Personally, I also think the person is trolling, but more and more with things like No Script, Opera's upcoming site specific prefs, and the current quick prefs, more and more people are not allowing javascript by default. I wonder how this will impact web pages, especially for the "first impressions" where it's not at all assumed that the user will trust you yet.
That's why other posts say it depends on the site. If I'm looking for a company to provide a service, and one site requires IE, while 5 competitors work in Opera - guess what, the company that requires IE doesn't get looked at further (assuming of course it's consumer products for my use).
If you're trying to compete with Amazon, and you only work in IE - guess what, you better be 40% off Amazon's prices (and communicate that to me in Opera so I have some reason to look at your site).
For most consumer businesses, there's too many competitors who do work in Opera or browser of choice, to worry about the IE only ones.
I just wonder (assuming it works correctly only in FireFox for a clear example) how many IE users and Opera users and Safari users etc wouldn't just go to a different site as opposed to downloading, installing and then using another browser for *one site*.
I've read the wikipedia entry, and I personally think that the first indicated counter to the chinese room is one that is not satisfactorily answered:
Although the individual in the Chinese room does not understand Chinese, perhaps the person and the room considered together as a system do. Searles reply to this is that someone might in principle memorize the rule book; they would then be able to interact as if they understood Chinese, but would still just be following a set of rules, with no understanding of the significance of the symbols they are manipulating. This leads to the interesting problem of a person being able to converse fluently in Chinese without "knowing" Chinese, and a counterargument says that such a person actually does understand Chinese even though they would claim otherwise. A related argument is that the person doesn't know Chinese but the system comprising the person and the rule book does.
If you can converse fluently in chinese, how does it work out that you don't "know" chinese?
Reducing it further, if I need to get from Chicago to New York, and I print out a mapquest route, don't I now know how to get from Chicago to New York?
At a basic level, I don't see a clear difference between being able to do something based on what you've memorized, and being able to do something based on instructions you have. Practically, both accomplish the task, and to other people, appear largly the same.
A clearer example might be that while no one person knows how to write Windows XP, Microsoft does. Systems knowledge is important in managing large complex tasks.
What's interesting is that baen books has found that piracy isn't an issue unless you're Terry Pratchett or Stephen King. And even then, it's uncertain.
I believe there is a preferences setting that either allows or disables javascript access to the status bar. Yup, tools->preferences, advanced, content, javascript options, Allow changing of status field.
And this is why I use proxomitron to remove the google tracking, as well as the fark tracking links. The filters even give me a nice hover tracking link box incase they couldn't untrack the link properly, or I for some reason do want to be tracked on that click.
I can't imagine why you couldn't just not fetch any image of 1x1 size? You might have to code an extension, or use proxomitron, but I'm pretty sure you can discriminate by size as to what images to load.
Very true. But some games like NWN and certain MMORPGs overcome this by allowing a DM sort of character, or like the Star Wars Jedi Knight games have huge amounts of scripted things, so again, if the main point is dungeon crawls, it just seems like video games have a better experiance: i.e. you can have a complex combat system with the computer doing all the rolls in split seconds.
Video games are much less limiting than they once were. All that said, there's also the social aspect of D&D that I have yet to get out of any game - though I also refuse to pay a monthly fee for an MMORPG based on what I've seen so maybe I'm wrong.
In any regards, I miss my D&D days - and wish I could figure out how to get started with OpenRPG.
Well, I keep hearing about how cool maps.google is - but I really don't get it. All I get is a blank page with loading... on it. Boring to me. Maps24.com otoh works, and looks pretty nice. Of course, it uses the "old" java technology, but it does stuff.
OT: but how does OpenRPG work? Are there any good communities where someone might get started in a game with it? I've looked over the main site, but not much luck so far for me.
I've installed the program, but I really don't get the whole tree/node thing.
Personally I think the main thing to get in D&D is some sense of why you're invading the dungeon, and maybe some changes you can bring to the world through your actions. Not so much focusing on RP, but adding something that can't better be done in an MMORPG.
I mean, if all the game is about is killing things, it's faster and easier to play WoW or Diablo II.
I guess the reason is to balance the mental stats against the physical ones. For instance, if CHA isn't used in skill or RP rolls to say, affect how people react to you, then everyone's going to have a low low CHA and pump points or the better rolls into the physical stats.
No one will play any of the classes or prestiege classes that focus on interaction.
It has to do with min/maxing(which is really munchkinism the way most people use it) really. You may not care - and it's fine to ignore INT, CHA and WIS scores, but it does fundamentally change the balance of the game IMHO.
Also, say you have a character with an 18 INT. Well, it's unlikely you can play that character that smart, so dice rolls help. Likewise, your 8 CHA should have some affect in how your arguments go say - but you might be very elequont - doesn't mean your character is. Playing it differently would be in some ways equivelent to asking you to do a bench press to set your characters STR or asking you to run on a treadmill to determine how long you can run away from some bandits chasing you.
Or you're basing this on the fact that you work at Best Buy or something, and have noticed that nearly a hundred percent of the ones people bring in for service have problems. Nope, I have no problems with that concept. I'm basing this on information provided by the company indicating how may iPods we sell and of those, how many come back to be worked on.
Of course, maybe we get all the bad iPods, and every other distribution outlet has no problems.
However, based on my experiance first hand (sure, not totally representative, but good enough for me) plus the multiple recalls for different versions of iPods for battery problems, and Apple's original treatment of the battery issue a few years ago, not to mention the non user replacable nature of a consumable item, I'll continue to recommend other mp3 players.
And how many people at home are buying reference books for hundereds of dollars? Sure, this may be equal in cost to college textbooks, but it's marketed as entertainment. Most entertainment books are at most $25 in hardcover.
If you consider any pre-built PC not to have crappy hardware, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe AlienWare. Micron used to before they sold the devision, now IDK. All the major vendors I work with: HP Compaq Gateway E-Machines Sony Dell have what I would consider crappy hardware. They all seem to scrimp on the motherboard, the RAM, the Optical drives and video cards to sell the "biggest" (used to be most Mhz, now, whatever the big model# is) CPU. When I had a Micron PIII 600, it would regularily outperform (without any modding by me) many Retail companys 1Ghz machines - because it came with a decent amount of Crucial RAM, because the motherboard was quality, because the video card was mid range (TNT2 as opposed to integrated whatever).
I'm sorry, but the no name components cause problems for the PCs you can buy at Best Buy or Circuit City - they have PSUs that seem to die out of the box, or within a year (I mean, I get over a year out of cheapest parts from newegg...) The low quality PSUs stuttering (really, the back light blinks, and it's like a random brownout) damages motherboards, fries RAM etc, the bulk RAM that one out of a thousand sticks is tested by the manufacturer has bit errors, or just *is* bad.
Then you have Dell selling P4s without a fan on the heatsink, the heatsink is aluminum, not copper, and the active cooling is a case fan with an air guide...
I could go on, but you get the point. If there was a mass market quality PC, I think windows could still be a contender for the masses, but there isn't. Apple controls the hardware, so they have quality components. PCs mostly compete on the cheapest price - so you have crap hardware, which leads to more problems than windows has on it's own. And good luck installing Linux - propriatery hardware abounds (less now though).
iPods are really Apple's version of Windows - a big hit, but a POS functionally. I don't mean the interface, it's pretty nice - I mean the hardware quality and lifetime has been and seems to continue to be *shit*. Multiple recalls, the whole battery fiasco, not to mention the number that come in for service where I work.
I'd guess that between 10-20 percent of iPods are defective. Another 10% will wear out abnormally quickly for the earbuds, battery, interface buttons or Hard Drive.
Not to mention the deceptive advertising.The commercials show people jogging, dancing, whatever all over the place, the manual states you should not use iPods in any "shocking" manner, specifically prohibiting jogging(at least the iPod mini's of the last year)!
Now, this doesn't void the warrenty(though dropping it or cracking the case/lcd if you put too much pressure on it does), it does cause you to be without an iPod for about a month or so while it's being fixed...
Interestingly enough, I have found that Powerquest Drive Image 7 (what came out just as it was bought by Symantec) indeed was really crappy at copying live filesystems, it can be done and done well. This has been proven to me (and many others at dslreports) by Acronis with their True Image product.
I have used it exclusively for about 2 years, and never had a corrupted image, nor anything but a flawless restore.
Why Symantec can't do this is left as an excercise for the reader.
Indeed - there are really only 2 or 3 free anti-spyware programs with the reputation and history of Spybot of being generally *not actually spyware themselves*. There's only about 3 other commercial anti-spyware's that are also decent.
There is a myriad of methods to back up, and I can think of 3 alternatives to Ghost right now: Acronis True Image Drive Image XML (Name is funky but I think that's it) Just about any live linux CD
Symantec Corp is not a bad product. But seeing as you can't really get it for home use, and the fact that just about every Norton product is a POS, I think many are sort of boycotting the company entirely.
Well, my personal choice is NOD32. That said, I think any of a number of programs are less intrusive than (consumer) versions of Norton *or* Mcaffee. McAffee is a PITA to uninstall on store bought machines, as it keeps popping up boxes asking you to fully configure it to protect your system - you can't friggen close the box, so first you have to finish the damn install of McAffee just to remove it.
Bonus points to the OEMs who have both Nortan and McAffee preinstalled and popping up their "protect your PC" boxes on first run.
I like NOD32 because of it's effective hurestics, and decent definition update times (2x a day now I believe). Also, I like it's modular nature - you can run it as a scan everything or just an definition update checker, or anywhere in-between. I also have yet to manage to get it to conflict with any of the odd software I use - unlike the runner up Kapersky.
Kapersky would be a real good choice - and I used to recommend it equally based on what I read on forums (I found NOD32 first, and have had no reason to change), but now they seem to be pushing suites - the bane of my existance with security products - and they have had mixed reviews with them.
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Personally, I also think the person is trolling, but more and more with things like No Script, Opera's upcoming site specific prefs, and the current quick prefs, more and more people are not allowing javascript by default. I wonder how this will impact web pages, especially for the "first impressions" where it's not at all assumed that the user will trust you yet.
That's why other posts say it depends on the site. If I'm looking for a company to provide a service, and one site requires IE, while 5 competitors work in Opera - guess what, the company that requires IE doesn't get looked at further (assuming of course it's consumer products for my use).
If you're trying to compete with Amazon, and you only work in IE - guess what, you better be 40% off Amazon's prices (and communicate that to me in Opera so I have some reason to look at your site).
For most consumer businesses, there's too many competitors who do work in Opera or browser of choice, to worry about the IE only ones.
I just wonder (assuming it works correctly only in FireFox for a clear example) how many IE users and Opera users and Safari users etc wouldn't just go to a different site as opposed to downloading, installing and then using another browser for *one site*.
I've read the wikipedia entry, and I personally think that the first indicated counter to the chinese room is one that is not satisfactorily answered:
Although the individual in the Chinese room does not understand Chinese, perhaps the person and the room considered together as a system do. Searles reply to this is that someone might in principle memorize the rule book; they would then be able to interact as if they understood Chinese, but would still just be following a set of rules, with no understanding of the significance of the symbols they are manipulating. This leads to the interesting problem of a person being able to converse fluently in Chinese without "knowing" Chinese, and a counterargument says that such a person actually does understand Chinese even though they would claim otherwise. A related argument is that the person doesn't know Chinese but the system comprising the person and the rule book does.
If you can converse fluently in chinese, how does it work out that you don't "know" chinese?
Reducing it further, if I need to get from Chicago to New York, and I print out a mapquest route, don't I now know how to get from Chicago to New York?
At a basic level, I don't see a clear difference between being able to do something based on what you've memorized, and being able to do something based on instructions you have. Practically, both accomplish the task, and to other people, appear largly the same.
A clearer example might be that while no one person knows how to write Windows XP, Microsoft does. Systems knowledge is important in managing large complex tasks.
What's interesting is that baen books has found that piracy isn't an issue unless you're Terry Pratchett or Stephen King. And even then, it's uncertain.
See: http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm
I believe there is a preferences setting that either allows or disables javascript access to the status bar. Yup, tools->preferences, advanced, content, javascript options, Allow changing of status field.
And this is why I use proxomitron to remove the google tracking, as well as the fark tracking links. The filters even give me a nice hover tracking link box incase they couldn't untrack the link properly, or I for some reason do want to be tracked on that click.
There is some worry that any browser shipping with a native AdBlock might well be blocked wholesale from ad supported websites.
Interestingly enough, Opera does have said toggle in their quick prefs(F12) menu.
I can't imagine why you couldn't just not fetch any image of 1x1 size? You might have to code an extension, or use proxomitron, but I'm pretty sure you can discriminate by size as to what images to load.
Very true. But some games like NWN and certain MMORPGs overcome this by allowing a DM sort of character, or like the Star Wars Jedi Knight games have huge amounts of scripted things, so again, if the main point is dungeon crawls, it just seems like video games have a better experiance:
i.e. you can have a complex combat system with the computer doing all the rolls in split seconds.
Video games are much less limiting than they once were. All that said, there's also the social aspect of D&D that I have yet to get out of any game - though I also refuse to pay a monthly fee for an MMORPG based on what I've seen so maybe I'm wrong.
In any regards, I miss my D&D days - and wish I could figure out how to get started with OpenRPG.
Well, I keep hearing about how cool maps.google is - but I really don't get it. All I get is a blank page with loading... on it. Boring to me. Maps24.com otoh works, and looks pretty nice. Of course, it uses the "old" java technology, but it does stuff.
OT: but how does OpenRPG work? Are there any good communities where someone might get started in a game with it? I've looked over the main site, but not much luck so far for me.
I've installed the program, but I really don't get the whole tree/node thing.
Personally I think the main thing to get in D&D is some sense of why you're invading the dungeon, and maybe some changes you can bring to the world through your actions. Not so much focusing on RP, but adding something that can't better be done in an MMORPG.
I mean, if all the game is about is killing things, it's faster and easier to play WoW or Diablo II.
I guess the reason is to balance the mental stats against the physical ones. For instance, if CHA isn't used in skill or RP rolls to say, affect how people react to you, then everyone's going to have a low low CHA and pump points or the better rolls into the physical stats.
No one will play any of the classes or prestiege classes that focus on interaction.
It has to do with min/maxing(which is really munchkinism the way most people use it) really. You may not care - and it's fine to ignore INT, CHA and WIS scores, but it does fundamentally change the balance of the game IMHO.
Also, say you have a character with an 18 INT. Well, it's unlikely you can play that character that smart, so dice rolls help. Likewise, your 8 CHA should have some affect in how your arguments go say - but you might be very elequont - doesn't mean your character is. Playing it differently would be in some ways equivelent to asking you to do a bench press to set your characters STR or asking you to run on a treadmill to determine how long you can run away from some bandits chasing you.
Anyone tried using say, OpenRPG for this? I mean, voice chat is fine, but you still have problems with maps and such.
Or you're basing this on the fact that you work at Best Buy or something, and have noticed that nearly a hundred percent of the ones people bring in for service have problems.
Nope, I have no problems with that concept. I'm basing this on information provided by the company indicating how may iPods we sell and of those, how many come back to be worked on.
Of course, maybe we get all the bad iPods, and every other distribution outlet has no problems.
However, based on my experiance first hand (sure, not totally representative, but good enough for me) plus the multiple recalls for different versions of iPods for battery problems, and Apple's original treatment of the battery issue a few years ago, not to mention the non user replacable nature of a consumable item, I'll continue to recommend other mp3 players.
And how many people at home are buying reference books for hundereds of dollars? Sure, this may be equal in cost to college textbooks, but it's marketed as entertainment. Most entertainment books are at most $25 in hardcover.
If you consider any pre-built PC not to have crappy hardware, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe AlienWare. Micron used to before they sold the devision, now IDK. All the major vendors I work with:
HP
Compaq
Gateway
E-Machines
Sony
Dell
have what I would consider crappy hardware. They all seem to scrimp on the motherboard, the RAM, the Optical drives and video cards to sell the "biggest" (used to be most Mhz, now, whatever the big model# is) CPU. When I had a Micron PIII 600, it would regularily outperform (without any modding by me) many Retail companys 1Ghz machines - because it came with a decent amount of Crucial RAM, because the motherboard was quality, because the video card was mid range (TNT2 as opposed to integrated whatever).
I'm sorry, but the no name components cause problems for the PCs you can buy at Best Buy or Circuit City - they have PSUs that seem to die out of the box, or within a year (I mean, I get over a year out of cheapest parts from newegg...) The low quality PSUs stuttering (really, the back light blinks, and it's like a random brownout) damages motherboards, fries RAM etc, the bulk RAM that one out of a thousand sticks is tested by the manufacturer has bit errors, or just *is* bad.
Then you have Dell selling P4s without a fan on the heatsink, the heatsink is aluminum, not copper, and the active cooling is a case fan with an air guide...
I could go on, but you get the point. If there was a mass market quality PC, I think windows could still be a contender for the masses, but there isn't. Apple controls the hardware, so they have quality components. PCs mostly compete on the cheapest price - so you have crap hardware, which leads to more problems than windows has on it's own. And good luck installing Linux - propriatery hardware abounds (less now though).
iPods are really Apple's version of Windows - a big hit, but a POS functionally. I don't mean the interface, it's pretty nice - I mean the hardware quality and lifetime has been and seems to continue to be *shit*. Multiple recalls, the whole battery fiasco, not to mention the number that come in for service where I work.
I'd guess that between 10-20 percent of iPods are defective. Another 10% will wear out abnormally quickly for the earbuds, battery, interface buttons or Hard Drive.
Not to mention the deceptive advertising.The commercials show people jogging, dancing, whatever all over the place, the manual states you should not use iPods in any "shocking" manner, specifically prohibiting jogging(at least the iPod mini's of the last year)!
Now, this doesn't void the warrenty(though dropping it or cracking the case/lcd if you put too much pressure on it does), it does cause you to be without an iPod for about a month or so while it's being fixed...
How about Acronis Snap Deploy: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/snapdep loy/ ?
Or
Paragon Deployment Manager 7.0: http://www.paragon.ag/dm ?
Of course neither is OSS or free, but maybe they are better than Ghost?
Interestingly enough, I have found that Powerquest Drive Image 7 (what came out just as it was bought by Symantec) indeed was really crappy at copying live filesystems, it can be done and done well. This has been proven to me (and many others at dslreports) by Acronis with their True Image product.
I have used it exclusively for about 2 years, and never had a corrupted image, nor anything but a flawless restore.
Why Symantec can't do this is left as an excercise for the reader.
Indeed - there are really only 2 or 3 free anti-spyware programs with the reputation and history of Spybot of being generally *not actually spyware themselves*. There's only about 3 other commercial anti-spyware's that are also decent.
There is a myriad of methods to back up, and I can think of 3 alternatives to Ghost right now:
Acronis True Image
Drive Image XML (Name is funky but I think that's it)
Just about any live linux CD
Symantec Corp is not a bad product. But seeing as you can't really get it for home use, and the fact that just about every Norton product is a POS, I think many are sort of boycotting the company entirely.
Well, my personal choice is NOD32. That said, I think any of a number of programs are less intrusive than (consumer) versions of Norton *or* Mcaffee. McAffee is a PITA to uninstall on store bought machines, as it keeps popping up boxes asking you to fully configure it to protect your system - you can't friggen close the box, so first you have to finish the damn install of McAffee just to remove it.
Bonus points to the OEMs who have both Nortan and McAffee preinstalled and popping up their "protect your PC" boxes on first run.
I like NOD32 because of it's effective hurestics, and decent definition update times (2x a day now I believe). Also, I like it's modular nature - you can run it as a scan everything or just an definition update checker, or anywhere in-between. I also have yet to manage to get it to conflict with any of the odd software I use - unlike the runner up Kapersky.
Kapersky would be a real good choice - and I used to recommend it equally based on what I read on forums (I found NOD32 first, and have had no reason to change), but now they seem to be pushing suites - the bane of my existance with security products - and they have had mixed reviews with them.