This also means that with work, barcodes on the items will not always be necessary, as the system will eventually be able to image recognize devices, however this will be an evolution, just like developing drivers for every device.
I'm thinking RFID tags for some items.
Furthermore (in support of your point) you can't do holographic projection with a LCD or Plasma screen.
Oh, please do not misunderstand me. I think GPL 2 is great. It represents a true paradigm shift, and I predict that it's going to infect capitalism and cause it to mutate in ways that are not clear. GPL has a very strong social anarchist tendency which I find very healthy.
Sure, as great a document as GPL 2 is, it's not perfect and needs some reform. I just have problems with GPL 3, which I see as a move away from freedom and a move away from the social anarchy mode, towards a Marxist-Leninist control from above mode. Especially with the provisions that try to control hardware (admittedly improved in this last draft, but not to my satisfaction), I'm seeing a sacrifice of a basic fundamental F/OSS freedom in order to "protect" the project. Maybe you're cool with that, but I think the FSF could irretrievably damage the free software project by this method of "protecting" it. It's actually a regressive move back to proprietary principles, the difference being that the "collective", ruled by the FSF, is the proprietor.
Anyway, I see the GPL 3 as a rewrite of the GPL 2 along the lines of "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others" being a rewrite of "All animals are created equal". Maybe I'm being unfair, but I've studied revolution, and this is exactly how a revolution gets hijacked. Also note that it is often one of the founding revolutionaries that does the hijacking (Cf. Lenin).
Your keyboard and mouse will be virtual. You'll be typing away on the top of your table. I'm not quite sure what the virtual mouse will be used for (using it to click and drag will be a bit redundant when you can just use your fingers), but we can keep it just for tradition.
What I think would be fun would be to have a virtual adding machine (instead of a num pad) with the crank handle and the whirring sound,and the virtual paper tape coming out of the top.
Thank you! I'm a huge Apple fanboy, but this is just cool. Yes, it's based on previous (very high end) technology, but the fact is that MS is doing something new and innovative. They're actually putting together the pieces to make something some of us have thought about, that we've read about in books* and seen in movies. Let's give credit where credit is due.
And if they get these out into the market place by the end of the year, it's going to be hard to call it vaporware. I don't care if it's bespoke or each unit is made by hand, or if their "partnering" with certain customers to further demonstrate the technology. Production is production, even if it's not mass production.
Now, as an Apple fanboy, I really hope that one of Bill's partners on this is Apple. I think that the the two companies could make something really incredible with this if they could put together a team that combined each company's strengths. Failing that, I hope Apple copies the shit out of this! =)
RMS once wrote:
"The freedom to run the program, for any purpose. (freedom 0)" "The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this." "The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)." "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this." What the hell happened to freedom 0? It was supposed to be the most basic of the freedoms, the foundation for the rest. But RMS is shortsightedly sacrificing this basic freedom because . . . . why? Because he doesn't want people to make money off of F/OSS? That seems to be your point:
The GPL is about liberation, moving away from restrictive software licenses, not about making other people rich. I think you're buying the propaganda to the point where you are so emotionally invested in your great crusade that you can't see the simple facts before your nose. You're unwilling to recognize the contradictions of your position. Which is why you answer my post with insults, telling me to get my head out of my ass. Such insults are the sign of a person blinded by his cause and unable to accept criticism.
The GPL actually acts to prevent others from limiting my choice in what I do with the software. The only proviso being I must also pass on such freedoms to others. GPL 2 certainly does this. It's more than a great license, it's a great document. GPL 3 does limit what you do with the software, regardless of your passing on the same freedom to others, by placing limits on the hardware you are allowed to use. This last draft of GPL 3 is much improved, but this remains a philosophical sticking point for me. GPL 2 does need an overhaul, but GPL 3 in its current form is (still) not it. Even Linus, who has welcomed the recent changes, is luke warm in his enthusiasm (which I'll grant is better than his condemnation and rejection of earlier drafts).
I'm not Bezroukov, but thanks for that link. Interesting thoughts.
Look at NetBSD for example. It's stagnated to the point of irrelevance, while Linux keeps getting more and more polished and more and more popular.
If anything, the BSD will the one that will die . . . Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. I've seen it before:
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
No, you're wrong. We're free to use and create proprietary software and GPL 2, BSD, etc., etc. We're even free to create our own open source software licenses if we want. You're the one with the all or nothing mentality that borders on following a cult.
Open Source represents both a social revolution and a mutation of capitalism. It's not going to be a vehicle towards RMS's Socialist revolution (note the difference between social revolution and Socialist revolution). If anything, open source represents the anarchist form of socialist revolution; RMS seeks to impose control over that revolution. He wants centralized control over it. GPL 3 moves us towards a collectivized proprietary license, which brings to mind "in with the new boss, same as the old boss".
So, go ahead and limit your choices and allow RMS to protect you by limiting those choices. There are plenty of other licenses for the rest of us. We'll be enjoying interoperability while you languish in your walled garden.
Freedom is freedom. Except when it isn't. The problem with freedom is it's an inane word with very little meaning. Ultimately we look to it as an ideal rather than as a goal, because it's very difficult to give everyone absolute freedom when one person can use their's to oppress another, removing the freedom from that second group. Perhaps in a hundred years, when we all have virtual reality, we can have "absolute freedom" within that, with everyone free to do whatever they want to their own words without impacting on anyone else's, but until then others have the right to consider curtailing your freedom the moment your actions involve anyone else. How Orwellian of you. Freedom is an inane word with little meaning? You're almost there. A little further and you can argue that the word Freedom actually means its opposite, Slavery.
Also, I love your 100 years in the future time frame for achieving some promised land of absolute freedom. I suppose until then, we can have the FSF be the dictatorship of the proletariat to safeguard the revolution.
Freedom of expression is an inalienable right, meaning it is immoral to suppress it by force. To protect one groups right to free expression by limiting free expression is a contradiction.
Freedom of movement is bound by common sense rules. Your freedom to flail your arms about ends where my body begins. Even more basically, your freedom of movement is bound by physics. Your body cannot occupy the same space as other solids. Thus, despite your inherent right to freedom of movement, you cannot walk thru walls. Now, just because your freedom of movement is limited by either common sense or the laws of physics doesn't mean you can turn around and say, "see? freedom is meaningless".
Basically, I am very suspicious of anyone that wants to protect my freedom by limiting it. When you then justify the limitation by saying it doesn't really exist or is meaningless, I'm going to be downright scornful.
Viacom is partnering with Joost (and might even be an investor in Joost, I'm not entirely sure). Sounds like they see themselves in competition with Google. (The other bit about Viacom competing in search was ludicrous, I'll agree with you there. And the only "destination portals" I'm interested in are vaginas.)
That said, I'm not sure how much Viacom gets it. One of their properties, VH-1, tried to create a web 2.0 comedy show called Acceptable TV. The show was pretty good, but the website, which was integral to the concept of the show, was an embarrassment. The web team (completely separate from the TV production team) didn't even manage to get a forum up until after the season ended. There were various other screw ups, such as commenting being down for an entire week.
Anyway,if VH-1 is any indication of the company as a whole, they just don't get the internet.
"We're substituting these Linux geeks' distros with Folger's Crystals Instant Coffee. Let's see if anyone notices. . .."
(If I ever do a book review for Slashdot on an O'Reilly book, I'm going to spend the first five paragraphs discussing the animal on the cover. At least then people will know where I'm coming from.)
The new standard for research methodology: finding 10 people at the corner starbucks, asking them to help you for an "article" you're writing.
Oh,and while we're at, let's throw another variable into the mix! That'll make it even more scientifical! (And that's not even getting into any other variables that slipped in thru carelessness.)
Frankly, I wouldn't trust these MPC bozos to tell me if it was raining while I was urinating on their backs.
What's sort of funny is that you will literally be able to email the person and mock them directly. This really opens up new avenues for internet interaction: We can personally thank our mp3 file sharing benefactors, we can mock them for inadvertently disclosing their email, or we can rag on them for their musical tastes.
Yeah, this stinks of a Conspiracy. Stinks on ice. Did you know that Karl Rove and Harriet Myers are both on the Eve board of directors? Did you know that over 75% of the employees are recent grads of Regent University's new Christian Gaming department? The only way to get to the bottom of this is if Bush will answer the following questions: What did he know? And when did he know it?
I'm riding a Vstar 650 Classic. I bought it used at a bargain price: $3000. It came with a lot of chrome and accessories and very low miles. The previous owner is a long haul trucker, so it he only rode it on weekends, if that. Yeah, the engine is small, but I'm good unless I have a heavy passenger on the back. I'm old enough to have a good sense of my own mortality and topping out at 90-95 is plenty for me.
The Suzuki C50 is Volusia renamed. The C90 is the one with the engine size I think you want. Beautiful bike. I was saving for a Volusia/C50 until I saw my Vstar, and I fell in love. I really like the Roadstars as well. There's also a new Vstar 1300 that has a belt drive like the roadstars.
My step-mom's side of the family are all Harley people. Harleys are beautiful bikes, but they're so damn expensive. I'm told that the build quality and mechanical reliability is much improved on them, but the jap bikes are such bargains.
Are you grounding yourself? This is critically important if you're removing RAM while the computer is running. To ground yourself, simply touch your hand to your stomach. Don't touch your belt buckle,or you could electrocute yourself.
Hey, I support your motorcycle purchase 100%. It's been experimentally proven that owning a motorcycle will make you happier, provided you actually ride it. What are you going to get?
Frankly, this shit cracks me up. Of course there is a 2nd Gen in the works. But that people are starting to cream their panties over it before the 1st Gen is even released is ridiculous.
I hope you're not implying that I am a hypocrite. Because if you were, you'd be correct. Worse, I'm also a pack rat with all the obsessive/compulsive traits that entails.
Still, I have been paring down on the material possessions and avoiding buying new ones, no matter how tempting. I'm happily using my 2nd Gen iPod (I recently replaced the battery with a $5 one from OWC), even though I desire one of the spiffy new video iPods. I just really don't need a new one. Please don't think I'm saying that you shouldn't own a music player or that I am criticizing you for owning one.
I'm coming at this de-emphasis on material possessions from two angles: The most basic is personal. As I said, I'm a pack rat, and it's stunting my psychological growth. There comes a point when you don't own consumer goods, they own you. I'm consciously moving away from that. If you don't have this problem, good for you. Just be cautious and self aware so that it doesn't develop. A second reason is global. There is a hidden cost to all the junk we consume in resources. This cost is not sustainable long term. I'm not just referring to the resources needed for the physical components, but the environmental resources that are affected by the production.
I've made a conscious decision to earn less in order to have more free time. It turns out that I'm earning about the same, but my free time is filled up with activities that generally don't involve a lot of consumption. I don't own a a game console and I cancelled my cable a couple of years ago. I've gotten back to some hobbies that involve actually making things. I'm picking up a new hobby (welding).
As you seem like an intelligent person, I don't doubt that you also have a non-consumer life, and that you engage in creative activities outside of consumer culture. Perhaps you play a musical instrument, perhaps you're into DIY home improvement, perhaps you are an artist of some sort.
Anyway, I'm in no position to judge you personally. I am a hypocrite and I don't feel especially bad about being one. None of us are perfect. I just wanted to describe to you how I am trying to improve myself. That's all. If you can take something away from my little story, great. If not, no harm done I hope.
And the more self-deluded a company happens to be, the farther it can push patently appalling crap through the production chain before finally having to admit that nobody in their right mind would buy, say, a dog-turd brown MP3 player.
Wait! You're saying MS has a patent on appalling crap? I wonder if this is their basis for going after OSS. And it's also why they're being so coy! They can't point out which features of Open Office they think are appalling crap without admitting and revealing how bad MS Office really is.
Well, aren't most people throwing their money away, anyway? How much consumer crap does one need to buy before one realizes that consumer crap will not make one happy, nor really improve one's life?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm thinking RFID tags for some items.
Furthermore (in support of your point) you can't do holographic projection with a LCD or Plasma screen.
Oh, please do not misunderstand me. I think GPL 2 is great. It represents a true paradigm shift, and I predict that it's going to infect capitalism and cause it to mutate in ways that are not clear. GPL has a very strong social anarchist tendency which I find very healthy.
Sure, as great a document as GPL 2 is, it's not perfect and needs some reform. I just have problems with GPL 3, which I see as a move away from freedom and a move away from the social anarchy mode, towards a Marxist-Leninist control from above mode. Especially with the provisions that try to control hardware (admittedly improved in this last draft, but not to my satisfaction), I'm seeing a sacrifice of a basic fundamental F/OSS freedom in order to "protect" the project. Maybe you're cool with that, but I think the FSF could irretrievably damage the free software project by this method of "protecting" it. It's actually a regressive move back to proprietary principles, the difference being that the "collective", ruled by the FSF, is the proprietor.
Anyway, I see the GPL 3 as a rewrite of the GPL 2 along the lines of "All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others" being a rewrite of "All animals are created equal". Maybe I'm being unfair, but I've studied revolution, and this is exactly how a revolution gets hijacked. Also note that it is often one of the founding revolutionaries that does the hijacking (Cf. Lenin).
Your keyboard and mouse will be virtual. You'll be typing away on the top of your table. I'm not quite sure what the virtual mouse will be used for (using it to click and drag will be a bit redundant when you can just use your fingers), but we can keep it just for tradition.
What I think would be fun would be to have a virtual adding machine (instead of a num pad) with the crank handle and the whirring sound,and the virtual paper tape coming out of the top.
Thank you! I'm a huge Apple fanboy, but this is just cool. Yes, it's based on previous (very high end) technology, but the fact is that MS is doing something new and innovative. They're actually putting together the pieces to make something some of us have thought about, that we've read about in books* and seen in movies. Let's give credit where credit is due.
And if they get these out into the market place by the end of the year, it's going to be hard to call it vaporware. I don't care if it's bespoke or each unit is made by hand, or if their "partnering" with certain customers to further demonstrate the technology. Production is production, even if it's not mass production.
Now, as an Apple fanboy, I really hope that one of Bill's partners on this is Apple. I think that the the two companies could make something really incredible with this if they could put together a team that combined each company's strengths. Failing that, I hope Apple copies the shit out of this! =)
*I'm thinking of the floor screen in Diamond Age.
"The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this."
"The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)."
"The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this." What the hell happened to freedom 0? It was supposed to be the most basic of the freedoms, the foundation for the rest. But RMS is shortsightedly sacrificing this basic freedom because . . . . why? Because he doesn't want people to make money off of F/OSS? That seems to be your point: The GPL is about liberation, moving away from restrictive software licenses, not about making other people rich. I think you're buying the propaganda to the point where you are so emotionally invested in your great crusade that you can't see the simple facts before your nose. You're unwilling to recognize the contradictions of your position. Which is why you answer my post with insults, telling me to get my head out of my ass. Such insults are the sign of a person blinded by his cause and unable to accept criticism.
I'm not Bezroukov, but thanks for that link. Interesting thoughts.
If anything, the BSD will the one that will die . . . Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah. I've seen it before: It is official; Netcraft now confirms: *BSD is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save *BSD from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.
Fact: *BSD is dying
No, you're wrong. We're free to use and create proprietary software and GPL 2, BSD, etc., etc. We're even free to create our own open source software licenses if we want. You're the one with the all or nothing mentality that borders on following a cult.
Open Source represents both a social revolution and a mutation of capitalism. It's not going to be a vehicle towards RMS's Socialist revolution (note the difference between social revolution and Socialist revolution). If anything, open source represents the anarchist form of socialist revolution; RMS seeks to impose control over that revolution. He wants centralized control over it. GPL 3 moves us towards a collectivized proprietary license, which brings to mind "in with the new boss, same as the old boss".
So, go ahead and limit your choices and allow RMS to protect you by limiting those choices. There are plenty of other licenses for the rest of us. We'll be enjoying interoperability while you languish in your walled garden.
Except when it isn't. The problem with freedom is it's an inane word with very little meaning. Ultimately we look to it as an ideal rather than as a goal, because it's very difficult to give everyone absolute freedom when one person can use their's to oppress another, removing the freedom from that second group. Perhaps in a hundred years, when we all have virtual reality, we can have "absolute freedom" within that, with everyone free to do whatever they want to their own words without impacting on anyone else's, but until then others have the right to consider curtailing your freedom the moment your actions involve anyone else. How Orwellian of you. Freedom is an inane word with little meaning? You're almost there. A little further and you can argue that the word Freedom actually means its opposite, Slavery.
Also, I love your 100 years in the future time frame for achieving some promised land of absolute freedom. I suppose until then, we can have the FSF be the dictatorship of the proletariat to safeguard the revolution.
Freedom of expression is an inalienable right, meaning it is immoral to suppress it by force. To protect one groups right to free expression by limiting free expression is a contradiction.
Freedom of movement is bound by common sense rules. Your freedom to flail your arms about ends where my body begins. Even more basically, your freedom of movement is bound by physics. Your body cannot occupy the same space as other solids. Thus, despite your inherent right to freedom of movement, you cannot walk thru walls. Now, just because your freedom of movement is limited by either common sense or the laws of physics doesn't mean you can turn around and say, "see? freedom is meaningless".
Basically, I am very suspicious of anyone that wants to protect my freedom by limiting it. When you then justify the limitation by saying it doesn't really exist or is meaningless, I'm going to be downright scornful.
Viacom is partnering with Joost (and might even be an investor in Joost, I'm not entirely sure). Sounds like they see themselves in competition with Google. (The other bit about Viacom competing in search was ludicrous, I'll agree with you there. And the only "destination portals" I'm interested in are vaginas.)
,if VH-1 is any indication of the company as a whole, they just don't get the internet.
That said, I'm not sure how much Viacom gets it. One of their properties, VH-1, tried to create a web 2.0 comedy show called Acceptable TV. The show was pretty good, but the website, which was integral to the concept of the show, was an embarrassment. The web team (completely separate from the TV production team) didn't even manage to get a forum up until after the season ended. There were various other screw ups, such as commenting being down for an entire week.
Anyway
"We're substituting these Linux geeks' distros with Folger's Crystals Instant Coffee. Let's see if anyone notices. . . ."
(If I ever do a book review for Slashdot on an O'Reilly book, I'm going to spend the first five paragraphs discussing the animal on the cover. At least then people will know where I'm coming from.)
The new standard for research methodology: finding 10 people at the corner starbucks, asking them to help you for an "article" you're writing.
,and while we're at, let's throw another variable into the mix! That'll make it even more scientifical! (And that's not even getting into any other variables that slipped in thru carelessness.)
Oh
Frankly, I wouldn't trust these MPC bozos to tell me if it was raining while I was urinating on their backs.
What's sort of funny is that you will literally be able to email the person and mock them directly. This really opens up new avenues for internet interaction: We can personally thank our mp3 file sharing benefactors, we can mock them for inadvertently disclosing their email, or we can rag on them for their musical tastes.
If you cry just a little is that a "crylet"?
He's not just the President of RPG Hair Club for Men, he's also a Player Character.
Yeah, this stinks of a Conspiracy. Stinks on ice. Did you know that Karl Rove and Harriet Myers are both on the Eve board of directors? Did you know that over 75% of the employees are recent grads of Regent University's new Christian Gaming department? The only way to get to the bottom of this is if Bush will answer the following questions: What did he know? And when did he know it?
I'm riding a Vstar 650 Classic. I bought it used at a bargain price: $3000. It came with a lot of chrome and accessories and very low miles. The previous owner is a long haul trucker, so it he only rode it on weekends, if that. Yeah, the engine is small, but I'm good unless I have a heavy passenger on the back. I'm old enough to have a good sense of my own mortality and topping out at 90-95 is plenty for me.
The Suzuki C50 is Volusia renamed. The C90 is the one with the engine size I think you want. Beautiful bike. I was saving for a Volusia/C50 until I saw my Vstar, and I fell in love. I really like the Roadstars as well. There's also a new Vstar 1300 that has a belt drive like the roadstars.
My step-mom's side of the family are all Harley people. Harleys are beautiful bikes, but they're so damn expensive. I'm told that the build quality and mechanical reliability is much improved on them, but the jap bikes are such bargains.
Good luck on the house purchase!
Maybe next year they won't use an ATI card to power the dash display.
Are you grounding yourself? This is critically important if you're removing RAM while the computer is running. To ground yourself, simply touch your hand to your stomach. Don't touch your belt buckle,or you could electrocute yourself.
Hey, I support your motorcycle purchase 100%. It's been experimentally proven that owning a motorcycle will make you happier, provided you actually ride it. What are you going to get?
Yeah, 2)
Frankly, this shit cracks me up. Of course there is a 2nd Gen in the works. But that people are starting to cream their panties over it before the 1st Gen is even released is ridiculous.
I hope you're not implying that I am a hypocrite. Because if you were, you'd be correct. Worse, I'm also a pack rat with all the obsessive/compulsive traits that entails.
Still, I have been paring down on the material possessions and avoiding buying new ones, no matter how tempting. I'm happily using my 2nd Gen iPod (I recently replaced the battery with a $5 one from OWC), even though I desire one of the spiffy new video iPods. I just really don't need a new one. Please don't think I'm saying that you shouldn't own a music player or that I am criticizing you for owning one.
I'm coming at this de-emphasis on material possessions from two angles: The most basic is personal. As I said, I'm a pack rat, and it's stunting my psychological growth. There comes a point when you don't own consumer goods, they own you. I'm consciously moving away from that. If you don't have this problem, good for you. Just be cautious and self aware so that it doesn't develop. A second reason is global. There is a hidden cost to all the junk we consume in resources. This cost is not sustainable long term. I'm not just referring to the resources needed for the physical components, but the environmental resources that are affected by the production.
I've made a conscious decision to earn less in order to have more free time. It turns out that I'm earning about the same, but my free time is filled up with activities that generally don't involve a lot of consumption. I don't own a a game console and I cancelled my cable a couple of years ago. I've gotten back to some hobbies that involve actually making things. I'm picking up a new hobby (welding).
As you seem like an intelligent person, I don't doubt that you also have a non-consumer life, and that you engage in creative activities outside of consumer culture. Perhaps you play a musical instrument, perhaps you're into DIY home improvement, perhaps you are an artist of some sort.
Anyway, I'm in no position to judge you personally. I am a hypocrite and I don't feel especially bad about being one. None of us are perfect. I just wanted to describe to you how I am trying to improve myself. That's all. If you can take something away from my little story, great. If not, no harm done I hope.
Is there a Roomba with an iPod dock yet?
And the more self-deluded a company happens to be, the farther it can push patently appalling crap through the production chain before finally having to admit that nobody in their right mind would buy, say, a dog-turd brown MP3 player.
Wait! You're saying MS has a patent on appalling crap? I wonder if this is their basis for going after OSS. And it's also why they're being so coy! They can't point out which features of Open Office they think are appalling crap without admitting and revealing how bad MS Office really is.
Well, aren't most people throwing their money away, anyway? How much consumer crap does one need to buy before one realizes that consumer crap will not make one happy, nor really improve one's life?