Buying anything with an LCD display has been a pain in the arse for about twenty years now... haven't you developed a callus back there yet?
You might think, after more than twenty years on the market and continual development and tweaking, that shortcomings like dead/stuck pixels would have been eliminated outright, but here we are still griping about them. How can this BE, when technology is supposed to solve all?
Not necessarily: as you hinted, what he's done for a living ain't exactly rocket science, and in fact the two are probably exclusive most of the time (targeted best use of limited genetic resources, ya know).
As the Darwin Awards remind us, just because there's a lot riding on people making intelligent choices - like staying alive - doesn't mean they actually will make them.
... and use good old-fashioned violence. The effectiveness of physical violence in achieving goals is much underrated these days. I seem to recall the American Revolution involved a bit of violence, didn't it, and we trumpet the success and worthiness of that violence in every classroom in the country, right? A second revolution in these not-so-entirely-United States seems a bit overdue. We have more than a few barons and overlords and Captains of Industry just begging to be introduced to a guillotine. I think the folks in Texas would readily understand this notion that some people just need killin' (http://bennettandbennett.com/blog/2007/11/texas-murder-sentences-probation-to.html).
What sort of revolutionary vigilante violence might we visit upon the RIAA's clients and its sympathizers in Congress?
If we ever do actually bother colonizing space in a useful way, then at the very least there will have to be a "space police" force. All the possible scenarios have already been thoroughly examined over the decades in science fiction novels. The result might be national or corporate militia or something resembling a United Nations peacekeeper force. If we do nothing to debate it at an international or species level, it's a sure bet that the form it takes will look a lot like the first or second scenarios.
At least on paper, the steps the Obama administration is taking are the right ones to achieve something resembling the latter choice. Regardless, space WILL have to be militarized at least to the same degree as our infrastructure here on the ground. Common interests and infrastructure must be guarded and defended, and sadly that often requires force to accomplish. Can't be helped.
I just tried the AdImage site demo, using Slashdot filtered through it as suggested by someone else, and what I saw wasn't really anything new, per se. It also wasn't Flash, rather merely an image, so all you idiots proclaiming Flashblock etc. as solutions sound more like salesmen and pundits than experts.
It's like I said, though: EXISTING technologies can easily deal with these, with perhaps the limitation of a bit of site specific customization. How many people use the Element Hiding Helper adjunct to AdBlock Plus? That was able to remove the AdImage demo after a few seconds of filter creation.
That's the trick, here: it's the GENERALIZED solutions, like Element Hiding Helper, AdBlock Plus, Proxomitron, and Privoxy, that are going to be able to handle these in stride. They can adapt to deal with anything based in HTML (or that is wrapped in an HTML element). Sure, you might have to spend a few seconds or even minutes creating these filters, but then you're done (if you did it right).
And there's always the Final Solution, as suggested by someone else: just simply don't revisit sites that employ this disrespectful technique. They'll get the message eventually when their page hits decline precipitously.
I haven't seen one. Nevertheless, if there's (D)HTML involved, I'll wager that even the venerable old Proxomitron and Privoxy can deal with them (if they are capable of virtually rewriting pages to spec, then hell yeah). Perhaps the reason I haven't seen one is because the AdBlock Plus Firefox extension deals with them, too.
You do realize that is basically a business model doomed to failure, right? They need the revenue from upgrades to recoup the princely sum wasted on Vista. If people don't upgrade, there's no more revenue until after - they hope - the next version release. Sure, there is still a trickle of new sales, but it's the revenue from repeat business - the upgrades - that really keeps everything afloat.
This is precisely why software publishers are aggressively pushing "Web apps" and even universal thin clients again: it would guarantee no flakes who only pay once and then take the ball and go home. In a subscription model, people either pay them money every month/year, or they don't get to use the software, PERIOD. There's less accountability for bad design in that model.
Given the current software business model, it's VERY bad for business when customers hold developers accountable for mediocre upgrades and simply choose not to buy them. Amazingly, apparently a lot of people do in fact refuse, and hang onto their bucks until an upgrade is offered that provides features they actually want enough to pay for them. Don't believe me? Try asking Philippe Kahn about how it hurt his wallet when people ignored Borland's manic upgrades.
Besides, throwing a "real" fixed disk drive in the thing, even just having to add the electronics and space for one, would probably make the cost of it skyrocket even further. Your suggestion might qualify as feature creep.
Jeez... I have a Type II CF microdrive that's three times that capacity! Couldn't they just design it to accept any Flash media or microdrives? They're kinda reinventing that wheel again, only less round this time.
PopFile has an IMAP module now; I was already forwarding both POP3 and IMAP from GMail, so I've now transitioned PopFile to IMAP. There are certainly some growing pains and weirdness... like GMail now dropping spam into Trash instead of Spam! PopFile is doing a marginally successful job, though, so I hope I can figure out the rest and streamline it. Since it's IMAP and PopFile was able to monitor ANY IMAP folder for incoming, I didn't need to worry about GMail filters (though right now I have to manually drag the spam from Trash BACK into Spam for PopFile to see it).
The aliens had their own Peak Oil apocalypses and never found a magic bullet, so they ran out of energy to transmit their interstellar "Helloooo!" They had their 15 minutes of fame and then faded away.
I wonder if Slashdot should allow anonymous article submissions? Isn't it useful information to know if the submitter is also the subject of the article or its reference source? Shouldn't we be allowed to know that, so we can better judge the credibility of the article and its source(s)? Transparency is ALWAYS good.
What if the anonymous reader who submitted this was Roland P.? Wouldn't we wanna know that?
Haven't ya heard? They don't have to clone the whole hay-eating beast just for the meat any more. They just grow the meat in a ginormous petri dish. Some hunter might be missing out on the rush, but you still get yer tasty Ibex sirloin at Sizzler.
I meant it merely as a rhetorical example, of people who are so motivated to find or justify a particular thing that it will pervert how they interpret what they find or observe. That type of personality is not absent in scientific disciplines, though it certainly should be. It all hinges on whether and how much a person becomes emotionally invested in some idea or thing. Remember the story of the Piltdown Man hoax? Even after the hoax was revealed, there were some "scientists" who for a time stubbornly clung to its veracity. I have a hard time granting such a person the title of scientist at all.
Using bits of the ONLY remaining tissue of an extinct species doesn't sound like a particularly good way of simply pushing the cloning envelope: they could do that with tissue from any old LIVING species, couldn't they? I don't think your apology works; their goal is much more ambitious or they wouldn't squander that tissue. I stand by my original remarks.
I guess you have to find out the existential persuasions of the archaeologists before you can answer that question. If they lean at all toward the notion of "intelligent design", they might see evidence of some sort of design - humanoid in this case - everywhere they dig, whereas a strict naturalist might just see materials formed by unusual but nevertheless natural processes.
Skepticism and literalism are useful but much-maligned survival traits.
Slashdot Mirror
Well ranted, sir. You've saved me some typing.
Buying anything with an LCD display has been a pain in the arse for about twenty years now... haven't you developed a callus back there yet?
You might think, after more than twenty years on the market and continual development and tweaking, that shortcomings like dead/stuck pixels would have been eliminated outright, but here we are still griping about them. How can this BE, when technology is supposed to solve all?
Not necessarily: as you hinted, what he's done for a living ain't exactly rocket science, and in fact the two are probably exclusive most of the time (targeted best use of limited genetic resources, ya know).
As the Darwin Awards remind us, just because there's a lot riding on people making intelligent choices - like staying alive - doesn't mean they actually will make them.
... and use good old-fashioned violence. The effectiveness of physical violence in achieving goals is much underrated these days. I seem to recall the American Revolution involved a bit of violence, didn't it, and we trumpet the success and worthiness of that violence in every classroom in the country, right? A second revolution in these not-so-entirely-United States seems a bit overdue. We have more than a few barons and overlords and Captains of Industry just begging to be introduced to a guillotine. I think the folks in Texas would readily understand this notion that some people just need killin' (http://bennettandbennett.com/blog/2007/11/texas-murder-sentences-probation-to.html).
What sort of revolutionary vigilante violence might we visit upon the RIAA's clients and its sympathizers in Congress?
If we ever do actually bother colonizing space in a useful way, then at the very least there will have to be a "space police" force. All the possible scenarios have already been thoroughly examined over the decades in science fiction novels. The result might be national or corporate militia or something resembling a United Nations peacekeeper force. If we do nothing to debate it at an international or species level, it's a sure bet that the form it takes will look a lot like the first or second scenarios.
At least on paper, the steps the Obama administration is taking are the right ones to achieve something resembling the latter choice. Regardless, space WILL have to be militarized at least to the same degree as our infrastructure here on the ground. Common interests and infrastructure must be guarded and defended, and sadly that often requires force to accomplish. Can't be helped.
I just tried the AdImage site demo, using Slashdot filtered through it as suggested by someone else, and what I saw wasn't really anything new, per se. It also wasn't Flash, rather merely an image, so all you idiots proclaiming Flashblock etc. as solutions sound more like salesmen and pundits than experts.
It's like I said, though: EXISTING technologies can easily deal with these, with perhaps the limitation of a bit of site specific customization. How many people use the Element Hiding Helper adjunct to AdBlock Plus? That was able to remove the AdImage demo after a few seconds of filter creation.
That's the trick, here: it's the GENERALIZED solutions, like Element Hiding Helper, AdBlock Plus, Proxomitron, and Privoxy, that are going to be able to handle these in stride. They can adapt to deal with anything based in HTML (or that is wrapped in an HTML element). Sure, you might have to spend a few seconds or even minutes creating these filters, but then you're done (if you did it right).
And there's always the Final Solution, as suggested by someone else: just simply don't revisit sites that employ this disrespectful technique. They'll get the message eventually when their page hits decline precipitously.
I haven't seen one. Nevertheless, if there's (D)HTML involved, I'll wager that even the venerable old Proxomitron and Privoxy can deal with them (if they are capable of virtually rewriting pages to spec, then hell yeah). Perhaps the reason I haven't seen one is because the AdBlock Plus Firefox extension deals with them, too.
You do realize that is basically a business model doomed to failure, right? They need the revenue from upgrades to recoup the princely sum wasted on Vista. If people don't upgrade, there's no more revenue until after - they hope - the next version release. Sure, there is still a trickle of new sales, but it's the revenue from repeat business - the upgrades - that really keeps everything afloat.
This is precisely why software publishers are aggressively pushing "Web apps" and even universal thin clients again: it would guarantee no flakes who only pay once and then take the ball and go home. In a subscription model, people either pay them money every month/year, or they don't get to use the software, PERIOD. There's less accountability for bad design in that model.
Given the current software business model, it's VERY bad for business when customers hold developers accountable for mediocre upgrades and simply choose not to buy them. Amazingly, apparently a lot of people do in fact refuse, and hang onto their bucks until an upgrade is offered that provides features they actually want enough to pay for them. Don't believe me? Try asking Philippe Kahn about how it hurt his wallet when people ignored Borland's manic upgrades.
Two possible words: power consumption.
Besides, throwing a "real" fixed disk drive in the thing, even just having to add the electronics and space for one, would probably make the cost of it skyrocket even further. Your suggestion might qualify as feature creep.
At a puny capacity of 2GB, you'll have to take three.
Jeez... I have a Type II CF microdrive that's three times that capacity! Couldn't they just design it to accept any Flash media or microdrives? They're kinda reinventing that wheel again, only less round this time.
PopFile has an IMAP module now; I was already forwarding both POP3 and IMAP from GMail, so I've now transitioned PopFile to IMAP. There are certainly some growing pains and weirdness... like GMail now dropping spam into Trash instead of Spam! PopFile is doing a marginally successful job, though, so I hope I can figure out the rest and streamline it. Since it's IMAP and PopFile was able to monitor ANY IMAP folder for incoming, I didn't need to worry about GMail filters (though right now I have to manually drag the spam from Trash BACK into Spam for PopFile to see it).
Ain't spam and technology fun?
If you're old enough to ask that question and be dreaming of netbooks, I think you can change your own damned diapers, young man!
So you mean I have to get addicted to coffee before I can buy this printer...?
The aliens had their own Peak Oil apocalypses and never found a magic bullet, so they ran out of energy to transmit their interstellar "Helloooo!" They had their 15 minutes of fame and then faded away.
The fact that he's dead might - just might - stop him.
I'm in a different subspecies, though, something like H. sapiens vulcanii. Can we split the difference and just say I meant H. sapiens sp.?
(I knew he was dead... I was making a point with humor.)
See, I would, too! A dead guy submitting articles would be actual news. We might have to question the articles a bit more, too.
I wonder if Slashdot should allow anonymous article submissions? Isn't it useful information to know if the submitter is also the subject of the article or its reference source? Shouldn't we be allowed to know that, so we can better judge the credibility of the article and its source(s)? Transparency is ALWAYS good.
What if the anonymous reader who submitted this was Roland P.? Wouldn't we wanna know that?
Haven't ya heard? They don't have to clone the whole hay-eating beast just for the meat any more. They just grow the meat in a ginormous petri dish. Some hunter might be missing out on the rush, but you still get yer tasty Ibex sirloin at Sizzler.
I meant it merely as a rhetorical example, of people who are so motivated to find or justify a particular thing that it will pervert how they interpret what they find or observe. That type of personality is not absent in scientific disciplines, though it certainly should be. It all hinges on whether and how much a person becomes emotionally invested in some idea or thing. Remember the story of the Piltdown Man hoax? Even after the hoax was revealed, there were some "scientists" who for a time stubbornly clung to its veracity. I have a hard time granting such a person the title of scientist at all.
Ummm... Billy Crystal wasn't in it. I don't think Billy Crystal was even acting in 1972. It was not a comedy about a guy with bad diarrhea problems.
I am saddened by your response. Please search mininova.org for it, get it, and learn, my young padawan. Huey, Louie, and Dewey will help.
Using bits of the ONLY remaining tissue of an extinct species doesn't sound like a particularly good way of simply pushing the cloning envelope: they could do that with tissue from any old LIVING species, couldn't they? I don't think your apology works; their goal is much more ambitious or they wouldn't squander that tissue. I stand by my original remarks.
I guess you have to find out the existential persuasions of the archaeologists before you can answer that question. If they lean at all toward the notion of "intelligent design", they might see evidence of some sort of design - humanoid in this case - everywhere they dig, whereas a strict naturalist might just see materials formed by unusual but nevertheless natural processes.
Skepticism and literalism are useful but much-maligned survival traits.