especially ones that meet the same standard as Paypal.
Quotes like this make it sound as if Paypal had a standard. Instant transfers and protection from fraud on ebay sound great, but there are also many cases in which money gets retransferred for no apparent reason or accounts are blocked because something was not conforming to their "policy". To me they are just pretending to be a real bank. As long as it works as advertised it is great but when there is trouble you'll face scenarios you would never encounter with any financial institute.
I'm too tired to look up any sources, but take a look at this google search.
There are very good howtos online describing the steps to get Linux running on such devices. For me that's the fun part.
Nevertheless I totally see a reason to be upset about this, because we'll pay for something we don't want at all. As long as I can get the same device witch Linux installed at a cheaper price it's totally fine to me. Even if the Linux version is very poorly preconfigured - it is easy to change that. It's not like Vista laptops run perfectly fine with all the tools the manufacturer of the laptop preinstalled.
You could also carry a bottle with a liquid containing DNA from a different dog. Whenever your dog leaves something behind you simply spray on it.
It would be much easier to just pick it up, but imagine the fun when the city starts to look for dogs which don't even are in the same country. Maybe it will lead to the foundation of some sort of dog-interpol.
Over here we don't have DNA tests (yet), but there are so many rules that I'm not considering buying a new dog when my 13 year old crossbreed dies. Hopefully this will not be so soon. But I'm tired of driving half an hour so I can let him run unleashed. They also made muzzles mandatory in public transport, even if your dog is as small as a rabbit and has never bitten anyone. Both measures were introduced when attacks from fighting dogs received high public awareness...
I see a general twist in Apple's strategy. Instead of trying everything to keep their ventures compatible they are starting to blame MS for things which are really in their realm. On the other hand MS has done this for years and Vista is no exception when it comes to Samba support and so on.
A week ago I tried to set an appointment on me.com on a computer I don't have administrative access to and I had to use IE. When logging on to me.com I was informed that IE isn't currently supported and that I have to click "Continue" to use it anyways. In the end I didn't have any problem, but it reminded me of DR-DOS and MS.
Nevertheless I don't feel sorry for those using Vista. In my eyes there are only two reasons to use it: Playing DX10 games or having bought a new computer which comes with it. Somehow I lack empathy for both groups.
HR isn't accounting - if they have a good reason to access social networks they'll most likely get it.
A good friend of mine works in "futurology" for a major car manufacturer between his bachelor and master (great job btw) and he managed to get youtube of the blacklist within less than a week reasoning that his department needs to stay in touch with recent trends in order to formulate valid predictions about the future state of the car market.
If the head of HR wants to access facebook it will take just a couple of minutes to create a special rule for said department. And if I was head of HR I'd argue that any constraint in web access will limit the department's ability to research the applicant's background...
(And even if the company I'm working for was so dumb to deny me access I'd check such things at home)
Of course, a towel provides effective IRdA security.
Guess you weren't too serious about this, but this is the reason why Free Space Optics were used by military before strong encryption got fancy. Since it doesn't spread like radio and it is quite portable compared to wires it was used by the German army during WWII for voice communication to nearby stations at the Atlantic Wall. Lasers weren't available back then so I have doubts regarding reliability and range, but since it was in use it must have provided an advantage over copper and radio.
Coca Cola invented Fanta so they could continue to sell soft drinks in the European market during the War
Today when two countries are fighting it is most certain that Coca-Cola is present on both sides. Somehow nobody has a problem with that - it's not common sense that selling soft-drinks to the enemy is going to hurt anyone.
Nevertheless I agree that IBM's role in WWII is not particularly evil. Hollerith punch cards were on the market since 1928 and were used for all kinds of legitimate administrative purposes. Since the public on both sides fighting was mostly unaware of the holocaust until around '43 (in Germany sometimes even '45) it is not very realistic to assume that IBM was knowing about the purpose of orders from nazi-Germany before the US entered the war. And after the US joined the war they can't be held accountable because the German subsidiary DEHOMAG got expropriated. Given the unique efficiency and cruelty of this genocide I even doubt they could have foreseen it.
Sharing files illegally is not allowed in the library or anywhere on campus!!
Somehow this makes me wonder which illegal activities are allowed on campus. I mean the statement is either redundant or it implies that certain illegal actions will be tolerated.
If you didn't paraphrase it might be fun to ask them;)
Ah, now I get it (even though I still disagree). It would be really, really interesting to know what models they use. Like I said in the original post software is a really special business. I'd love to work in controlling for such a company for a couple of months.
Nevertheless I base my argument on observation. Whenever they make it harder to use a pirate copy they release a fix which makes it possible to keep the copy going. For example when they blocked the famous FCKGW key in SP1 it took a week till they put a knowledge base article online describing the steps to change the key. Since then they have played this game numerous times: First they release an update which doesn't work with compromised volume keys, then they wait for the public outcry and provide a fix which simply makes it a little bit more annoying to run a pirate copy. If they really wanted to completely stop piracy they would handle this differently (and I'm sure their market share would drop at least in developing countries).
I was simply pointing out that in MS' case the relation between piracy and profit is not as simple as they want us to believe. To a certain extend piracy is actually helping them to sustain their monopoly. Every measure they have taken to fight piracy came with a deliberate loophole to circumvent it.
I don't judge this behavior in terms of good or evil. Of course they can't admit in public that they rather see a pirate copy of Windows than a legit one from a competitor, but that's exactly the case in many market segments.
Adding to amorsen: We all obey the law of thermodynamics (and at least I'm happy to do so). But nevertheless oil is a great heat conductor and air is one of the best insulators we have. We just use it to cool computer components because we have it all around us and it doesn't cost us anything. Oil is simply better if you want to transport intense amounts of heat from one point to the other
Nevertheless I won't recommend anyone to use oil to get rid of heat problems - it was just a dumb but inspiring answer to a question which belongs in the former category of this sentence.
I do believe that we need a standard which makes pictures and text resolution independent. IMO CSS has failed in so many regards I'm starting to wonder why tables were so bad at all. Of course it has advantages to keep design and content separate, but that rarely happens in the real world. Another argument for CSS was that it was more accessible. I'm not blind, so I can't tell how much websites have improved. But when I look at the source of sites like cnet.com I'm not really sure they have improved that much in this regard. However, what makes me most angry about the current state is how technical limitations had profound influence on contemporary design. Every site right now has to have a certain width and in case your screen is wider you look at all this space wasted by some background. On my 1440 resolution screen I rarely get more content than on 1024. And if I get it it's just because there is some js aware of my current resolution.
From the very beginning of WGA the aim was to discourage those who don't know how to avoid it to buy a proper copy. MS has conflicting interests, which both aim at profit: Market share* and a low number of illegal copies. If they make it too hard to install a pirate copy they might encourage people to switch to free alternatives. Plus they have to sell Vista now, which gives a perfect opportunity to make it a little more annoying to run a pirate copy of XP. I'd hate to give them just a cent for all the MS-related problems I had during the last years, but the good news is that many people switching to Vista can now sell their OEM licenses for XP (depending on what country they live in) and there is also a very huge chance to obtain a volume-license-key in my area. I'll legalize my copy in the near future, but not because I have to, but it has become so cheap. So the one time in a month I really want to play a decent computer game I don't have to worry about such things anymore.
*Market share usually means turnover, but in this case I'd argue that % of people using it is a far better number. Major competitors offer their OS for free or sell it along their hardware for a price which is rather abritrary. Software is a very special industry. It's not like the car industry, where fixed and variable costs have a relation...
Since a few years we hear about people putting everything in an aquarium filled with vegetable oil. The only downside is that the oil creeps up the cables going out, so you have to wipe them from time to time. Never heard of any larger setup of this kind, but it would be interesting.
And before someone mods me down consider this: The original article lacks info about just everything one would need in order to give reasonable advice: Location (local temperatures), heat output (amount of systems and what kind they are of), size of room and so on. So don't blame me but the guy who failed to articulate his question in a way that one could help him (plus the one putting it on the front page).
I think gp was talking about things like banners or company logos. There it really makes sense, because the current solution is to use images. And since many people believe that the company's name should also carry a h1 tag (for SEO and accessibility) they use one of the hacks which resizes the h1 text to 1px and put the image next to it.
One very small company I work for simply has its name in Bangle on a blue background. Since only few people have it on their computer and since it's not free I have to create lots of images for something which simply is a font on a colored background. Not that it takes me so much time, but from a aesthetical point of view it's really unsatisfying*. Since it's just a logo representing an image I don't think anyone would take offense. It would also help to fight Flash, because it would make it easier to give a website a certain look without going this road. However, when it comes to continuous text in Comic Sans I totally agree with you.
*Of course it would only work if you could also specify that you don't want it to be resized by the browser, but in my case I don't even care about that because it's just in a bar on top of everything else, so it would grow along.
I mean, I really enjoy Linux, but on my gaming desktop I'd like to have the best OS for the job (with DX10 if it's used). As a gamer, the whole thing put a sour taste in my mouth.
Which proves again that the only reason to upgrade is DX10, so the target audience is pretty much limited to gamers. Another downer is that even the few DX10 games available don't look so much better compared to how they look on XP.
I wouldn't bother so much if it wasn't for all the friends coming to a LAN-party with Vista or my relatives who "just bought a laptop" with Vista pre-installed. The only thing I take comfort in is that I manage to configure more on the command line than they could ever reach in Vista's GUI. ipconfig and net are still there...
Performance wise I wouldn't be so surprised. On some new hardware it takes more than 20 seconds to start the control panel. I can't remember Win95 taking that long after a fresh restart. I wished that the audience would laugh more when some MS exec presented the benefits of this OS.
B) True;) Though if it took him 15+ minutes then surely he was not very practiced, so see (A) w.r.t. using the stuff in moderation. That's not abuse;)
Exactly what happened to this friend - he smoked a little when he was quite young and turned away from it. Plus it also proves (A) wrong, because it happened one time in this public toilet and after that even the real stoners among my friends decided to stay away from such public toilets*. As a side effect it discouraged any use of this thing, because nobody wants to end up in a public place pants-down and with toilet paper in the hand.
AC saw a supposedly funny contradiction which in itself proves the point.
*It's funny enough that someone rolled a joint on a public toilet instead of doing so at home or in some less crowded place. But like I said he was young...
The insight here was that they were self-cleaning so no need for a janitor.
Let's see: They estimated maintenance costs of $600,000 a year. I don't know much about wages in the US, but it's fair to assume that 5 janitors would have done the job at a lower price.
Ignoring the price tag and maintenance cost I'm still wondering why those toilets failed in Seattle. We have toilets from the same manufacturer over here (Berlin, DE) and they don't attract much drug abuse or prostitution, because if you spend too much time in there the door simply opens. I'm not kidding, it happened to a friend of mine who for some reason unknown to me decided to roll a joint in there. Since he told me I've stopped using them for their intended purpose.
On the other hand it makes full employment more feasible. In China they have a very similar system for all kinds of services. When you check in at a hotel with 4 other people there are at least 6 people behind the counter (one person who speaks English would be much more useful btw). In restaurants it happens that more waiters are standing around your table than the number of guests. It can result in a rather creepy experience IMO. In general the system is somehow inefficient but there's enough cheap manpower to compensate for it. And as a benefit it provides many jobs to low-skilled workers.
Since you mentioned Poland: One thing that astonishes me every time I visit are those boy scouts in the supermarket who bag everything as a good deed. I've never seen this in any other country...
Reminds me of the early 90's when the Chaos Computer Club had its own radio show (I don't know if are still on air). They had this game were you could win a price if you were the first to call a number which was given to the listeners in DTMF tones. Since this show was in the late evening I don't want to know how many people got it wrong and woke someone with a similar number. But usually it only took a minute for someone to figure out the real number with the help of an Amiga (sound cards were not that common in the PC world back then and the Amiga came with all the software you needed for this purpose)
IIRC the game was inspired by a prior show in which they called someone of relative hacker fame and forgot to silence the mic while dialing, thereby disclosing his number unintentionally...
You are picking on the wrong guy. First of all Denmark isn't that expensive as it used to be. There might be a 25% VAT, but even at that prices you won't hit the gross $10 mark for the CPU *alone*, which proves the point that it will be really hard to build a laptop for $10. .
You are comparing the price of a current 2.6 Sempron with something which was build almost two decades ago - just because the chips back then did less for the same buck doesn't mean that they were cheaper to produce. However, I agree on your last statement. It is a miracle to me how the DE managed to surpass Moore's law,
We both don't know. I'd argue that those might have remained in stock for a decade, so they were just selling discontinued items. Plus I know some of them are used in the aerospace industry and they might cost even more than what was paid when they originally were introduced.
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Quotes like this make it sound as if Paypal had a standard. Instant transfers and protection from fraud on ebay sound great, but there are also many cases in which money gets retransferred for no apparent reason or accounts are blocked because something was not conforming to their "policy". To me they are just pretending to be a real bank. As long as it works as advertised it is great but when there is trouble you'll face scenarios you would never encounter with any financial institute.
I'm too tired to look up any sources, but take a look at this google search.
To anyone who doesn't get op's statement: Eternal September
And yes, it's funny.
There are very good howtos online describing the steps to get Linux running on such devices. For me that's the fun part.
Nevertheless I totally see a reason to be upset about this, because we'll pay for something we don't want at all. As long as I can get the same device witch Linux installed at a cheaper price it's totally fine to me. Even if the Linux version is very poorly preconfigured - it is easy to change that. It's not like Vista laptops run perfectly fine with all the tools the manufacturer of the laptop preinstalled.
You could also carry a bottle with a liquid containing DNA from a different dog. Whenever your dog leaves something behind you simply spray on it.
It would be much easier to just pick it up, but imagine the fun when the city starts to look for dogs which don't even are in the same country. Maybe it will lead to the foundation of some sort of dog-interpol.
Over here we don't have DNA tests (yet), but there are so many rules that I'm not considering buying a new dog when my 13 year old crossbreed dies. Hopefully this will not be so soon. But I'm tired of driving half an hour so I can let him run unleashed. They also made muzzles mandatory in public transport, even if your dog is as small as a rabbit and has never bitten anyone. Both measures were introduced when attacks from fighting dogs received high public awareness...
I see a general twist in Apple's strategy. Instead of trying everything to keep their ventures compatible they are starting to blame MS for things which are really in their realm. On the other hand MS has done this for years and Vista is no exception when it comes to Samba support and so on.
A week ago I tried to set an appointment on me.com on a computer I don't have administrative access to and I had to use IE. When logging on to me.com I was informed that IE isn't currently supported and that I have to click "Continue" to use it anyways. In the end I didn't have any problem, but it reminded me of DR-DOS and MS.
Nevertheless I don't feel sorry for those using Vista. In my eyes there are only two reasons to use it: Playing DX10 games or having bought a new computer which comes with it. Somehow I lack empathy for both groups.
HR isn't accounting - if they have a good reason to access social networks they'll most likely get it.
A good friend of mine works in "futurology" for a major car manufacturer between his bachelor and master (great job btw) and he managed to get youtube of the blacklist within less than a week reasoning that his department needs to stay in touch with recent trends in order to formulate valid predictions about the future state of the car market.
If the head of HR wants to access facebook it will take just a couple of minutes to create a special rule for said department. And if I was head of HR I'd argue that any constraint in web access will limit the department's ability to research the applicant's background...
(And even if the company I'm working for was so dumb to deny me access I'd check such things at home)
Guess you weren't too serious about this, but this is the reason why Free Space Optics were used by military before strong encryption got fancy. Since it doesn't spread like radio and it is quite portable compared to wires it was used by the German army during WWII for voice communication to nearby stations at the Atlantic Wall. Lasers weren't available back then so I have doubts regarding reliability and range, but since it was in use it must have provided an advantage over copper and radio.
Today when two countries are fighting it is most certain that Coca-Cola is present on both sides. Somehow nobody has a problem with that - it's not common sense that selling soft-drinks to the enemy is going to hurt anyone.
Nevertheless I agree that IBM's role in WWII is not particularly evil. Hollerith punch cards were on the market since 1928 and were used for all kinds of legitimate administrative purposes. Since the public on both sides fighting was mostly unaware of the holocaust until around '43 (in Germany sometimes even '45) it is not very realistic to assume that IBM was knowing about the purpose of orders from nazi-Germany before the US entered the war. And after the US joined the war they can't be held accountable because the German subsidiary DEHOMAG got expropriated.
Given the unique efficiency and cruelty of this genocide I even doubt they could have foreseen it.
Somehow this makes me wonder which illegal activities are allowed on campus. I mean the statement is either redundant or it implies that certain illegal actions will be tolerated.
;)
If you didn't paraphrase it might be fun to ask them
Ah, now I get it (even though I still disagree). It would be really, really interesting to know what models they use. Like I said in the original post software is a really special business. I'd love to work in controlling for such a company for a couple of months.
Nevertheless I base my argument on observation. Whenever they make it harder to use a pirate copy they release a fix which makes it possible to keep the copy going. For example when they blocked the famous FCKGW key in SP1 it took a week till they put a knowledge base article online describing the steps to change the key. Since then they have played this game numerous times: First they release an update which doesn't work with compromised volume keys, then they wait for the public outcry and provide a fix which simply makes it a little bit more annoying to run a pirate copy. If they really wanted to completely stop piracy they would handle this differently (and I'm sure their market share would drop at least in developing countries).
Sorry, but I still don't see your point. I'm sure they calculate all kinds of ratios, but how does that support any kind of argument?
I was simply pointing out that in MS' case the relation between piracy and profit is not as simple as they want us to believe. To a certain extend piracy is actually helping them to sustain their monopoly. Every measure they have taken to fight piracy came with a deliberate loophole to circumvent it.
I don't judge this behavior in terms of good or evil. Of course they can't admit in public that they rather see a pirate copy of Windows than a legit one from a competitor, but that's exactly the case in many market segments.
Adding to amorsen: We all obey the law of thermodynamics (and at least I'm happy to do so). But nevertheless oil is a great heat conductor and air is one of the best insulators we have. We just use it to cool computer components because we have it all around us and it doesn't cost us anything. Oil is simply better if you want to transport intense amounts of heat from one point to the other
Nevertheless I won't recommend anyone to use oil to get rid of heat problems - it was just a dumb but inspiring answer to a question which belongs in the former category of this sentence.
I do believe that we need a standard which makes pictures and text resolution independent. IMO CSS has failed in so many regards I'm starting to wonder why tables were so bad at all. Of course it has advantages to keep design and content separate, but that rarely happens in the real world. Another argument for CSS was that it was more accessible. I'm not blind, so I can't tell how much websites have improved. But when I look at the source of sites like cnet.com I'm not really sure they have improved that much in this regard. However, what makes me most angry about the current state is how technical limitations had profound influence on contemporary design. Every site right now has to have a certain width and in case your screen is wider you look at all this space wasted by some background. On my 1440 resolution screen I rarely get more content than on 1024. And if I get it it's just because there is some js aware of my current resolution.
From the very beginning of WGA the aim was to discourage those who don't know how to avoid it to buy a proper copy. MS has conflicting interests, which both aim at profit: Market share* and a low number of illegal copies. If they make it too hard to install a pirate copy they might encourage people to switch to free alternatives. Plus they have to sell Vista now, which gives a perfect opportunity to make it a little more annoying to run a pirate copy of XP.
I'd hate to give them just a cent for all the MS-related problems I had during the last years, but the good news is that many people switching to Vista can now sell their OEM licenses for XP (depending on what country they live in) and there is also a very huge chance to obtain a volume-license-key in my area. I'll legalize my copy in the near future, but not because I have to, but it has become so cheap. So the one time in a month I really want to play a decent computer game I don't have to worry about such things anymore.
*Market share usually means turnover, but in this case I'd argue that % of people using it is a far better number. Major competitors offer their OS for free or sell it along their hardware for a price which is rather abritrary. Software is a very special industry. It's not like the car industry, where fixed and variable costs have a relation...
Since a few years we hear about people putting everything in an aquarium filled with vegetable oil. The only downside is that the oil creeps up the cables going out, so you have to wipe them from time to time. Never heard of any larger setup of this kind, but it would be interesting.
And before someone mods me down consider this: The original article lacks info about just everything one would need in order to give reasonable advice: Location (local temperatures), heat output (amount of systems and what kind they are of), size of room and so on. So don't blame me but the guy who failed to articulate his question in a way that one could help him (plus the one putting it on the front page).
I think gp was talking about things like banners or company logos. There it really makes sense, because the current solution is to use images. And since many people believe that the company's name should also carry a h1 tag (for SEO and accessibility) they use one of the hacks which resizes the h1 text to 1px and put the image next to it.
One very small company I work for simply has its name in Bangle on a blue background. Since only few people have it on their computer and since it's not free I have to create lots of images for something which simply is a font on a colored background. Not that it takes me so much time, but from a aesthetical point of view it's really unsatisfying*.
Since it's just a logo representing an image I don't think anyone would take offense. It would also help to fight Flash, because it would make it easier to give a website a certain look without going this road. However, when it comes to continuous text in Comic Sans I totally agree with you. *Of course it would only work if you could also specify that you don't want it to be resized by the browser, but in my case I don't even care about that because it's just in a bar on top of everything else, so it would grow along.
Which proves again that the only reason to upgrade is DX10, so the target audience is pretty much limited to gamers. Another downer is that even the few DX10 games available don't look so much better compared to how they look on XP.
I wouldn't bother so much if it wasn't for all the friends coming to a LAN-party with Vista or my relatives who "just bought a laptop" with Vista pre-installed. The only thing I take comfort in is that I manage to configure more on the command line than they could ever reach in Vista's GUI. ipconfig and net are still there...
Performance wise I wouldn't be so surprised. On some new hardware it takes more than 20 seconds to start the control panel. I can't remember Win95 taking that long after a fresh restart. I wished that the audience would laugh more when some MS exec presented the benefits of this OS.
Exactly what happened to this friend - he smoked a little when he was quite young and turned away from it. Plus it also proves (A) wrong, because it happened one time in this public toilet and after that even the real stoners among my friends decided to stay away from such public toilets*. As a side effect it discouraged any use of this thing, because nobody wants to end up in a public place pants-down and with toilet paper in the hand.
AC saw a supposedly funny contradiction which in itself proves the point.
*It's funny enough that someone rolled a joint on a public toilet instead of doing so at home or in some less crowded place. But like I said he was young...
How did you get that impression?
"But the city canceled its contract this spring after the commodes became filthy hide-outs for drug use and prostitution."
Let's see: They estimated maintenance costs of $600,000 a year. I don't know much about wages in the US, but it's fair to assume that 5 janitors would have done the job at a lower price.
Ignoring the price tag and maintenance cost I'm still wondering why those toilets failed in Seattle. We have toilets from the same manufacturer over here (Berlin, DE) and they don't attract much drug abuse or prostitution, because if you spend too much time in there the door simply opens.
I'm not kidding, it happened to a friend of mine who for some reason unknown to me decided to roll a joint in there. Since he told me I've stopped using them for their intended purpose.
On the other hand it makes full employment more feasible. In China they have a very similar system for all kinds of services. When you check in at a hotel with 4 other people there are at least 6 people behind the counter (one person who speaks English would be much more useful btw). In restaurants it happens that more waiters are standing around your table than the number of guests. It can result in a rather creepy experience IMO.
In general the system is somehow inefficient but there's enough cheap manpower to compensate for it. And as a benefit it provides many jobs to low-skilled workers.
Since you mentioned Poland: One thing that astonishes me every time I visit are those boy scouts in the supermarket who bag everything as a good deed. I've never seen this in any other country...
Reminds me of the early 90's when the Chaos Computer Club had its own radio show (I don't know if are still on air). They had this game were you could win a price if you were the first to call a number which was given to the listeners in DTMF tones. Since this show was in the late evening I don't want to know how many people got it wrong and woke someone with a similar number. But usually it only took a minute for someone to figure out the real number with the help of an Amiga (sound cards were not that common in the PC world back then and the Amiga came with all the software you needed for this purpose)
IIRC the game was inspired by a prior show in which they called someone of relative hacker fame and forgot to silence the mic while dialing, thereby disclosing his number unintentionally...
You are picking on the wrong guy. First of all Denmark isn't that expensive as it used to be. There might be a 25% VAT, but even at that prices you won't hit the gross $10 mark for the CPU *alone*, which proves the point that it will be really hard to build a laptop for $10. .
You are comparing the price of a current 2.6 Sempron with something which was build almost two decades ago - just because the chips back then did less for the same buck doesn't mean that they were cheaper to produce.
However, I agree on your last statement. It is a miracle to me how the DE managed to surpass Moore's law,
We both don't know. I'd argue that those might have remained in stock for a decade, so they were just selling discontinued items. Plus I know some of them are used in the aerospace industry and they might cost even more than what was paid when they originally were introduced.
:)
Give me some numbers and I'll just shut up