Here's a tidbit from yours truly, a bonafide illegal alien. I'm not exactly an illegal alien, but somewhere between today and one fine day 15 years ago when I first submitted my green card application (still pending), there exists no doubt one or two technical violations the INS could dig up that would render me "out of status" (read "I can be shipped out tomorrow in handcuffs along with the latest batch of men with more complexions more swarthy than my own).
I mention the above not for sympathy but to offer some perspective. During the last 2-1/2 years (when I started counting), not only have I re-submitted previously-submitted documents (big pile of paper with a fee payable each time), but also I have been fingerprinted 5 times. "Five!" you say? Yes indeedy. Seems the INS has become more and more keen on this sort of thing since their last in an on-going series of reorganisations.
What struck me about the last round of fingerprinting was not the fingerprinting itself. I've since long gotten over the dumbfounded feeling aroused by contemplating the only two logical possibilities I could come up with for the nonsense, to wit, that (a) the INS had again lost my fingerprints (a distinct possibility as they've repeatedly "lost" my paperwork for months on end; or (b) they're concerned the tips of my fingers have changed or been otherwise altered since the last time they were inked and rolled smudgingly onto little square outlines preprinted on white sheets of card stock. What was interesting was that the notification letter arrived in my mail box soon after Mr. Ashcroft and Co. began implementing the Patriot Act in new and creative ways.
There's 2 interesting bits there to consider. First, there's the Patriot Act, which we all know protect y'all from us Canadians and anyone else looking to steal jobs, welfare money and virgin brides. And second, there's the "my mailbox" part. "What's so interesting about that?" you ask? Well, in 15 years I have never (ever) received a letter from the INS. My lawyers (several over the years) have received almost as few, and with the exceptions of overdue responses to occasional FOIA requests (stating no information was to be found), or the receipt of a notice (demanding new copies of old documentation), I'd say my lawyers have received nothing either. In fact, most of the notices I have received from the INS have resulted either from my lawyers' visits or my own occasional "whassup?" treks to the Federal Building offices in the city where I live. (If I was looking for sympathy, I'd additionally point out that these visits routinely consisted of arriving at 10:00 in the evening to be somewhere near the front of a Mon-Fri 2,000+ person line eager to get into the building when it opens at 6:00am, or at least by 1:00pm when the probabilities approach zero that I or anyone else would be so lucky to actually get in to stand in line for a number for a chance to wait another few hours to see someone who might actually know something. But I'm not. So there.)
So, what's the point to all this rambling? Again, 2 things: THEY now know who I am, and THEY know where I live. Not that I believe either of these two new realities will advance my application for residency, make me a better person, or otherwise add to the quality of my life or those around me, but I am confident it's made the majority of Americans sleep better at night knowing that SOMEONE is doing SOMETHING. I just wish I knew what that SOMETHING part was. My proud-to-be-an American-citizen dad did, too, but he passed away waiting to find out.
All in all, I'm an easy-going happy-go-lucky type. I do wonder, however, whether the millions of people that travel to the US every year will react with the same graciousness when subjected to a scrutiny unknown across most of the developed world, save for those arrested or imprisoned for crimes.
Funny, I just read similar comments in the Win2K server reskit book the other day. The problem is that while it's mostly correct, it's the answer to a question no one really asked.
Anybody who needs RAID and who has a brain in their head is implementing it on the hardware level. Data redundancy, therefore, is not a function of Win2000, Win2003, or any other OS for that matter. If one did choose to use the software RAID offered as part of an OS, it would be, well... redundant -- sort of like paying the mob to protect you from the mob.
A quick search on Google will tell you that Snoop Dog and Microsoft Word yields 4,810 hits, David Bowie and Excel yields 10,500 hits, and Madonna and Flash yields a whopping 217,000 (compare that with only 203,000 hits for Britney Spears and Flash).
Oddly enough, a search Frank Zappa and Filemaker Pro yielded a measly 396 hits (possibly he's not doing much work lately), though Marilyn Manson and ASP Server Side Scripting did return almost twice that number at 694 hits.
So you see it's not just artists from the 80's who are into new technology.
If it is usenet, I cringe to see how MS decides to implement it. Anyone familiar with usenet is painfully aware that the top-posting Outlook Express weenies are without question one of usenet's biggest problems. As for OE's existing attempts to resemble a newsreader, well, between the user interface shortcomings, near absence of useful features, lack of yEnc support and the nutty options ("quoted-printable" anybody?), I wager that whatever they come up with will be more a mix of Clippy and "e-mail stationary" than anything functional or that integrates well with anything else.
It's bad enough having the point-and-click weenies use their web browsers to post html to usenet, but having Microsoft muck it all up with some unholy mix so that no one can tell the difference is hardly a step in the right direction. And it's definitely not progress.
If Microsoft was interested in making improvements, I'd offer the suggestion that they redesign their e-mail clients to resemble newsreaders. Regexp support aside, not only would the databases be substantially smaller, but the display of information could be filtered and searched in far less time. And the bonus? No silly animations.
Your suggesting, then, that bold-faced type or other forms of often inappropriately-selected HTML markup is a superior method of adding emphasis or delineating portions of one's comments?
I'd submit that quotation marks are preferrable for two reasons. First, they're subtle. No has anything so important to say that it requires bold type or some nutty indentation. Second, the use of italics (the only remaining option as no one seems to get usenet-styled astersisks and underscores) not only requires one to use something other than "plain old text" but also is frequently difficult to read on screen. Which is where we're all reading it, right?
I thought I'd point out that I always enjoy coming across a post where the writer identifies himself as being from such and such country (i.e., not from the U.S.). Not only do such posts provide everyone an opportunity to reflect on that country's culture and history, but also such posts often distinguish themselves by being well written. More specifically, they seem to lack the spelling and grammatical errors commonly found in posts made by those whose native language is obviously English.
Nicely said! I'm reminded (again) of Jack Valenti's warning, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
Or without the High Crimes and Misdemeanors metaphor:
"And 6 out of 10 films do not retrieve their total investment period. Now, what are you going to do right on top of that? There is going to be a VCR avalanche. Exports of VCR's from Japan totaled 2.57 million units in 1981. No. 2, the United States is the biggest market. No. 3, February 1982, which is the latest data, shows the imports to the United States are up 57 percent over 1981. This is more than a tidal wave. It is more than an avalanche. It is here.
Now, that is where the problem is. You take the high risk, which means we must go by the aftermarkets to recoup our investments. If those aftermarkets are decimated, shrunken, collapsed because of what I am going to be explaining to you in a minute, because of the fact that the VCR is stripping those things clean, those markets clean of our profit potential, you are going to have devastation in this marketplace"
I can hide my entire pr0n collection in a single gigpixel image?
Seriously, though, I read a news article some time ago describing how the FBI are onto such data hiding techniques after discovering terrorists (ok, "Arabs") had been posting stego encrypted messages in images posted to various popular terrorist (there I go again!) websites.
Don't know to what extent they're "onto" it (they never say, do they?), but I imagine looking for secret clues can be a full-time job.
I just received an e-mail annoucement offering a 1-year renewal on my 1500/384 at $26.95/month. Can't figure why my rate is lower by a few dollars, but this price competition is definitely a good thing.
I don't recall what my original sign-up rate is/was (I don't see the bills), but IIRC it was something like $50-60/month. Given that SBC is offering a "business class" service (5 static IPs, 1500/384) for about the same price, I'm seriously considering foregoing the cost savings and trading up. If nothing else, I'm hoping for a new support number where the person at the other end doesn't go into a coma when the word "router" (or, God forbid, "Linux") is mentioned and their script gets messed up. Regardless of what I am paying, I'd like to see their support offer solutions that don't involve pressing the Windows Start button and "System Tests" that consist of more than a ping (took me 15 minutes of yelling at a supervisor to learn that bit of info).
On a side note, here's a tip I got from an SBC repair guy who came over a month or so back to fix a line problem. New sign-ups invariably get full download speeds for the first few months. SBC throttles them back incrementally when no one's looking. If your speeds are noticeably off, and you don't have a friend in the right department, you can call and complain to have them "optimize" your connection.
Looking at an image at 60hz is about the same as staring directly into a fluorescent tube, except there's words and pictures.
Even though you're conscious of the the flicker (incredibly, many users aren't until someone changes their settings for the "Oh, wow -- I never knew!" effect), I think the eyestrain you're referring is still entirely due to it. The magic number (i.e., absolute minimum) is 85hz.
Until I see an LCD display that offers an image identical to a high quality CRT monitor, I don't see any reason to even consider buying one. Mind you, if the prices were on par, it might be useful to have a few extra screens on my crowded desk that take up little or no room, but even then, their use would have to be limited, perhaps a clean command-line environment.
Instead, what I am seeing are displays priced starting at USD700 that seem to flicker, offer poor resolution and colour, but look kind of cool (at least with a manufacturer-optimized video running on it). In an office environment where the of a computer is less "all-purpose" and limited to running a small handful of applications, LCDs are no doubt ideal when the cost of commercial real estate is factored in. For graphics and video work (or pr0n, for that matter), they're definitely out of the question.
I spend an inordinate amount of time reading technical literature on screen. If an LCD screen offered what a growing number are claiming to be a "new and improved" display, believe me, I'd be the first in line to buy one. When I went out last week with checkbook in hand, I came home with two 17" Viewsonic CRTs. No regrets. In fact, with the money I've saved, I'm considering making a high-quality duplexing printer my next purchase which, if you think about it, says something about current state of display technology.
Re:Controls everything?
on
AOL's $299 PC
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· Score: 1
No difference between dial-ups? Hardly.
My first dial-up account offered free in-home setup, multiple e-mail accounts with generous storage, spam filtering, virus checking, a top-notch newsfeed with 7+ day retention, and completely personal (first name basis) service which included a willingness to drive on over to your house to fix a problem if it couldn't be handled over the phone. Additionally, they were quite happy to let you come into their office for tours, visits or to perform large downloads (service packs, ISOs, etc.). Calls were always answered on the 2nd or 3rd ring. And if you called after business hours or on weekends, your call would be forwarded to their home where (incredibly) they'd take your call. All network problems (rare) and maintenance issues were fully described and posted on their website immediately and summarised in an e-mail you'd find in your in-box.
The price for all this was $19.95 per month --cheaper than all the majors.
And connecting via modem? About 20 seconds on the first go round and you were never kicked off during periods of inactivity, or chided in any way for high usage.
So, yes, there is a lot of difference. But you don't know what the difference is until you see for yourself, the same reason why AOL regularly loses customers.
"On the other hand if sales overall continue to decrease, including CDs, then they just might have to aknowledge that they're just plain promoting crap most people don't want."
Sounds logical enough, but consider the War on Drugs. Or the War on Terror. Both of these can (and no doubt will) go on indefinitely in a self-perpetuating "More [effort] [money] [education] [bumperstickers] [legislation] [punishment] is needed." loop.
I don't think Tom Waits has released anything for a while, and if he did, I doubt the RIAA would concern itself. The money at issue is coming from the 12-year olds (ok, maybe 16) who are downloading Britney Spears releases instead of buying her CDs. Note that it's this same flush-with-discretionary-spending-money group that has been fueling many of Hollywood's releases -- "crap" that no one but 12-year olds (who often pay to see it more than once) want to see.
I doubt the RIAA in their press releases will admit to anything more than "limited success." If they did, their control of the situation would errode. And we can't have that, can we?
I didn't read the article, but it sounds like typical bullshit for the DMCA/RIAA crowd to butter up their claims that "The Steaks are High!" and "Just Cownt The Money We're Losing!", where in reality, nothing could be fodder from the truth. Or as recently herd on Slashdot... "Moove on -- nothing to see here."
That said, I do think taking the bull by the horns and running with Longhorn is a an udderly bad idea, even in Singapore.
Should have really posted this as anonymous cow-ard instead of trying to milk this thread...
I disconnected my telephone answering machine and removed the call-waiting feature. My rationale (at least what I told friends, family and co-workers) was that if I was home, I'd be happy to take their call. If I wasn't, there was no point calling me as I wasn't available to take their call. Over time, the complaints subsided (along with most of the telephone calls) and I resigned myself to a happy, albeit "quaint" and "old-fashioned" lifestyle. My life at that time was such that it afforded me this luxuriously relaxed approach to the outside world with few adverse effects -- picture Sean Connery (without the brogue) in "Finding Forrester" and you've got the idea. There were, however, certain individuals and family members who could neither comprehend nor accept my new "selfishness," and while their comments did prick my conscience from time to time, I refused to consider abandoning my new stance.
Now to be honest, I did find myself scratching my head on occasion trying to fashion a novel come-back to counter such objections, or provide an analogy by way of example but came up with little. Several months passed and I sat down one evening to read the new issue of Harper's Magazine and came across an article on Umberto Eco. I don't remember much about the article, except that it was well written, interesting, and concerned itself with (what else?) Umberto Eco. What I do remember, however, was the way in which Mr. Eco characterised himself as having no use for email and expressing a strong dislike of telephones. He advised anyone who was inclined to contact him to send a hand written note or letter addressed simply c/o the University of Bologna, the idea being that "it would eventually find its way" to him in due time.
Reading his words made me laugh (the funniest jokes are always the most personal, it seems) and I realized that even if I didn't live in southern Italy, my refusal to use an answering machine was perfectly justified. If Umberto Eco didn't answer his telephone, I didn't need to either. It was everyone else that had the problem. And if someone really really needed to contact me, they could similarly write a letter.
Things change for all of us, it seems.
-- value_added e-mail, cell, pager and ICQ numbers available on request
is that even without the Profit! factor, there's a promotional aspect to Free Stuff(TM).
The concept is hardly new, I suppose, but worth remembering. Maybe it's time that a company like Adobe considers asking their acccountants to calculate a Goodwill book value for all the warez copies of their software being distributed that have encouraged users (myself included) to buy what they got hooked on using when it was free cough Red Hat cough.
The gelatinous protein guk (technical term) that makes up what is known as gelatin/gelatine can be derived from a variety of animal product sources, not just from pigs and not just from hooves. IIRC, most of what is sold commercially comes from cow by-products like hides.
If you're a cook, you probably already know that. But as I doubt you are, here's a small insight...
When making chicken stock (chicken stock is THE fundamental ingredient to almost all food preparation), one selects parts like the neck, wings, heart and giblets only, specifically most anything with a lot of bone, cartlidge, or connective tissue, and, if you live near a Chinatown where you can get a freshly slaughtered corn-fed bird that includes the head you can use that too. Why? Because the collagen that ends up in the cooking liquid from all thse parts imparts a "body" to it. The meat, on the other hand, imparts flavour only. By using mostly bones (cheap) and adding in a bit of meat (expensive) and throwing in the usual vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, etc., you end up with something quite delicious that can be used for making everything from sauces to soups to a cooking liquid for your broccoli.
Commercial gelatin, like off-the-shelf stock, is suspect in its orgins. I wouldn't recommend buying it for making stock thought it might work for faking fingerprints.
This home page has been around for a while. Worth a look. At the very least, seeing it may change one's opinions on one or two few things, home pages among them.
"First-time computer users are flocking to a government-subsidised programme to bring cheap PCs to the public. Although pirate copies of Windows and Office have a street price as low as $4, the information ministry's scheme of selling PCs loaded with Linux and OpenOffice for $250 is a runaway success. A million new PC owners will be using Linux within the next few months.... Linux Insider reports that most of the new Linux users are expected to stick with their PCs thanks to the fanatical level of support provided by the Thai Linux user groups. Gartner predicts a 70 per cent stick rate: which is quite extraordinary, given the power that is so often attributed to factors such as branding and incumbent advantages."
So there. So what's all this about it being too hard?
I agree. At the same time, however, I think it's important to remember that the cumulative effect of actions (like the anticipate push by the major manufacturers described in the article) is often the most important factor, the stock market being evidence enough of the fact that we're all lemmings to some degree. Hearing that "everybody's doing it" can be a much more persuasive than technical discussions or analyses.
But I digress.
Pre-installation would definitely be hallmark, but even before that, I'd like to see computer stores reserve a few of their display models for showcasing something other than Windows XP. Or is that asking too much of the sales staff?
I don't agree on the "no floppy" advice. RAID drivers, for example, generally come on floppies. If one is installing Win2000 (again, an example), you'd be hard-pressed to set up the OS without being able to insert the floppy containing the setup drivers. And yes, while it is possible to rebuild an installation CD, it's not unreasonable to assume that's always possible.
Using your analogy, the addition of corporate sponsorship to a PBS program would make it identical to regular (commercial) television programming. I think the answer lies, like all things, in how it's done.
For example, I subscribe to both PBS television and radio in part because I get free (subsidised) coffee mugs, T-shirts, music, invitations and discounts on concert tickets among other things. Also, the combination of pleasant but persistent mailings requesting money and having my name officially honoured helps to make me feel like I'm getting something tangible for my contributions -- something a "Register Now" button on an application or website can't do, let alone a Paypal transaction. Incidentally, the marketing tactics used by PBS aren't so different than those used by everyone from Greenpeace to the Sierra Club to the NRA to your local politician. I think the reason PBS gets my money is they nag more (and more nicely) than everyone else.
I don't have the answers, but stuffed toy penguins donated by corporate OSS users wouldn't be a stretch for those of with kids. Neither would a T-shirt, or maybe a secret decoder ring.
Maybe I better shut up before we see the first Annual Slashdot Pledge drive.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a tidbit from yours truly, a bonafide illegal alien. I'm not exactly an illegal alien, but somewhere between today and one fine day 15 years ago when I first submitted my green card application (still pending), there exists no doubt one or two technical violations the INS could dig up that would render me "out of status" (read "I can be shipped out tomorrow in handcuffs along with the latest batch of men with more complexions more swarthy than my own).
I mention the above not for sympathy but to offer some perspective. During the last 2-1/2 years (when I started counting), not only have I re-submitted previously-submitted documents (big pile of paper with a fee payable each time), but also I have been fingerprinted 5 times. "Five!" you say? Yes indeedy. Seems the INS has become more and more keen on this sort of thing since their last in an on-going series of reorganisations.
What struck me about the last round of fingerprinting was not the fingerprinting itself. I've since long gotten over the dumbfounded feeling aroused by contemplating the only two logical possibilities I could come up with for the nonsense, to wit, that (a) the INS had again lost my fingerprints (a distinct possibility as they've repeatedly "lost" my paperwork for months on end; or (b) they're concerned the tips of my fingers have changed or been otherwise altered since the last time they were inked and rolled smudgingly onto little square outlines preprinted on white sheets of card stock. What was interesting was that the notification letter arrived in my mail box soon after Mr. Ashcroft and Co. began implementing the Patriot Act in new and creative ways.
There's 2 interesting bits there to consider. First, there's the Patriot Act, which we all know protect y'all from us Canadians and anyone else looking to steal jobs, welfare money and virgin brides. And second, there's the "my mailbox" part. "What's so interesting about that?" you ask? Well, in 15 years I have never (ever) received a letter from the INS. My lawyers (several over the years) have received almost as few, and with the exceptions of overdue responses to occasional FOIA requests (stating no information was to be found), or the receipt of a notice (demanding new copies of old documentation), I'd say my lawyers have received nothing either. In fact, most of the notices I have received from the INS have resulted either from my lawyers' visits or my own occasional "whassup?" treks to the Federal Building offices in the city where I live. (If I was looking for sympathy, I'd additionally point out that these visits routinely consisted of arriving at 10:00 in the evening to be somewhere near the front of a Mon-Fri 2,000+ person line eager to get into the building when it opens at 6:00am, or at least by 1:00pm when the probabilities approach zero that I or anyone else would be so lucky to actually get in to stand in line for a number for a chance to wait another few hours to see someone who might actually know something. But I'm not. So there.)
So, what's the point to all this rambling? Again, 2 things: THEY now know who I am, and THEY know where I live. Not that I believe either of these two new realities will advance my application for residency, make me a better person, or otherwise add to the quality of my life or those around me, but I am confident it's made the majority of Americans sleep better at night knowing that SOMEONE is doing SOMETHING. I just wish I knew what that SOMETHING part was. My proud-to-be-an American-citizen dad did, too, but he passed away waiting to find out.
All in all, I'm an easy-going happy-go-lucky type. I do wonder, however, whether the millions of people that travel to the US every year will react with the same graciousness when subjected to a scrutiny unknown across most of the developed world, save for those arrested or imprisoned for crimes.
Funny, I just read similar comments in the Win2K server reskit book the other day. The problem is that while it's mostly correct, it's the answer to a question no one really asked.
... redundant -- sort of like paying the mob to protect you from the mob.
Anybody who needs RAID and who has a brain in their head is implementing it on the hardware level. Data redundancy, therefore, is not a function of Win2000, Win2003, or any other OS for that matter. If one did choose to use the software RAID offered as part of an OS, it would be, well
There's probably a better listing somewhere but I stumbled across this one recently. Could become an art form. Then again, maybe not.
A quick search on Google will tell you that Snoop Dog and Microsoft Word yields 4,810 hits, David Bowie and Excel yields 10,500 hits, and Madonna and Flash yields a whopping 217,000 (compare that with only 203,000 hits for Britney Spears and Flash).
Oddly enough, a search Frank Zappa and Filemaker Pro yielded a measly 396 hits (possibly he's not doing much work lately), though Marilyn Manson and ASP Server Side Scripting did return almost twice that number at 694 hits.
So you see it's not just artists from the 80's who are into new technology.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
If it is usenet, I cringe to see how MS decides to implement it. Anyone familiar with usenet is painfully aware that the top-posting Outlook Express weenies are without question one of usenet's biggest problems. As for OE's existing attempts to resemble a newsreader, well, between the user interface shortcomings, near absence of useful features, lack of yEnc support and the nutty options ("quoted-printable" anybody?), I wager that whatever they come up with will be more a mix of Clippy and "e-mail stationary" than anything functional or that integrates well with anything else.
It's bad enough having the point-and-click weenies use their web browsers to post html to usenet, but having Microsoft muck it all up with some unholy mix so that no one can tell the difference is hardly a step in the right direction. And it's definitely not progress.
If Microsoft was interested in making improvements, I'd offer the suggestion that they redesign their e-mail clients to resemble newsreaders. Regexp support aside, not only would the databases be substantially smaller, but the display of information could be filtered and searched in far less time. And the bonus? No silly animations.
Your suggesting, then, that bold-faced type or other forms of often inappropriately-selected HTML markup is a superior method of adding emphasis or delineating portions of one's comments?
I'd submit that quotation marks are preferrable for two reasons. First, they're subtle. No has anything so important to say that it requires bold type or some nutty indentation. Second, the use of italics (the only remaining option as no one seems to get usenet-styled astersisks and underscores) not only requires one to use something other than "plain old text" but also is frequently difficult to read on screen. Which is where we're all reading it, right?
So "there."
I thought I'd point out that I always enjoy coming across a post where the writer identifies himself as being from such and such country (i.e., not from the U.S.). Not only do such posts provide everyone an opportunity to reflect on that country's culture and history, but also such posts often distinguish themselves by being well written. More specifically, they seem to lack the spelling and grammatical errors commonly found in posts made by those whose native language is obviously English.
Nicely said! I'm reminded (again) of Jack Valenti's warning, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
...
Or without the High Crimes and Misdemeanors metaphor:
"And 6 out of 10 films do not retrieve their total investment period. Now, what are you going to do right on top of that? There is going to be a VCR avalanche. Exports of VCR's from Japan totaled 2.57 million units in 1981. No. 2, the United States is the biggest market. No. 3, February 1982, which is the latest data, shows the imports to the United States are up 57 percent over 1981. This is more than a tidal wave. It is more than an avalanche. It is here.
Now, that is where the problem is. You take the high risk, which means we must go by the aftermarkets to recoup our investments. If those aftermarkets are decimated, shrunken, collapsed because of what I am going to be explaining to you in a minute, because of the fact that the VCR is stripping those things clean, those markets clean of our profit potential, you are going to have devastation in this marketplace"
Devastation here we come
I can hide my entire pr0n collection in a single gigpixel image?
Seriously, though, I read a news article some time ago describing how the FBI are onto such data hiding techniques after discovering terrorists (ok, "Arabs") had been posting stego encrypted messages in images posted to various popular terrorist (there I go again!) websites.
Don't know to what extent they're "onto" it (they never say, do they?), but I imagine looking for secret clues can be a full-time job.
I just received an e-mail annoucement offering a 1-year renewal on my 1500/384 at $26.95/month. Can't figure why my rate is lower by a few dollars, but this price competition is definitely a good thing.
I don't recall what my original sign-up rate is/was (I don't see the bills), but IIRC it was something like $50-60/month. Given that SBC is offering a "business class" service (5 static IPs, 1500/384) for about the same price, I'm seriously considering foregoing the cost savings and trading up. If nothing else, I'm hoping for a new support number where the person at the other end doesn't go into a coma when the word "router" (or, God forbid, "Linux") is mentioned and their script gets messed up. Regardless of what I am paying, I'd like to see their support offer solutions that don't involve pressing the Windows Start button and "System Tests" that consist of more than a ping (took me 15 minutes of yelling at a supervisor to learn that bit of info).
On a side note, here's a tip I got from an SBC repair guy who came over a month or so back to fix a line problem. New sign-ups invariably get full download speeds for the first few months. SBC throttles them back incrementally when no one's looking. If your speeds are noticeably off, and you don't have a friend in the right department, you can call and complain to have them "optimize" your connection.
Looking at an image at 60hz is about the same as staring directly into a fluorescent tube, except there's words and pictures.
Even though you're conscious of the the flicker (incredibly, many users aren't until someone changes their settings for the "Oh, wow -- I never knew!" effect), I think the eyestrain you're referring is still entirely due to it. The magic number (i.e., absolute minimum) is 85hz.
Until I see an LCD display that offers an image identical to a high quality CRT monitor, I don't see any reason to even consider buying one. Mind you, if the prices were on par, it might be useful to have a few extra screens on my crowded desk that take up little or no room, but even then, their use would have to be limited, perhaps a clean command-line environment.
Instead, what I am seeing are displays priced starting at USD700 that seem to flicker, offer poor resolution and colour, but look kind of cool (at least with a manufacturer-optimized video running on it). In an office environment where the of a computer is less "all-purpose" and limited to running a small handful of applications, LCDs are no doubt ideal when the cost of commercial real estate is factored in. For graphics and video work (or pr0n, for that matter), they're definitely out of the question.
I spend an inordinate amount of time reading technical literature on screen. If an LCD screen offered what a growing number are claiming to be a "new and improved" display, believe me, I'd be the first in line to buy one. When I went out last week with checkbook in hand, I came home with two 17" Viewsonic CRTs. No regrets. In fact, with the money I've saved, I'm considering making a high-quality duplexing printer my next purchase which, if you think about it, says something about current state of display technology.
No difference between dial-ups? Hardly.
My first dial-up account offered free in-home setup, multiple e-mail accounts with generous storage, spam filtering, virus checking, a top-notch newsfeed with 7+ day retention, and completely personal (first name basis) service which included a willingness to drive on over to your house to fix a problem if it couldn't be handled over the phone. Additionally, they were quite happy to let you come into their office for tours, visits or to perform large downloads (service packs, ISOs, etc.). Calls were always answered on the 2nd or 3rd ring. And if you called after business hours or on weekends, your call would be forwarded to their home where (incredibly) they'd take your call. All network problems (rare) and maintenance issues were fully described and posted on their website immediately and summarised in an e-mail you'd find in your in-box.
The price for all this was $19.95 per month --cheaper than all the majors.
And connecting via modem? About 20 seconds on the first go round and you were never kicked off during periods of inactivity, or chided in any way for high usage.
So, yes, there is a lot of difference. But you don't know what the difference is until you see for yourself, the same reason why AOL regularly loses customers.
"On the other hand if sales overall continue to decrease, including CDs, then they just might have to aknowledge that they're just plain promoting crap most people don't want."
Sounds logical enough, but consider the War on Drugs. Or the War on Terror. Both of these can (and no doubt will) go on indefinitely in a self-perpetuating "More [effort] [money] [education] [bumperstickers] [legislation] [punishment] is needed." loop.
I don't think Tom Waits has released anything for a while, and if he did, I doubt the RIAA would concern itself. The money at issue is coming from the 12-year olds (ok, maybe 16) who are downloading Britney Spears releases instead of buying her CDs. Note that it's this same flush-with-discretionary-spending-money group that has been fueling many of Hollywood's releases -- "crap" that no one but 12-year olds (who often pay to see it more than once) want to see.
I doubt the RIAA in their press releases will admit to anything more than "limited success." If they did, their control of the situation would errode. And we can't have that, can we?
Not to sound like a troll, but I'd really like to know why it is that people "have to use" hotmail or, for that matter, continue to use hotmail.
I saw a movie about some guy named Nash who did sort of the same thing with newspaper and magazine clippings.
I didn't read the article, but it sounds like typical bullshit for the DMCA/RIAA crowd to butter up their claims that "The Steaks are High!" and "Just Cownt The Money We're Losing!", where in reality, nothing could be fodder from the truth. Or as recently herd on Slashdot ... "Moove on -- nothing to see here."
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That said, I do think taking the bull by the horns and running with Longhorn is a an udderly bad idea, even in Singapore.
Should have really posted this as anonymous cow-ard instead of trying to milk this thread
I disconnected my telephone answering machine and removed the call-waiting feature. My rationale (at least what I told friends, family and co-workers) was that if I was home, I'd be happy to take their call. If I wasn't, there was no point calling me as I wasn't available to take their call. Over time, the complaints subsided (along with most of the telephone calls) and I resigned myself to a happy, albeit "quaint" and "old-fashioned" lifestyle. My life at that time was such that it afforded me this luxuriously relaxed approach to the outside world with few adverse effects -- picture Sean Connery (without the brogue) in "Finding Forrester" and you've got the idea. There were, however, certain individuals and family members who could neither comprehend nor accept my new "selfishness," and while their comments did prick my conscience from time to time, I refused to consider abandoning my new stance.
Now to be honest, I did find myself scratching my head on occasion trying to fashion a novel come-back to counter such objections, or provide an analogy by way of example but came up with little. Several months passed and I sat down one evening to read the new issue of Harper's Magazine and came across an article on Umberto Eco. I don't remember much about the article, except that it was well written, interesting, and concerned itself with (what else?) Umberto Eco. What I do remember, however, was the way in which Mr. Eco characterised himself as having no use for email and expressing a strong dislike of telephones. He advised anyone who was inclined to contact him to send a hand written note or letter addressed simply c/o the University of Bologna, the idea being that "it would eventually find its way" to him in due time.
Reading his words made me laugh (the funniest jokes are always the most personal, it seems) and I realized that even if I didn't live in southern Italy, my refusal to use an answering machine was perfectly justified. If Umberto Eco didn't answer his telephone, I didn't need to either. It was everyone else that had the problem. And if someone really really needed to contact me, they could similarly write a letter.
Things change for all of us, it seems.
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value_added
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is that even without the Profit! factor, there's a promotional aspect to Free Stuff(TM).
The concept is hardly new, I suppose, but worth remembering. Maybe it's time that a company like Adobe considers asking their acccountants to calculate a Goodwill book value for all the warez copies of their software being distributed that have encouraged users (myself included) to buy what they got hooked on using when it was free cough Red Hat cough.
The gelatinous protein guk (technical term) that makes up what is known as gelatin/gelatine can be derived from a variety of animal product sources, not just from pigs and not just from hooves. IIRC, most of what is sold commercially comes from cow by-products like hides.
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If you're a cook, you probably already know that. But as I doubt you are, here's a small insight
When making chicken stock (chicken stock is THE fundamental ingredient to almost all food preparation), one selects parts like the neck, wings, heart and giblets only, specifically most anything with a lot of bone, cartlidge, or connective tissue, and, if you live near a Chinatown where you can get a freshly slaughtered corn-fed bird that includes the head you can use that too. Why? Because the collagen that ends up in the cooking liquid from all thse parts imparts a "body" to it. The meat, on the other hand, imparts flavour only. By using mostly bones (cheap) and adding in a bit of meat (expensive) and throwing in the usual vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, etc., you end up with something quite delicious that can be used for making everything from sauces to soups to a cooking liquid for your broccoli.
Commercial gelatin, like off-the-shelf stock, is suspect in its orgins. I wouldn't recommend buying it for making stock thought it might work for faking fingerprints.
This home page has been around for a while. Worth a look. At the very least, seeing it may change one's opinions on one or two few things, home pages among them.
The Register has a cheery article Asian first-timers prefer Linux to Windows worth reading.
From the article:
So there. So what's all this about it being too hard?
I agree. At the same time, however, I think it's important to remember that the cumulative effect of actions (like the anticipate push by the major manufacturers described in the article) is often the most important factor, the stock market being evidence enough of the fact that we're all lemmings to some degree. Hearing that "everybody's doing it" can be a much more persuasive than technical discussions or analyses.
But I digress.
Pre-installation would definitely be hallmark, but even before that, I'd like to see computer stores reserve a few of their display models for showcasing something other than Windows XP. Or is that asking too much of the sales staff?
I don't agree on the "no floppy" advice. RAID drivers, for example, generally come on floppies. If one is installing Win2000 (again, an example), you'd be hard-pressed to set up the OS without being able to insert the floppy containing the setup drivers. And yes, while it is possible to rebuild an installation CD, it's not unreasonable to assume that's always possible.
Using your analogy, the addition of corporate sponsorship to a PBS program would make it identical to regular (commercial) television programming. I think the answer lies, like all things, in how it's done.
For example, I subscribe to both PBS television and radio in part because I get free (subsidised) coffee mugs, T-shirts, music, invitations and discounts on concert tickets among other things. Also, the combination of pleasant but persistent mailings requesting money and having my name officially honoured helps to make me feel like I'm getting something tangible for my contributions -- something a "Register Now" button on an application or website can't do, let alone a Paypal transaction. Incidentally, the marketing tactics used by PBS aren't so different than those used by everyone from Greenpeace to the Sierra Club to the NRA to your local politician. I think the reason PBS gets my money is they nag more (and more nicely) than everyone else.
I don't have the answers, but stuffed toy penguins donated by corporate OSS users wouldn't be a stretch for those of with kids. Neither would a T-shirt, or maybe a secret decoder ring.
Maybe I better shut up before we see the first Annual Slashdot Pledge drive.
If I have my glasses on right, it looks as though these are desktops that are racked sideways. Would the the floppy and CD-rom drives still work?
If someone can answer that, I'll promise to share the money I'll save not buying empty 4U cases. A Slashdot T-shirt, maybe?