But going forward, Office 2004 for Mac will no longer be availble and no IT manager in his right mind will go with an office suite that doesn't support scripting.
Many companies don't care, since very few employees will know that the scripting ability even *exists*. Also, OpenOffice (and NeoOffice, which runs natively on Macs) supports scripting - in multiple languages including Java.
That has to be one of the BEST features ever that Microsoft could do for macintosh.
I've actually written some macros to do some pretty elaborate things (read: connect to a mainframe via FTP, pull today's list of transactions, move it to an Excel file, sort them by various categories, and then give the totals for each category). And, no, I didn't have access to the mainframe itself, so native Unix tools were not an option. And the project had to be done approximately yesterday, look nice, and be usable by n00bs. Last I heard, 2 years later, the magic spreadsheet is still in use. Unless it's replaced by another scripting language, (Java would be ideal) it's actually a pretty big loss!
Look, you have to hand it to microsoft here - they are at least TRYING. I really get the feeling that someone, somewhere inside redmont finally got a clue and got them fired up about really cracking down in terms of security.
Nah, the music industry just threatened to sue them out of existence if they didn't implement a framework upon which "unbreakable" DRM can be based. This is a step in the wrong direction - rumor even has it that "unsigned" drivers won't run in Vista x64, so niche hardware manufacturers will have to pay $500 or more to M$ and VerySlime for their golden blessing.
The good thing is that this may finally push more users towards the Unixoid OS's which have the *right* security model - you can do whatever the hell you want as long as you know how, but not if you're not logged in as root and you don't run as root by default unless you're stupid.
Usually I find it's the middle-aged white protestant males who don't know what the fuck is going on half the time. Why can't we just hire a bunch of Indians, Eastern European Jews and Asian women?
I *am* an Eastern European Jew, or at least my parents were...:) Hire the best man/woman/trans for the job, and don't worry about their gender or origins as long as they can get their clearance!
Nukes, and/or hydro as I said before. Besides, electric trains may well be more efficient, since trains braking down a hill can use their motors as generators and dump the excess energy back into the grid...
Why are you insulting my 112 year old home you insensitive clod!
Actually, some of the older houses weren't bad, assuming good insulation (which can be added in some cases). A/C and refrigeration weren't ubiquitous in the 1890s, so houses had to be designed to vent by natural circulation in summer. My family's old shore house dating from that era was even insulated - using (I kid you not) bags full of old shredded newspaper which had been pre-soaked in a borax solution to make it less flammable and less attractive to critters.
There's a lot of needless Gore biography, but the major point is that we can reduce a lot of CO2 emissions WITHOUT changing our lifestyles.
Then again, some change of lifestyle wouldn't be such a bad idea, really. Right now, a lot of Americans are pretty overweight, out of shape, and spend 2 *hours* of their lives every day in isolating glass and steel moving bubbles. Driving is fun, but *having* to drive sucks royally. If smaller cities and towns with businesses in their center cores within walking, biking, or short driving distance of homes became viable again, this wouldn't be such a terrible thing. The evisceration of rural America and the movement of (regular, not nostalgic or kitchy) businesses to inaccessible highway strips isn't a great trend.
Adding another $4 at each pit stop isn't just robbery, it is rape.
To make matters even more decetful, these rapist advertise everywhere, then argue that if we don't like it we can walk to work.
The oil companies aren't forcibly raping us. We're bending over, spreading our cheeks, and taking it without lube from them!
We drive unnecessarily huge, inefficient cars. We live in comparatively big houses which are often poorly designed (read: no passive solar heat in winter, no convection ventilation in summer) even if well insulated. We oppose the construction of new nuke and hydro power plants: not in my backyard! We commute to work by car from 40 or 50 miles away. We don't complain when our employers put up a new headquarters in the middle of nowhere. We haven't electrified our railroads in order to move freight without using oil.
This isn't rape. This is a consensual masochistic activity on the part of the US.
I was on an internship at, uh, a large computer corporation last summer (you could probably figure it out if you do some googling of my name, but I'll keep it anonymous) where for about half the summer the A/C in our room was turned so far up that we were in long pants, long sleeve shirts, sometimes jackets, and running a space heater.
Were there any women there, and how many nipples did you count?
I don't disagree with you on that, but that just wasn't what you stated in your original post.
I stated that the: ...'net doesn't need to be in classrooms...
"Classrooms" was meant literally, not referring to libraries, computer labs, etc - I think that the 'net makes a great research tool, but it's use does not have to be ubiquitous in schools, and it being ubiquitous might actually detract from the education aspect. Maybe one computer hooked up to a projector per classroom with no laptop use generally allowed by students (distracting and typing sounds are kind of annoying).
Yeah yeah yeah, I'll get off your damn lawn now, old man.
Sorry to reply twice, but the emphasis on "wired schools/workplaces/foo" in the US is a pet gripe of mine. Don't get me wrong; I'm making fuck-you money off of this phenomenon right now, but people have to realize that "technology" doesn't only mean computers. If a school spends, say $200,000 on a shiny new network, IT consulting, M$ software, and computers, it detracts from other things the school could be spending money on. Like hiring the most talented teachers. And supplies for their chem, physics, and bio labs. I've heard that the hard science courses in many high schools have become really watered down over the past 10 years. The reason is often given as Safety (can't have kids playing with dangerous chems) or Ethics (no dissections), but could it be that as money is spent on "tech", other programs are falling by the wayside?! And no, kids, "virtual experiments" are not the same as seeing the real thing in all of its squishy or bubbly, hissing, glory.
Why would you implicitly deny access to the internet to students with a statement like the one you made?
I'm not. I'm implying that there's a time and place for 'net use, and that's not (always) in the classroom. The library, computer courses, at home for research, but we don't need more distractions in class. (And a *good* teacher will keep the class's attention.)
I personally can't see why anyone should have internet access. It seems like people living prior to 1990 did just fine without. People also did fine without books before Guthenberg came along.
In classrooms. Used by the students during classes. I have no problem with schools having computers in the library to be used for research, or laptops being given to students to work on papers at home, or (of course) CS courses...
Set up a bandwidth-shaping/QoS-type system that guarantees certain computers (office computers, presentation boxes in classrooms) a certain bandwidth. The other computers can share the scraps from this. In order to prevent hogging of the scraps, also set up a system where the remaining bandwidth is doled out more or less equally to those who need it. With routers running Linux, this should be less difficult than it seems.
Blocking sites is a half-assed solution since students will always find a way to expend bandwidth. (Personally, I think that the 'net doesn't need to be in classrooms anyway. I went to HS from 1993 to 1997 and survived just fine without going online in school.)
An organization like the NSA is not waste - it is, IMHO, the future. The next thing is to make all their collected information publically accessible. Imagine a world where you could surf the net from work, and see what your wife was doing at home and what your children were learning at school - knowing all that time that your children and your wife can see what you are doing at work.
Maybe you don't, but most humans have egos. Thus, if they'd be constantly afraid of having their failures held up for all to see, they'd seldom if ever try anything new. Also, how long would the data collected be available? Are you denying people who made mistakes in their youth the ability to start a new life of which they would be proud? Why should it be easier for some schmuck with a grudge to dig up something that happened 20 years ago and use it against you? Not to mention the potential for stalking, harrassment, etc, by various crazy people.
They jack up the price because they know they can because of ridiculous State and Federal contracts that have to be used to purchase these items, which not just anyone can get.
They also "jack up" their prices for the Government because of the ridiculous amount of red tape required to do anything for the Federal government. If you're working for a small company, you just go to the owner and ask for approval for new hardware. For the Government, you have to do through several levels and maybe wait a year or five. Also, there are ridiculous and invasive regulations that Federal contractors have to follow, like the Drug-Free Workplace Act that requires them to set up piss-testing programs for their employees, and (less true today) have affirmative action programs to ensure hiring of minorities and women (thus possibly causing more competent workers to get passed up in the name of equality).
If I were doing work for a dementedly demanding entity like that, I, too, would charge 300% of my usual rate as compensation for the headache I'd wake up with every morning.
Usually data center equipment is made more ruggedly to endure faulty power and high heat. I just shake my head at the data centers that operate at 60 to 70 degrees F when that kind of equipment can operate indefinitely at 80F.
Actually, there *is* (sort of) a good reason for this. If the cooling fails, you have more time to get the A/C systems back on line before the temp. hits 90 or 100...
Also, sadly, *most* offices in the US are cooled to 65 or 70F for the comfort of execudroids wearing suits and ties, so maybe the temperature in data centers is that way because it's "always been done that way."
i agree with your concern in general, but it's worth pointing out that one can, in fact, file a provisional patent which lasts up to one year. i'm not sure what the expense involved is, and you have to provide more than just a description (which is a good thing, in my opinion), but the bar is much lower than a full patent app.
AFAIK, the fee is $100-300 and you may need an attorney, so it'll cost more if you don't want to do the leg work yourself. I'm saying that you should be able to send in a detailed description of the invention combined with an affidavit that this is your work. Maybe it shouldn't give you any patent rights just yet, but it should be strong evidence when they're deciding to whom to grant the patent to.
And how is this in any way substantially different from someone who sets up a new kind of shop or service or method of selling product only to have their competitors, yes, compete and emulate their ideas? Capitalism rewards enterprise, not inventiveness. I have no sympathy whatsoever for inventors who sit around all day trying to get rich quick.
Well, this is why the Founding Fathers didn't make the US a pure capitalist society and provided for things like patents in the Constitution. They *wanted* invention to be lucrative, so as to encourage progress, and there's no carrot like the almighty buck.
As to corporations mass-producing a lot of something invented by somebody else without their consent, said corporation doesn't have to be the most innovative or enterprising - it just needs to have the money and time to set up a production line. Patents allow the little guy, the startup, to compete with the 800-ton gorilla.
A third reason for patents is that they allow inventions to go into the public domain (patents are public info, y'know!) after the patent expires. Before there were patents, inventions and their methods of manufacture were often kept secret by inventors and their businesses in order to protect their profits. If the inventor died or the business went bust, the invention could be lost forever.
and screws small inventors in favor of large corporations. Why? Because filing a patent app takes time and money, which may leave small entrepreneurs with no protection while doing the initial marketing of their invention. The only way that I'd go for this is if there were a *simple* way that costs no more than $25 and can be done by most people without an attorne to apply for a provisional patent lasting, say, 6 months. Or, perhaps, send in a description of the invention to "stake a claim" for free.
But then again, I think any crime committed by a cop should be an automatic felony.
Not *any* crime, like running a traffic light, but serious crimes like excessive brutality, etc. As a matter of fact, "deprivation of civil rights under color of law" is already a felony under Federal law and punishable by death in certain cases:
18 US Code 242:
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States,... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death. Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States,... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
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Many companies don't care, since very few employees will know that the scripting ability even *exists*. Also, OpenOffice (and NeoOffice, which runs natively on Macs) supports scripting - in multiple languages including Java.
-b.
I've actually written some macros to do some pretty elaborate things (read: connect to a mainframe via FTP, pull today's list of transactions, move it to an Excel file, sort them by various categories, and then give the totals for each category). And, no, I didn't have access to the mainframe itself, so native Unix tools were not an option. And the project had to be done approximately yesterday, look nice, and be usable by n00bs. Last I heard, 2 years later, the magic spreadsheet is still in use. Unless it's replaced by another scripting language, (Java would be ideal) it's actually a pretty big loss!
-b.
Nah, the music industry just threatened to sue them out of existence if they didn't implement a framework upon which "unbreakable" DRM can be based. This is a step in the wrong direction - rumor even has it that "unsigned" drivers won't run in Vista x64, so niche hardware manufacturers will have to pay $500 or more to M$ and VerySlime for their golden blessing.
The good thing is that this may finally push more users towards the Unixoid OS's which have the *right* security model - you can do whatever the hell you want as long as you know how, but not if you're not logged in as root and you don't run as root by default unless you're stupid.
-b.
I *am* an Eastern European Jew, or at least my parents were... :) Hire the best man/woman/trans for the job, and don't worry about their gender or origins as long as they can get their clearance!
-b.
Nukes, and/or hydro as I said before. Besides, electric trains may well be more efficient, since trains braking down a hill can use their motors as generators and dump the excess energy back into the grid...
-b.
Actually, some of the older houses weren't bad, assuming good insulation (which can be added in some cases). A/C and refrigeration weren't ubiquitous in the 1890s, so houses had to be designed to vent by natural circulation in summer. My family's old shore house dating from that era was even insulated - using (I kid you not) bags full of old shredded newspaper which had been pre-soaked in a borax solution to make it less flammable and less attractive to critters.
-b.
Then again, some change of lifestyle wouldn't be such a bad idea, really. Right now, a lot of Americans are pretty overweight, out of shape, and spend 2 *hours* of their lives every day in isolating glass and steel moving bubbles. Driving is fun, but *having* to drive sucks royally. If smaller cities and towns with businesses in their center cores within walking, biking, or short driving distance of homes became viable again, this wouldn't be such a terrible thing. The evisceration of rural America and the movement of (regular, not nostalgic or kitchy) businesses to inaccessible highway strips isn't a great trend.
-b.
To make matters even more decetful, these rapist advertise everywhere, then argue that if we don't like it we can walk to work.
The oil companies aren't forcibly raping us. We're bending over, spreading our cheeks, and taking it without lube from them!
We drive unnecessarily huge, inefficient cars. We live in comparatively big houses which are often poorly designed (read: no passive solar heat in winter, no convection ventilation in summer) even if well insulated. We oppose the construction of new nuke and hydro power plants: not in my backyard! We commute to work by car from 40 or 50 miles away. We don't complain when our employers put up a new headquarters in the middle of nowhere. We haven't electrified our railroads in order to move freight without using oil.
This isn't rape. This is a consensual masochistic activity on the part of the US.
-b.
Well, I guess they don't run it too well, since their header is showing up "split" in Firefox under BSD.
-b.
Were there any women there, and how many nipples did you count?
-b.
I stated that the:
...'net doesn't need to be in classrooms...
"Classrooms" was meant literally, not referring to libraries, computer labs, etc - I think that the 'net makes a great research tool, but it's use does not have to be ubiquitous in schools, and it being ubiquitous might actually detract from the education aspect. Maybe one computer hooked up to a projector per classroom with no laptop use generally allowed by students (distracting and typing sounds are kind of annoying).
-b.
Sorry to reply twice, but the emphasis on "wired schools/workplaces/foo" in the US is a pet gripe of mine. Don't get me wrong; I'm making fuck-you money off of this phenomenon right now, but people have to realize that "technology" doesn't only mean computers. If a school spends, say $200,000 on a shiny new network, IT consulting, M$ software, and computers, it detracts from other things the school could be spending money on. Like hiring the most talented teachers. And supplies for their chem, physics, and bio labs. I've heard that the hard science courses in many high schools have become really watered down over the past 10 years. The reason is often given as Safety (can't have kids playing with dangerous chems) or Ethics (no dissections), but could it be that as money is spent on "tech", other programs are falling by the wayside?! And no, kids, "virtual experiments" are not the same as seeing the real thing in all of its squishy or bubbly, hissing, glory.
-b.
I'm not. I'm implying that there's a time and place for 'net use, and that's not (always) in the classroom. The library, computer courses, at home for research, but we don't need more distractions in class. (And a *good* teacher will keep the class's attention.)
-b.
In classrooms. Used by the students during classes. I have no problem with schools having computers in the library to be used for research, or laptops being given to students to work on papers at home, or (of course) CS courses...
-b.
Blocking sites is a half-assed solution since students will always find a way to expend bandwidth. (Personally, I think that the 'net doesn't need to be in classrooms anyway. I went to HS from 1993 to 1997 and survived just fine without going online in school.)
-b.
Maybe you don't, but most humans have egos. Thus, if they'd be constantly afraid of having their failures held up for all to see, they'd seldom if ever try anything new. Also, how long would the data collected be available? Are you denying people who made mistakes in their youth the ability to start a new life of which they would be proud? Why should it be easier for some schmuck with a grudge to dig up something that happened 20 years ago and use it against you? Not to mention the potential for stalking, harrassment, etc, by various crazy people.
-b.
They also "jack up" their prices for the Government because of the ridiculous amount of red tape required to do anything for the Federal government. If you're working for a small company, you just go to the owner and ask for approval for new hardware. For the Government, you have to do through several levels and maybe wait a year or five. Also, there are ridiculous and invasive regulations that Federal contractors have to follow, like the Drug-Free Workplace Act that requires them to set up piss-testing programs for their employees, and (less true today) have affirmative action programs to ensure hiring of minorities and women (thus possibly causing more competent workers to get passed up in the name of equality).
If I were doing work for a dementedly demanding entity like that, I, too, would charge 300% of my usual rate as compensation for the headache I'd wake up with every morning.
-b.
Not many of the offices that I've seen. 65/75F summer/winter all the way! You actually have to dress warmer in summer inside in some cases!
-b.
Actually, there *is* (sort of) a good reason for this. If the cooling fails, you have more time to get the A/C systems back on line before the temp. hits 90 or 100...
Also, sadly, *most* offices in the US are cooled to 65 or 70F for the comfort of execudroids wearing suits and ties, so maybe the temperature in data centers is that way because it's "always been done that way."
-b.
I'm picturing several hundred terrorism suspects running around on a giant hamster wheel.
-b.
AFAIK, the fee is $100-300 and you may need an attorney, so it'll cost more if you don't want to do the leg work yourself. I'm saying that you should be able to send in a detailed description of the invention combined with an affidavit that this is your work. Maybe it shouldn't give you any patent rights just yet, but it should be strong evidence when they're deciding to whom to grant the patent to.
-b.
Well, this is why the Founding Fathers didn't make the US a pure capitalist society and provided for things like patents in the Constitution. They *wanted* invention to be lucrative, so as to encourage progress, and there's no carrot like the almighty buck.
As to corporations mass-producing a lot of something invented by somebody else without their consent, said corporation doesn't have to be the most innovative or enterprising - it just needs to have the money and time to set up a production line. Patents allow the little guy, the startup, to compete with the 800-ton gorilla.
A third reason for patents is that they allow inventions to go into the public domain (patents are public info, y'know!) after the patent expires. Before there were patents, inventions and their methods of manufacture were often kept secret by inventors and their businesses in order to protect their profits. If the inventor died or the business went bust, the invention could be lost forever.
-b.
-b.
Difficult question. But I'd say that I'd lean towards the rights of the citizen rather than those of the cop. Sorry.
-b.
Not *any* crime, like running a traffic light, but serious crimes like excessive brutality, etc. As a matter of fact, "deprivation of civil rights under color of law" is already a felony under Federal law and punishable by death in certain cases:
18 US Code 242:
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death. Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
-b.