You've stated quite an amount of vagueness there, sir, not to mention this confounding statement:
All of our AJAX trials were abysmal failures. That's why we're sticking with the existing Perl- and Java-based systems that we currently use.
Very interesting, seeing has how AJAX has nothing to do with your server-side technology whatsoever. Or how about this:
The AJAX applications did not conform to common practices (eg. copy-and-paste, textbox text selection, etc.
Again very interesting, seeing as how AJAX itself has nothing to do with the way users interact with form elements.
It sounds to me like either 1) you're BSing, which is my actual guess, or 2) your and your team have no idea how to actually code Javascript/AJAX/whatever, and you picked crappy packages off the internet and expected them to Just Work out of the box the same as your custom built solution.
Your problems have had nothing to do AJAX; rather, they have had to do with either your lack of knowledge or your life as a Slashdot troll.
Perhaps there are aspects of Dell the guy wanted to stick with? Like, for instance, their (last I checked) glorious easy-to-work-on-under-the-hood cases? I haven't seen many new cases lately, but from what I have seen you can't beat Dell for opening up and fidgeting with parts with a minimum of trouble, tools, and cramps.
If I could buy Dell cases alone, I would. Barring that, buying a whole computer and getting a refund for the OS seems like a reasonable option.
Oh, and I have to brag about my most brilliant Acro ever. It was late 1999, the Acro was "PARSK", and the category was "Celebrities." With about ten seconds left, I had an epiphany, and hurriedly typed the phrase "Pedestrian at risk: Stephen King".
This was like right after he'd gotten hit by that car, so it was absolutely perfect. I got every single vote that round, and <joke begins here> retired from Acro that night so as to leave at the pinnacle of my career.:)
The branded version did come back in neutered, ad-infested form at uproar.com for a while. It's still played occasionally on IRC channels here and there around the net. There was one semi-active one I visited a few months ago, but I can't remember what network it was on and my Chatzilla doesn't have any record of it. There are also several independent Acro clients scattered about the net, most (but perhaps not all) of which have an active membership of zero.
The Wikipedia article has some links to some clients and community sites. For me, the atmosphere of the original Berkeley client was what made it fun, but if the core gameplay is your thing, maybe you can find something worth your time.
It should be noted that Spring 2007 != January 2007. Spring begins in about March and extends through about May. A May price drop might be more realistic than a January one.
How far will you go to protect or disable the RFID chip in your passport? Do you think such a step is necessary? Does anyone have an argument in favor of the technology's implementation here?
Or how about in opposition of it? What do you think are the legal ramifications of such a move? Who is likely to be hurt by this scenario? Who am I? What am I doing posting on Slashdot? When is my question-mark key going to break under stress?
I think your post omits the ultimate reason for the phenomenon: Once an author becomes a celebrity, there are suddenly a nontrivial number of people who want to read every last word the author writes, for better or worse. Especially where the books in question are in a fantasy series. As Zarf has said, "The defining trick of fantasy and science fiction writing is to stuff information down your throat, as fast as possible, so smoothly that you never feel the burn."
So you've got a genre where more information is better, and you've got a screaming fan base who wants more of this world, in whatever shape it comes. Given that set of circumstances, it's no wonder that the books get longer and longer.
In any case, J.K. still has editors, and they -- even in book 5 -- still tell her to cut stuff. It's just that it's better for almost everyone involved to cut less.
Spoiler alert: There are potential spoilers in this comment. Stop reading now if you don't want any clues at all. There is also a link in this comment. Do not click it or hover over it if you don't want explicit spoilers.
There is still no solid information whatsoever as to who might die in Book 7 ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Deathly Hallows. We do know there will be one dead major character (probably at least two), and that two characters she originally planned to kill have gotten reprieves.
We know at least one dead major character because J.K. Rowling has explicitly said so. It's probably at least two characters, because Rowling said something about killing a character who she wasn't planning on killing originally. And as the following paragraph describes, it's pretty clear there was one character she was always planning on killing.
There are some clues in the books related to alchemy that seem to clearly indicate that one particular character is not going to make it.
If you want no clues whatsoever as to who it is, then 1) do not click or hover over that link! and 2) do not read the following paragraph.
If you want to figure it out yourself, then look some stuff up about what different colors mean in alchemy, then figure out which characters are related to those colors.
A Google search for "deathly hallows" (including quotation marks) brings up zero results on Google. I find it hard to believe that an actual slang term for "vagina" doesn't have one web page using the phrase until it becomes the name of a Harry Potter book.
Oh, AMEN, brotha, I was right there on that blasted web page with you. I'll probably get modded troll for this, but that little climax to his misapplied rant about freedom cost Stallman at least one person who might ever take his hyperactivism seriously. He may have done a lot of good for Free Software, and I'm not going to just dismiss everything he says from now on because of it, but stuff like that rant seems to indicate that he's incapable of 1) factoring in reality or 2) caring about people rather than ideas when something gets his ideological goat.
Phew. I've been waiting for this outlet for a long time. Thanks for providing the opportunity.:)
Despite your troll, you've almost got it right. The final chapter of the final book will actually be entitled "The Boy Who Lived," just like the first chapter of the first book.
Note how clever that turn of phrase is: you can look at the table of contents and see that chapter title, but you won't know until you read the book whether it means 1) the boy who used to live, or 2) the boy who fought Voldemort (again) and lived.
For what it's worth, J.K. Rowling intended there to be seven books in the series from Day One --- before she even knew whether the first one would sell enough to get the others published. She has said unequivocally that Book 7 will be the last (except MAYBE someday she'll publish all her unpublished notes that didn't make it into the books, or got changed before they made it into the books, etc.), and she'll stick to it.
If she doesn't stick to it, THEN you're more than welcome to pull out the "money-grubbing" accusations.
None. Which people that want to run Linux on a home computer also want to buy their computer from a major computer maker? Also none.
I exaggerate, but the fact is that you're advocating government intervention to make a company create a product very few people would buy. Would you want the government to intervene on YOUR company to make YOU create and support a product very few people would buy? If not, why are you advocating it in this instance?
I had it less backwards than the parent of my comment did. HP will be obliged to not sell the OS with computers, as I said, in addition to the option of selling OSes preinstalled.
Maybe I had it a little wrong, but the point remains the same: HP will be forced to sell their computers a certain way, even when they're not a monopoly, even when alternatives exist. And I think that's a bad thing. I think government intervention is in general a bad thing, except when there are monopolies whose behavior has to be regulated.
Government action to make someone behave a certain way is not necessary and not desirable when there are alternate choices of people that already behave that way.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so general in this statement. It's one thing when you're talking about, e.g., safety regulations. If a major company consistently does something that makes people physically unsafe, government intervention might be warranted.
But we're not talking about safety, we're talking about reasonable alternatives as to how to run a computer. (Yes, Windows is to many people a reasonable alternative as to how to run a computer.) So to rephrase my statement, in matters of choice, government intervention is not desirable when alternatives exist.
No one here is being forced to buy Windows with their machine, as they are not being forced to buy from HP. If HP had a monopoly on selling computers, it'd be one thing, but they don't. Government action to make someone behave a certain way is not necessary and not desirable when there are alternate choices of people that already behave that way.
Do you actually want the government to start making every company sell things to your liking? Does that not strike you as a dangerous precedent?
take another computer, copy a bootloader to some form of media, boot that computer off of it, and install your own OS... which I consider "working"
And which laymen consider "not working", or at best "working too hard".
Do you honestly think it should be mandated that computers must come OS-free? And I'm not talking about "should be" in terms of how it would reduce the inept-user population, I'm talking about "should be" in terms of freedom and government non-interference. You are free to go buy a computer without an OS, or buy the parts and assemble them yourself, etc. Should companies not be free to sell OSes pre-installed on computers? Should people not be free to buy them?
You've got it backwards. The situation is that HP is obliged to not sell the computer with the OS. Do you think it's sane and/or reasonable to mandate that CD players can't come with music? TVs can't come with bundled DVD sets? Etc.? I, personally, don't.
And no jokes, please, about "installing paper"; I took the verb from the analogous situation (i.e. operating systems) instead of the one I was describing.
Slashdot Mirror
You've stated quite an amount of vagueness there, sir, not to mention this confounding statement:
Very interesting, seeing has how AJAX has nothing to do with your server-side technology whatsoever. Or how about this:
Again very interesting, seeing as how AJAX itself has nothing to do with the way users interact with form elements.
It sounds to me like either 1) you're BSing, which is my actual guess, or 2) your and your team have no idea how to actually code Javascript/AJAX/whatever, and you picked crappy packages off the internet and expected them to Just Work out of the box the same as your custom built solution.
Your problems have had nothing to do AJAX; rather, they have had to do with either your lack of knowledge or your life as a Slashdot troll.
Perhaps there are aspects of Dell the guy wanted to stick with? Like, for instance, their (last I checked) glorious easy-to-work-on-under-the-hood cases? I haven't seen many new cases lately, but from what I have seen you can't beat Dell for opening up and fidgeting with parts with a minimum of trouble, tools, and cramps.
If I could buy Dell cases alone, I would. Barring that, buying a whole computer and getting a refund for the OS seems like a reasonable option.
Wrong.
I tag every story like this I see "dontaskquestions". Do the same and pass it on.
Oh, and I have to brag about my most brilliant Acro ever. It was late 1999, the Acro was "PARSK", and the category was "Celebrities." With about ten seconds left, I had an epiphany, and hurriedly typed the phrase "Pedestrian at risk: Stephen King".
:)
This was like right after he'd gotten hit by that car, so it was absolutely perfect. I got every single vote that round, and <joke begins here> retired from Acro that night so as to leave at the pinnacle of my career.
The branded version did come back in neutered, ad-infested form at uproar.com for a while. It's still played occasionally on IRC channels here and there around the net. There was one semi-active one I visited a few months ago, but I can't remember what network it was on and my Chatzilla doesn't have any record of it. There are also several independent Acro clients scattered about the net, most (but perhaps not all) of which have an active membership of zero.
The Wikipedia article has some links to some clients and community sites. For me, the atmosphere of the original Berkeley client was what made it fun, but if the core gameplay is your thing, maybe you can find something worth your time.
It should be noted that Spring 2007 != January 2007. Spring begins in about March and extends through about May. A May price drop might be more realistic than a January one.
Or how about in opposition of it? What do you think are the legal ramifications of such a move? Who is likely to be hurt by this scenario? Who am I? What am I doing posting on Slashdot? When is my question-mark key going to break under stress?
I think your post omits the ultimate reason for the phenomenon: Once an author becomes a celebrity, there are suddenly a nontrivial number of people who want to read every last word the author writes, for better or worse. Especially where the books in question are in a fantasy series. As Zarf has said, "The defining trick of fantasy and science fiction writing is to stuff information down your throat, as fast as possible, so smoothly that you never feel the burn."
So you've got a genre where more information is better, and you've got a screaming fan base who wants more of this world, in whatever shape it comes. Given that set of circumstances, it's no wonder that the books get longer and longer.
In any case, J.K. still has editors, and they -- even in book 5 -- still tell her to cut stuff. It's just that it's better for almost everyone involved to cut less.
Oops, you're half right! I forgot all the business about coming-of-age. It will, in fact, be "The Man Who Lived." Thanks for the half-correction. :)
Spoiler alert: There are potential spoilers in this comment. Stop reading now if you don't want any clues at all. There is also a link in this comment. Do not click it or hover over it if you don't want explicit spoilers.
There is still no solid information whatsoever as to who might die in Book 7 ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Deathly Hallows. We do know there will be one dead major character (probably at least two), and that two characters she originally planned to kill have gotten reprieves.
We know at least one dead major character because J.K. Rowling has explicitly said so. It's probably at least two characters, because Rowling said something about killing a character who she wasn't planning on killing originally. And as the following paragraph describes, it's pretty clear there was one character she was always planning on killing.
There are some clues in the books related to alchemy that seem to clearly indicate that one particular character is not going to make it.
If you want no clues whatsoever as to who it is, then 1) do not click or hover over that link! and 2) do not read the following paragraph.
If you want to figure it out yourself, then look some stuff up about what different colors mean in alchemy, then figure out which characters are related to those colors.
A Google search for "deathly hallows" (including quotation marks) brings up zero results on Google. I find it hard to believe that an actual slang term for "vagina" doesn't have one web page using the phrase until it becomes the name of a Harry Potter book.
I call BS.
Oh, AMEN, brotha, I was right there on that blasted web page with you. I'll probably get modded troll for this, but that little climax to his misapplied rant about freedom cost Stallman at least one person who might ever take his hyperactivism seriously. He may have done a lot of good for Free Software, and I'm not going to just dismiss everything he says from now on because of it, but stuff like that rant seems to indicate that he's incapable of 1) factoring in reality or 2) caring about people rather than ideas when something gets his ideological goat.
Phew. I've been waiting for this outlet for a long time. Thanks for providing the opportunity. :)
Despite your troll, you've almost got it right. The final chapter of the final book will actually be entitled "The Boy Who Lived," just like the first chapter of the first book.
Note how clever that turn of phrase is: you can look at the table of contents and see that chapter title, but you won't know until you read the book whether it means 1) the boy who used to live, or 2) the boy who fought Voldemort (again) and lived.
For what it's worth, J.K. Rowling intended there to be seven books in the series from Day One --- before she even knew whether the first one would sell enough to get the others published. She has said unequivocally that Book 7 will be the last (except MAYBE someday she'll publish all her unpublished notes that didn't make it into the books, or got changed before they made it into the books, etc.), and she'll stick to it.
If she doesn't stick to it, THEN you're more than welcome to pull out the "money-grubbing" accusations.
+0.5, Funny. Would've been +1 if you'd omitted the apostrophe.
(Incidentally, I didn't mean to deflate your jest by treating it seriously; if I'd had mod points I'd've modded you +1 funny.)
"Y'all" is only singular if you're an annoying-as-crap underwater cartoon squirrel. (disclaimer: I do not endorse the length of that Wikipedia article)
None. Which people that want to run Linux on a home computer also want to buy their computer from a major computer maker? Also none.
I exaggerate, but the fact is that you're advocating government intervention to make a company create a product very few people would buy. Would you want the government to intervene on YOUR company to make YOU create and support a product very few people would buy? If not, why are you advocating it in this instance?
I had it less backwards than the parent of my comment did. HP will be obliged to not sell the OS with computers, as I said, in addition to the option of selling OSes preinstalled.
Maybe I had it a little wrong, but the point remains the same: HP will be forced to sell their computers a certain way, even when they're not a monopoly, even when alternatives exist. And I think that's a bad thing. I think government intervention is in general a bad thing, except when there are monopolies whose behavior has to be regulated.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been so general in this statement. It's one thing when you're talking about, e.g., safety regulations. If a major company consistently does something that makes people physically unsafe, government intervention might be warranted.
But we're not talking about safety, we're talking about reasonable alternatives as to how to run a computer. (Yes, Windows is to many people a reasonable alternative as to how to run a computer.) So to rephrase my statement, in matters of choice, government intervention is not desirable when alternatives exist.
No one here is being forced to buy Windows with their machine, as they are not being forced to buy from HP. If HP had a monopoly on selling computers, it'd be one thing, but they don't. Government action to make someone behave a certain way is not necessary and not desirable when there are alternate choices of people that already behave that way.
Do you actually want the government to start making every company sell things to your liking? Does that not strike you as a dangerous precedent?
And which laymen consider "not working", or at best "working too hard".
Do you honestly think it should be mandated that computers must come OS-free? And I'm not talking about "should be" in terms of how it would reduce the inept-user population, I'm talking about "should be" in terms of freedom and government non-interference. You are free to go buy a computer without an OS, or buy the parts and assemble them yourself, etc. Should companies not be free to sell OSes pre-installed on computers? Should people not be free to buy them?
You've got it backwards. The situation is that HP is obliged to not sell the computer with the OS. Do you think it's sane and/or reasonable to mandate that CD players can't come with music? TVs can't come with bundled DVD sets? Etc.? I, personally, don't.
And no jokes, please, about "installing paper"; I took the verb from the analogous situation (i.e. operating systems) instead of the one I was describing.