At least this browser war seems to be revolving around the support of standards.
Which is exactly why the alternative browsers need to start focusing on performance, that is, building a cleaner, faster browser. They will be even better poised to make inroads in the browser market if they succeed in this respect.
This is particularly important if the economy should falter badly and people forego upgrading to faster computers. There is ample reason to think this is true.
Good point. MS may indeed be prepared for another browser war, but they will emerge weaker from it when the dust settles. Their competitors are of a higher caliber than was Netscape. These competitors have structured their product around the very grievances that MS has ignored.
That, and the fact that they have waited too long to release another operating system. The notion that MS is not the company it once was is gradually filtering into the public consciousness. I say this not as a Microsoft-hater, just an observer. Things change. Even the titans trip on their own shoelaces.
It's a point that's been brought up before. Without question, there are theives ruthless enough to do just that. You hear about the "organ bandits" they've got in Pakistan and other pleasant locales? No, they aren't stealing musical instruments.
I had a friend from Mexico who made a point of taking flights to Mexico City that would arrive during the day. Why? Because if you arrive at night, there are muggers who follow taxis seen leaving the airport, run them off the road, and rob the occupants. They're desperate enough to crash an automobile into another in order to purloin its contents. Whether you remain alive or not throughout the affair is up to the discretion of the muggers.
Shit, that's so brilliant that the government will fight you tooth and nail if you try to implement it. Sometimes I get so disgusted with this ever-increasing mania for "papers" that I want to cut up and burn every piece of insignia I own.
Then I realize that, without the obligatory tokens of identity, the life of "convenience" I know will grind to a halt and I'll become a virtual pariah.
No ID? Try boarding a airliner. See a house you like? Try approaching the seller with an attache case full of gold. You'll have dudes in unmarked cars parked outside your place for weeks. Is it not enough to know one's own name and buy what one likes, go where one likes?
No, somebody will ask for papers and the whole transaction gets put in a database for God knows what purpose--certainly not mine.
In the meantime, that is, until our institutions start taking the security of our personal data seriously, we would do well to trasmit as little unencrypted data over the Internet as is humanly possible. Mainly, that means conducting fewer credit card transactions via Internet.
Good luck petitioning the government to acquire less of your personal information. I have zero confidence in their ability, or desire, to protect my privacy. Why should they? It's power they crave, not justice. They're getting paid whether they succeed or fail. From the policymaker's point of view, we are milk cows and nothing more.
I do, however, have confidence that private companies take that responsibility seriously, as they have much to lose if their customers desert them. And they need not even suffer a damaging security breach to reform their system. All that is required is a few well-written letters written by concerned customers for a good company to take heed.
Best of all is the company who puts the security of their clientele at the forefront as a matter of principle. Fortunately, such companies exist, and we can reward them by purchasing their goods. Shoddy competitors will take heed or they will suffer.
Breaches are inevitable, yes, but as these sordid news stories accrete and become Internet history, it will become evident that certain institutions that do a lot of business online were spared major security breaches because of their high standards of professionalism, not dumb luck or the timely intervention of government bureaucracies. Isn't that why Swiss banks are so highly regarded?
What we really need is for a nice friendly Senator to propose that NOAA recoup some of their expenses by billing the multibillion dollar private weather industry for the data feed.
Well, I'm not saying I agree with this ridiculous legislation, but NOAA is a taxpayer-funded operation. We are already being billed for their services whether we want them or not.
Let's take this debate to the ultimate, and from my perspective, most desirable extreme. To wit, let's ditch NOAA and let the private companies launch their own damn satellites. We might be forced to look at some banner ads whilst checking the local forecast, but hell, that happens on Weather.com anyway.
You know what government bureaucracies are like, even a science-oriented one that, as such, tends to be a sacred cow to the nerd caste. Lots of people sitting around doing next to nothing, a handful of people doing real work, and a public relations subdivision whose sole purpose is to wheedle more funding out of Congress whether it is needed or not. That's a lot of mouths to feed, particularly as they get nice government pensions when they retire.
I say screw this pathetic attempt to chisel subsidies out of Congress, but screw also the notion that we need a government agency to give us weather reports. Oh, and screw that venal worm Santorum while we're at it. Viva Libertie.
Had a Samsung CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive that I bought February of last year. It got noisier and noisier until DVD playback started to freeze--just after the 1 year warranty expired, all of this occuring after moderate use. I replaced last month it with a comparable Aopen model that got high marks from customers. So far, it works flawlessly and is whisper-quiet, unlike it's predecessor. But it also seems to be very delicately made, with a tray comprised of the flimsiest plastic, which gives me the impression that it will fare no better under the same conditions.
Dude, six years is forever in the tech world. Six years is long enough for everybody to want to replace whatever they have with something that is both cheaper and vastly better, even LEDs.
Any place with broadband internet access can hear hundreds of stations via iTunes Radio and other online services. And a number of them play stuff you've never heard (and would never want to hear again.) Nevertheless, even the most finicky person will find something they like, as I have found with the standard, yet quite varied, iTunes selections.
And if you should be so fortunate as to live in a town with some good community-supported or college stations, then there's that option as well. I've found that some of those otherwise-unemployable DJs have a knack for ferreting out the wierdest shit in the realm of music, stuff that makes one pause and gape at the radio as they struggle to make sense of what they're hearing.
Or, if you've lost all hope and need a hit of soma, just tune in to one of your local Cumulus- or Clearchannel-owned robot stations, but I can't dig that because I don't like the sensation I get when my brain cells die. It's like huffing gasoline.
If the ROKs are planning on deploying these things by 2010, count on events having made their plans obsolete. The regime in Pyongyang is tottering, while the military balance of power continues to slide ever more in favor of wealthy South Korea.
A better bet is that by 2010, the principal problem on the Korean peninsula will not be the brittle truce between the two regimes, but the economic crisis caused by South Korea inheriting the crumbling husk to their north. That's a lot of mouths to feed.
Those robots, assuming the project isn't abandoned, will more likely be guarding the border with China instead.
Slashdot Mirror
I sense that I am being mocked.
Cold fusion can't be total BS if somebody is willing to bump off it's chief spokesperson.
I doubt airline advertisements will make a point of featuring their ungainly-looking A380s in flight.
I got tired of Acrobat Reader and downloaded the free Foxit PDF reader instead. Tiny download, vastly better performance. Check it out.
It worked for Newton.
What good is a Microsoft JPEG, anway? All you see is a blue rectangle where the picture is supposed to be.
Rent "The Dao of Steve." Then you'll see not all hope is lost for fat geeks.
Which is exactly why the alternative browsers need to start focusing on performance, that is, building a cleaner, faster browser. They will be even better poised to make inroads in the browser market if they succeed in this respect.
This is particularly important if the economy should falter badly and people forego upgrading to faster computers. There is ample reason to think this is true.
That, and the fact that they have waited too long to release another operating system. The notion that MS is not the company it once was is gradually filtering into the public consciousness. I say this not as a Microsoft-hater, just an observer. Things change. Even the titans trip on their own shoelaces.
I had a friend from Mexico who made a point of taking flights to Mexico City that would arrive during the day. Why? Because if you arrive at night, there are muggers who follow taxis seen leaving the airport, run them off the road, and rob the occupants. They're desperate enough to crash an automobile into another in order to purloin its contents. Whether you remain alive or not throughout the affair is up to the discretion of the muggers.
I wonder what cab fares are like down there.
Then I realize that, without the obligatory tokens of identity, the life of "convenience" I know will grind to a halt and I'll become a virtual pariah.
No ID? Try boarding a airliner. See a house you like? Try approaching the seller with an attache case full of gold. You'll have dudes in unmarked cars parked outside your place for weeks. Is it not enough to know one's own name and buy what one likes, go where one likes?
No, somebody will ask for papers and the whole transaction gets put in a database for God knows what purpose--certainly not mine.
Good luck petitioning the government to acquire less of your personal information. I have zero confidence in their ability, or desire, to protect my privacy. Why should they? It's power they crave, not justice. They're getting paid whether they succeed or fail. From the policymaker's point of view, we are milk cows and nothing more.
I do, however, have confidence that private companies take that responsibility seriously, as they have much to lose if their customers desert them. And they need not even suffer a damaging security breach to reform their system. All that is required is a few well-written letters written by concerned customers for a good company to take heed.
Best of all is the company who puts the security of their clientele at the forefront as a matter of principle. Fortunately, such companies exist, and we can reward them by purchasing their goods. Shoddy competitors will take heed or they will suffer.
Breaches are inevitable, yes, but as these sordid news stories accrete and become Internet history, it will become evident that certain institutions that do a lot of business online were spared major security breaches because of their high standards of professionalism, not dumb luck or the timely intervention of government bureaucracies. Isn't that why Swiss banks are so highly regarded?
Why? Was it covered in watermelon?
A broken iPod for $275? Can anybody say "Tulipmania?" Somebody ought to track down the high bidders and sell them the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Humph. In my experience, Sony Walkmen hover just above junk until the warranty expires. Then their hovering ceases and they start eating tapes.
Plus you pay $$$ for every ounce of payload that goes up. Lead is heavy.
Well, I'm not saying I agree with this ridiculous legislation, but NOAA is a taxpayer-funded operation. We are already being billed for their services whether we want them or not.
Let's take this debate to the ultimate, and from my perspective, most desirable extreme. To wit, let's ditch NOAA and let the private companies launch their own damn satellites. We might be forced to look at some banner ads whilst checking the local forecast, but hell, that happens on Weather.com anyway.
You know what government bureaucracies are like, even a science-oriented one that, as such, tends to be a sacred cow to the nerd caste. Lots of people sitting around doing next to nothing, a handful of people doing real work, and a public relations subdivision whose sole purpose is to wheedle more funding out of Congress whether it is needed or not. That's a lot of mouths to feed, particularly as they get nice government pensions when they retire.
I say screw this pathetic attempt to chisel subsidies out of Congress, but screw also the notion that we need a government agency to give us weather reports. Oh, and screw that venal worm Santorum while we're at it. Viva Libertie.
Hmmph, sounds like Ezekiel of The Moldy Bread to me.
Thus sayeth Goatse Man.
Had a Samsung CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive that I bought February of last year. It got noisier and noisier until DVD playback started to freeze--just after the 1 year warranty expired, all of this occuring after moderate use. I replaced last month it with a comparable Aopen model that got high marks from customers. So far, it works flawlessly and is whisper-quiet, unlike it's predecessor. But it also seems to be very delicately made, with a tray comprised of the flimsiest plastic, which gives me the impression that it will fare no better under the same conditions.
Dude, six years is forever in the tech world. Six years is long enough for everybody to want to replace whatever they have with something that is both cheaper and vastly better, even LEDs.
Any place with broadband internet access can hear hundreds of stations via iTunes Radio and other online services. And a number of them play stuff you've never heard (and would never want to hear again.) Nevertheless, even the most finicky person will find something they like, as I have found with the standard, yet quite varied, iTunes selections.
And if you should be so fortunate as to live in a town with some good community-supported or college stations, then there's that option as well. I've found that some of those otherwise-unemployable DJs have a knack for ferreting out the wierdest shit in the realm of music, stuff that makes one pause and gape at the radio as they struggle to make sense of what they're hearing.
Or, if you've lost all hope and need a hit of soma, just tune in to one of your local Cumulus- or Clearchannel-owned robot stations, but I can't dig that because I don't like the sensation I get when my brain cells die. It's like huffing gasoline.
And when an app crashes, a digital voice screams, "WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION?!"
A better bet is that by 2010, the principal problem on the Korean peninsula will not be the brittle truce between the two regimes, but the economic crisis caused by South Korea inheriting the crumbling husk to their north. That's a lot of mouths to feed.
Those robots, assuming the project isn't abandoned, will more likely be guarding the border with China instead.
Man, that ride is dope.