This is a pretty normal precaution. Apparently, smiling allows you to distort your face enough to allow others a better chance of passing themselves off as you.
Of course, keep in mind that the photo is for humans to do facial recognition.
However, corporate culture has a funny way of infecting new employees and sticking around. A company might be filled with new grunts, but at the end of the day, the same set of values and ideals are passed from generation to generation.
Those who disagree and would want to see change tend to leave (similar to attrition). Without a person at the helm who is very dedicated to steering the company away from its course, you won't see much difference between the company ten years ago and the company today.
You assume the developer is the only ones that make documentation. It can be made by users themselves (from users to users).
And that's exactly the kind of threat that Microsoft should be afraid of. Free Research and Development cuts a huge percentage of the total cost of any project. In comparison, documentation can be cobbled together for pennies. With wiki's these days, it might even be free.
Marketing is a different story. As Firefox shows, getting the word out via advertising is expensive... but no one said Open Source was going to solve everything.
I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you seem to expect Open-Source projects to provide the full commercial product experience. This was never the point to open-source, which, as the name suggests, deals with code.
The compiled product, the marketing materials, the user support... it's all something that has to be picked up by people interested in marketing, in technical documentation, in user support.
Developers are developers. Expecting them to deliver anything more than code is a poor idea.
This doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't be concerned. Research and development is by far the most costly, unpredictable element in delivering software. That this part of a software project is being created for free means that the rest can be filled in at relatively low-cost.
So what? There is absolutely nothing about the protocol (and consequentially, traffic shape) that actually suggests copyright infringement. Using BT is not criminal.
The GP actually said this a number of times, but it seemed to fly right over your head.
It's really just a knee-jerk reaction to a common, percieved trend. There has always been a lot of focus on pretty graphics. It's what basically defined each successive generation. Think about all the debates about core processing power, number of polygons manipulated, all these incremental improvements focused purely on improving graphical quality.
People are just sick of the graphical bandwagon. No one is saying "let's go back to monochrone 2-d engines" or even "let's stop improving graphics". People just want to see the importance of graphics lessen.
It's comments like this that make me wonder what exactly it takes to make you nay-sayers happy. It could be clean-burning, running on Linux, and violating some laws of thermodynamics to produce megawatts of energy, and you'll still decrying it saying it doesn't address education issues or something!
Clean, purified water as a drinking source along with some power generation, all for the cost of abundant (and typically disposed) resource that is literally shit? That already sounds like a dream. Give the man some credit. It's not like you can't put the machine a bit farther away from a village.
What on earth are you talking about? That this is interesting just tells everyone how little AC power is understood.
An extremely simplicistic reasoning behind using AC is because it allows for the transmission of three-phase power, as well using magnetic properties to allow for the increase of voltage and decrease of current. Transmission line losses are, at the very least, (I^2)(R). To reduce that using transformers (which by definition, require AC current in order to generate magnetic flux) allows not only less power loss, but physical gains (such as less conductive material). To think that 'seperate transformers and rectifiers are negating a large percentage of the benefit' is absolutely ridiculous, as you wouldn't even be able to create a power network that travels over any distance without the principles of AC current!
This doesn't even begin to state the obvious, that not all appliances use the same voltage. What are you going to do if your entire house is DC? Use a chopper rectifier so that you can turn it back to AC, pass it through a transformer, and then increase/lower the voltage before turning it back to DC? Do you realize how completely backwards that is?
Do a little reading before making blanket statements that the world's electrical engineering foundations are no longer relevant. I suggest you start with principles of magnetism and basic RLC circuitry.
Despite most consumers not knowing very much about cars either, there's plenty of competition within the market there. A car is an extremely complicated beast, but you don't have to learn how to drive just a Ford, or just a Toyota. The interface becomes standard, things might be in a slightly different place, but there's not much difficulty necessary to adjust from one to another. Under the hood, the car is vastly different within the same brand, much less between different competitors. And yet this highly complicated machine somehow has plenty of competition and it can be hardly said that one maker 'dominates' the market.
And yes, this analogy is flawed, but the premise that I am pointing out is the key. That you can hide all the gritty nitty surface details and present the consumer with exactly enough to do what they want. Typical competition will lead people from one OS to another, whether it be brand names, the placement of your start button, or the power underneath the hood.
Just as I don't see the streets dominated by mass-produced Fords, there doesn't always have to be one primary operating system. Things will mature.
I am so ashamed that not only have I read the novels, but own them as well.
The first two were actually quite good, and I found the entire Earth sequence far better than anything Doom 2 was actually made of. Something about the Mormons being prepared for this with massive arsenels makes me giggle with glee.
Of course, then they went back to space and into the jaws of hell... which is where the plot also went. The last novel, Endgame, was a total mockery of everything expected. Kudos to the authors with the guts to follow Hitchcock's maxim: Make the Audience suffer.
Still, nothing like metaphysical bullshit to screw up a good series. Cheers Hugh and Linaweaver, you made took my money and my dignity!
This is, of course, assuming that our current view of the timeline is correct. Which it probably isn't, if FTL is possible.
Consider that if FTL is possible, the consequences of travelling backwards might change the present. However, changing the present would have a durastic effect on you, who has travelled to the past. All the ugly timeloop stuff we expect from Sci-Fi.
So if FTL is possible, your analysis isn't necessarily true. It could be we just diverge the timeline more so, in an infinite number of directions (like alternate universes splitting at every possible 'unit' of time).
Five pages compressed into 1 post, lots of pics that I never saw so I think the italics stand for captions.
EIOffice 2004 Vs MS Office 2003 - Page 1 Posted by Team Flexbeta on 26 May 2004 (28566 views) Rating: 4.94
EIOffice 2004 looks so much like MS Office 2003 that you wouldn't have a hard time getting used to the graphic interface once you get started with it. Coded in Java, EIOffice features a word processor, a spreadsheet application and a presentation graphics application. All three applications look and behave similar to MS Office's applications; Word, Excel and PowerPoint. EIOffice is able to edit and save MS Office file formats as well as a few other formats we will discover soon.
Word Processor
From the screenshot it is clear how EIOffice's word processing suit looks extremely similar to MS Word. The order and shape of the icons are not the only similarities, so is the labeling. For example, the tabs, File, Edit, View, Insert, and Format are all labeled just like in MS Word and in the same exact order. The word processor offers many features such as spell checking, password protecting document, tracking changes and a thesaurus. There is a nice feature which lets you transform the document you are currently working on into a presentation. Though the transformation isn't 100% the way I wanted it to be, a few editing here and there molded the document into a nifty presentation.
EIOffice 2004 Word Processor and MS Word
Another feature which EIOffice 2004 carries is its ability to suggest the entire word you are typing before you finish typing it. For example, when typing the word "feature", by the time the letters "fea" are typed, EIOffice suggest that the word you are trying to type is indeed "feature" and highlights the word for you. A simple enter on the keyboard accepts the word.
The spell checker in EIOffice 2004 works very well though the suggestions are not as relevant as that of MS Office 2003. Using the misspelled word - woship, EIOffice 2004's suggestions were Yoshi, wish, wash, midship and welsh. The same misspelled word in MS Word brought up the correct suggestion: worship or worships. I don't have any idea why EIOffice 2004 suggested Yoshi as a possible correction to the misspelled word. Unfortunately, EIOffice does not offer grammar checking like MS Office does.
Mispelled word in EIOffice 2004
There is a nice application bar floating on the upper part of the current document which enables fast switching from one office application to another. With a simple click of the mouse I was able to toggle between the word processor, the spreadsheet application, and the presentation graphics creator. This is made possible because EIOffice is one application which bundles the three previously mentioned applications.
Switching Application Bar
EIOffice 2004 is able to open and save MS Word file format,.doc. This and the fact that EIOffice looks extremely similar to MS Office shows that huge efforts were placed to attract MS Office users into switching. Other file formats that EIOffice can save and open are PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel, rich text format, html and txt format.
EIOffice also features a nice scientific editor which includes many scientific figures, shapes and symbols. The figures include diodes, transistors, and capacitors. There are also chemistry symbols such as chemical reaction formulas and atomic structures. Apart from the typical math functions and figures, EIOffice also includes curve functions such as the exponent function and the sinusoid curve.
I spend far more time cleaning spyware and viruses, and updating Windows on my friends' computers than I do trying to get things to work in Linux.
Great, your friends are incompetent. You think they'd rely on you any less with Linux? Hardly. Stupidity is stupidity, regardless of the OS they use.
That said, most Windows users don't take the time to clean spyware or viruses, and don't update Windows. So they would naturally have more time to just "happily go about doing whatever he wants to do" until their systems crash.
Again, the same people will be equally bad on Linux. "They don't update Windows of Antivirus? Silly windows user, Linux will solve your inability to update".
News for you: Those same users won't be updating virus definitions or patching Linux. Stop railing on MS when it's the user's fault.
As somebody who has worked in the Pentagon, shouldn't you be a bit more respectful and eloquent when responding to someone who dislikes you? Your response is the equivalent of a teenager's retort.
Your logic that "There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act" is like saying "There has been no more World Wars since the 1946 and the invention of digital computing."
That is, how the hell does make sense? First, 9/11 is a date, it's certainly not preventing anything. And second, just because the Patriot Act has been put out doesn't mean it's the reason why any more attacks have been deterred. Mobilization of the army might be a good reason, increased security and a global alert for the "War of Terrorism" might be next. How about "You don't strike when they're expecting it"?
You're quite gullible. Please, start thinking for yourself instead of swallowing what 'truth' has been spoon-fed to you.
And both posts also affirm that google is well within its rights, pretty much that booble is taking google's hardwork and using it as an advertisment, not as an actual parody. I guess it's a moral issue for you, that legal tactics should not be used by companies until they're actually threatened.
Bitching : Making 8+ seperate posts in this single news post just to bash google. Comprende?
As a Software Engineer that's been working on many closed-source projects in the past, I'll tell you off that bat that I am not part of the OSS folks. In fact, I dislike the whole Holy War philosphy on principle (and I live off closed-source).
I agree that it boils down to control, and frankly, I just feel that MS has stepped over that line. I would like to use Windows without IE, at all. Windows never had IE in the beginning, why can't I get away from it now? What if I don't browse? What good is this Internet Broswer doing on my system?
As well, I'd like to clear up that I could not survive without MS. I'm not one of the OSS advocates that scream bloody murder. I just feel that MS has started coding things that really shouldn't be in their OS.
I really can't care what Windows includes in their OS package. Just let me remove things to my liking, not theirs.
When I say "begging the question" I mean that you are using a circular argument.
What circular argument?
Anyways, these posts are going nowhere. This last response from you have been more questions to me than actual facts. Your posts lately have all been little points that just scream "Let them do whatever the fuck they want, you don't like it, leave". That's your philosophy behind every single argument.
If that's the way you view life. So be it. There's no changing such a point of view. There's many ways to take the argument from here, none of which is worthwhile for me.
And when they go too far over the line for you, you'll leave as well. You don't care to try to change things, you're just a another silent protester./me shrugs
Slashdot Mirror
If human error/carelessness is the greatest issue, then the photos should be taken in such a way to minimize difficulty in a match.
Your story only points out that we should put more effort into making photo IDs more usable for these careless employees.
This is a pretty normal precaution. Apparently, smiling allows you to distort your face enough to allow others a better chance of passing themselves off as you.
Of course, keep in mind that the photo is for humans to do facial recognition.
I wouldn't be too concerned.
However, corporate culture has a funny way of infecting new employees and sticking around. A company might be filled with new grunts, but at the end of the day, the same set of values and ideals are passed from generation to generation.
Those who disagree and would want to see change tend to leave (similar to attrition). Without a person at the helm who is very dedicated to steering the company away from its course, you won't see much difference between the company ten years ago and the company today.
And that's exactly the kind of threat that Microsoft should be afraid of. Free Research and Development cuts a huge percentage of the total cost of any project. In comparison, documentation can be cobbled together for pennies. With wiki's these days, it might even be free.
Marketing is a different story. As Firefox shows, getting the word out via advertising is expensive... but no one said Open Source was going to solve everything.
I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose, but you seem to expect Open-Source projects to provide the full commercial product experience. This was never the point to open-source, which, as the name suggests, deals with code.
The compiled product, the marketing materials, the user support... it's all something that has to be picked up by people interested in marketing, in technical documentation, in user support.
Developers are developers. Expecting them to deliver anything more than code is a poor idea.
This doesn't mean Microsoft shouldn't be concerned. Research and development is by far the most costly, unpredictable element in delivering software. That this part of a software project is being created for free means that the rest can be filled in at relatively low-cost.
So what? There is absolutely nothing about the protocol (and consequentially, traffic shape) that actually suggests copyright infringement. Using BT is not criminal.
The GP actually said this a number of times, but it seemed to fly right over your head.
It's really just a knee-jerk reaction to a common, percieved trend. There has always been a lot of focus on pretty graphics. It's what basically defined each successive generation. Think about all the debates about core processing power, number of polygons manipulated, all these incremental improvements focused purely on improving graphical quality. People are just sick of the graphical bandwagon. No one is saying "let's go back to monochrone 2-d engines" or even "let's stop improving graphics". People just want to see the importance of graphics lessen.
It's comments like this that make me wonder what exactly it takes to make you nay-sayers happy. It could be clean-burning, running on Linux, and violating some laws of thermodynamics to produce megawatts of energy, and you'll still decrying it saying it doesn't address education issues or something!
Clean, purified water as a drinking source along with some power generation, all for the cost of abundant (and typically disposed) resource that is literally shit? That already sounds like a dream. Give the man some credit. It's not like you can't put the machine a bit farther away from a village.
What on earth are you talking about? That this is interesting just tells everyone how little AC power is understood.
An extremely simplicistic reasoning behind using AC is because it allows for the transmission of three-phase power, as well using magnetic properties to allow for the increase of voltage and decrease of current. Transmission line losses are, at the very least, (I^2)(R). To reduce that using transformers (which by definition, require AC current in order to generate magnetic flux) allows not only less power loss, but physical gains (such as less conductive material). To think that 'seperate transformers and rectifiers are negating a large percentage of the benefit' is absolutely ridiculous, as you wouldn't even be able to create a power network that travels over any distance without the principles of AC current!
This doesn't even begin to state the obvious, that not all appliances use the same voltage. What are you going to do if your entire house is DC? Use a chopper rectifier so that you can turn it back to AC, pass it through a transformer, and then increase/lower the voltage before turning it back to DC? Do you realize how completely backwards that is?
Do a little reading before making blanket statements that the world's electrical engineering foundations are no longer relevant. I suggest you start with principles of magnetism and basic RLC circuitry.
Here's the way I see it:
Despite most consumers not knowing very much about cars either, there's plenty of competition within the market there. A car is an extremely complicated beast, but you don't have to learn how to drive just a Ford, or just a Toyota. The interface becomes standard, things might be in a slightly different place, but there's not much difficulty necessary to adjust from one to another. Under the hood, the car is vastly different within the same brand, much less between different competitors. And yet this highly complicated machine somehow has plenty of competition and it can be hardly said that one maker 'dominates' the market.
And yes, this analogy is flawed, but the premise that I am pointing out is the key. That you can hide all the gritty nitty surface details and present the consumer with exactly enough to do what they want. Typical competition will lead people from one OS to another, whether it be brand names, the placement of your start button, or the power underneath the hood.
Just as I don't see the streets dominated by mass-produced Fords, there doesn't always have to be one primary operating system. Things will mature.
It's called globalization. If companies go elsewhere for cheaper labor, we can do the same and go elsewhere for cheaper goods and services.
It's too bad it's not a complete circle, and the consumers get hosed.
I am so ashamed that not only have I read the novels, but own them as well.
The first two were actually quite good, and I found the entire Earth sequence far better than anything Doom 2 was actually made of. Something about the Mormons being prepared for this with massive arsenels makes me giggle with glee.
Of course, then they went back to space and into the jaws of hell... which is where the plot also went. The last novel, Endgame, was a total mockery of everything expected. Kudos to the authors with the guts to follow Hitchcock's maxim: Make the Audience suffer.
Still, nothing like metaphysical bullshit to screw up a good series. Cheers Hugh and Linaweaver, you made took my money and my dignity!
This is, of course, assuming that our current view of the timeline is correct. Which it probably isn't, if FTL is possible.
Consider that if FTL is possible, the consequences of travelling backwards might change the present. However, changing the present would have a durastic effect on you, who has travelled to the past. All the ugly timeloop stuff we expect from Sci-Fi.
So if FTL is possible, your analysis isn't necessarily true. It could be we just diverge the timeline more so, in an infinite number of directions (like alternate universes splitting at every possible 'unit' of time).
Five pages compressed into 1 post, lots of pics that I never saw so I think the italics stand for captions.
EIOffice 2004 Vs MS Office 2003 - Page 1
.doc. This and the fact that EIOffice looks extremely similar to MS Office shows that huge efforts were placed to attract MS Office users into switching. Other file formats that EIOffice can save and open are PDF, PowerPoint, and Excel, rich text format, html and txt format.
Posted by Team Flexbeta on 26 May 2004 (28566 views) Rating: 4.94 EIOffice 2004 looks so much like MS Office 2003 that you wouldn't have a hard time getting used to the graphic interface once you get started with it. Coded in Java, EIOffice features a word processor, a spreadsheet application and a presentation graphics application. All three applications look and behave similar to MS Office's applications; Word, Excel and PowerPoint. EIOffice is able to edit and save MS Office file formats as well as a few other formats we will discover soon.
Word Processor
From the screenshot it is clear how EIOffice's word processing suit looks extremely similar to MS Word. The order and shape of the icons are not the only similarities, so is the labeling. For example, the tabs, File, Edit, View, Insert, and Format are all labeled just like in MS Word and in the same exact order. The word processor offers many features such as spell checking, password protecting document, tracking changes and a thesaurus. There is a nice feature which lets you transform the document you are currently working on into a presentation. Though the transformation isn't 100% the way I wanted it to be, a few editing here and there molded the document into a nifty presentation.
EIOffice 2004 Word Processor and MS Word
Another feature which EIOffice 2004 carries is its ability to suggest the entire word you are typing before you finish typing it. For example, when typing the word "feature", by the time the letters "fea" are typed, EIOffice suggest that the word you are trying to type is indeed "feature" and highlights the word for you. A simple enter on the keyboard accepts the word.
The spell checker in EIOffice 2004 works very well though the suggestions are not as relevant as that of MS Office 2003. Using the misspelled word - woship, EIOffice 2004's suggestions were Yoshi, wish, wash, midship and welsh. The same misspelled word in MS Word brought up the correct suggestion: worship or worships. I don't have any idea why EIOffice 2004 suggested Yoshi as a possible correction to the misspelled word. Unfortunately, EIOffice does not offer grammar checking like MS Office does.
Mispelled word in EIOffice 2004
There is a nice application bar floating on the upper part of the current document which enables fast switching from one office application to another. With a simple click of the mouse I was able to toggle between the word processor, the spreadsheet application, and the presentation graphics creator. This is made possible because EIOffice is one application which bundles the three previously mentioned applications.
Switching Application Bar
EIOffice 2004 is able to open and save MS Word file format,
EIOffice also features a nice scientific editor which includes many scientific figures, shapes and symbols. The figures include diodes, transistors, and capacitors. There are also chemistry symbols such as chemical reaction formulas and atomic structures. Apart from the typical math functions and figures, EIOffice also includes curve functions such as the exponent function and the sinusoid curve.
Science Editor in EIOffice 2004
Presentation Graphics
Actually, I think they suggested full scale Fusion plants in 2050, and Microwave power in 2020.
So in 16 years, prepare for lasers bombarding us from space.
I spend far more time cleaning spyware and viruses, and updating Windows on my friends' computers than I do trying to get things to work in Linux.
Great, your friends are incompetent. You think they'd rely on you any less with Linux? Hardly. Stupidity is stupidity, regardless of the OS they use.
That said, most Windows users don't take the time to clean spyware or viruses, and don't update Windows. So they would naturally have more time to just "happily go about doing whatever he wants to do" until their systems crash.
Again, the same people will be equally bad on Linux. "They don't update Windows of Antivirus? Silly windows user, Linux will solve your inability to update".
News for you: Those same users won't be updating virus definitions or patching Linux. Stop railing on MS when it's the user's fault.
Quickly, someone call Hollywood! Only Tom Cruise can save us now.
As somebody who has worked in the Pentagon, shouldn't you be a bit more respectful and eloquent when responding to someone who dislikes you? Your response is the equivalent of a teenager's retort.
Ok, time to feed the trolls.
Your logic that "There have been no other strikes at America since 9/11 and Patriot Act" is like saying "There has been no more World Wars since the 1946 and the invention of digital computing."
That is, how the hell does make sense? First, 9/11 is a date, it's certainly not preventing anything. And second, just because the Patriot Act has been put out doesn't mean it's the reason why any more attacks have been deterred. Mobilization of the army might be a good reason, increased security and a global alert for the "War of Terrorism" might be next. How about "You don't strike when they're expecting it"?
You're quite gullible. Please, start thinking for yourself instead of swallowing what 'truth' has been spoon-fed to you.
Incredible. A logical and well-thought out response to a Windows supporter's post. Thank you!
This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time. Thanks!
And both posts also affirm that google is well within its rights, pretty much that booble is taking google's hardwork and using it as an advertisment, not as an actual parody. I guess it's a moral issue for you, that legal tactics should not be used by companies until they're actually threatened.
Bitching : Making 8+ seperate posts in this single news post just to bash google. Comprende?
Please, stop bitching and read some of the intelligent comments posted. The following are two excellent examples:
Here
Here
As a Software Engineer that's been working on many closed-source projects in the past, I'll tell you off that bat that I am not part of the OSS folks. In fact, I dislike the whole Holy War philosphy on principle (and I live off closed-source).
I agree that it boils down to control, and frankly, I just feel that MS has stepped over that line. I would like to use Windows without IE, at all. Windows never had IE in the beginning, why can't I get away from it now? What if I don't browse? What good is this Internet Broswer doing on my system?
As well, I'd like to clear up that I could not survive without MS. I'm not one of the OSS advocates that scream bloody murder. I just feel that MS has started coding things that really shouldn't be in their OS.
I really can't care what Windows includes in their OS package. Just let me remove things to my liking, not theirs.
Peace.
When I say "begging the question" I mean that you are using a circular argument.
What circular argument?
Anyways, these posts are going nowhere. This last response from you have been more questions to me than actual facts. Your posts lately have all been little points that just scream "Let them do whatever the fuck they want, you don't like it, leave". That's your philosophy behind every single argument.
If that's the way you view life. So be it. There's no changing such a point of view. There's many ways to take the argument from here, none of which is worthwhile for me.
And when they go too far over the line for you, you'll leave as well. You don't care to try to change things, you're just a another silent protester. /me shrugs
This was fun while it lasted.