one luser who creates every one of his spreadsheets using M$ specific formatting that throws the OO conversion tool for a loop. I would switch the rest of us but we all have to be able to access his documents as he is the shop manager and he gets cranky when people don't read his crap.
If you just have to read his crap, you can always download the free Excel 2003 Viewer.
To a RIAA weasel, online music in any form is indistinguishable from shoplifting
Then how do they justify the $0.99 price tag for iTunes? If they're going to do the "all downloads are teh stealing!" route, why are they collecting at all?
They are easy to remember since you can pronounce them.
Pronunciation is only one half of the coin. Essentially, you're still going to have to remember how to spell the password, whether you can pronounce it or not.
(lew-cy-Hir-Ux-SIX)
Let's see, here:
lucyherux6
looseyhiruks6
lewcyheruxsicks
...
Sure, I can pronouce it, but I'm still locked out after 3 attempts.
No matter how many positive diggs something gets, ten reports buries it. Ten, not ten percent.
Well then, I guess that "editorial censorship" isn't the problem. It's (arguably) a ridicuously low Lame threshold.
If all Digg editors were to simultaneouly go on vacation for a week, it should be fairly trivial to down-mod all stories from the site until they return and ban my accounts, should I wish to do such a thing. All of this without any help from the editors.
Sorry, his explanation was bullshit... The story was getting more and more "Diggs", and it kept moving up, then, nothing. It was pulled out, which obviously makes it stop getting "Diggs" because nobody was seeing it anymore.
Would it not be pulled out if an "annoyed sponsor" reported it as Lame N number of times, based on Kevin's explanation? I don't see how your scenario contradicts mine. Here's an illustration:
Assume that a story critical of CompanyX has 200 Diggs. Also assume that a story is removed from the queue if it receives Lame reports of, say, 5% of the number of Diggs. Now, CompanyX wants to bury this story. They need only sign up for a maximum of 10 accounts (less if others report the story themselves) before the story disappears. 20 accounts if 10% is required, whatever. It certainly doesn't seem that unattainable.
From what I've seen, most people Digg/Report stories that are on the main page, and very few people actually bother checking out the queue. Similar to Slashdot, where front-page stories will often have hundreds of replies, whereas those other stories nestled in Games or IT have around 75 a piece.
As for the banning and whatnot, I have no idea. Perhaps there was prior history, or perhaps the editors there really are choosing to exert their editorial powers. It's rather hard to tell when the disjointed info in his blog reads like "I submitted a story, it wasn't Dugg, so I resubmitted the same story, got banned, got reinstated when I asked what happened, then I saw that some stories with very few Diggs are on the front page". IIRC, a story isn't just promoted to the front page based on the number of Diggs, but also the amount of time it has been in the queue, etc.
I can't believe that anybody would rationalize something like "Well it was pulled off the page because it was getting negative reviews" when hundreds of people are obviously not finding any problem with the story since they are "Digging" it.
It depends on the Lame threshold set by the Digg editors. Once it's passed, a story gets removed. Perhaps you should ask Kevin how the threshold is calculated and, if that doesn't seem "democratic", then maybe you'd like to open up discussions on what a suitable threshold would be. Of course, you might not want to submit such a request through Digg.:)
Once a story has received enough user reports it is automatically removed from the digg queue or homepage (depending on where the story is living at that time). The number of reports required varies depending on how many diggs the story has.
Couldn't it simply be that this is all much ado about nothing? If anything, could this not be the case that the "annoyed sponsors" are merely reporting the story as lame, thus burying it?
I'm only an occasional Digg-surfer, so I'm not as familiar with their system as with Slashdot's.
Hmmm, never even tought about grouping in there. I suppose that could work as well. However, this is Slashdot -- in the end, I'm sure that the older messages (despite being posted earlier) would be read last and downmodded as "redundant".
The newest comments should by default be the first thing you see, with the oldest aka 1st post at the bottom of the page.
Except that you'll end up with a series of comments that don't make a lot of sense until you wade through them all to the end, and have to go back and read them all again.
...
Why would you make hundreds of changes before checking it out anyway? How would you know which change caused your table to move too far to the right?
...
It's not trivial if you're a student, trying to save money where you can.
...
In the end, the cost is trivial.
...
Are you kidding me? Not only should you be doing multiple changes at once (instead of rebooting every time you change padding:1px to padding:2px), but now you don't have to purchase two computers just to test your page!
...
Apple's new BootCamp is useless for web design because you'd have to spend all of your time rebooting your computer just to see the changes you made to your CSS files.
To me the K is fine, but some of the Linux application names are just dumb. Take Pico, GIMP, and GAIM. Who would of thought that they are a text editor, image editor, and IM apps, respectively?
You're right. Applications should have clear and consise names that reflect what they do, like Microsoft Excel...
Certainly not me, and according to usability studies not by many other users either.
The GIMP's name affects its usability? I assumed the less-than-stellar UI was what causes issues, not some silly name. I guess that's why the iPod was so unsuccessful too, since you can't tell it's a music player from its name.
Linux wouldn't be where it is today without its user interface, and that is of course, how Windows became so popular.
The one "borrowed" from Apple/Xerox?
For the Linux users that say, well its an "expert" interface
By "Linux" I assume you mean KDE, or Gnome, or XFCE, or TWM, or any number of window managers or desktop environments that run atop the kernel. Of course, you can choose whichever interface is most appropriate to your tastes/tasks: KDE gives you immense customization ala Windows, GNOME strives to keep things simpler, etc.
Linux will only become more dominate with a better UI
I fail to see how KDE or GNOME will ultimately fail in this respect, with my preference going to the former. But YMMV.
I'd warrant that Zonk included the flambait-esque quote because it's quite the discussion-starter, as indicated by the AC exchange, rather than because he's taking sides. But then, who knows?
I've not yet seen a reason to have the.xxx domain.
I guess the main argument is that it should be fairly trivial to filter out any domain ending in.xxx, as opposed to trying to determine is a particular.com domain is pornographic based on domain name, copy, images, etc.
But then, I guess it depends on whether you buy into the "existence = encouragement" argument put forth by some of the other groups.
I find it very strange that the winners of the recently posted FF Extensions contest do not work.
The usual reason for extensions "not working" is that the extension creators usually specify a maximum compatible version in the manifest. Quite often this is something like 1.5.*, as this is (was) the latest series for some time now. Naturally, this would exclude 2.0.
Try opening up the XPI file in your ZIP program, and change the maximum supported version in the INSTALL.RDF file, and see if the extension works. In most cases it does.
No worries. But a class on "copyright education" is one area where "quibbling over semantics" actually makes sense. I can easily imagine a number of half-informed-half-interested teachers saying things like "illegal P2P" (implying the technology is illegal) instead of "illegal actions using P2P" and passing (potentially) unintended misinformation to their students.
you can't arrive at a correct answer in mathematics through the exploration of your own personal feelings about the square root of pi
Of course not. What I was trying to convey was that students often are programmed by their teachers in certain ways -- namely, in the ways in which they approach the analysis and application of their knowledge and understanding. For example, many of the math students I work with tell me that their teachers stress memorizing formulas and adhering to strict problem formats (read: templates). Getting them to think about what they are doing, instead of throwing up their hands in frustration because they can't figure out which formula the word problem is calling for, is a daily challenge. "My teacher told me to do it this way, but I don't see an "x" in the equation anywhere..." That sort of thing.
My post was more a jest than anything, but take it as you will.
Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law.
P2P file-sharing isn't against copyright law. Sharing copyrighted files, via a P2P file-sharing program, without the copyright owner's permission is against copyright law.
Slashdot Mirror
OpenDocument : .DOC :: OpenOffice : MSOffice
Simple as that. The "disabled advocates" are clamouring for application functionality but are shooting down the document format in their confusion.
If you just have to read his crap, you can always download the free Excel 2003 Viewer.
Of course, if you need to edit, you might be SOL.
Then how do they justify the $0.99 price tag for iTunes? If they're going to do the "all downloads are teh stealing!" route, why are they collecting at all?
They are easy to remember since you can pronounce them.
Pronunciation is only one half of the coin. Essentially, you're still going to have to remember how to spell the password, whether you can pronounce it or not.
(lew-cy-Hir-Ux-SIX)
Let's see, here:
Sure, I can pronouce it, but I'm still locked out after 3 attempts.
No matter how many positive diggs something gets, ten reports buries it. Ten, not ten percent.
Well then, I guess that "editorial censorship" isn't the problem. It's (arguably) a ridicuously low Lame threshold.
If all Digg editors were to simultaneouly go on vacation for a week, it should be fairly trivial to down-mod all stories from the site until they return and ban my accounts, should I wish to do such a thing. All of this without any help from the editors.
Would it not be pulled out if an "annoyed sponsor" reported it as Lame N number of times, based on Kevin's explanation? I don't see how your scenario contradicts mine. Here's an illustration:
Assume that a story critical of CompanyX has 200 Diggs. Also assume that a story is removed from the queue if it receives Lame reports of, say, 5% of the number of Diggs. Now, CompanyX wants to bury this story. They need only sign up for a maximum of 10 accounts (less if others report the story themselves) before the story disappears. 20 accounts if 10% is required, whatever. It certainly doesn't seem that unattainable.
From what I've seen, most people Digg/Report stories that are on the main page, and very few people actually bother checking out the queue. Similar to Slashdot, where front-page stories will often have hundreds of replies, whereas those other stories nestled in Games or IT have around 75 a piece.
As for the banning and whatnot, I have no idea. Perhaps there was prior history, or perhaps the editors there really are choosing to exert their editorial powers. It's rather hard to tell when the disjointed info in his blog reads like "I submitted a story, it wasn't Dugg, so I resubmitted the same story, got banned, got reinstated when I asked what happened, then I saw that some stories with very few Diggs are on the front page". IIRC, a story isn't just promoted to the front page based on the number of Diggs, but also the amount of time it has been in the queue, etc.
It depends on the Lame threshold set by the Digg editors. Once it's passed, a story gets removed. Perhaps you should ask Kevin how the threshold is calculated and, if that doesn't seem "democratic", then maybe you'd like to open up discussions on what a suitable threshold would be. Of course, you might not want to submit such a request through Digg. :)
From TFR (the "fine" reply):
Once a story has received enough user reports it is automatically removed from the digg queue or homepage (depending on where the story is living at that time). The number of reports required varies depending on how many diggs the story has.
Couldn't it simply be that this is all much ado about nothing? If anything, could this not be the case that the "annoyed sponsors" are merely reporting the story as lame, thus burying it?
I'm only an occasional Digg-surfer, so I'm not as familiar with their system as with Slashdot's.
Hmmm, never even tought about grouping in there. I suppose that could work as well. However, this is Slashdot -- in the end, I'm sure that the older messages (despite being posted earlier) would be read last and downmodded as "redundant".
Except that you'll end up with a series of comments that don't make a lot of sense until you wade through them all to the end, and have to go back and read them all again.
...
Why would you make hundreds of changes before checking it out anyway? How would you know which change caused your table to move too far to the right?
...
It's not trivial if you're a student, trying to save money where you can.
...
In the end, the cost is trivial.
...
Are you kidding me? Not only should you be doing multiple changes at once (instead of rebooting every time you change padding:1px to padding:2px), but now you don't have to purchase two computers just to test your page!
...
Apple's new BootCamp is useless for web design because you'd have to spend all of your time rebooting your computer just to see the changes you made to your CSS files.
Ahhh, so that's how it all ties together!
To me the K is fine, but some of the Linux application names are just dumb. Take Pico, GIMP, and GAIM. Who would of thought that they are a text editor, image editor, and IM apps, respectively?
You're right. Applications should have clear and consise names that reflect what they do, like Microsoft Excel...
Certainly not me, and according to usability studies not by many other users either.
The GIMP's name affects its usability? I assumed the less-than-stellar UI was what causes issues, not some silly name. I guess that's why the iPod was so unsuccessful too, since you can't tell it's a music player from its name.
Linux wouldn't be where it is today without its user interface, and that is of course, how Windows became so popular.
The one "borrowed" from Apple/Xerox?
For the Linux users that say, well its an "expert" interface
By "Linux" I assume you mean KDE, or Gnome, or XFCE, or TWM, or any number of window managers or desktop environments that run atop the kernel. Of course, you can choose whichever interface is most appropriate to your tastes/tasks: KDE gives you immense customization ala Windows, GNOME strives to keep things simpler, etc.
Linux will only become more dominate with a better UI
I fail to see how KDE or GNOME will ultimately fail in this respect, with my preference going to the former. But YMMV.
I'd warrant that Zonk included the flambait-esque quote because it's quite the discussion-starter, as indicated by the AC exchange, rather than because he's taking sides. But then, who knows?
Well there you go, then. Just encrypt your data using ROT-13. Twice.
I've not yet seen a reason to have the .xxx domain.
I guess the main argument is that it should be fairly trivial to filter out any domain ending in .xxx, as opposed to trying to determine is a particular .com domain is pornographic based on domain name, copy, images, etc.
But then, I guess it depends on whether you buy into the "existence = encouragement" argument put forth by some of the other groups.
I find it very strange that the winners of the recently posted FF Extensions contest do not work.
The usual reason for extensions "not working" is that the extension creators usually specify a maximum compatible version in the manifest. Quite often this is something like 1.5.*, as this is (was) the latest series for some time now. Naturally, this would exclude 2.0.
Try opening up the XPI file in your ZIP program, and change the maximum supported version in the INSTALL.RDF file, and see if the extension works. In most cases it does.
I think his exact quote was, "if any developer here uses non-Microsoft XML, Ballmer can throw him out an open window."
I don't do much in the area of Framemaker or Pagemaker, but most desktops will do fine with the functionality present in OpenOffice.org Draw
A better substitute, IMO, would be Scribus. But OO.o is pretty decent for what's included.
he's been dead for several years.
You heard it here first: even brain-eating zombies hate cubicles.
5. Find Sarah Connor.
a 'real' iPod killer
Here's one for only $7.
I'm sure it's not a simplistic as my idea, but should RIM just have to pay license dues on the patents, and continue their service?
If the patents really are invalid, why should RIM have to pay license fees at all?
I would assume that a final ruling will be delayed until after NTP's appeals.
Don't you have to buy Office and, thus, buy an office suite? One that would, presumably, include email and calendar functionality?
Can't you purchase Office modules separately? I was sure I had seen boxes of Word, Excel, etc. a few years back.
No worries. But a class on "copyright education" is one area where "quibbling over semantics" actually makes sense. I can easily imagine a number of half-informed-half-interested teachers saying things like "illegal P2P" (implying the technology is illegal) instead of "illegal actions using P2P" and passing (potentially) unintended misinformation to their students.
you can't arrive at a correct answer in mathematics through the exploration of your own personal feelings about the square root of pi
Of course not. What I was trying to convey was that students often are programmed by their teachers in certain ways -- namely, in the ways in which they approach the analysis and application of their knowledge and understanding. For example, many of the math students I work with tell me that their teachers stress memorizing formulas and adhering to strict problem formats (read: templates). Getting them to think about what they are doing, instead of throwing up their hands in frustration because they can't figure out which formula the word problem is calling for, is a daily challenge. "My teacher told me to do it this way, but I don't see an "x" in the equation anywhere..." That sort of thing.
My post was more a jest than anything, but take it as you will.
Regardless of what people's personal opinions are on p2p file sharing, the fact is that it is against copyright law.
P2P file-sharing isn't against copyright law. Sharing copyrighted files, via a P2P file-sharing program, without the copyright owner's permission is against copyright law.
the difference between plagarism and research
Appropriately, I have this sign hanging in my office:
"To copy from one work is plagiarism. To copy from many is research."