Then the following will give them even less work: Prior to qualifying for the Bar, one has to demonstrate that one has memorized the following texts, in their _original_ language, by reciting them to an audience: * The Q'ran; * The Mahabharata; * The Tanakh; * The YiJing; * The Dao De Jing;
Then the audience gets to select a text for the person to translate into the original language of another text that the audience also gets to select. That translation is to be done in front of the audience. [No reference books allowed.]
After that hurdle, then the individual can apply for the bar exam.
>It is simply impossible in the current world that Vista won't eventually be the mainstream operating system, probably within a year, two at the outside.
You are assuming that the PHB will upgrade to Vista, because it is Microsoft.
PHBs may not understand technology, but they do understand Euros --- especially when the Euros are leaving the organization. Right not, it simply is not cost effective to upgrade to Vista. Furthermore, since MSO2007 does not create documents in the file formats that the government accepts, there is no point to using MSO2007. Combine those two factors, and there is very little justification to keep Microsoft as a vendor.
For the PHB, Red Hat, SuseLinux, and other distributions of Linux are good candidates --- and not just as a negotiation tactic in persuading Microsoft that $10.00 per seat for Vista Premium, MSO 2007 Enterprise Edition, etc (combined) is more than the going rate.
>I would suggest penalties for patent examiners who pass patents that are subsequently invalidated.
Skip that. Make their pay dependent upon their productive performance. Pay $10.00 per rejected patent. Deduct $5.00 for each patent that is granted. Add a $10K bonus for every 5,000 patents that are processed in one month.
>Find/invent a solution yourself and sell it to them. I guarantee they'll be interested, so long as your answer costs less than $3 million USD/year.
When a bank provides account numbers, date and amount of last ten deposits, date and amount of the withdrwals for the last three months, to anybody who calls up and asks for it, the bank does not have a clue as to what the word "security" means, and is begging people to rup it off.
>Bank, what's it gonna be? Do you really want to have to hire enough tellers to support a significant fraction of your customers going back to meatspace?
One major bank will reply: "Use the ATM or don't have an account with us."
For more than one phishing email I've been able to locate the physical address of the phisher, without getting scammed. The bank that was being scammed did not want that information.
My current policy to forward all phishing schemes to David Null. I'm not going to waste time even reporting them, if banks are begging to be ripped off.
DRM isn't keeping them from enjoying the content they've paid for.
Ever tried playing a DVD purchased in France, on a DVD player sold in the US?
You also assume that people are willing to listen to music, etc that is distorted by DRM junk. I have neither the time, nor patience, to re-engineer a CD so that it sounds like the artist, before the DRM junk was added to it. [Not that the quality of CDs is good.]
You have also forgotten the half life of the DRM Key Registry. What happens when the company that issued the original key decides to move their registry of permitted keys?
You also have forgotten that DRM effectivly violates the ADA. Of course, nobody cares about people who fall under ADA provisions, since the stereotype is that they are unemployed, and thus can't buy any gadgets anyway. So why should corporations do anything except further demosntrate that they (corporations) are nothing more than a bunch of money grabbers, who don't care about their customers?
>But it does not generate the same revenue that the proprietary products do.
Look at how things for the dsabled are purchased.
Party A creates a product. Party B bugs the product. Prty C pays for the product. Party D is the person who aquires the product.
The end user -- Party D --- has _no_ control in what is selected. The organiztion that buys the product --- Party B --- has neither quality, nor financial contstraints in selecting what they buy. The organization that pays for the product --- Party C --- has no concerns about the usability, or quality of the product.
The manufacturer --- Party A --- can make more money by suppiorting one product, from one company, than supporting a number of products from a number of companies. There is _no_ profit incentive to support anything other than the company that they deem to own the market.
From all that, you can see that there is zero incentive for anybody to create a FLOSS product.
Uou can see that the entire issue about ODF & a11y is a means to ensure vendor lockin, by the Party A, in conjunction with the company that they deem to own the market.
The issue is economics. The disabled are being sacrificed on the altar of Profit, and Corporate Greed.
> IS OO.org doing something strange or is Mcirosoft spreding FUD.
OOo has had a long history of being incompatible with JAWS. The only way to get JAWS to work with OOo is turn the Accessiblity features _OFF_. Even then, there are issues in using JAWS.
ZoomText does work with OOo, but there are still some issues with it.
OOo uses the Java Accessibility Bridge, for a11y products to hook into. Thus far, the number of a11y tools that use those hooks can be counted on one hand, with a thumb, and fingers left over.
>The only truly "handicapped accesible documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille".
Documetns that use Moon Language are another type of "handicapped accessible document".
I'm not sure if documents written in American Sign Language qualify.
>... the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in formatting --- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to a good job of
I'll just point out that there are _NO_ device drivers that allow OpenOffice.org to print to a Braille Printer.
With MSOffice, one can install Duxburry Braille Translator, and conver the Word Document to Braille format. That is a second advantage tht MSO has over OOo.
I used Google for more than a year, before I discovered that it was Google, andnot Googol. Of course, the fact that Googol.com had a Google search button on the front page might have ad something to do with it.
Amber
Re:The annoying "Did you mean" feature
on
Google Tidbits
·
· Score: 1
This is probably what I consider the top non-search related feature on Google.
Who needs a dictionary, when Google will show you what the correct spelling is.
OpenOffice lacks a database component for making simple DBs and graphical interfaces to them.
I see you have the usual/.malady of not knowing what you are talking about.
Look at all the companies that rely on Access databases, regardless of what you think about Access.
With the appropriate drivers, you can read/write Access files using OOo.
Likewise, VBA is so entrenched that it would take thousands of man-hours to convert a business's scripts to StarBasic.
a)If the company is smart, they won't convert the scripts, but hire somebody to rewrite them from scratch.
b) Companies have to spend almost as much time to convert their VBA scripts, every time they "upgrade" to a new version of Office, as they would spend upgrading to OOo.
A real effort is when a piece of software/os is translated into a complex script language such as Amharic/Arabic/Tamil/Thai.
Arabic, Tamil, and Thai localizations are available.
The "hard languages" are:
BiDi: Right to Left, such as Hebrew and Arabic
Indus Valley Scripts: Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, etc.
Far East: Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Bostrophedon: Rongo-Rongo
Of those groups, the only one that OOo has can not correctly input is the Bostrophedon. Likewise, the only one that has no localization efforts is Bostrophedon.
I often wondered about how difficult it would be to modify a distrobution so that the word processor, email client, web browser, and mp3 player would all be in my native Tribal Language.
It takes roughly 5 000 hours to localize OOo.
Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird & Chatzilla take roughly 20 000 hours to localize. Debian Linux takes roughly 25 000 hours to localize.
1. A little Language immersion and preservation
Open source has the potential of preventing language death. The question is whether or not the people who use the language, can get a localization done, before the number of speakers/users hits the critical point.
2. A somewhat-encrypted desktop.;)
Given the utter inability of americans to speak one language correctly, let alone two or more, it would, for all practical purposes, in the us, be an encrypted desktop.
Seriously, though, will there be a group of people trying to translate it into any number of mildly famous fictional languages? Elvish, Klingon, etc... Just wondering.
The Klingon Language Institute was trying to get people to localize Linux & OOo. It doesn't appear to have gotten very far. [For some idiotic reason, the KLI doesn't use the Klingon Writing System on its website.]
On one of the Tengwar lists, there was a proposal to do a Tengwar localization for OOo & Linux.
Telling them not to call YOU doesn't mean that they stop. They call your friends, your family, your boss, your co-workers, your babysitters, anyone...
If you notify them in writing, and they call, they owe you one thousand dollars in statury damages.[You have to sue to get it, but you can sue in your home town. When you get a judgement, if they don't pay within a "reasonable time" (30 days) file an attachment against their performance bond with the state. That asset takes a little longer than others, but it has the effect of terminating their right to do business in the state.]
If a collection agency calls a third party, who tells them not to call again, the collection agency incurs statutary damages of a minimum of one thousand dollars for harrasment. Additionally they incurred a minimum of one thousand dollars in statutory damages for disclosing the debt to an unauthorized thirdy party.
After that no notice contact, they may call you one time, but may not make any attempt to collect the debtduring that phone call.
Honestly, if they were calling MY boss daily about having me pay up I'd think twice about letting the answering machine pick that up.
If that answering machine message gives anything than the name of the party who they tried to reach, the name of the individual to call back, and a phonenumber, it borders on violating the FDCPA. If it states the name of the collection agency, or a dallar amount that is to be paid, or anything else that would imply or confirm that a debt is allegedly owed, then it is a violation, and statutory damages apply.
Hmm, but that means no callerid either.. unless you use some seperate device for that.. it has to display somewhere I'd think.
Here, [USA] you buy a caller ID box. A basic one just lists name & phone number. The more sophisticated can be programmed to do various things with the call, depending upon the number that is calling. [Reject, send straight to voicemail, announce the caller, "Do Not Call" message, etc.]
Something I've thought about, is using a linux box as a "super caller id box". [Take messages, put people on hold for ten minutes before ringing me, etc.]
Slashdot Mirror
>Less Work for them.
Then the following will give them even less work:
Prior to qualifying for the Bar, one has to demonstrate that one has memorized the following texts, in their _original_ language, by reciting them to an audience:
* The Q'ran;
* The Mahabharata;
* The Tanakh;
* The YiJing;
* The Dao De Jing;
Then the audience gets to select a text for the person to translate into the original language of another text that the audience also gets to select. That translation is to be done in front of the audience. [No reference books allowed.]
After that hurdle, then the individual can apply for the bar exam.
Amber
>It is simply impossible in the current world that Vista won't eventually be the mainstream operating system, probably within a year, two at the outside.
You are assuming that the PHB will upgrade to Vista, because it is Microsoft.
PHBs may not understand technology, but they do understand Euros --- especially when the Euros are leaving the organization. Right not, it simply is not cost effective to upgrade to Vista. Furthermore, since MSO2007 does not create documents in the file formats that the government accepts, there is no point to using MSO2007. Combine those two factors, and there is very little justification to keep Microsoft as a vendor.
For the PHB, Red Hat, SuseLinux, and other distributions of Linux are good candidates --- and not just as a negotiation tactic in persuading Microsoft that $10.00 per seat for Vista Premium, MSO 2007 Enterprise Edition, etc (combined) is more than the going rate.
Amber
>I would suggest penalties for patent examiners who pass patents that are subsequently invalidated.
Skip that.
Make their pay dependent upon their productive performance.
Pay $10.00 per rejected patent. Deduct $5.00 for each patent that is granted.
Add a $10K bonus for every 5,000 patents that are processed in one month.
Amber
There has been a macro that allows tht since whenever OOo 1.1.3 was relesed.
amber
>Find/invent a solution yourself and sell it to them. I guarantee they'll be interested, so long as your answer costs less than $3 million USD/year. When a bank provides account numbers, date and amount of last ten deposits, date and amount of the withdrwals for the last three months, to anybody who calls up and asks for it, the bank does not have a clue as to what the word "security" means, and is begging people to rup it off.
>Bank, what's it gonna be? Do you really want to have to hire enough tellers to support a significant fraction of your customers going back to meatspace?
One major bank will reply: "Use the ATM or don't have an account with us."
For more than one phishing email I've been able to locate the physical address of the phisher, without getting scammed. The bank that was being scammed did not want that information.
My current policy to forward all phishing schemes to David Null. I'm not going to waste time even reporting them, if banks are begging to be ripped off.
Ever tried playing a DVD purchased in France, on a DVD player sold in the US?
You also assume that people are willing to listen to music, etc that is distorted by DRM junk. I have neither the time, nor patience, to re-engineer a CD so that it sounds like the artist, before the DRM junk was added to it. [Not that the quality of CDs is good.]
You have also forgotten the half life of the DRM Key Registry. What happens when the company that issued the original key decides to move their registry of permitted keys?
You also have forgotten that DRM effectivly violates the ADA. Of course, nobody cares about people who fall under ADA provisions, since the stereotype is that they are unemployed, and thus can't buy any gadgets anyway. So why should corporations do anything except further demosntrate that they (corporations) are nothing more than a bunch of money grabbers, who don't care about their customers?
>But it does not generate the same revenue that the proprietary products do.
Look at how things for the dsabled are purchased.
Party A creates a product.
Party B bugs the product.
Prty C pays for the product.
Party D is the person who aquires the product.
The end user -- Party D --- has _no_ control in what is selected.
The organiztion that buys the product --- Party B --- has neither quality, nor financial contstraints in selecting what they buy.
The organization that pays for the product --- Party C --- has no concerns about the usability, or quality of the product.
The manufacturer --- Party A --- can make more money by suppiorting one product, from one company, than supporting a number of products from a number of companies. There is _no_ profit incentive to support anything other than the company that they deem to own the market.
From all that, you can see that there is zero incentive for anybody to create a FLOSS product.
Uou can see that the entire issue about ODF & a11y is a means to ensure vendor lockin, by the Party A, in conjunction with the company that they deem to own the market.
The issue is economics. The disabled are being sacrificed on the altar of Profit, and Corporate Greed.
Amber
Wind Under Thy Wings
> IS OO.org doing something strange or is Mcirosoft spreding FUD.
OOo has had a long history of being incompatible with JAWS. The only way to get JAWS to work with OOo is turn the Accessiblity features _OFF_. Even then, there are issues in using JAWS.
ZoomText does work with OOo, but there are still some issues with it.
OOo uses the Java Accessibility Bridge, for a11y products to hook into. Thus far, the number of a11y tools that use those hooks can be counted on one hand, with a thumb, and fingers left over.
Amber
Wind Under They Wings
>The only truly "handicapped accesible documents" that I know of are physical documents in Braille".
Documetns that use Moon Language are another type of "handicapped accessible document".
I'm not sure if documents written in American Sign Language qualify.
>... the documents in question would HAVE to be simplistic in formatting --- something OpenOffice and StarOffice seem to a good job of
I'll just point out that there are _NO_ device drivers that allow OpenOffice.org to print to a Braille Printer.
With MSOffice, one can install Duxburry Braille Translator, and conver the Word Document to Braille format. That is a second advantage tht MSO has over OOo.
xan
jonathon
The alternative: Tab Mix Plus
Last time I looked t Tab Mix Plus it didn't have nerly as many tab options as Tabbrowser Extensions.
- Close tabs left
- Close tabs right
- Close other tabs
are probably the extensions I use the most, that are missing from your suggestion.Amber
I used Google for more than a year, before I discovered that it was Google, andnot Googol. Of course, the fact that Googol.com had a Google search button on the front page might have ad something to do with it.
Amber
Who needs a dictionary, when Google will show you what the correct spelling is.
And Google isn't confined to English.
Amber
I see you have the usual /.malady of not knowing what you are talking about.
With the appropriate drivers, you can read/write Access files using OOo.
a)If the company is smart, they won't convert the scripts, but hire somebody to rewrite them from scratch.
b) Companies have to spend almost as much time to convert their VBA scripts, every time they "upgrade" to a new version of Office, as they would spend upgrading to OOo.
Amber
Some of the Asian websites request your blood type, as part of the registration process. Not quite the same thing, but equally obnoxious.
Amber
Trust the US Government
to might 1984 look like a Pacifist, Libertarian regime.
Amber
Which dialect?
- !gã!ne : !Kabee : !Kora : !Ora
- [[Anikxoe : [[Xho-kxoe : [[Xho-kxoe : [[Xo-Kxoe
- /'AUNI :
//Ani : //Ani-khoe : //Ku//e
- //KXAU :
//NG : //NG!KE : //Xegwi
- //Xekwi :
/ING/KE : /Kamka!e : /Kham-ka-!ke
- /Xam :
/Xam-ka-!k'e : Abathwa : Amankgqwigqwi
- Bakwena : Barakwengo : Batwa : Boga
- Boroa : Buga-khwe : Buga-kxoe : Bukakhwe
- Buma-Kxoe : Cazama : Gani-Khwe : Gi//kxigwi
- Glanda-khwe : Gorachouqua : Grikwa : Griqua
- Gry : Hukwe : Khoe : Ki//ksigwi
- Kloukle : Korana : Koraque : Kxoe
- Kxoedam : Lxloukxle : Mbara Kwengo : Mbarakwena
- N/U : NG//-/E : Nkqeshe : Schekere
- Seroa : Tannekwe : Tloue : Tloutle
- Vazama : Xiri : Xirikwa : Xrikwa
- Xu : Xuhwa : Xun : Zama
AmberArabic, Tamil, and Thai localizations are available.
The "hard languages" are:
BiDi: Right to Left, such as Hebrew and Arabic
Indus Valley Scripts: Sanskrit, Tamil, Thai, etc.
Far East: Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Bostrophedon: Rongo-Rongo
Of those groups, the only one that OOo has can not correctly input is the Bostrophedon. Likewise, the only one that has no localization efforts is Bostrophedon.
Amber
It takes roughly 5 000 hours to localize OOo. Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird & Chatzilla take roughly 20 000 hours to localize. Debian Linux takes roughly 25 000 hours to localize.
Open source has the potential of preventing language death. The question is whether or not the people who use the language, can get a localization done, before the number of speakers/users hits the critical point.
Given the utter inability of americans to speak one language correctly, let alone two or more, it would, for all practical purposes, in the us, be an encrypted desktop.
Amber
The Klingon Language Institute was trying to get people to localize Linux & OOo. It doesn't appear to have gotten very far. [For some idiotic reason, the KLI doesn't use the Klingon Writing System on its website.]
On one of the Tengwar lists, there was a proposal to do a Tengwar localization for OOo & Linux.
Amber
I'm sure that if Gmail was to pick up momentum,
How can it? Everybody I know that wants GMail has a GMail account. Even people who don't want one,have gotten one cause the invites are so plentiful.
Amber
Here, [USA] you buy a caller ID box. A basic one just lists name & phone number. The more sophisticated can be programmed to do various things with the call, depending upon the number that is calling. [Reject, send straight to voicemail, announce the caller, "Do Not Call" message, etc.]
Something I've thought about, is using a linux box as a "super caller id box". [Take messages, put people on hold for ten minutes before ringing me, etc.]
Amber
People do complain. Usually in terms of ISO standards.
Once ISO standards are cleared up, they localize the software, with the correct information, and submit a patch to main developer.
Amber