Requiring wheelchair ramps and website tags will not cause the local muffler shop to move to Bangladesh.
But it could well be the extra regulatory cost that leaves said local muffler shop unable to compete with the national chain shop next door which outsources all non-customer-facing work to Bangladesh, thereby pushing the local shop out of business.
This is why big business _LOVES_ this kind of regulation, they can easily afford to comply where small business can't. The funny part is that the kind of person who has the hots for this kind of regulation is usually also the kind of person who hates big business.
IF bars could still offer smokers an option, i would wager that the bars that DO offer it would increase their revenues fairly quickly because people like me would go there and not to the place we cant smoke.
One of the reasons why British pubs are closing at record rates is because most people who used to go to pubs smoked, and all those non-smoking drinkers who were supposedly so eager to go to non-smoking pubs failed to suddenly materialise after smoking was banned.
If we don't build a sustainable population off this planet in the next few decades, we die.
Be it political insanity, DNA-engineered disease, some eco-weenie dropping an asteroid on us to save Gaia from the evil humans or a natural disaster, we don't have long left. Humans already have the power to destroy most life on Earth in a very expensive manner, and pretty soon they'll have the power to do so in a fairly cheap manner. Once that power exists, it will be used by someone, somewhere.
Mars is a dumb place to go for various reasons, but nothing is more important at this point than expansion into space. If we don't then there will be no 'generations to come'.
Yes, having to go to an Adobe web page to delete files from your local machine makes perfect sense.
Personally I just configured Apparmor so Flash can't write to anything but/tmp and its local config files, and no longer have to worry about whatever stupid crap Adobe do.
Environment similar to mil spec, durability like industrial, prices like consumer products.
I used to work on military avionics: space and auto electronics were considered to be the only markets where the hardware needed to be tougher than what we were making.
In the absence of regulation, free markets always end up as monopolies. Not sometimes but always.
Name three.
Back in the real world, actual, real monopolies can only exist if:
a) the monopoly is more efficient than any competitor, thereby providing better service to their customers.
or:
b) the government keeps competitors out of the market.
In many cases in communications, governments built the initial infrastructure using its powers to take land from its owners at gunpoint, and then handed it over to private companies, which no new company can easily compete with since they don't have such powers. Similarly, big business loves regulation (or, at least, the 'right kind' of regulation as produced by its lobbyists and their tame politicians) as it raises the barriers of entry and keeps new competitors out of their market.
Clearly they finally had the chance to really hinder Cobra and they missed it. Gi.Joe must be pissed.
I'm always amused when I read news stories about British government officials attending Cobra meetings. Either it's an example of someone's sick sense of humor, or they really have no clue.
That's because his title is wrong. It should be Anti-Terror Chief.
No, when I lived in the UK I was far more terrified of the government than terrorists. And, more pedantically, her job is to terrorise Britons into thinking that anyone carrying more than 100ml of liquid onto a plane is trying to kill them, so Terror Chief is really very apt.
When I was looking for directions to a hotel last time I went on a business trip, Google told me to follow the main highway and turn right. Which was correct, except it involved driving through a wall and then falling thirty feet into the hotel parking lot.
If so, wouldn't that introduce a HUGE performance penalty on the everything happening on the machine, since these system calls are so crucial?
Uh, it's anti-virus software: of course it introduces a huge performance penalty when accessing files. Otherwise, how would you know that it was doing anything?
This pops up every once in a while. Seen it myself.
It's an airliner leaving a contrail that's being lit by the setting sun.
Yeah, I've seen that myself, one time when driving... I could see a 'smoke trail' rising from the horizon, but after traveling a few more miles it was clearly just an aircraft contrail creating an optical illusion.
Counterexample: I recently bought STALKER: Call of Pripyat, and found that it was so buggy, clunky, unpolished, and boring that I didn't bother trying to fix any of the problems. I just uninstalled it. Why? I played the first game and recall it being fun, but not so fun that I would go out of my way to play it.
Weird. I played the first STALKER game and found it was buggy, clunky, unpolished and tedious (because I was continually having to run to some merchant to sell crap due to the tiny inventory). So I'd have expected the sequel to be just as bad.
I assume most current third-party *nix developers are aware of the filesystem etiquette, but what if every two-bit company started developing for it? How many of them would bother to learn doing it the "right" way?
Since they can't guarantee to write persistent files to anywhere other than $HOME, it's hard for them to screw things up too badly.
My kid who barely knows how to use Windows should be able to pick up the mouse and go - like she can with a Mac. THAT is my point.
My girlfriend uses CentOS and Ubuntu with no problems.. to her it's pretty much the same as the XP she uses at work. So if you're a 'seasoned user' I really can't understand why you 'throw up your hands in disgust because it can't do a few simple tasks out of the box' like... uh.. setting the wallpaper? Right-click and select a new wallpaper, just like XP?
Honestly, totally, can't understand in the slightest.
I have four Ubuntu boxes and one CentOS box here, multiple CentOS boxes at work, and.. they.. just.. work (ok, with the exception of the MCE remote not working sometimes when the MythTV frontend boots up).
It beats me why anybody would even consider using Linux as their primary or sole desktop operating system.
Because it's massively superior to Windows? Who in their right mind wants to run that abomination as their primary or sole desktop OS?
who wants to be the martyr and take a stand by sacrificing their productivity to deal with an operating system that cannot natively run 99% of software products
I don't need to run 99% of software products.
Most of the Windows programs I do run either work in Wine or have native Linux ports. The exceptions are a few games and my video editing software, which may actually run in Wine for all I know but I've never felt the urge to try it.
And I honestly can't imagine going back to Microsoft hell... the sad part, as this article points out, is that many Linux distros seem intent on copying the worst parts of Windows rather than on making Linux better.
I keep seeing people saying that they're 'seasoned users' who need a 500 page manual to figure out how Linux works, but I installed Ubuntu on my netbook a couple of weeks back and.. it.. just... worked. Even on my laptop, which is a far more complex system than the netbook, the only things that didn't work out of the box are a few of the special keys (e.g. play/pause).
Has anyone who's complaining about how hard Linux is to use actually tried a distro released after 1993?
1) Yes in theory its an organized system. A centralized repository rather than a distributed clusterfuck of files. In theory replacing the registry with config files is no better IF the developer chooses to put settings in random files all over your disk.
Ah, I still have fond memories of the day some time in the 90s that NT ran scandisk after a reboot, and then put up a message along the lines of 'Ooops, I just deleted your registry. Guess you're fucked, mate'.
And in the traditional unix world there were no 'settings in random files all over your disk'; system-wide files went in/etc and user-specific config in $HOME, all in nice text files that could easily be read, modified and backed up. The registry is an utter abomination in comparison (and the Gnome's registry turds are little better).
In reality, you want any app to be able to use a defined URL handler path without interdiction
No I don't. In fact, I just want a web browser that's a web browser, and is completely lacking the ability to run arbitrary programs on the host machine.
Every time I hear about a URL handler exploit I wonder who the hell ever thought that it was a good idea.
Or, more precisely, when the talk about OS/2 NT disappeared and suddenly people started talking about the brand spanking new Windows NT that was no relation to it whatsoever.
They're buying something in one place that they believe will grow in value at another place. Isn't this the goal of all trade?
Suppose I got to the store to buy a bag of chips. I pick up the last bag from the shelf and go to buy it. You jump in front, grab the chips from from me, pay the guy and then tell me that you'll sell me the chips to me for only a dollar more than the price on the shelf.
Who has benefited from this other than the thieving scum who got in the way of my trade with the store owner?
Slashdot Mirror
Requiring wheelchair ramps and website tags will not cause the local muffler shop to move to Bangladesh.
But it could well be the extra regulatory cost that leaves said local muffler shop unable to compete with the national chain shop next door which outsources all non-customer-facing work to Bangladesh, thereby pushing the local shop out of business.
This is why big business _LOVES_ this kind of regulation, they can easily afford to comply where small business can't. The funny part is that the kind of person who has the hots for this kind of regulation is usually also the kind of person who hates big business.
IF bars could still offer smokers an option, i would wager that the bars that DO offer it would increase their revenues fairly quickly because people like me would go there and not to the place we cant smoke.
One of the reasons why British pubs are closing at record rates is because most people who used to go to pubs smoked, and all those non-smoking drinkers who were supposedly so eager to go to non-smoking pubs failed to suddenly materialise after smoking was banned.
You don't have to like it, but getting along with civilization is generally a good thing, especially when you don't have to worry about boycotts.
So people who are unable to use his site are going to punish him by refusing to buy from him?
Sounds like a plan.
The market will always decide for whatever's cheaper, and will bias itself to cheaper now even if that costs it money over the long run.
No, it will bias towards what's more profitable. If they were biased toward cheaper, Ferrari would be making 900cc tricycles, not V12 supercars.
And, in this case, few companies lose enough money to people who can't access their web sites to cover the cost of the time taken to support them.
If we don't build a sustainable population off this planet in the next few decades, we die.
Be it political insanity, DNA-engineered disease, some eco-weenie dropping an asteroid on us to save Gaia from the evil humans or a natural disaster, we don't have long left. Humans already have the power to destroy most life on Earth in a very expensive manner, and pretty soon they'll have the power to do so in a fairly cheap manner. Once that power exists, it will be used by someone, somewhere.
Mars is a dumb place to go for various reasons, but nothing is more important at this point than expansion into space. If we don't then there will be no 'generations to come'.
Flash cookies are easily deleted using Adobe's Settings Manager.
Yes, having to go to an Adobe web page to delete files from your local machine makes perfect sense.
Personally I just configured Apparmor so Flash can't write to anything but /tmp and its local config files, and no longer have to worry about whatever stupid crap Adobe do.
Environment similar to mil spec, durability like industrial, prices like consumer products.
I used to work on military avionics: space and auto electronics were considered to be the only markets where the hardware needed to be tougher than what we were making.
In the absence of regulation, free markets always end up as monopolies. Not sometimes but always.
Name three.
Back in the real world, actual, real monopolies can only exist if:
a) the monopoly is more efficient than any competitor, thereby providing better service to their customers.
or:
b) the government keeps competitors out of the market.
In many cases in communications, governments built the initial infrastructure using its powers to take land from its owners at gunpoint, and then handed it over to private companies, which no new company can easily compete with since they don't have such powers. Similarly, big business loves regulation (or, at least, the 'right kind' of regulation as produced by its lobbyists and their tame politicians) as it raises the barriers of entry and keeps new competitors out of their market.
Clearly they finally had the chance to really hinder Cobra and they missed it. Gi.Joe must be pissed.
I'm always amused when I read news stories about British government officials attending Cobra meetings. Either it's an example of someone's sick sense of humor, or they really have no clue.
That's because his title is wrong. It should be Anti-Terror Chief.
No, when I lived in the UK I was far more terrified of the government than terrorists. And, more pedantically, her job is to terrorise Britons into thinking that anyone carrying more than 100ml of liquid onto a plane is trying to kill them, so Terror Chief is really very apt.
When I was looking for directions to a hotel last time I went on a business trip, Google told me to follow the main highway and turn right. Which was correct, except it involved driving through a wall and then falling thirty feet into the hotel parking lot.
If so, wouldn't that introduce a HUGE performance penalty on the everything happening on the machine, since these system calls are so crucial?
Uh, it's anti-virus software: of course it introduces a huge performance penalty when accessing files. Otherwise, how would you know that it was doing anything?
An expert named Brian on the seesat-l list says:
Yeah, I've seen that myself, one time when driving... I could see a 'smoke trail' rising from the horizon, but after traveling a few more miles it was clearly just an aircraft contrail creating an optical illusion.
Counterexample: I recently bought STALKER: Call of Pripyat, and found that it was so buggy, clunky, unpolished, and boring that I didn't bother trying to fix any of the problems. I just uninstalled it. Why? I played the first game and recall it being fun, but not so fun that I would go out of my way to play it.
Weird. I played the first STALKER game and found it was buggy, clunky, unpolished and tedious (because I was continually having to run to some merchant to sell crap due to the tiny inventory). So I'd have expected the sequel to be just as bad.
FNV has an 85% average review on PC according to Game Rankings. Isn't that the problem - the reviews should penalize bug ridden games more strongly?
Surely the problem is that anyone still actually believes PC game reviews?
I assume most current third-party *nix developers are aware of the filesystem etiquette, but what if every two-bit company started developing for it? How many of them would bother to learn doing it the "right" way?
Since they can't guarantee to write persistent files to anywhere other than $HOME, it's hard for them to screw things up too badly.
My kid who barely knows how to use Windows should be able to pick up the mouse and go - like she can with a Mac. THAT is my point.
My girlfriend uses CentOS and Ubuntu with no problems.. to her it's pretty much the same as the XP she uses at work. So if you're a 'seasoned user' I really can't understand why you 'throw up your hands in disgust because it can't do a few simple tasks out of the box' like... uh.. setting the wallpaper? Right-click and select a new wallpaper, just like XP?
Honestly, totally, can't understand in the slightest.
I have four Ubuntu boxes and one CentOS box here, multiple CentOS boxes at work, and.. they.. just.. work (ok, with the exception of the MCE remote not working sometimes when the MythTV frontend boots up).
What am I doing wrong?
You can argue all day long that Linux is better on every front... but it doesn't matter. It's unfamiliar to the majority of the public.
Yet Gnome is far more similar to XP than newer versions of Windows are. And XP is what most Windows users are familiar with.
It beats me why anybody would even consider using Linux as their primary or sole desktop operating system.
Because it's massively superior to Windows? Who in their right mind wants to run that abomination as their primary or sole desktop OS?
who wants to be the martyr and take a stand by sacrificing their productivity to deal with an operating system that cannot natively run 99% of software products
I don't need to run 99% of software products.
Most of the Windows programs I do run either work in Wine or have native Linux ports. The exceptions are a few games and my video editing software, which may actually run in Wine for all I know but I've never felt the urge to try it.
And I honestly can't imagine going back to Microsoft hell... the sad part, as this article points out, is that many Linux distros seem intent on copying the worst parts of Windows rather than on making Linux better.
I keep seeing people saying that they're 'seasoned users' who need a 500 page manual to figure out how Linux works, but I installed Ubuntu on my netbook a couple of weeks back and.. it.. just... worked. Even on my laptop, which is a far more complex system than the netbook, the only things that didn't work out of the box are a few of the special keys (e.g. play/pause).
Has anyone who's complaining about how hard Linux is to use actually tried a distro released after 1993?
1) Yes in theory its an organized system. A centralized repository rather than a distributed clusterfuck of files. In theory replacing the registry with config files is no better IF the developer chooses to put settings in random files all over your disk.
Ah, I still have fond memories of the day some time in the 90s that NT ran scandisk after a reboot, and then put up a message along the lines of 'Ooops, I just deleted your registry. Guess you're fucked, mate'.
And in the traditional unix world there were no 'settings in random files all over your disk'; system-wide files went in /etc and user-specific config in $HOME, all in nice text files that could easily be read, modified and backed up. The registry is an utter abomination in comparison (and the Gnome's registry turds are little better).
In reality, you want any app to be able to use a defined URL handler path without interdiction
No I don't. In fact, I just want a web browser that's a web browser, and is completely lacking the ability to run arbitrary programs on the host machine.
Every time I hear about a URL handler exploit I wonder who the hell ever thought that it was a good idea.
I still remember when Windows NT was OS/2 NT.
Or, more precisely, when the talk about OS/2 NT disappeared and suddenly people started talking about the brand spanking new Windows NT that was no relation to it whatsoever.
They're buying something in one place that they believe will grow in value at another place. Isn't this the goal of all trade?
Suppose I got to the store to buy a bag of chips. I pick up the last bag from the shelf and go to buy it. You jump in front, grab the chips from from me, pay the guy and then tell me that you'll sell me the chips to me for only a dollar more than the price on the shelf.
Who has benefited from this other than the thieving scum who got in the way of my trade with the store owner?
-1, completely oblivious to macroeconomics
You're right, only someone who's completely oblivious to economics would even consider raising taxes in a recession.