I dunno. You could rent a computer somewhere, or borrow one. You know where I could get a Corvette to try it our for a few weeks before I decide if I like it? Or actually, know where I can get some beer to try out to see if I like it? There's this new beer that I want to try, but it's $2/bottle, and it only comes in cases of 12. Shouldn't I be entitled to be able to just "try" the beer first?
Slashdot analogy is always bad, but those last
couple have prompted me to call the analogy
police.
Re:Certainly radical...
on
More on Longhorn
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sorry but thats a horrible idea. Especially since it's microsoft.
If any company is capable of doing this right now
it is Microsoft. The idea has a certain charm, it is
a logical extension of components and virtual
machines.
Microsoft engineers don't seem able to program their way out of a wet paper sack, let alone implement security features.
Individual programmers at MS probably have the
same skill levels as those at any software company. The ad-hoc feature growth of many MS
products is likely the cause of most of the security problems (and many stability problems
as well).
thats fine. if the best i can get is 56k, then why have dsl? why not cut the $60 extra a month and use a modem? i mean really, do you expect people to keep paying for dsl when they are not really _getting_ it-it being the advantage of faster transfer rates.
I expect to see the standard deal being something
like "phone + 768kbps dl + 128 kbps ul + 5 gB/month"
for $80. The exact deal will be different, but I
expect it will be the only reasonably priced
option.
maby i'll go back to isdn:).
There may be some modern equivalent of
isdn for those willing to pay for sync rates,
static ip, bulk transfers, unfiltered access,
but it will be out of the reach of Jimmy and Jeannie Filesharer.
I don't think betamax^Wisdn^Wdsl will be around
much longer:). I have had isdn and dsl and the
LECs have killed both with unreasonable pricing
and slow rollout.
well they can cap my upload speed at 128kb, since that is what i'm paying for. if i'm using 128kb up and they turn it down, i will just cancel and move over to stargate. they do this enough and they will loose alot of money. plus they will open them selves up to a class action suit since they were contracted to provide A and failed to provide A.
When some large
regional buys the isp that provides services you
want to purchase where will you go? Did you notice
all the DSL providers who were not former Bells
going under? Did you hear the wailing and gnashing
of teeth as cable company buyouts removed services
people were using?
this isnt whining. i'm simply paying for a service. if the choose not to provide it, i will move on to someone else.
Sure, market forces will save us. I don't want to
be rude, but consolidation will remove the
choices provided by an immature market. The
choice will be between "take it" or "leave it".
I get about 25 or so a day to my work account.
My email made a lot of lists because of internal
lists that were sold. This means that the scum
sending me email are somethimes able to make them
look like legitimate internal mail that I
cannot just delete.
There are spam filters on the exchange servers at
work, but they are very crude.
Spammers won't go away, so you better start adapting your life on the net to avoid them. Sometimes you have to blame yourself, because after all... you put yourself in that situation.
Would you continue to hold this position if
providers commonly added bandwidth caps?
Even if you trust your engineers implicitly, any good manager has to realise that developers love intellectual problems over more mundane tasks - and refactoring's biggest problem is that by design you end up looking like nothing happened.
Sometimes you can manage management expectations.
The next time they complain about the padding
you put on your time estimate, explain that the
reason it will take so long to add a feature is
that the code is brittle. That
makes the results of cleanup visible and makes it
clear that
you aren't just doing science fair stuff, but
solving an actual problem.
I'll take a *good* sitcom over Enterprise or
Firefly
any day. They don't take themselves too seriously,
you can miss episodes without getting lost, and
if you aren't careful - you just might learn
something.
Yeah, and in episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a (heh heh) magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
I'll field that one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a
man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time
watching a children's cartoon show?
and up you one with...
Now I'm not necessarily an-an aficionado necessarily of 'Lord of the Rings' but the elvish that was spoken at Imladris between Aragorn and Arwen Undomiel, the Evenstar of her people...?
I only hope they got around to hiring a script supervisor by the time they started shooting the footage for the second movie. LOTR was so full of inconsistencies it ALMOST detracted from the movie.
I think this must have happened while editing for
length was going on. The extended release is much
more coherent.
The wishy-washy, "Well in my opinion arson is kind of wrong, but I can see how some people feel good about it," thinking is dangerous. It leads to the ascension of those who don't believe in any right and wrong, such as the RIAA.
I agree that concrete standards for right and
wrong exist, and that wishy-washy handringing and
relativism are dangerous.
In small things we can
excuse behaviour because 'that is just his way',
'he meant well', 'too young to know better',
'insanity', or any other excuse you might come up
with. Depending on the scale of the crime
punishment may still
needed even if the excuse is accepted. If
this guy had voices in his head telling him to set
the fire his actions are still wrong. He might not
be responsible for those actions, but he still has
to be locked up and not released until he is
treated (part of which means showing true
remorse). If he did this for 'patriotic' reasons
then he should suffer severe punishment.
I know I'm offtopic here, but this whole idea is
tangled up with the 'patriotism vs. terrorism',
and 'personal freedom vs. protection of society'
that are playing out right now. RIAA and co. are
not the real danger here, they are just
opportunists.
You haven't lived until you get someone who not only doesn't understand anything about their computer, but doesn't speak English very well.
Most difficult I can remember is about 8 years ago
supporting "this new internet thing"
for
deaf customers using a teletype. Nice folks and
very appreciative that a service provider would
spend so much time with them. It took forever to
get anything done because the tt operator was
there as an additional layer of misunderstanding.
In Christensen's jargon, downloading music is a "disruptive technology" which will lead to a whole new market, dominated by new companies. The current media giants will disappear, just like the vacuum-tube manufacturers never made it in the chip business.
Or not. All the Internet companies
were going to change the world. How many of us
have worked for a company with a "be disruptive"
motto?
The big guys are bigger than they have ever been.
They can block the innovator till they can enter
the market or buy him outright.
... the idea that you can be a programmer/linux/mainframe person and know nothing about PC's.
Yes, you SHOULD be able to find the networking configuration of any GUI OS, for example. You SHOULD be able to take in the available information, formulate a theory, test the hypothesis and observe the results. You SHOULD be able to use whatever experience you do have, even if the situation is one you have not previously encountered.
The problem is that remote support takes a very specific set of skills. You might be able to
solve the problem if you can work with it
directly, but working via the "Aunt Sandy proxy"
is hell and will ruin your holiday.
My suggestion is that you only do phone support
for the family you like. You have to love them
all, but you don't have to like them all.
I soon found myself explaining to him that I was amazed that somebody so ignorant, arrogant and most of all retardedly stupid could become the principle of a high school. So I got suspended.
Since the 1970s much of US public school administration has come from
the Physical Education department. This kind of
idiocy by 'skool offal-shills' is much more common than you might think.
I'm surprised your principal had enough guts to
ask for your assistance when he needed it.
"Great evils befall the world when the powerful
begin to copy the weak. The desperate devices
which enable the weak to survive are unequaled
instruments of opression and extermination in
the hands of the strong."
Re:Wow. How disgusting ( -1 insensitive )
on
ALICE vs. ALICE
·
· Score: 1
The other few are usually completely overhyped and overreacting bitches like SlashChick here. And before you start; I know enough women IRL and online that aren't stuck-up overzealous feminists.
I didn't think she was stuck-up or arrogant
in her response. A bit overzealous, but hardly
"a bitch", especially considering that the post
she was responding to said that women are
all stupid, shallow, sluts.
I am not a feminist. I believe that
men should take the lead in family life and that
the difference between men and women are much
more than the result of socialization. I also
believe that women have every right to be offended
by "humor" like that which kicked off this thread.
Re:Wow. How disgusting ( -1 insensitive )
on
ALICE vs. ALICE
·
· Score: 1
Also, women overreact far too much, as proven by SlashChick (argueable) here.
arguable. Spelled wrong and applied incorrectly, SlashChick is female.
There may be something to that whole "men have
poor communications skills" thing...
Slashdot Mirror
Schizophrenic comes off his meds to become millitary consultant for humanity at peace.
The Ethics of Madness
Automatic medicator for a schizophrenic fails with hillarious results.
Seems like P.K. Dick did a couple stories that could be considered as source also.
Slashdot analogy is always bad, but those last couple have prompted me to call the analogy police.
If any company is capable of doing this right now it is Microsoft. The idea has a certain charm, it is a logical extension of components and virtual machines.
Microsoft engineers don't seem able to program their way out of a wet paper sack, let alone implement security features.
Individual programmers at MS probably have the same skill levels as those at any software company. The ad-hoc feature growth of many MS products is likely the cause of most of the security problems (and many stability problems as well).
I expect to see the standard deal being something like "phone + 768kbps dl + 128 kbps ul + 5 gB/month" for $80. The exact deal will be different, but I expect it will be the only reasonably priced option.
maby i'll go back to isdn :).
There may be some modern equivalent of isdn for those willing to pay for sync rates, static ip, bulk transfers, unfiltered access, but it will be out of the reach of Jimmy and Jeannie Filesharer.
I don't think betamax^Wisdn^Wdsl will be around much longer :). I have had isdn and dsl and the
LECs have killed both with unreasonable pricing
and slow rollout.
When some large regional buys the isp that provides services you want to purchase where will you go? Did you notice all the DSL providers who were not former Bells going under? Did you hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth as cable company buyouts removed services people were using?
this isnt whining. i'm simply paying for a service. if the choose not to provide it, i will move on to someone else.
Sure, market forces will save us. I don't want to be rude, but consolidation will remove the choices provided by an immature market. The choice will be between "take it" or "leave it".
There are spam filters on the exchange servers at work, but they are very crude.
Would you continue to hold this position if providers commonly added bandwidth caps?
Sometimes you can manage management expectations. The next time they complain about the padding you put on your time estimate, explain that the reason it will take so long to add a feature is that the code is brittle. That makes the results of cleanup visible and makes it clear that you aren't just doing science fair stuff, but solving an actual problem.
I love SF but I wish TV SciFi would just go away.
Over lunch we call these sort of conversations 'birth control' as they do much to ensure the participants don't breed. :)
I know you were joking and I was quoting.
http://www.tolkiensociety.org/faq01.html#elvish
http://www.elvish.org/
Elvish seems to be fairly acceptable. It's even in the jargon file somewhere. Now that's canon!
Yeah, and in episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a (heh heh) magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
I'll field that one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?
and up you one with...
Now I'm not necessarily an-an aficionado necessarily of 'Lord of the Rings' but the elvish that was spoken at Imladris between Aragorn and Arwen Undomiel, the Evenstar of her people...?
I think this must have happened while editing for length was going on. The extended release is much more coherent.
I agree that concrete standards for right and wrong exist, and that wishy-washy handringing and relativism are dangerous.
In small things we can excuse behaviour because 'that is just his way', 'he meant well', 'too young to know better', 'insanity', or any other excuse you might come up with. Depending on the scale of the crime punishment may still needed even if the excuse is accepted. If this guy had voices in his head telling him to set the fire his actions are still wrong. He might not be responsible for those actions, but he still has to be locked up and not released until he is treated (part of which means showing true remorse). If he did this for 'patriotic' reasons then he should suffer severe punishment.
I know I'm offtopic here, but this whole idea is tangled up with the 'patriotism vs. terrorism', and 'personal freedom vs. protection of society' that are playing out right now. RIAA and co. are not the real danger here, they are just opportunists.
You think your example of a grim future is bad? Try this
Most difficult I can remember is about 8 years ago supporting "this new internet thing" for deaf customers using a teletype. Nice folks and very appreciative that a service provider would spend so much time with them. It took forever to get anything done because the tt operator was there as an additional layer of misunderstanding.
Or not. All the Internet companies were going to change the world. How many of us have worked for a company with a "be disruptive" motto?
The big guys are bigger than they have ever been. They can block the innovator till they can enter the market or buy him outright.
Yes, you SHOULD be able to find the networking configuration of any GUI OS, for example. You SHOULD be able to take in the available information, formulate a theory, test the hypothesis and observe the results. You SHOULD be able to use whatever experience you do have, even if the situation is one you have not previously encountered.
The problem is that remote support takes a very specific set of skills. You might be able to solve the problem if you can work with it directly, but working via the "Aunt Sandy proxy" is hell and will ruin your holiday.
My suggestion is that you only do phone support for the family you like. You have to love them all, but you don't have to like them all.
Since the 1970s much of US public school administration has come from the Physical Education department. This kind of idiocy by 'skool offal-shills' is much more common than you might think.
I'm surprised your principal had enough guts to ask for your assistance when he needed it.
Patches and upgrades for bugs are much easier to apply than hotfixes that require you to change the way you use the product.
"Great evils befall the world when the powerful begin to copy the weak. The desperate devices which enable the weak to survive are unequaled instruments of opression and extermination in the hands of the strong."
I didn't think she was stuck-up or arrogant in her response. A bit overzealous, but hardly "a bitch", especially considering that the post she was responding to said that women are all stupid, shallow, sluts.
I am not a feminist. I believe that men should take the lead in family life and that the difference between men and women are much more than the result of socialization. I also believe that women have every right to be offended by "humor" like that which kicked off this thread.
arguable. Spelled wrong and applied incorrectly, SlashChick is female.
There may be something to that whole "men have poor communications skills" thing...
Probably more familiar to most as the 80/20 rule.
Amdahl is probably more familiar as diminishing returns.