The last time I cleaned out the 'ole crap closet I was about to throw out about 20 mice I had lying around, but I decided to keep the balls.
Let me say that again so I can preempt the jokes: I chucked the rodents and I kept the balls.
Now that we're over that, does anyone have any ideas as to what can be done with them? There's nothing better than a heavy large ball bearing covered in rubberized plastic, but I can't figure out what to do with them and I can't bring myself to throw them out.
While there are certainly extremes where people will watch *every* sport all year, there's nothing wrong with following one or two.
I follow the NFL because although I wasn't born in the US, I played it when I was in high school and I like it. I also follow the Bundesliga and the Premier League (that's the normal football for all you Americans <g>), the European and Latin American soccer confederation cups and of course the World Cup. I also watch the Olympics (winter and summer) when they're on.
That's it. I don't like hockey, baseball, basketball or anything else. I also very rarely follow the US college football season, though I will sometimes watch a bowl or two in January.
Of course there's also the fun angle (Superbowl parties!) but I don't use sports as an excuse to drink beer or escape from grim reality or anything like that. That's just an exaggeration.
Wasn't there a movie in the 80s or 90s where this was featured as the future of football?
And QBs have radio transmitters in their helmets nowadays, so that's not too far fetched. The key would be to make a camera that can take the punishment.
I think it would be cool. I wouldn't want to watch a whole game that way, but for replays and whatnot, it would be nice. You'd have to be careful with the sound though. Too many four-letter words uttered when a 300lb tackle falls on top of you.
"Instead of making IE8 standards compliant, M$ is telling high volume sites to change and generating a list of "compatible sites".
You're joking, right? "M$" is making IE8 standards-compatible by default, and it's telling web site operators (especially high-volume ones) to add a tag to make the browser drop down to "compatibility mode" or "quirks mode" that allow the site to be viewed if it was designed for the lower standards of IE7 and IE6. They're also giving you an UI to add sites that you know are *not* standards-compliant so that IE8 can degrade gracefully in those cases and let you use the site, as opposed to just displaying garbage.
The end result is that people don't have to rush to update their sites that were already proven to work with older versions of IE just because of the next release.
This is a mess Microsoft got themselves into, undoubtedly, but your ignorance isn't helping much here. I'm sure that will make the front page though, since you seem to have that little game down, all ScuttleMonkey would have to do is remove all the dollar signs and we'll be all set.
If the project has technical merits, like the GP said, all you need to do is explain what it is. This is Slashdot, not Digg. People will figure out whether or not the hype is deserved.
The only thing that "rebellion against Vista" bit got you was well-deserved dismissal and ridicule, so you ended up screwing up your valiant effort anyway.
What I find interesting about the story of PC input devices is that the trackball was never really advanced as a better alternative to mice.
How many millions of cases of RSI (and often, associated medical costs) could have been prevented simply by using a trackball, which you work only with a few fingers instead of your arm and wrist.
I've been using trackballs since Kensington came up with the classic "expert" (the one on the left here, for those that don't remember).
Nowadays I use an old Trackman Marble FX at home. Unfortunately it's not made anymore, and it doesn't have a scroll wheel, which is pretty much its only drawback (if you have one of those in the box you can hoist it on eBay for $400, they're that sought after) as well as a newer Logitech Marble Mouse, which unfortunately also does not have a scroll wheel. I avoid TBs that have to worked with the thumb, because they're less precise.
A few years ago I was hoping Logitech would come up with a revised TrackMan, but instead they committed the idiocy of releasing the most stupid product concept of all time: a cordless trackball. Sigh.
Ah yes, the brisk sales that have bankrupted CompUSA, DSG, Circuit City and damaged many others.
If those companies sold nothing more than PCs (they certainly don't), or their margins on those PCs were stellar to begin with (they never were), then this might be true. Unfortunately it's just a figment of your imagination, which you continue to try and push as fact, like many other things (ACPI comes to mind).
Why do you lie and make these things up about Microsoft, twitter? Don't they do enough crappy things to satisfy even you?
EEE PC has sold more than 4 million, most of them GNU/Linux
Really? I must admit I didn't know much about this but a little bit of Google reveals this interview with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, which I think was also reported here on Slashdot (about the return rates for Linux devices, which he seems to invalidate):
I think the return rate for the Eee PCs are low but I believe the Linux and Windows have similar return rates. We really separate the products into different user groups. A lot of users like the Windows XP, but in Europe a lot of people want the Linux option. Actually in Linux we support the Easy Mode and in Q4 of this year we are going to start selling Windows XP with an Easy Mode.
Here's another article where Shen is also quoted about the ratio of XP to Linux EEE units sold, which he says is 60:40:
Shen -- who is keen on Linux -- said Asus had hoped sales of Eee PCs would be 50:50 between XP and Linux, but actually they were 60:40 in XP's favour. (I assume that's for this calendar year.) So far, around 4m have been sold, and the target is 5m for this year.
So obviously you're just making that up. Nothing like bogus facts and words like "laughable" and "undeniable" to get on moderators' good graces, eh?
It depends on whether the bugs are blocking. If they prevent a really good piece of software to work, then sure. Suddenly it's not such a great piece of software.
I remember the uproar when Windows 2000 was released and someone exaggerated a comment by one of the Microsoft product managers about how they still had a few thousand bugs in their tracking system for the OS. Later it was made apparent that the vast majority of those were simple defects that were not blocking in any way, although of course bugs were found later and eventually W2K went up to SP4.
Having used Windows 2000 from the day it was released until 2004, I can tell you that's a good example of number of bugs not being a valid measurement of overall quality.
And if my experience with testers is any indication, the number of "defects" tends to grow exponentially as bonus time approaches for them. I had one tester once file more than 100 defects in a single day, all of them related to tooltips attached to a number of input screens. When he realized the problem was pretty much widespread, instead of filing a single entry saying "The tooltips on screens W, X, Y and Z are incorrect" he filed one defect for each field on those screens.
Patents are like nuclear weapons. The big boy have the majority of them, but there's a tacit agreement (ala Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War) that they are for deterrent purposes only. The third-world Chihuahua dogs of the patent scene like Eolas are using their limited arsenal as they can to wrest some cash from the big boys. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.
What we all need is complete disarmament, so the big boys can't bluster about theirs and the little yapping dogs can't use theirs either. Everybody wins.
Fresh off the wire: Apple sued over iPhone web browsing, by another little patent troll. Reform is needed to stop this. I think companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google and Apple would be more than happy to stop pursuing defensive patents if the IP laws in the US and elsewhere ensured that they are not going to get nailed by the yapping dogs.
I think that after all that was said and done, people realized that whole thing about Linux infringing patents was, again, nothing but hot air. A rather lame attempt at a troll, if you will.
Their patent protection plans with Novell are going to be a good indicator of how worried the average CTO/CIO is worried about that sort of thing.
I honestly have not seen any of that affect how companies adopt and use free software. Have you?
It's always invigorating to read twitter flamebait in the morning, but I doubt anyone can make a case that Microsoft (or, before CmdrTaco's edits, "M$") is a patent troll, or that it uses patents offensively. Even that FUD about Linux infringing 200+ patents is nothing more than hot air.
If anything, Microsoft has been a large target for patent trolls, and they have been rather successful at it IIRC. I think it's amusing to see people like our notorious troll here obsess with Microsoft's patent portfolio when there are smaller and more dangerous fish to fry in this delightful niche.
Someone might want to call IBM and let them know about this though. And Google. If Microsoft's patent portfolio is "worthless" then so is everybody else's. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I think it will be a while before courts start punishing actual patent trolls.
I wouldn't go back to IE though, not unless there's equivalents to AdBlock, FlashBlock, Google Notebook and CustomizeGoogle that work within the browser and work well. And themes, at least the one I use in Firefox.
Whatever failings FF has, it's still an acceptable trade-off over Internet Explorer as far as I'm concerned.
3.0.4 on Vista here. A bunch of add-ons like AdBlock Plus, Flashblock, Google Toolbar, etc. I didn't try disabling them. I should mention that it works fine on an XP Pro laptop I have sitting here on my desk with 2.x (I forget the exact version), so it might be something about this install. Java is also broken for some reason. Maybe it was the upgrade, instead of just starting from scratch.
Slashdot Mirror
The last time I cleaned out the 'ole crap closet I was about to throw out about 20 mice I had lying around, but I decided to keep the balls.
Let me say that again so I can preempt the jokes: I chucked the rodents and I kept the balls.
Now that we're over that, does anyone have any ideas as to what can be done with them? There's nothing better than a heavy large ball bearing covered in rubberized plastic, but I can't figure out what to do with them and I can't bring myself to throw them out.
ROFLMAO, now you're replying to Slashdot admins with your sockpuppets!
That's the first thing I thought of when I read this. Isn't there supposed to be a victim somewhere in order to convict someone of this type of crime?
You're right. Some part of me knew that, and for some reason I used the wrong word anyway.
Thanks for the correction.
There, fixed that for ya.
While there are certainly extremes where people will watch *every* sport all year, there's nothing wrong with following one or two.
I follow the NFL because although I wasn't born in the US, I played it when I was in high school and I like it. I also follow the Bundesliga and the Premier League (that's the normal football for all you Americans <g>), the European and Latin American soccer confederation cups and of course the World Cup. I also watch the Olympics (winter and summer) when they're on.
That's it. I don't like hockey, baseball, basketball or anything else. I also very rarely follow the US college football season, though I will sometimes watch a bowl or two in January.
Of course there's also the fun angle (Superbowl parties!) but I don't use sports as an excuse to drink beer or escape from grim reality or anything like that. That's just an exaggeration.
Wasn't there a movie in the 80s or 90s where this was featured as the future of football?
And QBs have radio transmitters in their helmets nowadays, so that's not too far fetched. The key would be to make a camera that can take the punishment.
I think it would be cool. I wouldn't want to watch a whole game that way, but for replays and whatnot, it would be nice. You'd have to be careful with the sound though. Too many four-letter words uttered when a 300lb tackle falls on top of you.
You're joking, right? "M$" is making IE8 standards-compatible by default, and it's telling web site operators (especially high-volume ones) to add a tag to make the browser drop down to "compatibility mode" or "quirks mode" that allow the site to be viewed if it was designed for the lower standards of IE7 and IE6. They're also giving you an UI to add sites that you know are *not* standards-compliant so that IE8 can degrade gracefully in those cases and let you use the site, as opposed to just displaying garbage.
The end result is that people don't have to rush to update their sites that were already proven to work with older versions of IE just because of the next release.
This is a mess Microsoft got themselves into, undoubtedly, but your ignorance isn't helping much here. I'm sure that will make the front page though, since you seem to have that little game down, all ScuttleMonkey would have to do is remove all the dollar signs and we'll be all set.
If the project has technical merits, like the GP said, all you need to do is explain what it is. This is Slashdot, not Digg. People will figure out whether or not the hype is deserved.
The only thing that "rebellion against Vista" bit got you was well-deserved dismissal and ridicule, so you ended up screwing up your valiant effort anyway.
There, fixed that for ya.
That's what I've been using with various versions of Windows the last 12 years and I've never had any problems.
What I find interesting about the story of PC input devices is that the trackball was never really advanced as a better alternative to mice.
How many millions of cases of RSI (and often, associated medical costs) could have been prevented simply by using a trackball, which you work only with a few fingers instead of your arm and wrist.
I've been using trackballs since Kensington came up with the classic "expert" (the one on the left here, for those that don't remember).
Nowadays I use an old Trackman Marble FX at home. Unfortunately it's not made anymore, and it doesn't have a scroll wheel, which is pretty much its only drawback (if you have one of those in the box you can hoist it on eBay for $400, they're that sought after) as well as a newer Logitech Marble Mouse, which unfortunately also does not have a scroll wheel. I avoid TBs that have to worked with the thumb, because they're less precise.
A few years ago I was hoping Logitech would come up with a revised TrackMan, but instead they committed the idiocy of releasing the most stupid product concept of all time: a cordless trackball. Sigh.
*yawn* Let me know when you have some actual evidence to back up your fantasies.
Oh god, I hate replying to myself but I forgot to include the source of the second quote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/oct/08/linux.windows
Sorry about that.
Well, I guess that's true. What do you call a figment of one's imagination that's presented as fact? A factimaginated... factoid? :)
If those companies sold nothing more than PCs (they certainly don't), or their margins on those PCs were stellar to begin with (they never were), then this might be true. Unfortunately it's just a figment of your imagination, which you continue to try and push as fact, like many other things (ACPI comes to mind).
Why do you lie and make these things up about Microsoft, twitter? Don't they do enough crappy things to satisfy even you?
Hi twitter.
EEE PC has sold more than 4 million, most of them GNU/Linux
Really? I must admit I didn't know much about this but a little bit of Google reveals this interview with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, which I think was also reported here on Slashdot (about the return rates for Linux devices, which he seems to invalidate):
Here's another article where Shen is also quoted about the ratio of XP to Linux EEE units sold, which he says is 60:40:
So obviously you're just making that up. Nothing like bogus facts and words like "laughable" and "undeniable" to get on moderators' good graces, eh?
It depends on whether the bugs are blocking. If they prevent a really good piece of software to work, then sure. Suddenly it's not such a great piece of software.
I remember the uproar when Windows 2000 was released and someone exaggerated a comment by one of the Microsoft product managers about how they still had a few thousand bugs in their tracking system for the OS. Later it was made apparent that the vast majority of those were simple defects that were not blocking in any way, although of course bugs were found later and eventually W2K went up to SP4.
Having used Windows 2000 from the day it was released until 2004, I can tell you that's a good example of number of bugs not being a valid measurement of overall quality.
And if my experience with testers is any indication, the number of "defects" tends to grow exponentially as bonus time approaches for them. I had one tester once file more than 100 defects in a single day, all of them related to tooltips attached to a number of input screens. When he realized the problem was pretty much widespread, instead of filing a single entry saying "The tooltips on screens W, X, Y and Z are incorrect" he filed one defect for each field on those screens.
Oh hai twitter. You're so cute when you're pissed.
Patents are like nuclear weapons. The big boy have the majority of them, but there's a tacit agreement (ala Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War) that they are for deterrent purposes only. The third-world Chihuahua dogs of the patent scene like Eolas are using their limited arsenal as they can to wrest some cash from the big boys. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.
What we all need is complete disarmament, so the big boys can't bluster about theirs and the little yapping dogs can't use theirs either. Everybody wins.
Fresh off the wire: Apple sued over iPhone web browsing, by another little patent troll. Reform is needed to stop this. I think companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google and Apple would be more than happy to stop pursuing defensive patents if the IP laws in the US and elsewhere ensured that they are not going to get nailed by the yapping dogs.
I think that after all that was said and done, people realized that whole thing about Linux infringing patents was, again, nothing but hot air. A rather lame attempt at a troll, if you will.
Their patent protection plans with Novell are going to be a good indicator of how worried the average CTO/CIO is worried about that sort of thing.
I honestly have not seen any of that affect how companies adopt and use free software. Have you?
It's always invigorating to read twitter flamebait in the morning, but I doubt anyone can make a case that Microsoft (or, before CmdrTaco's edits, "M$") is a patent troll, or that it uses patents offensively. Even that FUD about Linux infringing 200+ patents is nothing more than hot air.
If anything, Microsoft has been a large target for patent trolls, and they have been rather successful at it IIRC. I think it's amusing to see people like our notorious troll here obsess with Microsoft's patent portfolio when there are smaller and more dangerous fish to fry in this delightful niche.
Someone might want to call IBM and let them know about this though. And Google. If Microsoft's patent portfolio is "worthless" then so is everybody else's. Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I think it will be a while before courts start punishing actual patent trolls.
The MSM didn't get Barack Obama to the White House. George W. Bush and Sarah Palin did.
I wouldn't go back to IE though, not unless there's equivalents to AdBlock, FlashBlock, Google Notebook and CustomizeGoogle that work within the browser and work well. And themes, at least the one I use in Firefox.
Whatever failings FF has, it's still an acceptable trade-off over Internet Explorer as far as I'm concerned.
3.0.4 on Vista here. A bunch of add-ons like AdBlock Plus, Flashblock, Google Toolbar, etc. I didn't try disabling them. I should mention that it works fine on an XP Pro laptop I have sitting here on my desk with 2.x (I forget the exact version), so it might be something about this install. Java is also broken for some reason. Maybe it was the upgrade, instead of just starting from scratch.