I'm with ya -- the math of measurements would be so much easier for me if my fellow Americans used the metric system. I was a kid when they tried it -- seemed perfectly sensible and easy to understand to me and the kids with me.
Since we never were forced to use it, I didn't develop a good sense of "how long is a centimeter" or "how heavy is a kilogram", but I bet that would come after only a short time of using the metric system. I sure did get a good sense of how much volume a liter was.
I even liked the Celsius temperature system. It's all so simple and useful: 0 freezes water, and 100 boils it.
Seems pointless to me. 12 feet isn't too long to run a cable. I was hoping for more like 150 feet, so I could listen to the stereo [or the tv's audio] downstairs in the garage.
I think he meant "distract" the same you might say that a number of small, but dangerous dogs can distract a bear long enough for you to get away -- or bring a gun to bear. In this case, as you correctly surmise, the bear is Ma Bell.
Seems to me the value to Murdoch is that he could do to the telephone companies what Microsoft did to Netscape -- drive them out of business by giving away a reasonable alternative, even though it costs to give it away. That cost is an investment in the dogs who bring down the bear.
It's not the "media companies" that Skype would hurt -- it's the telephone companies, who tend to have big, strong networks.
"...he distracts for no money at all most of the major media companies."
Um, isn't anybody counting that 3 BILLION DOLLARS he pays for Skype?
I'm so glad they fixed the %£$@! space bar
on
The Future of Firefox
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I tried Firefox now & then for OS X, but one thing always made me turn back to Safari: I couldn't stand how the spacebar in Firefox didn't adhere to standard practice: scroll the web page down. I saw this/. story and decided to give Firefox another try. Hurray! The spacebar works as it should!
"Gimp suits?" Interesting image. I think I know what you mean, but I'm curious about where you got the idea for the metaphor, "Harrison Bergeron" or the movie Pulp Fiction, or...?
Almost daily. Since my work is entirely Internet-based, I must check my email constantly. Sending reminders to myself, shopping lists, contact info, etc., works well for me because I'm so often using email.
All the effort you describe would no doubt be rewarding to you, but the client, WSJ, would be better served by having more robust email with larger storage capacity, ubiquitous user access, and appropriate security. Far better to use a pencil you already understand than have someone come build you a fancy pantograph with optional 3-handled family gradunzas attached, just to do the same thing you happily accomplished with a pencil.
This is becoming an issue at my workplace, where internal clients need files quickly, but are a diverse group, largely without much technical knowledge or even interest. It serves them best if I can just send/receive files, but the email server admins have gone nuts about it, saying basically "does not exist to fulfill your file storage needs". I don't doubt it, but I think that it should -- that is, I think we should plan on using it what way, if possible. It's far simpler for most users here [a university] to use email than to figure out how to transfer files in other ways [btw, there are no other officially sanctioned ways except sneakernet!, which is sad]. Users aren't permitted to FTP, SSH, IM or use web space [where quotas are too small to be of any use]. A great deal of productivity can be realized by just building out the email system so that users can send and receive their files and use the email as storage.
Grammar checkers aren't needed by anyone who knows grammar [for them, it's an annoying waste of time]. Thus, people who'd recognize the checkers' poor performance aren't looking.
People who don't know grammar well wouldn't know that the grammar checker performs too poorly to be reliable. Thus, the people who "need" this service cannot be sure whether it served them well, or poorly.
The only solution: pay attention in grammar classes. Ignorance is only an excuse if it's not willful. If you *want* to be dumb, expect no sympathy from the smart. Of course, if you're dumb, there's no point in telling you this -- you won't take smart advice.
Re:Probably worth mentioning...
on
Hacking Mac OS X
·
· Score: 2, Informative
To move files from one disk to another: hold down the Apple key when dragging files. Dragging ordinarily moves files, but when you drag from one disk to another, OSX wants to help you by assuming you want to copy.
It can be a little weird if you're used to Windows [that's how it felt for me], but I got used to it.
The thing I can't get used to [or should I say, the thing I don't want to accept] is that you can't copy a folder to a place with a folder of the same name, without completely replacing the existing folder and its contents. Here's what I mean:
I have a folder named "text" on my desktop. It's got 3 files. They are all a day old.
I have another folder called "text" on my portable HD. It only has two files, but one of them has the same name as a file in the "text" folder on my desktop. All these files are newer.
If I copy the folder from my portable to my desktop, OSX warns me that the folder will replace one of the same name. That's fine, but what happens next is very different from the other OSes I've used:
The folder on my desktop has only the files I just copied. File 3 is gone. So are the older versions of my files. There were no separate prompts about overwriting files. OSX just treats my folder as one file -- screw the contents, it's just a file to OSX.
I lived in Germany 10 years ago. Milka was to German chocolate what Hershey's is to American chocolate: cheap, fatty and relatively tasteless. That's a fair description of Milka chocolate, too.
Lindt is among my favorites. Even a Cadbury Dark bar is better chocolate than Milka.
It's a great book -- highly recommended. BTW, if you become fascinated with the history of codes and codebreaking, check out David Kahn's _The_Codebreakers_ -- look for the 1990s revision.
So you're not going to read it because a printer made an error? You're not dumb enough to blame typos on an author, are you?
Why are you still reading slashdot?
Nope, it is simple: you can choose whether or not to lie. If you doctor your product so it will look better in tests, seeming better at some function than you know it really is... that's lying.
You don't have to advertise your flaws; that's a different question. If you make medicine, or potentially dangerous products, you should -- or we'll eventually gang up on you because you didn't [see: Merck, Ford, etc].
You don't have to disclose flaws in your product, but when it's discovered that you hid those flaws, others will regard you as a liar.
If you actively try to *hide* those flows, or deceive people into believing there are no such flaws, then... you are lying.
When? Instantly. There is no gray area.
on
Truth in Advertising?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
"To everyone: When does spin doctoring cross the line and become false advertising?"
Instantly. There is no gray area between honesty and dishonesty. You either tell the truth, or you tell a lie. Your company either attempts to subvert tests [i.e., lies], or it doesn't [i.e., does not attempt to lie]. No ambiguity exists in this case.
Your question reminds me of a question posed on the cover of a national "news" magazine in the wake of revelations that the New York Times had published falsified news reports. Their question was, to paraphrase: "Does this signal a new standard in journalism?". Of course it signaled no such thing; it only signaled that some publications, or at least reporters writing for them, were willing to be dishonest and to print lies. I wonder if the author of that question was perhaps a bit hopeful that, yes, this event did signal a relaxing of ethics?
About as irrelevant as your rude assumption that you can speak for all Americans, or anyone but your self. Please don't bother us with your prejudice, hostility, and flamebait.
It may seem funny to you, but it looks like a troll to me. I'd vote for modding the parent down to flamebait, but there's no paper balloting so I can't trust you to count my vote.
Agreed on all points. My response was chiefly to "re-arranging atoms one by one to get the exact structure of particle board". I was thinking of reasons you'd rather make an object like a coffee table in spite of the cost. It's conceivable that some factor could tip the balance in favor of the matter-compiled table: designer cachet, improved performance, incredible material qualities [a diamond-hard table that doubles as a touch-sensitive control surface for your home's devices].... even given our assumption that matter-compiled items must be expensive to produce, which is not necessarily always going to be true, although I admit it seems most likely.
Here's another reason not to make a coffee table: think of all the makers of coasters and doilies who'd be lining up to smash our matter compilers if we invented a coffee table that was impervious to moisture, heat, acids or scratching.
Yes, it makes sense, but have you considered this: the first few who get to be "KINGS and QUEENS" aren't going to let anybody else into the club, and since they got there first, they'll have the power/money/whatever to make sure you don't get into the club.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm with ya -- the math of measurements would be so much easier for me if my fellow Americans used the metric system. I was a kid when they tried it -- seemed perfectly sensible and easy to understand to me and the kids with me.
Since we never were forced to use it, I didn't develop a good sense of "how long is a centimeter" or "how heavy is a kilogram", but I bet that would come after only a short time of using the metric system. I sure did get a good sense of how much volume a liter was.
I even liked the Celsius temperature system. It's all so simple and useful: 0 freezes water, and 100 boils it.
Seems pointless to me. 12 feet isn't too long to run a cable. I was hoping for more like 150 feet, so I could listen to the stereo [or the tv's audio] downstairs in the garage.
Got me smiling with that one. I'd mod parent "funny". I can't help but think this is sarcastic -- and I like it.
Suddenly, out in the middle of nowhere and far from anyone who could hear: a tree fell in the forest.
I think he meant "distract" the same you might say that a number of small, but dangerous dogs can distract a bear long enough for you to get away -- or bring a gun to bear. In this case, as you correctly surmise, the bear is Ma Bell.
Seems to me the value to Murdoch is that he could do to the telephone companies what Microsoft did to Netscape -- drive them out of business by giving away a reasonable alternative, even though it costs to give it away. That cost is an investment in the dogs who bring down the bear.
It's not the "media companies" that Skype would hurt -- it's the telephone companies, who tend to have big, strong networks.
"...he distracts for no money at all most of the major media companies." Um, isn't anybody counting that 3 BILLION DOLLARS he pays for Skype?
I tried Firefox now & then for OS X, but one thing always made me turn back to Safari: I couldn't stand how the spacebar in Firefox didn't adhere to standard practice: scroll the web page down. I saw this /. story and decided to give Firefox another try. Hurray! The spacebar works as it should!
It is an excrescence. You must never show that to anyone. Burn it at once.
"Gimp suits?" Interesting image. I think I know what you mean, but I'm curious about where you got the idea for the metaphor, "Harrison Bergeron" or the movie Pulp Fiction, or ...?
Almost daily. Since my work is entirely Internet-based, I must check my email constantly. Sending reminders to myself, shopping lists, contact info, etc., works well for me because I'm so often using email.
All the effort you describe would no doubt be rewarding to you, but the client, WSJ, would be better served by having more robust email with larger storage capacity, ubiquitous user access, and appropriate security. Far better to use a pencil you already understand than have someone come build you a fancy pantograph with optional 3-handled family gradunzas attached, just to do the same thing you happily accomplished with a pencil.
Nope, because I don't click them.
This is becoming an issue at my workplace, where internal clients need files quickly, but are a diverse group, largely without much technical knowledge or even interest. It serves them best if I can just send/receive files, but the email server admins have gone nuts about it, saying basically "does not exist to fulfill your file storage needs". I don't doubt it, but I think that it should -- that is, I think we should plan on using it what way, if possible. It's far simpler for most users here [a university] to use email than to figure out how to transfer files in other ways [btw, there are no other officially sanctioned ways except sneakernet!, which is sad]. Users aren't permitted to FTP, SSH, IM or use web space [where quotas are too small to be of any use]. A great deal of productivity can be realized by just building out the email system so that users can send and receive their files and use the email as storage.
In any case, I can't browse to those links you provided. "Connection was refused" by www.scripps.edu ....
Grammar checkers aren't needed by anyone who knows grammar [for them, it's an annoying waste of time]. Thus, people who'd recognize the checkers' poor performance aren't looking. People who don't know grammar well wouldn't know that the grammar checker performs too poorly to be reliable. Thus, the people who "need" this service cannot be sure whether it served them well, or poorly. The only solution: pay attention in grammar classes. Ignorance is only an excuse if it's not willful. If you *want* to be dumb, expect no sympathy from the smart. Of course, if you're dumb, there's no point in telling you this -- you won't take smart advice.
To move files from one disk to another: hold down the Apple key when dragging files. Dragging ordinarily moves files, but when you drag from one disk to another, OSX wants to help you by assuming you want to copy.
It can be a little weird if you're used to Windows [that's how it felt for me], but I got used to it.
The thing I can't get used to [or should I say, the thing I don't want to accept] is that you can't copy a folder to a place with a folder of the same name, without completely replacing the existing folder and its contents. Here's what I mean:
I have a folder named "text" on my desktop. It's got 3 files. They are all a day old.
I have another folder called "text" on my portable HD. It only has two files, but one of them has the same name as a file in the "text" folder on my desktop. All these files are newer.
If I copy the folder from my portable to my desktop, OSX warns me that the folder will replace one of the same name. That's fine, but what happens next is very different from the other OSes I've used:
The folder on my desktop has only the files I just copied. File 3 is gone. So are the older versions of my files. There were no separate prompts about overwriting files. OSX just treats my folder as one file -- screw the contents, it's just a file to OSX.
In other words, I can't easily combine folders.
I lived in Germany 10 years ago. Milka was to German chocolate what Hershey's is to American chocolate: cheap, fatty and relatively tasteless. That's a fair description of Milka chocolate, too.
Lindt is among my favorites. Even a Cadbury Dark bar is better chocolate than Milka.
It's a great book -- highly recommended. BTW, if you become fascinated with the history of codes and codebreaking, check out David Kahn's _The_Codebreakers_ -- look for the 1990s revision.
So you're not going to read it because a printer made an error? You're not dumb enough to blame typos on an author, are you? Why are you still reading slashdot?
Nope, it is simple: you can choose whether or not to lie. If you doctor your product so it will look better in tests, seeming better at some function than you know it really is ... that's lying.
... you are lying.
You don't have to advertise your flaws; that's a different question. If you make medicine, or potentially dangerous products, you should -- or we'll eventually gang up on you because you didn't [see: Merck, Ford, etc].
You don't have to disclose flaws in your product, but when it's discovered that you hid those flaws, others will regard you as a liar.
If you actively try to *hide* those flows, or deceive people into believing there are no such flaws, then
Instantly. There is no gray area between honesty and dishonesty. You either tell the truth, or you tell a lie. Your company either attempts to subvert tests [i.e., lies], or it doesn't [i.e., does not attempt to lie]. No ambiguity exists in this case.
Your question reminds me of a question posed on the cover of a national "news" magazine in the wake of revelations that the New York Times had published falsified news reports. Their question was, to paraphrase: "Does this signal a new standard in journalism?". Of course it signaled no such thing; it only signaled that some publications, or at least reporters writing for them, were willing to be dishonest and to print lies. I wonder if the author of that question was perhaps a bit hopeful that, yes, this event did signal a relaxing of ethics?
About as irrelevant as your rude assumption that you can speak for all Americans, or anyone but your self. Please don't bother us with your prejudice, hostility, and flamebait.
It may seem funny to you, but it looks like a troll to me. I'd vote for modding the parent down to flamebait, but there's no paper balloting so I can't trust you to count my vote.
Agreed on all points. My response was chiefly to "re-arranging atoms one by one to get the exact structure of particle board". I was thinking of reasons you'd rather make an object like a coffee table in spite of the cost. It's conceivable that some factor could tip the balance in favor of the matter-compiled table: designer cachet, improved performance, incredible material qualities [a diamond-hard table that doubles as a touch-sensitive control surface for your home's devices].... even given our assumption that matter-compiled items must be expensive to produce, which is not necessarily always going to be true, although I admit it seems most likely.
Here's another reason not to make a coffee table: think of all the makers of coasters and doilies who'd be lining up to smash our matter compilers if we invented a coffee table that was impervious to moisture, heat, acids or scratching.
Yes, it makes sense, but have you considered this: the first few who get to be "KINGS and QUEENS" aren't going to let anybody else into the club, and since they got there first, they'll have the power/money/whatever to make sure you don't get into the club.