Perhaps the modifier "maybe" should be between "instincts" and "we'd". A bit presumptuous of me to draw a conclusion. But yes, money drives all. And some people are somewhat willing to pay for sex and what goes along with it...
Saw an interesting feature on a Dateline-type TV news show for my Cyberlaw class. It said that pornography has driven not only the Internet (streaming video, credit card verification, broadband, etc.), but also technologies like the VCR (instead of going to the sleazy adult theatre, you can watch skin flicks in your own home) and even cable television. It was said that the number of adult movie screens in this country (indeed, around the world) has gone up exponentially since the introduction of the VCR, and it hasn't decreased since. It takes away the need for people to go out and buy porn in a semi-public fashion.
Just think, if it weren't for our baser instincts, we'd never have advanced as far technologically as we have. Who knows what the future holds...
I was one of the most socially awkward kids in my school before I joined the speech and debate team my freshman year. Doing my event (extemporaneous speaking) not only helped me think on my feet and make credible presentations, but it also taught me the value and the methods of small talk. And I got to practice this between rounds in the cafeteria with all my friends that I met from other schools. I developed a really nice network of like-minded people, and on occasion we still keep in touch, though we've all gone our separate ways.
Speech has meant a lot to my life. It vastly improved my social skills and motivated me to succeed and communicate with others. I still do it in college (policy debate, which isn't as social but is still a lot of fun) and I always keep with me what I learned from the activity in high school.
Encourage your son to stick with it. It's an amazing activity, and its benefits are enormous.
I'm guessing that Apple pays such large royalties to the record labels because the labels are still hesitant about embracing the technology. It doesn't fit with their traditional business model of selling full albums. Perhaps they're charging so much for the specific purpose of making iTunes unprofitable, thereby killing the service and eliminating an alternative model.
iTunes is a win-win for the record companies: the RIAA collects high royalties now in order to try to cut into the store's profits, and then if the service succeeds, they could demand more. This might cause iTunes to raise prices, thereby driving away some price-conscious customers and cutting into its profits.
I love iTunes as much as anybody else, but don't think for one second that its success necessarily means that the RIAA likes it. They'd rather have you spend $15 on a crappy CD with two good songs than buy those two good songs for $2.
You misread my post. I said computer skills are vital to surviving college, not getting into college. One can certainly pick them up as they go through their college education. I didn't say that you had to be computer literate just to go to college. Obviously that would be unfair. I just thought I'd clear that up.
Yup, Boston College doesn't require you to bring a computer. About 85% of students here have their own or puchase one through BC (though the bundles are a total rip, like at any other school). We support both PCs and Macs, and (gasp) Linux machines too! (my roomie's a CS major and uses Mandrake for a lot of his programming projects; Linux is not "officially" supported but a small number of students do use it with success)
I don't like the idea of universities requiring computers either. Shouldn't they just provide some kind of public computer lab open to students? All other things being equal, a computer is still not absolutely essential for surviving college (though computer skills certainly are)...
Set in 1977, Indiana Jones will evade estranged family members, the US Government, and fake gas leaks and ascend from the earth to an extraterrestrial plane.
In the beginning of the movie, Walter Donovan talks about how one of the Knights of the Holy Grail recounted his story to a Frenchman before dying of "extreme old age". That might imply that the Knight had drunk from the cup and been able to live longer. But since making the long, long journey across the desert, he had not used it. So he would have prolonged his life enough to live back in France for some time, tell his story, and die.
So it did not make one "immortal". Rather, it simply healed and extended one's life.
Not to mention wireless capabilities on an increasing number of campuses. You can be sitting in class taking notes and printing them to a remote printserver or talking on Instant Messenger or pulling up relevant websites and contributing to class discussion.
But really, I'm amazed at how much these Apple laptops are conversation-starters. I have an iMac, and I'm almost always tempted to talk to people who have iBooks or PowerBooks because it's like being part of a common minority interest (most of my school is wintel). It's always neat to see what people are doing with their computers at the dining hall or in the cafe or even outside on the campus green.
In general, get something that won't take up a lot of space. I had a big IBM desktop PC freshman year that completely dominated my desk and my provided chair. This year the iMac takes up about 1/4 of the space the old computer did. The same goes for PC laptops, if that's what you choose...
Boston does have its own car problems, though. Some people move into neighborhoods like the Back Bay and Beacon Hill and still feel the need to own a car. I try not to drive down Newbury Street since I mostly take the T, but whenever I do I'm amazed at the number of Trailblazers and BMW SUVs and high-priced cars. What with everything you need within a block or two, why would one need a car in Boston?
For those who need to drive on occasion, Zipcar offers its services in the Boston area. Much easier and cheaper than trying to own one in town. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on more than it has. It seems so much easier to rent a car by the hour for things like grocery shopping and moving! But it will take time to convince people that owning a car in Boston is simply not worth the hassle, time, and money...
The PCC cars are still in service on part of the Boston mass transit system. There is a short (two miles long) streetcar line on the southern portion of the Red Line. After the normal heavy rail subway ends at Ashmont, you can board a PCC to travel to Mattapan. From what I understand they haven't really been renovated since World War II. Eventually the MBTA is supposed to update the line, but the way things go in Boston, that could be years from now...
The DFC (when it was around) definitely warped some of my own childhood memories. The fact that they used the original cartoons and user-created captions made it all the more disturbing. But I don't remember laughing harder than I did whenever I read them. Somehow I think the parody generated even more interest in Bil Keane's daily strip.
What they did to Calvin and Hobbes was just wrong. That and Garfield were the two I grew up with, and I deign to see what the latter looks like. Besides, Suzie didn't like Calvin that much anyway...
Just went over to the new OS X section. Within three minutes I had downloaded Meteorologist - a free alternative to WeatherPop. It works really well too! It's nice to have a reliable place to find free OS X software other than Mozilla...
I agree with this. But should they sell the software or the license? If the former, I, the end user, ought to have every right to modify and customize the software to fit my needs. But given the latter, all I can do is use the software as per the terms dictated in the license agreement. Any other use would violate the license agreement.
And what is a "fair price"? Adobe's hawking of its products at $700 or more isn't very fair. I would have no problem paying $30 for Photoshop or PageMaker. But as it's priced so high, I have to use the Win32 port of the GIMP instead. Some software is just not worth what these companies want to charge for it. And that's what inhibits us.
I sure hope the software is good. Most Microsoft products wouldn't fall under any definition of the word. I won't purchase software that will compromise my system, infect my browser, and allow renegade JavaScript and ActiveX to screw with me.
So good software should be sold at a fair price. I agree. But we must consider and possibly improve the means.
... on your own computer. Google and Yahoo! both have pages detailing how you can put their forms on your Web site. Just copy and paste them to a blank document, save as HTML, do a few small stylistic modifications, and point your browser to the file on your computer. No need to wait for load times, images, pop-up windows, and all that fun stuff. It comes up immediately.
Mine's startup.html and it works great. I also put other quick links on the page that I use often.
Yeah, CSS is often mangled by Netscape. It looks just fine in IE or Mozilla. But Netscape can't seem to handle it well.
I designed a Web site for my dorm, Hardey-Cushing. I used CSS throughout, and it looks great in Mozilla. Unfortunately, the vast majority of BC's undergraduate population (9000), as well as most of the people in my dorm, only use Netscape because it's bundled with the network software you buy at the bookstore. So my links don't light up when you hover your mouse over them, and anything under the LI tag is in the default browser font (Times New Roman, in my case) instead of the page font.
So CSS can be a bit of a problem at times. It works well for changing one thing over many pages, but cross-compatibility is a real hassle. That's why on my personal site, I've forgone all the fancy stuff and designed in a retro (circa 1996) look. The only "modern" thing on the page is the title image, which is in.PNG format.
If CSS were completely compatible with everything, I wouldn't mind using it. But seeing as it's not, I feel it's best to stick to simplicity.
I also use NoAds, which helps me kill pop-up windows on sight. It's wonderful. I do like Mozilla's "Block Images From This Server" option too. Works wonders on cnn.com and other places.
YES! I love it! It's so simple and yet complete. It's a bit nostalgic, in a way. I think you're inspiring me to re-do my entire site in retro fashion! (As if four years ago could be considered "retro".)
I also loved the drab gray backgrounds, the blue hyperlinks, the simple HR tag, Times New Roman font, and the content. People actually seemed to have intelligent things to say. Pages were just loaded chock full of information. It was functional and reliable, though not completely pretty.
Seems today that people have forgone functionality for looks and Shockwave and JavaScript and other fun stuff. The Statusbar alteration got annoying about 20 minutes after it was invented, much like the BLINK tag.
I think it'd be neat to see retro Web sites. Although one can find them just by looking deep within university Web sites and search engines. Or we could just simplify and go back to when tables were the hot new thing.
Oh yeah, one more thing I loved about the Internet back only five years ago when I started: no pop-up x10 ads!
What about Internet2? Wasn't that supposed to be an alternative to the current, overloaded, commercialized Internet? I've heard about it before, but I don't see much else in the news or online. I'm guessing they're trying to keep it to only major universities and scientific organizations. That way, it will remain commercial-free.
I remember just five years ago, when I was 14 and first getting onto the Internet, the extent of advertising I saw was the mandated GeoCities ad I was forced to put at the bottom of my pages there. It was "This page is hosted by GeoCities. Get your own Free Home Page." And there was the Internet Link Exchange, which I thought was a well-intentioned, legitimate enterprise. And that was about it.
Now we've got this pop-up window crap, x10 ads everywhere, pop-under windows, banner ads, and renegade JavaScript and ActiveX which create bookmarks for you (another reason I use Netscape and Mozilla). And it sucks. Hell, I'd go back to 28.8 dial-up access from my cable connection just to have a simpler Web without ads. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far:-P
Don't forget the AOL part of the Internet. Until the FBI stings, most of the pedophiles are "unreachable" as are the script kiddies and the 37337 WaREz D0oDz the rest of the time.
I actually did get a reply when I dialed an 800 number listed in a spam e-mail. The man on the other side of the mail said angrily, "We did not send you that e-mail!" (*coughbullshitcough*) Then they hung up.
So maybe not 100% and possibly 99.9% is unreachable. Like the BBC, we gotta lowball it first.
I'd say a great majority of sites are non-functional. Most of the GeoCities "look at my pretty dog" variety of sites serve no purpose. Fourteen year-old personal profile pages on AOL Hometown are pretty useless.
So a lot of the Web is non-functional. Mainly because there's so much crap out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps the modifier "maybe" should be between "instincts" and "we'd". A bit presumptuous of me to draw a conclusion. But yes, money drives all. And some people are somewhat willing to pay for sex and what goes along with it...
Saw an interesting feature on a Dateline-type TV news show for my Cyberlaw class. It said that pornography has driven not only the Internet (streaming video, credit card verification, broadband, etc.), but also technologies like the VCR (instead of going to the sleazy adult theatre, you can watch skin flicks in your own home) and even cable television. It was said that the number of adult movie screens in this country (indeed, around the world) has gone up exponentially since the introduction of the VCR, and it hasn't decreased since. It takes away the need for people to go out and buy porn in a semi-public fashion.
Just think, if it weren't for our baser instincts, we'd never have advanced as far technologically as we have. Who knows what the future holds...
I was one of the most socially awkward kids in my school before I joined the speech and debate team my freshman year. Doing my event (extemporaneous speaking) not only helped me think on my feet and make credible presentations, but it also taught me the value and the methods of small talk. And I got to practice this between rounds in the cafeteria with all my friends that I met from other schools. I developed a really nice network of like-minded people, and on occasion we still keep in touch, though we've all gone our separate ways.
Speech has meant a lot to my life. It vastly improved my social skills and motivated me to succeed and communicate with others. I still do it in college (policy debate, which isn't as social but is still a lot of fun) and I always keep with me what I learned from the activity in high school.
Encourage your son to stick with it. It's an amazing activity, and its benefits are enormous.
I'm guessing that Apple pays such large royalties to the record labels because the labels are still hesitant about embracing the technology. It doesn't fit with their traditional business model of selling full albums. Perhaps they're charging so much for the specific purpose of making iTunes unprofitable, thereby killing the service and eliminating an alternative model.
iTunes is a win-win for the record companies: the RIAA collects high royalties now in order to try to cut into the store's profits, and then if the service succeeds, they could demand more. This might cause iTunes to raise prices, thereby driving away some price-conscious customers and cutting into its profits.
I love iTunes as much as anybody else, but don't think for one second that its success necessarily means that the RIAA likes it. They'd rather have you spend $15 on a crappy CD with two good songs than buy those two good songs for $2.
You misread my post. I said computer skills are vital to surviving college, not getting into college. One can certainly pick them up as they go through their college education. I didn't say that you had to be computer literate just to go to college. Obviously that would be unfair. I just thought I'd clear that up.
Yup, Boston College doesn't require you to bring a computer. About 85% of students here have their own or puchase one through BC (though the bundles are a total rip, like at any other school). We support both PCs and Macs, and (gasp) Linux machines too! (my roomie's a CS major and uses Mandrake for a lot of his programming projects; Linux is not "officially" supported but a small number of students do use it with success)
I don't like the idea of universities requiring computers either. Shouldn't they just provide some kind of public computer lab open to students? All other things being equal, a computer is still not absolutely essential for surviving college (though computer skills certainly are)...
Set in 1977, Indiana Jones will evade estranged family members, the US Government, and fake gas leaks and ascend from the earth to an extraterrestrial plane.
Oh, wait...
In the beginning of the movie, Walter Donovan talks about how one of the Knights of the Holy Grail recounted his story to a Frenchman before dying of "extreme old age". That might imply that the Knight had drunk from the cup and been able to live longer. But since making the long, long journey across the desert, he had not used it. So he would have prolonged his life enough to live back in France for some time, tell his story, and die.
So it did not make one "immortal". Rather, it simply healed and extended one's life.
Of course you can! Just press the little button next to the zipper:
"Drying mode on!"
"Jacket drying..."
*WWHHHIIIIRRRRRRRRR*
"Your jacket is now dry!"
Not to mention wireless capabilities on an increasing number of campuses. You can be sitting in class taking notes and printing them to a remote printserver or talking on Instant Messenger or pulling up relevant websites and contributing to class discussion.
But really, I'm amazed at how much these Apple laptops are conversation-starters. I have an iMac, and I'm almost always tempted to talk to people who have iBooks or PowerBooks because it's like being part of a common minority interest (most of my school is wintel). It's always neat to see what people are doing with their computers at the dining hall or in the cafe or even outside on the campus green.
In general, get something that won't take up a lot of space. I had a big IBM desktop PC freshman year that completely dominated my desk and my provided chair. This year the iMac takes up about 1/4 of the space the old computer did. The same goes for PC laptops, if that's what you choose...
Boston does have its own car problems, though. Some people move into neighborhoods like the Back Bay and Beacon Hill and still feel the need to own a car. I try not to drive down Newbury Street since I mostly take the T, but whenever I do I'm amazed at the number of Trailblazers and BMW SUVs and high-priced cars. What with everything you need within a block or two, why would one need a car in Boston?
For those who need to drive on occasion, Zipcar offers its services in the Boston area. Much easier and cheaper than trying to own one in town. I'm surprised it hasn't caught on more than it has. It seems so much easier to rent a car by the hour for things like grocery shopping and moving! But it will take time to convince people that owning a car in Boston is simply not worth the hassle, time, and money...
The PCC cars are still in service on part of the Boston mass transit system. There is a short (two miles long) streetcar line on the southern portion of the Red Line. After the normal heavy rail subway ends at Ashmont, you can board a PCC to travel to Mattapan. From what I understand they haven't really been renovated since World War II. Eventually the MBTA is supposed to update the line, but the way things go in Boston, that could be years from now...
The DFC (when it was around) definitely warped some of my own childhood memories. The fact that they used the original cartoons and user-created captions made it all the more disturbing. But I don't remember laughing harder than I did whenever I read them. Somehow I think the parody generated even more interest in Bil Keane's daily strip.
What they did to Calvin and Hobbes was just wrong. That and Garfield were the two I grew up with, and I deign to see what the latter looks like. Besides, Suzie didn't like Calvin that much anyway...
Just went over to the new OS X section. Within three minutes I had downloaded Meteorologist - a free alternative to WeatherPop. It works really well too! It's nice to have a reliable place to find free OS X software other than Mozilla...
... on your own computer. Google and Yahoo! both have pages detailing how you can put their forms on your Web site. Just copy and paste them to a blank document, save as HTML, do a few small stylistic modifications, and point your browser to the file on your computer. No need to wait for load times, images, pop-up windows, and all that fun stuff. It comes up immediately. Mine's startup.html and it works great. I also put other quick links on the page that I use often.
Yeah, CSS is often mangled by Netscape. It looks just fine in IE or Mozilla. But Netscape can't seem to handle it well.
.PNG format.
I designed a Web site for my dorm, Hardey-Cushing. I used CSS throughout, and it looks great in Mozilla. Unfortunately, the vast majority of BC's undergraduate population (9000), as well as most of the people in my dorm, only use Netscape because it's bundled with the network software you buy at the bookstore. So my links don't light up when you hover your mouse over them, and anything under the LI tag is in the default browser font (Times New Roman, in my case) instead of the page font.
So CSS can be a bit of a problem at times. It works well for changing one thing over many pages, but cross-compatibility is a real hassle. That's why on my personal site, I've forgone all the fancy stuff and designed in a retro (circa 1996) look. The only "modern" thing on the page is the title image, which is in
If CSS were completely compatible with everything, I wouldn't mind using it. But seeing as it's not, I feel it's best to stick to simplicity.
I also use NoAds, which helps me kill pop-up windows on sight. It's wonderful. I do like Mozilla's "Block Images From This Server" option too. Works wonders on cnn.com and other places.
YES! I love it! It's so simple and yet complete. It's a bit nostalgic, in a way. I think you're inspiring me to re-do my entire site in retro fashion! (As if four years ago could be considered "retro".)
But yeah, that's really neat.
I also loved the drab gray backgrounds, the blue hyperlinks, the simple HR tag, Times New Roman font, and the content. People actually seemed to have intelligent things to say. Pages were just loaded chock full of information. It was functional and reliable, though not completely pretty.
Seems today that people have forgone functionality for looks and Shockwave and JavaScript and other fun stuff. The Statusbar alteration got annoying about 20 minutes after it was invented, much like the BLINK tag.
I think it'd be neat to see retro Web sites. Although one can find them just by looking deep within university Web sites and search engines. Or we could just simplify and go back to when tables were the hot new thing.
Oh yeah, one more thing I loved about the Internet back only five years ago when I started: no pop-up x10 ads!
What about Internet2? Wasn't that supposed to be an alternative to the current, overloaded, commercialized Internet? I've heard about it before, but I don't see much else in the news or online. I'm guessing they're trying to keep it to only major universities and scientific organizations. That way, it will remain commercial-free.
I remember just five years ago, when I was 14 and first getting onto the Internet, the extent of advertising I saw was the mandated GeoCities ad I was forced to put at the bottom of my pages there. It was "This page is hosted by GeoCities. Get your own Free Home Page." And there was the Internet Link Exchange, which I thought was a well-intentioned, legitimate enterprise. And that was about it.
Now we've got this pop-up window crap, x10 ads everywhere, pop-under windows, banner ads, and renegade JavaScript and ActiveX which create bookmarks for you (another reason I use Netscape and Mozilla). And it sucks. Hell, I'd go back to 28.8 dial-up access from my cable connection just to have a simpler Web without ads. Well, maybe I wouldn't go that far :-P
The official list of state sponsors of spam includes America Online and Earthlink. Who else might we add to that?
Don't forget the AOL part of the Internet. Until the FBI stings, most of the pedophiles are "unreachable" as are the script kiddies and the 37337 WaREz D0oDz the rest of the time.
What a waste of bandwidth, anyways...
I actually did get a reply when I dialed an 800 number listed in a spam e-mail. The man on the other side of the mail said angrily, "We did not send you that e-mail!" (*coughbullshitcough*) Then they hung up.
So maybe not 100% and possibly 99.9% is unreachable. Like the BBC, we gotta lowball it first.
I'd say a great majority of sites are non-functional. Most of the GeoCities "look at my pretty dog" variety of sites serve no purpose. Fourteen year-old personal profile pages on AOL Hometown are pretty useless.
So a lot of the Web is non-functional. Mainly because there's so much crap out there.