I've never found a site that doesn't work with Mozilla.
Alternatively, I have found thousands of sites that bombard IE with popup ads, and Ad-aware reports that much more nefarious activity is happening as well.
In this comparison, it is blatantly obvious that IE is the inferior product which fails almost completely in its attempts to meet my expectations. If AOL can provide a web browser that does not include 1,001 ways to violate my security, require third party software to repair the damage, and inundate me with advertisements, then that is a marvelous advantage for them and for their users.
If, however, you are more concerned with preserving advertisers revenues and consider the end users' rights and privacy to be an inconvenience, then your comment is right on.
Huh, I have red hair, the oft-mentioned high tolerance for alcohol, perhaps an unusual tolerance for pain, and this as well! I had a friend who thought I had mild hemophilia because I bleed so much. It's really irritating when a simple slice to the hand takes a mop to clean up.
I also have red hair, though not fire or bright red. I had a broken foot for a few months before going to the hospital. I guess I was about 14 years old. It hurt, but not always, and it never occured to me that I should go to the hospital until I played an entire soccer practice on it and couldn't walk at all afterward.
I fell out of a tree and broke both of my arms when I was 15. I had a concussion that had me in and out of conciousness at least half a dozen times. I was awake when they were setting the bones, which involved grabbing a hand, pulling it away from the elbow, and changing the angle in my forearm by about 30 degrees. With both arms in this condition, I had the presence of mind to bravely fight against my attackers, kicked a nurse in the stomach, and viciously threatened the doctor.
It takes about 250mL of 80 proof rum for me to catch a buzz, and at least a third of a liter to be so drunk that I wouldn't drive. I completely quit drinking beer because it would take a 12 pack to feel anything other than a full bladder.
I don't consider myself to be less sensitive to pain, but my hands and fingers are a mess of scars and burns that might indicate otherwise. My tolerance of alcohol is legendary among my friends, who often elect me to drive despite having had more to drink than they have.
So, less sensitive to stimuli? Maybe... perhaps my best attribute is a deep appreciation of hour long rolls in the hay. At least, my girlfriend never complains.
Sometimes, I like to imagine people verbally ranting incoherently rather than simply typing. It lets me believe that your monitor is speckled in tiny bits of food that were ejected from your mouth, which is far more interesting than you imagined your point would have been.
So, how many name brand crap do you own? Basically, what you are saying is that the iPod is a designer brand mp3 player. Kinda like Diesel jeans. Sure they are $169.00 pair of Levis but hey they where designed by "Skilled Diesel Designers" so they are worth the extra $129.00.
Yes, that's right, you seem to understand the previous poster's thesis.
If Apple wants to be an image company, like you say, then they will never be significant again.
Puzzling, you seem to have no idea what the previous poster's thesis is. You provided a rather fitting example of a company using this business strategy, and obviously with some success, else they would no longer exist. Nike, Reebok, GAP, practically any luxury item where a comparable but less prestigious brand exists. A Lexus is a nice vehicle, but let's be honest. It's just a touched up Japanese car. Every one of these luxury companies makes a nice product (sort of like an iPod) and then charges a premium price to preserve the elite aura of their brand.
Now I will share a top-secret surprise: There is a higher price margin in luxury items than in mass market items. Can you believe it?! If Apple were to establish itself in this way, they could sell FEWER units than any of their competitors and turn HIGHER profits, just like luxury car companies do! Somebody call Keynes, we have an economic revolution on our hands!
Yeah, because 30 years ago, when Ford built the GT40, embarrased the gay right out of Europe, realized that there's no competition in that, and retired the GT40, Non-Americans wanted a feather to stick in their hat. So now they revert to bad mouthing Chevrolets, something Americans do in the first place. Go back to your island. Nobody cared, nobody cares, and nobody ever will care in the future.
To be perfectly honest, if MS Office and Open Office were the same price, while MS Office used an undocumented, bloated, proprietary file format, I would choose the non-crippled open source software. This isn't just an idealogical argument, either. The future success of Open Office could light a fire under Microsoft to discard their hobbled file structures to stay afloat. It would be a perfect example of competition forcing out objectionable misfeatures in the software. Unfortunately, not everyone would pay that price for Open Office, which ensures that the market share necessary to exert that influence would never occur. By making it freely distributable, this competition is made possible.
Without Open Office, what ARE the long range plans for MS Office? Build a battleship and invade Denmark? To say that MS is out of touch with their users is an understatement - ask any geek with 10 family members who can't send an email attachment without a calling him/her. A little competition for their product will force MS to keep their product more agile and leaner with respect to customer desires.
I fully agree with the comment about open source finding new, exotic problems to solve, but in the meantime, I think it is very important that people have a pretty, graphical email client that doesn't forcefeed every VBS virus down their throat.
Oh, but I bet it is a sustainable situation. Has anyone considered that the conflict between closed-source proprietary software and open source freely distributable software as a checks and balances? They complement each other, and I doubt either would be where they are today without the other.
Consider that the open source software often chases the coattails of proprietary software, and it is like an erosive force against a software monopoly. Rather than let a given company build an invincible fortress of refined, polished, peerless software, they are constantly forced to accept that their current innovations will eventually become basically public domain through free software. This is an incredible incentive to keep in touch with their market, make real and substantial improvements to their product, and avoid heavy handed dictator style behavior.
If closed-source proprietary software blazes the trail, open source paves the highway. Making a practical public domain out of so much software ensures that innovation in proprietary software is a process, not an end point. It's competition, it's checks and balances, and it benefits everyone who uses the software.
Open source does hardly any damage to commercial products. It does ensure that the #1 commercial product has a competitor close on its heels that cannot be driven away not by competitive pricing but by smart business and new inventions. I wouldn't argue against having competition around here, I get the feeling that Microsoft isn't loved. At any rate, this is a very sustainable situation and the checks and balances benefit the users substantially.
You have got to be kidding me. I can't tell if this is just clueless or really a troll. We'll sell hydrogen by collecting water vapor, use electrolosis to separate it, and then market the results? Sure thing, cowboy.
I once told a friend that modern diesel trains run on electricity. The lights are electric, the controls are electric, even the drive train is electric. The only thing diesel about them is that they use a diesel engine to turn the electric generator. "Oh really?" she replied, blondly. "Why don't the run the generators on electricity too?"
Probably for the same reason that an energy conversion that produces lots of heat is efficient, I suppose.
Re:and how many are single ...
on
The Aging Gamer
·
· Score: 5, Funny
My girlfriend always tells me that if my computer and she fell into the ocean, I'd save my computer first. I always tell her that's not true, because the computer would already be screwed by the salt water at that point and a total loss. Even though I'm telling her that I would save her first, she is still mad at me. Women! It's so difficult to understand their proprietary architecture!
Most Hong Kong black market discs are pressed. Sometimes they're poor quality, for example I bought a Beatles CD there that had audible clicking that I assumed was frame jitter, but they are, nonetheless, pressed.
I like your motive, it's the Right Thing to do and all, but I think the angle is somewhat off. Discrimination? Hey, the first thing they're going to tell you is that the CDROM drive is listed in the system requirements, and then they'll kick you out the door. It's an unrequired perk that you might be able to play without one of the system requirements from their point of view.
Why don't you address this from the perspective that they are alienating a certain portion of the market, and while it would be magnificent if they could redesign their software to recapture that segment, the least they could do is clearly label the boxes in an attempt to inspire less wrath? It doesn't accuse them for being rather upfront about what are, after all, system requirements, and points out that it is to the benefit of their wallets or reputations to make this slight adjustment. You could then keep a list of games which are unusable by people without CDROMs as a public service to other people in your situation, but that also draws negative attention to the companies in question.
My girlfriend's sister (citizen of Hong Kong) had a computer that was acting up. She decided it had liver cancer. I told her that computers don't have livers, she didn't care. I told her that computers don't get cancer, she didn't care. I told her that a computer virus had nothing in common with a medical virus, she didn't care. Her computer had liver cancer.
The best part was that she took it to a repair shop where I assume the employees either played along or took her for a ride. They returned her computer a few days later and told her they gave it a liver transplant. She was very proud of that fact that she knew more about computers than I did.
Ah, I see. Sorry I came off so harsh... Guess I'm still a little anxious about the debt I've got and the fact that paying it off isn't the glorius land of plenty for which I had hoped.
It's practically high school economics, if not something that can be conveyed to middle school kids. Debt is sometimes excellent financial policy. Debt is not automatically stupid, though a failure to understand that while claiming intellectual superiority is undoubtedly stupid.
The only way a person shackles himself with college debt is by flunking out of college (perhaps by getting an F in economics) or majoring in music. It is, at the basic level, debt financing. To date I have invested four years and $80,000 in an education. Has it paid off yet? No. Gosh, I must be stupid.
Oh wait, except that I now have the potential to earn three times the mean income for the nation. Let's not point out that I don't do the same mindless task every day for the next 50 years waiting for the kindergarten style bell giving me permission to take a smoke break or scratch my balls. Yeah, the joke is on me, huh?
It's quite obvious that you didn't shackle yourself with college debt. I wouldn't be surprised if you have liberated yourself with a GED. What's your plan for liberation from debt when you need a new car in a few years? It's not like your freedom from college debt is going to buy you a house, is it? On the other hand, some intelligent debt financing and investment in yourself IS going to buy me a house. Apparently, these are the kinds of secrets the pinko commie professor share with the brainwashed college kids after stealing their futures...
What do you think about the guy leaving a shell casing behind? I think this would be a terrible error for a military trained sniper, but I'm just a civilian. Obviously the caliber and barrel marks can be gathered from the round, but there could be other evidence on the casing. Is my perception of this overrated? Do you think he was just being cocky by leaving it behind?
I think he is certainly picking locations first. A gas station is a spot where people are constantly coming and going. He can hide out and take his time picking a target. He has plenty of time to get focused and make his windage, elevation, and distance adjustments. Better yet, people often stand still next to their cars while they're pumping gas. It's an ideal environment for the motiveless random killing.
The other settings are not so ideal, but have the same recipe. Kids filing into school will provide numerous targets passing through any giving spot on the sidewalk. Same thing with people leaving a convenience store. I would put money on the bet that this guy is setting up for at least 10-15 minutes before he takes a shot. It might not be necessary for an expert, but common thread in all of the locations is pretty strong, in my opinion.
Yeah, because depriving someone of their automobile is strictly analagous to temporarily depriving them of some bandwidth. In fact, I'll take a cue from GWBush, who can't differentiate between Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden, and say that I can't differentiate between burning your house down and drinking from your water fountain. It's practically the same thing.
If I ended up like that in front of a TV News Crew, that would be a fantastic achievement. If I buy a Microsoft Xbox and choose to destroy it while its still cool from the retailer's air conditioning, that is perfectly within my rights. It's perfectly within my rights to stage a peaceful public protest. If the cops rush in and beat me up, it would only serve my purposes of creating a publicity debacle.
After John Lennon made his infamous remark about Jesus Christ, angry fans collected their albums and made a huge pile to be smashed by a steam roller. The PR fiasco that caused was gigantic.
Suppose enough rabid people were willing to spend $200 on an Xbox (or other MS products), lose some money for MS, and stage a peaceful protest in which a steamroller crushes brand new Microsoft merchandise. What would it take to make this a big event? 100 people with 100 products in an urban center could probably draw a crowd and a news team. Someone can get in front of the camera and explain that until Microsoft is sentenced for attacking the American economy (big issue), until Microsoft cancels its strategy of restricting home users' rights (big issue), they should be considered a(n) (PR buzzword here - "enemy combatant"? "traitor"? "evil influence"?) in America and the public must take action.
Hell, at the very least, it would be fun. At best it might force the issue to the forefront and raise awareness among the regular citizen about what the future holds.
Sounds like a porn distributor's wet dream. Sounds like the media companies' wet dreams. Sounds like the end user can send a video of his kids to grandma without worrying about grandma redistributing it on the internet. WTF? No really, WTF? Sounds to me like your grandma is a pervert, which is not a software issue.
I don't buy a computer so that everyone else can make money off of me. I buy a computer for my own use, just like when I buy a shirt or a coffee pot. It is not an advertising appliance in my home, it is not a subscription kiosk to a dozen different "services".
Listen closely, and listen well. Microsoft does no one any favors. This isn't a rabid linux fanbody rant. Hell, General Electric does no one any favors, nor does Sony, Chrysler, or any other successful corporation. The difference is that nobody from Black & Decker is trying to sell me a less functional product for more money while spewing the brazen lie that they're doing me a favor.
Everyone at Microsoft who thinks that they're working hard to provide the end user with a superior product had better pull his head out and look around. Microsoft produces no consumer grade software for which there is not a superior open source product. Outlook, IE, Office, Explorer, Media Player, fricking Solitaire, so on and so on all have open source alternatives that are more secure, more feature rich, more stable, designed with more intelligence (VBScript, anyone?) and do not subject me to future restrictions. Microsoft does not sell quality. They do not sell security. They do not sell variety, choice, or options. There is nothing wrong with this. They are, afterall, a company trying to make a buck. The catch is that it pleases me none at all when this very same company spews forth PR spin and slogans that are completely contradict everything they have done, are doing, and have planned for the future.
"Microsoft: Let us show you the world." Who's to say that wouldn't sell just as much software as "Where do you want to go today?" It has the added benefit of not being an implicit lie, or practically grovelling on its knees begging the answer, "A long, long way away from Microsoft." Face it, MS is not in the business of selling products that meet the consumers' desires anymore. It is selling products that meet MS's desires for future revenue. That's a very profitable business plan, and high marks to MS if they can pull it off. The problem is that it is simply retarded for them to puke forth all this PR about "doing me a favor", because we're all a little too smart to think that MS gives two shits about doing me a favor.
We are too smart to believe the BS that comes from Microsoft, and if Microsoft ever wants to regain the techie/geek market in any form, then Microsoft is going to have to stop the bullshit PR, stop the anti-American monopolistic attack on our economic system, make some software that isn't junk, and make amends. Until then, Microsoft and all its trolls can go fuck off, because you aren't smart enough to know from where the money in your paycheck comes.
I would find some handy excuse to sneak into the film industries' online DVD archives and encrypt everything with my new unbreakable scheme so that every DVD they pressed was completely unusable until I elected, of my own benevolence, to allow them to be viewed. I would do this to protect the rights of the consumers, who might otherwise be unwittingly subjected to legal rights.
Nah, screw it. I'd just do it because it would be funny to use real encryption to compensate for fake encryption while locking the greedy corporations out of their own products. Turnabout is a bitch, eh?
Re:Swapping Values Without Using a Temporary Varia
on
The Python Cookbook
·
· Score: 1
If I may perpetuate the cliche, I looked at that cross-eyed, worked it out, and said, "Holy s..t!"
I used to work in pool construction, and we had access to 99% chlorine granules and 100% cyanuric acid powder (HCN, I believe). I had a slim understanding of high school chemistry, and thought it would be neat to mix these. Normally they are used to chlorinate a swimming pool and to stabilize the chlorine against depletion by sunlight, but that's after a pound or two is diluted in 25,000+ gallons of water.
So we mixed about half a pound of each in a plastic chemical bottle. It got very hot and melted some of the bottle. We got bored, so we tossed it into the dumpster and walked away. A few minutes later, the dumpster (mostly filled with cardboard) was on fire. Thankfully, we had a swimming pool nearby, and put the fire out with a bucket.
This trick was repeated later, though, with smaller quantities of chemicals. They will actually explode under the right conditions. It made a cool party trick.. We would put a small tube of the stuff in the room and walk out. After a few minutes, it would sound like gun fire and a produced a cloud of what I assume was straight CN.
I also got a vinegar and baking soda bomb to work as a kid. I poured the soda into a loose plastic bag, rolled it up, and slipped it into a 2L bottle with about 250mL of vinegar. Shook it up and watched the pressure build. It took awhile, but it eventually split the bottle.
And if you're getting 20% muratic acid, you can do much better than that with the right supplier. I believe we were buying 100% HCl for use in acid washing plaster pools. The stuff is so miserable that the cloud vapor it produces will condense in your sweat and burn you. We had to keep a garden hose running at all times to deal with the inevitable splashes and burns we would get.
Did you know that fishballs are a popular snackfood in Hong Kong (probably elsewhere in Asia as well)? Not testicles, just balls. They take fish parts, grind it up into a greenish paste, sort of like mashed potatoes, then deep fry them. These are skewered in little sticks like fish ball kabobs, sprinkled with soy sauce, and sold by street vendors.
I'm not a big fan of seafood, but my girlfriend insisted I try one of her favorite childhood foods. It tasted about like shoving a live bass in your mouth and licking it as furiously as possible.
My girlfriend's aunt told me, "We Chinese people, for many years we do not have many things to eat, so we learn to eat anything!" and laughed and laughed. I just said, "No shit, but the frog ovaries aren't half bad."
Yeah, I tried that one... It just went to high video mode and hung. I selected an interlaced monitor rather than a non-interlaced monitor, and the X-setup tester didn't do me a bit of good.
Thanks for the suggestion though. I'm just going to take the time to figure out the config files before I update again. No big deal, I just wish I was familiar with them before I was at the "OMG OMG OMG!! Reboot and drool at the new desktop!!!!11 WTF.." and then three hours of screwing around with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Alternatively, I have found thousands of sites that bombard IE with popup ads, and Ad-aware reports that much more nefarious activity is happening as well.
In this comparison, it is blatantly obvious that IE is the inferior product which fails almost completely in its attempts to meet my expectations. If AOL can provide a web browser that does not include 1,001 ways to violate my security, require third party software to repair the damage, and inundate me with advertisements, then that is a marvelous advantage for them and for their users.
If, however, you are more concerned with preserving advertisers revenues and consider the end users' rights and privacy to be an inconvenience, then your comment is right on.
Long live microsoft trolls, eh?
Huh, I have red hair, the oft-mentioned high tolerance for alcohol, perhaps an unusual tolerance for pain, and this as well! I had a friend who thought I had mild hemophilia because I bleed so much. It's really irritating when a simple slice to the hand takes a mop to clean up.
I fell out of a tree and broke both of my arms when I was 15. I had a concussion that had me in and out of conciousness at least half a dozen times. I was awake when they were setting the bones, which involved grabbing a hand, pulling it away from the elbow, and changing the angle in my forearm by about 30 degrees. With both arms in this condition, I had the presence of mind to bravely fight against my attackers, kicked a nurse in the stomach, and viciously threatened the doctor.
It takes about 250mL of 80 proof rum for me to catch a buzz, and at least a third of a liter to be so drunk that I wouldn't drive. I completely quit drinking beer because it would take a 12 pack to feel anything other than a full bladder.
I don't consider myself to be less sensitive to pain, but my hands and fingers are a mess of scars and burns that might indicate otherwise. My tolerance of alcohol is legendary among my friends, who often elect me to drive despite having had more to drink than they have.
So, less sensitive to stimuli? Maybe... perhaps my best attribute is a deep appreciation of hour long rolls in the hay. At least, my girlfriend never complains.
Now I will share a top-secret surprise: There is a higher price margin in luxury items than in mass market items. Can you believe it?! If Apple were to establish itself in this way, they could sell FEWER units than any of their competitors and turn HIGHER profits, just like luxury car companies do! Somebody call Keynes, we have an economic revolution on our hands!
Yeah, because 30 years ago, when Ford built the GT40, embarrased the gay right out of Europe, realized that there's no competition in that, and retired the GT40, Non-Americans wanted a feather to stick in their hat. So now they revert to bad mouthing Chevrolets, something Americans do in the first place. Go back to your island. Nobody cared, nobody cares, and nobody ever will care in the future.
Without Open Office, what ARE the long range plans for MS Office? Build a battleship and invade Denmark? To say that MS is out of touch with their users is an understatement - ask any geek with 10 family members who can't send an email attachment without a calling him/her. A little competition for their product will force MS to keep their product more agile and leaner with respect to customer desires.
I fully agree with the comment about open source finding new, exotic problems to solve, but in the meantime, I think it is very important that people have a pretty, graphical email client that doesn't forcefeed every VBS virus down their throat.
Consider that the open source software often chases the coattails of proprietary software, and it is like an erosive force against a software monopoly. Rather than let a given company build an invincible fortress of refined, polished, peerless software, they are constantly forced to accept that their current innovations will eventually become basically public domain through free software. This is an incredible incentive to keep in touch with their market, make real and substantial improvements to their product, and avoid heavy handed dictator style behavior.
If closed-source proprietary software blazes the trail, open source paves the highway. Making a practical public domain out of so much software ensures that innovation in proprietary software is a process, not an end point. It's competition, it's checks and balances, and it benefits everyone who uses the software.
Open source does hardly any damage to commercial products. It does ensure that the #1 commercial product has a competitor close on its heels that cannot be driven away not by competitive pricing but by smart business and new inventions. I wouldn't argue against having competition around here, I get the feeling that Microsoft isn't loved. At any rate, this is a very sustainable situation and the checks and balances benefit the users substantially.
I once told a friend that modern diesel trains run on electricity. The lights are electric, the controls are electric, even the drive train is electric. The only thing diesel about them is that they use a diesel engine to turn the electric generator. "Oh really?" she replied, blondly. "Why don't the run the generators on electricity too?"
Probably for the same reason that an energy conversion that produces lots of heat is efficient, I suppose.
My girlfriend always tells me that if my computer and she fell into the ocean, I'd save my computer first. I always tell her that's not true, because the computer would already be screwed by the salt water at that point and a total loss. Even though I'm telling her that I would save her first, she is still mad at me. Women! It's so difficult to understand their proprietary architecture!
Most Hong Kong black market discs are pressed. Sometimes they're poor quality, for example I bought a Beatles CD there that had audible clicking that I assumed was frame jitter, but they are, nonetheless, pressed.
Why don't you address this from the perspective that they are alienating a certain portion of the market, and while it would be magnificent if they could redesign their software to recapture that segment, the least they could do is clearly label the boxes in an attempt to inspire less wrath? It doesn't accuse them for being rather upfront about what are, after all, system requirements, and points out that it is to the benefit of their wallets or reputations to make this slight adjustment. You could then keep a list of games which are unusable by people without CDROMs as a public service to other people in your situation, but that also draws negative attention to the companies in question.
The best part was that she took it to a repair shop where I assume the employees either played along or took her for a ride. They returned her computer a few days later and told her they gave it a liver transplant. She was very proud of that fact that she knew more about computers than I did.
Ah, I see. Sorry I came off so harsh... Guess I'm still a little anxious about the debt I've got and the fact that paying it off isn't the glorius land of plenty for which I had hoped.
It's practically high school economics, if not something that can be conveyed to middle school kids. Debt is sometimes excellent financial policy. Debt is not automatically stupid, though a failure to understand that while claiming intellectual superiority is undoubtedly stupid.
The only way a person shackles himself with college debt is by flunking out of college (perhaps by getting an F in economics) or majoring in music. It is, at the basic level, debt financing. To date I have invested four years and $80,000 in an education. Has it paid off yet? No. Gosh, I must be stupid.
Oh wait, except that I now have the potential to earn three times the mean income for the nation. Let's not point out that I don't do the same mindless task every day for the next 50 years waiting for the kindergarten style bell giving me permission to take a smoke break or scratch my balls. Yeah, the joke is on me, huh?
It's quite obvious that you didn't shackle yourself with college debt. I wouldn't be surprised if you have liberated yourself with a GED. What's your plan for liberation from debt when you need a new car in a few years? It's not like your freedom from college debt is going to buy you a house, is it? On the other hand, some intelligent debt financing and investment in yourself IS going to buy me a house. Apparently, these are the kinds of secrets the pinko commie professor share with the brainwashed college kids after stealing their futures...
What do you think about the guy leaving a shell casing behind? I think this would be a terrible error for a military trained sniper, but I'm just a civilian. Obviously the caliber and barrel marks can be gathered from the round, but there could be other evidence on the casing. Is my perception of this overrated? Do you think he was just being cocky by leaving it behind?
The other settings are not so ideal, but have the same recipe. Kids filing into school will provide numerous targets passing through any giving spot on the sidewalk. Same thing with people leaving a convenience store. I would put money on the bet that this guy is setting up for at least 10-15 minutes before he takes a shot. It might not be necessary for an expert, but common thread in all of the locations is pretty strong, in my opinion.
Yeah, because depriving someone of their automobile is strictly analagous to temporarily depriving them of some bandwidth. In fact, I'll take a cue from GWBush, who can't differentiate between Saddam Hussein and Usama Bin Laden, and say that I can't differentiate between burning your house down and drinking from your water fountain. It's practically the same thing.
If I ended up like that in front of a TV News Crew, that would be a fantastic achievement. If I buy a Microsoft Xbox and choose to destroy it while its still cool from the retailer's air conditioning, that is perfectly within my rights. It's perfectly within my rights to stage a peaceful public protest. If the cops rush in and beat me up, it would only serve my purposes of creating a publicity debacle.
After John Lennon made his infamous remark about Jesus Christ, angry fans collected their albums and made a huge pile to be smashed by a steam roller. The PR fiasco that caused was gigantic.
Suppose enough rabid people were willing to spend $200 on an Xbox (or other MS products), lose some money for MS, and stage a peaceful protest in which a steamroller crushes brand new Microsoft merchandise. What would it take to make this a big event? 100 people with 100 products in an urban center could probably draw a crowd and a news team. Someone can get in front of the camera and explain that until Microsoft is sentenced for attacking the American economy (big issue), until Microsoft cancels its strategy of restricting home users' rights (big issue), they should be considered a(n) (PR buzzword here - "enemy combatant"? "traitor"? "evil influence"?) in America and the public must take action.
Hell, at the very least, it would be fun. At best it might force the issue to the forefront and raise awareness among the regular citizen about what the future holds.
I don't buy a computer so that everyone else can make money off of me. I buy a computer for my own use, just like when I buy a shirt or a coffee pot. It is not an advertising appliance in my home, it is not a subscription kiosk to a dozen different "services".
Listen closely, and listen well. Microsoft does no one any favors. This isn't a rabid linux fanbody rant. Hell, General Electric does no one any favors, nor does Sony, Chrysler, or any other successful corporation. The difference is that nobody from Black & Decker is trying to sell me a less functional product for more money while spewing the brazen lie that they're doing me a favor.
Everyone at Microsoft who thinks that they're working hard to provide the end user with a superior product had better pull his head out and look around. Microsoft produces no consumer grade software for which there is not a superior open source product. Outlook, IE, Office, Explorer, Media Player, fricking Solitaire, so on and so on all have open source alternatives that are more secure, more feature rich, more stable, designed with more intelligence (VBScript, anyone?) and do not subject me to future restrictions. Microsoft does not sell quality. They do not sell security. They do not sell variety, choice, or options. There is nothing wrong with this. They are, afterall, a company trying to make a buck. The catch is that it pleases me none at all when this very same company spews forth PR spin and slogans that are completely contradict everything they have done, are doing, and have planned for the future.
"Microsoft: Let us show you the world." Who's to say that wouldn't sell just as much software as "Where do you want to go today?" It has the added benefit of not being an implicit lie, or practically grovelling on its knees begging the answer, "A long, long way away from Microsoft." Face it, MS is not in the business of selling products that meet the consumers' desires anymore. It is selling products that meet MS's desires for future revenue. That's a very profitable business plan, and high marks to MS if they can pull it off. The problem is that it is simply retarded for them to puke forth all this PR about "doing me a favor", because we're all a little too smart to think that MS gives two shits about doing me a favor.
We are too smart to believe the BS that comes from Microsoft, and if Microsoft ever wants to regain the techie/geek market in any form, then Microsoft is going to have to stop the bullshit PR, stop the anti-American monopolistic attack on our economic system, make some software that isn't junk, and make amends. Until then, Microsoft and all its trolls can go fuck off, because you aren't smart enough to know from where the money in your paycheck comes.
Nah, screw it. I'd just do it because it would be funny to use real encryption to compensate for fake encryption while locking the greedy corporations out of their own products. Turnabout is a bitch, eh?
If I may perpetuate the cliche, I looked at that cross-eyed, worked it out, and said, "Holy s..t!"
I used to work in pool construction, and we had access to 99% chlorine granules and 100% cyanuric acid powder (HCN, I believe). I had a slim understanding of high school chemistry, and thought it would be neat to mix these. Normally they are used to chlorinate a swimming pool and to stabilize the chlorine against depletion by sunlight, but that's after a pound or two is diluted in 25,000+ gallons of water.
So we mixed about half a pound of each in a plastic chemical bottle. It got very hot and melted some of the bottle. We got bored, so we tossed it into the dumpster and walked away. A few minutes later, the dumpster (mostly filled with cardboard) was on fire. Thankfully, we had a swimming pool nearby, and put the fire out with a bucket.
This trick was repeated later, though, with smaller quantities of chemicals. They will actually explode under the right conditions. It made a cool party trick.. We would put a small tube of the stuff in the room and walk out. After a few minutes, it would sound like gun fire and a produced a cloud of what I assume was straight CN.
I also got a vinegar and baking soda bomb to work as a kid. I poured the soda into a loose plastic bag, rolled it up, and slipped it into a 2L bottle with about 250mL of vinegar. Shook it up and watched the pressure build. It took awhile, but it eventually split the bottle.
And if you're getting 20% muratic acid, you can do much better than that with the right supplier. I believe we were buying 100% HCl for use in acid washing plaster pools. The stuff is so miserable that the cloud vapor it produces will condense in your sweat and burn you. We had to keep a garden hose running at all times to deal with the inevitable splashes and burns we would get.
I'm not a big fan of seafood, but my girlfriend insisted I try one of her favorite childhood foods. It tasted about like shoving a live bass in your mouth and licking it as furiously as possible.
My girlfriend's aunt told me, "We Chinese people, for many years we do not have many things to eat, so we learn to eat anything!" and laughed and laughed. I just said, "No shit, but the frog ovaries aren't half bad."
Thanks for the suggestion though. I'm just going to take the time to figure out the config files before I update again. No big deal, I just wish I was familiar with them before I was at the "OMG OMG OMG!! Reboot and drool at the new desktop!!!!11 WTF.." and then three hours of screwing around with it.