True as this may be, I don't understand why someone 'must' trade-mark the name of an animal or any other word in the dictionary.
With the English language for a 5 letter word you can have:
26! x 26! x 26! x 26! x 26! different combinations. (think the math is right...) True some might not make any sense, but there are more combinations than words in the dictionary.
Pepsi, Duracell, Memorex, D-Link are all trademarked names that you won't find in the dictionary (other than to define the company itself.
I've purchased over 250 CDs. I admit I've downloaded a few song here and there. If I haven't purchased the album afterwards its only because: 1) it was the only good song 2) the whole CD is too expensive (older ones are sometimes $25) or impossible to find; 3) they weren't listed on iTunes last I looked; 4) I listen to the song so rarely, I'd never buy it anyways. As well, with increasing copy protection on CDs that I've purchased I often find I have to download the album so that I can transfer it to my MP3 player.
But so long as the Martin and Chretien liberals and all their little servants can rip us -the taxpayer- of millions of dollars and most (or all) will never face a jail sentence or have to pay back what they stole then I don't give a damn about the music idustry. There should be one law for everyone.
Wing Commander 2 was the best of the series. It broke the modern-video game industry (esp. if you bought the speech pack).
The system requiements were really high, the graphics were awesome, the interactivity (and changes in story line as you progressed were somewhat unheard of). I remember as a kid saving up to buy the first soundcard in my PC just so I could buy the speech pack and play.
Of the modern games which are listed, I must agree - Legend of Zelda Ocarina in Time is probably the greatest game made. Dare, I say, one of the best made in the last 10 years!
1) Through there are obvious ethical questions, what legal responsibilities are their for scientits domestically and under international law to protect the public from releasing (intentionally or unintentionally) these types of strains.
My hope is that the scientist(s) responsible for this accident, are at least, fined for this incident. I hope if there is gross incompetence, that they not work as a scientist in a medical facility ever again.
2) If this is such a dangerous flu virus, and it hasn't been innoculated against since 1957 or 1960, why were the innoculations stopped?
I think its similar to small pox, where unfortunately, it was supposed to be "destroyed". But like nuclear weapons, its a "Well, if you're keeping it, so are we." mentality.
3) After seeing problems with SARS evolve internationnaly (particually where I live, in Canada) what measures are being taken to seclude and isolate potential travellers, who move about with flu-like symptoms?
I raised this with gov't officials at Health Canada about two years ago during the SARS. They said the airplanes were throughly 'cleaned' after each flight. How? When? With what? They really couldn't give me details... because they didn't have any. What about the U.S., Europe? The problem is international contamination of viruses now because almost any country is witin a 10 to 15 hour flight.
Fellowes Microban (Just click on "Accessories with Microban Protection" in Yellow towards the top left of the site).
Apparently products which have been treated with a chemical called "Microban" actually resists viruses and bacteria from contaminating the surfaces. Its been applied to keyboards, mice and mouse pads. Its not a surface treatment, rather, its been embedded into all the plastic so its doesn't wear or scratch off. The rep has said they're very popular in hospitals.
I would personally like to see Consumers Reports (or an independent scientific lab) actually try and report on the product. Until then, I'm still skeptical of how well it works.
(And I would really emphasize that I'm skeptical. The tests mentionned by Fellowes on their site were bought and paid for by Fellowes.)
How long before Wal-Mart and/or IKEA uses drilling holes through the Earth to reduce supply-chain management costs. I envision, there could be a hole going from China to California and/or Seattle.
How much heat can those RFID tags resist anyways??!
They might be "technology", but I think it is better to look at each item instead as infrastructure.
Computers thought are a different type of technology. They are a productivity tool. For most rural Indian workers, running a spreadsheet or word processor is hardly a needed commodity.
Plus computer users need to learn how to use the computer. Granted the one being sold to them is simplified. That also takes some of the purpose of usability out of the computer.
I saw a French research company that is making cars run off of compressed air. Using a Carbon-fibre based compressed air canister, the PSI in the tank is about around 3500 or 3800. There is enough air in the tank to drive about 130 to 180 km @ 60 KM/H.
This is really interesting. The technology is out now. And, AFAIK, this form of transportation is emmissionless.
Just as a curiosity, though, why type of hybrid technologies do we have for *airplanes*. Our economy relies so heavily on planes that we need to find alternatives. IANA-Engineer, but I doubt a 747 would run on solar.
1) People will always try to find shortcuts. By relying on a grammar checker, they will not re-read the document. Don't forget that grammar checkers will also probably not pick up on sentences that do not pick up on sentences which do not make any sense: "The car blew its nose." Gramatically correct but does not make sense.
2) Cultural bias. Suppose English isn't my first language, maybe its: French, Japanese or Swahili. Using my first language as a context, and Word as a reference point for grammar can cause problems. The sentence which may appear "correct" using similar grammar rules to my native language and according to Word maybe incorrect. This isn't to say that no one can write in more than one language fluently. Rather, we have to recognize it will happen.
A friend tried to convince me that Enlgish grammar will be picked up perfectly by a grammar checker in a few years. Not only am I still waiting, but I don't think it will happen for a long time (if ever). Too many rules, exceptions, etc have to be tabulated. It will probably require some for of advanced A.I. to do.
I agree with this as well. I went to work for a company and performed really well. The boss blew up on me one day, for several reasons (all of which I still believe clearly faulted *him*).
I left and looked for work afterwards (a mistake, I admit). I never said the boss was a jerk or hated working for him in the interviews.
Turns out the old boss kept complaining I was always really late. I didn't find out until I decided to have a friend call him up for a reference after a few weeks. I had several really good jobs lost because of him.
This is why I think its prudent to think one step ahead and get everything in writing. Especially, when you blame the old boss.
You mentionned getting other job offers. Get this "demand" of your boss in writing (the 6 weeks + on call stuff). I assume that this was never part of any contract you signed with the company.
The reason: when you go for the other job, they'll most likely ask for references. There is nothing worse than getting a bad reference, especially from your last employer. If he decides to say you left with little or no notice, you can show the new company that you gave two weeks which was plently, and his "real" demands were completely unreasonable.
Several years ago when only CD's were affordable, I had way too many CDs. Now I just take several CD's (and get rid of older programs in the process) and put as much of them on DVD.
Everything I install on my system (Windows, Office, etc) is all on one DVD. Much easier to store and recover data.
For important stuff (e.g. documents), I use WinRAR and add a recovery record and I use PAR to make an additional recovery record. Perhaps overkill, but I've found the smallest scratch can kill a CD or DVD.
The problem is "denser" media - movies, TV Shows, where one DVD won't foot the bill. I'd like to see Blue-Ray come out.
My ISP, Rogers Cable, in Canada has come up with a devious way of controlling VoIP.
Several competing firms offer VoIP in Canada. Rogers will introduce its VoIP service in the near future. In the interim, it has just introduced a bandwidth cap: [b]combined[/b] 60 GIG Up and Down. I think they timed it purposefully for this.
When its own VoIP service starts it will be on a different frequency then internet traffic. This doesn't 'eat up' your bandwidth. If you use a competing service, it will.
The CRTC in Canada (regulatory bureau) controls telephone service and is regulating Bell for VoIP. They can't see what Rogers is doing and won't stomp their foot on it.
I suppose their adivse (MS and the HW manufacturers) would be to back-up the data to CDs.
This would completely dodge the issue. If there is a HW key though and all your data is on the Hard drive and Windows crashes (suprise!). Assuming, that trusted computing stuff is turned on (wether willingly or not) will the data on the HDD be locked to the computer? It sounds all fine and great for large computer installtions w/ tape backup and such but for home computer users, many will probably lose data.
I've found that, with the exception of some J-POP, my music taste hasn't changed dramatically only diversified a bit.
I like maily rock, metal, blues, jazz and other misc types. I've found that using the Internet and P2P, I've been able to hear albums which are either really hard to find or that I would never have heard before. Simply using Amazon and looking at what other people have bought, I've found really helpful. When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.
I've also found that using internet radio, has been really helpful. Canadian radio stations suck because of CRTC regulations (and I can't get Satellite radio... though a US P.O. Box is tempting now...). Internet radio offers much more diversity in content.
Maybe its because I'm in Ottawa. Although, I've spoken with others in gov't across the country, and there are similar levels of ineptitude. The federal gov't in Ottawa, does pare as the worst. Unfortunate because as taxpayers, we have to pay for it all. Sigh.
I find most political activism emerges from political scandal. Most often are the scandals are completely blown out of proportion which is constructed by the media. Look at the "Sponsorship Scandal" is the bigger scandal not in the amount of money spent investigating this matter and the fact that people who lied, manipulated and stole money not going to prison?
We have too much of a passive attitude towards politics in our country. I'm probably being passive in saying this but here goes: If I can confirm this is true, I would write a letter to my MP, but I find many people in gov't don't "get" the issues. They're either too stupid, dodge the questions completely, don't understand the issues or pass the buck too often.
Instead of releasing an EP I to EP III box set since IV to VI are out.....
He can just save EVERYONE the pain and cut episodes I to III into ONE DVD-length movie. In fact, he can almost completely remove Anakin from the first movie (annoying), Jar Jar from I to III (I hope he dies a horrible, quick death) and make some other cuts to speed up the pace of the movies.
I think the kernel config as a whole needs a major revamp, or at least some of the things should be reworded and such. I've avoided the 2.6 kernel and use 2.4 because make menuconfig (yes, there's a plain text file too) because its too bloody confusing.
Before the X.org project, people complained 'X was slow'... and it has nothing to do with X protocol, its fine, blah, blah, blah. Whatever has been done with X.org makes X a lot faster now. I don't care of the technical details. With that attititude, nothing would ever have been done.
I think binary, closed source drivers should be allowed into the main kernel. Maybe it would make installing the ATI drivers and Nvidia drivers easier for the rest of us.
And I always get some RTFA jerk (there's plenty of nice people though). Perhaps, I've read as much as I can understand and can't use the same technical jargon. Maybe the documents (read: man pages) just aren't written very clearly.
I think what is killing Linux is the frequent changes to the way things are done (kernel, X) and a high threshold of learning which makes it too hard to convert to.
I'm comfortable enough using Slackware, but there is still a lot to be done before I replace Windows with Linux.
Sorry, if I sound too critical. I do not intend to be. Afterall, I know many contributors to the projects are doing it on unpaid, free time. You have as much of a right to your opinion, on how things "should be" as I do. If not more, since you're doing 'all the work';)
I am now a 4th year university student. I do not believe HS is irrelevant but major changes are needed.
I think two major changes are needed to the HS education system: a change in the science, math and english programs. (wait... that is most of the program).
When I left HS, I went to university in a science program. Boy, was it tough. I never expected university level biology to be so damn hard. Not only should they give some sense of how much work is expected in university in the HS program (the biology stuff was so easy for everyone, we never studied) they should also teach more advanced stuff. Same of chem and physics and math.
As for the enlgish program, Shakespeare is so engrained into the program, I find it will be next to impossible to remove. I think students, should instead, be assigned research papers in upper year (grade 12) where you cannot research on the Internet and should instead have to get academic sources (namely, books and journals). Had I actually done that in HS, I would never have read the Coles notes. What's worse is teachers always tell students not to read the Coles notes.... wait a minute... isn't this the first sign of disinterest??
I was being sarcastic. I've been using E16 for several years now. I was over-exagerating my criticism, because many criticise for less, over what is programmed by people in their spare time for free. Seesh!
(ficticious) but wouldn't be surprised to see this sometime soon:
A new video game for the US Army is being created by Electronic Arts.
After hearing of the news of having to develop yet another war game in a short time, many EA developers, artists and other staff have decided to enlist in the US Army. Reason: the pay is the same and the days are just as long.
Rasterman has completely missed the idea of an interactive desktop with this version of E17. The project with its vast arrary of libraries is missing one component: a true physics engine.
Let me illustrate: The desktop in one of the videos features a nice forest, full of trees and grass (things which easily catch fire). Suddenly, the bottom of his desktop catches fire. All at the same time some snow starts falling from the sky and some new trees suddenly "appear" on screen.
If there was a true interactive desktop, all the trees and grass would catch fire and the snow would slowly extinguish the fire. I'm disappointed. Until this is fixed, I refuse to use E17. I think it needs a physics engine.
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True as this may be, I don't understand why someone 'must' trade-mark the name of an animal or any other word in the dictionary.
With the English language for a 5 letter word you can have:
26! x 26! x 26! x 26! x 26! different combinations. (think the math is right...) True some might not make any sense, but there are more combinations than words in the dictionary.
Pepsi, Duracell, Memorex, D-Link are all trademarked names that you won't find in the dictionary (other than to define the company itself.
Why the lack of creativity?
I've purchased over 250 CDs. I admit I've downloaded a few song here and there. If I haven't purchased the album afterwards its only because: 1) it was the only good song 2) the whole CD is too expensive (older ones are sometimes $25) or impossible to find; 3) they weren't listed on iTunes last I looked; 4) I listen to the song so rarely, I'd never buy it anyways. As well, with increasing copy protection on CDs that I've purchased I often find I have to download the album so that I can transfer it to my MP3 player.
But so long as the Martin and Chretien liberals and all their little servants can rip us -the taxpayer- of millions of dollars and most (or all) will never face a jail sentence or have to pay back what they stole then I don't give a damn about the music idustry. There should be one law for everyone.
But there release software already is the beta!
Wing Commander 2 was the best of the series. It broke the modern-video game industry (esp. if you bought the speech pack).
The system requiements were really high, the graphics were awesome, the interactivity (and changes in story line as you progressed were somewhat unheard of). I remember as a kid saving up to buy the first soundcard in my PC just so I could buy the speech pack and play.
Of the modern games which are listed, I must agree - Legend of Zelda Ocarina in Time is probably the greatest game made. Dare, I say, one of the best made in the last 10 years!
1) Through there are obvious ethical questions, what legal responsibilities are their for scientits domestically and under international law to protect the public from releasing (intentionally or unintentionally) these types of strains.
... because they didn't have any. What about the U.S., Europe? The problem is international contamination of viruses now because almost any country is witin a 10 to 15 hour flight.
My hope is that the scientist(s) responsible for this accident, are at least, fined for this incident. I hope if there is gross incompetence, that they not work as a scientist in a medical facility ever again.
2) If this is such a dangerous flu virus, and it hasn't been innoculated against since 1957 or 1960, why were the innoculations stopped?
I think its similar to small pox, where unfortunately, it was supposed to be "destroyed". But like nuclear weapons, its a "Well, if you're keeping it, so are we." mentality.
3) After seeing problems with SARS evolve internationnaly (particually where I live, in Canada) what measures are being taken to seclude and isolate potential travellers, who move about with flu-like symptoms?
I raised this with gov't officials at Health Canada about two years ago during the SARS. They said the airplanes were throughly 'cleaned' after each flight. How? When? With what? They really couldn't give me details
This product might provide a solution.....
.
Fellowes Microban (Just click on "Accessories with Microban Protection" in Yellow towards the top left of the site).
Apparently products which have been treated with a chemical called "Microban" actually resists viruses and bacteria from contaminating the surfaces. Its been applied to keyboards, mice and mouse pads. Its not a surface treatment, rather, its been embedded into all the plastic so its doesn't wear or scratch off. The rep has said they're very popular in hospitals
I would personally like to see Consumers Reports (or an independent scientific lab) actually try and report on the product. Until then, I'm still skeptical of how well it works.
(And I would really emphasize that I'm skeptical. The tests mentionned by Fellowes on their site were bought and paid for by Fellowes.)
How long before Wal-Mart and/or IKEA uses drilling holes through the Earth to reduce supply-chain management costs. I envision, there could be a hole going from China to California and/or Seattle.
How much heat can those RFID tags resist anyways??!
They might be "technology", but I think it is better to look at each item instead as infrastructure.
Computers thought are a different type of technology. They are a productivity tool. For most rural Indian workers, running a spreadsheet or word processor is hardly a needed commodity.
Plus computer users need to learn how to use the computer. Granted the one being sold to them is simplified. That also takes some of the purpose of usability out of the computer.
I saw a French research company that is making cars run off of compressed air. Using a Carbon-fibre based compressed air canister, the PSI in the tank is about around 3500 or 3800. There is enough air in the tank to drive about 130 to 180 km @ 60 KM/H.
This is really interesting. The technology is out now. And, AFAIK, this form of transportation is emmissionless.
Just as a curiosity, though, why type of hybrid technologies do we have for *airplanes*. Our economy relies so heavily on planes that we need to find alternatives. IANA-Engineer, but I doubt a 747 would run on solar.
1) People will always try to find shortcuts. By relying on a grammar checker, they will not re-read the document. Don't forget that grammar checkers will also probably not pick up on sentences that do not pick up on sentences which do not make any sense: "The car blew its nose." Gramatically correct but does not make sense.
2) Cultural bias. Suppose English isn't my first language, maybe its: French, Japanese or Swahili. Using my first language as a context, and Word as a reference point for grammar can cause problems. The sentence which may appear "correct" using similar grammar rules to my native language and according to Word maybe incorrect. This isn't to say that no one can write in more than one language fluently. Rather, we have to recognize it will happen.
A friend tried to convince me that Enlgish grammar will be picked up perfectly by a grammar checker in a few years. Not only am I still waiting, but I don't think it will happen for a long time (if ever). Too many rules, exceptions, etc have to be tabulated. It will probably require some for of advanced A.I. to do.
I want my money first!
I agree with this as well. I went to work for a company and performed really well. The boss blew up on me one day, for several reasons (all of which I still believe clearly faulted *him*).
I left and looked for work afterwards (a mistake, I admit). I never said the boss was a jerk or hated working for him in the interviews.
Turns out the old boss kept complaining I was always really late. I didn't find out until I decided to have a friend call him up for a reference after a few weeks. I had several really good jobs lost because of him.
This is why I think its prudent to think one step ahead and get everything in writing. Especially, when you blame the old boss.
You mentionned getting other job offers. Get this "demand" of your boss in writing (the 6 weeks + on call stuff). I assume that this was never part of any contract you signed with the company.
The reason: when you go for the other job, they'll most likely ask for references. There is nothing worse than getting a bad reference, especially from your last employer. If he decides to say you left with little or no notice, you can show the new company that you gave two weeks which was plently, and his "real" demands were completely unreasonable.
I agree with this.
Several years ago when only CD's were affordable, I had way too many CDs. Now I just take several CD's (and get rid of older programs in the process) and put as much of them on DVD.
Everything I install on my system (Windows, Office, etc) is all on one DVD. Much easier to store and recover data.
For important stuff (e.g. documents), I use WinRAR and add a recovery record and I use PAR to make an additional recovery record. Perhaps overkill, but I've found the smallest scratch can kill a CD or DVD.
The problem is "denser" media - movies, TV Shows, where one DVD won't foot the bill. I'd like to see Blue-Ray come out.
My ISP, Rogers Cable, in Canada has come up with a devious way of controlling VoIP.
Several competing firms offer VoIP in Canada. Rogers will introduce its VoIP service in the near future. In the interim, it has just introduced a bandwidth cap: [b]combined[/b] 60 GIG Up and Down. I think they timed it purposefully for this.
When its own VoIP service starts it will be on a different frequency then internet traffic. This doesn't 'eat up' your bandwidth. If you use a competing service, it will.
The CRTC in Canada (regulatory bureau) controls telephone service and is regulating Bell for VoIP. They can't see what Rogers is doing and won't stomp their foot on it.
I suppose their adivse (MS and the HW manufacturers) would be to back-up the data to CDs.
This would completely dodge the issue. If there is a HW key though and all your data is on the Hard drive and Windows crashes (suprise!). Assuming, that trusted computing stuff is turned on (wether willingly or not) will the data on the HDD be locked to the computer? It sounds all fine and great for large computer installtions w/ tape backup and such but for home computer users, many will probably lose data.
I've found that, with the exception of some J-POP, my music taste hasn't changed dramatically only diversified a bit.
... though a US P.O. Box is tempting now...). Internet radio offers much more diversity in content.
I like maily rock, metal, blues, jazz and other misc types. I've found that using the Internet and P2P, I've been able to hear albums which are either really hard to find or that I would never have heard before. Simply using Amazon and looking at what other people have bought, I've found really helpful. When I used Kazaa, I browsed other's shared files, and often went and bought a few albums afterwards.
I've also found that using internet radio, has been really helpful. Canadian radio stations suck because of CRTC regulations (and I can't get Satellite radio
Maybe its because I'm in Ottawa. Although, I've spoken with others in gov't across the country, and there are similar levels of ineptitude. The federal gov't in Ottawa, does pare as the worst. Unfortunate because as taxpayers, we have to pay for it all. Sigh.
I have to agree. I am a Canadian citizen.
I find most political activism emerges from political scandal. Most often are the scandals are completely blown out of proportion which is constructed by the media. Look at the "Sponsorship
Scandal" is the bigger scandal not in the amount of money spent investigating this matter and the fact that people who lied, manipulated and stole money not going to prison?
We have too much of a passive attitude towards politics in our country. I'm probably being passive in saying this but here goes: If I can confirm this is true, I would write a letter to my MP, but I find many people in gov't don't "get" the issues. They're either too stupid, dodge the questions completely, don't understand the issues or pass the buck too often.
Instead of releasing an EP I to EP III box set since IV to VI are out .....
He can just save EVERYONE the pain and cut episodes I to III into ONE DVD-length movie. In fact, he can almost completely remove Anakin from the first movie (annoying), Jar Jar from I to III (I hope he dies a horrible, quick death) and make some other cuts to speed up the pace of the movies.
I have to agree with this.
... and it has nothing to do with X protocol, its fine, blah, blah, blah. Whatever has been done with X.org makes X a lot faster now. I don't care of the technical details. With that attititude, nothing would ever have been done.
;)
I think the kernel config as a whole needs a major revamp, or at least some of the things should be reworded and such. I've avoided the 2.6 kernel and use 2.4 because make menuconfig (yes, there's a plain text file too) because its too bloody confusing.
Before the X.org project, people complained 'X was slow'
I think binary, closed source drivers should be allowed into the main kernel. Maybe it would make installing the ATI drivers and Nvidia drivers easier for the rest of us.
And I always get some RTFA jerk (there's plenty of nice people though). Perhaps, I've read as much as I can understand and can't use the same technical jargon. Maybe the documents (read: man pages) just aren't written very clearly.
I think what is killing Linux is the frequent changes to the way things are done (kernel, X) and a high threshold of learning which makes it too hard to convert to.
I'm comfortable enough using Slackware, but there is still a lot to be done before I replace Windows with Linux.
Sorry, if I sound too critical. I do not intend to be. Afterall, I know many contributors to the projects are doing it on unpaid, free time. You have as much of a right to your opinion, on how things "should be" as I do. If not more, since you're doing 'all the work'
I am now a 4th year university student. I do not believe HS is irrelevant but major changes are needed.
... that is most of the program).
... isn't this the first sign of disinterest??
I think two major changes are needed to the HS education system: a change in the science, math and english programs. (wait
When I left HS, I went to university in a science program. Boy, was it tough. I never expected university level biology to be so damn hard. Not only should they give some sense of how much work is expected in university in the HS program (the biology stuff was so easy for everyone, we never studied) they should also teach more advanced stuff. Same of chem and physics and math.
As for the enlgish program, Shakespeare is so engrained into the program, I find it will be next to impossible to remove. I think students, should instead, be assigned research papers in upper year (grade 12) where you cannot research on the Internet and should instead have to get academic sources (namely, books and journals). Had I actually done that in HS, I would never have read the Coles notes. What's worse is teachers always tell students not to read the Coles notes.... wait a minute
I was being sarcastic. I've been using E16 for several years now. I was over-exagerating my criticism, because many criticise for less, over what is programmed by people in their spare time for free. Seesh!
(ficticious) but wouldn't be surprised to see this sometime soon:
A new video game for the US Army is being created by Electronic Arts.
After hearing of the news of having to develop yet another war game in a short time, many EA developers, artists and other staff have decided to enlist in the US Army. Reason: the pay is the same and the days are just as long.
Rasterman has completely missed the idea of an interactive desktop with this version of E17. The project with its vast arrary of libraries is missing one component: a true physics engine.
Let me illustrate:
The desktop in one of the videos features a nice forest, full of trees and grass (things which easily catch fire). Suddenly, the bottom of his desktop catches fire. All at the same time some snow starts falling from the sky and some new trees suddenly "appear" on screen.
If there was a true interactive desktop, all the trees and grass would catch fire and the snow would slowly extinguish the fire. I'm disappointed. Until this is fixed, I refuse to use E17. I think it needs a physics engine.