This is a super thing for all of us who have been waiting for a G* produced by someone other than Apple, but it has some up ups and downs.
That wait is over anyway.
There's the EyeTech A1, which will more than Likely get around to running Linux even if the new AmigaDos 4.0 fails to arive, but from what it looks like, FINALLY Amiga Inc. isn't just talking shit.
First, as you can see there is a picture of a new Amiga motherboard which is PowerPC based, and it fits in an ATX case.
Then, for everyone who thinks it's vaporware (it might be, you know...), there is the rather convincing FAQ from Eyetech which discusses in depth the ZICO STANDARD from Amiga INC. for use with AmigaDOS 4.0.
A lot of people may not have any faith in a belated Amiga Ressurection...
...but I've got you all beat. I have no faith left in the computer industry! So beat that! HA!
I disabled all of it. I don't even have that many ICONs on my desktop.
It took me a long time to get used to the idea of the start menu (only because finding a way to truely get rid of it [not just hiding it] was harder than accepting it.) I like the Tooltray though, and I don't think I'd get rid of that even if I could.
I have 4 icons on my desktop.
My Computer - which I use to get to my hard drives and browse them.
Network Neighborhood - for similar reasons.
Trash - For more obvious reasons.
And a shortcut to a folder which is essentially a bunch of shortcuts to all of the useful folders on my system (mp3s, my writings, code, etc...)
I'm something of a minimalist. The less I have taking up my desktop real estate, the better off I am. Icons on the desktop are stupid (in my opinion) since most of the time they'll be covered by applications. (Yes yes, X-Windows does in fact have multiple desktops, too bad it likes to slam windows into corners, stagger them unusably, forgets where I want them, and basically just annoys me most of the time...)
Sometimes when I working on files, I keep them on my desktop temporarily -- but when I'm finished with something, I'll put the final verison (and any drafts I may keep) in their proper place when I am done.
The desktop, as I see it, is solely for the work I'm doing at the moment.
This minimalist approach works for me. I'll be seriously PO'd if I have to use an OS that forces a bunch of clutter on me.
I didn't like the Explorer Icon on my Desktop, so I removed it.
I didn't like the Quicklaunch bar. So I removed it.
I didn't like active desktop, so I disabled it.
I didn't like the browser-buttons in file-browser windows, so I disabled them.
I didn't like the stupid information crap down the left side of file-browser windows, I didn't like file extensions being hidden, I didn't like hidden files being out of view, I didn't like a bunch of other crap that Windows has been doing in every version later than 95.
I disabled every single bit of it.
So far, nothing Microsoft has done to the OS has exactly HURT me, since I prefer IE to that Netscape crap anyway. (I wish I could use IE on my FreeBSD box, that's how much I prefer IE to Netscape). Some of it has annoyed me. Sometimes I question their competence, but they haven't hurt me.
For my web-server I run FreeBSD, for my Desktop machines I run 2 Windows ME boxes, and one running Windows 98.
->MY- Windows machines doesn't have the problems other people seem to be plagued with, the systems gets respectable uptime, and they do everything I need. One is strictly for the web-cam, my scanner, and other such tasks. One is my Laptop. And one is my suped-gaming rig. They are configured how I like, and I never have a single problem out of any of them. Sometimes I firmly believe that more often than not it's the USER who has the real issues, and not the OS.
I do, however, think Microsoft may be about to finally annoy me way too much with the things they've done to XP.
Actually, this controller has a lot of potential for many types of games.
Since you can make the profiles yourself, and seeing as how the controller is only about 5 inches diag... it would be trivial to make a simple "zones" type of profile for a game. Perhaps dead center, the four sides, and the four corners.
Keeping your hand rested over it, you wouldn't need to actually look at controller to hit the appropriate area, and with wide enough dead zones around wide enough live zones, it could be quite intuitive.
This would not be any more useful than the numeric keypad, of course, but coupled with a few custome images, and perhaps simulated "slider" type buttons (say for throttles or what-have-you) the wide programability of this device can far exceed the usefulness of a keyboard. Also, since it's programmable, games could be developed to make special use of it which in and of it's self might open possibilities.
The real question here isn't if the device is useful. The question is will anyone make proper use of it?
Properly used, this device COULD revolutionize game input the way the mouse did. But it probably won't.
Perhaps... Heat Pollution would become a problem, but hopefully that would be worse than greenhouse-effect causing gasses that we release by Fossile fuels, if such gasses do in fact cause global warming (of which I'm not fully convinced.)
A higher dependency on Solar Cells and heat-energy-converting/trapping devices could also help lower the amount of heat we have to deal with.
And of course Trees help quite a bit, too. If would could just stop cutting them down.
And because of that, no one will ever use it. So Microsoft is effectively just burying technology.
Actually, a lot of people use it, just not for illegal file trading as is often seen with MP3.
The fact is -- some people actually only rip and encode their own CDs, and a good number of them people do so entirely with WMA.
This will become more prominent in Windows XP, and seeing as how Microsoft has crippled the included MP3 Encoder (or perhaps removed it altogether) WMA will be most people's choice, except for those of us who don't mind spending the high price for Fraunhofer encoder.
I rip and encode my own MP3s. That's a no-brainer. At the moment, MP3 is dominent.
I remember when GIF was the most popular image format, too. Does anybody remember VOC?
What about ARC, or LHA?
File formats shift through time. Some come, some go, and some remain in use to small groups. But in time I suspect even JPG will be replaced.
I don't see why MP3 is here to stay, even if WMA doesn't replace it.
If he didn't have a contract, then why in the world would he give them his credit card number in the first place.
The verbal agreement, simply stated, was that I would give my CC# and get Telocity service.
As someone else mentioned, yes, I knew I would be recieving the Telocity Gateway. It was never discussed whether or not I would own it. Personally, as I said before, I do not care. It's hooked up to my line on one end and hooked up to my router on the other.
The DSL is awesome, and for what little verbal exchange was made between me and the sales person on the phone, both obligations have been met.
They provide me with service, and I pay them $49 per month.
EXACTING details such as who owns the Gateway were never discussed, though as someone else did mention I WAS told I would be charged $24 for shipping of the Gateway, which I considered more than fair.
I do also remember being told I would receive something in the mail concerning further details, but alas it's now one month later and nothing of the sort has arrived.
As long as the service remains good and as long as they don't do something funky (like overcharge me) then I believe I will be more than happy to continue paying them the $49 per month.
With that in mind, who owns the Gateway doesn't matter. If I ever discontinue service, they can have the bloody thing back. I can't think of any use I would have for it, to be honest.
I was simply pointing out that the aforementioned "contract", which apparently exists since so many people have claimed to have seen it, should be shown more obviously to the end user.
Since I've never signed any agreement... I'm pointing out that someone out there who was bold enough might could try to dispute paying the $500 if it came down to it. Who would bother, though?
It --IS-- possible that the first time I used my browser to view the Online Status of the Gateway it may have made me click an "I AGREE" button. I've been wondering about that, but I don't remember seeing one, and even if I had I normally do at least skim over the sub-section titles. I think I would have remembered something about ownership of the Gateway. But I won't deny them ownership of their precious little Gateway, as long as they keep feeding me this DSL! RAAA!
Telocity/Directvdsl has a online click through sign-up agreement, which includes the terms of returning the gateway. Thus a contract is established, like it or not.
What good is this supposed Click-Through sign-up agreement when people like me were never forced to see it, much less click through it?
Not that I care too much. I love the service I'm getting from Telocity and as such don't plan to get rid of it anytime soon!
Science *explains* nothing, it only describes the world according to how well data correlates to a model.
Science explains plenty. Not all models are correct, and some are in fact very wrong. However, many are useful none the less. The useful ones are held into value by their own merit, and those that are largely inaccurate eventually come to be replaced.
People like me? You know nothing of people like me.
I believe science works towards solving problems. And that's the key, it works towards solving problems.
Science is the search for answers.
Religion is the belief that one already has the answers.
Law is enforcing those answers upon others.
Of the three, at least Science makes no oustanding claims.
But once you get past the fancy I/O code, it's just applying simple formulas to decide what cards to hold. There's nothing "intelligent" about calculating
Humans are just a collection of sensory organs connected to a huge response-to-stimuli databank, and for some reason the media seems to think Humans are Intelligent.
First, I must say that I AM a Telocity customer. I have been using Telocity for just over a month now as DSL just became available in my area.
I called Telocity one week before the date that Bell-South claimed to have DSL ready, and by either luck (for me) or quick the quick action of Telocity, they had my DSL Gateway to me the very day DSL was supposed to be available. I plugged it in, turned it on, connected it to my router, and wham. It just worked.
It was a very pleasant experience, my connection is pretty quick and I have absolutely NO COMPLAINTS about the DSL service at all (knock on wood).
But it's been over one month since I signed up and you know what? I haven't signed anything!
I haven't so much as received a letter from them, much less signed anything. I've signed no such "terms of agreement."
A friend of mine asked "So, do you get to keep this thing if you drop their service?" So I specifically dug around for some terms on the Telocity web-site (note: one month ago the Telocity web-site WAS Telocity, and just in recent weeks changed to DirectTV DSL). I found no such statements. The fact is when I called to get the service, it was never expressed to me, neither verbally nor in writing, that when I cease to be a Telocity customer that they will get their Gateway back.
Does that mean I didn't suspect they would want it back? Nah, I figured they probably would. It probably wouldn't do me a lot of good anyway, since if I switch DSL providers they'll likely provide me with one. Besides, I already have a couple of pretty good routers.
The point is though, if someone really wanted to fight the $500 charge, I see sufficient cause for them to do so. The fact is quite clear. Those terms were never expressed to the customer, and some customers have never signed any single document.
Just one last thing -- When I called to get DSL service, it took less than 5 minutes on the phone and I gave my Credit Card Number to be billed monthly. The conversation was short and simple and mostly involved me giving my street address, phone number, CC#, and listening to the sales person try to convince me to go for the $59 package instead of the $49.
He doesn't need one. It's true of almost all countries where guns are illegal or tightly controlled.
When you take the guns from the good people, the bad people don't fear getting shot. The evidence is all over the world. But some people are too stuck on the bullshit propaganda about "protecting our children" that they never seem to notice.
To keep this post on topic -- I say go ahead, profile my face. I've copyrighted my image. The first person who uses my facial details for profit without paying me royalties will find themselves in court. Even if it's not for profit, I'm sure there are other damanges I can claim ranging from invasion of privacy to mental anguish.
Many people won't remember this, but a few of you might.
Back when the Amiga was still alive (like 1401bc or so...) there was a very popular BBS program called CNET Amiga. As of version 2.x or so they had two text editors built in for use in writing e-mail.
One was LineED and one was VisED.
LineED was quick, and very effective. I would LOVE to see something like that in use today, but unfortunately some people seem to think that a text editor has to be cryptic to pack in a whole lot of functionality.
LineED was sort of cryptic, actually, not so bad once you got used to it, but it was fast, even over slow modem connections.
VisED on the other hand, was brilliant. Esspecially for those "FAST" users, you know, people with 2400 baud or so...
VisED used a brilliant command-bar at the top of the page which listed CTRL-KEY combos based on topic, then function.
For instance, CTRL-X while editing would turn the command bar at top to Quit-Related functions, such as QUIT, SAVE, CLEAR, etc. Other functions included advanced search and replace, cuting and pasting, and for users with enough access, reading and writing files off of the local Amiga's file system.
It was a brilliant Text-Based text-editor. I miss it very much. I would LOVE to see a layout similar to that for Unix -- and perhaps it exists and I just have not found it?
Either way, even though I use VI and EMacs, I much prefered VisED. Does anybody but me remember that?
So you're driving too agressive OR you're driving too far.:-)
I promise you, I'm getting more than 26 miles to the gallon. But I'm intentionally light-footed for this reason.
This is the point I'm trying to make, but I don't know that anybody actually caught it.
$10 every two weeks (At about $1.50 per gallon in my area). But let's also look at another factor. I've had the car 13 months. It's got just under 8000 miles on it.
Either that or taxing cars/SUVs that get really poor mileage
I drive a Camaro SS. It's considered a sports car for obvious reasons. My gas milage rating is 17 in the city, and 26 on the highway (with a 6 speed transmission). In reality, I get by on $10 every two weeks. Mostly because of the distances I drive, the lack of traffic in the area in which I live, and of course my driving habits which make a lot of use low-end torque (I keep my RPMs on the tach under 2500 because I can't afford to take the needle to 6000!) and I don't speed.
In the end, I could easily say that the gas milage I get in a sports car are as good, or better than most SUVs.
The reason I point this out is that here in Tennessee, I had to pay various "Luxury" taxes on my car. I assume at least a part of those taxes were because of the larger engine.
Unless I am mistaken, this same tax is also applied to the price of SUVs, and if it isn't. It should be.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Re:Environmentalist wackos ...
on
Eco-Terrorism
·
· Score: 3
The environmental damage from the burning of the dealership is just the thing they are trying to prevent. Funny that they don't seem to recognize that.
Environmentalists --
They destroy the environment by burning vehicles (and the fuels contained within) to help the environment. The logic is this -- if nobody can drive any of those SUVs, then the potential savings of 10 (or more) years of pollution has been saved x (Times) the number of vehicles destroyed.
The logic is sound, but it's a good thing they're all a bunch of pussies. A really good environementalist plot, if they TRUELY believed in it, would be applied more librally to other facets of life.
A TRUE environmental ploy should be all inclusive! Why stop at SUVs? Go for the sport cars, luxury vehicles, and anything not absolutely essential for daily activities. With that being said, there would only be a good market for small, efficient cars, and medium sized, useful trucks. Nothing else should be allowed.
They should then move on to other wastes. Such as pregnant women, since each baby born generates hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste material per year (in the form of both natural, and un-natural wastes such as post-consumer product and secondary polution). Children should only be manufactured for the purposes of racial procreation, and of course to increase the manual labor workforce. Children can be used as effective workers.
They could then of course destroy all domesticated animals, since the sheltering and caring for such animals produces extra waste (both economic and ecological) as it creates a very large pet care produt industry, one that surely generates extra garbage and other waste matrials each year. Only animals with actual value producing attributed shall be allowed to consume resources.
After they have eliminated all non-critical vehicular transport, children, and domesticated pets, they should turn to their own yards, where they are putting precious land to waste by growing grass instead of produce. This must be rectified by using every square foot of land to it's fullest potential.
Since maintaining the home-grown produce would become a full time job, not to mention one that provides self sufficience, there would be no need for jobs other than things such as paying utility bills, which an Environmentalist wouldn't wish to continue doing anyway since Power and Water utilities tend to be rooted in environmental damage. Instead, everyone should just dig a well and learn to live without central heat and air. Television is dying anyway, and without radio, the RIAA would be a problem that just vanished on it's own. As for the rest of the media, nobody would miss them. And the internet? Who uses it anyway?
...
Thank god the environmentalists are too narrow visioned to see the RIGHT way to make the rest of us miserable! Their uncreativity is a good thing.
My system used to drive me crazy, making tons of noise, and basically just annoying me.
I was losing sleep, and I was losing my mind.
Then, I discovered the secret to a quieter, less annoying system.
Not only did I manage to silence my system, I also managed to get rid of all of the annoyance generally associated with being in front of it. My whole quality of living has changed because of one thing.
This is just another move by Microsoft in their campaign against the GPL (which is, IMO, a good move on their part).
I don't agree with Microsoft's bash on GPL, but I do understand it and I think everybody at Slashdot should take a look at their own self created double standard.
The entire Linux community can make a game of bashing Microsoft, preaching agianst them, and insulting everything they do (even their rare gems with true merit), but if Microsoft speaks out against their biggest competition, suddenly they've commited murder.
If you ask me, I think they've been drawn into it. For a long time, Microsoft was silent about Linux. They had to say something eventually.
No reasonably intelligent person could have expected them to finally speak and give good opinions. It's naive to think the contrary.
Propaganda is spoken every day. Some of it much worse. Geeks tend to take arms at Microsoft though, because everybody just LOVES to HATE Microsoft.
If Microsoft were my business, I would have taken a more aggressive aproach to destroying Linux before it got nearly as big as it is today. In a way, I'm glad Billy Boy didn't have the foresight...
Actually, the first thing I thought when I saw this thing was "SET TOP BOX!"
DVD Player, Living Room PC/Console, Browsing the web from my living room, etc. etc.
This thing has a wide variety of uses as a PC in non-traditional PC places (such as above the Livingroom TV.)
It ALMOST reaches an asthetic quality capable of being such a device, and by "ALMOST" I don't mean it's exactly unattractive but then, that's purely subjective anyway.
What I mean is - who wants a device sitting on top of their TV that has cords plugged into it on 3 of the 4 sides?
TV, mouse, and keyboard cables on one side, sound and ethernet on the other, and USB ports in the back... the port layout is just horrid!
I could understand maybe if the USB ports were on the front or sides, but the rest really needs to hang out of the back like any other device found on an entertainment center.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a super thing for all of us who have been waiting for a G* produced by someone other than Apple, but it has some up ups and downs.
That wait is over anyway.
There's the EyeTech A1, which will more than Likely get around to running Linux even if the new AmigaDos 4.0 fails to arive, but from what it looks like, FINALLY Amiga Inc. isn't just talking shit.
First, as you can see there is a picture of a new Amiga motherboard which is PowerPC based, and it fits in an ATX case.
Then, for everyone who thinks it's vaporware (it might be, you know...), there is the rather convincing FAQ from Eyetech which discusses in depth the ZICO STANDARD from Amiga INC. for use with AmigaDOS 4.0.
A lot of people may not have any faith in a belated Amiga Ressurection...
...but I've got you all beat. I have no faith left in the computer industry! So beat that! HA!
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
I disabled all of it. I don't even have that many ICONs on my desktop.
...
It took me a long time to get used to the idea of the start menu (only because finding a way to truely get rid of it [not just hiding it] was harder than accepting it.) I like the Tooltray though, and I don't think I'd get rid of that even if I could.
I have 4 icons on my desktop.
My Computer - which I use to get to my hard drives and browse them.
Network Neighborhood - for similar reasons.
Trash - For more obvious reasons.
And a shortcut to a folder which is essentially a bunch of shortcuts to all of the useful folders on my system (mp3s, my writings, code, etc...)
I'm something of a minimalist. The less I have taking up my desktop real estate, the better off I am. Icons on the desktop are stupid (in my opinion) since most of the time they'll be covered by applications. (Yes yes, X-Windows does in fact have multiple desktops, too bad it likes to slam windows into corners, stagger them unusably, forgets where I want them, and basically just annoys me most of the time...)
MY simple desktop can be seen at http://www.jacefuse.com/temp/desktop
Sometimes when I working on files, I keep them on my desktop temporarily -- but when I'm finished with something, I'll put the final verison (and any drafts I may keep) in their proper place when I am done.
The desktop, as I see it, is solely for the work I'm doing at the moment.
This minimalist approach works for me. I'll be seriously PO'd if I have to use an OS that forces a bunch of clutter on me.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
I didn't like the Explorer Icon on my Desktop, so I removed it.
I didn't like the Quicklaunch bar. So I removed it.
I didn't like active desktop, so I disabled it.
I didn't like the browser-buttons in file-browser windows, so I disabled them.
I didn't like the stupid information crap down the left side of file-browser windows, I didn't like file extensions being hidden, I didn't like hidden files being out of view, I didn't like a bunch of other crap that Windows has been doing in every version later than 95.
I disabled every single bit of it.
So far, nothing Microsoft has done to the OS has exactly HURT me, since I prefer IE to that Netscape crap anyway. (I wish I could use IE on my FreeBSD box, that's how much I prefer IE to Netscape). Some of it has annoyed me. Sometimes I question their competence, but they haven't hurt me.
For my web-server I run FreeBSD, for my Desktop machines I run 2 Windows ME boxes, and one running Windows 98.
->MY- Windows machines doesn't have the problems other people seem to be plagued with, the systems gets respectable uptime, and they do everything I need. One is strictly for the web-cam, my scanner, and other such tasks. One is my Laptop. And one is my suped-gaming rig. They are configured how I like, and I never have a single problem out of any of them. Sometimes I firmly believe that more often than not it's the USER who has the real issues, and not the OS.
I do, however, think Microsoft may be about to finally annoy me way too much with the things they've done to XP.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
This will not work for most games.
Actually, this controller has a lot of potential for many types of games.
Since you can make the profiles yourself, and seeing as how the controller is only about 5 inches diag... it would be trivial to make a simple "zones" type of profile for a game. Perhaps dead center, the four sides, and the four corners.
Keeping your hand rested over it, you wouldn't need to actually look at controller to hit the appropriate area, and with wide enough dead zones around wide enough live zones, it could be quite intuitive.
This would not be any more useful than the numeric keypad, of course, but coupled with a few custome images, and perhaps simulated "slider" type buttons (say for throttles or what-have-you) the wide programability of this device can far exceed the usefulness of a keyboard. Also, since it's programmable, games could be developed to make special use of it which in and of it's self might open possibilities.
The real question here isn't if the device is useful. The question is will anyone make proper use of it?
Properly used, this device COULD revolutionize game input the way the mouse did. But it probably won't.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
(Then our next problem will be heat pollution)
Perhaps... Heat Pollution would become a problem, but hopefully that would be worse than greenhouse-effect causing gasses that we release by Fossile fuels, if such gasses do in fact cause global warming (of which I'm not fully convinced.)
A higher dependency on Solar Cells and heat-energy-converting/trapping devices could also help lower the amount of heat we have to deal with.
And of course Trees help quite a bit, too. If would could just stop cutting them down.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
And because of that, no one will ever use it. So Microsoft is effectively just burying technology.
Actually, a lot of people use it, just not for illegal file trading as is often seen with MP3.
The fact is -- some people actually only rip and encode their own CDs, and a good number of them people do so entirely with WMA.
This will become more prominent in Windows XP, and seeing as how Microsoft has crippled the included MP3 Encoder (or perhaps removed it altogether) WMA will be most people's choice, except for those of us who don't mind spending the high price for Fraunhofer encoder.
I rip and encode my own MP3s. That's a no-brainer. At the moment, MP3 is dominent.
I remember when GIF was the most popular image format, too. Does anybody remember VOC?
What about ARC, or LHA?
File formats shift through time. Some come, some go, and some remain in use to small groups. But in time I suspect even JPG will be replaced.
I don't see why MP3 is here to stay, even if WMA doesn't replace it.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Superior technology wins every time.
That's a joke, right?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
HAH! That sounds almost exactly like the conversation I had with the sales person!
:-)
I think I even said...
"What's stopping me from just putting up a router on the inside and calling it done?"
They said "Nothing, in fact, we don't mind that at all. But our technical support staff won't help you with it, you'll be on your own."
"How cool."
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
If he didn't have a contract, then why in the world would he give them his credit card number in the first place.
The verbal agreement, simply stated, was that I would give my CC# and get Telocity service.
As someone else mentioned, yes, I knew I would be recieving the Telocity Gateway. It was never discussed whether or not I would own it. Personally, as I said before, I do not care. It's hooked up to my line on one end and hooked up to my router on the other.
The DSL is awesome, and for what little verbal exchange was made between me and the sales person on the phone, both obligations have been met.
They provide me with service, and I pay them $49 per month.
EXACTING details such as who owns the Gateway were never discussed, though as someone else did mention I WAS told I would be charged $24 for shipping of the Gateway, which I considered more than fair.
I do also remember being told I would receive something in the mail concerning further details, but alas it's now one month later and nothing of the sort has arrived.
As long as the service remains good and as long as they don't do something funky (like overcharge me) then I believe I will be more than happy to continue paying them the $49 per month.
With that in mind, who owns the Gateway doesn't matter. If I ever discontinue service, they can have the bloody thing back. I can't think of any use I would have for it, to be honest.
I was simply pointing out that the aforementioned "contract", which apparently exists since so many people have claimed to have seen it, should be shown more obviously to the end user.
Since I've never signed any agreement... I'm pointing out that someone out there who was bold enough might could try to dispute paying the $500 if it came down to it. Who would bother, though?
It --IS-- possible that the first time I used my browser to view the Online Status of the Gateway it may have made me click an "I AGREE" button. I've been wondering about that, but I don't remember seeing one, and even if I had I normally do at least skim over the sub-section titles. I think I would have remembered something about ownership of the Gateway. But I won't deny them ownership of their precious little Gateway, as long as they keep feeding me this DSL! RAAA!
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Telocity/Directvdsl has a online click through sign-up agreement, which includes the terms of returning the gateway. Thus a contract is established, like it or not.
What good is this supposed Click-Through sign-up agreement when people like me were never forced to see it, much less click through it?
Not that I care too much. I love the service I'm getting from Telocity and as such don't plan to get rid of it anytime soon!
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Science *explains* nothing, it only describes the world according to how well data correlates to a model.
Science explains plenty. Not all models are correct, and some are in fact very wrong. However, many are useful none the less. The useful ones are held into value by their own merit, and those that are largely inaccurate eventually come to be replaced.
People like me? You know nothing of people like me.
I believe science works towards solving problems. And that's the key, it works towards solving problems.
Science is the search for answers.
Religion is the belief that one already has the answers.
Law is enforcing those answers upon others.
Of the three, at least Science makes no oustanding claims.
I think my SIG says it as best as can be said.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
But once you get past the fancy I/O code, it's just applying simple formulas to decide what cards to hold. There's nothing "intelligent" about calculating
Humans are just a collection of sensory organs connected to a huge response-to-stimuli databank, and for some reason the media seems to think Humans are Intelligent.
Go figure.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
First, I must say that I AM a Telocity customer. I have been using Telocity for just over a month now as DSL just became available in my area.
I called Telocity one week before the date that Bell-South claimed to have DSL ready, and by either luck (for me) or quick the quick action of Telocity, they had my DSL Gateway to me the very day DSL was supposed to be available. I plugged it in, turned it on, connected it to my router, and wham. It just worked.
It was a very pleasant experience, my connection is pretty quick and I have absolutely NO COMPLAINTS about the DSL service at all (knock on wood).
But it's been over one month since I signed up and you know what? I haven't signed anything!
I haven't so much as received a letter from them, much less signed anything. I've signed no such "terms of agreement."
A friend of mine asked "So, do you get to keep this thing if you drop their service?" So I specifically dug around for some terms on the Telocity web-site (note: one month ago the Telocity web-site WAS Telocity, and just in recent weeks changed to DirectTV DSL). I found no such statements. The fact is when I called to get the service, it was never expressed to me, neither verbally nor in writing, that when I cease to be a Telocity customer that they will get their Gateway back.
Does that mean I didn't suspect they would want it back? Nah, I figured they probably would. It probably wouldn't do me a lot of good anyway, since if I switch DSL providers they'll likely provide me with one. Besides, I already have a couple of pretty good routers.
The point is though, if someone really wanted to fight the $500 charge, I see sufficient cause for them to do so. The fact is quite clear. Those terms were never expressed to the customer, and some customers have never signed any single document.
Just one last thing -- When I called to get DSL service, it took less than 5 minutes on the phone and I gave my Credit Card Number to be billed monthly. The conversation was short and simple and mostly involved me giving my street address, phone number, CC#, and listening to the sales person try to convince me to go for the $59 package instead of the $49.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
That's very interesting. Do you have a reference?
He doesn't need one. It's true of almost all countries where guns are illegal or tightly controlled.
When you take the guns from the good people, the bad people don't fear getting shot. The evidence is all over the world. But some people are too stuck on the bullshit propaganda about "protecting our children" that they never seem to notice.
To keep this post on topic -- I say go ahead, profile my face. I've copyrighted my image. The first person who uses my facial details for profit without paying me royalties will find themselves in court. Even if it's not for profit, I'm sure there are other damanges I can claim ranging from invasion of privacy to mental anguish.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
There's nothing like reading about an application out there and wondering if its in the ports collection.
:)
I had never tried GAIM, and wasn't sure it was available for BSD. But wow.. there it was in the ports...
make
make install
Groovy. Now I have GAIM. I can really dig this whole PORTS thing.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Many people won't remember this, but a few of you might.
Back when the Amiga was still alive (like 1401bc or so...) there was a very popular BBS program called CNET Amiga. As of version 2.x or so they had two text editors built in for use in writing e-mail.
One was LineED and one was VisED.
LineED was quick, and very effective. I would LOVE to see something like that in use today, but unfortunately some people seem to think that a text editor has to be cryptic to pack in a whole lot of functionality.
LineED was sort of cryptic, actually, not so bad once you got used to it, but it was fast, even over slow modem connections.
VisED on the other hand, was brilliant. Esspecially for those "FAST" users, you know, people with 2400 baud or so...
VisED used a brilliant command-bar at the top of the page which listed CTRL-KEY combos based on topic, then function.
For instance, CTRL-X while editing would turn the command bar at top to Quit-Related functions, such as QUIT, SAVE, CLEAR, etc. Other functions included advanced search and replace, cuting and pasting, and for users with enough access, reading and writing files off of the local Amiga's file system.
It was a brilliant Text-Based text-editor. I miss it very much. I would LOVE to see a layout similar to that for Unix -- and perhaps it exists and I just have not found it?
Either way, even though I use VI and EMacs, I much prefered VisED. Does anybody but me remember that?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
12000 miles a year
:-)
So you're driving too agressive OR you're driving too far.
I promise you, I'm getting more than 26 miles to the gallon. But I'm intentionally light-footed for this reason.
This is the point I'm trying to make, but I don't know that anybody actually caught it.
$10 every two weeks (At about $1.50 per gallon in my area). But let's also look at another factor. I've had the car 13 months. It's got just under 8000 miles on it.
Maybe I need to get out more.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Either that or taxing cars/SUVs that get really poor mileage
I drive a Camaro SS. It's considered a sports car for obvious reasons. My gas milage rating is 17 in the city, and 26 on the highway (with a 6 speed transmission). In reality, I get by on $10 every two weeks. Mostly because of the distances I drive, the lack of traffic in the area in which I live, and of course my driving habits which make a lot of use low-end torque (I keep my RPMs on the tach under 2500 because I can't afford to take the needle to 6000!) and I don't speed.
In the end, I could easily say that the gas milage I get in a sports car are as good, or better than most SUVs.
The reason I point this out is that here in Tennessee, I had to pay various "Luxury" taxes on my car. I assume at least a part of those taxes were because of the larger engine.
Unless I am mistaken, this same tax is also applied to the price of SUVs, and if it isn't. It should be.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
The environmental damage from the burning of the dealership is just the thing they are trying to prevent. Funny that they don't seem to recognize that.
Environmentalists --
They destroy the environment by burning vehicles (and the fuels contained within) to help the environment. The logic is this -- if nobody can drive any of those SUVs, then the potential savings of 10 (or more) years of pollution has been saved x (Times) the number of vehicles destroyed.
The logic is sound, but it's a good thing they're all a bunch of pussies. A really good environementalist plot, if they TRUELY believed in it, would be applied more librally to other facets of life.
A TRUE environmental ploy should be all inclusive! Why stop at SUVs? Go for the sport cars, luxury vehicles, and anything not absolutely essential for daily activities. With that being said, there would only be a good market for small, efficient cars, and medium sized, useful trucks. Nothing else should be allowed.
They should then move on to other wastes. Such as pregnant women, since each baby born generates hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste material per year (in the form of both natural, and un-natural wastes such as post-consumer product and secondary polution). Children should only be manufactured for the purposes of racial procreation, and of course to increase the manual labor workforce. Children can be used as effective workers.
They could then of course destroy all domesticated animals, since the sheltering and caring for such animals produces extra waste (both economic and ecological) as it creates a very large pet care produt industry, one that surely generates extra garbage and other waste matrials each year. Only animals with actual value producing attributed shall be allowed to consume resources.
After they have eliminated all non-critical vehicular transport, children, and domesticated pets, they should turn to their own yards, where they are putting precious land to waste by growing grass instead of produce. This must be rectified by using every square foot of land to it's fullest potential.
Since maintaining the home-grown produce would become a full time job, not to mention one that provides self sufficience, there would be no need for jobs other than things such as paying utility bills, which an Environmentalist wouldn't wish to continue doing anyway since Power and Water utilities tend to be rooted in environmental damage. Instead, everyone should just dig a well and learn to live without central heat and air. Television is dying anyway, and without radio, the RIAA would be a problem that just vanished on it's own. As for the rest of the media, nobody would miss them. And the internet? Who uses it anyway?
...
Thank god the environmentalists are too narrow visioned to see the RIGHT way to make the rest of us miserable! Their uncreativity is a good thing.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
My system used to drive me crazy, making tons of noise, and basically just annoying me.
I was losing sleep, and I was losing my mind.
Then, I discovered the secret to a quieter, less annoying system.
Not only did I manage to silence my system, I also managed to get rid of all of the annoyance generally associated with being in front of it. My whole quality of living has changed because of one thing.
I turned it off.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Does this mean I'll be able to tie-dye my GBA?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
I thought it had already been done -- I mean it's the most obvious variation of the name, and it's oh-so-fitting.
I suppose, if you spelled it LAME, there would definately be no way AOL could have any real gripes about it, eh?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Actually, I was thinking Jurassic Wood.
...wait, we're not talking about Porn, are we?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
This is just another move by Microsoft in their campaign against the GPL (which is, IMO, a good move on their part).
I don't agree with Microsoft's bash on GPL, but I do understand it and I think everybody at Slashdot should take a look at their own self created double standard.
The entire Linux community can make a game of bashing Microsoft, preaching agianst them, and insulting everything they do (even their rare gems with true merit), but if Microsoft speaks out against their biggest competition, suddenly they've commited murder.
If you ask me, I think they've been drawn into it. For a long time, Microsoft was silent about Linux. They had to say something eventually.
No reasonably intelligent person could have expected them to finally speak and give good opinions. It's naive to think the contrary.
Propaganda is spoken every day. Some of it much worse. Geeks tend to take arms at Microsoft though, because everybody just LOVES to HATE Microsoft.
If Microsoft were my business, I would have taken a more aggressive aproach to destroying Linux before it got nearly as big as it is today. In a way, I'm glad Billy Boy didn't have the foresight...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Actually, the first thing I thought when I saw this thing was "SET TOP BOX!"
DVD Player, Living Room PC/Console, Browsing the web from my living room, etc. etc.
This thing has a wide variety of uses as a PC in non-traditional PC places (such as above the Livingroom TV.)
It ALMOST reaches an asthetic quality capable of being such a device, and by "ALMOST" I don't mean it's exactly unattractive but then, that's purely subjective anyway.
What I mean is - who wants a device sitting on top of their TV that has cords plugged into it on 3 of the 4 sides?
TV, mouse, and keyboard cables on one side, sound and ethernet on the other, and USB ports in the back... the port layout is just horrid!
I could understand maybe if the USB ports were on the front or sides, but the rest really needs to hang out of the back like any other device found on an entertainment center.
Awe well...
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"