I noticed that a pleasing color with high contrast between the text and background is helpful. Sometimes it is best to turn off color syntax highlighting, because readability sometimes comes at a cost of some funky color combinations.
I am constantly looking for the best color combo, (try staring at constantly updating telemetry in addition to code) and for some dumb reason I go with the light green on black. I suspect this has more to do with nostalgia than eye strain... but it helps.
For the record, I agree with the court's decision. It gives the right to protect oneself in their own home, while maintaining restrictions on the types of weapons that can be owned and carried outside the home.
Also, I believe (too lazy to check this morning) that most of the shootings in DC are gang/drug related and happen outside of an innocent bystander's home.
Ummm, So? They will continue killing with guns. Why? Because allowing more guns will not address the poverty rates, drugs, gangs, ineffective law enforcement, etc...
Because of other factors outside of gun ownership, such as poverty rates, drugs, gangs, law enforcement, community involvement, etc...
I guess it's easier to point at gun control, than to actually address the root causes of their crimes.
Of course, I'm sure the people outside of D.C. is only looking out for the citizens of D.C. and not trying to push some political agenda for themselves... *cough* *cough*
I normally perform service on my older vehicles because the cost of labor + parts is getting above the "book value" of the old car. It's normally fun and relaxing (except for the clutch replacement of my toyota camry, but thats another story).
Anyway, on my new car I use my local Honda dealer, because:
1) It's under warranty and they perform diagnostics at each visit.
2) It's reasonably cheap, sometimes free (coupon) and when I do pay it's about $20.
3) Free time is getting scarce, and I value my free time more than the money I save by changing my own oil (and sending the used oil to the recycling center).
Now how does this relate to how I upgrade my Macbook Pro? I don't know, I've never changed its oil...
The Bankhead tunnel in Mobile, AL has a concrete facade, a flashing light, and multiple signs saying no trucks... Yet occasionally a truck still makes an attempt to enter it and fail miserably.
"only keep the honest person honest" line is mostly bullshit. It over simplifies the problem, to give what *looks* like a credible argument against gun control.
I never considered gun control as a means of protecting us from criminals. After all, determined criminals will always find a way.
I believe gun control was meant to protect us from the clueless hothead that decides to make a trip to the watchtower...
I also believe gun control may keep a borderline criminal from making a much bigger mistake...
But mostly I believe gun control laws make it more palatable to give harsher punishments when a firearm is involved in a crime. It gives the DA another criminal charge like "illegal possession of a fully automatic machine gun".
In other words, I believe gun control was never meant to keep guns off the streets. Rather it is designed to give law enforcement a bigger stick to punish criminals caught in possession of a gun. Or more accurately, give law enforcement the ability to prevent a crime by allowing them to make an arrest based solely on the possession of the firearm. (eg. When we asked this individual who kept close watch on this grocery store what he was up to, we notice he had a gun and decided to make an arrest...)
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but before Microsoft came along there was a healthy ecosystem called CP/M, a *family* of operating systems designed for microcomputers, each slightly incompatible with the others.
As a former CP/M user and as someone who worked through college in the 80s selling computers, I can not recall CP/M ever really being "healthy". It was there, but not exactly healthy.
Here was the breakdown at the shop that I worked at circa 1984:
DOS Compatibles: Compaq, Eagle, Bear, Sanyo, etc. (man the clone market was on fire back then. We even made grey boxes).
CP/M machines: Kaypro, and Osborne. The Kaypros were actually well made. I like the Kaypro's much larger screen, while the Osborne was a sewing machine with a small screen. The main selling point of the Osborne was the software that came with it.
Home computers: Commodore 64, 128, and Amiga. Atari 800 and ST.
Granted this is just my observation at the store I worked for, but here it goes:
The bulk of our sales were Commodore 64s, followed by the PC clones (Mostly Compaq and for some strange reason Sanyo). Atari 800 sales were OK. Amigas outsold STs. CP/M sales were much lower.
A competitor of ours was an authorized Apple dealer, and he couldn't keep the Apple IIs in stock.
Anyway, what killed CP/M was the following:
Clones - Who could compete with a onslaught of computer clones whose definition of PC compatible was the ability to run MS-DOS?
Price - The clones were cheaper, and easier to get.
Bad business practices - Kaypro and Osborne manufactures couldn't move product, and mismanaged the introduction of newer models. Ultimately finding themselves out of business. (Radio Shack (aka Tandy) had similar mishandling issues).
Features - MS-DOS was faster and had better file management than CP/M at the time.
Microsoft was NOT a monopoly in the 80's...
I'm sure there was something else, but this is all I can remember at the moment...
I don't think slashdot itself has a bias over political parties, but I have noticed a lot of submissions and moderations that are biased toward Obama.
Personally I think political affiliations rank up there with religion as a taboo topic. Mainly because even pointing out the obvious will get you flamed by someone who took it personally that you said something negative about their pet cause or candidate...
I do think it is important that we are aware of any bills that may affect us like privacy, net neutrality, patent reform, etc...
I agree. Nothing irritates me more than people not supporting the manufacturers that are open, and instead purchase "mainstream" hardware and complain about it not supporting Linux or FOSS.
Manufacturers always go where the money is. It is up to us to reward the ones that are friendly to us.
IIRC, Wine's objective is to give software vendors a set of libraries to compile their Windows software against so that it will run under Linux, not necessarily run all windows software natively in Linux. The idea is that if it is so simple to do, people like Adobe will release a Linux version of Photoshop compiled against Wine.
If this is Wine's current objective, then the goal posts were moved.
Wine's original objective was to be a compatibility layer for existing Windows applications not as a library for new ones.
I think it would be very wise move for Wine to market itself as a "porting library", since they have yet to fully implement the Win95 environment and may not be able to without violating some "patent" or at least having to defend itself from Microsoft.
It would be even better if the companies would just make a "native" Linux version of their software, but I'll take what I can get.
The lighter vehicle is less likely to be in the accident in the first place, though. Overall, occupants are twice as safe in a VW Jetta than in a Ford Explorer.
Any references?
Is a lighter car stuck in the middle lane of traffic more maneuverable than the heaver car?
Is the lighter car the target or the projectile? You assume it is the lighter car that is always in control, what about the heavier car hitting the lighter car?
Was the accident avoidable? The problem with maneuverability arguments is that it is depends on the skill of the driver and the amount of time the driver has to react. The best case scenario being a professional driver in a closed obstacle course. While reality may be that SUV driver behind you too busy talking on the cellphone to notice that you have stopped at the red light.
Remember, the report states that if an accident was to occur, you would have a better chance of survival if you occupied the heavier car. It doesn't say that small cars are dangerous. In fact, I can read it as saying heavy cars are a danger to others on the road.
None of those quoted statements take into account specific circumstances. Do people speed more in smaller cars than in large SUVs, thus leading to more accidents?
I read the report as being inclusive of all vehicle accidents that involved a death, so I read it as overall heavier vehicles have a lower fatality rate when compared with lighter vehicles. Specifics of each accident or the driving behaviors for a specific class of vehicle really doesn't matter much, since if I was looking to purchase a vehicle and safety was my primary concern then the best option would be to pick a heavier vehicle over a lighter vehicle.
Smaller cars also accelerate faster than SUVs,
You've made an assumption here that may not reflect reality. SUVs tend to have bigger engines with greater horsepower while smaller vehicles tend to be economy class vehicles with much smaller engines. I drive a 4-cylinder engine, and I notice the SUVs have no problem keeping up with me.
Besides quick starts at a green light is actually dangerous and would make the statistics favor the heavier vehicle even more. Especially since a side (or T-bone) collision is more dangerous than a "head on" collision.
None of these things are taken into account.
I don't think this is true. They reported that they observed that heavier vehicles have a lower fatality rate than their lighter counterparts. The fact that they didn't go into detail on why this was observed, doesn't negate the observation.
The SUV safety myth was created by marketing pure and simple.
Unfortunately it's not a myth, and it wasn't created by marketing.
The crash compatibility topic (big car vs. small car) was first brought up by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in a 1998 news release that stated:
The basic findings reinforce whatâ(TM)s long been known about vehicle size and occupant
death rates. As vehicle weight decreases, the number of occupants killed in crashes
increases.
and
Lighter vehicles have higher occupant death rates in two-vehicle crashes, and within
each weight class, cars and pickups have similar occupant death rates.
Blame other cell phone buyers. People have decided that they would generally rather not pay upfront for the hardware and then find a carrier.
I think some of the blame should go to the cell phone manufacturers.
Let me preface this with "Your milage may vary" therefore you should always shop for the best deal. Especially since the last time my contract was up for renewal was 8 months ago.
With the big cell phone companies in my area, I pay the same rate regardless if I already own a phone or let the carrier subsidize a new one. The only "advantage" I get from buying my phone separately is the supposed lack of lock in from my carrier. The problem being that to get the "discounted" rates most carriers I talked to still required some type of contract with termination penalties.
So how is this the manufacturer's fault?
The price of an unlocked phone with any kind of features is too high. With the volume of phones being sold today, there is no reason for the phones to be that high except to make the subsidized phone plans look even better.
I experienced this, when it came time for me to shop for a new carrier. I needed to justify any savings I could possibly accrue from being able to shop around for a non-contract tariff rate against the cost of an unsubsidized phone. This is where the economic reality hit me:
Being in the US, the people who try to purchase their phone separately from their carrier is a very small number (almost non-existent) when compared to the vast majority of customers who subscribe to a package deal with a phone carrier. This amounts to no real competition over non-contractual calling rates. The attitude I got from the big phone companies was "good luck", because quite frankly there were people in line behind me more than willing to accept whatever plan the phone company had to offer.
Due to the:
1) discounted rate plans available and the fact you pay the same phone rate regardless of you receiving a new phone with the plan, and
2) the fact that I don't change phone carriers that often,
it would be kind of dumb not to go ahead and get a new subsidized phone. Until there is real competitive pressure, you come out ahead with the subsidized phone. Especially when in some cases, the free phone with termination fee is cheaper than the price of a similar unlocked phone.
Well that's my observation at least...
Maybe if there was some law that forced carriers to itemize their bill to show the cost attributed to the subsidized phone, and allowed people who purchase their phones not to pay that additional charge.... oh wait that will never happen here.
I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to the original poster and interpret his comments this way:
If there was a ready made package for me to use, I would gladly help the monitoring effort. However, I find the mantra "just port it" not only a reactionary response, but also totally unrealistic.
Don't know how to code? There are tons of tutorials, books, and more on the Web, at your library, at your local bookstore and from e-commerce vendors everywhere.
If you have a brain, and an IQ of at least, say 115 or so, you have no excuse.
I find this totally hilarious and would have modded you funny if I had the points to give. You are a comic genius using the absurd to humorously make a point...
I mean it's like saying "If you are capable of reading all the books available on construction and building codes, then there is no excuse for you not being able to build your own house."
Of course I could be wrong and misinterpreted both of your responses, in that case nevermind...
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed that a pleasing color with high contrast between the text and background is helpful. Sometimes it is best to turn off color syntax highlighting, because readability sometimes comes at a cost of some funky color combinations.
I am constantly looking for the best color combo, (try staring at constantly updating telemetry in addition to code) and for some dumb reason I go with the light green on black. I suspect this has more to do with nostalgia than eye strain... but it helps.
True.
For the record, I agree with the court's decision. It gives the right to protect oneself in their own home, while maintaining restrictions on the types of weapons that can be owned and carried outside the home.
Also, I believe (too lazy to check this morning) that most of the shootings in DC are gang/drug related and happen outside of an innocent bystander's home.
Ummm, So? They will continue killing with guns. Why? Because allowing more guns will not address the poverty rates, drugs, gangs, ineffective law enforcement, etc...
Because of other factors outside of gun ownership, such as poverty rates, drugs, gangs, law enforcement, community involvement, etc...
I guess it's easier to point at gun control, than to actually address the root causes of their crimes.
Of course, I'm sure the people outside of D.C. is only looking out for the citizens of D.C. and not trying to push some political agenda for themselves... *cough* *cough*
Your experience may vary:
I normally perform service on my older vehicles because the cost of labor + parts is getting above the "book value" of the old car. It's normally fun and relaxing (except for the clutch replacement of my toyota camry, but thats another story).
Anyway, on my new car I use my local Honda dealer, because:
1) It's under warranty and they perform diagnostics at each visit.
2) It's reasonably cheap, sometimes free (coupon) and when I do pay it's about $20.
3) Free time is getting scarce, and I value my free time more than the money I save by changing my own oil (and sending the used oil to the recycling center).
Now how does this relate to how I upgrade my Macbook Pro? I don't know, I've never changed its oil...
So true. But someone had to rib him a little... it's Friday.
Yay! Stating the obvious is Flamebait.
So basically you like driving fast, and you came up with the weakest bullshit to support your driving habits.
The Bankhead tunnel in Mobile, AL has a concrete facade, a flashing light, and multiple signs saying no trucks... Yet occasionally a truck still makes an attempt to enter it and fail miserably.
"only keep the honest person honest" line is mostly bullshit. It over simplifies the problem, to give what *looks* like a credible argument against gun control.
I never considered gun control as a means of protecting us from criminals. After all, determined criminals will always find a way.
I believe gun control was meant to protect us from the clueless hothead that decides to make a trip to the watchtower...
I also believe gun control may keep a borderline criminal from making a much bigger mistake...
But mostly I believe gun control laws make it more palatable to give harsher punishments when a firearm is involved in a crime. It gives the DA another criminal charge like "illegal possession of a fully automatic machine gun".
In other words, I believe gun control was never meant to keep guns off the streets. Rather it is designed to give law enforcement a bigger stick to punish criminals caught in possession of a gun. Or more accurately, give law enforcement the ability to prevent a crime by allowing them to make an arrest based solely on the possession of the firearm. (eg. When we asked this individual who kept close watch on this grocery store what he was up to, we notice he had a gun and decided to make an arrest...)
I'm shocked that a city which is mostly a naval base is more interested in orgies than apple pies... shocked I tell ya.
As a former CP/M user and as someone who worked through college in the 80s selling computers, I can not recall CP/M ever really being "healthy". It was there, but not exactly healthy.
Here was the breakdown at the shop that I worked at circa 1984:
DOS Compatibles: Compaq, Eagle, Bear, Sanyo, etc. (man the clone market was on fire back then. We even made grey boxes).
CP/M machines: Kaypro, and Osborne. The Kaypros were actually well made. I like the Kaypro's much larger screen, while the Osborne was a sewing machine with a small screen. The main selling point of the Osborne was the software that came with it.
Home computers: Commodore 64, 128, and Amiga. Atari 800 and ST.
Granted this is just my observation at the store I worked for, but here it goes:
The bulk of our sales were Commodore 64s, followed by the PC clones (Mostly Compaq and for some strange reason Sanyo). Atari 800 sales were OK. Amigas outsold STs. CP/M sales were much lower.
A competitor of ours was an authorized Apple dealer, and he couldn't keep the Apple IIs in stock.
Anyway, what killed CP/M was the following:
Clones - Who could compete with a onslaught of computer clones whose definition of PC compatible was the ability to run MS-DOS?
Price - The clones were cheaper, and easier to get.
Bad business practices - Kaypro and Osborne manufactures couldn't move product, and mismanaged the introduction of newer models. Ultimately finding themselves out of business. (Radio Shack (aka Tandy) had similar mishandling issues).
Features - MS-DOS was faster and had better file management than CP/M at the time.
Microsoft was NOT a monopoly in the 80's...
I'm sure there was something else, but this is all I can remember at the moment...
The myth should have read:
"If it wasn't for Windows, the average person would *not* have a PC"
I do find the omission funnier...
I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft, but the GP is stating a FACT not a MYTH.
Fact is "Windows did a fantastic job of getting the PC into the lives of average people."
Myth is "If it wasn't for Windows, the average person would have a PC".
Get the semantics right...
I don't think slashdot itself has a bias over political parties, but I have noticed a lot of submissions and moderations that are biased toward Obama.
Personally I think political affiliations rank up there with religion as a taboo topic. Mainly because even pointing out the obvious will get you flamed by someone who took it personally that you said something negative about their pet cause or candidate...
I do think it is important that we are aware of any bills that may affect us like privacy, net neutrality, patent reform, etc...
I agree. Nothing irritates me more than people not supporting the manufacturers that are open, and instead purchase "mainstream" hardware and complain about it not supporting Linux or FOSS.
Manufacturers always go where the money is. It is up to us to reward the ones that are friendly to us.
If this is Wine's current objective, then the goal posts were moved.
Wine's original objective was to be a compatibility layer for existing Windows applications not as a library for new ones.
I think it would be very wise move for Wine to market itself as a "porting library", since they have yet to fully implement the Win95 environment and may not be able to without violating some "patent" or at least having to defend itself from Microsoft.
It would be even better if the companies would just make a "native" Linux version of their software, but I'll take what I can get.
Any references?
Is a lighter car stuck in the middle lane of traffic more maneuverable than the heaver car?
Is the lighter car the target or the projectile? You assume it is the lighter car that is always in control, what about the heavier car hitting the lighter car?
Was the accident avoidable? The problem with maneuverability arguments is that it is depends on the skill of the driver and the amount of time the driver has to react. The best case scenario being a professional driver in a closed obstacle course. While reality may be that SUV driver behind you too busy talking on the cellphone to notice that you have stopped at the red light.
Remember, the report states that if an accident was to occur, you would have a better chance of survival if you occupied the heavier car. It doesn't say that small cars are dangerous. In fact, I can read it as saying heavy cars are a danger to others on the road.
I read the report as being inclusive of all vehicle accidents that involved a death, so I read it as overall heavier vehicles have a lower fatality rate when compared with lighter vehicles. Specifics of each accident or the driving behaviors for a specific class of vehicle really doesn't matter much, since if I was looking to purchase a vehicle and safety was my primary concern then the best option would be to pick a heavier vehicle over a lighter vehicle.
You've made an assumption here that may not reflect reality. SUVs tend to have bigger engines with greater horsepower while smaller vehicles tend to be economy class vehicles with much smaller engines. I drive a 4-cylinder engine, and I notice the SUVs have no problem keeping up with me.
Besides quick starts at a green light is actually dangerous and would make the statistics favor the heavier vehicle even more. Especially since a side (or T-bone) collision is more dangerous than a "head on" collision.
I don't think this is true. They reported that they observed that heavier vehicles have a lower fatality rate than their lighter counterparts. The fact that they didn't go into detail on why this was observed, doesn't negate the observation.Unfortunately it's not a myth, and it wasn't created by marketing.
The crash compatibility topic (big car vs. small car) was first brought up by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in a 1998 news release that stated:
The basic findings reinforce whatâ(TM)s long been known about vehicle size and occupant death rates. As vehicle weight decreases, the number of occupants killed in crashes increases.
and
Lighter vehicles have higher occupant death rates in two-vehicle crashes, and within each weight class, cars and pickups have similar occupant death rates.
Here is the link http://www.iihs.org/news/1998/iihs_news_021098.pdf
I think some of the blame should go to the cell phone manufacturers.
Let me preface this with "Your milage may vary" therefore you should always shop for the best deal. Especially since the last time my contract was up for renewal was 8 months ago.
With the big cell phone companies in my area, I pay the same rate regardless if I already own a phone or let the carrier subsidize a new one. The only "advantage" I get from buying my phone separately is the supposed lack of lock in from my carrier. The problem being that to get the "discounted" rates most carriers I talked to still required some type of contract with termination penalties.
So how is this the manufacturer's fault?
The price of an unlocked phone with any kind of features is too high. With the volume of phones being sold today, there is no reason for the phones to be that high except to make the subsidized phone plans look even better.
I experienced this, when it came time for me to shop for a new carrier. I needed to justify any savings I could possibly accrue from being able to shop around for a non-contract tariff rate against the cost of an unsubsidized phone. This is where the economic reality hit me:
Being in the US, the people who try to purchase their phone separately from their carrier is a very small number (almost non-existent) when compared to the vast majority of customers who subscribe to a package deal with a phone carrier. This amounts to no real competition over non-contractual calling rates. The attitude I got from the big phone companies was "good luck", because quite frankly there were people in line behind me more than willing to accept whatever plan the phone company had to offer.
Due to the:
1) discounted rate plans available and the fact you pay the same phone rate regardless of you receiving a new phone with the plan, and
2) the fact that I don't change phone carriers that often,
it would be kind of dumb not to go ahead and get a new subsidized phone. Until there is real competitive pressure, you come out ahead with the subsidized phone. Especially when in some cases, the free phone with termination fee is cheaper than the price of a similar unlocked phone.
Well that's my observation at least...
Maybe if there was some law that forced carriers to itemize their bill to show the cost attributed to the subsidized phone, and allowed people who purchase their phones not to pay that additional charge.... oh wait that will never happen here.
Poor? Osama bin Laden is from a wealthy and prestigious family.
Weak? They have proven themselves quite capable of causing mass casualties.
Far away? The World Trade Center was in New York City.
Linux runs on the ARM. I understand that even Debian has an ARM port...
I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to the original poster and interpret his comments this way:
If there was a ready made package for me to use, I would gladly help the monitoring effort. However, I find the mantra "just port it" not only a reactionary response, but also totally unrealistic.
I find this totally hilarious and would have modded you funny if I had the points to give. You are a comic genius using the absurd to humorously make a point...
I mean it's like saying "If you are capable of reading all the books available on construction and building codes, then there is no excuse for you not being able to build your own house."
Of course I could be wrong and misinterpreted both of your responses, in that case nevermind...
True. Even though one of the popular OSes originally used carriage returns instead of linefeeds.