Eh... I dunno man. Isn't there a medical term for when someone gets so fixated on something that their perception of it becomes completely warped to the point of being detrimental to everyone around them? Sounds like a plausible mental condition. And that he can [attempt?] to wield the power of the courts to enforce his warped perception is slightly scary.
"If someone transfered an account balance from some random other person to himself, would that be theft? There are no tangible items involved in the transfer -- just some shifting of database records?"
This analogy doesn't really fly, since money is a finite and ultimately physical resource. But I'll play along...
Of course that would be. If you transfer the money out of my account that means I can no longer use the little plastic card in my pocket. And that I can't go to the bank and get the physical cash that those "database records" map to. I have been deprived of my hard-earned money. It has been stolen from me.
If the user wants it to be up to themselves, they can disable external stylesheets and define their own. The whole point of semantic [X]HTML, with presentation broken out into CSS, is that the user can do that, if they so choose, and still have a functional document in front of them. The other 99.999% of Web users would likely perfer if they didn't have to do that.
Well... thing thing with the PowerShots like most Point 'n Shoots is that they're really meant to be used in fully automatic mode. Sure, it's got manual mode, but she's gone from an SLR to a fancy toy.
I haven't used a DSLR, but I'm willing to bet they're a lot closer to what your mom is used to using... both in form and in function.
If you don't need a full-blown IDE, check out Komodo Edit. It's free and available on OSX/Linux/Windwos... does syntax checking and all that good stuff. And it's built on XUL (like Firefox) so there's extensions and stuff available for it.
But I haven't used TextMate, so I can't say how it compares.
And no, I'm not associated with ActiveState, just a satisfied user.:)
Not entirely true... I have a $300 Panasonic that does TIFF. Granted it's higher-end than your typical wallet-sized point-'n-shoot but it's far from a bank-breaking DSLR.
Dell's Latitude and Precision lines still have XP available on them. You might have to go in via the "Medium & Large Business" link, but from there it's all the same.
Re:Fortunately, it's still in infancy :)
on
AACS Device Key Found
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"Why didn't Sony just release their own "iPod" instead? They could have made a "pro" line of HD-based players that had professional quality audio inputs for recording, and a "consumer" line focused on playback, portability and fashion."
A lot of the time it seems like Sony exists solely to push their proprietary formats... and a HDD player wouldn't sell their Memory Sticks now would it?
I'm not quite sure what the logic is behind creating their own format for everything (Memory Stick instead of CF or SD, ATRAC instead of MP3 or Vorbis, Blu-Ray instead of HD-DVD)... seems to me that the R&D money could have been spent elsewhere, perhaps on more useful things.
Interestingly enough, that peak hits around the same time that Digg picks up. I've always been of the belief that Digg and/. server two different (but obviously overlapping) audiences, but maybe I'm wrong.
"first step is to get rid of the idea of the education major and have CS majors teach CS, math majors teach math, engineers teach..."
I don't know... some of the worst professors I had in college fell right into what you're suggesting. They were brilliant people, but they were absolutely terrible at communicating ideas to a classroom full of people who new to the topic at hand. They had no training in education, they had a Ph.D.. But knowing a topic doesn't necessarily mean you can effectively teach it.
I'm not saying that those most knowledgeable in a field shouldn't teach it, but if they're going to then they need to know how to do it effectively.
I know trying to educate users is about as futile as trying to end spam completely... but maybe instead of better filters or stronger laws, that's what we need. I mean honestly, how can someone be connected to the world enough to use the web and email but still be ignorant enough to buy into something that a spammer is hawking? Who's taking investment leads or buying penis pills based on a random email advert?
Every major email provider has pretty good spam protection. One peek in the Spam folder is enough to realize "Hey, this must be some bad stuff." It hurts my brain to try and figure out how spam could possibly be a viable business model.
So the comments here are turning into a bit of a "Email Client Wishlist" so I figure I'll throw my own two cents in...
I'd love to see a "smart" email client that that can analyze incoming mail, strip quoted text, and turn the emails into a threaded forum-like format. The "top-reply" is simply the way everyone [I exchange mail with] seems to go these days, and nothing sucks more than having to read a forwarded email bottom-to-top.
Does something like this (or something that makes achieving this easier) exist?
Part of me sees the point you're making, but another part of me say "Yea, and... what?" Does Notepad, embarrassingly simple though it may be, not still have appropriate uses?
Well... I wouldn't count it out yet. Singularity is only 3-ish years old. In fact, from what I understand they only recently reached the stage of having an interactive command line. IANA Computer Scientist, but I'm sure it's got a long way to go before even its base concepts are suitable for mainstream use. Hell, there's not even any clue as to whether development of Singularity into a mainstream OS would even be feasible.
Not to mention there would be an absolutely massive paradigm shift involved in moving from Win32/64 to a platform like Singularity...
They're not trying to "accomplish" anything, it's just a byproduct of the perpetual ego trip that so many people seem to be caught up in. They don't care that you can't move, they want out of their way. Period.
Enter XULRunner. Democracy Player uses it... when FF and TB will is another story, I suppose. I guess since their development is ahead of XULRunner's curve (XULR is based on FF 1.5.0.4's codebase), it'll be a while.
"Moderates give a power base to extremists," Slade says. "A lot of Catholics use condoms, a lot of Catholics are divorced, and a lot don't have a particular opinion about whether you are homosexual. But when the Pope stands up and says, 'This is what Catholics believe,' he still gets credit for speaking for more than a billion people."
Eh ... I dunno man. Isn't there a medical term for when someone gets so fixated on something that their perception of it becomes completely warped to the point of being detrimental to everyone around them? Sounds like a plausible mental condition. And that he can [attempt?] to wield the power of the courts to enforce his warped perception is slightly scary.
I was going to write something up, but this comment on a previous discussion regarding SoundExchange seems accurate.
"If someone transfered an account balance from some random other person to himself, would that be theft? There are no tangible items involved in the transfer -- just some shifting of database records?"
This analogy doesn't really fly, since money is a finite and ultimately physical resource. But I'll play along...
Of course that would be. If you transfer the money out of my account that means I can no longer use the little plastic card in my pocket. And that I can't go to the bank and get the physical cash that those "database records" map to. I have been deprived of my hard-earned money. It has been stolen from me.
MS is a member of the W3C.
That has worked out real well, eh?
If the user wants it to be up to themselves, they can disable external stylesheets and define their own. The whole point of semantic [X]HTML, with presentation broken out into CSS, is that the user can do that, if they so choose, and still have a functional document in front of them. The other 99.999% of Web users would likely perfer if they didn't have to do that.
Well ... thing thing with the PowerShots like most Point 'n Shoots is that they're really meant to be used in fully automatic mode. Sure, it's got manual mode, but she's gone from an SLR to a fancy toy.
... both in form and in function.
I haven't used a DSLR, but I'm willing to bet they're a lot closer to what your mom is used to using
If you don't need a full-blown IDE, check out Komodo Edit. It's free and available on OSX/Linux/Windwos ... does syntax checking and all that good stuff. And it's built on XUL (like Firefox) so there's extensions and stuff available for it.
:)
But I haven't used TextMate, so I can't say how it compares.
And no, I'm not associated with ActiveState, just a satisfied user.
Their servers are already available with Windows, RHEL, SUSE, or without an OS at all.
"which only the high-end cameras can generate."
... I have a $300 Panasonic that does TIFF. Granted it's higher-end than your typical wallet-sized point-'n-shoot but it's far from a bank-breaking DSLR.
Not entirely true
Dell's Latitude and Precision lines still have XP available on them. You might have to go in via the "Medium & Large Business" link, but from there it's all the same.
"Why didn't Sony just release their own "iPod" instead? They could have made a "pro" line of HD-based players that had professional quality audio inputs for recording, and a "consumer" line focused on playback, portability and fashion."
... and a HDD player wouldn't sell their Memory Sticks now would it?
A lot of the time it seems like Sony exists solely to push their proprietary formats
I'm not quite sure what the logic is behind creating their own format for everything (Memory Stick instead of CF or SD, ATRAC instead of MP3 or Vorbis, Blu-Ray instead of HD-DVD)... seems to me that the R&D money could have been spent elsewhere, perhaps on more useful things.
"html/xml tags"
For which I'm pretty sure the proper term is "element."
""Only the strong survive" just isn't applicable anymore."
;)
Perhaps, but if the Darwin Awards prove anything it's that the truly foolish still manage to sort themselves out!
Interestingly enough, that peak hits around the same time that Digg picks up. I've always been of the belief that Digg and /. server two different (but obviously overlapping) audiences, but maybe I'm wrong.
"first step is to get rid of the idea of the education major and have CS majors teach CS, math majors teach math, engineers teach..."
... some of the worst professors I had in college fell right into what you're suggesting. They were brilliant people, but they were absolutely terrible at communicating ideas to a classroom full of people who new to the topic at hand. They had no training in education, they had a Ph.D.. But knowing a topic doesn't necessarily mean you can effectively teach it.
I don't know
I'm not saying that those most knowledgeable in a field shouldn't teach it, but if they're going to then they need to know how to do it effectively.
I know trying to educate users is about as futile as trying to end spam completely ... but maybe instead of better filters or stronger laws, that's what we need. I mean honestly, how can someone be connected to the world enough to use the web and email but still be ignorant enough to buy into something that a spammer is hawking? Who's taking investment leads or buying penis pills based on a random email advert?
Every major email provider has pretty good spam protection. One peek in the Spam folder is enough to realize "Hey, this must be some bad stuff." It hurts my brain to try and figure out how spam could possibly be a viable business model.
So the comments here are turning into a bit of a "Email Client Wishlist" so I figure I'll throw my own two cents in...
I'd love to see a "smart" email client that that can analyze incoming mail, strip quoted text, and turn the emails into a threaded forum-like format. The "top-reply" is simply the way everyone [I exchange mail with] seems to go these days, and nothing sucks more than having to read a forwarded email bottom-to-top.
Does something like this (or something that makes achieving this easier) exist?
Part of me sees the point you're making, but another part of me say "Yea, and ... what?" Does Notepad, embarrassingly simple though it may be, not still have appropriate uses?
Well ... I wouldn't count it out yet. Singularity is only 3-ish years old. In fact, from what I understand they only recently reached the stage of having an interactive command line. IANA Computer Scientist, but I'm sure it's got a long way to go before even its base concepts are suitable for mainstream use. Hell, there's not even any clue as to whether development of Singularity into a mainstream OS would even be feasible.
Not to mention there would be an absolutely massive paradigm shift involved in moving from Win32/64 to a platform like Singularity...
They're not trying to "accomplish" anything, it's just a byproduct of the perpetual ego trip that so many people seem to be caught up in. They don't care that you can't move, they want out of their way. Period.
I wonder if they'll take advantage of Photosynth with all the imagery they'll have on-hand...
Enter XULRunner. Democracy Player uses it ... when FF and TB will is another story, I suppose. I guess since their development is ahead of XULRunner's curve (XULR is based on FF 1.5.0.4's codebase), it'll be a while.
The article I linked to is worth reading, BTW.
"Of course...who's working on that free music again?"
Lots of people...
"VB and Java is what businesses actually want."
Perhaps, but it's probably because that's what the schools are focusing on. Bit of a feedback loop, really...