The author of the article did mention that the Office UI isn't the same as Vista's so in this respect its a fair comparison that he didn't address in the least.
Personally I have no idea on the reasoning but my guess is that it'd make the processor larger which would lower yield and increase the cost which could be overcome IF there was a commercially substantial group of people clamoring for it which I doubt there is.
I totally see your point that typing is not the BEST solution by any means. However to be fair, its nothing like playing a piano. If you can read, you can type. You may not be able to type fast but you can do it. I apologize if I came off condescending or what not. I really do think the idea of being able to communicate in whatever way the person feels most comfortable is a great goal. My concern was whether this service would be practical. For example you'd need a camera at the hospital, and a computer and network at both ends capable of sending and receiving approx. 15-20 frames per second. Anything less than that and I would think it'd get really tough to translate (just a guess but I know many people can sign very fast). On top of that, you need translators who you might need to pay. Is this practical? Hell if I know, I just worry that the cost of it, in light of other solutions that are at the very least are workable, might make it unrealistic. I really do hope it is practical and it does work, I guess I just have my worries about it.
If they can sign, can't they type? I guess I don't understand why that or pen and paper are not realistic. I mean I think the idea for automatic translation of sign language is a really great (and frankly cool) idea, I just don't see how it'd be worth the increased cost over a pen and paper or typing in almost all situations.
Okay protected audio path is bullshit but signed drivers was a well intentioned idea. The biggest cause of severe crashes in Windows are due to bad drivers. Microsoft wanted to get tougher on hardware developers who make half assed drivers with no support, in part because it degrades the user experience immensely and Microsoft was probably pretty sick of getting blamed for things they had no control over. The BIG issue that Microsoft ignored was open source drivers since its not realistic to sign those and get them tested by Microsoft on a regular basis. I don't care what people say but requiring signed drivers in x64 Vista was nothing more than a way to increase reliability (something that Slashdotters claim that Windows has an issue with)
No I'm not a Microsoftie (they do plenty of incredibly dumb things) but god the hatred of Microsoft is almost religious at this point. If Microsoft abandoned Windows and signed an unbreakable, perpetual contract with Linus to base their new OSes on Linux and to make them open source some of you people (not saying specifically the parent) still wouldn't be happy.
I personally hover between your view that this whole thing is a huge waste of time and money that could be better spent elsewhere and the view that OLPC is going to help end poverty because of the educational opportunities of the platform. At this point I think that the upside is bigger than the downside. OLPC has no place in areas with famine conditions and money should be spent for found but there are many, many places in the world where people are poor but not at immediate risk of death. I think one of the best examples of where OLPC could bring about a benefit is in Nigeria when many religious leaders objected to polio vaccines. Without a basic understanding of medicine, illness and biology people saw polio vaccines being given and when some of those same people got AIDS it seemed like the nurses were giving AIDS to people. They weren't of course but how do you explain that? If people can start from an early age with even a very basic education in modern medicine, we help people learn how to protect themselves from illness and know what to do if someone is sick (when you need to go to a doctor when it will clear up on its own, etc.). That's just in the area of medicine. Will it all work out like that? I don't know but I really hope it does.
While I think almost everything you say is totally right, I think you misunderstand a significant portion of what WinFS was intended to do. It was more than setting, reading and searching metadata or file contents; it also was intended to do away with the concept of every app having its own separate database effecively. WinFS was intended to create a simple central storage location for most forms of structured data (mail stores in Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., contact lists in various IM apps, etc.). I think the concept is good and the goal of allowing better interoperability between applications is great but there are problems. Its a big technical task of creating this pervasive database store (especially with a organizational structure like Microsoft seems to have), as far as I know no one has ever done this before so its not like you can learn from someone else and the biggest issue I think is whether developers accept it. My biggest fear with that project was that it would turn into another Passport or even the new CardSpace idea in Vista; an idea that sounds great in theory but with little to no outside support.
To be fair that wasn't really what they said. They said that the government has a legitimate interest in regulating interstate commerce, in this case the drug trade. The court said that the "market" for marijuana isn't limited to one state and therefore to allow a state to legalize it for any reason would affect that interstate marijuana market. Its not a circular argument; its just a huge stretch of logic. Or as some might say, dumb.
There may be something to the idea of the standards being tough to implement. What I've noticed is an occasional lack of clarity on the part of the W3C in the standards. Sometimes you can read things and think it means one thing when it really meant the other. Part of CSS 2.1 I believe was clarifying confusing parts of the spec and there probably are places where all the standards need to be clarified further. What's important is when browser makers find something confusing is they shouldn't just add it in. They need to go to the W3C, other browser makers and the developer community and get their opinions on the correct course of action. That way everyone is one the same page and W3C knows that it needs official clarification.
I wouldn't deny that the standards could be difficult but at the same time you have to put this in perspective. Microsoft had the time to add in Vector Markup Language, Channel Definition Files, CSS filters and various other things that are unique to IE. The developers of these clearly understand how to implement complex "standards" (for lack of a better term). While most browsers don't pass the ACID2 test, there is an effort to get to that point among Mozilla and Opera developers to get to that point and with each release they get closer.
I give the IE team credit, IE7 is light years ahead of IE6 in standards compliance. Its not perfect but considering where they've come from to where they are now is pretty impressive. Once IE7 replaces IE6 on most computers our jobs as developers will get easier.
Dean, I look forward to seeing that blog post and thanks for at least listening. In the past sometimes it seemed like not too many people in Redmond were listening.
But honestly, the situation with testing numerous browsers is a real headache. XP can't even run IE5 and while its a small portion of the audience and getting smaller its still there and we know IE6 will be there for a long time even with Automatic Updates. I really feel for the guys on Linux or Mac who have absolutely no way of testing sites on IE. But again, I don't know if that Virtual PC image idea has any merit but some way of seeing how sites would look, how they react on IE would be great. Someone suggested using the evolt standalone IE versions that I know is technically illegal and doesn't work that well anyways.
So after all that babbling, thanks again for making an effort to help us with this. I for one don't dislike you guys, I just hate when my job is harder than it has to be. (as we all do:)
I have but there are problems. First like the original question, that only works on Windows. Second the browser is buggy at best. You can't test version sniffing code for example because it always displays the current IE version number. I believe there are problems with the way script in general works but I could be wrong. I guess it all comes down to the fact that I think Microsoft should help developers who will be designing web pages to work with their product.
I really didn't have a problem with any of his answers EXCEPT his answer on how best to test web sites on different versions of IE on other OS's.
Hey Dean, no one was asking you give away a Windows license. We were asking you to give developers a better way to test against past, present and future browser versions and you responded by acting like we wanted to get Windows for free. Don't you have a clue about the real world for web developers?
I have a legally owned XP Pro license. I run IE 7 on my computer to test that but I can't also test IE 6. So I install another copy on a VMWare virtual machine. That is a total headache for just wanting to test a web site.
MS owns Virtual PC. You already make a stripped down version of Windows (Windows Starter). Why can't you make self running virtual pc images basically of IE images? Prevent anything except IE from running on the virtual machine and take out anything not essential to testing a web site. This could be used in Linux or on a Mac.
But hey, make it hell for us Dean. We really appreciate that.
Actually flash is used significantly more than that. The cache will actually store writes and once the flash starts to get close to full, it actually writes the cached writes to disk. While I'm sure Samsung and Microsoft have worked hard to extend the life of the flash, with that many cache I don't see how the cache could last even close to as long as the drive. My understanding is that flash is reliable up to about 100K writes compared to millions of writes to a disk drive. I still haven't heard how the drive runs once the flash becomes unreliable. Does it run like a regular drive or does it fail?
How does it take more time? All they have to do is wear a microphone with a digital recorder. When I went to UW-Madison a few years back, professors in almost all classes used a wireless microphone that gets fed into a sound system. There's no reason why that audio can't be digitized as the lecture is going on and posted at the end of the lecture.
I don't think this line is that important. I THINK the clinical definition of major depression is based on a certain number of symptoms of depression (physical, mental, emotional) that last for more than 2 weeks with no outside cause. Also you can have a "minor" (which really isn't minor but usualy isn't quite to the severity of major depression) long term depression that lasts for something like 6 months at least but has slightly weaker symptoms. In my case, I have double depression which means I get bouts of major depression but even in the "good times" I have a minor depression. If someone cares enough to risk possible social isolation, pay ridiculous amounts of money ($150 for 15 minute med check plus $200 a month for drugs) and deal with side effects of these drugs, then they probably have something serious going on. Psychiatry is an art right now as much as a science but people shouldn't have to suffer just because we don't understand things fully.
Of course when you get into children, you've got something different. Only one anti-depressant has been approved for people under 18 and we don't totally understand how they affect human development. With people under 18 I think "the bar" has to be higher because of the possible danger and should increase the younger the person is.
I really don't know what this fear is among some people about anti-depressants. If you don't like them, you don't have to take them or you can stop. The effects from my understanding are much smaller in people who have no need for them. If you're getting only minor effects because you don't need them, you're not going to put up with the cost and side effects of the drugs.
That's like saying to a person with diabetes "Don't use insulin. Mind over matter." There was a study read about a few days ago where they found out that mice who have a certain active gene will be unable to regulate mind serotonin correctly. In other words, when a person started to become depressed, most people's brains would compensate for the significantly by releasing more serotonin to the right areas. However if this gene is active the brain (as it seems to be in a large percentage of those who have depression) wouldn't react at all and the serotonin would continue to drop and stay low. My medication helps my brain keep a constant, higher amount of serotonin in the synaps (that's spelled wrong).
I'm not scared of the dark side of me... I'm scared of the years of misery and pain (physical as well as mental and emotional) that I had before my depression was treated. I'm not out of the woods yet but I don't feel sad and in pain every second of every day. I dislike some of the side effects of my anti-depressants (apathy towards waking up at a set time, eliminates some of my creativity) but I consider the side effects a small price to pay for what I get in return. Research like this makes me hopeful towards better treatments with fewer side effects and I don't have to give anything or as much up to feel... okay.
I'm not happy all the time (nor would I want to be). I think I have a fuller range of emotions than I did before. I have a heightened empathy because I don't need to focus as much of my energy on my emotions all the time. I like being able to be sad sometimes and happy othertimes which I really couldn't get before.
The Line Item Veto is not the cure-all that a lot of people think it is. I think here in Wisconsin we've proven its weaknesses and drawbacks.
It was enacted in the mid 80s and the first governor to use it was Tommy Thompson. Under him it became called the "Vanna White Veto" because he took letters from words and wrote totally different bills from the ones he recieved. The State Supreme Court ruled that's you have to use whole words and can't create new words.
Tommy found a new way around the veto by eliminating dollar amounts and writing in a smaller dollar amount. The Supreme Court said that was in the spirit of the law so that is now allowed. That basically allows the governor to cut funding to a large number of programs but give him an out politically because he doesn't have to totally eliminate the program. Nice for the governor huh?
Last year Doyle decided he would try something new. He cut out a bunch of pages of the budget but kept parts of numbers so that he could INCREASE state education funding by almost $500 million. While I like the outcome in this case, it shows how the power can be abused.
While people hate (or claim to hate) pork barrel spending sometimes its the much lesser of two evils. For example, if the only way a legislator will vote for a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is by giving a congressman $45,000 for a museum in their district about underwater basketweaving then I can't say I'd be totally against. I think the benefit far outweighs the expense. In the end less than 2% of the federal budget is earmarked to specific projects. Is that too much? Of course but its far outweighted by much larger portions of the federal budget (military, medicare, social security, etc.). While we should be vigilant to ensure that there aren't huge abuses of earmarking (Bridge to Nowhere), a little bit should just be expected and sometimes is the best way to get complex and controversial legislation passed.
I may not like that this has to be done but its also the reality considering the people we've elected.
I think the iTunes UI is pretty bad but its a issue of personal preference. I'd recommend checking out the the Windows Media Player 11 beta. I didn't like the WMP10 interface but the beta is just better. Seems like things are just in the right place. That's not to say its perfect, to be fair it is a beta but I like it.
Tell me how it is that you can create an economy in a country where over 1/3 of the adult population is already infected with HIV.
Could you help me a little with that one? Oh and if you can figure out how sick and dying people can be good workers and entrepreneurs without medication.
Bill Gates already has the money (whether he got it fairly or not). Would you rather he keep it?
While I think this bill is a horrible infringement of the rights of citizens, I think the example line used in the summary is a poor choice. All that line seems to do is explicitly say that Congress isn't trying to intrude on the President's inherent constituional powers and authority. That line doesn't really say what powers they believe the President has but in the end, even that doesn't matter because its up to the courts to figure all that out.
My guess is that someone put that line in for two reasons (no idea if these reasons are legitimate/legally valid... your mileage may vary). First it shows the American people and the President that this isn't intend to hurt the power of th President to fight terrorism. Second it basically says to the court "ya we actually considered the issue of Presidential power and we don't feel we're limiting it". It sorta makes the executive branch challenge it with more than "Its about eavesdropping and they didn't even consider us so they must be taking away our power". I don't know if I'm describing this correctly or even if this is at all legally relavent but that's my thinking.
Does the cache use much power as it is? Every little bit helps of course but would replacing cache with MRAM justify the increased cost in the near future (5 years or so)?
Slashdot Mirror
The author of the article did mention that the Office UI isn't the same as Vista's so in this respect its a fair comparison that he didn't address in the least.
Personally I have no idea on the reasoning but my guess is that it'd make the processor larger which would lower yield and increase the cost which could be overcome IF there was a commercially substantial group of people clamoring for it which I doubt there is.
I totally see your point that typing is not the BEST solution by any means. However to be fair, its nothing like playing a piano. If you can read, you can type. You may not be able to type fast but you can do it. I apologize if I came off condescending or what not. I really do think the idea of being able to communicate in whatever way the person feels most comfortable is a great goal. My concern was whether this service would be practical. For example you'd need a camera at the hospital, and a computer and network at both ends capable of sending and receiving approx. 15-20 frames per second. Anything less than that and I would think it'd get really tough to translate (just a guess but I know many people can sign very fast). On top of that, you need translators who you might need to pay. Is this practical? Hell if I know, I just worry that the cost of it, in light of other solutions that are at the very least are workable, might make it unrealistic. I really do hope it is practical and it does work, I guess I just have my worries about it.
If they can sign, can't they type? I guess I don't understand why that or pen and paper are not realistic. I mean I think the idea for automatic translation of sign language is a really great (and frankly cool) idea, I just don't see how it'd be worth the increased cost over a pen and paper or typing in almost all situations.
Okay protected audio path is bullshit but signed drivers was a well intentioned idea. The biggest cause of severe crashes in Windows are due to bad drivers. Microsoft wanted to get tougher on hardware developers who make half assed drivers with no support, in part because it degrades the user experience immensely and Microsoft was probably pretty sick of getting blamed for things they had no control over. The BIG issue that Microsoft ignored was open source drivers since its not realistic to sign those and get them tested by Microsoft on a regular basis. I don't care what people say but requiring signed drivers in x64 Vista was nothing more than a way to increase reliability (something that Slashdotters claim that Windows has an issue with) No I'm not a Microsoftie (they do plenty of incredibly dumb things) but god the hatred of Microsoft is almost religious at this point. If Microsoft abandoned Windows and signed an unbreakable, perpetual contract with Linus to base their new OSes on Linux and to make them open source some of you people (not saying specifically the parent) still wouldn't be happy.
I personally hover between your view that this whole thing is a huge waste of time and money that could be better spent elsewhere and the view that OLPC is going to help end poverty because of the educational opportunities of the platform. At this point I think that the upside is bigger than the downside. OLPC has no place in areas with famine conditions and money should be spent for found but there are many, many places in the world where people are poor but not at immediate risk of death. I think one of the best examples of where OLPC could bring about a benefit is in Nigeria when many religious leaders objected to polio vaccines. Without a basic understanding of medicine, illness and biology people saw polio vaccines being given and when some of those same people got AIDS it seemed like the nurses were giving AIDS to people. They weren't of course but how do you explain that? If people can start from an early age with even a very basic education in modern medicine, we help people learn how to protect themselves from illness and know what to do if someone is sick (when you need to go to a doctor when it will clear up on its own, etc.). That's just in the area of medicine. Will it all work out like that? I don't know but I really hope it does.
Man that's one more thing I can dislike about Israel.
While I think almost everything you say is totally right, I think you misunderstand a significant portion of what WinFS was intended to do. It was more than setting, reading and searching metadata or file contents; it also was intended to do away with the concept of every app having its own separate database effecively. WinFS was intended to create a simple central storage location for most forms of structured data (mail stores in Outlook, Thunderbird, etc., contact lists in various IM apps, etc.). I think the concept is good and the goal of allowing better interoperability between applications is great but there are problems. Its a big technical task of creating this pervasive database store (especially with a organizational structure like Microsoft seems to have), as far as I know no one has ever done this before so its not like you can learn from someone else and the biggest issue I think is whether developers accept it. My biggest fear with that project was that it would turn into another Passport or even the new CardSpace idea in Vista; an idea that sounds great in theory but with little to no outside support.
To be fair that wasn't really what they said. They said that the government has a legitimate interest in regulating interstate commerce, in this case the drug trade. The court said that the "market" for marijuana isn't limited to one state and therefore to allow a state to legalize it for any reason would affect that interstate marijuana market. Its not a circular argument; its just a huge stretch of logic. Or as some might say, dumb.
To be fair though, while SpiderMonkey is slow, IE is just as bad.
There may be something to the idea of the standards being tough to implement. What I've noticed is an occasional lack of clarity on the part of the W3C in the standards. Sometimes you can read things and think it means one thing when it really meant the other. Part of CSS 2.1 I believe was clarifying confusing parts of the spec and there probably are places where all the standards need to be clarified further. What's important is when browser makers find something confusing is they shouldn't just add it in. They need to go to the W3C, other browser makers and the developer community and get their opinions on the correct course of action. That way everyone is one the same page and W3C knows that it needs official clarification.
I wouldn't deny that the standards could be difficult but at the same time you have to put this in perspective. Microsoft had the time to add in Vector Markup Language, Channel Definition Files, CSS filters and various other things that are unique to IE. The developers of these clearly understand how to implement complex "standards" (for lack of a better term). While most browsers don't pass the ACID2 test, there is an effort to get to that point among Mozilla and Opera developers to get to that point and with each release they get closer.
I give the IE team credit, IE7 is light years ahead of IE6 in standards compliance. Its not perfect but considering where they've come from to where they are now is pretty impressive. Once IE7 replaces IE6 on most computers our jobs as developers will get easier.
Dean, I look forward to seeing that blog post and thanks for at least listening. In the past sometimes it seemed like not too many people in Redmond were listening.
:)
But honestly, the situation with testing numerous browsers is a real headache. XP can't even run IE5 and while its a small portion of the audience and getting smaller its still there and we know IE6 will be there for a long time even with Automatic Updates. I really feel for the guys on Linux or Mac who have absolutely no way of testing sites on IE. But again, I don't know if that Virtual PC image idea has any merit but some way of seeing how sites would look, how they react on IE would be great. Someone suggested using the evolt standalone IE versions that I know is technically illegal and doesn't work that well anyways.
So after all that babbling, thanks again for making an effort to help us with this. I for one don't dislike you guys, I just hate when my job is harder than it has to be. (as we all do
I have but there are problems. First like the original question, that only works on Windows. Second the browser is buggy at best. You can't test version sniffing code for example because it always displays the current IE version number. I believe there are problems with the way script in general works but I could be wrong. I guess it all comes down to the fact that I think Microsoft should help developers who will be designing web pages to work with their product.
I really didn't have a problem with any of his answers EXCEPT his answer on how best to test web sites on different versions of IE on other OS's.
Hey Dean, no one was asking you give away a Windows license. We were asking you to give developers a better way to test against past, present and future browser versions and you responded by acting like we wanted to get Windows for free. Don't you have a clue about the real world for web developers?
I have a legally owned XP Pro license. I run IE 7 on my computer to test that but I can't also test IE 6. So I install another copy on a VMWare virtual machine. That is a total headache for just wanting to test a web site.
MS owns Virtual PC. You already make a stripped down version of Windows (Windows Starter). Why can't you make self running virtual pc images basically of IE images? Prevent anything except IE from running on the virtual machine and take out anything not essential to testing a web site. This could be used in Linux or on a Mac.
But hey, make it hell for us Dean. We really appreciate that.
Actually flash is used significantly more than that. The cache will actually store writes and once the flash starts to get close to full, it actually writes the cached writes to disk. While I'm sure Samsung and Microsoft have worked hard to extend the life of the flash, with that many cache I don't see how the cache could last even close to as long as the drive. My understanding is that flash is reliable up to about 100K writes compared to millions of writes to a disk drive. I still haven't heard how the drive runs once the flash becomes unreliable. Does it run like a regular drive or does it fail?
How does it take more time? All they have to do is wear a microphone with a digital recorder. When I went to UW-Madison a few years back, professors in almost all classes used a wireless microphone that gets fed into a sound system. There's no reason why that audio can't be digitized as the lecture is going on and posted at the end of the lecture.
Whoa now... easy boy :)
I don't think this line is that important. I THINK the clinical definition of major depression is based on a certain number of symptoms of depression (physical, mental, emotional) that last for more than 2 weeks with no outside cause. Also you can have a "minor" (which really isn't minor but usualy isn't quite to the severity of major depression) long term depression that lasts for something like 6 months at least but has slightly weaker symptoms. In my case, I have double depression which means I get bouts of major depression but even in the "good times" I have a minor depression. If someone cares enough to risk possible social isolation, pay ridiculous amounts of money ($150 for 15 minute med check plus $200 a month for drugs) and deal with side effects of these drugs, then they probably have something serious going on. Psychiatry is an art right now as much as a science but people shouldn't have to suffer just because we don't understand things fully.
Of course when you get into children, you've got something different. Only one anti-depressant has been approved for people under 18 and we don't totally understand how they affect human development. With people under 18 I think "the bar" has to be higher because of the possible danger and should increase the younger the person is.
I really don't know what this fear is among some people about anti-depressants. If you don't like them, you don't have to take them or you can stop. The effects from my understanding are much smaller in people who have no need for them. If you're getting only minor effects because you don't need them, you're not going to put up with the cost and side effects of the drugs.
That's like saying to a person with diabetes "Don't use insulin. Mind over matter." There was a study read about a few days ago where they found out that mice who have a certain active gene will be unable to regulate mind serotonin correctly. In other words, when a person started to become depressed, most people's brains would compensate for the significantly by releasing more serotonin to the right areas. However if this gene is active the brain (as it seems to be in a large percentage of those who have depression) wouldn't react at all and the serotonin would continue to drop and stay low. My medication helps my brain keep a constant, higher amount of serotonin in the synaps (that's spelled wrong).
I'm not scared of the dark side of me... I'm scared of the years of misery and pain (physical as well as mental and emotional) that I had before my depression was treated. I'm not out of the woods yet but I don't feel sad and in pain every second of every day. I dislike some of the side effects of my anti-depressants (apathy towards waking up at a set time, eliminates some of my creativity) but I consider the side effects a small price to pay for what I get in return. Research like this makes me hopeful towards better treatments with fewer side effects and I don't have to give anything or as much up to feel... okay.
I'm not happy all the time (nor would I want to be). I think I have a fuller range of emotions than I did before. I have a heightened empathy because I don't need to focus as much of my energy on my emotions all the time. I like being able to be sad sometimes and happy othertimes which I really couldn't get before.
The Line Item Veto is not the cure-all that a lot of people think it is. I think here in Wisconsin we've proven its weaknesses and drawbacks.
It was enacted in the mid 80s and the first governor to use it was Tommy Thompson. Under him it became called the "Vanna White Veto" because he took letters from words and wrote totally different bills from the ones he recieved. The State Supreme Court ruled that's you have to use whole words and can't create new words.
Tommy found a new way around the veto by eliminating dollar amounts and writing in a smaller dollar amount. The Supreme Court said that was in the spirit of the law so that is now allowed. That basically allows the governor to cut funding to a large number of programs but give him an out politically because he doesn't have to totally eliminate the program. Nice for the governor huh?
Last year Doyle decided he would try something new. He cut out a bunch of pages of the budget but kept parts of numbers so that he could INCREASE state education funding by almost $500 million. While I like the outcome in this case, it shows how the power can be abused.
While people hate (or claim to hate) pork barrel spending sometimes its the much lesser of two evils. For example, if the only way a legislator will vote for a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is by giving a congressman $45,000 for a museum in their district about underwater basketweaving then I can't say I'd be totally against. I think the benefit far outweighs the expense. In the end less than 2% of the federal budget is earmarked to specific projects. Is that too much? Of course but its far outweighted by much larger portions of the federal budget (military, medicare, social security, etc.). While we should be vigilant to ensure that there aren't huge abuses of earmarking (Bridge to Nowhere), a little bit should just be expected and sometimes is the best way to get complex and controversial legislation passed.
I may not like that this has to be done but its also the reality considering the people we've elected.
I think the iTunes UI is pretty bad but its a issue of personal preference. I'd recommend checking out the the Windows Media Player 11 beta. I didn't like the WMP10 interface but the beta is just better. Seems like things are just in the right place. That's not to say its perfect, to be fair it is a beta but I like it.
Tell me how it is that you can create an economy in a country where over 1/3 of the adult population is already infected with HIV.
Could you help me a little with that one? Oh and if you can figure out how sick and dying people can be good workers and entrepreneurs without medication. Bill Gates already has the money (whether he got it fairly or not). Would you rather he keep it?
While I think this bill is a horrible infringement of the rights of citizens, I think the example line used in the summary is a poor choice. All that line seems to do is explicitly say that Congress isn't trying to intrude on the President's inherent constituional powers and authority. That line doesn't really say what powers they believe the President has but in the end, even that doesn't matter because its up to the courts to figure all that out. My guess is that someone put that line in for two reasons (no idea if these reasons are legitimate/legally valid... your mileage may vary). First it shows the American people and the President that this isn't intend to hurt the power of th President to fight terrorism. Second it basically says to the court "ya we actually considered the issue of Presidential power and we don't feel we're limiting it". It sorta makes the executive branch challenge it with more than "Its about eavesdropping and they didn't even consider us so they must be taking away our power". I don't know if I'm describing this correctly or even if this is at all legally relavent but that's my thinking.
Does the cache use much power as it is? Every little bit helps of course but would replacing cache with MRAM justify the increased cost in the near future (5 years or so)?
I'm sure they will view it as something serious. And I couldn't care less that they do.