You know...all throughout that last gasoline price spike I kept thinking about how people living in EPCOT would have been so perfectly positioned to weather that. The idea was you could get around the whole city via those people-movers and between EPCOT and the light industrial area via the monorail and not really need the car other then for pleasure driving. They could have plugged all sorts of alternative ways to generate electricity into that city as the technologies developed. In fact, the whole idea was to keep it evolving as new technologies emerged.
Say that's a really swell idea there Microsift. Except that a lot of the anti same-sex marriage amendments that have been passed also forbid civil unions as well. Some of them explicitly forbid any legal recognition of same-sex couples that in any way grants rights or privileges associated with marriage.
Now...why would that be..if they're only getting hung up on a word. Simple. The word they're getting hung up on isn't "marriage" its "homosexuals".
This fight isn't about marriage. It isn't about how the state does or does not recognize it. All the ersatz libertarian rhetoric about keeping the state out of marriage carefully misses the point. This is about hating homosexuals, nothing more, nothing less. Otherwise, there wouldn't be this scorched earth fight to deny same-sex couples any legal standing whatsoever. None of these anti same-sex marriage amendments would touch on that. In fact, nearly all of them do, and some of them, Like Virginia's go even further.
Saying the state should stay out of the marriage business is a nice solution to some other issue, but not this one. This isn't about marriage. It's about the status of gay people in America.
This. I own an iPhone and I've been so disappointed with its PIM functionality that I'm still carrying around my Sony Clie. There is no native notepad sync on the iPhone. The security model is too coarse...I either lock the entire phone or leave everything open. And I can't sync the iPhone with my Linux box. I could go on...but the point is I need that PIM functionality more in a smart phone then I need the entertainment stuff.
I am dumping my iPhone when the contract is up this July. I was really looking forward to this new Palm device. But...Sprint? No thank you. I guess my last hope is Android now...
This. I once worked for a small business owned and run by a fundamentalist nutcase. He had his employee lunchroom littered with his religious pamphlets and conversation with him about...well...anything...was peppered with Jesus talk. He was careful to keep it away from most of his clients, but the employees got it constantly. He would hold regular lunchtime prayer meetings in the lunch room. He seemed to believe that since it was his business, he was entitled to barrage anyone who worked for him with his religion. And he made no bones about favoring the employees who went along with it over those who tried to keep it at arm's length while they worked.
If this case ever gets into the Federal Courts, expect all the usual suspects from the religious right to side with the Scientologists. Expect then to claim that it's everyone else who are harassing the Christians (according to their version of Christianity). If their religious beliefs require them to only employ other Christians, or promote members of their own church over employees who aren't, then when you complain about that you are harassing them. They are not harassing you when they try to impose their religion on you, they're trying to save your soul. They're doing it out of love. If you complain you are being hateful.
The argument has always been that a secular society that values tolerance and religious pluralism is necessarily hostile toward them. If you teach science in the classroom you are attacking their beliefs. If pharmacists can't pick and choose which prescriptions they will fill, and for whom, based on their beliefs you are attacking their beliefs. If landlords can't rent to, if businesses can't employ and serve, only members of their own religion, you are attacking their beliefs. Laws that protect everyone, them included, from discrimination, attack their beliefs because those laws don't allow them discriminate against everyone else. But repealing all the anti-discrimination laws would also be an attack on their beliefs, since that would allow other people to discriminate against them. The only way for them to be free from discrimination, is for everyone to embrace their beliefs whether we want to or not. And it's for our own good anyway.
It would be a Pyrrhic victory for Scientology if Diskeeper's argument won the day. But it's a safe bet that if this thing gets any further the Scientologists will be more then happy to buddy up with the Christian religious right since they both have common enemies in secularism and pluralism.
Yeah...I think these two things, having the 'Y' verses it being fully expressed, were getting confused in that reporters mind. Unless there is some environmental chemistry that's actually preventing eggs from being fertilized by sperm that carries the 'Y'.
Is there really a statistically significant change in the male/female birth rates? Or is it just they're seeing somewhat less masculine males being born now. And...how are they judging masculinity anyway? What base line data do they have to compare to, for making the claim that males being born now are less masculine?
No...what blew my mind was seeing that "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims", disclaimer at the top of the article page. In the context of this discussion that's pretty hilarious...
The reason we have problems with deciding whether something like Eris is a "planet" is because we know a lot more than the ancients did.
That's why the problem comes to a head now instead of back then. But we're still not that far removed apparently, from the ancients who believed the earth was the center of the universe. We're still treating the universe as if it's pretty much the same everywhere else as it is here.
I remember reading some astronomer bellyaching that if Pluto was a planet, then so were all the other Kuiper belt objects like it and then...holy cow...we would be saying that the solar system had hundreds of planets then. Yeah? So? It's like a lot of these distinguished astronomers think that 'planet' is some kind of exclusive men's club and now all of a sudden a bunch of trailer trash is trying to get in. Who do those...objects...think they are? Hicks living in the middle of nowhere...why, you can't even get a decent tan on any of them...
So now...as our knowledge of what's actually out there becomes more and more detailed, instead of our solar system having hundreds of planets, our textbooks will have hundreds of different terms for what are essentially the same kinds of objects. Because it would just never do to give something as cold and puny and way in the middle of nowhere the same designation as Jupiter. The reason why the seven stars are no more then seven is a pretty reason...
If it's massive enough that its shape is defined largely by its gravity, but it isn't so large that it is, or ever was, a star, then it's a planet. Unless it's orbit is centered within another planet, in which case it's a moon. As time goes on I suspect we'll be finding tons of these things scattered here and there in configurations nobody ever reckoned on before they were found...and even wandering around in space without any star of their own to orbit. This definition of planet they decided on in 2006 is going to look more and more provincial as we begin to really see what's out there. But then that's how it usually goes I suppose...
Commercial tools that perform better are of no use to me if the licensing restrictions on their use make them impractical, or the branding-unlocking mechanisms become too onerous or downright flaky.
Where I work, some years ago we tried out jBuilder. It had a software branding scheme at the time (perhaps it still does...I wouldn't know...) and when I attempted to install and unlock the software, it told me that my license was already in use. Many hours on the phone later and I got an explanation from someone at Borland. It turned out that a run of packages had all been branded with the same license number and so my license was already being used several times over. They had to cut me an exception over the phone before I could even install the damn software and run it. Then we got all new workstations and I had to re-install all over again and I just threw up my hands and started looking around for alternatives. That's when I found NetBeans. Others here went to Eclipse.
I've never looked back. Not only can I just install and run the tool whenever and wherever I need it, it works pretty much the same on all the platforms I develop for and test on. I don't have to worry about licensing terms like I did with the commercial tools. I don't have to fuss with their idiot branding-unlocking mechanisms. I can just install and run the tool where I need it and it works. Maybe not as well as the commercial tools...but a tool that won't run because it thinks you're not a legitimate user even if you've bought a license is a lot harder to use then any open source tool I've ever worked with no matter how quirky.
I'm actually in the middle of a project to develop an open source alternative to Install Anywhere. The IA license is per user per seat and it is rigorously enforced in the code. And how do I know this? We had a disk failure on our build machine and I had to re-install IA and it refused to accept the license key we had. On the one hand, the IDE said it was properly licensed. On the other, the command line build tool refused to run, saying we didn't have a licensed copy. It was maddening. But more so, was Macrovision's response. They agreed the license was legitimate, but since my name was not on the support package we'd bought we had to haggle with them for two weeks before finally getting my name transferred, and someone else's here removed, from the software support license. Only then would they tell us how to fix their damn software.
So now I'm tasked with getting rid of it and it turns out to be simple after all. There are several open source tools that will do the job for us that Install Anywhere did just fine thank you, and when I'm done we'll have an install kit technology that any developer can use on any workstation running any of the platforms we support. Plus, we'll have the source code too, which means we can't be forced into any upgrades we neither want nor need like they tried to do to us with Power Update. At some point I will probably contribute either money or code to one or more of the open source products we'll be using. Perhaps in some sense these open source tools are inferior to the commercial product. On the other hand, they work and they they don't carry with them any onerous licensing terms or branding-unlocking junk.
A tool I can't use because it just sits there and tells me I'm not a legitimately licensed user is worthless to me whether it's a superior commercial product or not. I just want to get my work done. We're not moving away from commercial tools because of their price. We will pay for good tools. But what's out there is just too much of a hassle to use by comparison with open source. Open source surely has it's quirks. But we at least, reached a stage some time ago where those quirks were less of a bother then the licensing terms and unlocking code of the commercial products and so we're moving away from that stuff now. If this troubles the producers of commercial tools I am not sorry in the least. I've lost weeks of my time haggling with licenses and license keys and policies and installation problems that have nothing at all to do with being productive and getting my job done and as far as I'm concerned the further away I can get from all of that the better.
The first mammals appeared around 164 million years ago while the earliest fossil records of multicellular animals are around 610 million years old. If a species on the edge of the galaxy had begun sending out ships at 1% of the speed of light when they appeared, then by now they would have gone the length of the galaxy 61 times...
...by which time they'd only be a sprightly young 164 million years old, and just starting to get a little bit bored by the drive.
No. Not a 1981 IBM PC. A 1984 IBM PC Jr. You know...the one people referred to back then as "the cripple". People point to the rotten keyboard it originally shipped with, but the machine was deliberately crippled in terms of memory and expandability so as not to reduce sales of the PC. One consequence being that a bunch of software that ran on the PC wouldn't on the Jr. Yes, it had more game ports on it, but little to no expandability. IBM eventually offered a free replacement keyboard, but the keyboard wasn't the problem, so much as a symptom of the problem. It was an entry level home computer in other words, that locked you in to entry level. Nobody wanted that.
It's one thing to sell something with reduced initial functionality, and another to sell something with permanently limited functionality. A market that can't afford the premium product will by the parsed down version in the hopes of eventually being able to add improvements to it. But if people know they'll be locked into the parsed down version they won't buy. Nobody wants to live in a cage, let alone buy the cage and then lock themselves in it.
Well...I guess cult members do...
I own an iPhone and in addition to my other household computers, two Macs. The phone is nice, but it needs work. The saving grace is there's a potential there for an entire world of software developers to let their imaginations play with it. The iPhone hasn't reinvented the telephone...yet. But it could. If Steve will let it. I have just over a year left on my contract with AT&T and I've enjoyed my iPhone very much, but if after that time I don't see this thing living up to the potential here I Will bolt for the next product out there that looks like it will. You can't lock down imagination anymore then you can stop time.
I have a question. How did these fairly heavy looking rocks come to rest not just in, but On the surface of this dried up lake bed in the first place? The nearest edge of this lake bed looks pretty far away in the photos I've seen of these moving rocks, so it's hard to believe they tumbled down the sides of those mountains to rest there. The satellite view makes me wonder even more. That's a pretty big lake bed.
My 12" Apple Powerbook is only a little bit bigger then this and it fits neatly into the same shoulder bag or day pack I'd have to carry a Foleo in. So...no way. Far as I'm concerned, I already have a conveniently sized carry-around laptop. The nice thing about my Kyocera smart phone on the other hand, is I can clip it to my belt, or slip it into a coat pocket.
Grassroots donations, but also a few very friendly right wing billionares, like Howard Ahmanson. He's been a big friend to creationist organizations like The Discovery Institute. I expect some of the other usual names (Scaife, Olin, Bradley, Coors, and so forth) are sending a little money their way too, via one cash teat or another.
For example, noise is not equivalent to film grain: for my money, traditional graininess detracts less from the image than does noise, particularly chroma noise. But that's a matter of taste.
Well it's one I agree with. Yes. Digital noise has always struck my eye as being way more obnoxious then grain. It's really ugly.
I have a Canon EOS 30D and I love it. Did some great work with it on my last road trip through the southwest. But I live in fear Kodak will stop making Tri-X. And HC-110.
If I could get my hands on some of the Agfa Brovira paper I used to work with once upon a time again, the single contrast fiber based stuff...I'd strongly consider reactivating the print side of my darkroom. But it would still be only for occasional special prints.
I've been a camera bug since I was a teenager back in the late 1960s and I still love to work with my film cameras. And yes, it's really great that since so many folks are trading in their film equipment for digital you can get some very fine deals. I bought the Hasselblad I've always wanted a couple years ago...second hand, but in cherry condition. I have almost all the great lenses for my Canon F-1s now that I just couldn't afford back when I was a kid. I love it.
But my darkroom is only for developing film now. I bought a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED last Christmas, and I'm working on scanning in my entire library of negatives and slides. I'm using Aperture for its cataloging capabilities as much as for its great image adjustment tools. I use Photoshop mostly for dust speck removal (I have other non-photographic uses I put Photoshop to otherwise...I'm a cartoonist too). It's great not to have to deal with paper contact sheets. I can just scan my film in and have metadata linked to each image so I don't have to rummage through hundreds of contacts to find the shots I'm looking for. And now I can protect my images by storing backups offsite. I've always been afraid for my negatives and slides.
I never had the money or the time to invest in a full blown color darkroom, and nowadays I can produce great results, absolutely great results, with the Hasselblad, some rolls of Fuji Velvia, the Coolscan, Aperture and my Epson Stylus Photo R1800. And I can tell you for a fact that touching out dust specks in Photoshop beats doing it with a brush on the final print hands down.
Once you get the image into the computer endless possibilities open up. Yes, I still love film photography. I don't think I'll ever give it up. And, yes, I agree that large format black and white silver prints still beat what you can produce with even the best digital cameras and inkjet printers at the moment. They're absolutely lovely. If I wanted to I could probably still produce really fine black and white silver prints in my own darkroom. On the other hand, Kodak has stopped making black and white photographic paper.
in terms of music-only listening I think you make a great point, but satellite offers much more than just music.
I listen to Sirius' gay channel, "OutQ" regularly from home, and regard it as a lifeline while taking a road trip through hate radio territory. XM has nothing like it. I especially like Signorile in the afternoons, and "Sunset Cruse", which is a dedicate-a-song-to-your-sweetheart show on Sunday evenings. It's a really good note to end a week on, something to make me feel that love is still possible in this world.
Radio shows that specifically target a gay audience only show up here and there in some big cities, and then only for a few hours a week at best. But that's about all even those markets can support. What the promise of satellite radio was to me as a gay man, was that by being able to reach the entire nation (with better quality then shortwave) a station that targeted gay folks specifically might be profitable, and have the resources to actually be of good quality. OutQ is for me, mostly, that.
Until some other technology comes along that can do this, it seems to me that satellite radio is it. No, it isn't just the music channels for a lot of us. Those are good too, but I need sources of news and information and just plain easy listening that speaks directly to me, not..."oh and you gays too...maybe."
No, there's only one person who can effectively deny a bully permission to bully: the victim.
I remember watching a news show about the criminal mindset, and how they're never at fault for the crimes they commit, but always their victims are. The party responsible for their behavior, is always their victims. If they hadn't been so stupid, hadn't left their money where the thief could get at it, hadn't taken that walk down that park trail alone, hadn't appeared to be vulnerable, then nothing would have happened to them. So clearly the thug isn't responsible for what happened.
That's what you're saying here. I am all for people learning how to protect themselves, but it takes a particularly callous and...well...criminal sort of mindset, to blame those who can't, because they're small, or weak, or in some other way vulnerable to attack, for the abuse of thugs. And it's even more contemptible when its children you're talking about.
It's one thing to encourage people to stand up for themselves. But sometimes that standing up for yourself means asking for help, because you simply cannot cope with it on your own! It's one thing to say that people have a responsibility for their own lives, and another to blame children for being abused. Part of the job description of 'adult', is protecting and nurturing the young. This is what civilized societies do. Even if they're not ones own, the person who can turn away when a child is being brutalized is by no reasonable description an adult, let alone a civilized one.
You don't want to suffocate children in a protective bubble, but taking action against bullying isn't that, any more then protecting them from child abusing adults is. Picture an adult stranger doing to a kid what some of these bullies are accused of doing and ask yourself what the appropriate response would be. Why does a kid get a free pass to do to another kid, something that would get an adult hauled off to jail for? Because they're only kids? Then why treat the victim as if they were an adult who had the means and the fully developed emotional stamina to deal with it themselves, instead of as the child they are? Out of a sympathetic contempt for the weak maybe?
Bullying can leave emotional scars that last a lifetime if its bad enough. That's all the reason any mature adult really needs to put a stop to it wherever they see it happening. It isn't the kid's responsibility. It's the grownup's. Any grownups around here?
Why would anybody buy a song they already own on CD???
Well I wouldn't. But I've bought a bunch of iTunes copies of music I already owned on LPs, and especially all those 45rpm singles I bought back when I was a teenager. At the prices Apple is charging, it makes a lot of sense to be able to easily download a copy of a favorite tune that is clean and clear and sounds better then the old 45 ever did.
Yeah...I went through a burst of buying iTunes earlier when I discovered I could have all my old favorites back again. But I'm still buying music through them...just not quite as much now. I listen to satellite radio now, and sometimes when I hear something I like I check iTunes for it. My biggest problem with iTunes now is that they only have the song I heard that I want to buy available for sale about half the time. There's a lot of stuff that still isn't in their catalog.
Hubble is in the wrong place - it is inoperable for half the time, since the earth blocks its view as it orbits...
Huh? There is an hourglass shaped segment of the universe that Hubble can observe all the time, and careful scheduling can take care of a portion of the rest (it's that dance between the plane of hubble's orbit around the earth, and the plane of earth's orbit around the sun). This is not just a problem with Hubble, but with any space based telescope (until we can manage to put something into interstellar space anyway...). Even in a Lagrange point there will be times when some parts of the universe just won't be observable, when the sun, moon, or earth are in the way.
There is scheduling software that, factors all the orbital mechanics, and insures Hubble's time is as well used as it can possibly be. Not a moment of its time is wasted if it can be humanly avoided. Not only is its time expensive, it is intensely sought after by astronomers.
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Fluoridation my boy...fluoridation...
Yes! First thing that crossed my mind too.
You know...all throughout that last gasoline price spike I kept thinking about how people living in EPCOT would have been so perfectly positioned to weather that. The idea was you could get around the whole city via those people-movers and between EPCOT and the light industrial area via the monorail and not really need the car other then for pleasure driving. They could have plugged all sorts of alternative ways to generate electricity into that city as the technologies developed. In fact, the whole idea was to keep it evolving as new technologies emerged.
What could have been...
Say that's a really swell idea there Microsift. Except that a lot of the anti same-sex marriage amendments that have been passed also forbid civil unions as well. Some of them explicitly forbid any legal recognition of same-sex couples that in any way grants rights or privileges associated with marriage.
Now...why would that be..if they're only getting hung up on a word. Simple. The word they're getting hung up on isn't "marriage" its "homosexuals".
This fight isn't about marriage. It isn't about how the state does or does not recognize it. All the ersatz libertarian rhetoric about keeping the state out of marriage carefully misses the point. This is about hating homosexuals, nothing more, nothing less. Otherwise, there wouldn't be this scorched earth fight to deny same-sex couples any legal standing whatsoever. None of these anti same-sex marriage amendments would touch on that. In fact, nearly all of them do, and some of them, Like Virginia's go even further.
Saying the state should stay out of the marriage business is a nice solution to some other issue, but not this one. This isn't about marriage. It's about the status of gay people in America.
This. I own an iPhone and I've been so disappointed with its PIM functionality that I'm still carrying around my Sony Clie. There is no native notepad sync on the iPhone. The security model is too coarse...I either lock the entire phone or leave everything open. And I can't sync the iPhone with my Linux box. I could go on...but the point is I need that PIM functionality more in a smart phone then I need the entertainment stuff.
I am dumping my iPhone when the contract is up this July. I was really looking forward to this new Palm device. But...Sprint? No thank you. I guess my last hope is Android now...
This. I once worked for a small business owned and run by a fundamentalist nutcase. He had his employee lunchroom littered with his religious pamphlets and conversation with him about...well...anything...was peppered with Jesus talk. He was careful to keep it away from most of his clients, but the employees got it constantly. He would hold regular lunchtime prayer meetings in the lunch room. He seemed to believe that since it was his business, he was entitled to barrage anyone who worked for him with his religion. And he made no bones about favoring the employees who went along with it over those who tried to keep it at arm's length while they worked.
If this case ever gets into the Federal Courts, expect all the usual suspects from the religious right to side with the Scientologists. Expect then to claim that it's everyone else who are harassing the Christians (according to their version of Christianity). If their religious beliefs require them to only employ other Christians, or promote members of their own church over employees who aren't, then when you complain about that you are harassing them. They are not harassing you when they try to impose their religion on you, they're trying to save your soul. They're doing it out of love. If you complain you are being hateful.
The argument has always been that a secular society that values tolerance and religious pluralism is necessarily hostile toward them. If you teach science in the classroom you are attacking their beliefs. If pharmacists can't pick and choose which prescriptions they will fill, and for whom, based on their beliefs you are attacking their beliefs. If landlords can't rent to, if businesses can't employ and serve, only members of their own religion, you are attacking their beliefs. Laws that protect everyone, them included, from discrimination, attack their beliefs because those laws don't allow them discriminate against everyone else. But repealing all the anti-discrimination laws would also be an attack on their beliefs, since that would allow other people to discriminate against them. The only way for them to be free from discrimination, is for everyone to embrace their beliefs whether we want to or not. And it's for our own good anyway.
It would be a Pyrrhic victory for Scientology if Diskeeper's argument won the day. But it's a safe bet that if this thing gets any further the Scientologists will be more then happy to buddy up with the Christian religious right since they both have common enemies in secularism and pluralism.
Yeah...I think these two things, having the 'Y' verses it being fully expressed, were getting confused in that reporters mind. Unless there is some environmental chemistry that's actually preventing eggs from being fertilized by sperm that carries the 'Y'. Is there really a statistically significant change in the male/female birth rates? Or is it just they're seeing somewhat less masculine males being born now. And...how are they judging masculinity anyway? What base line data do they have to compare to, for making the claim that males being born now are less masculine?
No...what blew my mind was seeing that "This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims", disclaimer at the top of the article page. In the context of this discussion that's pretty hilarious...
he Supreme Court needs to step in and strike this down. Someone needs to bring a lawsuit and get it sent up to the Supreme Court.
That would be the same supreme court that ruled for Bush in 2000?
The reason we have problems with deciding whether something like Eris is a "planet" is because we know a lot more than the ancients did.
That's why the problem comes to a head now instead of back then. But we're still not that far removed apparently, from the ancients who believed the earth was the center of the universe. We're still treating the universe as if it's pretty much the same everywhere else as it is here.
I remember reading some astronomer bellyaching that if Pluto was a planet, then so were all the other Kuiper belt objects like it and then...holy cow...we would be saying that the solar system had hundreds of planets then. Yeah? So? It's like a lot of these distinguished astronomers think that 'planet' is some kind of exclusive men's club and now all of a sudden a bunch of trailer trash is trying to get in. Who do those...objects...think they are? Hicks living in the middle of nowhere...why, you can't even get a decent tan on any of them...
So now...as our knowledge of what's actually out there becomes more and more detailed, instead of our solar system having hundreds of planets, our textbooks will have hundreds of different terms for what are essentially the same kinds of objects. Because it would just never do to give something as cold and puny and way in the middle of nowhere the same designation as Jupiter. The reason why the seven stars are no more then seven is a pretty reason...
If it's massive enough that its shape is defined largely by its gravity, but it isn't so large that it is, or ever was, a star, then it's a planet. Unless it's orbit is centered within another planet, in which case it's a moon. As time goes on I suspect we'll be finding tons of these things scattered here and there in configurations nobody ever reckoned on before they were found...and even wandering around in space without any star of their own to orbit. This definition of planet they decided on in 2006 is going to look more and more provincial as we begin to really see what's out there. But then that's how it usually goes I suppose...
Commercial tools that perform better are of no use to me if the licensing restrictions on their use make them impractical, or the branding-unlocking mechanisms become too onerous or downright flaky.
Where I work, some years ago we tried out jBuilder. It had a software branding scheme at the time (perhaps it still does...I wouldn't know...) and when I attempted to install and unlock the software, it told me that my license was already in use. Many hours on the phone later and I got an explanation from someone at Borland. It turned out that a run of packages had all been branded with the same license number and so my license was already being used several times over. They had to cut me an exception over the phone before I could even install the damn software and run it. Then we got all new workstations and I had to re-install all over again and I just threw up my hands and started looking around for alternatives. That's when I found NetBeans. Others here went to Eclipse.
I've never looked back. Not only can I just install and run the tool whenever and wherever I need it, it works pretty much the same on all the platforms I develop for and test on. I don't have to worry about licensing terms like I did with the commercial tools. I don't have to fuss with their idiot branding-unlocking mechanisms. I can just install and run the tool where I need it and it works. Maybe not as well as the commercial tools...but a tool that won't run because it thinks you're not a legitimate user even if you've bought a license is a lot harder to use then any open source tool I've ever worked with no matter how quirky.
I'm actually in the middle of a project to develop an open source alternative to Install Anywhere. The IA license is per user per seat and it is rigorously enforced in the code. And how do I know this? We had a disk failure on our build machine and I had to re-install IA and it refused to accept the license key we had. On the one hand, the IDE said it was properly licensed. On the other, the command line build tool refused to run, saying we didn't have a licensed copy. It was maddening. But more so, was Macrovision's response. They agreed the license was legitimate, but since my name was not on the support package we'd bought we had to haggle with them for two weeks before finally getting my name transferred, and someone else's here removed, from the software support license. Only then would they tell us how to fix their damn software.
So now I'm tasked with getting rid of it and it turns out to be simple after all. There are several open source tools that will do the job for us that Install Anywhere did just fine thank you, and when I'm done we'll have an install kit technology that any developer can use on any workstation running any of the platforms we support. Plus, we'll have the source code too, which means we can't be forced into any upgrades we neither want nor need like they tried to do to us with Power Update. At some point I will probably contribute either money or code to one or more of the open source products we'll be using. Perhaps in some sense these open source tools are inferior to the commercial product. On the other hand, they work and they they don't carry with them any onerous licensing terms or branding-unlocking junk.
A tool I can't use because it just sits there and tells me I'm not a legitimately licensed user is worthless to me whether it's a superior commercial product or not. I just want to get my work done. We're not moving away from commercial tools because of their price. We will pay for good tools. But what's out there is just too much of a hassle to use by comparison with open source. Open source surely has it's quirks. But we at least, reached a stage some time ago where those quirks were less of a bother then the licensing terms and unlocking code of the commercial products and so we're moving away from that stuff now. If this troubles the producers of commercial tools I am not sorry in the least. I've lost weeks of my time haggling with licenses and license keys and policies and installation problems that have nothing at all to do with being productive and getting my job done and as far as I'm concerned the further away I can get from all of that the better.
The first mammals appeared around 164 million years ago while the earliest fossil records of multicellular animals are around 610 million years old. If a species on the edge of the galaxy had begun sending out ships at 1% of the speed of light when they appeared, then by now they would have gone the length of the galaxy 61 times...
...by which time they'd only be a sprightly young 164 million years old, and just starting to get a little bit bored by the drive.
No. Not a 1981 IBM PC. A 1984 IBM PC Jr. You know...the one people referred to back then as "the cripple". People point to the rotten keyboard it originally shipped with, but the machine was deliberately crippled in terms of memory and expandability so as not to reduce sales of the PC. One consequence being that a bunch of software that ran on the PC wouldn't on the Jr. Yes, it had more game ports on it, but little to no expandability. IBM eventually offered a free replacement keyboard, but the keyboard wasn't the problem, so much as a symptom of the problem. It was an entry level home computer in other words, that locked you in to entry level. Nobody wanted that.
It's one thing to sell something with reduced initial functionality, and another to sell something with permanently limited functionality. A market that can't afford the premium product will by the parsed down version in the hopes of eventually being able to add improvements to it. But if people know they'll be locked into the parsed down version they won't buy. Nobody wants to live in a cage, let alone buy the cage and then lock themselves in it.
Well...I guess cult members do...
I own an iPhone and in addition to my other household computers, two Macs. The phone is nice, but it needs work. The saving grace is there's a potential there for an entire world of software developers to let their imaginations play with it. The iPhone hasn't reinvented the telephone...yet. But it could. If Steve will let it. I have just over a year left on my contract with AT&T and I've enjoyed my iPhone very much, but if after that time I don't see this thing living up to the potential here I Will bolt for the next product out there that looks like it will. You can't lock down imagination anymore then you can stop time.
I have a question. How did these fairly heavy looking rocks come to rest not just in, but On the surface of this dried up lake bed in the first place? The nearest edge of this lake bed looks pretty far away in the photos I've seen of these moving rocks, so it's hard to believe they tumbled down the sides of those mountains to rest there. The satellite view makes me wonder even more. That's a pretty big lake bed.
"They can run rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway..."
1) Most of these "users" never liked .NET...
Why is this not surprising? .NET is the reason I'm a Java developer now.
My 12" Apple Powerbook is only a little bit bigger then this and it fits neatly into the same shoulder bag or day pack I'd have to carry a Foleo in. So...no way. Far as I'm concerned, I already have a conveniently sized carry-around laptop. The nice thing about my Kyocera smart phone on the other hand, is I can clip it to my belt, or slip it into a coat pocket.
Grassroots donations, but also a few very friendly right wing billionares, like Howard Ahmanson. He's been a big friend to creationist organizations like The Discovery Institute. I expect some of the other usual names (Scaife, Olin, Bradley, Coors, and so forth) are sending a little money their way too, via one cash teat or another.
I'll second that. I have Sirius, and I've bought more music in the last year since I got the Sirius radio then in the previous 10.
For example, noise is not equivalent to film grain: for my money, traditional graininess detracts less from the image than does noise, particularly chroma noise. But that's a matter of taste.
Well it's one I agree with. Yes. Digital noise has always struck my eye as being way more obnoxious then grain. It's really ugly.
I have a Canon EOS 30D and I love it. Did some great work with it on my last road trip through the southwest. But I live in fear Kodak will stop making Tri-X. And HC-110.
If I could get my hands on some of the Agfa Brovira paper I used to work with once upon a time again, the single contrast fiber based stuff...I'd strongly consider reactivating the print side of my darkroom. But it would still be only for occasional special prints.
I've been a camera bug since I was a teenager back in the late 1960s and I still love to work with my film cameras. And yes, it's really great that since so many folks are trading in their film equipment for digital you can get some very fine deals. I bought the Hasselblad I've always wanted a couple years ago...second hand, but in cherry condition. I have almost all the great lenses for my Canon F-1s now that I just couldn't afford back when I was a kid. I love it.
But my darkroom is only for developing film now. I bought a Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED last Christmas, and I'm working on scanning in my entire library of negatives and slides. I'm using Aperture for its cataloging capabilities as much as for its great image adjustment tools. I use Photoshop mostly for dust speck removal (I have other non-photographic uses I put Photoshop to otherwise...I'm a cartoonist too). It's great not to have to deal with paper contact sheets. I can just scan my film in and have metadata linked to each image so I don't have to rummage through hundreds of contacts to find the shots I'm looking for. And now I can protect my images by storing backups offsite. I've always been afraid for my negatives and slides.
I never had the money or the time to invest in a full blown color darkroom, and nowadays I can produce great results, absolutely great results, with the Hasselblad, some rolls of Fuji Velvia, the Coolscan, Aperture and my Epson Stylus Photo R1800. And I can tell you for a fact that touching out dust specks in Photoshop beats doing it with a brush on the final print hands down.
Once you get the image into the computer endless possibilities open up. Yes, I still love film photography. I don't think I'll ever give it up. And, yes, I agree that large format black and white silver prints still beat what you can produce with even the best digital cameras and inkjet printers at the moment. They're absolutely lovely. If I wanted to I could probably still produce really fine black and white silver prints in my own darkroom. On the other hand, Kodak has stopped making black and white photographic paper.
in terms of music-only listening I think you make a great point, but satellite offers much more than just music.
I listen to Sirius' gay channel, "OutQ" regularly from home, and regard it as a lifeline while taking a road trip through hate radio territory. XM has nothing like it. I especially like Signorile in the afternoons, and "Sunset Cruse", which is a dedicate-a-song-to-your-sweetheart show on Sunday evenings. It's a really good note to end a week on, something to make me feel that love is still possible in this world.
Radio shows that specifically target a gay audience only show up here and there in some big cities, and then only for a few hours a week at best. But that's about all even those markets can support. What the promise of satellite radio was to me as a gay man, was that by being able to reach the entire nation (with better quality then shortwave) a station that targeted gay folks specifically might be profitable, and have the resources to actually be of good quality. OutQ is for me, mostly, that.
Until some other technology comes along that can do this, it seems to me that satellite radio is it. No, it isn't just the music channels for a lot of us. Those are good too, but I need sources of news and information and just plain easy listening that speaks directly to me, not..."oh and you gays too...maybe."
No, there's only one person who can effectively deny a bully permission to bully: the victim.
I remember watching a news show about the criminal mindset, and how they're never at fault for the crimes they commit, but always their victims are. The party responsible for their behavior, is always their victims. If they hadn't been so stupid, hadn't left their money where the thief could get at it, hadn't taken that walk down that park trail alone, hadn't appeared to be vulnerable, then nothing would have happened to them. So clearly the thug isn't responsible for what happened.
That's what you're saying here. I am all for people learning how to protect themselves, but it takes a particularly callous and...well...criminal sort of mindset, to blame those who can't, because they're small, or weak, or in some other way vulnerable to attack, for the abuse of thugs. And it's even more contemptible when its children you're talking about.
It's one thing to encourage people to stand up for themselves. But sometimes that standing up for yourself means asking for help, because you simply cannot cope with it on your own! It's one thing to say that people have a responsibility for their own lives, and another to blame children for being abused. Part of the job description of 'adult', is protecting and nurturing the young. This is what civilized societies do. Even if they're not ones own, the person who can turn away when a child is being brutalized is by no reasonable description an adult, let alone a civilized one.
You don't want to suffocate children in a protective bubble, but taking action against bullying isn't that, any more then protecting them from child abusing adults is. Picture an adult stranger doing to a kid what some of these bullies are accused of doing and ask yourself what the appropriate response would be. Why does a kid get a free pass to do to another kid, something that would get an adult hauled off to jail for? Because they're only kids? Then why treat the victim as if they were an adult who had the means and the fully developed emotional stamina to deal with it themselves, instead of as the child they are? Out of a sympathetic contempt for the weak maybe?
Bullying can leave emotional scars that last a lifetime if its bad enough. That's all the reason any mature adult really needs to put a stop to it wherever they see it happening. It isn't the kid's responsibility. It's the grownup's. Any grownups around here?
It's your life - if you don't like what's happening to you, either grow a thicker skin or DO something about it!
Right. Like Harris and Klebold did.
Why would anybody buy a song they already own on CD???
Well I wouldn't. But I've bought a bunch of iTunes copies of music I already owned on LPs, and especially all those 45rpm singles I bought back when I was a teenager. At the prices Apple is charging, it makes a lot of sense to be able to easily download a copy of a favorite tune that is clean and clear and sounds better then the old 45 ever did.
Yeah...I went through a burst of buying iTunes earlier when I discovered I could have all my old favorites back again. But I'm still buying music through them...just not quite as much now. I listen to satellite radio now, and sometimes when I hear something I like I check iTunes for it. My biggest problem with iTunes now is that they only have the song I heard that I want to buy available for sale about half the time. There's a lot of stuff that still isn't in their catalog.
Hubble is in the wrong place - it is inoperable for half the time, since the earth blocks its view as it orbits...
Huh? There is an hourglass shaped segment of the universe that Hubble can observe all the time, and careful scheduling can take care of a portion of the rest (it's that dance between the plane of hubble's orbit around the earth, and the plane of earth's orbit around the sun). This is not just a problem with Hubble, but with any space based telescope (until we can manage to put something into interstellar space anyway...). Even in a Lagrange point there will be times when some parts of the universe just won't be observable, when the sun, moon, or earth are in the way.
There is scheduling software that, factors all the orbital mechanics, and insures Hubble's time is as well used as it can possibly be. Not a moment of its time is wasted if it can be humanly avoided. Not only is its time expensive, it is intensely sought after by astronomers.