I agree--the CLI that is adored by so many hardcore Linux users simply isn't practical to "sell" to the general public.
A typical person doesn't want to need to remember a bunch of CLI mumbo-jumbo. To tell them that such a [CLI] system is "superior" because they have to remember more things in order to use it is pathetic and ridiculous--and (among the general public) it has gotten Linux the reception it deserves.
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now all they need to do is create something to supply the 900KW it would take to charge it.
Don't be such a pessimist.
All they really need to do is find a place where you can drill a hole in the ground and crude electricity dribbles out.
---------
I did some comparison figures lately for bicycle engine kits, those being available in gasoline-powered as well as electric versions (-you may bow to my L337 nerdiness).
The gasoline powered version ended up costing the least to operate--the electrics cost between six and nine times as much, figured on a cost-per-mile basis.
There's a lot of people who have electric vehicles and will brag that "it only costs five cents" or whatever to recharge--but they are ignoring the regular cost of replacing batteries, which has to be done every 300-500 discharge cycles.
They also tend to point out how "electrics don't produce smog", but if we assume that the price of an item represents the amount of resources that went into it, and that the resources used relates directly to the pollution that was caused when it was manufactured, then as it stands--at the present time, electric vehicles are very-probably doing more harm to the environment than good. You're being friendlier to the environment by using a small 4-cycle engine that has a catalytic convertor. (I went looking for a small-engine catalytic converter and couldn't find anywhere in the US to buy one, by the by):(
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Hmm...I guess the cars manufacturers could just stop selling their 'horrible' product in CA, and see how that works, eh?
That would be the best show ever, even if the "blockade" was just for a year or two.
ALL the businesses would get up and move to Nevada and Arizona, and the state's entire economy would crumble (like so many other socialist ventures).
Other vehicle companies would probably pull out as well, as they wouldn't want to risk being sued either--and all business would generally DROP WAY OFF anyway, there wouldn't be a lot of reason to bother delivering anything into or out of the state.
The next elections would be a total bloodbath, and it'd be highly entertaining watching all the pinko hippy politicians get run out of office.
I doubt it will happen however. If it was attempted, those same politicians would probably sue the car companies again for "monopoly practices" or "dubious ungroovyness", or "extreme bummerness with intent to be uncool" or something.
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My bet is that the first time that a major US gov network of PC's gets crippled by a "MS Security Center" vuln, there's going to appear an quick and easy way to kill the MS Security Center, or MS will be told to pack their shit and hit the road.
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At one point recently I decided I wanted an "alternate means" to get around town if my (fuel-hog) SUV was in the shop or otherwise unavailable. I also decided that for maximum versatility, I wanted the "alternate means" to be transportable in my SUV as well as in the trunk of another car, if need be. That second requirement ruled out motorcycles and scooters. That left mopeds and motorized bicycles, and I decided against a moped because (aside from being roughly twice as heavy as the motor-bicycle) if the engine quits, the moped is basically not usable at all. With the engine dead (and the drive disconnected), the motor-bicycle can still be pedalled as well as normal.
Motorized bicycles frequently average over 200 MPG; I worked up a spreadsheet that showed that I would have to use this thing an awful lot before it would save the engine kit's purchase price--about 4,300 miles, with gasoline at $2.75 a gallon. I asked around online if anyone knew for sure that they were saving money by riding one and most people said basically not, they had them for recreational reasons. Only two or three people said they were saving money for certain, and they all gave basically the same reasons.
The reason that they saved money riding them was that they lived or worked inside big cities, and that they could pull over anywhere they wanted and lock the motor-bicycle to any lamp-post to park it--the main reason they saved money was that they didn't have to pay for parking. The fuel economy had pretty much nothing to do with it; if they could have gotten away with parking a motorcycle or scooter on the sidewalk they would have, but that wasn't permissible. Also they noted that it was an enormous convenience factor to be able to ride directly to wherever you wanted to go and park right in front--and that in an urban area, especially during rush hours--you could get around on a 30-mph motorized bicycle about as fast as you could in a car anyway.
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You may have seen or heard of add amounts of gas being dispensed, but it most likely wasn't because the gas pump was tampered with.
Modern gas pumps in the US are quite fairly complex and dificult to tamper with--besides the fact that they are tamper-tagged by the US dept of agriculture. Do a Google search on the subject in your state; gas pump tampering is far more of a rumor than it ever is found to be true, and the penalties for short-changing the metering are so severe that most pumps dispense slightly more than they really should, just to provide a margin of error.
If the matter deeply worries you, then you can always just buy your gasoline in only 1-, 5- or 10-gallon amounts, because that's what the dept pf ag. checks and so (in past cases) scammers made certain that those amounts dispensed correctly.
Lastly, a car's fuel gauge is not normally intended to be absolutely accurate.
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Since nobody pointed it out--fake dog testicles do have a market.
When a breeder has an animal that delivers a litter, the breeder picks the best examples and leaves them reproductively-intact and either keeps them for their own use or sells them for lots of money. The ones that already look flawed get spayed or neutered and sold for a lot less money, as "pet-quality" animals.
The problem here is that sometimes the flaws in a pet-quality pup will grow out as it gets older--they'll disappear. And so some of these owners will want to enter them into shows,,,, -but most major pet-show sanctioning organizations have a rule that states that a show animal must be fully intact. For females, they just look for scars as there's no other visual difference; for males, they look for scars and (obviously) if any original pieces are missing.
And thus, the market for implant dog testicles is born.
Ain't capitalism wonderful?
Fun Fact: During a dog show, at least one of the judges is supposed to feel every male dog's testicles and inspect them for scars, in an effort to disqualify any silicone entries. They don't do this during the "main" judging, but it does get done by someone. So if you ever get invited to be a judge any "hoity-toity" dog shows, be sure to bring your rubber gloves....
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I had been wanting to relocate from the midwest to Texas for some time; I had visited on a couple trips and put out resumes/talked to people there. Mainly in non-tech jobs, but also in tech jobs that I could apply to with only an associates' degree. In 2003 I got some positive conversations but no job that was outstanding enough to get me to move called me back.
When I went again in late-2005, the tone I got was entirely diferent. Companies were treating applications with all the reverence you normally reserve for used tissues. One HR guy said outright that I had come at just about the worst time, because this was the first time he ever remembered that they had enough good applicants that they didn't have a position currently open. The hurricane season of 2004 and 2005 pushed many people off the Gulf and east coasts. A lot of those people still wanted to live somewhere warm and fairly-near the ocean, so they went (or got sent to hotels, on FEMA's nickel) to Houston and DFW.
Now it is true that many of those that ended up there were poor uneducated people that a degreed tech worker wouldn't be competing with jobs for anyway--but all of them weren't. And they took up a lot of the cheaper housing, they took a lot of the lower-end service sector jobs and the crime rates hiccupped as well. Many of these "transplants" aren't going anywhere--they were lower-income and renting housing in areas that got flattened by a hurricane. Even if the rental properties (and jobs) they left were rebuilt last week, these people couldn't afford the trip to move back.
Not to say that Texas is ruined--but the last couple years weather has changed some matters a bit.
~
To triple previous speeds with so few processors some radical engineering took place; strangely enough, the bus tolopogy closely resembles that of a four-dimensional domo-kun.
It is theorized that a complex tolopogy resembling a four-dimensional Hello Kitty will run roughly twenty times as fast.
~
It is my understanding that OR consumables are left inside patients much more often than actual tools.
Consumables being things like packing, gauze, disposable clamps and the like that leads to later severe infections.
Many do a "tool count" before and after, but tracking how many rolls of gauze were opened (and where they all went) is rather tough to do under pressure.
~
There's a practical problem with the way that MySpace allows people to embed videos, see if you can guess what it is:
You visit someone's page that has 4-6+ videos on it set to autorun, plus several people in their friends lists use videos as sigs, for another 8-10+ more videos.
The browser pretty much locks up (unless you're on a T1 line), and you exit the page without having seen much of the page at all, or (very likely) any of the videos.
-----------------
Of course, there is that little problem with crappy page design, but as it is, many of the pages you can't even see. First things first.
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I'm not entirely sure why that's relevant. I never said it was comfortable to ride without padded shorts. With them, I don't have pain or discomfort. Look, all I'm saying is that your post made it sound as though riding an upright is the most uncomfortable thing in the world, that it's torture. Either you're exaggerating, or your experiences don't match mine.
If you don't see the connection between {needing padded shorts} and {upright bikes being uncomfortable to ride} then there's not a lot left that I can argue I guess.
And yes--compared to riding most recumbents--riding an upright bike is torture. Most of the pain that an upright causes you will not ever happen on a recumbent.
~
You can ride what you want of course--but there's a couple of points I'd make: Firstly--recumbents don't cost that much now. Yes there are some $3K and $4K+ ones, but there are upright bikes that cost that much too and everyone who rides doesn't own one. The cheaper 'bents start at around $500-$600. At that price point a bent is not particularly fast or good for long-distance touring, but it will still be way more comfortable to ride than any upright, at any price. If you can cough up $1200-$1500, there's quite a few choices. -Which is not very expensive, when you consider that 'bents are actually comfortable to ride, and that you might ride them a lot more than you would an "uncomfortable" bike.
How many upright bikes sit gathering dust in people's garages, their tires going flat from dry rot? People buy these bikes because they "cost less", or because they "look normal". But of course the bikes make one's butt, neck and hands hurt--so then they never ride them.
What kind of bargain is that?
If you already know that upright bikes are uncomfortable for you to ride, then don't throw your money away on yet another one.
Secondly--when upright bike riders say "it's comfortable", they really mean that "it's not so bad that I can't stand to ride it". With recumbents, normally your butt and neck never hurt, and your hands never go numb. The comfort difference between uprights and recumbents is difficult to overstate.
With recumbents, you don't wear "padded" shorts or padded gloves, because you never need them.
And the thing is--if you have never tried riding a recumbent 50 or 100 or 200 miles, you don't really know the difference. Upright defenders tend to forget that people who spend money on recumbents nearly-always used to spend money on nice upright bikes; we know what it feels like to ride uprights.
I spent $1500-$2000+ each on a series of bikes for twenty years, telling myself "it wasn't that bad".
Then I borrowed a BikeE for an afternoon, and realized--it was that bad. And it had always been "that bad". Every upright bike I had ever owned had been uncomfortable, in the exact same ways.
It doesn't matter if you spend $200 or $2000 on an upright, they're gonna hurt just the same.
Soon after I bought my first recumbent, I got rid all but one my upright bikes--because I wasn't riding them at all anymore anyway. The last one I kept just in case I wanted to ride it ever. Two years later I hadn't taken it out even once, so I got rid of it too.
I agree.
I dunno what the big discovery here is.
Aside from the observation that "a lot of early bidders generally indicates greater interest" which will often drive the price up--I'm not sure what the proof is. If there was only some demonstration I could witness.
Also (by the by) I am auctioning a McDonnell Douglas space-shuttle model right now (item # 220001096447), and everybody keeps choking on the packing & shipping costs.
Only ~4 days left, snipe early and often kids!
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I have heard the "justification" for not teaching students procedural code before, and it doesn't make any sense to assume that another person is so stupid from the outset. It's like insisting that once a kid learns how to use a hammer and nails, that they can never possibly learn to use a screwdriver properly. It's condescending and somewhat insulting.
When I was in school we learned on (some version of) MS quickbasic, and then C, and then C++ , but in the C++ courses we re-wrote the older C-course programs into objects. I found it very illustrative to see an example program written both ways, so that I could see exactly what each had that the other didn't.
A lot of this sentiment (that procedural coding needs to be kept "hidden" from soft-minded students) seems to arise out of the observations that when they get hired to write methods, they try to write functions instead. And if that's the case, it's more a matter of disregarding work specifications or unfitness for the position than it is that they were "taught poorly".
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Also--the best beginner's Java book I have EVER found [at any price] is Java Programming: The Easy Way by Douglas Downing. Every chapter tells how to do something basic like console screen output, window/GUI input and output, how to read & write files, get keyboard input, draw graphics and play sounds. Fun stuff that a kid can do on their own. It's out of print now and becoming scarce; I gotta scan my copy someday so I can share it easier.
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Linux is not useful to most "average" users, because they end up wanting to run Windows software, and don't want to have to learn anything! Linux evangelists seem to have this mental blind spot that what "average" users tend to want is an OS that requires as little learning as possible and that runs commonly available retail (Windows) software.
Look at it this way: the price difference between Windows and Linux is about $100, for "retail" XP Home.
If I offered to pay you $100 a year to use an OS on all your PC's that wouldn't run any Windows OR Linux programs (or Mac, or any other you know of, or want to use, or are familiar with) would you think that was a good deal?
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I saw this problem back when the OEM version of McAfee ran out (30 days) on a laptop I had just bought. And I was surprised to see that I could not simply purchase a 1-year subscription to McAfee, I had to pay for a full-install for a year--that cost more. So I said "fuck McAfee" right then and there....I ended up going with Norton, I am old-skool enough not to believe in free lunches and Norton shows a couple bugs but has worked fine so far.
Lots of people warned that Norton would bomb the system and be "uninstallable" (hadn't heard of regedit apparently) but I have been around long enough to know that ANY antivirus program can bomb an OS, and they all have. Some of that is due to the OS already being infected, and other times it's just bugs in the program, but one belief I do firmly hold is that any time you install new AV, you are risking the OS install (-Avast! bombed one of my own XP Home PC's into unbootability, for instance-).
But when I went looking, I found that it was very difficult to objectively compare AV programs. There's a few big ones and a hundred or two little ones, and lots of websites to reviews, but they grab one or two of the big ones and a few of the ones many people have never heard of and they test them. And every website tests a different group of AV software, every time they do a test. So the results are never really comparative across different websites, or even across two separate review tests done on the same website.
Ideally there'd be a website that repeatedly tested a large number of AV programs, the SAME programs with very little variation in the programs tested, once a month or so (and listing observed bugs would be good too). And then if one AV consistently came in near the top, or always did poorly, or worked but always showed lots of bugs you could form some real opinion of it. Elsewise, all everyone does is spout opinions and their own observations, "well I tried this one and it sucked, I tried that one and it was great". Everyone I asked online and IRL had tried one that sucked, and had tried some-other that was great, and they were all different and often conflicting.
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Yes--the international VLF emergency code is three long five-second blasts of brown note noise, which indicates "send toilet paper immediately"
(them's "bog rolls", for you non-American speakers)
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I will advise this--that you NOT buy another computer interface. Get a standalone hard-disk multitrack recorder instead. .....
For the $1500 or so that a decent multitrack hard-disk recorder costs, you simply can't build a computer that will work as well for recording. Additionally, the standalone unit is easier to use, is more portable (no laptop anywhere runs fast enough!), already has the right kind of inputs (1/4" / XLR) and controls, and will not suffer system or latency issues when recording on all its possible inputs at once.
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You can load the separate tracks into a computer and then use it for mixing down of course, but for the actual "recording" part, desktop computers simply aren't the best choice.
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-It was the audio program, Reason or somesuch. The sales numbers weren't that big, but they did it. There was a PC and Mac version, Apple bought the company and killed the PC version..... -just because. There were more PC than MAc users, IIRC.
I would expect that if Apple bought Adobe, that Apple would kill the PC versions; Apple simply has no reason to create any Windows software--except for software that helps you move all your personal files on your PC to your brand-new Mac.
But then, a lot of users would be fantastically pissed at Apple and recognize them as the fuck-jobs they are.
Also, there would likely soon be a Windows port of Skencil, and a lot of work thrown into WinGIMP (which could well use it--maybe even a Win port in C/++).
Apple can do an amazing amount for the Windows FOSS community--mostly by buying up big-name Windows software companies and killing off the Windows versions of the products.
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This is really rather the truth from where I'm standing. If you live near Boston or Silicon Valley maybe there are still entry-level positions to be filled with "entry-level people", but in the US midwest it's just not so, the job postings tell a different story. Masters or bachelors minimum, PLUS several years working in the general job tasks involved, PLUS experience in the particular software and hardware they are using. Companies simply aren't interested in entry-level people, and in the mean time you may "love" IT now, but after a few years of struggling to pay off student loan collections from the paychecks of your retail or fast-food job,,,, you very likely won't. Unless you are either- A) absolutely brilliant, or B) have a close relative at a huge corporation who can snag you a gravy position, stay away from IT. Most companies don't want new graduates at US pay rates, period.
I'd suggest something with broader applications, majoring in math with minor in a technical field. Then when they say they want to hire you for IT work, you can ask them to pay for the schooling and you'll find out how interested they really are.
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I have seen this problem for a long time, mainly with regular telemarketers on regular phone lines. You can't keep your number "secret", it gets out no matter what you do.
So what I want is a new device: the MagicalPhoneWizard.
This device would hook to the one phone line, and then all my home phones would hook to it.
The MagicalPhoneWizard lets me program in a bunch of different code numbers of a few digits each.
What it does is this:
I give out code numbers to people who I want to be able to call me. When somebody calls my house, the MagicalPhoneWizard answers the line "silently", and then asks the caller for their "security code number". If it's someone calling that I gave a security code to, then enter that code and the phones then ring as normal. Or goes to a message machine/service if I have that set up. If they got no correct code to enter, they don't get shit. The phone never even rings or (optionally) their message could be automatically dumped into a special message category if I chose. And you could do something similar for faxes as well of course.
But the point of the thing is that it lets me "add on" a secret phone-number to the public one that anyone can get ahold of--and I can assign, change and revoke the secret phone numbers as I please. Is this a crazy dream, or does someone already make such a thing?
I don't think it's practical to expect a "unlisted" phone number to remain private anymore. Once upon a time, companies used to say they wouldn't give out customers' phone numbers to anyone; now most companies say that they "allow it to be shared with affiliate companies". Everyplace that calls me now selling crap I don't want and didn't ask for is an "affiliate" of someplace that I did buy something from.
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Slashdot Mirror
I agree--the CLI that is adored by so many hardcore Linux users simply isn't practical to "sell" to the general public.
A typical person doesn't want to need to remember a bunch of CLI mumbo-jumbo. To tell them that such a [CLI] system is "superior" because they have to remember more things in order to use it is pathetic and ridiculous--and (among the general public) it has gotten Linux the reception it deserves.
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All they really need to do is find a place where you can drill a hole in the ground and crude electricity dribbles out.
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I did some comparison figures lately for bicycle engine kits, those being available in gasoline-powered as well as electric versions (-you may bow to my L337 nerdiness).
The gasoline powered version ended up costing the least to operate--the electrics cost between six and nine times as much, figured on a cost-per-mile basis.
There's a lot of people who have electric vehicles and will brag that "it only costs five cents" or whatever to recharge--but they are ignoring the regular cost of replacing batteries, which has to be done every 300-500 discharge cycles.
They also tend to point out how "electrics don't produce smog", but if we assume that the price of an item represents the amount of resources that went into it, and that the resources used relates directly to the pollution that was caused when it was manufactured, then as it stands--at the present time, electric vehicles are very-probably doing more harm to the environment than good. You're being friendlier to the environment by using a small 4-cycle engine that has a catalytic convertor. (I went looking for a small-engine catalytic converter and couldn't find anywhere in the US to buy one, by the by)
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ALL the businesses would get up and move to Nevada and Arizona, and the state's entire economy would crumble (like so many other socialist ventures).
Other vehicle companies would probably pull out as well, as they wouldn't want to risk being sued either--and all business would generally DROP WAY OFF anyway, there wouldn't be a lot of reason to bother delivering anything into or out of the state.
The next elections would be a total bloodbath, and it'd be highly entertaining watching all the pinko hippy politicians get run out of office.
I doubt it will happen however. If it was attempted, those same politicians would probably sue the car companies again for "monopoly practices" or "dubious ungroovyness", or "extreme bummerness with intent to be uncool" or something.
~
My bet is that the first time that a major US gov network of PC's gets crippled by a "MS Security Center" vuln, there's going to appear an quick and easy way to kill the MS Security Center, or MS will be told to pack their shit and hit the road.
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At one point recently I decided I wanted an "alternate means" to get around town if my (fuel-hog) SUV was in the shop or otherwise unavailable. I also decided that for maximum versatility, I wanted the "alternate means" to be transportable in my SUV as well as in the trunk of another car, if need be. That second requirement ruled out motorcycles and scooters. That left mopeds and motorized bicycles, and I decided against a moped because (aside from being roughly twice as heavy as the motor-bicycle) if the engine quits, the moped is basically not usable at all. With the engine dead (and the drive disconnected), the motor-bicycle can still be pedalled as well as normal.
Motorized bicycles frequently average over 200 MPG; I worked up a spreadsheet that showed that I would have to use this thing an awful lot before it would save the engine kit's purchase price--about 4,300 miles, with gasoline at $2.75 a gallon. I asked around online if anyone knew for sure that they were saving money by riding one and most people said basically not, they had them for recreational reasons. Only two or three people said they were saving money for certain, and they all gave basically the same reasons.
The reason that they saved money riding them was that they lived or worked inside big cities, and that they could pull over anywhere they wanted and lock the motor-bicycle to any lamp-post to park it--the main reason they saved money was that they didn't have to pay for parking. The fuel economy had pretty much nothing to do with it; if they could have gotten away with parking a motorcycle or scooter on the sidewalk they would have, but that wasn't permissible. Also they noted that it was an enormous convenience factor to be able to ride directly to wherever you wanted to go and park right in front--and that in an urban area, especially during rush hours--you could get around on a 30-mph motorized bicycle about as fast as you could in a car anyway.
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You may have seen or heard of add amounts of gas being dispensed, but it most likely wasn't because the gas pump was tampered with.
Modern gas pumps in the US are quite fairly complex and dificult to tamper with--besides the fact that they are tamper-tagged by the US dept of agriculture. Do a Google search on the subject in your state; gas pump tampering is far more of a rumor than it ever is found to be true, and the penalties for short-changing the metering are so severe that most pumps dispense slightly more than they really should, just to provide a margin of error.
If the matter deeply worries you, then you can always just buy your gasoline in only 1-, 5- or 10-gallon amounts, because that's what the dept pf ag. checks and so (in past cases) scammers made certain that those amounts dispensed correctly.
Lastly, a car's fuel gauge is not normally intended to be absolutely accurate.
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Since nobody pointed it out--fake dog testicles do have a market.
When a breeder has an animal that delivers a litter, the breeder picks the best examples and leaves them reproductively-intact and either keeps them for their own use or sells them for lots of money. The ones that already look flawed get spayed or neutered and sold for a lot less money, as "pet-quality" animals.
The problem here is that sometimes the flaws in a pet-quality pup will grow out as it gets older--they'll disappear. And so some of these owners will want to enter them into shows,,,, -but most major pet-show sanctioning organizations have a rule that states that a show animal must be fully intact. For females, they just look for scars as there's no other visual difference; for males, they look for scars and (obviously) if any original pieces are missing.
And thus, the market for implant dog testicles is born.
Ain't capitalism wonderful?
Fun Fact: During a dog show, at least one of the judges is supposed to feel every male dog's testicles and inspect them for scars, in an effort to disqualify any silicone entries. They don't do this during the "main" judging, but it does get done by someone. So if you ever get invited to be a judge any "hoity-toity" dog shows, be sure to bring your rubber gloves....
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I had been wanting to relocate from the midwest to Texas for some time; I had visited on a couple trips and put out resumes/talked to people there. Mainly in non-tech jobs, but also in tech jobs that I could apply to with only an associates' degree. In 2003 I got some positive conversations but no job that was outstanding enough to get me to move called me back.
When I went again in late-2005, the tone I got was entirely diferent. Companies were treating applications with all the reverence you normally reserve for used tissues. One HR guy said outright that I had come at just about the worst time, because this was the first time he ever remembered that they had enough good applicants that they didn't have a position currently open. The hurricane season of 2004 and 2005 pushed many people off the Gulf and east coasts. A lot of those people still wanted to live somewhere warm and fairly-near the ocean, so they went (or got sent to hotels, on FEMA's nickel) to Houston and DFW.
Now it is true that many of those that ended up there were poor uneducated people that a degreed tech worker wouldn't be competing with jobs for anyway--but all of them weren't. And they took up a lot of the cheaper housing, they took a lot of the lower-end service sector jobs and the crime rates hiccupped as well. Many of these "transplants" aren't going anywhere--they were lower-income and renting housing in areas that got flattened by a hurricane. Even if the rental properties (and jobs) they left were rebuilt last week, these people couldn't afford the trip to move back.
Not to say that Texas is ruined--but the last couple years weather has changed some matters a bit.
~
To triple previous speeds with so few processors some radical engineering took place; strangely enough, the bus tolopogy closely resembles that of a four-dimensional domo-kun.
It is theorized that a complex tolopogy resembling a four-dimensional Hello Kitty will run roughly twenty times as fast.
~
Free microwave popcorn for everybody! (-no sense in dying hungry, I always say-)
It is my understanding that OR consumables are left inside patients much more often than actual tools.
Consumables being things like packing, gauze, disposable clamps and the like that leads to later severe infections.
Many do a "tool count" before and after, but tracking how many rolls of gauze were opened (and where they all went) is rather tough to do under pressure.
~
There's a practical problem with the way that MySpace allows people to embed videos, see if you can guess what it is:
You visit someone's page that has 4-6+ videos on it set to autorun, plus several people in their friends lists use videos as sigs, for another 8-10+ more videos.
The browser pretty much locks up (unless you're on a T1 line), and you exit the page without having seen much of the page at all, or (very likely) any of the videos.
-----------------
Of course, there is that little problem with crappy page design, but as it is, many of the pages you can't even see. First things first.
~
I'm not entirely sure why that's relevant. I never said it was comfortable to ride without padded shorts. With them, I don't have pain or discomfort.
Look, all I'm saying is that your post made it sound as though riding an upright is the most uncomfortable thing in the world, that it's torture. Either you're exaggerating, or your experiences don't match mine.
If you don't see the connection between {needing padded shorts} and {upright bikes being uncomfortable to ride} then there's not a lot left that I can argue I guess.
And yes--compared to riding most recumbents--riding an upright bike is torture. Most of the pain that an upright causes you will not ever happen on a recumbent.
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...No, you know what YOU feel like to ride an upright. You don't know what it feels like for ME to ride an upright....
How many pairs of padded riding shorts do you own?
~
You can ride what you want of course--but there's a couple of points I'd make:
Firstly--recumbents don't cost that much now. Yes there are some $3K and $4K+ ones, but there are upright bikes that cost that much too and everyone who rides doesn't own one. The cheaper 'bents start at around $500-$600. At that price point a bent is not particularly fast or good for long-distance touring, but it will still be way more comfortable to ride than any upright, at any price. If you can cough up $1200-$1500, there's quite a few choices. -Which is not very expensive, when you consider that 'bents are actually comfortable to ride, and that you might ride them a lot more than you would an "uncomfortable" bike.
How many upright bikes sit gathering dust in people's garages, their tires going flat from dry rot?
People buy these bikes because they "cost less", or because they "look normal".
But of course the bikes make one's butt, neck and hands hurt--so then they never ride them.
What kind of bargain is that?
If you already know that upright bikes are uncomfortable for you to ride, then don't throw your money away on yet another one.
Secondly--when upright bike riders say "it's comfortable", they really mean that "it's not so bad that I can't stand to ride it". With recumbents, normally your butt and neck never hurt, and your hands never go numb. The comfort difference between uprights and recumbents is difficult to overstate.
With recumbents, you don't wear "padded" shorts or padded gloves, because you never need them.
And the thing is--if you have never tried riding a recumbent 50 or 100 or 200 miles, you don't really know the difference. Upright defenders tend to forget that people who spend money on recumbents nearly-always used to spend money on nice upright bikes; we know what it feels like to ride uprights.
I spent $1500-$2000+ each on a series of bikes for twenty years, telling myself "it wasn't that bad".
Then I borrowed a BikeE for an afternoon, and realized--it was that bad. And it had always been "that bad".
Every upright bike I had ever owned had been uncomfortable, in the exact same ways.
It doesn't matter if you spend $200 or $2000 on an upright, they're gonna hurt just the same.
Soon after I bought my first recumbent, I got rid all but one my upright bikes--because I wasn't riding them at all anymore anyway. The last one I kept just in case I wanted to ride it ever.
Two years later I hadn't taken it out even once, so I got rid of it too.
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Finally! I can stop wasting my time applying to be the Vatican's porn archivist....
I agree.
I dunno what the big discovery here is.
Aside from the observation that "a lot of early bidders generally indicates greater interest" which will often drive the price up--I'm not sure what the proof is. If there was only some demonstration I could witness.
Also (by the by) I am auctioning a McDonnell Douglas space-shuttle model right now (item # 220001096447), and everybody keeps choking on the packing & shipping costs.
Only ~4 days left, snipe early and often kids!
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I have heard the "justification" for not teaching students procedural code before, and it doesn't make any sense to assume that another person is so stupid from the outset. It's like insisting that once a kid learns how to use a hammer and nails, that they can never possibly learn to use a screwdriver properly. It's condescending and somewhat insulting.
When I was in school we learned on (some version of) MS quickbasic, and then C, and then C++ , but in the C++ courses we re-wrote the older C-course programs into objects. I found it very illustrative to see an example program written both ways, so that I could see exactly what each had that the other didn't.
A lot of this sentiment (that procedural coding needs to be kept "hidden" from soft-minded students) seems to arise out of the observations that when they get hired to write methods, they try to write functions instead. And if that's the case, it's more a matter of disregarding work specifications or unfitness for the position than it is that they were "taught poorly".
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Also--the best beginner's Java book I have EVER found [at any price] is Java Programming: The Easy Way by Douglas Downing.
Every chapter tells how to do something basic like console screen output, window/GUI input and output, how to read & write files, get keyboard input, draw graphics and play sounds. Fun stuff that a kid can do on their own. It's out of print now and becoming scarce; I gotta scan my copy someday so I can share it easier. ~
Linux is not useful to most "average" users, because they end up wanting to run Windows software, and don't want to have to learn anything! Linux evangelists seem to have this mental blind spot that what "average" users tend to want is an OS that requires as little learning as possible and that runs commonly available retail (Windows) software.
Look at it this way: the price difference between Windows and Linux is about $100, for "retail" XP Home.
If I offered to pay you $100 a year to use an OS on all your PC's that wouldn't run any Windows OR Linux programs (or Mac, or any other you know of, or want to use, or are familiar with) would you think that was a good deal?
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I saw this problem back when the OEM version of McAfee ran out (30 days) on a laptop I had just bought. And I was surprised to see that I could not simply purchase a 1-year subscription to McAfee, I had to pay for a full-install for a year--that cost more. So I said "fuck McAfee" right then and there. ...I ended up going with Norton, I am old-skool enough not to believe in free lunches and Norton shows a couple bugs but has worked fine so far.
Lots of people warned that Norton would bomb the system and be "uninstallable" (hadn't heard of regedit apparently) but I have been around long enough to know that ANY antivirus program can bomb an OS, and they all have. Some of that is due to the OS already being infected, and other times it's just bugs in the program, but one belief I do firmly hold is that any time you install new AV, you are risking the OS install (-Avast! bombed one of my own XP Home PC's into unbootability, for instance-).
But when I went looking, I found that it was very difficult to objectively compare AV programs. There's a few big ones and a hundred or two little ones, and lots of websites to reviews, but they grab one or two of the big ones and a few of the ones many people have never heard of and they test them. And every website tests a different group of AV software, every time they do a test. So the results are never really comparative across different websites, or even across two separate review tests done on the same website.
Ideally there'd be a website that repeatedly tested a large number of AV programs, the SAME programs with very little variation in the programs tested, once a month or so (and listing observed bugs would be good too). And then if one AV consistently came in near the top, or always did poorly, or worked but always showed lots of bugs you could form some real opinion of it. Elsewise, all everyone does is spout opinions and their own observations, "well I tried this one and it sucked, I tried that one and it was great". Everyone I asked online and IRL had tried one that sucked, and had tried some-other that was great, and they were all different and often conflicting.
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Yes--the international VLF emergency code is three long five-second blasts of brown note noise, which indicates "send toilet paper immediately"
(them's "bog rolls", for you non-American speakers)
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I will advise this--that you NOT buy another computer interface. Get a standalone hard-disk multitrack recorder instead.
.....
For the $1500 or so that a decent multitrack hard-disk recorder costs, you simply can't build a computer that will work as well for recording. Additionally, the standalone unit is easier to use, is more portable (no laptop anywhere runs fast enough!), already has the right kind of inputs (1/4" / XLR) and controls, and will not suffer system or latency issues when recording on all its possible inputs at once.
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You can load the separate tracks into a computer and then use it for mixing down of course, but for the actual "recording" part, desktop computers simply aren't the best choice.
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-It was the audio program, Reason or somesuch. The sales numbers weren't that big, but they did it. There was a PC and Mac version, Apple bought the company and killed the PC version..... -just because. There were more PC than MAc users, IIRC.
I would expect that if Apple bought Adobe, that Apple would kill the PC versions; Apple simply has no reason to create any Windows software--except for software that helps you move all your personal files on your PC to your brand-new Mac.
But then, a lot of users would be fantastically pissed at Apple and recognize them as the fuck-jobs they are.
Also, there would likely soon be a Windows port of Skencil, and a lot of work thrown into WinGIMP (which could well use it--maybe even a Win port in C/++).
Apple can do an amazing amount for the Windows FOSS community--mostly by buying up big-name Windows software companies and killing off the Windows versions of the products.
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This is really rather the truth from where I'm standing.
If you live near Boston or Silicon Valley maybe there are still entry-level positions to be filled with "entry-level people", but in the US midwest it's just not so, the job postings tell a different story. Masters or bachelors minimum, PLUS several years working in the general job tasks involved, PLUS experience in the particular software and hardware they are using. Companies simply aren't interested in entry-level people, and in the mean time you may "love" IT now, but after a few years of struggling to pay off student loan collections from the paychecks of your retail or fast-food job,,,, you very likely won't.
Unless you are either-
A) absolutely brilliant, or
B) have a close relative at a huge corporation who can snag you a gravy position,
stay away from IT.
Most companies don't want new graduates at US pay rates, period.
I'd suggest something with broader applications, majoring in math with minor in a technical field. Then when they say they want to hire you for IT work, you can ask them to pay for the schooling and you'll find out how interested they really are.
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I have seen this problem for a long time, mainly with regular telemarketers on regular phone lines. You can't keep your number "secret", it gets out no matter what you do.
So what I want is a new device: the MagicalPhoneWizard. This device would hook to the one phone line, and then all my home phones would hook to it.
The MagicalPhoneWizard lets me program in a bunch of different code numbers of a few digits each.
What it does is this:
I give out code numbers to people who I want to be able to call me. When somebody calls my house, the MagicalPhoneWizard answers the line "silently", and then asks the caller for their "security code number". If it's someone calling that I gave a security code to, then enter that code and the phones then ring as normal. Or goes to a message machine/service if I have that set up. If they got no correct code to enter, they don't get shit. The phone never even rings or (optionally) their message could be automatically dumped into a special message category if I chose.
And you could do something similar for faxes as well of course.
But the point of the thing is that it lets me "add on" a secret phone-number to the public one that anyone can get ahold of--and I can assign, change and revoke the secret phone numbers as I please. Is this a crazy dream, or does someone already make such a thing?
I don't think it's practical to expect a "unlisted" phone number to remain private anymore. Once upon a time, companies used to say they wouldn't give out customers' phone numbers to anyone; now most companies say that they "allow it to be shared with affiliate companies". Everyplace that calls me now selling crap I don't want and didn't ask for is an "affiliate" of someplace that I did buy something from.
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