And you have obviously never dealt with large spreadsheets that are unsuitable for a database or data for which it would not make any sense to make a database.
At least people like you don't get to make important decisions like keeping an idiotic low fixed row/column limit.
Because doing things "the company way" (read: The BOFH IT administrator way) is not always the fastest or most efficient way to do things - if the company want value for money/paycheck, they won't lock my software down so hard I can barely breathe.
Can you tell I've just been hit with the totally locked down Exchange-server virus at my workplace?;-)
.... complete control of their employees computers. More lockdown features present in the OS = more power to the IT department = easier for BOFH IT administrators to take away any and all "freedoms" you may think you have when using equipment provided by your workplace.
In other words: What a waste of time sending letters to these companies!
I think someone seriously underestimated the hazardous nature of building materials. R
azing a building containing asbestos or Ammonium bromide which a lot of older buildings contain (fireproofing) and just leaving it there is quite stupid!
I earn a living (well, if you can call it that) doing biochemical research, but frankly I don't care if you believe me (RTFA, it pretty much speaks for itself).
Sorry, not bored enough to give examples, but using google scholar will most definitely help you (if you are that bored;-).
Possible vector of contamination? Are you serious? Try just about everything they may have come into contact with.... removal of "all things resembling RNA" is much easier than it sounds... destruction of RNA strands, yes... quite easy (however that may introduce yet more contamination;-). Removal of all nucleotides... good luck.
Contamination is actally quite a good shot as to what may have brought on at least the start of the process...
Did I mention I'm not that worried if you don't believe me?:-)
From what I know plenty of previous attempts or rather "succesful" attemps have been shown to be due to contamination.
Now, I'm not saying these people don't know what they are doing, I'm saying the chance of contamination with discrete amounts of RNA / RNA bases / whatever in my eyes are probably far greater than the chance of actually making RNA.
(and no, I'm not some sort of creationist bastard heh)
I've never heard of the other ones, but Google Notebook have come in handy plenty of times.
Sad that Google feel the need to close down these services, I mean... how much man power could it really cost just to keep them running?
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me
on
Trick or Treatment
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· Score: 1
You are redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusion that it doesn't work. It doesn't take much research to find out the homeopathy is NOT "get cured by diluting out all of the active ingredient". It is easy to find that homeopathy is "Active ingredients that cause similar symptoms will cure, and that since you don't want to cause as much damage with the cure as you do with the disease, you dilute the active ingredient down". The fact that most 'practitioners' of homeopathy get no real results because they do dilute it down to the point of having no active ingredients is a different argument form whether homeopathy works or not.
Homeopathy is exactly that. The founder of homeopathy, Hahnemann, actually favored a dilution of 1:10E60 for most purposes (which is WAY beyond Avogadro's number). Sorry, but you are the one redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusions.
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me
on
Trick or Treatment
·
· Score: 1
I seriously doubt the authors said herbal medicine was scientifically impossible - in fact judging by the overview of the book presented here, the authors seems to acknowledge that herbal medicine do work (in contrast to the other examined treatments).
Homeopathy has been and will always be bullshit. If you dilute something beyond Avogadro's number, its gone. There's no "water memory" or whatever people have been trying to claim for years.
At best, if you REALLY believe homeopathy works, you will benefit from the placebo effect. However, most logical sane persons when explained what actually goes on in homeopathy will NOT believe that it works and hence they will not benefit from the placebo effect.
I apologize for not clarifying that vaccines are NOT diluted beyond Avogadro's number - there is actually an active ingredient in a vaccine, as opposed to homeopathic remedies. My mistake. Homeopathy is definitely not and will hopefully never ever be a part of "traditional medicine", not are any "big pharma" companies selling anything that could be just remotely though of as a homeopathic treatment. I will guarantee you they would be out of business / sued out of existence before you could say QUACK:-).
Re:Chiropractic treatment worked for me
on
Trick or Treatment
·
· Score: 1
Clearly the writer of this book is at best nieve, likely just dumb, and at worst dishonest. Making the statement that Herbal remedies don't work is simply stupid. Herbal remedies are simply taking drugs. That's right. The only difference between what a doctor would give you and an equivalent herbal remedy is the source and purity of the drug. Obviously, pharmaceutical companies have created drugs that don't occur naturally, and some claimed herbal remedies don't actually have any useful drugs in them. But, the claim that herbal reminds don't work is by definition saying that "if the drug occurs naturally, it doesn't work. I can only work if it is manufacture in a lab."
Each year, a number of people get decreased kidney or liver function (and possibly die) from taking "herbal medicine". The reason for that is EXACTLY that the drugs in herbs are NOT pure and contains hazardous other substances and/or the people taking the herbs overdoze on the active substance as there is no way to know what the purity is.... Stuff does not only work when its manufactured in a lab, but the safety is sooo much better!
While the number of quacks in homeopathy is immense, vaccines are basically homeopathy. The premise being that you get the body to fight a desires by introducing the same symptoms as the disease so that the body can heal itself. At best I would say that our medicine is too primitive to really get the benefits of homeopathy. With our advances in genetics, I have no doubt that we will eventually start making artificial vaccines. Once we make a vaccine that is not a watered down version of the real disease, we will be performing homeopathy by definitions. By claiming that a vaccine that is created in a lab won't work because it is created in a lab is just as dumb as saying that a drug that occurs naturally won't work because it is naturally occurring.
Seriously, what a load of bullshit. Vaccines are not even close to homeopathy, as they are not diluted beyond Avogadro's number....:-).
Furthermore, "artificial" vaccines are already in production.
Its not only office files, it just happens with office files more frequently (say 90% of the time) than other file types (say 20% of the time).
Clicking links in thunderbird will cause thunderbird to freeze for minutes until the link suddenly opens in firefox for example. This works on a fresh install (non-updated) windows XP, and on a fully updated Vista, i.e. the link opens instantly as it should.
PDF files (using Acrobat Pro v. 7 or 8) suffers the same problems and also other filetypes (can't recall them all heh).
I wish someone would know what the problem is as I know plenty of people (including myself) who would be very happy if a solution was found.
I did that, it didn't help with the opening files problem (oh and I didn't even get into the whole "refuse to print until you reboot" problems that Windows XP also seems to suffer from lately).
I've spent hours and hours searching the net for a solultion, tried everything I could get my hands on and nothing worked (except a fresh not-updated Windows XP... and we all know what a good idea it is to run that...)
I recently decided to upgrade to Vista because Microsoft has utterly destroyed the functionality and stability of Windows XP with its recent updates (say in the last 9-12 months or so).
I'm not sure exactly when this happend, but I'm not alone, plenty of coworkers have the same problem:
Double clicking on an office file (doc, xls, ppt) will make windows go into a waiting period (hour glass) for several minutes (up to half an hour or until you reboot) before the file is finally opened. This "functionality" is present not only with office files (but mostly these), but also other documents (besides office documents) suffer the same fate.
This has happend to a range of computers, running a range of different anti virus software, with a range of different office versions (office 2000, XP and 2003).
Now, you then install a CLEAN version of XP and a clean version of office (with antivirus etc.) this DOES NOT happen!
You then update your XP and Office (or wait for your computer to get owned... argh) and the problem comes back!
Hence Microsofts update has FORCED me to upgrade to Vista to get any meaningful work done... at least this problem is gone from Vista, however other problems then pop up, most notably, the lack of obtaining a new IP via DHCP when switching from one location to another... jesus, how hard can it be? but also performance drops (mostly network related) and no, I'm not alone in seeing these things either.
All in all, I got rid of some showstoppers caused by updating Windows XP, just to be annoyed by simple problems in Vista.
Considering the price tag this software comes with, I can't say I'm impressed with the problems, neither am I impressed with the observation that Microsoft forced me to upgrade to Vista by utterly messing up XP *after Vista was shipped!*
*sighs*
(No, using Linux is unfortunately not an option, as we use software everyday that runs only on Windows... using a Mac would bring forth the same problems, its either Windows or not get any work done!)
"since personal preferences (and hand size) play a major role when it comes to input, but I think that that the MacBookâ(TM)s innovative touchpad gives it the ADVANTAGE"
You have got to be kidding me? Totally unintuitive, I need more fingers than I have (well almost) to do basic tasks, I need to move my hand AWAY from the keyboard to move the mouse pointer... How can this thing be innovative? Seriously.
I will take the IBM/Lenovo Trackpoint/touchpoint/clit/whatever-that-red-thing-in-the-middle-of-the-keyboard-is-called anyday over ANYTHING that makes me MOVE my hands AWAY from the keyboard.
Yes, its pretty, yes its cool, no its NOT very functional nor usable in the long run.
Sure Apple has done some things that ware bone-headed and just plain wrong but nothing they've done remotely compares to what Balmer et al is trying to pull here.
You are correct, Apple simply ignores current standards instead and invents their own and/or adds DRM / security-through-obscurity crap on top of known standards.
Examples: The "mailbox" file format of iMail (or what its called) and ipods. I know there are more, I can't be bothered to find them:-)
I actually believe plenty of artists/right-brained people share their work using for example creative commons or the like.
I have to disagree on the iPhone - it may be aesthetically pleasing, but it could have used some CS grads love..... who the hell puts a mobile phone on the market in 2008 that lacks basic functionality like MMS (pictures/videos/sound) messages or just the capability to record video?
The lack of MMS is a total bust for me and means I'll never get an iPhone - yes I'm aware you can get 3rd party apps that will do it for you, but it should just be built in! Its a total standard thing in all other phones, EXCEPT iPhone.
I'm pretty sure Android will have MMS capability:-)
Please note that you're not *required* to use the options and customizations KDE offers. But it just really sucks if you need them but they aren't there. I've seen plenty of people totally inexperienced with Linux just start off with KDE as if they've been using it all their life.
However, Gnome is so fragmented (has so many dependencies) that it's almost impossible to compile by hand. Furthermore it's just not intuitive and lacks a lot of options. If it were a car, it would only have a steering wheel, gas and brake. And no climate control, poke or radio etc because it might confuse the driver.
I couldn't agree more. I fail to see why it should be necessary with two different GUIs for inexperienced / new users and power users. Just setup the default for the new users, but keep power users happy by giving them the option of having things "their way".
In my opinion, choice is lacking in Gnome. Yes, I could get work done using Gnome, but it would annoy me all the time, worst thing being my inability to change most of the annoyances (just like windows or OS X) whereas KDE makes it possible for me to change things as I see fit... (well, most of them anyway:-).
KDE4 looks really really promising, perhaps Ubuntu will switch its default distribution to KDE4 making gnome the secondary choice (well, one can always dream:-).
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And you have obviously never dealt with large spreadsheets that are unsuitable for a database or data for which it would not make any sense to make a database.
At least people like you don't get to make important decisions like keeping an idiotic low fixed row/column limit.
Because doing things "the company way" (read: The BOFH IT administrator way) is not always the fastest or most efficient way to do things - if the company want value for money/paycheck, they won't lock my software down so hard I can barely breathe.
Can you tell I've just been hit with the totally locked down Exchange-server virus at my workplace? ;-)
.... complete control of their employees computers. More lockdown features present in the OS = more power to the IT department = easier for BOFH IT administrators to take away any and all "freedoms" you may think you have when using equipment provided by your workplace.
In other words: What a waste of time sending letters to these companies!
I think someone seriously underestimated the hazardous nature of building materials. R
azing a building containing asbestos or Ammonium bromide which a lot of older buildings contain (fireproofing) and just leaving it there is quite stupid!
I earn a living (well, if you can call it that) doing biochemical research, but frankly I don't care if you believe me (RTFA, it pretty much speaks for itself).
Sorry, not bored enough to give examples, but using google scholar will most definitely help you (if you are that bored ;-).
Possible vector of contamination? Are you serious? Try just about everything they may have come into contact with.... removal of "all things resembling RNA" is much easier than it sounds... destruction of RNA strands, yes... quite easy (however that may introduce yet more contamination ;-). Removal of all nucleotides... good luck.
Contamination is actally quite a good shot as to what may have brought on at least the start of the process...
Did I mention I'm not that worried if you don't believe me? :-)
From what I know plenty of previous attempts or rather "succesful" attemps have been shown to be due to contamination.
Now, I'm not saying these people don't know what they are doing, I'm saying the chance of contamination with discrete amounts of RNA / RNA bases / whatever in my eyes are probably far greater than the chance of actually making RNA.
(and no, I'm not some sort of creationist bastard heh)
So in other words: Even more chance of contamination.
Contamination.
'Nuff said.
I've never heard of the other ones, but Google Notebook have come in handy plenty of times.
Sad that Google feel the need to close down these services, I mean... how much man power could it really cost just to keep them running?
You are redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusion that it doesn't work. It doesn't take much research to find out the homeopathy is NOT "get cured by diluting out all of the active ingredient". It is easy to find that homeopathy is "Active ingredients that cause similar symptoms will cure, and that since you don't want to cause as much damage with the cure as you do with the disease, you dilute the active ingredient down". The fact that most 'practitioners' of homeopathy get no real results because they do dilute it down to the point of having no active ingredients is a different argument form whether homeopathy works or not.
Homeopathy is exactly that. The founder of homeopathy, Hahnemann, actually favored a dilution of 1:10E60 for most purposes (which is WAY beyond Avogadro's number). Sorry, but you are the one redefining homeopathy to meet your conclusions.
I seriously doubt the authors said herbal medicine was scientifically impossible - in fact judging by the overview of the book presented here, the authors seems to acknowledge that herbal medicine do work (in contrast to the other examined treatments).
Homeopathy has been and will always be bullshit. If you dilute something beyond Avogadro's number, its gone. There's no "water memory" or whatever people have been trying to claim for years.
At best, if you REALLY believe homeopathy works, you will benefit from the placebo effect. However, most logical sane persons when explained what actually goes on in homeopathy will NOT believe that it works and hence they will not benefit from the placebo effect.
I apologize for not clarifying that vaccines are NOT diluted beyond Avogadro's number - there is actually an active ingredient in a vaccine, as opposed to homeopathic remedies. My mistake. Homeopathy is definitely not and will hopefully never ever be a part of "traditional medicine", not are any "big pharma" companies selling anything that could be just remotely though of as a homeopathic treatment. I will guarantee you they would be out of business / sued out of existence before you could say QUACK :-).
Clearly the writer of this book is at best nieve, likely just dumb, and at worst dishonest. Making the statement that Herbal remedies don't work is simply stupid. Herbal remedies are simply taking drugs. That's right. The only difference between what a doctor would give you and an equivalent herbal remedy is the source and purity of the drug. Obviously, pharmaceutical companies have created drugs that don't occur naturally, and some claimed herbal remedies don't actually have any useful drugs in them. But, the claim that herbal reminds don't work is by definition saying that "if the drug occurs naturally, it doesn't work. I can only work if it is manufacture in a lab."
Each year, a number of people get decreased kidney or liver function (and possibly die) from taking "herbal medicine". The reason for that is EXACTLY that the drugs in herbs are NOT pure and contains hazardous other substances and/or the people taking the herbs overdoze on the active substance as there is no way to know what the purity is.... Stuff does not only work when its manufactured in a lab, but the safety is sooo much better!
While the number of quacks in homeopathy is immense, vaccines are basically homeopathy. The premise being that you get the body to fight a desires by introducing the same symptoms as the disease so that the body can heal itself. At best I would say that our medicine is too primitive to really get the benefits of homeopathy. With our advances in genetics, I have no doubt that we will eventually start making artificial vaccines. Once we make a vaccine that is not a watered down version of the real disease, we will be performing homeopathy by definitions. By claiming that a vaccine that is created in a lab won't work because it is created in a lab is just as dumb as saying that a drug that occurs naturally won't work because it is naturally occurring.
Seriously, what a load of bullshit. Vaccines are not even close to homeopathy, as they are not diluted beyond Avogadro's number.... :-).
Furthermore, "artificial" vaccines are already in production.
Did that a long time ago, didn't help heh, thanks for trying to solve my problem though! :-)
Thanks! I'll try that on a machine that has the problem! :-)
Its not only office files, it just happens with office files more frequently (say 90% of the time) than other file types (say 20% of the time).
Clicking links in thunderbird will cause thunderbird to freeze for minutes until the link suddenly opens in firefox for example. This works on a fresh install (non-updated) windows XP, and on a fully updated Vista, i.e. the link opens instantly as it should.
PDF files (using Acrobat Pro v. 7 or 8) suffers the same problems and also other filetypes (can't recall them all heh).
I wish someone would know what the problem is as I know plenty of people (including myself) who would be very happy if a solution was found.
The files are local files (local harddrive). There is no difference if I disable all network devices.
I haven't tried wireshark, but could you give a hint as to why I would do that?
I did that, it didn't help with the opening files problem (oh and I didn't even get into the whole "refuse to print until you reboot" problems that Windows XP also seems to suffer from lately).
I've spent hours and hours searching the net for a solultion, tried everything I could get my hands on and nothing worked (except a fresh not-updated Windows XP... and we all know what a good idea it is to run that...)
Sorry, but openoffice does not contain all the features of office yet. Its getting better, but the functionality just isn't there yet.
Yes, upgrading must be for a reason.
I recently decided to upgrade to Vista because Microsoft has utterly destroyed the functionality and stability of Windows XP with its recent updates (say in the last 9-12 months or so).
I'm not sure exactly when this happend, but I'm not alone, plenty of coworkers have the same problem:
Double clicking on an office file (doc, xls, ppt) will make windows go into a waiting period (hour glass) for several minutes (up to half an hour or until you reboot) before the file is finally opened. This "functionality" is present not only with office files (but mostly these), but also other documents (besides office documents) suffer the same fate.
This has happend to a range of computers, running a range of different anti virus software, with a range of different office versions (office 2000, XP and 2003).
Now, you then install a CLEAN version of XP and a clean version of office (with antivirus etc.) this DOES NOT happen!
You then update your XP and Office (or wait for your computer to get owned... argh) and the problem comes back!
Hence Microsofts update has FORCED me to upgrade to Vista to get any meaningful work done... at least this problem is gone from Vista, however other problems then pop up, most notably, the lack of obtaining a new IP via DHCP when switching from one location to another... jesus, how hard can it be? but also performance drops (mostly network related) and no, I'm not alone in seeing these things either.
All in all, I got rid of some showstoppers caused by updating Windows XP, just to be annoyed by simple problems in Vista.
Considering the price tag this software comes with, I can't say I'm impressed with the problems, neither am I impressed with the observation that Microsoft forced me to upgrade to Vista by utterly messing up XP *after Vista was shipped!*
*sighs*
(No, using Linux is unfortunately not an option, as we use software everyday that runs only on Windows... using a Mac would bring forth the same problems, its either Windows or not get any work done!)
I couldn't agree more. "The End of Eternity" is on my personal top ten list of best sci-fi books I have ever read. Amazing book! Read it!
I hope they don't mess up the movie too much ;-)
"since personal preferences (and hand size) play a major role when it comes to input, but I think that that the MacBookâ(TM)s innovative touchpad gives it the ADVANTAGE"
You have got to be kidding me? Totally unintuitive, I need more fingers than I have (well almost) to do basic tasks, I need to move my hand AWAY from the keyboard to move the mouse pointer... How can this thing be innovative? Seriously.
I will take the IBM/Lenovo Trackpoint/touchpoint/clit/whatever-that-red-thing-in-the-middle-of-the-keyboard-is-called anyday over ANYTHING that makes me MOVE my hands AWAY from the keyboard.
Yes, its pretty, yes its cool, no its NOT very functional nor usable in the long run.
Sure Apple has done some things that ware bone-headed and just plain wrong but nothing they've done remotely compares to what Balmer et al is trying to pull here.
You are correct, Apple simply ignores current standards instead and invents their own and/or adds DRM / security-through-obscurity crap on top of known standards.
Examples: The "mailbox" file format of iMail (or what its called) and ipods. I know there are more, I can't be bothered to find them :-)
I actually believe plenty of artists/right-brained people share their work using for example creative commons or the like.
I have to disagree on the iPhone - it may be aesthetically pleasing, but it could have used some CS grads love..... who the hell puts a mobile phone on the market in 2008 that lacks basic functionality like MMS (pictures/videos/sound) messages or just the capability to record video?
The lack of MMS is a total bust for me and means I'll never get an iPhone - yes I'm aware you can get 3rd party apps that will do it for you, but it should just be built in! Its a total standard thing in all other phones, EXCEPT iPhone.
I'm pretty sure Android will have MMS capability :-)
Please note that you're not *required* to use the options and customizations KDE offers. But it just really sucks if you need them but they aren't there. I've seen plenty of people totally inexperienced with Linux just start off with KDE as if they've been using it all their life.
However, Gnome is so fragmented (has so many dependencies) that it's almost impossible to compile by hand. Furthermore it's just not intuitive and lacks a lot of options.
If it were a car, it would only have a steering wheel, gas and brake. And no climate control, poke or radio etc because it might confuse the driver.
I couldn't agree more. I fail to see why it should be necessary with two different GUIs for inexperienced / new users and power users. Just setup the default for the new users, but keep power users happy by giving them the option of having things "their way".
In my opinion, choice is lacking in Gnome. Yes, I could get work done using Gnome, but it would annoy me all the time, worst thing being my inability to change most of the annoyances (just like windows or OS X) whereas KDE makes it possible for me to change things as I see fit... (well, most of them anyway :-).
Exactly - and I agree on the KDE3 bloat.
KDE4 looks really really promising, perhaps Ubuntu will switch its default distribution to KDE4 making gnome the secondary choice (well, one can always dream :-).