I work for software company that uses the Qt libraries so we can build the client portion of our application on both Linux and Windows. Windows because the current market demands it, Linux because me and some of the developers here run it in house. Helps us track down bugs, and hopefully we will eventually be able to sell Linux clients. Qt providing cross-platform libraries has given us better quality foundation for our Windows client, and allowed us to build a product that will compile on multiple platforms.
Our product is not FOSS, and we do own a commercial Qt license, but if it wasn't for the FOSS version of Qt being cross-platform it would not be the quality product it is.
No, no, no. There is no game called soccer, only football and american football.
Close...
There is no game called soccer. There is only football and that's played in America and Canada. This is proved by the fact that we have a National Football League (there used to be an American Football League, but that went away with the merger). There is some other game played in poor countries with a round ball (and played in America by rich people with SUVs that are afraid their children are going to get hurt), but any true football fan wouldn't be caught dead watching it.
No, just annoying to start a movie you paid money for in the middle of the opening scene and have to rewind it.
OTOH, watched the Stepford Wives this weekend. Was building a fire in the fireplace, so let the movie just sit on the intro screen. Thought that 30 second music clip was going to drive me INSANE!!!!
OK, first, I was attempting to be sarcastic, poking fun at all the other replys to your original post.
Second, I regularly speed, have street raced, etc, etc, etc... Doesn't really matter to me how you drive, that's your business as long as you don't hit me.
That said, sounds you San Diego is a bit more tech savy than Colorado. We do have some lights with cameras, but not sure if it changes they way the lights work. Many of the RL Cameras seem to be as out of synch as everywhere else. I had a friend that worked for the City of Denver as a traffic engineer a few years ago. He told me the bit about they lights being on the 'old' timers then. Said traffic engineering was generally highly understaffed and underfunded. I know the city of Fort Collins had a ballot issue this fall to time the lights on the main street through town. Took someone petitioning and the community voting on it to actually get the city to do some traffic engineering.
Haven't checked lately, but not sure if the RL Cameras really work here. They used to just mail the ticket, so if you throw it away, or refuse to sign for it if they send it certified, they have to send someone to your house and physically serve you. Kind of a waste for a $25 ticket.
Sounds to me like San Diego traffic is just another example of wackiness in California.
Accidents probably account for a good number of left-hander deaths as time goes on.
Fortunately, I'm sure someone will figure this out eventually, sue all of the tool manufacturers and force them to create tools that are equally inconvenient for everyone to use.
Personally it would NEVER occur to me to exceed the speed limit, especially late at night when traffic is light and I want to get home. Of course I have also NEVER street raced, and would not ever consider racing (at least not until I get a few things paid off so I can make some additional modifications to my cars and trucks).
That aside, it's very possible your traffic light timing woes are not specifically timed to discouraged street racing at all. It is much more likely that the traffic lights have internal timers with no way to synch themselves. Older traffic lights were designed this way, and gradually the timers get out of synch. The only way to fix this is to manually go out and reset the light's internal clock. This process is expensive, so rarely gets done.
Personally I think traffic engineering is highly underfunded in many municipalities. Most citizens see it as an annoyance, not a priority, so most city governments opt for funding and backing more high profile projects.
I think that lights should all be dynamic and able to adjust to give optimum traffic flow. With all the concern about pollution and fossil fuel usage in this country, you would think there would a bigger initiative to keep all of these vehicles moving, rather than sitting at a light idling.
...but often the street dept. lowers the sensitivity to the point that only vehicles larger than a small car are detected.
The problem with the increased sensitivity is the light will be tripped by a car going through the right turn lane and trip the light erroneously - stopping traffic for no reason. There is a light on my way to work that has a tendency to do this. When I get called in late at night the light is always stopping me with no one there because somebody made a right-on-red, or turned off the main street and got a little close to the other lane. I appreciate the plight of motorcycle riders (hope to be one myself again soon) but can understand why the city turns the sensitivity down sometimes.
Again, good points. You are absolutely right about many of the Jewish laws. Judaism was so concerned about breaking the law that they would make laws for themselves to make sure they didn't even get close to breaking the laws. e.g. "Do not take the Lord's name in vain" is a law, but the rabbi's took it to the extreme that you could not say or write God. If you see many Jewish texts God will be written G-d. Some of it borders on ridiculous and contradictory.
Personally, having much teaching in christianity, and being a reasonably intelligent person, I cannot tell you of one place where there is a blatant contradiction in the Bible. When other people start adding junk to it you start getting these contradictions.
First of all, you're correct - Jesus wasn't born in winter. Shepherds were out tending their flocks, which they wouldn't be doing in the rainy/snowy winter season.
That goes along with what I've been taught. I'm just not sure what the local climate was/is. I didn't think Israel got much snow, even in December, maybe someone out there can confirm. Would sheperds only be in the field during the summer months?
Jehovah's Witnesses are not freaks any more than anyone else...
Nothing personal, my comment on was more focused toward the perception of Jehovah's Witnesses in my grade school. OTOH not sure I understand the appeal of a religion that is constantly pinpointing the end of the world and are wrong.
There is enough weird stuff going on in the Bible to make long lifespans seem... normal. Why do we have to seek a rational explanation for this? It's not like long lifespans are the single 'deal-breaker' for skeptics.
I agree COMPLETELY. I believe we should attempt to understand the Bible to the best of our ability, but why this constant need to rationalize it as something that fits our modern way of thinking.
According to the Bible this world was created by an omnipotent being that can do anything he wants. If you believe that, the whole book is palatable. If you don't, then the whole book is nonsense made up by a bunch of desert people who had fried brains. Personally I don't see a need to rationalize random parts of it, just because we couldn't possibly explain it with modern science.
Unfortunately it gets worse. I have been called a heathen for saying that Dec. 25 is not the day JC was born. When I asked for their source (not proof!), I got called a heathen again.
Ahh... sneaky to bring this up in the discussion. This is an excellent point, precisely because of your reasoning. The birth date of Christ is not in the bible. As a matter of fact, I have heard many speculations that it probably wasn't in the winter time at all. There is little doubt that Christmas and Easter are both converted pagan holidays and the Bible as strict warnings on mingling Holy things with pagan things.
Of course for some this can be a dilemma. If pagan holidays are bad, do you not celebrate Christmas? Then are you a freak like those Jehovah's witness kids you knew in grade school who had to sit in the principal's office during the class Christmas party? (if you aren't familiar with Western Christianity you may not be familiar with this either)
Bottom line, these are two completely different things. The creation of man is in the Christian Bible and the oldest known copies of the Torah. Christmas on the other hand isn't found anywhere in cannonized scripture. I don't think it's fair to lump someone that would believe the literal interpretation of the Old Testament in with someone that would call you names for saying Christ was probably not born on December 25th.
Given that, why do so many christians believe that evolution contradicts the bible?
Most Christians don't really know much about their faith.
Personally, I would disagree.
For me, and many Christians, the creation of the human race by a supreme being is central to our faith. Without the creation there were no Adam and Eve, without Adam and Eve there was no fall from grace, without a fall from grace there was no need for a reedemer - a messiah to reconcile us back with the creator.
The validity and historical accuracy of the Old Testament can be challenged - and with good cause. All of the issues you list are absolutely true. Personally I believe the Old Testament is devinely inspired, and true, and will continue to do so until there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, which there may never be due to the remoteness of time. That aside, I also belive that much of the Bible is misunderstood by modern society - both due to translations and societal context. The authors of the Old Testament lived as far away from modern American culture as possible, how can we possibly comprehend what their original intent and thought processes were.
The human body comes to mind. It fixes itself, but there are lots of people out there that make lots of money as DOCTORS. If computers start fixing themselves, the really talented among us will start making significant amounts of money fixing all the things that aren't automatically fixed.
Maybe not evil, but they sure have people like you brainwashed into thinking that what they did might be good just because...
Wow, brainwashed eh? For the record my benevolent attitude toward google has nothing to do with the fact that they were "a company with an okay history". My point is that I don't see any competitive advantage in making their groups search worse. My guess would be that
They are trying to improve the speed/efficiency of the searches by removing little used features Or
The groups section doesn't make them any money, so they want to reduce functionality and get less people to use them
I would prefer to believe the first, mostly because, as I previously stated, the market they are in is not stable - at all.
How does one THINK you are improving something by removing search by DATE (on usenet posts no less) as well as deep linking to posts? If YOU decided to use a couple of neurons, you'd realize how perposterous you sound, as well as how stupid Google's moves are.
Have you ever actually held a job outside of a 7-11??? Personally the upper management I have worked for in my life CONTINUALLY comes up with hairbrained ideas that, for whatever crazy reason, management thinks are fantastic. Then we implement them, they don't work and we scrap them. When you ask how they could possibly THINK they are improving something by removing functionality, you should work for more pointy haired bosses.
Not to defend any evil company (won't publicly do that until I own one and it has made me a kazillionaire) but I'm not ready to count Google as a evil corporate entity yet. They are still in a relatively young market and competitive market. They can't afford to piss everyone off at this point - so I'm guessing that they THINK they are making improvements.
I remember when they originally took over the archive from deja. I was devestated - convinced they were going to totally screw it up. They didn't, or I got used to the screwed up version.
Also, regarding noise appearing in searches, this is a standard cycle that all search engines go through and Google's experiences are well documented. They are constantly changing their search engine to give the most relevant results. Gradually commercial sites that depend on high search results spend enough time and money optimizing their site. Google is constantly changing their tech to push that noise down, but it always gradually floats back to the top. It's in Google's best interest to show commercial sites in their paid ads, not in the valid search results.
This brings up a good point. Does anyone know of a really good multiplayer, four person, co-op game for a console (PS2, gamecube, xbox)? Can be any genre - doesn't have to be fps.
My brother-in-law has a 96" projector screen in the basement and it's a blast to play on, but we would like to have a cooperative game to play. Played Halo 2 last weekend, but the co-op was only two people.
Personally it's not so much that I'm rooting for the warezers, but facing the facts of life.
This little trick may have netted a few more licenses - which is OK, but it may also have done more to alienate their legit customers.
IANAHCG (I am not a hard core gamer) but did play HL2 last weekend. The multiplayer mode for four people didn't include a co-operative mode, so we ended up playing the slayer game for a few hours. Seems to me, as a casual gamer, most of these FPS games are almost exactly the same. If HL2, that appearantly didn't even have a DM mode on release, is another rehash of the same old stuff I understand why crackers would break and post it. Of course, they would break it regardless.
However, I suspect you aunt or grandma would not make it through a typical Linux install and be able to e-mail you about their success. They'd likely get stuck somewhere in the process of getting their cheap Dell running and in their frustration call you for help.
Good point, but my aunt, grandma, mother any other relatively untechnical friend or relative would balk at paying $2500, or even $1300 for a computer. Most people I know at that level are using 5 year old PCs - and it's painful, but they won't spend any money to upgrade when they are just sending some email.
For $2500, you can get a very nice G5 PowerMac running OSX. You can pay less for a Dell (corporate versions only, please), but the G5 will likely last longer, and the OS will be less screwed up after 2 years.
Are you kidding? I can buy a brand new Dell for $499 (not a corporate version, but who cares)with a 15" flat screen. Sure, it's not as fast or as good as the G5, but I can buy a new one every year for the next 5. Don't tell me you will use that G5 longer than that, and I'll have the latest tech every two years.
If I'm standard home user, that's a great option - comes with Win XP Home which is good enough. If I'm more of a Geek (and I am) I run Linux and my OS is NOT screwed up every two years.
I totally appreciate what Apple does, the quality of their machines, the stability of their OS but to say that a PowerMac is a viable option because it's only $2500 isn't very realistic. Even if I did have $2500 to drop on my next machine I would much rather have 3 or 4 x86 boxes than one G5.
I wouldn't argue that their motives may be misplaced and they would rather rant, sue and steal their way to success than actually come up with something innovative at a halfway reasonable price. My point is that the do care if they lose a percentage of the desktop marketplace - and they are concerned that they cannot keep the level of profit margin up that they have in the past.
Personally I would like to see Microsoft see they can't fight the revolution and actually come out with something altruistic - but that won't happen.
Slashdot Mirror
I work for software company that uses the Qt libraries so we can build the client portion of our application on both Linux and Windows. Windows because the current market demands it, Linux because me and some of the developers here run it in house. Helps us track down bugs, and hopefully we will eventually be able to sell Linux clients. Qt providing cross-platform libraries has given us better quality foundation for our Windows client, and allowed us to build a product that will compile on multiple platforms.
Our product is not FOSS, and we do own a commercial Qt license, but if it wasn't for the FOSS version of Qt being cross-platform it would not be the quality product it is.
Or Australian Rules Football?
No, no, no. There is no game called soccer, only football and american football.
Close...
There is no game called soccer. There is only football and that's played in America and Canada. This is proved by the fact that we have a National Football League (there used to be an American Football League, but that went away with the merger). There is some other game played in poor countries with a round ball (and played in America by rich people with SUVs that are afraid their children are going to get hurt), but any true football fan wouldn't be caught dead watching it.
No, just annoying to start a movie you paid money for in the middle of the opening scene and have to rewind it.
OTOH, watched the Stepford Wives this weekend. Was building a fire in the fireplace, so let the movie just sit on the intro screen. Thought that 30 second music clip was going to drive me INSANE!!!!
OK, first, I was attempting to be sarcastic, poking fun at all the other replys to your original post.
Second, I regularly speed, have street raced, etc, etc, etc... Doesn't really matter to me how you drive, that's your business as long as you don't hit me.
That said, sounds you San Diego is a bit more tech savy than Colorado. We do have some lights with cameras, but not sure if it changes they way the lights work. Many of the RL Cameras seem to be as out of synch as everywhere else. I had a friend that worked for the City of Denver as a traffic engineer a few years ago. He told me the bit about they lights being on the 'old' timers then. Said traffic engineering was generally highly understaffed and underfunded. I know the city of Fort Collins had a ballot issue this fall to time the lights on the main street through town. Took someone petitioning and the community voting on it to actually get the city to do some traffic engineering.
Haven't checked lately, but not sure if the RL Cameras really work here. They used to just mail the ticket, so if you throw it away, or refuse to sign for it if they send it certified, they have to send someone to your house and physically serve you. Kind of a waste for a $25 ticket.
Sounds to me like San Diego traffic is just another example of wackiness in California.
Accidents probably account for a good number of left-hander deaths as time goes on.
Fortunately, I'm sure someone will figure this out eventually, sue all of the tool manufacturers and force them to create tools that are equally inconvenient for everyone to use.
Personally it would NEVER occur to me to exceed the speed limit, especially late at night when traffic is light and I want to get home. Of course I have also NEVER street raced, and would not ever consider racing (at least not until I get a few things paid off so I can make some additional modifications to my cars and trucks).
That aside, it's very possible your traffic light timing woes are not specifically timed to discouraged street racing at all. It is much more likely that the traffic lights have internal timers with no way to synch themselves. Older traffic lights were designed this way, and gradually the timers get out of synch. The only way to fix this is to manually go out and reset the light's internal clock. This process is expensive, so rarely gets done.
Personally I think traffic engineering is highly underfunded in many municipalities. Most citizens see it as an annoyance, not a priority, so most city governments opt for funding and backing more high profile projects.
I think that lights should all be dynamic and able to adjust to give optimum traffic flow. With all the concern about pollution and fossil fuel usage in this country, you would think there would a bigger initiative to keep all of these vehicles moving, rather than sitting at a light idling.
...but often the street dept. lowers the sensitivity to the point that only vehicles larger than a small car are detected.
The problem with the increased sensitivity is the light will be tripped by a car going through the right turn lane and trip the light erroneously - stopping traffic for no reason. There is a light on my way to work that has a tendency to do this. When I get called in late at night the light is always stopping me with no one there because somebody made a right-on-red, or turned off the main street and got a little close to the other lane. I appreciate the plight of motorcycle riders (hope to be one myself again soon) but can understand why the city turns the sensitivity down sometimes.
Again, good points. You are absolutely right about many of the Jewish laws. Judaism was so concerned about breaking the law that they would make laws for themselves to make sure they didn't even get close to breaking the laws. e.g. "Do not take the Lord's name in vain" is a law, but the rabbi's took it to the extreme that you could not say or write God. If you see many Jewish texts God will be written G-d. Some of it borders on ridiculous and contradictory.
Personally, having much teaching in christianity, and being a reasonably intelligent person, I cannot tell you of one place where there is a blatant contradiction in the Bible. When other people start adding junk to it you start getting these contradictions.
First of all, you're correct - Jesus wasn't born in winter. Shepherds were out tending their flocks, which they wouldn't be doing in the rainy/snowy winter season.
That goes along with what I've been taught. I'm just not sure what the local climate was/is. I didn't think Israel got much snow, even in December, maybe someone out there can confirm. Would sheperds only be in the field during the summer months?
Jehovah's Witnesses are not freaks any more than anyone else...
Nothing personal, my comment on was more focused toward the perception of Jehovah's Witnesses in my grade school. OTOH not sure I understand the appeal of a religion that is constantly pinpointing the end of the world and are wrong.
There is enough weird stuff going on in the Bible to make long lifespans seem... normal. Why do we have to seek a rational explanation for this? It's not like long lifespans are the single 'deal-breaker' for skeptics.
I agree COMPLETELY. I believe we should attempt to understand the Bible to the best of our ability, but why this constant need to rationalize it as something that fits our modern way of thinking.
According to the Bible this world was created by an omnipotent being that can do anything he wants. If you believe that, the whole book is palatable. If you don't, then the whole book is nonsense made up by a bunch of desert people who had fried brains. Personally I don't see a need to rationalize random parts of it, just because we couldn't possibly explain it with modern science.
Unfortunately it gets worse. I have been called a heathen for saying that Dec. 25 is not the day JC was born. When I asked for their source (not proof!), I got called a heathen again.
Ahh... sneaky to bring this up in the discussion. This is an excellent point, precisely because of your reasoning. The birth date of Christ is not in the bible. As a matter of fact, I have heard many speculations that it probably wasn't in the winter time at all. There is little doubt that Christmas and Easter are both converted pagan holidays and the Bible as strict warnings on mingling Holy things with pagan things.
Of course for some this can be a dilemma. If pagan holidays are bad, do you not celebrate Christmas? Then are you a freak like those Jehovah's witness kids you knew in grade school who had to sit in the principal's office during the class Christmas party? (if you aren't familiar with Western Christianity you may not be familiar with this either)
Bottom line, these are two completely different things. The creation of man is in the Christian Bible and the oldest known copies of the Torah. Christmas on the other hand isn't found anywhere in cannonized scripture. I don't think it's fair to lump someone that would believe the literal interpretation of the Old Testament in with someone that would call you names for saying Christ was probably not born on December 25th.
Given that, why do so many christians believe that evolution contradicts the bible?
Most Christians don't really know much about their faith.
Personally, I would disagree.
For me, and many Christians, the creation of the human race by a supreme being is central to our faith. Without the creation there were no Adam and Eve, without Adam and Eve there was no fall from grace, without a fall from grace there was no need for a reedemer - a messiah to reconcile us back with the creator.
The validity and historical accuracy of the Old Testament can be challenged - and with good cause. All of the issues you list are absolutely true. Personally I believe the Old Testament is devinely inspired, and true, and will continue to do so until there is irrefutable evidence to the contrary, which there may never be due to the remoteness of time. That aside, I also belive that much of the Bible is misunderstood by modern society - both due to translations and societal context. The authors of the Old Testament lived as far away from modern American culture as possible, how can we possibly comprehend what their original intent and thought processes were.
The human body comes to mind. It fixes itself, but there are lots of people out there that make lots of money as DOCTORS. If computers start fixing themselves, the really talented among us will start making significant amounts of money fixing all the things that aren't automatically fixed.
Wow, brainwashed eh? For the record my benevolent attitude toward google has nothing to do with the fact that they were "a company with an okay history". My point is that I don't see any competitive advantage in making their groups search worse. My guess would be that
- They are trying to improve the speed/efficiency of the searches by removing little used features Or
- The groups section doesn't make them any money, so they want to reduce functionality and get less people to use them
I would prefer to believe the first, mostly because, as I previously stated, the market they are in is not stable - at all.How does one THINK you are improving something by removing search by DATE (on usenet posts no less) as well as deep linking to posts? If YOU decided to use a couple of neurons, you'd realize how perposterous you sound, as well as how stupid Google's moves are.
Have you ever actually held a job outside of a 7-11??? Personally the upper management I have worked for in my life CONTINUALLY comes up with hairbrained ideas that, for whatever crazy reason, management thinks are fantastic. Then we implement them, they don't work and we scrap them. When you ask how they could possibly THINK they are improving something by removing functionality, you should work for more pointy haired bosses.
Not to defend any evil company (won't publicly do that until I own one and it has made me a kazillionaire) but I'm not ready to count Google as a evil corporate entity yet. They are still in a relatively young market and competitive market. They can't afford to piss everyone off at this point - so I'm guessing that they THINK they are making improvements.
I remember when they originally took over the archive from deja. I was devestated - convinced they were going to totally screw it up. They didn't, or I got used to the screwed up version.
Also, regarding noise appearing in searches, this is a standard cycle that all search engines go through and Google's experiences are well documented. They are constantly changing their search engine to give the most relevant results. Gradually commercial sites that depend on high search results spend enough time and money optimizing their site. Google is constantly changing their tech to push that noise down, but it always gradually floats back to the top. It's in Google's best interest to show commercial sites in their paid ads, not in the valid search results.
Understatement of the day
Owww.. that's a little harsh, just because my use of the lingo is bad.
Anyway, wasn't a typo, just not nerdy enough today. In the future I won't try to be a poser and use the abbreviations like the cool kids.
This brings up a good point. Does anyone know of a really good multiplayer, four person, co-op game for a console (PS2, gamecube, xbox)? Can be any genre - doesn't have to be fps.
My brother-in-law has a 96" projector screen in the basement and it's a blast to play on, but we would like to have a cooperative game to play. Played Halo 2 last weekend, but the co-op was only two people.
Any suggestions???
Personally it's not so much that I'm rooting for the warezers, but facing the facts of life.
This little trick may have netted a few more licenses - which is OK, but it may also have done more to alienate their legit customers.
IANAHCG (I am not a hard core gamer) but did play HL2 last weekend. The multiplayer mode for four people didn't include a co-operative mode, so we ended up playing the slayer game for a few hours. Seems to me, as a casual gamer, most of these FPS games are almost exactly the same. If HL2, that appearantly didn't even have a DM mode on release, is another rehash of the same old stuff I understand why crackers would break and post it. Of course, they would break it regardless.
Should be: 6. Pirates wait three days for the new crack to appear. 7. pirates play multiplayer DM
Actually I thought maybe the parent was advocating taking a sauna to 200 degrees Celsius, then run naked to the pole in minus 100 degrees Celsius.
However, I suspect you aunt or grandma would not make it through a typical Linux install and be able to e-mail you about their success. They'd likely get stuck somewhere in the process of getting their cheap Dell running and in their frustration call you for help.
Good point, but my aunt, grandma, mother any other relatively untechnical friend or relative would balk at paying $2500, or even $1300 for a computer. Most people I know at that level are using 5 year old PCs - and it's painful, but they won't spend any money to upgrade when they are just sending some email.
Does this mean that an IPod can turn you gay? :)
The only person I know with an IPod is definitely the gayest straight man ever.
For $2500, you can get a very nice G5 PowerMac running OSX. You can pay less for a Dell (corporate versions only, please), but the G5 will likely last longer, and the OS will be less screwed up after 2 years.
Are you kidding? I can buy a brand new Dell for $499 (not a corporate version, but who cares)with a 15" flat screen. Sure, it's not as fast or as good as the G5, but I can buy a new one every year for the next 5. Don't tell me you will use that G5 longer than that, and I'll have the latest tech every two years.
If I'm standard home user, that's a great option - comes with Win XP Home which is good enough. If I'm more of a Geek (and I am) I run Linux and my OS is NOT screwed up every two years.
I totally appreciate what Apple does, the quality of their machines, the stability of their OS but to say that a PowerMac is a viable option because it's only $2500 isn't very realistic. Even if I did have $2500 to drop on my next machine I would much rather have 3 or 4 x86 boxes than one G5.
They are nervous about a reality check.
I wouldn't argue that their motives may be misplaced and they would rather rant, sue and steal their way to success than actually come up with something innovative at a halfway reasonable price. My point is that the do care if they lose a percentage of the desktop marketplace - and they are concerned that they cannot keep the level of profit margin up that they have in the past.
Personally I would like to see Microsoft see they can't fight the revolution and actually come out with something altruistic - but that won't happen.