When you read news from Germany, they usually don't tell you whether it is Saxony or Bavaria or whatnot.
Come on. If you're discussing a specific event in a specific location they are going to list the location. Location-based new reporting is hardly uniquely American. Besides, if nobody cares why even list the location at all? Just say "some guys figured out some physics thing in this test someplace".
State names can be important when there is a good chance that there may be 3-5 (or more) states containing cities of the same name. Unless it's obvious ("the" New York, or "the" London) it's dumb not to include the state/province.
The more I read about this "innovative" controller the more I think it's going to be a failure, at least in the US and Europe where people don't jump on every new little gadget like it's the best thing since sliced ham. They will eventually release (perhaps even alongside the console's launch) a standard-shaped controller, and hopefully one that's better than the Gamecube's.
There's a reason that console controllers have evolved into their current form, and that's because they are ergonomic and comfortable. The Xbox Controller-S and the Xbox 360 controllers are both very comfortable and allow you to play for hours on end without cramping up or getting sore hands. I also think the idea of motion sensing games will get old real quick for anything longer than a 20 minute gaming session. I don't want to be moving my arm all over the place for hours just to get Zelda to swing his bloody sword.
Bottom line is Microsoft will use this to "encourage" websites to move away from ActiveX and toward their next annoying proprietary technology.
Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
Nobody here seems to acknowledge the true nature of this problem, because it has nothing to do with ActiveX being thrown away. This is simply a warm welcome to the exciting new world of software patents.
This ActiveX fiasco is a great example. The company holding the patent in dispute, Eolas, is an utter joke. They don't actually make or produce anything except patents. All they do is sit around all day thinking up stuff to patent. That's it. One of these great "products" is a patent dealing with the way embedded interactive multimedia interacts with the user. Part of the patent talks about how the media starts working and interacting. According to the patent, they own the idea behind having it start automatically or in response to page loads.
The truth is that this patent impacts open source software as well, and even though Microsoft presents a much juicier target than the Mozilla Foundation, they have equally "violated" this patent and OSS will feel the impact soon enough.
And THAT is what this is about.
Read this and tell me this whole thing doesn't stink like the deepest abyss of Hell. With more and more companies filing patents like nuts, this is the future of software development. Company X is going to spend as much as they did to develop the software just to make sure they don't get sued and have to pull it off the shelves 6 months after shipping. Then there's all the frivolous licensing fees to do stuff like make a Flash animation start when the page loads. How exciting!
There's nothing inherently wrong with ActiveX. It's based on the COM and is actually pretty nice for developing on Windows. ActiveX is just am implementation of an open standard and provides a way to more closely work with the host system. Firefox extensions are really no better, they can completely bork a system just as easily as ActiveX. In the end, when a user clicks "Install" they may have just signed their own death certificate and it doesn't matter what color the pen was.
In any case the whole thing boils down to an example of why software patents, in practice, are a terrible thing.
My computer can't even run the panorama at a stable framerate
At least yours runs them. Both IE6 and Firefox crashed as soon as I try and pan around them. Click-scroll-crash. Fun!
In any case, these are simply amazing. I recommend everyone who likes these take a look at some videos of the game. They have some new ones on there I haven't seen yet, but I've watched all the E3 Demo videos and those are amazing.
This game truly blows everything else out of the water in terms of sheer scope and graphical achievements. It really makes one stop and...
*gets distracted watching grass and trees blow in the wind*
Why the dancing around these middleman sites that contain no additional information or insight? Does/. get some sort of kickback for sending people to see ads?
I've never seen anything except IE work with the crappy Exchange Web Interface.
Oh come on. What browser is Microsoft going to worry most about working perfectly with Outlook Web Access? Probably the browser that they own and has the highest market share. Besides, last time I checked, OWA does work with Firefox, just not quite as well as with IE.
And what exactly do you mean by "crappy"? I'd like you to point out an OSS webmail project that comes anywhere near as good-looking and as fully-functional as OWA (even when using OWA with Firefox). Here's a hint: I've looked and there isn't one, so don't waste your time.
Please, Senator Lieberman. You're one of the only active Democrats in power which I don't desperately want to punch in the throat.
Please, disconnect yourself from that shrill harpy of an ex-First Lady, and come back to sanity.
He's not going to drop this issue or the harpy. The issue is a "hot" one that will get his name spread around the news and the harpy is (unfortunately) supposed to be the "Next Big Thing" (s/Thing/Flop ?)
So now you feel like punching all those Democrats in the throat. Welcome to the club.
As for 64-bit, can someone give me a good reason to have this on a machine who's primary purpose is to be an over-glorified typewritter? On a developer machine I can see it, but on an office machine, it's overkill.
Until January 19, 2038 that is. If you're still using a 32-bit system then you might run into a little trouble:)
Because there was nothing to look at - everything was buried in the fucking Registry. Reloading the system fixed the problem.
How is that different that config files? If you don't know where to look for a config file you can't fix something any easier than if you don't know where to look in the registry.
I install what I NEED to install, just like everybody else. I don't install crap just to be installing stuff. I don't install spyware, crappy calendars, sports games, or other drivel.
Same with me, yet I don't have the problems you described. My XP install is four years old now and still works just fine. In fact, one of the problems I've noticed is that my Add/Remove applet is too slow because of how many programs I've got installed.
Look, stupid, when I talk about not updating a text file except by hand, I'm talking about not having a half dozen different programs updating the same configuration - which is what the Registry does.
Look here, friend, the only real abstract difference between the registry and config files is that the registry is centralized. That's it. Both have permissions and right assignments. The same rules apply to both -- any applications that have access to the hives/configs can change what they want. It's completely possible you could get adware on Linux that changes Firefox's homepage just the same as Windows.
As for the Registry being easy to copy, export and update, gimme a break. Most users can't even fucking FIND the thing
Most users don't need to find the thing. I'm talking about system administration. If you wanted to create a default configuration of installed applications for all future users of a Linux box what would you do? Edit the programs' settings, hunt down all the config files and put them someplace (on a server, in a tarball, wherever) and then copy them over when you make a new user. It might not even be that easy. With the registry you do the same first step, but then just copy the edited User hive into DefaultUser or onto a server. I'd call that easy.
except Linux doesn't allow any Tom, Dick and Harry program to update its system files.
If Tom, Dick, and Harry have privileges to edit the files then yes it does. The same goes for Windows.
your claim that you use Linux every day.
I never claimed I'm some almighty penguin god. I have no problems saying that XP is my desktop OS; however, I do use Linux every day. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for several hours.
Welcome to Slashdot, leave facts at the door please.
Whereas with Windows XP, I would have had to reboot at least once every two days or daily to fix some equally stupid problem of OS or application.
Says something about your abilities to manage Windows. My home desktop has been up for 21 days. My work desktop about a month. Sure, some installers want to reboot Windows, but by and far I'm often able to keep XP running until I need to reboot for a hardware reason.
At work, the Windows XP workstation is fairly stable - except that almost every day Winlogon.exe has a problem logging me on, or McAfee has a problem shutting down when Windows shuts down.
Then you screwed it up somehow. Don't blame McAfee's problems on Windows.
On the other hand, I haven't installed much personal software on that system.
Shouldn't matter if you're being smart about what you install.
Windows is unreliable because it uses a Registry - an updateable Registry at that. That was the worst design decision Microsoft ever made.
Ah yes, of course. Windows would be much better if it's hive of settings and preferences was read-only. How useful! Oh, and storing user settings in a single place which is easy to copy, export, and update is incredibly bad. Bad!
Linux uses text config files that are never updated except by hand. Almost by itself this accounts for the phenomenable stability of Linux.
I always thought the kernel was overrated. You say you're new to Linux, but give me a break. Did you edit config files by hand when you change your wallpaper? Your screen saver? When you edit a menu in KDE? The whole point of most GUIs is to make it so you don't have to edit config files by hand. Every time you install an RPM it's possible that dozens of config files get edited by the scripts it contains.
You simply can't trust an OS to third party programmers updating your system.
What a stupid statement. You better never install any software then. That includes all those extras that came with Mandriva. Vim? Gone! Pam? Gone! Tux Racer? Gone!
The second and third worst design decisions made by MS were to try to make the system "simple" by hiding the complexity inside more complexity, and by "featuritis".
How about an example of this instead of meaningless claims?
Adding more "features" does not make a system easier to use - it makes it harder, and more complex, and the complexity eventually breaks the system entirely requiring a total redesign.
You're completely right. I propose we all go exclusively back to command-line only applications. In addition features like cron, colored output, and graphics acceleration should be removed. Features are bad!
The only two issues facing Linux adoption in the marketplace are the current lack of enterprise level applications, and the incompetence of IT management in being unable to discern what is important and what is not in deploying IT infrastructure.
And lack of entertainment applications. And nearly 100% hardware support. And lack of good audio/visual applications. And solid technical support for home users. And a 0.3% desktop market share. And... And... And...
Linux is a great operating system which I use every day; however, don't make it out to be the Next Big Thing. It has a long way to go before it's even an insignificant competitor to Microsoft or even Apple.
need any more examples for your serious users of business applications?
Excel. Project. Visual Studio. Photoshop. Acrobat. Final Cut Pro. [big expensive accounting package]. [all sorts of in-house custom software].
I could go on and on. The truth is that while you might be able to move to *nix, *BSD, whatever on your desktop without much pain it is near impossible for most businesses who depend on a very long list of programs that run *only* on Windows or even OSX.
The whole "any business could/should migrate away from Windows" routine is getting kinda old. Sure they could, but they'd like to still be in business when they're done.
We beg to differ, and want you to keep your pseudoscience to yourselves.
I propose a Congressional Committee meet to investigate this myth. In addition, a $500M infusion to the Flat Earth Society will greatly aid the search for Truth. Remember, the terrorists want you to think the Earth is round.
What about the shareholder who owns 51% of the shares? Is that how democracies work?
What about the political party who owns 51% of the seats in the House and Senate? Is that how democracies work?
In the same way the Constitution prevents any one party from completely dominating, corporations have rules and regulations that prevent any one shareholder from doing the same. Boards of trustees and directors have a lot of say regardless of how many shares you might own.
I really like Azureus, even if I was a little hesitant when I first downloaded it. It's written entirely in Java which I feared would lead to a less efficient and more cumbersome application. However, if you use Windows and want a good client, go with Azureus. It's amazingly configurable and easy to use. The RSS feed plugin and great DHT implementation alone sell the program. The GUI is very well done doesn't feel like your normal Java GUI.
My only complaint is part of my original fear. The program is a little resource heavy when doing anything with the GUI, and sometimes even when it's minimized to the tray. I've also had trouble getting the desktop to refresh when unlocking the computer after it's been locked for anything over a few hours. This only happens when Azureus has been running.
Other than that, amazing program. How can you go wrong with a program that's always in the top 5 (usually #1-2) of the Most Active and Most Downloaded lists at SourceForge?
I'm glad somebody else besides me finally sees OCC and American Chopper for what they are
I completely agree! I don't have a problem with those shows per se, but they've been showing so many of them that it's saturated the channel to the point where I just don't watch it anymore.
Lately, if I watch TV it's either something like Jeopardy or History Channel. One of my favorite shows right now is Modern Marvels on History. They go over all sorts of very interesting topics from a variety of fields. Also of interest is Engineering Disasters, though they don't have very many episodes of that. For my SciFi fix, I download Stargate and Battlestar since I don't get SciFi with the cable package in my apartment.
Shows like American Crapper, er, Chopper are just the new pop-culture type engineering and documentary shows. Kids want to see "cool" and "badass" guys build stupid looking bikes. "Lookit me ma! I'm acting like a moron while skirting with breaking the law and riding my shiny new trike!" No wonder sites like MySpace are so populous anymore...
Excel does act a little weird when you get down to the last 20 or so rows/columns. It starts having a hard time drawing the window resulting in a lot of black boxes. Odd, but not really unexpected in the first beta.
Out of everybody, it was the British who came closest to taking over the entire world, and their real estate only came to about 26% of the globe. Your Romans were only 17th with 4%.
Since we have recently completely lost any semblance of morals
Morals are sticky because they are simply the accepted standards of right and wrong for a given group. Some people say that Europeans are less moral than Americans because of infidelity, etc.
(witness the implicit approval of torture in Gitmo and Iraq, as well as the use of nuclear weapons against other countries;
Say what? The US has used just two nuclear weapons against another country and that was back in WWII. Are you going on about that, or has there been some new developments?
have you heard anyone on the news saying nukes are definitely never going to be used? look back a decade or two and the tone is completely different).
Just what we need. Give the brainless talking heads something else to "confirm". How can anyone say that nuclear weapons will "definitely never" be used? Do you honestly think that just because nobody has said it that we're somehow more likely to use them? Against who? Even if somebody did "confirm" it, do you think that would really mean anything?
...while Michael Chrichton is giving speeches detailing environmentalism as a religion.
Not everybody cared for the book (as evidenced by some of the reviews [personally I found it quite refreshing, he made a lot of very interesting points]), but Crichton's recent novel State of Fear dealt with almost this exact viewpoint. Individuals and "environmental" groups proclaiming doomsday just around the corner, and it's always our fault. Conveniently enough it's also right when they're having some sort of fundraiser or selling a new book.
*cough* *cough*
Give me a break. This guy is just the exact opposite as the niche of corporate types who really don't care if they dump toxic waste into the groundwater near a preschool.
Slashdot Mirror
To clarify: Darth Vader was cool, Anakin was a whining baby. That's how I mean he died in the 3rd movie.
U.S. Patent 123,456,788: "Method for killing off annoying characters first."
So that's why Anakin didn't die until the 3rd movie. Lucas didn't want to get sued!
It makes so much more sense now.
Ugh, no thanks. That place is the most awful cespool on the Internet.
No joke.
I'm not sure what's worse, that MySpace made it to the top 10 or that Real's website was in the top 10.
Either way society is/was/will be doomed.
When you read news from Germany, they usually don't tell you whether it is Saxony or Bavaria or whatnot.
Come on. If you're discussing a specific event in a specific location they are going to list the location. Location-based new reporting is hardly uniquely American. Besides, if nobody cares why even list the location at all? Just say "some guys figured out some physics thing in this test someplace".
State names can be important when there is a good chance that there may be 3-5 (or more) states containing cities of the same name. Unless it's obvious ("the" New York, or "the" London) it's dumb not to include the state/province.
According to This article [127.0.0.1], using bogus URL's to trick people is still the most effective social engineering trick in the book.
/* classic */
u idiot u gave me ur ip addr. now im going 2 hax0r ur punk 455. let me jus run my haxing skrypt...
* nmb3000 (slkc-dsl-gw14-874.slkc.qwest.net) Quit (Ping timeout#)
.
The more I read about this "innovative" controller the more I think it's going to be a failure, at least in the US and Europe where people don't jump on every new little gadget like it's the best thing since sliced ham. They will eventually release (perhaps even alongside the console's launch) a standard-shaped controller, and hopefully one that's better than the Gamecube's.
There's a reason that console controllers have evolved into their current form, and that's because they are ergonomic and comfortable. The Xbox Controller-S and the Xbox 360 controllers are both very comfortable and allow you to play for hours on end without cramping up or getting sore hands. I also think the idea of motion sensing games will get old real quick for anything longer than a 20 minute gaming session. I don't want to be moving my arm all over the place for hours just to get Zelda to swing his bloody sword.
Bottom line is Microsoft will use this to "encourage" websites to move away from ActiveX and toward their next annoying proprietary technology.
Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.
Nobody here seems to acknowledge the true nature of this problem, because it has nothing to do with ActiveX being thrown away. This is simply a warm welcome to the exciting new world of software patents.
This ActiveX fiasco is a great example. The company holding the patent in dispute, Eolas, is an utter joke. They don't actually make or produce anything except patents. All they do is sit around all day thinking up stuff to patent. That's it. One of these great "products" is a patent dealing with the way embedded interactive multimedia interacts with the user. Part of the patent talks about how the media starts working and interacting. According to the patent, they own the idea behind having it start automatically or in response to page loads.
The truth is that this patent impacts open source software as well, and even though Microsoft presents a much juicier target than the Mozilla Foundation, they have equally "violated" this patent and OSS will feel the impact soon enough.
And THAT is what this is about.
Read this and tell me this whole thing doesn't stink like the deepest abyss of Hell. With more and more companies filing patents like nuts, this is the future of software development. Company X is going to spend as much as they did to develop the software just to make sure they don't get sued and have to pull it off the shelves 6 months after shipping. Then there's all the frivolous licensing fees to do stuff like make a Flash animation start when the page loads. How exciting!
There's nothing inherently wrong with ActiveX. It's based on the COM and is actually pretty nice for developing on Windows. ActiveX is just am implementation of an open standard and provides a way to more closely work with the host system. Firefox extensions are really no better, they can completely bork a system just as easily as ActiveX. In the end, when a user clicks "Install" they may have just signed their own death certificate and it doesn't matter what color the pen was.
In any case the whole thing boils down to an example of why software patents, in practice, are a terrible thing.
My computer can't even run the panorama at a stable framerate
At least yours runs them. Both IE6 and Firefox crashed as soon as I try and pan around them. Click-scroll-crash. Fun!
In any case, these are simply amazing. I recommend everyone who likes these take a look at some videos of the game. They have some new ones on there I haven't seen yet, but I've watched all the E3 Demo videos and those are amazing.
This game truly blows everything else out of the water in terms of sheer scope and graphical achievements. It really makes one stop and...
*gets distracted watching grass and trees blow in the wind*
Instead of the ad-laden websites of Joystiq and Gamespot, go directly to the source.
/. get some sort of kickback for sending people to see ads?
Why the dancing around these middleman sites that contain no additional information or insight? Does
LAMP...
I'm so tired of hearing these fancy OSS acronyms for stuff. You all think you're so cute!
At work I'm proud to say we use Windows, IIS, MySQL, and PHP. No stupid acronyms here.
Oh wait...
Crap.
I've never seen anything except IE work with the crappy Exchange Web Interface.
Oh come on. What browser is Microsoft going to worry most about working perfectly with Outlook Web Access? Probably the browser that they own and has the highest market share. Besides, last time I checked, OWA does work with Firefox, just not quite as well as with IE.
And what exactly do you mean by "crappy"? I'd like you to point out an OSS webmail project that comes anywhere near as good-looking and as fully-functional as OWA (even when using OWA with Firefox). Here's a hint: I've looked and there isn't one, so don't waste your time.
Please, Senator Lieberman. You're one of the only active Democrats in power which I don't desperately want to punch in the throat.
Please, disconnect yourself from that shrill harpy of an ex-First Lady, and come back to sanity.
He's not going to drop this issue or the harpy. The issue is a "hot" one that will get his name spread around the news and the harpy is (unfortunately) supposed to be the "Next Big Thing" (s/Thing/Flop ?)
So now you feel like punching all those Democrats in the throat. Welcome to the club.
As for 64-bit, can someone give me a good reason to have this on a machine who's primary purpose is to be an over-glorified typewritter? On a developer machine I can see it, but on an office machine, it's overkill.
:)
Until January 19, 2038 that is. If you're still using a 32-bit system then you might run into a little trouble
Because there was nothing to look at - everything was buried in the fucking Registry. Reloading the system fixed the problem.
How is that different that config files? If you don't know where to look for a config file you can't fix something any easier than if you don't know where to look in the registry.
I install what I NEED to install, just like everybody else. I don't install crap just to be installing stuff. I don't install spyware, crappy calendars, sports games, or other drivel.
Same with me, yet I don't have the problems you described. My XP install is four years old now and still works just fine. In fact, one of the problems I've noticed is that my Add/Remove applet is too slow because of how many programs I've got installed.
Look, stupid, when I talk about not updating a text file except by hand, I'm talking about not having a half dozen different programs updating the same configuration - which is what the Registry does.
Look here, friend, the only real abstract difference between the registry and config files is that the registry is centralized. That's it. Both have permissions and right assignments. The same rules apply to both -- any applications that have access to the hives/configs can change what they want. It's completely possible you could get adware on Linux that changes Firefox's homepage just the same as Windows.
As for the Registry being easy to copy, export and update, gimme a break. Most users can't even fucking FIND the thing
Most users don't need to find the thing. I'm talking about system administration. If you wanted to create a default configuration of installed applications for all future users of a Linux box what would you do? Edit the programs' settings, hunt down all the config files and put them someplace (on a server, in a tarball, wherever) and then copy them over when you make a new user. It might not even be that easy. With the registry you do the same first step, but then just copy the edited User hive into DefaultUser or onto a server. I'd call that easy.
except Linux doesn't allow any Tom, Dick and Harry program to update its system files.
If Tom, Dick, and Harry have privileges to edit the files then yes it does. The same goes for Windows.
your claim that you use Linux every day.
I never claimed I'm some almighty penguin god. I have no problems saying that XP is my desktop OS; however, I do use Linux every day. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for several hours.
you're a Windows shill running off at the mouth
s/Windows/Linux/
Welcome to Slashdot, leave facts at the door please.
Whereas with Windows XP, I would have had to reboot at least once every two days or daily to fix some equally stupid problem of OS or application.
Says something about your abilities to manage Windows. My home desktop has been up for 21 days. My work desktop about a month. Sure, some installers want to reboot Windows, but by and far I'm often able to keep XP running until I need to reboot for a hardware reason.
At work, the Windows XP workstation is fairly stable - except that almost every day Winlogon.exe has a problem logging me on, or McAfee has a problem shutting down when Windows shuts down.
Then you screwed it up somehow. Don't blame McAfee's problems on Windows.
On the other hand, I haven't installed much personal software on that system.
Shouldn't matter if you're being smart about what you install.
Windows is unreliable because it uses a Registry - an updateable Registry at that. That was the worst design decision Microsoft ever made.
Ah yes, of course. Windows would be much better if it's hive of settings and preferences was read-only. How useful! Oh, and storing user settings in a single place which is easy to copy, export, and update is incredibly bad. Bad!
Linux uses text config files that are never updated except by hand. Almost by itself this accounts for the phenomenable stability of Linux.
I always thought the kernel was overrated. You say you're new to Linux, but give me a break. Did you edit config files by hand when you change your wallpaper? Your screen saver? When you edit a menu in KDE? The whole point of most GUIs is to make it so you don't have to edit config files by hand. Every time you install an RPM it's possible that dozens of config files get edited by the scripts it contains.
You simply can't trust an OS to third party programmers updating your system.
What a stupid statement. You better never install any software then. That includes all those extras that came with Mandriva. Vim? Gone! Pam? Gone! Tux Racer? Gone!
The second and third worst design decisions made by MS were to try to make the system "simple" by hiding the complexity inside more complexity, and by "featuritis".
How about an example of this instead of meaningless claims?
Adding more "features" does not make a system easier to use - it makes it harder, and more complex, and the complexity eventually breaks the system entirely requiring a total redesign.
You're completely right. I propose we all go exclusively back to command-line only applications. In addition features like cron, colored output, and graphics acceleration should be removed. Features are bad!
The only two issues facing Linux adoption in the marketplace are the current lack of enterprise level applications, and the incompetence of IT management in being unable to discern what is important and what is not in deploying IT infrastructure.
And lack of entertainment applications.
And nearly 100% hardware support.
And lack of good audio/visual applications.
And solid technical support for home users.
And a 0.3% desktop market share.
And...
And...
And...
Linux is a great operating system which I use every day; however, don't make it out to be the Next Big Thing. It has a long way to go before it's even an insignificant competitor to Microsoft or even Apple.
Thanks for visiting, come again.
Doh... hit the wrong reply link. Nothing to see here (aside from somebody who can't read), move along citizen.
need any more examples for your serious users of business applications?
Excel.
Project.
Visual Studio.
Photoshop.
Acrobat.
Final Cut Pro.
[big expensive accounting package].
[all sorts of in-house custom software].
I could go on and on. The truth is that while you might be able to move to *nix, *BSD, whatever on your desktop without much pain it is near impossible for most businesses who depend on a very long list of programs that run *only* on Windows or even OSX.
The whole "any business could/should migrate away from Windows" routine is getting kinda old. Sure they could, but they'd like to still be in business when they're done.
(Mormons very much included)
Very much wrong. While some may have that personal belief, it is in no way doctrine and hasn't been said by anyone in authority.
well, yeah. the earth is round ;^)
We beg to differ, and want you to keep your pseudoscience to yourselves.
I propose a Congressional Committee meet to investigate this myth. In addition, a $500M infusion to the Flat Earth Society will greatly aid the search for Truth. Remember, the terrorists want you to think the Earth is round.
What about the shareholder who owns 51% of the shares? Is that how democracies work?
What about the political party who owns 51% of the seats in the House and Senate? Is that how democracies work?
In the same way the Constitution prevents any one party from completely dominating, corporations have rules and regulations that prevent any one shareholder from doing the same. Boards of trustees and directors have a lot of say regardless of how many shares you might own.
I really like Azureus, even if I was a little hesitant when I first downloaded it. It's written entirely in Java which I feared would lead to a less efficient and more cumbersome application. However, if you use Windows and want a good client, go with Azureus. It's amazingly configurable and easy to use. The RSS feed plugin and great DHT implementation alone sell the program. The GUI is very well done doesn't feel like your normal Java GUI.
My only complaint is part of my original fear. The program is a little resource heavy when doing anything with the GUI, and sometimes even when it's minimized to the tray. I've also had trouble getting the desktop to refresh when unlocking the computer after it's been locked for anything over a few hours. This only happens when Azureus has been running.
Other than that, amazing program. How can you go wrong with a program that's always in the top 5 (usually #1-2) of the Most Active and Most Downloaded lists at SourceForge?
I'm glad somebody else besides me finally sees OCC and American Chopper for what they are
I completely agree! I don't have a problem with those shows per se, but they've been showing so many of them that it's saturated the channel to the point where I just don't watch it anymore.
Lately, if I watch TV it's either something like Jeopardy or History Channel. One of my favorite shows right now is Modern Marvels on History. They go over all sorts of very interesting topics from a variety of fields. Also of interest is Engineering Disasters, though they don't have very many episodes of that. For my SciFi fix, I download Stargate and Battlestar since I don't get SciFi with the cable package in my apartment.
Shows like American Crapper, er, Chopper are just the new pop-culture type engineering and documentary shows. Kids want to see "cool" and "badass" guys build stupid looking bikes. "Lookit me ma! I'm acting like a moron while skirting with breaking the law and riding my shiny new trike!" No wonder sites like MySpace are so populous anymore...
Excel 12 (aka Office 2003, currently in development) will have 16k columns x 1M rows.
:)
Well, let's take a look-see.
* Fires up Excel 12 Beta 1 *
Hey, neat! Looky there, it's true. XFD1048576... what a cell reference
Excel does act a little weird when you get down to the last 20 or so rows/columns. It starts having a hard time drawing the window resulting in a lot of black boxes. Odd, but not really unexpected in the first beta.
Did you ever take history class in High school?
Did you?
Out of everybody, it was the British who came closest to taking over the entire world, and their real estate only came to about 26% of the globe. Your Romans were only 17th with 4%.
Since we have recently completely lost any semblance of morals
Morals are sticky because they are simply the accepted standards of right and wrong for a given group. Some people say that Europeans are less moral than Americans because of infidelity, etc.
(witness the implicit approval of torture in Gitmo and Iraq, as well as the use of nuclear weapons against other countries;
Say what? The US has used just two nuclear weapons against another country and that was back in WWII. Are you going on about that, or has there been some new developments?
have you heard anyone on the news saying nukes are definitely never going to be used? look back a decade or two and the tone is completely different).
Just what we need. Give the brainless talking heads something else to "confirm". How can anyone say that nuclear weapons will "definitely never" be used? Do you honestly think that just because nobody has said it that we're somehow more likely to use them? Against who? Even if somebody did "confirm" it, do you think that would really mean anything?
...while Michael Chrichton is giving speeches detailing environmentalism as a religion.
Not everybody cared for the book (as evidenced by some of the reviews [personally I found it quite refreshing, he made a lot of very interesting points]), but Crichton's recent novel State of Fear dealt with almost this exact viewpoint. Individuals and "environmental" groups proclaiming doomsday just around the corner, and it's always our fault. Conveniently enough it's also right when they're having some sort of fundraiser or selling a new book.
*cough* *cough*
Give me a break. This guy is just the exact opposite as the niche of corporate types who really don't care if they dump toxic waste into the groundwater near a preschool.