My understanding is that it's actually slated to be added to WA5 eventually, but until it actually gets released, WA5 is essentially unusable for me. Either way, I've got a fairly stout machine, so WA3 runs fine until they get it fixed.
The one part of Winamp3 that's kept me from upgrading to WA5 so far is the fact that WA5 lacks the multiple playlist feature from WA3. This alone is enough reason for me to keep using WA3 for now. I've gotten far to used to loading up full albums as individual playlists and clicking between them at will to go back to the old, frankenplaylist system of old.
Yeah man, it drives me up a wall how GM won't just sell me a chassis and motor and let me build my own damned car, too.
Remember, it's not how you view the company that's important - it's how the company views itself. Apple is a hardware company that happens to pride itself in putting together quality packages - which is arguably the only reason an operating like OS X exists.
Not only that, but the fact that you can't always envision everything you'll want to one day add in doesn't help either. The best example I can think of is John Carmack and iD sofware. From the point of view of the author of the article, Carmack should still be hacking away at the Catacomb3D engine (think Wolfenstein 3D with CGA graphics and monsters instead of Nazis), Or perhaps, more realistically, the Quake I engine, instead of writing the Doom 3 engine from the ground up. After all, the old code base is more proven, no?
The fact is, through a combination of experience gained, increased dificulty in maintainability, and new techniques, it sometimes makes sense to start anew taking advantage of the clean start to build something better than what you started with. Incremental building is important, but sometimes it helps to wipe the slate clean and start with something leaner, meaner and overall easier to work with.
Er... Netscape 6+ *is/was* Mozilla, just branded as Netscape and with a few minor changes. IE: AIM and Spellchecker in NS, Popup block in Moz only for a while, etc.
Actually, it's not all in the same place. By default, the only icon on an XP desktop is the recycle bin - if you want My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, you have to go in and add them. Display Properties --> Desktop--> Customize Desktop.
In fact, I've watched many people revert back to the classic theme specifically because there is a learning curve they don't want to deal with. Personally, I've found the new start menu design, etc to be more efficient, but it did take some time to get used to. In short, the XP boxes you're using may be set up by your IT department to look and behave just like 98, but that is *not* the out-of-the-box behaviour.
As another person who could also be considered a 'poster child for ADHD' let me disagree with you. My personal experience has been that there are times that no matter how hard I try or attempt to work around it, there are times where my brain simply refuses to focus on any single task long enough to accomplish anything - even the things I want to do. I also occassionally fall into another classic symptom - hyperfocusing on a single task to the extreme detriment of others.
I've been on adderall on and off since middle school, and it has had a definite, positive effect on these symptoms when I take it. That said, I will agree that I'm strongly opposed to what I'd call routine prescription of stimulants. IE: Take one daily, 'just in case.' The thing I feel is often overlooked is these drugs do have definite side effects. For example, while I usually have a good appetite and admittedly eat a bit more than I probably should, if I'm on a 'routine' adderall dosage, I have to force myself to eat - it's not totally unusual for me to go a day or two without eating simply because I forget otherwise.
The bigger reason why I oppose it, however, are the emotional side effects; which is the primary reason why I don't take it daily as I'm prescribed to. Not only does the medication tend to cause you to focus better, but it also tends to cause emotional swings to become more extreme. While I tend to have slight swings anyway, the medication tends to turn what might be a slightly down mood into full blown depression - especially on the off end of the drug. Having dealt with that for several years and realizing the drastic improvement in my attitude when I took myself off medication for a couple of years, I'd never put a child on medication full time.
As it stands today, for the most part I avoid medication and try my best to work around the condition on my own, but do keep my prescription filled for times when I feel it would help me. I've found it to be a fairly good compromise, allowing me to work effectively and avoid the side effects on being constantly medicated.
So I guess what I'm saying is I don't totally disagree with you, but I still feel that ADHD isn't just something that you deal with or drastically change the environment of the kid for. I know that if anything, all years of guidance counsellors giving me things 'that will help' did is piss me off. You just have to give the kid a chance to figure things out for themselves and allow them to decide when and if they need medication, accomodations, etc. I'd force neither medication nor a special environment on a kid, but feel it'd be better to give them the tools to figure it out for themselves.
Have you considered the fact that the cost of that much RAM is prohibitive to 95%+ of the population? At 3GB, you're already talking around $600 in cost just for memory. The poster asserting that this qualifies as a server part in today's terms is correct - for the most part only corporations are going to need/be able to afford that much memory at this time.
My point was more that I don't think anything will actually happen specifically because it's election year pandering. The money to do it just plain isn't there.
The deficit itself was gone, but not the years of debt accumulated because of it. There's also a huge difference between traditional deficit spending and our current situation. "Traditional" deficit spending has been somewhere in the range of 10-15% of the overall federal budget. The current half-trillion dollar deficit makes up nearly a third of the overall budget. This isn't business as usual even for deficit spending - the CBO itself has warned that the government WILL bankrupt itself sooner rather than later if current trends continue.
The government was already headed toward deficit before the tax cuts - the cuts sealed the deal. Add in two wars and increased government spending across the board and it adds up very quickly. Some of the deficit is likely to be blamed on the downturn, but by no means is a half trillion dollars attributable to it. By the same token, in no way will any realistic recovery pull us out of the deficit without major spending cutbacks - something highly unlikely to happen under the current administration.
My attitude is that the federal budget needs to be fixed before we make such an attempt, specifically so that it can be done right. As it stands right now, the federal government is losing over a half-trillion dollars per year, by far the largest deficit in the history of the nation. To use your terminology, "You Bush-lovers" amaze me with your constant ability to ignore the fact that the current budget is bleeding profuciously and still want to add more, extremely expensive programs on to it.
Maybe what you're missing is, that myself and my other people from the left side of the spectrum don't necessarily disagree with all of Bush's programs based on the program itself. It's the timing, funding, and implementation issues that get criticized. It has nothing to do with wanting to spite Bush just for the sake of spiting Bush - it's a matter of priority.
The space program began under Eisenhower, gained emphasis under Kennedy, continued to advance under Johnson, and reached the moon under Nixon. If one president can get the framework in place, it's completely possible for a program to span multiple presidencies. That said, I don't feel like Bush is actually going to get a framework in place and that this is more election year pandering than anything. The money just isn't there due to Bush's other short-sighted decisions.
The difference is, when Kennedy announced the moon shot, we weren't running by far the largest deficit in the history of the nation. It really amazes me that the federal government is losing a half TRILLION dollars per year right now and people seem to think there's plenty of money to throw around. Some deficit spending is OK, massively driving up the federal debt is not.
DAT isn't intended for consumer use today because of pressure from the recording industry. The laws requiring the, by today's standards weak, DRM on DAT exist because of record industry lobbying. Or are you also forgetting that the labels made it very clear that they would work quite hard to litigate any company that attempted to release a basic consumer-level DAT player out of existance?
Look at your list of complaints - the only one that couldn't be faulted on the lack of a market of sufficient scale (ie: consumer DAT) is the linearity of the format. Complexity, expense, and availability are all problems that would be resolved over time as the forces of a market at scale began to take over. Remember, DAT was a new technology long before the average person would dream of being able to afford a CD burner. It's a prime example of a technology being stiffled due to content industries lobbying hard against anything that could cut into their profit line.
And that all has to fit on a screen that's what? 3"x4" on the generous side? I'll stick to full size buttons with actual, tactile feedback. The problem isn't having the buttons per se, it's *how* it's all laid out.
I posted on this the last time the issue of graphing calculators came up - namely when HP announced their new line. The biggest reason being that the graphing calculator interface on a PDA will suck compared to the Real Deal (TM). Having to dig through 8 layers of menus to find the function you want simply doesn't cut it when you just want to get work done. This is the reason why despite owning a top of line line desktop and a fairly decent laptop, I'll still be purchasing an HP-49G+ in the near future - either of the computers has much more power, in the case of the laptop is portable, and could run graphing calculator software, but they still wouldn't be the best tool for getting work done. I'll stick to a nice, standalone calculator and skip the all-in-one super thingamajig, thank you.
As another poster already noted, the official Windows PE is rather spartan and fairly difficult to get much done with. If you need something like this, check out Bart's PE Builder. Awesome, awesome piece of software - it basically lets you build an XP equivalent of Knoppix adding in programs like Ghost, Nero, McAffee AV as plugins. I make a point to keep a copy around the shop - you'd be amazed how many customers problems are solved with a quick boot into a Bart's PE disc and AV + Adaware scan.
I've actually pretty much concluded that it's a pretty decent indicator of intelligence. Of the people I talk to on IM, I've noticed that the ones that tend to be a bit smarter are the ones that tend to go 'the extra mile' needed to like one extra character to spell "to" instead of "2." And from talking to my friends, it seems I'm not the only one. IMing me with "hey, whut do u want 2 do 2nite?" is a surefire way to make me not want to do anything.
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My understanding is that it's actually slated to be added to WA5 eventually, but until it actually gets released, WA5 is essentially unusable for me. Either way, I've got a fairly stout machine, so WA3 runs fine until they get it fixed.
The one part of Winamp3 that's kept me from upgrading to WA5 so far is the fact that WA5 lacks the multiple playlist feature from WA3. This alone is enough reason for me to keep using WA3 for now. I've gotten far to used to loading up full albums as individual playlists and clicking between them at will to go back to the old, frankenplaylist system of old.
Yeah man, it drives me up a wall how GM won't just sell me a chassis and motor and let me build my own damned car, too.
Remember, it's not how you view the company that's important - it's how the company views itself. Apple is a hardware company that happens to pride itself in putting together quality packages - which is arguably the only reason an operating like OS X exists.
Not only that, but the fact that you can't always envision everything you'll want to one day add in doesn't help either. The best example I can think of is John Carmack and iD sofware. From the point of view of the author of the article, Carmack should still be hacking away at the Catacomb3D engine (think Wolfenstein 3D with CGA graphics and monsters instead of Nazis), Or perhaps, more realistically, the Quake I engine, instead of writing the Doom 3 engine from the ground up. After all, the old code base is more proven, no?
The fact is, through a combination of experience gained, increased dificulty in maintainability, and new techniques, it sometimes makes sense to start anew taking advantage of the clean start to build something better than what you started with. Incremental building is important, but sometimes it helps to wipe the slate clean and start with something leaner, meaner and overall easier to work with.
Er... Netscape 6+ *is/was* Mozilla, just branded as Netscape and with a few minor changes. IE: AIM and Spellchecker in NS, Popup block in Moz only for a while, etc.
Well, hey, it worked for Apple, didn't it? ;)
Actually, it's not all in the same place. By default, the only icon on an XP desktop is the recycle bin - if you want My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, you have to go in and add them. Display Properties --> Desktop--> Customize Desktop.
In fact, I've watched many people revert back to the classic theme specifically because there is a learning curve they don't want to deal with. Personally, I've found the new start menu design, etc to be more efficient, but it did take some time to get used to. In short, the XP boxes you're using may be set up by your IT department to look and behave just like 98, but that is *not* the out-of-the-box behaviour.
As another person who could also be considered a 'poster child for ADHD' let me disagree with you. My personal experience has been that there are times that no matter how hard I try or attempt to work around it, there are times where my brain simply refuses to focus on any single task long enough to accomplish anything - even the things I want to do. I also occassionally fall into another classic symptom - hyperfocusing on a single task to the extreme detriment of others.
I've been on adderall on and off since middle school, and it has had a definite, positive effect on these symptoms when I take it. That said, I will agree that I'm strongly opposed to what I'd call routine prescription of stimulants. IE: Take one daily, 'just in case.' The thing I feel is often overlooked is these drugs do have definite side effects. For example, while I usually have a good appetite and admittedly eat a bit more than I probably should, if I'm on a 'routine' adderall dosage, I have to force myself to eat - it's not totally unusual for me to go a day or two without eating simply because I forget otherwise.
The bigger reason why I oppose it, however, are the emotional side effects; which is the primary reason why I don't take it daily as I'm prescribed to. Not only does the medication tend to cause you to focus better, but it also tends to cause emotional swings to become more extreme. While I tend to have slight swings anyway, the medication tends to turn what might be a slightly down mood into full blown depression - especially on the off end of the drug. Having dealt with that for several years and realizing the drastic improvement in my attitude when I took myself off medication for a couple of years, I'd never put a child on medication full time.
As it stands today, for the most part I avoid medication and try my best to work around the condition on my own, but do keep my prescription filled for times when I feel it would help me. I've found it to be a fairly good compromise, allowing me to work effectively and avoid the side effects on being constantly medicated.
So I guess what I'm saying is I don't totally disagree with you, but I still feel that ADHD isn't just something that you deal with or drastically change the environment of the kid for. I know that if anything, all years of guidance counsellors giving me things 'that will help' did is piss me off. You just have to give the kid a chance to figure things out for themselves and allow them to decide when and if they need medication, accomodations, etc. I'd force neither medication nor a special environment on a kid, but feel it'd be better to give them the tools to figure it out for themselves.
Ahhh IRC - where men are men, women are men, and women under 18 are FBI agents. =P
Have you considered the fact that the cost of that much RAM is prohibitive to 95%+ of the population? At 3GB, you're already talking around $600 in cost just for memory. The poster asserting that this qualifies as a server part in today's terms is correct - for the most part only corporations are going to need/be able to afford that much memory at this time.
My point was more that I don't think anything will actually happen specifically because it's election year pandering. The money to do it just plain isn't there.
You should just do like the Debian guys and give up.
"Fancy schmancy new kernel? My 2.2 kernel works perfectly well, thank you!"
=P
The deficit itself was gone, but not the years of debt accumulated because of it. There's also a huge difference between traditional deficit spending and our current situation. "Traditional" deficit spending has been somewhere in the range of 10-15% of the overall federal budget. The current half-trillion dollar deficit makes up nearly a third of the overall budget. This isn't business as usual even for deficit spending - the CBO itself has warned that the government WILL bankrupt itself sooner rather than later if current trends continue.
The government was already headed toward deficit before the tax cuts - the cuts sealed the deal. Add in two wars and increased government spending across the board and it adds up very quickly. Some of the deficit is likely to be blamed on the downturn, but by no means is a half trillion dollars attributable to it. By the same token, in no way will any realistic recovery pull us out of the deficit without major spending cutbacks - something highly unlikely to happen under the current administration.
My attitude is that the federal budget needs to be fixed before we make such an attempt, specifically so that it can be done right. As it stands right now, the federal government is losing over a half-trillion dollars per year, by far the largest deficit in the history of the nation. To use your terminology, "You Bush-lovers" amaze me with your constant ability to ignore the fact that the current budget is bleeding profuciously and still want to add more, extremely expensive programs on to it.
Maybe what you're missing is, that myself and my other people from the left side of the spectrum don't necessarily disagree with all of Bush's programs based on the program itself. It's the timing, funding, and implementation issues that get criticized. It has nothing to do with wanting to spite Bush just for the sake of spiting Bush - it's a matter of priority.
The space program began under Eisenhower, gained emphasis under Kennedy, continued to advance under Johnson, and reached the moon under Nixon. If one president can get the framework in place, it's completely possible for a program to span multiple presidencies. That said, I don't feel like Bush is actually going to get a framework in place and that this is more election year pandering than anything. The money just isn't there due to Bush's other short-sighted decisions.
The difference is, when Kennedy announced the moon shot, we weren't running by far the largest deficit in the history of the nation. It really amazes me that the federal government is losing a half TRILLION dollars per year right now and people seem to think there's plenty of money to throw around. Some deficit spending is OK, massively driving up the federal debt is not.
DAT isn't intended for consumer use today because of pressure from the recording industry. The laws requiring the, by today's standards weak, DRM on DAT exist because of record industry lobbying. Or are you also forgetting that the labels made it very clear that they would work quite hard to litigate any company that attempted to release a basic consumer-level DAT player out of existance?
Look at your list of complaints - the only one that couldn't be faulted on the lack of a market of sufficient scale (ie: consumer DAT) is the linearity of the format. Complexity, expense, and availability are all problems that would be resolved over time as the forces of a market at scale began to take over. Remember, DAT was a new technology long before the average person would dream of being able to afford a CD burner. It's a prime example of a technology being stiffled due to content industries lobbying hard against anything that could cut into their profit line.
And that all has to fit on a screen that's what? 3"x4" on the generous side? I'll stick to full size buttons with actual, tactile feedback. The problem isn't having the buttons per se, it's *how* it's all laid out.
I posted on this the last time the issue of graphing calculators came up - namely when HP announced their new line. The biggest reason being that the graphing calculator interface on a PDA will suck compared to the Real Deal (TM). Having to dig through 8 layers of menus to find the function you want simply doesn't cut it when you just want to get work done. This is the reason why despite owning a top of line line desktop and a fairly decent laptop, I'll still be purchasing an HP-49G+ in the near future - either of the computers has much more power, in the case of the laptop is portable, and could run graphing calculator software, but they still wouldn't be the best tool for getting work done. I'll stick to a nice, standalone calculator and skip the all-in-one super thingamajig, thank you.
Easy enough:
;)
2004 Subaru Impreza WRX STi
Need anything else while I'm at it?
It's far easier to simply change the admin password, but hey, what do I know?
As another poster already noted, the official Windows PE is rather spartan and fairly difficult to get much done with. If you need something like this, check out Bart's PE Builder. Awesome, awesome piece of software - it basically lets you build an XP equivalent of Knoppix adding in programs like Ghost, Nero, McAffee AV as plugins. I make a point to keep a copy around the shop - you'd be amazed how many customers problems are solved with a quick boot into a Bart's PE disc and AV + Adaware scan.
I've actually pretty much concluded that it's a pretty decent indicator of intelligence. Of the people I talk to on IM, I've noticed that the ones that tend to be a bit smarter are the ones that tend to go 'the extra mile' needed to like one extra character to spell "to" instead of "2." And from talking to my friends, it seems I'm not the only one. IMing me with "hey, whut do u want 2 do 2nite?" is a surefire way to make me not want to do anything.