I have a CB in the jeep too, right next to the 2M/HF rigs. Very handy knowing what the road conditions are, especially in winter, here in Montana -- mother nature can be quite the temperamental lady. And while there may not always be a ham on the road, there are always truckers.
All right, we'll start with Josephus. He's a good example of just what I'm trying to tell you.
First of all, Josephus, AKA Yosef Ben Matityahu, A.D. (37 ~100+), had not been born when Christ was supposed to be walking around. So he is not contemporaneous - he literally "came after", and he never saw, or heard, Jesus or any of his claimed works; he didn't see the crucifixion; everything he has to say is second hand, or worse.
Secondly, considering he was born in AD 37, we can safely assume he didn't write anything scholarly for, oh, let's totally give him the benefit of the doubt, let's call it sixteen years later. We'll assume he was a prodigy. And we're also going to ignore that a large number of scholars -- Christian scholars, at that -- consider that Josephus' writings about Christ were partially or completely sourced elsewhere. See wikipedia for starter studies on that -- there is of course much more than you'll find there, but you'll get the gist. In any case, so we have Josephus, reporting on the doings of Christ, who is the hero of the Christian cult, whom he has never met, never seen an act done by, and for which reports he is at least twenty years late to the party.
This makes it very clear that while Josephus, if we take him seriously and stipulate to the authenticity of his writings, can be assigned directly to those who believe there was, in fact, a person named Christ, what we cannot do is take him as direct evidence there was a Christ, because he cannot have ever seen the man or his works -- what he knew of, again only if indeed his writings are actually his, is the Christian cult's reporting of Christ. He presents no evidence; he simply parrots the Christian line (which is one reason his words are doubted by many... the presumption is his writings have been corrupted in the copying by biased parties. Again, read Wikipedia for starters.) I would also point out that Jospehus never claims to have seen Christ, so it's more than a little disingenuous -- or simply misinformed -- to try to claim him as evidence for Christ's actual existence.
Finally, Jospehus actually says very little. He mentions James, a brother of Jesus in one passage; and in another, he delivers about a paragraph of vagueness, no notable details or dates other than mentioning Pilate -- who, we note, as fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26–36, also didn't do anything in front of Josephus. Pilate, too, was long gone by the time Jospehus had learned to speak, much less write scholarly treatises.
None of this stands even weakly as evidence for the actual existence of Jesus. What it does show, even if taken completely at face value, scholarly doubts aside, is that Christians were around, and telling the story as of AD 53 (probably much later... remember, we're giving Josephus the honor of assuming he wrote all this when he was 16.)
It's all over history. Where the GP gets off thinking there was no "Jesus the man," I don't know.
No, in fact, it isn't all over history. You're just parroting what you've been told. As it turns out, there is no evidence backing up the existence of Jesus himself. There are two kinds of secondary evidence: (1) The bible, and (2) the existence of Christians as a cult well after Jesus was supposed to have existed. Jesus only got "all over history" as the religion took hold. The same pattern, by the way, that every other myth follows.
To learn about this, go try and dig up something -- anything -- about Jesus that dates 33 AD or earlier (when he was supposed to be around.) If Jesus is truly "all over history", that should be no problem, right? Go ahead. I can tell you now what you'll find, though: Absolutely nothing other than bible stories.
And I hope I don't have to tell you that a book full of magical claims about a person isn't exactly a good reference for a claim such as "there really was such a person." Were that all it took, you'd be telling me that Harry Potter, Merlin, and Sauron were real people.
I would think Muslims would be champing at the bit to deny Christ and hence, Christianity, but they don't.
That's because you're ignorant (I'm using the word literally here, not as an insult -- there are things you are unaware of.) Muslims worship the same god; they consider Jesus one of their prophets. They just think Christians worship incorrectly (exactly the same complaint many Christians make of each other.)
Calling the Bible stories fiction is really a stretch, especially in light of the fact that you have no way of proving so
Calling the Odin / Valhalla stories fiction is really a stretch, especially... Get my point?
Just because there is a story, doesn't mean, or even hint, that it is true. Further, when a story contains magic as we understand it today, rather than science as we understand it today, so far, for all the stories in human history, this has been an excellent indicator that the story is not true. The bible is rife with nonsensical claims. Water into wine. Pillars of salt. Voices from the sky. Parting of the sea. Virgin birth. Resurrection. It's clearly a book whose central truth -- the existence and acts of the son of God -- rests upon many magical claims. Yet no one has demonstrated any magic, anywhere in the world. Ever. That's how I can assign it to the category of myth without any doubt at all. That's without even digging into the straightforward contradictions in it.
Quite aside from this, it's not my job to prove it untrue; it is your job to prove it true. I don't believe it; you do. Jupiter, Odin, Set, Yaweh... a huge long list... they're all the same to me. Imaginary creatures dreamed up to focus power for humans, something they all actually did. Strangely, they're all the same to you as well... except for Yaweh. So I'm sure you can understand my position if you try.
There is plenty of historical evidence for His existence and crucifixion (virtually every serious scholar will admit that)
No, actually, there isn't. Aside from the bible itself -- which is self-referential, similar to trying to use a Tom Clancy book to prove the existence of his character Jack Ryan -- there is exactly zero contemporaneous evidence that in any way backs up the claim that Christ existed.
There's another problem with the bible, and that is that it contains much that disqualifies it roundly as a historical document. From voices in the sky to people being transmuted into pillars of salt, it is peppered with many telltales of invented fiction. For the bible to be taken seriously, it needs extreme confirmation of the core events; and that confirmation has, so far, been entirely lacking.
Every bit of "historical evidence" is from after 33 AD; every one is a reference to the existence of Christians, not to Christ (and no one is arguing that Christians existed, just to be clear. They annoyed the authorities quite a bit, and that's the context in which they are most often written into history.) But there is not a single contemporaneous word about Christ himself.
The claim that there is contemporaneous proof for the reality of Christ is often floated, and has rarely been countered, and that is why it has persisted. But in fact, there is no such proof, and it is (finally!) no longer certain censure (or worse) to say so. Now, having said that, if you think you know of such proof, by all means put it on the table for everyone to see.
I bite the tails off lizards, jam them on the stumps, and force them into human limb form by sheer force of will. The lizards just grow new tails. It's a totally renewable and environmentally friendly procedure. You have to respect the environment.
I have them chop off three of my limbs, have a Bothrops asper bite me on the remaining one a couple of times, encase me in several feet of ice, and drop me in a deep, 33f mountain lake attached to a 40-ton anchor on a short chain.
You kids just don't know the meaning of challenge anymore. You probably still wear shoes in your own house. Weenies.
I've got a ham station, and it includes an AM/LSB/USB base CB radio (top center in that image) and associated dedicated antenna. If the goal is being able to communicate in an emergency (and that is one of my goals as a ham), ignoring one of the most widespread tools out there is not the best idea.
It's also not fair to just say "rednecks and freaks"; there are a lot of folks in this area, ranchers and so forth, not "rednecks" by any definition other than perhaps suntan, who use CB as a practical (and free) means to keep in touch. I know some that are a good deal more sophisticated in both outlook and education than some of the characters I've run into here on slashdot.
For that matter, ham radio is no exclusive preserve of reason, manners, and intelligence, either. So let's keep the "redneck" comments down to a dull roar, shall we?
Why exactly is one and three important if two is reliably done?
For #1: When customers call and ask about their package, it is very reassuring to them to be told "it's in transit, on time, presently in Minneapolis" or "it's on the local truck for delivery." For the business, this extends into the "happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer."
For #3, if you order something and spend X$ on it, and the carrier loses or ruins it, you're going to want that money back. Even if reliability is 99.99%, that's no comfort whatsoever to the person who loses their package.
The company that gets my shipping money just needs to do a few things:
Track the package(s), the more accurately the better
Deliver the materials when they said they would
Pay quickly and reliably upon loss
USPS fails miserably on the first and third of these. If they want my shipping business, they'll have to do all three.
In the meantime, UPS seems to have the most accurate tracking, has given us the least trouble when it comes to errors they made (like delivering packages to the wrong address, or damaging well packed items in transit), and barring really extreme weather, they almost never fail to deliver on time or sooner.
There are some less-critical areas where USPS could improve as well.
They take far too many days off
If there is much snow in the way, they won't deliver
One of C's great advantages is not only that it is simple and very fast, it is also very close to the hardware -- when you make local variables, structures, assignments, etc... you have a good idea what the compiler needs to do. Likewise control structures, statements and so on.
The reason it is used is -- frankly -- because it kicks the ass of every other language out there (except machine and assembly) when it comes to both size and performance. This is because a C fragment turns into something very efficient and "close to the metal" if the compiler is even half-good, and that in turn is because what C does is very close to what the CPU does. Spend a couple weeks writing a C compiler -- just a C to ASM one for any CPU -- you'll see what I mean.
The only sense in which C is "harder" is that it takes more statements - because they tend to do simple things - than a higher level language to do many things. A little writing, a little building your own library... you'll have a nice resource for lists, memory management, graphics, in whatever area(s) your interest(s) lie(s.) And at that point, it's not harder -- it's easy, and it's fast as hell to write, and it *will* kick the butt of most other languages, as long as the understanding of the problem to be solved by the programmers is reasonably similar.
Also... I'm a huge fan of Python, use it all the time. Great language, totally wiped Perl out of my life (and for that, I am eternally grateful.) And as an interpreted language, it's not all that slow -- especially on a modern machine. But compared to C... no, I'd *never* use Python as a language for anything that required serious computation. You don't even need to go to C++ for some pretty cool OO - it's not only easy to do, it's educational and you'll actually understand what OO is doing, and why. If you need crazy OO, C++ is right there, and can remain efficient if you're really careful. Me, I rarely go there, but YMMV.
That whole too complex thing... what, was he hired by Google as a janitor? Or a janitor's helper? Seriously, too complex? For whom? Is he trying to teach a German Shepherd to program? Twit. If you came to my company for a job, and you told me C was "too complex" or "too hard", I'd just show you the door.
I do browse at -1. But censorship, and even more, unjustified censorship, piss me off no matter what. The reason those mods changed is because I raised a stink about it -- otherwise, the mods would stay incorrect. I've seen it over and over again (and that's not even to mention slashdot's problem with modding as a form of disagreement.) I was just annoyed enough today to say something about it.
It costs a good deal of money to get good coverage of the news
There is no "good coverage" of the news. At least, not in the USA. Our news sources are pitiful on their best days. When wars are going on, we hear about Paris Hilton's lack of panties. When congress has an important vote, Fox treats us to a bewildered mash-up of buffoonery. When we need information, we get opinion. When the supreme court and congress stomp all over the constitution, the news rarely even covers it, although it is literally causing the erosion of our republic. When science or medicine makes it to the news, as often as not, some crackpot idea with absolutely no rational claim to legitimacy will be presented with a completely straight face as if it was a legitimate counterpoint. Religion is still treated as if it were reality based, instead of the superstitious, objective-fact free collection of myths it actually consists of.
And all of this is painted with a broad brush of political correctness. You rarely see the Muslims described accurately as a highly insular community with book that straight-forwardly encourages them to violence; the over-emphasis and misuse of "terrorism" and "save the children" are just as prevalent in the news as they are in political speech and action; reading the news is like a caricature of what it is supposed to be: Information without bias, which we, the readers, then form opinions about. Opinions used to be limited to the editorial page, clearly set off and firewalled, as it were, from the actual news. Now, you can hardly read a story without feeling the bias bleeding all over it.
So, at least in my case, there is zero willingness to pay for this pap. If they want my money, they're going to have to remember who they are, what they are there for, and see to it they stick to that. A paywall might as well be a brick wall until they climb up from the depths they've sunken to.
Generally speaking, I block ads. It isn't because I'm a malicious asshole that wants to see the entire web publishing industry fall down and die - it's because I don't want to waste my bandwidth loading advertising that I'm not going to look at anyway.
When the web started, web pages were nodes of info, provided by the people running the sites, with the intent of informing the visitors. That was the whole shooting match. This went on for years, with many cool websites springing up that brought information on a topic together, as well as opinions and tips and so on. Hobbies, science, programming, HTML, special interest groups, what eventually became to be called blogs, etc.
At some point, the amount of activity caught the attention of commercial interests, and they stumbled in here with the idea that they could apply the physical model - print it, buy it to read it - to the web. That's pretty much been a major fail since day one. It has also bought us all manner of nonsense from congress, trying to force the web into the physical model using DRM, copyright takedowns, all that shit.
Every time I see someone put up a paywall, I chuckle... because in fact, in order for that to work, the content will have to be not only useful, but found nowhere else on the web. And for a news organization... that's basically impossible. All they can do is get about a one minute head start (and not often that) before someone twitters or emails or blogs about the same thing, Google or some other inquisitive site finds it, and it's all over the place.
And we've all learned about the bias and tendency to deliver news far too heavily leavened with opinion -- those that want to pay for that are already paying for Fox, CNN, etc. on cable.
The "web publishing industry" is really a two-faced monster; On one side is the original web ethos, where we publish info in order to share and build community; on the other are the newly-arrived commercial interests, where they're trying to tap the community that is looking at the free stuff and get them to pay for what is all too often lesser quality. How many times have you read an article on a commercial site, and then gone looking for actual info via Google? I do that all the time, because the news articles are still written for the least common denominator; a catchy (to a search engine) title, a lede comprehensible to a 90 IQ reader, and a dumbed down story (often infected with a "counterpoint" that has little, if any, legitimacy.) Then you search, find an actual page where someone has taken the time to go into depth on the subject... and inevitably, it's a free page, done in the community spirit.
One of the things that make me surf away, and stay away, are pop-ups that instantiate when my mouse simply goes over something; if I'm not clicking on it, I don't WANT it. That's the worst mistake a web designer can make, in my estimation. Even worse than annoying ads. Rollovers aren't just a "distraction", they're direct interference with what I'm trying to do -- they cover text and images with no warning and no desire whatsoever on my part to see the popup material.
The same goes for menus - if I don't click on it, I didn't ASK for it. There are many reasons my mouse may go from hither to yon on a web page, and the ONLY way you know I wanted something it went over is to receive a legitimate click.
It's far too annoying to treat a web page as a maze of locations you can't let your mouse go through without being abused by a pop-up; once that crap starts, I'm right out of there, and I mean right now.
That's nonsense. Accuracy is about the dynamic range and color gamut of the pixels. Spooging a matte surface over the screen reduces both. That's why glossy screens are more vivid -- blacks are darker (no reflected diffusion from the surface) and bright colors are brighter (no diffusion on the way to the eye.)
If you want an accurate and optimally capable monitor, then when dynamic range and color gamut are equal, the glossy display will be superior every time.
You're an idiot. The window is six feet tall and has no shade - I live on the plains, and I get direct sunlight through it all morning. Likewise in the jeep - clear glass, no tinting, Bright as hell all around. Clear enough for you now, dimwit?
I swear, if there's a way to misread, and/or mis-moderate, there's a slashdot reader that will find it and do it.
Totally agree - After comparing the two, I chose glossy, and have never had a reason to go back. My laptop and my desktop both. Also - now that I think of it - my iPad and iPod Touch, both of which are in constant use.
Getting rid of the matte texture on the screen is like having a cleaner monitor, all the time.
I use my laptop in a jeep-style vehicle, lots of windows, no tinting. My desk space has one tall window behind be about two feet and to my left. No problems with reflections, and in fact, the one remaining matte display (on an old windows machine) is the only one that shows any effect, which is kind of a radial-whitish highlight from bottom left towards the center. It doesn't completely obscure the output, but it certainly isn't desirable. All the glossy monitors (three of them) are clean.
I also take my laptop out for astrophotography -- red display, intention being to keep my night vision intact -- and glossy works fine for that as well.
Generally speaking... Start earlier, plan instead of react, gather your obligations and commitments timewise... If you can't do this, perhaps it's worth re-considering how you've arranged your life. Very few folks on slashdot are short of mental resources. If your life sucks, perhaps a reboot is called for.
Oh, I dunno. I can have as much luggage as will fit into my trunk, or, if going overseas, into my passenger ship cabin.
I'm sorry, but when the airline industry decided that instead of actually solving the problem (completely isolating the pilots from the passengers, thereby completely eliminating the possibility of using the aircraft itself as a precisely directed weapon) they were going to permanently oscillate on the knife-edge between screaming paranoia on the one hand, and utter moral cowardice on the other, they lost my family and myself as customers.
But ships, and cars, remain quite lovely travel options. No homeland insecurity personnel pretending to be useful, no unreasonable limits on what you may transport, and both types of travel are competitive, financially speaking.
Also... cruise ships and passenger ships are still committed to making your journey pleasant, even entertaining. Given the extra time they have to work with, they can go beyond dressing the service people attractively (which the airlines have given up on) and simply picking attractive service people (which the airlines have also given up on)... there are shows, gambling, fine meals, pools, rock wall climbing, many other things.
Of course, if you can drive yourself somewhere instead of flying, you can add as many recreational activities as you like -- you're the cruise director, as it were. Everything from fine meals to strip clubs to side trips to the nearest museum or art showroom.
As opposed to being scanned, searched, checked for listing with various intrusive (and massively unconstitutional) agencies, forced to wait in long lines, having your toiletries and snow-globes confiscated, shoehorned into seating that was apparently designed by a one-armed/one-legged midget engineer with no objection whatsoever to the idea of the person in front of you reclining right into your crotch, eventually being fed government-surplus nuts (only on luxury flights, though) and diet soda by a transvestite in a hideous pantsuit for about the same cost as a fine meal on a ship.
Last year, on my trip to the east coast, I took a side trip through Crater of Diamonds State Park and took home a sweet little trophy -- a blue-white -- which sits in my mineral collection today. Got where I was going on time, did my business, and drove back the long way around, took lots of photos, etc.
Airlines. Man, I'd have to be *so* short of time to sink that low ever again. Or they'd have to roll themselves back to the 60's in terms of service, and then step it up. Difficult to imagine either way.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a CB in the jeep too, right next to the 2M/HF rigs. Very handy knowing what the road conditions are, especially in winter, here in Montana -- mother nature can be quite the temperamental lady. And while there may not always be a ham on the road, there are always truckers.
All right, we'll start with Josephus. He's a good example of just what I'm trying to tell you.
First of all, Josephus, AKA Yosef Ben Matityahu, A.D. (37 ~100+), had not been born when Christ was supposed to be walking around. So he is not contemporaneous - he literally "came after", and he never saw, or heard, Jesus or any of his claimed works; he didn't see the crucifixion; everything he has to say is second hand, or worse.
Secondly, considering he was born in AD 37, we can safely assume he didn't write anything scholarly for, oh, let's totally give him the benefit of the doubt, let's call it sixteen years later. We'll assume he was a prodigy. And we're also going to ignore that a large number of scholars -- Christian scholars, at that -- consider that Josephus' writings about Christ were partially or completely sourced elsewhere. See wikipedia for starter studies on that -- there is of course much more than you'll find there, but you'll get the gist. In any case, so we have Josephus, reporting on the doings of Christ, who is the hero of the Christian cult, whom he has never met, never seen an act done by, and for which reports he is at least twenty years late to the party.
This makes it very clear that while Josephus, if we take him seriously and stipulate to the authenticity of his writings, can be assigned directly to those who believe there was, in fact, a person named Christ, what we cannot do is take him as direct evidence there was a Christ, because he cannot have ever seen the man or his works -- what he knew of, again only if indeed his writings are actually his, is the Christian cult's reporting of Christ. He presents no evidence; he simply parrots the Christian line (which is one reason his words are doubted by many... the presumption is his writings have been corrupted in the copying by biased parties. Again, read Wikipedia for starters.) I would also point out that Jospehus never claims to have seen Christ, so it's more than a little disingenuous -- or simply misinformed -- to try to claim him as evidence for Christ's actual existence.
Finally, Jospehus actually says very little. He mentions James, a brother of Jesus in one passage; and in another, he delivers about a paragraph of vagueness, no notable details or dates other than mentioning Pilate -- who, we note, as fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26–36, also didn't do anything in front of Josephus. Pilate, too, was long gone by the time Jospehus had learned to speak, much less write scholarly treatises.
None of this stands even weakly as evidence for the actual existence of Jesus. What it does show, even if taken completely at face value, scholarly doubts aside, is that Christians were around, and telling the story as of AD 53 (probably much later... remember, we're giving Josephus the honor of assuming he wrote all this when he was 16.)
No, in fact, it isn't all over history. You're just parroting what you've been told. As it turns out, there is no evidence backing up the existence of Jesus himself. There are two kinds of secondary evidence: (1) The bible, and (2) the existence of Christians as a cult well after Jesus was supposed to have existed. Jesus only got "all over history" as the religion took hold. The same pattern, by the way, that every other myth follows.
To learn about this, go try and dig up something -- anything -- about Jesus that dates 33 AD or earlier (when he was supposed to be around.) If Jesus is truly "all over history", that should be no problem, right? Go ahead. I can tell you now what you'll find, though: Absolutely nothing other than bible stories.
And I hope I don't have to tell you that a book full of magical claims about a person isn't exactly a good reference for a claim such as "there really was such a person." Were that all it took, you'd be telling me that Harry Potter, Merlin, and Sauron were real people.
That's because you're ignorant (I'm using the word literally here, not as an insult -- there are things you are unaware of.) Muslims worship the same god; they consider Jesus one of their prophets. They just think Christians worship incorrectly (exactly the same complaint many Christians make of each other.)
Calling the Odin / Valhalla stories fiction is really a stretch, especially... Get my point?
Just because there is a story, doesn't mean, or even hint, that it is true. Further, when a story contains magic as we understand it today, rather than science as we understand it today, so far, for all the stories in human history, this has been an excellent indicator that the story is not true. The bible is rife with nonsensical claims. Water into wine. Pillars of salt. Voices from the sky. Parting of the sea. Virgin birth. Resurrection. It's clearly a book whose central truth -- the existence and acts of the son of God -- rests upon many magical claims. Yet no one has demonstrated any magic, anywhere in the world. Ever. That's how I can assign it to the category of myth without any doubt at all. That's without even digging into the straightforward contradictions in it.
Quite aside from this, it's not my job to prove it untrue; it is your job to prove it true. I don't believe it; you do. Jupiter, Odin, Set, Yaweh... a huge long list... they're all the same to me. Imaginary creatures dreamed up to focus power for humans, something they all actually did. Strangely, they're all the same to you as well... except for Yaweh. So I'm sure you can understand my position if you try.
No, actually, there isn't. Aside from the bible itself -- which is self-referential, similar to trying to use a Tom Clancy book to prove the existence of his character Jack Ryan -- there is exactly zero contemporaneous evidence that in any way backs up the claim that Christ existed.
There's another problem with the bible, and that is that it contains much that disqualifies it roundly as a historical document. From voices in the sky to people being transmuted into pillars of salt, it is peppered with many telltales of invented fiction. For the bible to be taken seriously, it needs extreme confirmation of the core events; and that confirmation has, so far, been entirely lacking.
Every bit of "historical evidence" is from after 33 AD; every one is a reference to the existence of Christians, not to Christ (and no one is arguing that Christians existed, just to be clear. They annoyed the authorities quite a bit, and that's the context in which they are most often written into history.) But there is not a single contemporaneous word about Christ himself.
The claim that there is contemporaneous proof for the reality of Christ is often floated, and has rarely been countered, and that is why it has persisted. But in fact, there is no such proof, and it is (finally!) no longer certain censure (or worse) to say so. Now, having said that, if you think you know of such proof, by all means put it on the table for everyone to see.
I bite the tails off lizards, jam them on the stumps, and force them into human limb form by sheer force of will. The lizards just grow new tails. It's a totally renewable and environmentally friendly procedure. You have to respect the environment.
I have them chop off three of my limbs, have a Bothrops asper bite me on the remaining one a couple of times, encase me in several feet of ice, and drop me in a deep, 33f mountain lake attached to a 40-ton anchor on a short chain.
You kids just don't know the meaning of challenge anymore. You probably still wear shoes in your own house. Weenies.
I've got a ham station, and it includes an AM/LSB/USB base CB radio (top center in that image) and associated dedicated antenna. If the goal is being able to communicate in an emergency (and that is one of my goals as a ham), ignoring one of the most widespread tools out there is not the best idea.
It's also not fair to just say "rednecks and freaks"; there are a lot of folks in this area, ranchers and so forth, not "rednecks" by any definition other than perhaps suntan, who use CB as a practical (and free) means to keep in touch. I know some that are a good deal more sophisticated in both outlook and education than some of the characters I've run into here on slashdot.
For that matter, ham radio is no exclusive preserve of reason, manners, and intelligence, either. So let's keep the "redneck" comments down to a dull roar, shall we?
Forgive him... he thought the "whoosh" was the truck going by...
For #1: When customers call and ask about their package, it is very reassuring to them to be told "it's in transit, on time, presently in Minneapolis" or "it's on the local truck for delivery." For the business, this extends into the "happy customer is more likely to be a repeat customer."
For #3, if you order something and spend X$ on it, and the carrier loses or ruins it, you're going to want that money back. Even if reliability is 99.99%, that's no comfort whatsoever to the person who loses their package.
The company that gets my shipping money just needs to do a few things:
USPS fails miserably on the first and third of these. If they want my shipping business, they'll have to do all three.
In the meantime, UPS seems to have the most accurate tracking, has given us the least trouble when it comes to errors they made (like delivering packages to the wrong address, or damaging well packed items in transit), and barring really extreme weather, they almost never fail to deliver on time or sooner.
There are some less-critical areas where USPS could improve as well.
One of C's great advantages is not only that it is simple and very fast, it is also very close to the hardware -- when you make local variables, structures, assignments, etc... you have a good idea what the compiler needs to do. Likewise control structures, statements and so on.
The reason it is used is -- frankly -- because it kicks the ass of every other language out there (except machine and assembly) when it comes to both size and performance. This is because a C fragment turns into something very efficient and "close to the metal" if the compiler is even half-good, and that in turn is because what C does is very close to what the CPU does. Spend a couple weeks writing a C compiler -- just a C to ASM one for any CPU -- you'll see what I mean.
The only sense in which C is "harder" is that it takes more statements - because they tend to do simple things - than a higher level language to do many things. A little writing, a little building your own library... you'll have a nice resource for lists, memory management, graphics, in whatever area(s) your interest(s) lie(s.) And at that point, it's not harder -- it's easy, and it's fast as hell to write, and it *will* kick the butt of most other languages, as long as the understanding of the problem to be solved by the programmers is reasonably similar.
Also... I'm a huge fan of Python, use it all the time. Great language, totally wiped Perl out of my life (and for that, I am eternally grateful.) And as an interpreted language, it's not all that slow -- especially on a modern machine. But compared to C... no, I'd *never* use Python as a language for anything that required serious computation. You don't even need to go to C++ for some pretty cool OO - it's not only easy to do, it's educational and you'll actually understand what OO is doing, and why. If you need crazy OO, C++ is right there, and can remain efficient if you're really careful. Me, I rarely go there, but YMMV.
That whole too complex thing... what, was he hired by Google as a janitor? Or a janitor's helper? Seriously, too complex? For whom? Is he trying to teach a German Shepherd to program? Twit. If you came to my company for a job, and you told me C was "too complex" or "too hard", I'd just show you the door.
Have our standards really dropped that far?
I do browse at -1. But censorship, and even more, unjustified censorship, piss me off no matter what. The reason those mods changed is because I raised a stink about it -- otherwise, the mods would stay incorrect. I've seen it over and over again (and that's not even to mention slashdot's problem with modding as a form of disagreement.) I was just annoyed enough today to say something about it.
There is no "good coverage" of the news. At least, not in the USA. Our news sources are pitiful on their best days. When wars are going on, we hear about Paris Hilton's lack of panties. When congress has an important vote, Fox treats us to a bewildered mash-up of buffoonery. When we need information, we get opinion. When the supreme court and congress stomp all over the constitution, the news rarely even covers it, although it is literally causing the erosion of our republic. When science or medicine makes it to the news, as often as not, some crackpot idea with absolutely no rational claim to legitimacy will be presented with a completely straight face as if it was a legitimate counterpoint. Religion is still treated as if it were reality based, instead of the superstitious, objective-fact free collection of myths it actually consists of.
And all of this is painted with a broad brush of political correctness. You rarely see the Muslims described accurately as a highly insular community with book that straight-forwardly encourages them to violence; the over-emphasis and misuse of "terrorism" and "save the children" are just as prevalent in the news as they are in political speech and action; reading the news is like a caricature of what it is supposed to be: Information without bias, which we, the readers, then form opinions about. Opinions used to be limited to the editorial page, clearly set off and firewalled, as it were, from the actual news. Now, you can hardly read a story without feeling the bias bleeding all over it.
So, at least in my case, there is zero willingness to pay for this pap. If they want my money, they're going to have to remember who they are, what they are there for, and see to it they stick to that. A paywall might as well be a brick wall until they climb up from the depths they've sunken to.
When the web started, web pages were nodes of info, provided by the people running the sites, with the intent of informing the visitors. That was the whole shooting match. This went on for years, with many cool websites springing up that brought information on a topic together, as well as opinions and tips and so on. Hobbies, science, programming, HTML, special interest groups, what eventually became to be called blogs, etc.
At some point, the amount of activity caught the attention of commercial interests, and they stumbled in here with the idea that they could apply the physical model - print it, buy it to read it - to the web. That's pretty much been a major fail since day one. It has also bought us all manner of nonsense from congress, trying to force the web into the physical model using DRM, copyright takedowns, all that shit.
Every time I see someone put up a paywall, I chuckle... because in fact, in order for that to work, the content will have to be not only useful, but found nowhere else on the web. And for a news organization... that's basically impossible. All they can do is get about a one minute head start (and not often that) before someone twitters or emails or blogs about the same thing, Google or some other inquisitive site finds it, and it's all over the place.
And we've all learned about the bias and tendency to deliver news far too heavily leavened with opinion -- those that want to pay for that are already paying for Fox, CNN, etc. on cable.
The "web publishing industry" is really a two-faced monster; On one side is the original web ethos, where we publish info in order to share and build community; on the other are the newly-arrived commercial interests, where they're trying to tap the community that is looking at the free stuff and get them to pay for what is all too often lesser quality. How many times have you read an article on a commercial site, and then gone looking for actual info via Google? I do that all the time, because the news articles are still written for the least common denominator; a catchy (to a search engine) title, a lede comprehensible to a 90 IQ reader, and a dumbed down story (often infected with a "counterpoint" that has little, if any, legitimacy.) Then you search, find an actual page where someone has taken the time to go into depth on the subject... and inevitably, it's a free page, done in the community spirit.
Yeah, paywalls. Good luck with that.
One of the things that make me surf away, and stay away, are pop-ups that instantiate when my mouse simply goes over something; if I'm not clicking on it, I don't WANT it. That's the worst mistake a web designer can make, in my estimation. Even worse than annoying ads. Rollovers aren't just a "distraction", they're direct interference with what I'm trying to do -- they cover text and images with no warning and no desire whatsoever on my part to see the popup material.
The same goes for menus - if I don't click on it, I didn't ASK for it. There are many reasons my mouse may go from hither to yon on a web page, and the ONLY way you know I wanted something it went over is to receive a legitimate click.
It's far too annoying to treat a web page as a maze of locations you can't let your mouse go through without being abused by a pop-up; once that crap starts, I'm right out of there, and I mean right now.
That's nonsense. Accuracy is about the dynamic range and color gamut of the pixels. Spooging a matte surface over the screen reduces both. That's why glossy screens are more vivid -- blacks are darker (no reflected diffusion from the surface) and bright colors are brighter (no diffusion on the way to the eye.)
If you want an accurate and optimally capable monitor, then when dynamic range and color gamut are equal, the glossy display will be superior every time.
You're an idiot. The window is six feet tall and has no shade - I live on the plains, and I get direct sunlight through it all morning. Likewise in the jeep - clear glass, no tinting, Bright as hell all around. Clear enough for you now, dimwit?
I swear, if there's a way to misread, and/or mis-moderate, there's a slashdot reader that will find it and do it.
SquarePixel is wrong, obviously and blatantly misrepresenting his parent post, and gets modded "informative."
beeelsebob, on the other hand, reads the same post correctly, catches the mistake, and gets modded "redundant."
And people wonder why we laugh at the slashdot moderation system. IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK.
Speaking as both a creepy beardo PD software developer, and a commercial software developer. :o)
Totally agree - After comparing the two, I chose glossy, and have never had a reason to go back. My laptop and my desktop both. Also - now that I think of it - my iPad and iPod Touch, both of which are in constant use.
Getting rid of the matte texture on the screen is like having a cleaner monitor, all the time.
I use my laptop in a jeep-style vehicle, lots of windows, no tinting. My desk space has one tall window behind be about two feet and to my left. No problems with reflections, and in fact, the one remaining matte display (on an old windows machine) is the only one that shows any effect, which is kind of a radial-whitish highlight from bottom left towards the center. It doesn't completely obscure the output, but it certainly isn't desirable. All the glossy monitors (three of them) are clean.
I also take my laptop out for astrophotography -- red display, intention being to keep my night vision intact -- and glossy works fine for that as well.
Generally speaking... Start earlier, plan instead of react, gather your obligations and commitments timewise... If you can't do this, perhaps it's worth re-considering how you've arranged your life. Very few folks on slashdot are short of mental resources. If your life sucks, perhaps a reboot is called for.
Oh, I dunno. I can have as much luggage as will fit into my trunk, or, if going overseas, into my passenger ship cabin.
I'm sorry, but when the airline industry decided that instead of actually solving the problem (completely isolating the pilots from the passengers, thereby completely eliminating the possibility of using the aircraft itself as a precisely directed weapon) they were going to permanently oscillate on the knife-edge between screaming paranoia on the one hand, and utter moral cowardice on the other, they lost my family and myself as customers.
But ships, and cars, remain quite lovely travel options. No homeland insecurity personnel pretending to be useful, no unreasonable limits on what you may transport, and both types of travel are competitive, financially speaking.
Also... cruise ships and passenger ships are still committed to making your journey pleasant, even entertaining. Given the extra time they have to work with, they can go beyond dressing the service people attractively (which the airlines have given up on) and simply picking attractive service people (which the airlines have also given up on)... there are shows, gambling, fine meals, pools, rock wall climbing, many other things.
Of course, if you can drive yourself somewhere instead of flying, you can add as many recreational activities as you like -- you're the cruise director, as it were. Everything from fine meals to strip clubs to side trips to the nearest museum or art showroom.
As opposed to being scanned, searched, checked for listing with various intrusive (and massively unconstitutional) agencies, forced to wait in long lines, having your toiletries and snow-globes confiscated, shoehorned into seating that was apparently designed by a one-armed/one-legged midget engineer with no objection whatsoever to the idea of the person in front of you reclining right into your crotch, eventually being fed government-surplus nuts (only on luxury flights, though) and diet soda by a transvestite in a hideous pantsuit for about the same cost as a fine meal on a ship.
Last year, on my trip to the east coast, I took a side trip through Crater of Diamonds State Park and took home a sweet little trophy -- a blue-white -- which sits in my mineral collection today. Got where I was going on time, did my business, and drove back the long way around, took lots of photos, etc.
Airlines. Man, I'd have to be *so* short of time to sink that low ever again. Or they'd have to roll themselves back to the 60's in terms of service, and then step it up. Difficult to imagine either way.
A pound is what the next conversion-crippled clown who complains about non-metric units is going to get.
And the Blish stories...