Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain.
Just because YOU didn't like being busy at your other jobs doesn't mean everyone else in the world feels the same way. I worked in fast food and when I did, I liked it a lot better when it was busy. A 10 hour shift flies by when you're making orders non-stop, but once closing time came and it was time to clean up time seemed to stand still. I was still working but the work I was doing was so mundane and slow paced (mopping floors or washing the nights dishes) that it seemed to take forever.
There's also the possibility that you're a hobby programmer and not a career programmer. You might like programming outside of work, but there are people that wrote code just because it'll pay the bills. Those people generally like writing code as much as you liked mowing long grass.
The article says that the employees did not access the "contents of the calls"... wait does that mean that Verizon has stored electronic recordings, or transcripts?!?! of all of Obama's calls?!?!
No, it means that the employees only looked at who called the phone, and who was called from the phone. Basically all of the information listed on Obama's phone bill.
Or does this mean that Verizon does not store that information? And who here believes them?
I don't think anyone here honestly believes that Verizon would store every phone conversation made over their network. It would cost way too much money, and it would be a complete waste of resources.
Plus, there is the "thin skull" thing in law; basically, if you do something that wouldn't cause a *normal* person harm, but the person has a pre-existing condition (in the original case, a thin skull that was struck and killed the person) that causes the 'normal' action to be deadly, it's *still* murder.
Oh, so let's say your girlfriend is extremely depressed, and you break up with her then she kills herself, is that murder?
Or do you have to tell her she's fat and ugly first? Since when are there laws in the U.S. against verbal abuse?
And why have a Korean play a Japanese character (Sulu)? WTF? I guess they are depending on the old cracker saying "what's the difference?"
Or it could be that Sulu wasn't meant to be from any specific Asian country.
From Wikipedia -
George Takei recalled Gene Roddenberry wanted the character to represent all of Asia, which symbolized the peace of the Trek universe in spite of the numerous wars in the continent. Roddenberry did not want a nationally specific surname, so he looked at a map and saw the Sulu Sea. "He thought, 'Ah, the waters of that sea touch all shores'," the actor recalled, "and that's how my character came to have the name Sulu."
Yes, they do go on to say that Sulu was half Japanese half Filipino, well why not criticize the original Star Trek series for hiring a Japanese actor to play a character that's supposed to be half Japanese half Filipino?
... how did this get modded off topic? Not only is it really the first post, but he actually makes a humorous reference to the story...
Anyway, I'm online 8 hours a day at work, but I wouldn't consider myself addicted in any way (although it's different when it's your job since you're generally doing work related stuff and not just sitting around playing WoW or whatever.) I don't fit the other criteria though and I have seen people who do. There definitely exists a possibility of becoming addicted to the internet but I don't see it becoming an issue for everyone. I've gone months with no internet access at all, as long as I've had a cell phone to stay in touch with people I really had no desire to go online. I know people who are the complete opposite though, they can't function if you take away their PC.
Does anyone seriously treat any wireless transmission as if it was secure? If anyone who cares to listen can easily pick up everything being sent from your computer it's only a matter of time and CPU power before they can read it.
Yes I know, the article mentions they actually found a more efficient method of cracking WPA than a simple brute force attack, and that is a flaw in WPA not wireless security. Although while they may come up with new encryption methods I still don't trust wireless for much more than browsing slashdot or searching google. If I need to do anything that involves sensitive information like ordering something online I can wait to go to a wired desktop.
The only problem with stories like this is that we either don't actually do it, or we DO do it and get results that tell us nothing useful (as far as the question of E.T. life). Why can't they just :
1. Design and build rover/robot/probe whose sole task is to find and identify life on another planet/moon/whatever.
2. Deploy said rover/robot/probe.
3. Get definitive answer - Yes there is/yes there was actual life here, or No there isn't/no there wasn't actual life here.
4. Rinse and repeat.
Seriously, why is that so hard?
Life on another planet may be so far removed from life on our own planet that detecting it becomes close to impossible. How do you know what to look for unless you've seen it before? You can determine "No, there is no life AS WE KNOW IT existing on this celestial body" but that doesn't really answer the question of whether or not there is life at all.
1. If everybody in Kansas supported Intelligent Design, they wouldn't have to have hearings about it.
No one ever said EVERYONE in Kansas supports ID, but from your argument you might notice the flip side is also true - If no one in Kansas supported Intelligent Design, they wouldn't have to have hearings about it.
2. (People who believe God exists and created everything) and (people who support Intelligent Design Theory) are two separate groups, which may or may not overlap.
No one ever said they were all the same group and that actually has nothing to do with the original post.
3. I don't want to repost the same message, but I'm still waiting for an answer to this.
Again, nothing to do with the original post but I'll try my best to answer your question (although I thought the answer was rather obvious.)
First, ask yourself, what is more complex, basic matter or god.
After you realize the obvious answer that question, understand that scientists are only suggesting that basic matter has always existed, anyone who believes in god is suggesting that basic matter always existed, except the basic matter has thoughts, feelings and godlike powers (although that depends on which god you believe in)...
Lastly, if you still don't get it, ask yourself this, how do scientists select which god is the correct god? It's not like there's one unified theory on which god exists. Although everyone who believes in god seems to agree it's their god that's real and all other religions are absurd.
Please at least try to get informed about who you are insulting. Not everyone who believes in a higher power (and by extension, that life has value) believes the universe is 6k years old. But even disregarding that, your insult didn't make sense. A game marketed about evolution is popular with people in KS, presumably because you think everyone in KS is a backwards redneck who denies evolution?
The title should say "Can You Trust Kaspersky?" Since the article is basically Kaspersky complaining that the Anti-Virus test (that his software just failed to score 100% on) is flawed. It sounds like Kaspersky is just upset that his software didn't pass the test and he's now trying to dismiss the test as meaningless.
Although if you look on the products page you'll see they display the VB100 logo. Then in the article Kaspersky goes on to say - "The products which have a very poor level of protection, they have the certificate, while products which have a very high level of protection, they donâ(TM)t have the certificate."
Well his product had the certificate, does that mean he feels that his software had a very poor level of protection?
"I've done self repair on laptops before, and never even had a job come close to approaching this price."
Yes but that's self repair, if you did self repair on your apple it would be $55 for the part on eBay. Unless you're suggesting that you did self repair and bought the part brand new from the manufacturer. If you bought it "new" from a third party, I hate to tell you this but it wasn't new. The only place you can reliably get the parts new is from the company that made the laptop and even then it might be parts from a refurbished laptop or some old leftover parts that weren't quality enough to
"The part you quoted wasn't the model number I needed as well."
I know, it's not a part # it's a $400 laptop model from Dell, a Dell Vostro 1000.
It's "new" because the laptop is brand new probably never used, they just parted it to sell on eBay (it's worth a lot as parts, the LCD sells for the price of the laptop.) If you notice the part isn't being sold in the U.S. and it's selling for more than the same part for your Apple.
"No, I will not buy a used pan sight unseen online, that is ridiculous."
Why is that ridiculous? People do it all the time and get quality working hardware for a fraction of the cost it would be from the manufacturer. Not only that but you can see the photos, and you can contact the seller for more photos, you can also ask if they have a newer one or if they will accept returns. Most likely they'll have one in great shape, or you can find another place that's not eBay, I just used it as an example because it was the first result in Google.
"I'm marked redundant if I bring the story up again so just read my many posts. I know you can buy the lower pan for approximately $200 online but those are all used parts, you can't find new ones."
First of all it's $50 used (click the link). Second of all, you've got to be kidding me kidding me, all of this ranting about how expensive the parts are and you're talking about the NEW price? No shit it's expensive, every laptop manufacturer out there sells their new parts for a shit ton of money. They know you can't get it anywhere else and every model laptop has a different part.
At least with Apple the part is worth it, you're not spending $600 for cheap plastic on a $400 laptop. If you think brand new replacement parts on a PC laptop are any cheaper than the Apple then you're sadly mistaken. Go work in a computer shop and price out parts for laptops, we got most of our parts off of ebay used (yes our customers were aware they were used) for the simple fact that no one wants to spend double the price they paid on a laptop just to get the thing fixed.
I can't believe you come in here talking about how the "smugness" of the apple store and repair shops drove you away when you won't even accept a used part for 1/12th the price you were quoted. Buy the part used or go call Dell to ask them how much the same job would cost through them on a $400 laptop (pick a Vostro 1000) to replace with a brand new plastic case.
You'll soon find how much of a bargain you're receiving when you're only paying $600 out of $2,000 as opposed to $300 (just made up a number, the job could cost more or maybe even less but paying less is doubtful) out of $400.
It's even more of a bargain when you realize the $400 laptop barely meets the system requirements of the OS it's running (Windows Vista.)
I wanted one bad too. Now I wish I didn't pay the premium when I discovered just how easily the case of my MacBook Pro is damaged. I have three dents including on that has rendered my optical drive unusable. I paid $2000 for a laptop that is not as durable as advertised.
What the hell did you drop your laptop on that it has three dents? You can possibly dent the corners if you drop it onto a hard enough surface, although I have a MacBook Pro and it fell on the top left corner of the LCD. It was a 3' fall onto brick and the laptop is fine except for a scratch where it contacted the brick (girlfriend placed the laptop half on a table and her cat jumped on the part hanging over the table, caused it to fall over onto the brick.)
Besides, be glad your laptop still works, people drop their plastic laptops all the time and the plastic flexes (or cracks.) Since it's attached firmly to the motherboard, the motherboard can't handle the stress so it snaps (not fully but enough to create a short, I've seen it happen a lot.) Then they're out the price of a new motherboard which can easily cost $700-$1000 for a laptop.
Or another thing that happens, pieces start flying off the plastic laptops. Drop it on a hard surface and the whole shell cracks, sometimes the LCD hinges break and your LCD no longer stays up, or you drop it on your power connection, well that snaps the DC jack right off the motherboard and you need to either replace the motherboard or solder on a new DC jack. With an apple the power connection disconnects itself easily so you don't run into that problem, plus you'll never need to worry that the connection is going to get worn out from being plugged in/unplugged so many times.
As far as the price of the repair is concerned, well that's standard pricing for a laptop being "officially" repaired. The parts are very expensive from the manufacturer. You can find a shop that will get the part off ebay and repair it for ~$200. Or if you really need to, try and repair the bottom yourself.
Perhaps the problem itself needs to be restated: Allow accounts to legitimate users, deny accounts to spammers. Whether or not there is a human involved on either end seems irrelevant.
- Wyck
Oh of course, so instead of CAPTCHAs they'll just have the question "Are you a spammer? [yes|no]"?
If you determine it's a computer signing up for an account you're almost guaranteed it's a spammer. If you've determined the user is a human then there is no way to tell if their a spammer until they've started spamming. Perhaps you can block people by IP but I've noticed that often does a lot more harm than good.
Why should spammers be treated differently? You know justice is supposed to be blind, if they prosecute all spammers who perjure in court then they must prosecute EVERYONE who perjures in court. That means if little ol' grandma is getting sued by the RIAA and she says "I never downloaded any music!" but the RIAA produces some log from an ISP showing that her niece e-mailed her some Britney Spears song, well we'd have to persecute grandma for perjury. Judges don't generally want to do that to everyone and need to use their own judgment on how to treat the perjury.
You can't just ask the judges to be extra harsh on spammers. You'd first need to define what a spammer is. What if I have a huge mailing list of people that opted in and send out mass mails to everyone on the list? Well what if someone on the list forgets that they opted in? What if someone lost their domain name, then someone else takes it over and now they're getting my e-mails. That person didn't opt in am I now a spammer for sending them unsolicited mail? Well the Jehova's Witnesses make unsolicited visits to my house early in the morning, should we also prosecute them every time they perjure in court?
Perjury is a crime, but the judge has to make the final decision on whether or not to prosecute the perjurer, that decision should not be based on what the person is being accused of doing.
It's too bad these positions will, most definitely, be filled by military personnel. This would be a fun job to have for sure.
You know all military personnel started off as civilians right? Go talk to an Air Force recruiter, find out what MOS it is then tell them that's the job you want. Score high enough on the ASVAB and you've got it. You can actually sign a contract with them that would guarantee you get this job (as long as it's available.) Once you get out of basic (it's the Air Force, the basic training is like a spa treatment compared to the other services) they provide all the MOS training free of charge.
Anyway that's just my suggestion, there's a good chance you'd get the job too considering the fact that most people who join the Air Force want to be pilots or mechanics, this wouldn't be one of their most requested jobs.
The problem is that there is no reason to assume that just because a machine is making a DNS query it intends opening a TCP connection to port 80 (or 443).
Even if the hostname starts with www ?
Yes, www doesn't mean anything. Someone might want their mail server to use www.somedomain.com where somedomain.com by itself goes somewhere entirely different.
I find it a bit weird that so many people bitch a blue streak all day long about how much "Apple sucks"until they have a chance to run OS X on a PC. Then it's like "kewl dewd, I can't wait to do that!". What's up with that?
Apple sells very expensive hardware. Previously when it was all PowerPC they could justify this by saying "Well you can't compare the PowerPC to a x86 chip it's just not the same and you just don't get it!" Now that they're using Intel chips it's much easier to point out how much the hardware is being marked up for two similarly equipped computers.
Plus they have a complete lack of choice, you can either have some cookie cutter mac mini, an imac, or a customizable (in the sense that you can replace the video card or install some other PCI cards) Mac Pro for the low low price of $2,300...
Oh you don't want a quad core intel xeon system? Well go with the imac... Oh you want something a little more powerful than an imac without the cost of the Mac Pro? Sucks for you...
The only reason I actually own a mac is because I want to use some of the software you can only use on a Mac (really it's only aperture, lightroom just doesn't do it for me.) I ended up buying a MacBook Pro for $2,200 but I could have an equally powerful PC for $1,500. Unfortunately the PC won't nicely run Mac OS X and I'm not really in the mood to try and shoehorn the software onto a PC, so instead I go with the mac.
It's not a terrible computer, in fact I think it's a great computer, it has great software on it but the lack of hardware choices are what kill it.
So two years after Apple brought out those commercials, Microsoft makes "parodies" that are lamer than any parodies that could be found on YouTube 2 years ago?
I didn't say the COMMERCIAL is a parody, I was countering the argument that the guy was a stereotype. He's Apple's stereotype and Microsoft is parodying the character for the purpose of the commercial... jeez.
The purpose of John Hodgman was not to "stereotype" PC users.
Are you kidding me? They have the slightly overweight balding guy in an old suit being a PC, and you don't think that's stereotyping? Sure, the Mac commercials went over other things too, but saying there wasn't any stereotyping going on is just silly. Maybe you should read my sig.
It's called parody, they are trying to imitate the guy from the Apple commercials.
That's great if you're fine with playing it in a few days, or maybe your torrent performance is always fantastic on all torrents. I grabbed the torrent of Spore, and after waiting for several hours while doing other stuff, it was still at 1% or so (I was averaging under 5kbps - yes, my settings are fine, other torrents can zip right along).
I officially pre-ordered spore a few days before it came out, it let me download 99% of the game but not install. I wanted to play right then, so I looked on TPB, found a torrent, downloaded it that day in a little longer than the official version from EA took (about 5 hours.) So rather than wait a few days for the game to be out in the US and have EA send me that one last MB worth of data, I pirated the game and didn't have to worry about any DRM (which I then installed on my work computer, and my home computer, I'd install it on my powerbook as well but I don't have Leopard.)
Slashdot Mirror
Neither you nor Taco provided any citation for this outlandish claim.
Perhaps they assumed you read this when it was originally posted?
Anyone else pick up on this -
Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain.
Just because YOU didn't like being busy at your other jobs doesn't mean everyone else in the world feels the same way. I worked in fast food and when I did, I liked it a lot better when it was busy. A 10 hour shift flies by when you're making orders non-stop, but once closing time came and it was time to clean up time seemed to stand still. I was still working but the work I was doing was so mundane and slow paced (mopping floors or washing the nights dishes) that it seemed to take forever.
There's also the possibility that you're a hobby programmer and not a career programmer. You might like programming outside of work, but there are people that wrote code just because it'll pay the bills. Those people generally like writing code as much as you liked mowing long grass.
The article says that the employees did not access the "contents of the calls"... wait does that mean that Verizon has stored electronic recordings, or transcripts?!?! of all of Obama's calls?!?!
No, it means that the employees only looked at who called the phone, and who was called from the phone. Basically all of the information listed on Obama's phone bill.
Or does this mean that Verizon does not store that information? And who here believes them?
I don't think anyone here honestly believes that Verizon would store every phone conversation made over their network. It would cost way too much money, and it would be a complete waste of resources.
Plus, there is the "thin skull" thing in law; basically, if you do something that wouldn't cause a *normal* person harm, but the person has a pre-existing condition (in the original case, a thin skull that was struck and killed the person) that causes the 'normal' action to be deadly, it's *still* murder.
Oh, so let's say your girlfriend is extremely depressed, and you break up with her then she kills herself, is that murder?
Or do you have to tell her she's fat and ugly first? Since when are there laws in the U.S. against verbal abuse?
And why have a Korean play a Japanese character (Sulu)? WTF? I guess they are depending on the old cracker saying "what's the difference?"
Or it could be that Sulu wasn't meant to be from any specific Asian country.
From Wikipedia -
George Takei recalled Gene Roddenberry wanted the character to represent all of Asia, which symbolized the peace of the Trek universe in spite of the numerous wars in the continent. Roddenberry did not want a nationally specific surname, so he looked at a map and saw the Sulu Sea. "He thought, 'Ah, the waters of that sea touch all shores'," the actor recalled, "and that's how my character came to have the name Sulu."
Yes, they do go on to say that Sulu was half Japanese half Filipino, well why not criticize the original Star Trek series for hiring a Japanese actor to play a character that's supposed to be half Japanese half Filipino?
... how did this get modded off topic? Not only is it really the first post, but he actually makes a humorous reference to the story...
Anyway, I'm online 8 hours a day at work, but I wouldn't consider myself addicted in any way (although it's different when it's your job since you're generally doing work related stuff and not just sitting around playing WoW or whatever.) I don't fit the other criteria though and I have seen people who do. There definitely exists a possibility of becoming addicted to the internet but I don't see it becoming an issue for everyone. I've gone months with no internet access at all, as long as I've had a cell phone to stay in touch with people I really had no desire to go online. I know people who are the complete opposite though, they can't function if you take away their PC.
Does anyone seriously treat any wireless transmission as if it was secure? If anyone who cares to listen can easily pick up everything being sent from your computer it's only a matter of time and CPU power before they can read it.
Yes I know, the article mentions they actually found a more efficient method of cracking WPA than a simple brute force attack, and that is a flaw in WPA not wireless security. Although while they may come up with new encryption methods I still don't trust wireless for much more than browsing slashdot or searching google. If I need to do anything that involves sensitive information like ordering something online I can wait to go to a wired desktop.
The only problem with stories like this is that we either don't actually do it, or we DO do it and get results that tell us nothing useful (as far as the question of E.T. life). Why can't they just :
1. Design and build rover/robot/probe whose sole task is to find and identify life on another planet/moon/whatever.
2. Deploy said rover/robot/probe.
3. Get definitive answer - Yes there is/yes there was actual life here, or No there isn't/no there wasn't actual life here.
4. Rinse and repeat.
Seriously, why is that so hard?
Life on another planet may be so far removed from life on our own planet that detecting it becomes close to impossible. How do you know what to look for unless you've seen it before? You can determine "No, there is no life AS WE KNOW IT existing on this celestial body" but that doesn't really answer the question of whether or not there is life at all.
Citation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
I think that's what he might be talking about. Just ignore the video, it's annoying to watch.
Competition is great isn't it?
I'm not a capitalist (or even a real supporter of "markets"), but actually when it comes down to it, in situations such as these, competition is good.
Competition...? Minefield is just a nightly build of Firefox 3.1, when it's stable it will be released as the newest Firefox version.
1. If everybody in Kansas supported Intelligent Design, they wouldn't have to have hearings about it.
No one ever said EVERYONE in Kansas supports ID, but from your argument you might notice the flip side is also true - If no one in Kansas supported Intelligent Design, they wouldn't have to have hearings about it.
2. (People who believe God exists and created everything) and (people who support Intelligent Design Theory) are two separate groups, which may or may not overlap.
No one ever said they were all the same group and that actually has nothing to do with the original post.
3. I don't want to repost the same message, but I'm still waiting for an answer to this.
Again, nothing to do with the original post but I'll try my best to answer your question (although I thought the answer was rather obvious.)
First, ask yourself, what is more complex, basic matter or god.
After you realize the obvious answer that question, understand that scientists are only suggesting that basic matter has always existed, anyone who believes in god is suggesting that basic matter always existed, except the basic matter has thoughts, feelings and godlike powers (although that depends on which god you believe in)...
Lastly, if you still don't get it, ask yourself this, how do scientists select which god is the correct god? It's not like there's one unified theory on which god exists. Although everyone who believes in god seems to agree it's their god that's real and all other religions are absurd.
Please at least try to get informed about who you are insulting. Not everyone who believes in a higher power (and by extension, that life has value) believes the universe is 6k years old. But even disregarding that, your insult didn't make sense. A game marketed about evolution is popular with people in KS, presumably because you think everyone in KS is a backwards redneck who denies evolution?
I think it would help if you read this
The title should say "Can You Trust Kaspersky?" Since the article is basically Kaspersky complaining that the Anti-Virus test (that his software just failed to score 100% on) is flawed. It sounds like Kaspersky is just upset that his software didn't pass the test and he's now trying to dismiss the test as meaningless.
Although if you look on the products page you'll see they display the VB100 logo. Then in the article Kaspersky goes on to say - "The products which have a very poor level of protection, they have the certificate, while products which have a very high level of protection, they donâ(TM)t have the certificate."
Well his product had the certificate, does that mean he feels that his software had a very poor level of protection?
"I've done self repair on laptops before, and never even had a job come close to approaching this price."
Yes but that's self repair, if you did self repair on your apple it would be $55 for the part on eBay. Unless you're suggesting that you did self repair and bought the part brand new from the manufacturer. If you bought it "new" from a third party, I hate to tell you this but it wasn't new. The only place you can reliably get the parts new is from the company that made the laptop and even then it might be parts from a refurbished laptop or some old leftover parts that weren't quality enough to
"The part you quoted wasn't the model number I needed as well."
I know, it's not a part # it's a $400 laptop model from Dell, a Dell Vostro 1000.
The part number is WY383 you can see it on eBay -
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Dell-Vostro-1000-Laptop-Base-Bottom-Plastic-WY383_W0QQitemZ110185600884QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item110185600884&_trksid=p3286.m63.l1177
It's "new" because the laptop is brand new probably never used, they just parted it to sell on eBay (it's worth a lot as parts, the LCD sells for the price of the laptop.) If you notice the part isn't being sold in the U.S. and it's selling for more than the same part for your Apple.
"No, I will not buy a used pan sight unseen online, that is ridiculous."
Why is that ridiculous? People do it all the time and get quality working hardware for a fraction of the cost it would be from the manufacturer. Not only that but you can see the photos, and you can contact the seller for more photos, you can also ask if they have a newer one or if they will accept returns. Most likely they'll have one in great shape, or you can find another place that's not eBay, I just used it as an example because it was the first result in Google.
If you want it "new" you can get it here -
http://www.powerbookmedic.com/MacBook-Pro-Bottom-Pan-15-Case---NEW-p-16909.html
That's as new as you're going to get it without going through Apple or if you don't mind getting a refurbished model
http://www.welovemacs.com/9227210r.html
Obviously you'll have to find your own part number (I don't know what model you have so I just picked the same standard 15" model.
"I'm marked redundant if I bring the story up again so just read my many posts. I know you can buy the lower pan for approximately $200 online but those are all used parts, you can't find new ones."
First of all it's $50 used (click the link). Second of all, you've got to be kidding me kidding me, all of this ranting about how expensive the parts are and you're talking about the NEW price? No shit it's expensive, every laptop manufacturer out there sells their new parts for a shit ton of money. They know you can't get it anywhere else and every model laptop has a different part.
At least with Apple the part is worth it, you're not spending $600 for cheap plastic on a $400 laptop. If you think brand new replacement parts on a PC laptop are any cheaper than the Apple then you're sadly mistaken. Go work in a computer shop and price out parts for laptops, we got most of our parts off of ebay used (yes our customers were aware they were used) for the simple fact that no one wants to spend double the price they paid on a laptop just to get the thing fixed.
I can't believe you come in here talking about how the "smugness" of the apple store and repair shops drove you away when you won't even accept a used part for 1/12th the price you were quoted. Buy the part used or go call Dell to ask them how much the same job would cost through them on a $400 laptop (pick a Vostro 1000) to replace with a brand new plastic case.
You'll soon find how much of a bargain you're receiving when you're only paying $600 out of $2,000 as opposed to $300 (just made up a number, the job could cost more or maybe even less but paying less is doubtful) out of $400.
It's even more of a bargain when you realize the $400 laptop barely meets the system requirements of the OS it's running (Windows Vista.)
I wanted one bad too. Now I wish I didn't pay the premium when I discovered just how easily the case of my MacBook Pro is damaged. I have three dents including on that has rendered my optical drive unusable. I paid $2000 for a laptop that is not as durable as advertised.
What the hell did you drop your laptop on that it has three dents? You can possibly dent the corners if you drop it onto a hard enough surface, although I have a MacBook Pro and it fell on the top left corner of the LCD. It was a 3' fall onto brick and the laptop is fine except for a scratch where it contacted the brick (girlfriend placed the laptop half on a table and her cat jumped on the part hanging over the table, caused it to fall over onto the brick.)
Besides, be glad your laptop still works, people drop their plastic laptops all the time and the plastic flexes (or cracks.) Since it's attached firmly to the motherboard, the motherboard can't handle the stress so it snaps (not fully but enough to create a short, I've seen it happen a lot.) Then they're out the price of a new motherboard which can easily cost $700-$1000 for a laptop.
Or another thing that happens, pieces start flying off the plastic laptops. Drop it on a hard surface and the whole shell cracks, sometimes the LCD hinges break and your LCD no longer stays up, or you drop it on your power connection, well that snaps the DC jack right off the motherboard and you need to either replace the motherboard or solder on a new DC jack. With an apple the power connection disconnects itself easily so you don't run into that problem, plus you'll never need to worry that the connection is going to get worn out from being plugged in/unplugged so many times.
As far as the price of the repair is concerned, well that's standard pricing for a laptop being "officially" repaired. The parts are very expensive from the manufacturer. You can find a shop that will get the part off ebay and repair it for ~$200. Or if you really need to, try and repair the bottom yourself.
Perhaps the problem itself needs to be restated: Allow accounts to legitimate users, deny accounts to spammers. Whether or not there is a human involved on either end seems irrelevant.
- Wyck
Oh of course, so instead of CAPTCHAs they'll just have the question "Are you a spammer? [yes|no]"?
If you determine it's a computer signing up for an account you're almost guaranteed it's a spammer. If you've determined the user is a human then there is no way to tell if their a spammer until they've started spamming. Perhaps you can block people by IP but I've noticed that often does a lot more harm than good.
Why should spammers be treated differently? You know justice is supposed to be blind, if they prosecute all spammers who perjure in court then they must prosecute EVERYONE who perjures in court. That means if little ol' grandma is getting sued by the RIAA and she says "I never downloaded any music!" but the RIAA produces some log from an ISP showing that her niece e-mailed her some Britney Spears song, well we'd have to persecute grandma for perjury. Judges don't generally want to do that to everyone and need to use their own judgment on how to treat the perjury.
You can't just ask the judges to be extra harsh on spammers. You'd first need to define what a spammer is. What if I have a huge mailing list of people that opted in and send out mass mails to everyone on the list? Well what if someone on the list forgets that they opted in? What if someone lost their domain name, then someone else takes it over and now they're getting my e-mails. That person didn't opt in am I now a spammer for sending them unsolicited mail? Well the Jehova's Witnesses make unsolicited visits to my house early in the morning, should we also prosecute them every time they perjure in court?
Perjury is a crime, but the judge has to make the final decision on whether or not to prosecute the perjurer, that decision should not be based on what the person is being accused of doing.
And if the job is not available, then what? As they say in baghdad: ahlan wa sahlan, mother fucker.
Then nothing, that's the point of the contract, if the job isn't available you're not required to stay.
It's too bad these positions will, most definitely, be filled by military personnel. This would be a fun job to have for sure.
You know all military personnel started off as civilians right? Go talk to an Air Force recruiter, find out what MOS it is then tell them that's the job you want. Score high enough on the ASVAB and you've got it. You can actually sign a contract with them that would guarantee you get this job (as long as it's available.) Once you get out of basic (it's the Air Force, the basic training is like a spa treatment compared to the other services) they provide all the MOS training free of charge.
Anyway that's just my suggestion, there's a good chance you'd get the job too considering the fact that most people who join the Air Force want to be pilots or mechanics, this wouldn't be one of their most requested jobs.
The problem is that there is no reason to assume that just because a machine is making a DNS query it intends opening a TCP connection to port 80 (or 443).
Even if the hostname starts with www ?
Yes, www doesn't mean anything. Someone might want their mail server to use www.somedomain.com where somedomain.com by itself goes somewhere entirely different.
I find it a bit weird that so many people bitch a blue streak all day long about how much "Apple sucks"until they have a chance to run OS X on a PC. Then it's like "kewl dewd, I can't wait to do that!". What's up with that?
Apple sells very expensive hardware. Previously when it was all PowerPC they could justify this by saying "Well you can't compare the PowerPC to a x86 chip it's just not the same and you just don't get it!" Now that they're using Intel chips it's much easier to point out how much the hardware is being marked up for two similarly equipped computers.
Plus they have a complete lack of choice, you can either have some cookie cutter mac mini, an imac, or a customizable (in the sense that you can replace the video card or install some other PCI cards) Mac Pro for the low low price of $2,300...
Oh you don't want a quad core intel xeon system? Well go with the imac... Oh you want something a little more powerful than an imac without the cost of the Mac Pro? Sucks for you...
The only reason I actually own a mac is because I want to use some of the software you can only use on a Mac (really it's only aperture, lightroom just doesn't do it for me.) I ended up buying a MacBook Pro for $2,200 but I could have an equally powerful PC for $1,500. Unfortunately the PC won't nicely run Mac OS X and I'm not really in the mood to try and shoehorn the software onto a PC, so instead I go with the mac.
It's not a terrible computer, in fact I think it's a great computer, it has great software on it but the lack of hardware choices are what kill it.
So two years after Apple brought out those commercials, Microsoft makes "parodies" that are lamer than any parodies that could be found on YouTube 2 years ago?
I didn't say the COMMERCIAL is a parody, I was countering the argument that the guy was a stereotype. He's Apple's stereotype and Microsoft is parodying the character for the purpose of the commercial... jeez.
The purpose of John Hodgman was not to "stereotype" PC users.
Are you kidding me? They have the slightly overweight balding guy in an old suit being a PC, and you don't think that's stereotyping? Sure, the Mac commercials went over other things too, but saying there wasn't any stereotyping going on is just silly. Maybe you should read my sig.
It's called parody, they are trying to imitate the guy from the Apple commercials.
That's great if you're fine with playing it in a few days, or maybe your torrent performance is always fantastic on all torrents. I grabbed the torrent of Spore, and after waiting for several hours while doing other stuff, it was still at 1% or so (I was averaging under 5kbps - yes, my settings are fine, other torrents can zip right along).
I officially pre-ordered spore a few days before it came out, it let me download 99% of the game but not install. I wanted to play right then, so I looked on TPB, found a torrent, downloaded it that day in a little longer than the official version from EA took (about 5 hours.) So rather than wait a few days for the game to be out in the US and have EA send me that one last MB worth of data, I pirated the game and didn't have to worry about any DRM (which I then installed on my work computer, and my home computer, I'd install it on my powerbook as well but I don't have Leopard.)