I always thought it was strange to have a federal agency dedicated to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Other than being a part of any good camping trip, what do these three items have in common?
I've found that people who don't like html email would prefer it if people would just attach.doc files.
(I'm joking)
Anyway- email is about communicating and if a little markup helps communicate, then why hold back? The text-only email advocates are a vocal minority. Probably the same people who get their panties in a bunch over the evolution of the word "hacker".
How is DSL different from dial-up or cable? You can plug any modem into a UPS. So yeah- if the power goes down, you are still able to go online, but the clock is ticking...
I like TMDA and qconfirm, but they aren't solutions, they are stopgap measures.
What's the difference? If a stopgap measure becomes widely implemented, spammers will eventually give up. At that point it's a solution, no? Spammers are business people. If costs exceed revenue, then what's the motivation to send the next 200 million emails?
It sounds like some of my worries are a little justified.
MoinMoin is a Python wiki and it runs just about anywhere. Not sure how the feature set compares to OpenWiki, but it seems to be relatively complete, widely used, and actively developed.
On my machine MySQL is the backend database and I suppose it would also be easy to migrate. Unfortunately, I don't know a damned thing about MySQL. It's definitely not as new-user-friendly as Access is.
I'll probably give the wiki another go, but I'm still not really sure what a good way to organize my info would be. Guess free form is as good as any for now...
I tried this for a little while too and I ended up abandoning it.
I keep my notes in a plain text file. It's browsable and searchable with no overhead.
There were a few things that made me uncomfortable about the wiki (moinmoin). 1) I was never quite sure how to back it up (or restore it). 2) I couldn't figure out if I would be able to move to a different wiki later if moinmoin became abondonware. 3) The camel-caps for topic headings conflicted too much with notes about source code. When I read a page, a lot of variable names were underlined in red signifying that they were a link to nowhere. It was tedious to have to re-edit a page to shut that off.
I would be interested though in a more detailed description of how you are using the wiki.
Why is a regulation like this even necessary? Why not do the traditional thing like evaluate competing solutions on their relative merits (initial software cost being only one of the factors). I could understand requiring all data to be stored by default in an open format, but a single-vendor ban is silly.
I signed up for Vonage and ended up cancelling it after about two weeks. The sound quality was fine, the features were excellent and the price was great. Unfortunately, the latency sucked. Small pauses between sentences made talking on the service very uncomfortable.
I used it through my Comcast cable modem. I may try the service again next year after I move.
The Command Line Interface (CLI) may scare off new users, but it offers endless scripting and batching capabilities for programs (and smooth IPC).
I think in some ways, Windows manages to out-Unix Unix. For example, I find Windows programs to be much more scriptable than their Unix counterparts.
I'm talking mostly about OLE automation. For example, it's pretty easy to write a batch file drives any of the Office suite. Can you drive OpenOffice in a similar fashion?
-ec
It all depends on your point of view (producer or consumer) and how wide you want to cast your definition of good and bad. What may be good for a small group of people, may be bad for society as a whole.
It's also hard to universally condemn piracy, or rather infringement of copyright or patent. For example, there are some very poor nations that violate the patents held by drug makers to make medicine available to their (mostly) poor population.
RC Cola is Coke. Coke/Pepsi/RC Cola are all pretty much the same thing. Clever marketing has led to insanely strong opinions formed on relatively trivial differences.
Starbucks may be cheap coffee, but they are also incredibly successful. Part of that is due to their coffee, but I would bet much is due to savy marketing and carefully designed stores.
I signed up for Vonage and ended up canceling about two weeks later. I love the idea and the price is excellent, but the network latency killed it. Even though the pauses between sentences were very short, people seem to be very sensitive to them. Everybody I spoke to on the phone asked me if there was something wrong with my phone.
When I returned the equipment and they asked me why, I told them it was like using a crappy cell phone. I was hoping for something as good as or better than my land line and sadly, it isn't available yet.
That's not a good assumption to make for these types of programs. Many times the state and charitable foundations provide a great deal of funding to launch a program such as this. I have no idea where the money is coming from (and I don't think you know either) but I wouldn't assume that it will lead hardship. This may be a case where they were offered a deal that is too good to pass up.
Who said anything about notebooks being a solution? Educators generally know there are no silver bullet solutions and it would be foolish to think otherwise.
I would guess that these machines are going to be used exactly as you suggest- as educational tools.
NBC altering programming to fsck with PVR owners
on
TV's Tipping Point
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· Score: 1
I can't find to original article, but I remember reading that NBC is altering the start times of some of it's lineup to odd times like 8:34 to mess with Tivo owners. When different networks choose unconvential start times, shows overlap each other by a few mintues and PVR's end up recording fewer competing shows.
Re:Television ROTS brains.
on
TV's Tipping Point
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I was also getting tired of the commercials, so I picked up a Tivo. Now I find that I watch less TV than ever. I never worry about catching something live, because Tivo will record it and I'll just watch it later. Except, I rarely end up going back to watch it.
As for your comment about children- well watching TV or having a full life is a false dichotomy. I have a two year old who has a few TV programs that she likes to watch (Sesame Street, Dora, Oswald). She also loves to look at books, play with playdoh, color, play with with her toys, sing, run around, etc... She has an incredibly full live and TV is a part of it.
Unfortunately, we are not all as well educated as you. When I go to a museum, I always pick up one of the audio tour guides when they are available. It lets me tour the museum as slowly as I want and tells me lots of interesting stuff about what I'm looking at. Before I moved, I used to just take along a friend who happened to have a degree in art history and she would clue me in. Do you also get annoyed by people around you talking about the exhibits?
Any orchestra concert I've been to has always had a paper concert guide available. It seems like this is a natural evolution of that idea. I'm obviously one of the stupid people you talk about because I think a synchronized electronic concert guide that explained what I was listening to would make the experience more enjoyable for me.
Like it or not, most of us are the stupid people that you are so annoyed by. I say if this makes art more accessible, then bring it on. Why should art and music be reserved only for you and your elite friends?
Slashdot Mirror
According to http://www.tsa.dot.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Permi tted_Prohibited.doc, you cannot take lighter fluid or other flammable liquid fuel on a plane either in carry-on or checked luggage.
ec
I always thought it was strange to have a federal agency dedicated to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Other than being a part of any good camping trip, what do these three items have in common?
I've found that people who don't like html email would prefer it if people would just attach .doc files.
(I'm joking)
Anyway- email is about communicating and if a little markup helps communicate, then why hold back? The text-only email advocates are a vocal minority. Probably the same people who get their panties in a bunch over the evolution of the word "hacker".
How is DSL different from dial-up or cable? You can plug any modem into a UPS. So yeah- if the power goes down, you are still able to go online, but the clock is ticking...
I just tried this with Notepad under XP and it does not insert carriage returns. When I changed the window shape, the text reflowed nicely.
Can't comment on earlier versions...
What's the difference? If a stopgap measure becomes widely implemented, spammers will eventually give up. At that point it's a solution, no? Spammers are business people. If costs exceed revenue, then what's the motivation to send the next 200 million emails?
It sounds like some of my worries are a little justified.
MoinMoin is a Python wiki and it runs just about anywhere. Not sure how the feature set compares to OpenWiki, but it seems to be relatively complete, widely used, and actively developed.
On my machine MySQL is the backend database and I suppose it would also be easy to migrate. Unfortunately, I don't know a damned thing about MySQL. It's definitely not as new-user-friendly as Access is.
I'll probably give the wiki another go, but I'm still not really sure what a good way to organize my info would be. Guess free form is as good as any for now...
Thanks for the insights.
-ec
I tried this for a little while too and I ended up abandoning it.
I keep my notes in a plain text file. It's browsable and searchable with no overhead.
There were a few things that made me uncomfortable about the wiki (moinmoin).
1) I was never quite sure how to back it up (or restore it).
2) I couldn't figure out if I would be able to move to a different wiki later if moinmoin became abondonware.
3) The camel-caps for topic headings conflicted too much with notes about source code. When I read a page, a lot of variable names were underlined in red signifying that they were a link to nowhere. It was tedious to have to re-edit a page to shut that off.
I would be interested though in a more detailed description of how you are using the wiki.
-ec
Why is a regulation like this even necessary? Why not do the traditional thing like evaluate competing solutions on their relative merits (initial software cost being only one of the factors). I could understand requiring all data to be stored by default in an open format, but a single-vendor ban is silly.
I signed up for Vonage and ended up cancelling it after about two weeks. The sound quality was fine, the features were excellent and the price was great. Unfortunately, the latency sucked. Small pauses between sentences made talking on the service very uncomfortable.
I used it through my Comcast cable modem. I may try the service again next year after I move.
I think in some ways, Windows manages to out-Unix Unix. For example, I find Windows programs to be much more scriptable than their Unix counterparts.
I'm talking mostly about OLE automation. For example, it's pretty easy to write a batch file drives any of the Office suite. Can you drive OpenOffice in a similar fashion?
-ec
It all depends on your point of view (producer or consumer) and how wide you want to cast your definition of good and bad. What may be good for a small group of people, may be bad for society as a whole.
It's also hard to universally condemn piracy, or rather infringement of copyright or patent. For example, there are some very poor nations that violate the patents held by drug makers to make medicine available to their (mostly) poor population.
but hopefully you get my point anyway...
Do you really doubt that people confuse the two? Presented with no context, the word pirate is ambiguous. But then, so is the word pitch.
If nobody but your boss ever sees you, then I agree.
A companies dress code is a way for the company to express a certain aesthetic. Why does your right of self-expression supersede the companies?
RC Cola is Coke. Coke/Pepsi/RC Cola are all pretty much the same thing. Clever marketing has led to insanely strong opinions formed on relatively trivial differences.
Starbucks may be cheap coffee, but they are also incredibly successful. Part of that is due to their coffee, but I would bet much is due to savy marketing and carefully designed stores.
Why not just turn your case around?
I have no problems with skins on fluff apps (entertainment related) but most things I would prefer to be consistent with other apps.
Of course, the problem is creating a universally appealing interface. It's not possible and skins are one way to address the issue.
I signed up for Vonage and ended up canceling about two weeks later. I love the idea and the price is excellent, but the network latency killed it. Even though the pauses between sentences were very short, people seem to be very sensitive to them. Everybody I spoke to on the phone asked me if there was something wrong with my phone.
When I returned the equipment and they asked me why, I told them it was like using a crappy cell phone. I was hoping for something as good as or better than my land line and sadly, it isn't available yet.
-ec
Because Apple's scheme has a better balance between consumer and producer rights. Maybe not ideal, but better than many of their competitors.
That's not a good assumption to make for these types of programs. Many times the state and charitable foundations provide a great deal of funding to launch a program such as this. I have no idea where the money is coming from (and I don't think you know either) but I wouldn't assume that it will lead hardship. This may be a case where they were offered a deal that is too good to pass up.
Who said anything about notebooks being a solution? Educators generally know there are no silver bullet solutions and it would be foolish to think otherwise.
I would guess that these machines are going to be used exactly as you suggest- as educational tools.
I can't find to original article, but I remember reading that NBC is altering the start times of some of it's lineup to odd times like 8:34 to mess with Tivo owners. When different networks choose unconvential start times, shows overlap each other by a few mintues and PVR's end up recording fewer competing shows.
I was also getting tired of the commercials, so I picked up a Tivo. Now I find that I watch less TV than ever. I never worry about catching something live, because Tivo will record it and I'll just watch it later. Except, I rarely end up going back to watch it.
As for your comment about children- well watching TV or having a full life is a false dichotomy. I have a two year old who has a few TV programs that she likes to watch (Sesame Street, Dora, Oswald). She also loves to look at books, play with playdoh, color, play with with her toys, sing, run around, etc... She has an incredibly full live and TV is a part of it.
Unfortunately, we are not all as well educated as you. When I go to a museum, I always pick up one of the audio tour guides when they are available. It lets me tour the museum as slowly as I want and tells me lots of interesting stuff about what I'm looking at. Before I moved, I used to just take along a friend who happened to have a degree in art history and she would clue me in. Do you also get annoyed by people around you talking about the exhibits?
Any orchestra concert I've been to has always had a paper concert guide available. It seems like this is a natural evolution of that idea. I'm obviously one of the stupid people you talk about because I think a synchronized electronic concert guide that explained what I was listening to would make the experience more enjoyable for me.
Like it or not, most of us are the stupid people that you are so annoyed by. I say if this makes art more accessible, then bring it on. Why should art and music be reserved only for you and your elite friends?