's the advantage gained by those who wish to disallow others from having it. In war, it's necessary. In political and government operations, it's anathema.
The other, obvious advantage of ready access to information is increasing the fluidity of the economy. It helps to level the playing field. Instead of over-reliance on PR and advertising, businesses and consumers can make more informed decisions.
The most irritating new trend, in my opinion, is not the whiny / kitty blogs, which are readily identified, but the "clip" blogs, sites that take a headline of a topic from digg.com or del.icio.us, or some other social bookmarking site, and link to the article with no new content whatsoever. It's as if the blogger is using their site as their own, personal bookmark list, nothing more.
I have had a site listed on clip blogs quite a few times. While I appreciate the effort that people make to link to it (and, I suppose, the Google traffic), it really is just noise on the net.
In fact, if I recall, the state of Nevada was a little while ago in the awkward position of having vastly superior standards enforced for gambling devices than they had for voting machines
The quality control on gaming machines is crazy high. You know why? If there was any faintest whisper that the gaming corporations were not playing a fair game with the suckers, I mean gamblers, people would play less.
But voting? Nevada cares far more about the bottom line than it does about the politician of the week.
Can anyone explain to me why P2P companies / applications have such silly names?
Grokster
Napster
Kazaa
Mashboxx (now with two x's!)
EDonkey
etc.
Say what you will about Microsoft, at least their name makes sense.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Paint.net. It's issued under the MIT license, is free, and has a much cleaner interface.
I've actually read most of the essays listed in this link. The book is over 300 pages, and I know that there is no way all the essays can add up to that much. I wonder how much has actually been added to the print edition.