While a compiler would be a good solution, I do not believe it strikes at the heart of the problem. When writing an email I find my biggest problem to be how fast I can type. Compared to writing by hand, I am probably 2-3x as fast on a computer. This creates huge problems. When I am writing by hand, I can do a spell check and grammar check for most sentences and phrases as I am writing them. This is not possible with typing because of how fast I go. this means when I am writing something formal I usually slow down and look it over. Many businessmen/women would see this as a lack of productivity but I dislike looking like an idiot on anything important.
Of course, people not realizing how spelling and grammar checking programs work cause many problems. I don't think people have ever given a long document to MS word and seen some of the blundering errors it makes when blanketly accepting its changes. Few people realize the number of mistakes a grammar checking program makes, and this leads to ignorantly depending on them as an unequivocal source on the english language.
But proof-reading is not the answer either. Proof reading is an acquired skill that takes a great deal of practice. The best way to get this practice isn't to write random articles and look them over, but rather to read. My writing went through the roof in school when I started reading all the time. On standardized tests for grammar and reading comprehension, I used to score in the 30th percentile. Once I began reading books diligently, my scores increased to approximately the 95th percentile. Granted, this isn't a formal study, but I have found this works well for others. I have many family members(cousins) that learned to put together a coherent argument after they began reading something more than the text in a video game.
so I pretty much agreed with most of the things you said. I Like linux for the right things, it just doesn't fit the things I do at the moment with my computer. But I don't know where you were getting your memory numbers from. I opened firefox and IE(most recent version of both I think) in XP to the exact same page(slashdot). IE was using over 33 MB of memory while firefox was just peaking over 19MB. I would love to see the case where this is otherwise.
don't know if you were trying to just be funny, but if this was serious(which some moderators thought it was) its possibly the biggest idiocy I've ever heard.
Lots of people like Indian food and as a foreign IT worker, its quite easy you hire yourself a cook.
You do not get diarrhea in india without doing some of the most foolish things as a foreigner. Native indians rarely get it. As a foreigner, you get it from not realizing you do not have immunities to lots of the things in Indian water and food(namely, meat). If you drink tap water and are a foreigner, you're screwed. Hell, you can be indian and have been back to the country for several years and you have lost your immunities.
Yes there is a lot of pollution, its what happens when you cram that many people into such small places. If you want away from the pollution, go to the country side. A lot like most major cities in non-industrialized countries(and many industrialized countries). that is just how it is and you should know it way before going there.
your last line must be a joke but India can be a really fun place if you know where to go. You've probably been stuck doing the family thing every time rather than finding the nightlife out in Bombay or another major city(which can be incredible). I suggest to anyone going there, make local friends quickly. Almost all educated indians speak fluent english(with that fun accent) and by meeting the right ones, you will always be able to find something to do.
Anyways, indian chicks do put out. Its why they are predicting that within 15 years, india will have the highest numer of Aids cases in the world.
this isn't behind the times at all, I've installed Mandrake 10.0 , fedora core 1, core 2, and red hat 9.0(not in that order). There is nothing about installing linux that is as headache free as windows. I buy an average computer, I don't build it and have odd ball hardware. I still get problems recognizing monitors or getting the GUI to work properly. I still have mandrake 10.0 on my computer, just I haven't gotten around to it. Kudos for being the only distro so far that can work with my monitor from the outset.
The problem isn't that linux isn't getting better or isn't great for most computers out there. The problems comes up when windows works smother with a lot more hardware. Yes, linux supports certain random bits of hardware that windows might not, but I have never run into a case of this happening.
As for install, they are all simple to install unless you are allergic to computers(in which case, you couldn't install windows either). Mandrake was the best install in my opinion. More personalized.
I've lived in a big city(tokyo) and now in my third year with a roommate. I never minded the sound of my desktop computer but since I got a lap top last year, the fan really annoys me. It has to do with me typing on a web site and randomly having to hear hte fan spin up to full speed.
Its the fact it breaks the silence with this really high pitch. I'm reminded of someone slamming on their gas peddal outside my house and having to hear the wheels screeching like they do.
It actually has less to do with having had a room mate and having lived in a city than living in a city now. I'm not in Tokyo; back in a quiet little town and its incredibly annoying because I can always hear the damned fan. When I see these kinds of numbers for a laptop(I was an idiot and got a P4 laptop) my mouth waters with envy. If a laptop can give me more performance than what I have now(P4 2.4) and give me lots of other great things like being quiet and cool, it has that much more going for it.
hm.... a relatively young businessman gives money to fight off his competitor, who'd have thought??
He still gave the 100 million for AIDS, better than you can say for anyone in the tech industry, and men with the billion's are out there, even that grand soul Mr. Jobs.
I might not like windows, and mac for that matter(one is software lock in, one is hardware lock in, despise them both), it doesn't change what he has done. anyways, revise your sentence, he gave 100 million to fight Aids, Windows gave 421 million to promote its own software(really, to fight linux and anyone else that may try to take the market, not any better in my view).
actually, I need to modify that first paragraph, my friend who uses the Itunes store doesn't own an Ipod yet. So I actually don't know a single person that uses Itunes and the Ipod together.
I would agree with your second point except the Itunes store isn't that big yet. Sure, its big as selling music on the net goes for right now, but nothing compared to say, Kazaa. out of all the people I know who own an ipod(about 7) only one uses the Itunes store at all. This can be really bad for Apple when people begin shopping for a new MP3 player. Maybe that expensive Ipod doesn't look so good when you can get something that does all the same things for 100 dollars cheaper.
When the Music stores get big, unless the Ipod can play other stores' music, it loses out on hardware sales. All these things add up and can whittle away the dominance you do have.
Maybe if the Itunes store gets large enough, they can survive with their brand lock, but its not nearly strong enough yet to do it. P2P might be the biggest problem the Ipod faces.
not really, it is simply giving away its own music standard and letting everyone make players for it. It is is betting that no matter how pretty an apple Ipod is, when people see equivalent stuff for 50 adn 100 dollars cheaper, they will start to turn. And you know, I think apple will again lose out because it is being a damn fool trying to lock everyone into its file type and hardware.
But this has always been apple's way, make money on hardware. Right now Ipods are the in thing, so they are riding a huge wave of sales. I know people who needed a reality check before buying them so they didn't waste their money on an overpriced music player. And slowly I can see them losing out as more people want to save that 50 dollars when there are no quality differences.
Of course, then we will hear whining about how Microsoft crushed the innovative apple again, even though it was just apple charging too much well into a time when the market wouldn't support it. Yes, apple is the real innovator, but you know what, I don't care when they try and charge me out the ass. I buy the cheapest product that does the job, and so do a lot of people.
this quote sums up why apple has so much trouble winning: "The iPod cannot play songs from most other stores, and Apple's iTunes store won't sell songs for other players". I you don't make things work together, you end up being the lone man out. Slowly the other music stores will begin to gain customers, and then they will want a music player. And then apple loses, because its Ipod, which is what everyone wants, can't play those songs. Suddenly people see options, and apple's little monopoly begins to fall apart.
I would simply argue this: this defense system is a defense against something that should be one of our last worries. I do not envision a terrorist gaining access to the ability to launch ICBM's, though I don't deny that could happen, we can significantly reduce that chance by agreements with countries to limit how nukes that we both have. It is working with the former USSR as they reduce their nuclear stock piles, it becomes easier to keep an eye on what they do have.
further, I am much more worried about major port cities. If terrorists were able to get their hands on a nuclear device, I don't think its very easy to carry a highly effective one but you could gut part of a sail boat and sail it into port. If it is shielded for radiation purposes, it can't be seen(at least obviously) and when private sail boats approach US soil they can enter into port and dock and lolly gag their way to a custom's office. Major danger is just lolly gagging that bomb into a major port city(lets just say San Francisco) on a legal waterway until your in an area that would cause horrendous damage and just set off the bomb.
I think this money is much better spent on real anti terrorist efforts. I'm not as worried about N. Korea launching a missle on us but I do not say we shouldn't build this system. It just feels like over kill into a system that isn't worth that much to the threats it deals with. now after 9/11 I will admit that if we can imagine it, it can happen. But this system is a throwback to the arms runup we had under Reagan. I think we are throwing money at a problem that isn't in the forefront because we don't want to give up on anything by the great Reagan, but who knows, there could be reasons why this is more important.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, the US government is trying to find ways to not make our ports hellish on sailors and commercial ships while still securing our borders. I commend them on the efforts they have done because they have done them without being horribly intrusive into my sailing(contrast to new border checks on immigrants, like photos and finger prints, which I do not see as useful in preventing any crime, but possibly catching a non-suicidal criminal).
40 is nothing like the dotcom days, the dotcom days were when Yahoo and AOL were over 1000(this happens very easiler when in a year you might take in 10 cents a share adn your share prices are well over 100 dollars. you shouldn't say 40 is a dotcom boom, it just spreads complete falsities as to what was the dotcom boom.
for anyone to know, most major investors do not consider 40 anything bad and Charles Schwab usually recommends nothing beyond 100. See it more like a scale of risk, the higher you go, probably the more risky the venture(though this could be completely wrong in some cases). Try not to go by just numbers, you ought to have some understanding of what the company does that makes it a good investment for your needs. For some people, nothing but the powerhouses of stocks(those that are considered guaranteed winners with 5 years or more) is all that they want, others are more risky.
why is the 85 hour work week so bad? Why is it so hard for peolple to realize there are millions of people in developed countries doing them every week, non-stop, for most of their working years?
Of course, I believe you should be compensated for it, but you don't always get that. Salary men(and more and more woman in the last 15 years) will do more hours every week for most of their lives. A good family who I lived with for several months had this set up. 6am to 7pm 6 days a week and the working father was still expected to do about 3 hours of work at home every night. I remember him falling asleep at the computer at midnight knowing if he went to bed he wouldn't wake up from discomfort in an hour to finish his work. And this wasn't some life saving profession, it was a car auction house.
I have seen even worse hours by family members who decided to become doctors. Want to know something interesting about your doctor, especially if he or she is a surgeon? They have probably worked 120 and 130 hour work weeks consistently at times. I can remember not seeing my dad for 3-4 days straight simply because 1 hour of sleep in his bed at home wasn't worth 90 minutes of sleep in a doctor's lounge in the hospital. And there are worse. My cousin has done 90 hours straight, the entire time in surgery or prepping for surgery. Yeah, I know people can point out laws that say you can't do this, but if you need a doctor to do surgery when the call comes in, you get told tough luck. There are very few acceptable excuses(I'm on 3 hours of sleep in the last 2 days is not an excuse). If you really love your work, you just have to stand back up and do it, and if you don't love your work that much, then you just have to walk away.
so yeah, guess what, people do this every day and do it for a hell of a lot longer that this sob story so you can say tough and deal with it. If you can't deal with it, then you've obviously chosen the wrong profession. Of course, some people will say they didn't choose the profession expecting these hours. Unfortunately, thats what you've got. Of course, programming games and medicine aren't of the same value in most societies.
honest question, ever since I got my hands on winamp, its all I used(except for version 3, which I dropped and thanked god I kept my install files for 2.9).
What didn't you like about it? I can't seem to get to the foobar page now to see what its like, but what about winamp's interface annoyed you? I personally dislike hte size of the buttoms sometimes but I've used it for so many years it doesn't matter to me anymore.
decent try, but real bad example. In most pack animals, the smallest and weakest are left to die when then chase is put on by the predator(your lizard if you want). There are very few mamalian species that rush to the rescue and try to fend off the attack, but their are a few(so I guess it works sometimes).
a good example is an elephant herd, in which the elders will protect the children from attack and if a parent is killed, the young are still cared for by others. This is not the norm though.
on the other hand, isn't everything you described what a profit maximizing business is about. take something, give it value for long enough to profit, and always reevaluate the prodcut to see if its still worth it to you. It could very well be that those employees are now out of work, but if their work wasn't profitable, there is no valid reason to keep them. Obviously AOL does not feel the work of Nullsoft to be profitable.
Of course, you could not blame AOL for failed companies and blame the greed of the head's of those companies who sold out to AOL rather than keep doing a good thing. You know, even if bill gates walks up to me and offers me a billion dollars for something I have, there is no force on this planet that forces the sale.
no, but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your cell phone almost useful. and for all my experience, land lines give the best and far and away most consistent reception to be had.
Why can't people realize there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of phones. I will not make many important calls on my cell phone in certain areas(my dorm at my school for the last two years) because reception is just that bad at times. Its never at a dependable level. But that is what I have where I live so land lines are the best option. My friends in UF only have a cell phone because they are rarely in their apartment and reception is near 100% no matter where they are.
Slowly though, cell phones are moving to replace most land line uses, but for now, cell phones aren't the end all answer for everyone out there.
I love the RIAA, its the perfect example of how you can get people to sign about anything for a contract when they are some damn fools. I saw let this generation of artists burn for being stupid about it. This will hopefully teach the next generation not to sell everything your music could be worth for a little up front cash.
I think there is one difference between the RIAA and downloaders, what the RIAA does is supported by law. The RIAA never lied to the artists saying they would get all the money from album sales, they might have painted it in a different light, but didn't lie. Its all there in their contract. There isn't any agreement between downloaders and musicians so it gets a good bit more than foggy.
so correct me if I'm wrong, but all they really pantented accepting an order from over seas, communicating in a language of choice(Germans make the transacting in German), quoting a price, and then verifying payment. After verification, telling the person the transaction is complete? oh, and the real kicker, showing a picture of hte product to be purchased.
someone please tell me how this is not an obvious process? Before the internet was ever used for international orders people were doing this on the phone. They panted doing the EXACT SAME THING on a computer? In what way is this non obvious? I didn't read the whole patent, but please tell me they did something more than just this and got a patent? If they did, I really think slashdot should pick its most sensible yet obvious patent, we all get behind it and just see if we can get it through easily enough.
Thanks for the link even though I'm not more horrified than I was before.
violent felons are denied many things I will still call my rights. Felons aren't allowed to vote either, so now voting is not a right in our country, just a privalege.
If voting is a right, so is owning and carry a gun, though there are restrictions put on it.
And while the courts don't validate each enacted law, they can INVALIDATE any law they see as unconstitutional.
Why the abstract: she wasn't arrested, after a couple of days the people who did come down to our little town realized the story they were told over the phone was much more hysterical than needed to be, tucked tail and left. Why no news article: because I do not know where one might be. Not on the net as this happened ages ago(While I was still a child). Don't want to believe it, well, fine, it is the internet and in all honestly I'd tell you not to believe it.
and I honestly don't think my "sure as hell" had any meaning with the piss poor grammar, word choice, sentence structure etc. I used.
but it still stands. A great everyday example. I joke every day with my friends about me being a terrorist becuase my family is from India and I grow out a beard as we approach winter. We also joke about running drugs in the truck my friend just got. Glad my cars don't have On-star, becuase I would be in deep shit. I already can't say many things I used to in an airport simply because now I'm the most feared man in america. If I have to put up with this kind of fear mongering, I don't want it in my house so easily, and thats what the patriot act allows.
honest question, what kind of law did you vote on, county or state. If its county or smaller, yes we have that. But I'm doubting its state or nation wide. I know for florida we can't vote on a law directly but we can force it to be looked at and do have a choice for state constitution ammendments. If you did vote for a statewide law, I'd be interested to know where you are from.
yes, yes, you're such a great patriot of the USA, even though you sound just like someone in support of big brother in 1984. I mean, as long as I don't say anything that goes against the government, then I'm fine. As long as I am all for the person in power, I'm fine.
true story of what happens when things get out of hand: At my dad's office, a lady once was engaged in a conversation about the president and as she greatly disliked the president at this time she said she would rather see him dead. Some fool overheard this, reported it to the FBI, and they came to the office and pretty much stopped work for 2 days while interviewing everyone, making sure no one was possibly plotting against the government. Well now of course if she said she loved the president and wished nothing but good things for him, the FBI doesn't care.
so now I have to take specific views. worse yet, Personally I wouldn't mind seeing bush die in office, there is that real nice curse that Reagan messed up and I want it to get back on track. uh oh, with the patriot act, I could be in some deep shit for that one. but was I joking or not?
so sorry, I'm a patriot that actually believes in the rights this country was built on. I want the right to carry my gun, I want the right to not be forced to incriminate myself, and I want this bloat of a government we have to stay the hell outta my life until the courts say they have the right to do otherwise, and I sure as hell don't want people like you who don't believe in what this country was built on to stop acting like your patriotic in any shape of the word.
can any of you just stop with the mindless generalizations. I buy starbucks when I want a nice cold drink on a hot as balls summer afternoon down in florida. I want to make my next car a Nissan 350Z and sure if you were standing there you would think it is because of the look of the car but I also love the feel and the power it has when driving. My dad bought our last 2 SUV's with the sole purpose of having a vehicle that could meet a lot of our needs(hauling a boat, transporting plants for our garden, getting suitcases to the airport and back).
Yes, lots of people buy things purely for the status of it, and a lot of people make the attempt to buy things that fit their needs and wants. Of course, any damn fool that was waiting in line for an hour and a half to get a cup of starbucks was just that, a damn fool. In my mind, that is when you are doing things for the status of the object.
The grandparent had a damn good point about why people do a lot of things they do. Doesn't make the opposite point wrong, just clarifies a hell of a lot of people don't have the time or care to do things for the status.
I call competition. Get over it. This is what happens when you have to compete with other people and yeah, it sucks. Guess what, it has always happened. Someone is in power, something changes, and look at that, there is someone is a poor little country that can do your job just as well as you can.
well, what do you do then, you better make youself worth that extra money they can pay you because if the code is written and it does what it is supposed to, then does it matter who wrote it?
and yes, life does suck. and no, its never fair when you're the one being made to bend over. get over it, it happens.
Anyways, on the education, India and China send students to our colleges, considered the best in the world. They never send them to our high schools because frankly, when it comes to basic maths and sciences, the US is horribly behind where it should be(considering its historical lead in these fields). Now that you have made those good grades like those Indians and Chinese, you have 2 choices. Stay unemployed in the US or go to India or China and work, because its what these people are doing.
Yes yes, there are many foreigners working in the US but americans could take those jobs back if they worked for the same amount. Guess what, those foreigners working here have to deal with what all Americans do and those that return to their own country, well you can either go there and compete or sit here and complain.
Slashdot Mirror
While a compiler would be a good solution, I do not believe it strikes at the heart of the problem. When writing an email I find my biggest problem to be how fast I can type. Compared to writing by hand, I am probably 2-3x as fast on a computer. This creates huge problems. When I am writing by hand, I can do a spell check and grammar check for most sentences and phrases as I am writing them. This is not possible with typing because of how fast I go. this means when I am writing something formal I usually slow down and look it over. Many businessmen/women would see this as a lack of productivity but I dislike looking like an idiot on anything important.
Of course, people not realizing how spelling and grammar checking programs work cause many problems. I don't think people have ever given a long document to MS word and seen some of the blundering errors it makes when blanketly accepting its changes. Few people realize the number of mistakes a grammar checking program makes, and this leads to ignorantly depending on them as an unequivocal source on the english language.
But proof-reading is not the answer either. Proof reading is an acquired skill that takes a great deal of practice. The best way to get this practice isn't to write random articles and look them over, but rather to read. My writing went through the roof in school when I started reading all the time. On standardized tests for grammar and reading comprehension, I used to score in the 30th percentile. Once I began reading books diligently, my scores increased to approximately the 95th percentile. Granted, this isn't a formal study, but I have found this works well for others. I have many family members(cousins) that learned to put together a coherent argument after they began reading something more than the text in a video game.
a fox program referred to as artistic, you must not have seen anything on Fox in pretty much its entire history
so I pretty much agreed with most of the things you said. I Like linux for the right things, it just doesn't fit the things I do at the moment with my computer. But I don't know where you were getting your memory numbers from. I opened firefox and IE(most recent version of both I think) in XP to the exact same page(slashdot). IE was using over 33 MB of memory while firefox was just peaking over 19MB. I would love to see the case where this is otherwise.
but its so much easier to complain about it and not actually do anything
don't know if you were trying to just be funny, but if this was serious(which some moderators thought it was) its possibly the biggest idiocy I've ever heard.
Lots of people like Indian food and as a foreign IT worker, its quite easy you hire yourself a cook.
You do not get diarrhea in india without doing some of the most foolish things as a foreigner. Native indians rarely get it. As a foreigner, you get it from not realizing you do not have immunities to lots of the things in Indian water and food(namely, meat). If you drink tap water and are a foreigner, you're screwed. Hell, you can be indian and have been back to the country for several years and you have lost your immunities.
Yes there is a lot of pollution, its what happens when you cram that many people into such small places. If you want away from the pollution, go to the country side. A lot like most major cities in non-industrialized countries(and many industrialized countries). that is just how it is and you should know it way before going there.
your last line must be a joke but India can be a really fun place if you know where to go. You've probably been stuck doing the family thing every time rather than finding the nightlife out in Bombay or another major city(which can be incredible). I suggest to anyone going there, make local friends quickly. Almost all educated indians speak fluent english(with that fun accent) and by meeting the right ones, you will always be able to find something to do.
Anyways, indian chicks do put out. Its why they are predicting that within 15 years, india will have the highest numer of Aids cases in the world.
this isn't behind the times at all, I've installed Mandrake 10.0 , fedora core 1, core 2, and red hat 9.0(not in that order). There is nothing about installing linux that is as headache free as windows. I buy an average computer, I don't build it and have odd ball hardware. I still get problems recognizing monitors or getting the GUI to work properly. I still have mandrake 10.0 on my computer, just I haven't gotten around to it. Kudos for being the only distro so far that can work with my monitor from the outset.
The problem isn't that linux isn't getting better or isn't great for most computers out there. The problems comes up when windows works smother with a lot more hardware. Yes, linux supports certain random bits of hardware that windows might not, but I have never run into a case of this happening.
As for install, they are all simple to install unless you are allergic to computers(in which case, you couldn't install windows either). Mandrake was the best install in my opinion. More personalized.
I've lived in a big city(tokyo) and now in my third year with a roommate. I never minded the sound of my desktop computer but since I got a lap top last year, the fan really annoys me. It has to do with me typing on a web site and randomly having to hear hte fan spin up to full speed. Its the fact it breaks the silence with this really high pitch. I'm reminded of someone slamming on their gas peddal outside my house and having to hear the wheels screeching like they do. It actually has less to do with having had a room mate and having lived in a city than living in a city now. I'm not in Tokyo; back in a quiet little town and its incredibly annoying because I can always hear the damned fan. When I see these kinds of numbers for a laptop(I was an idiot and got a P4 laptop) my mouth waters with envy. If a laptop can give me more performance than what I have now(P4 2.4) and give me lots of other great things like being quiet and cool, it has that much more going for it.
hm.... a relatively young businessman gives money to fight off his competitor, who'd have thought?? He still gave the 100 million for AIDS, better than you can say for anyone in the tech industry, and men with the billion's are out there, even that grand soul Mr. Jobs. I might not like windows, and mac for that matter(one is software lock in, one is hardware lock in, despise them both), it doesn't change what he has done. anyways, revise your sentence, he gave 100 million to fight Aids, Windows gave 421 million to promote its own software(really, to fight linux and anyone else that may try to take the market, not any better in my view).
actually, I need to modify that first paragraph, my friend who uses the Itunes store doesn't own an Ipod yet. So I actually don't know a single person that uses Itunes and the Ipod together.
I would agree with your second point except the Itunes store isn't that big yet. Sure, its big as selling music on the net goes for right now, but nothing compared to say, Kazaa. out of all the people I know who own an ipod(about 7) only one uses the Itunes store at all. This can be really bad for Apple when people begin shopping for a new MP3 player. Maybe that expensive Ipod doesn't look so good when you can get something that does all the same things for 100 dollars cheaper.
When the Music stores get big, unless the Ipod can play other stores' music, it loses out on hardware sales. All these things add up and can whittle away the dominance you do have.
Maybe if the Itunes store gets large enough, they can survive with their brand lock, but its not nearly strong enough yet to do it. P2P might be the biggest problem the Ipod faces.
not really,
it is simply giving away its own music standard and letting everyone make players for it. It is is betting that no matter how pretty an apple Ipod is, when people see equivalent stuff for 50 adn 100 dollars cheaper, they will start to turn. And you know, I think apple will again lose out because it is being a damn fool trying to lock everyone into its file type and hardware.
But this has always been apple's way, make money on hardware. Right now Ipods are the in thing, so they are riding a huge wave of sales. I know people who needed a reality check before buying them so they didn't waste their money on an overpriced music player. And slowly I can see them losing out as more people want to save that 50 dollars when there are no quality differences.
Of course, then we will hear whining about how Microsoft crushed the innovative apple again, even though it was just apple charging too much well into a time when the market wouldn't support it. Yes, apple is the real innovator, but you know what, I don't care when they try and charge me out the ass. I buy the cheapest product that does the job, and so do a lot of people.
this quote sums up why apple has so much trouble winning: "The iPod cannot play songs from most other stores, and Apple's iTunes store won't sell songs for other players". I you don't make things work together, you end up being the lone man out. Slowly the other music stores will begin to gain customers, and then they will want a music player. And then apple loses, because its Ipod, which is what everyone wants, can't play those songs. Suddenly people see options, and apple's little monopoly begins to fall apart.
I would simply argue this: this defense system is a defense against something that should be one of our last worries. I do not envision a terrorist gaining access to the ability to launch ICBM's, though I don't deny that could happen, we can significantly reduce that chance by agreements with countries to limit how nukes that we both have. It is working with the former USSR as they reduce their nuclear stock piles, it becomes easier to keep an eye on what they do have.
further, I am much more worried about major port cities. If terrorists were able to get their hands on a nuclear device, I don't think its very easy to carry a highly effective one but you could gut part of a sail boat and sail it into port. If it is shielded for radiation purposes, it can't be seen(at least obviously) and when private sail boats approach US soil they can enter into port and dock and lolly gag their way to a custom's office. Major danger is just lolly gagging that bomb into a major port city(lets just say San Francisco) on a legal waterway until your in an area that would cause horrendous damage and just set off the bomb.
I think this money is much better spent on real anti terrorist efforts. I'm not as worried about N. Korea launching a missle on us but I do not say we shouldn't build this system. It just feels like over kill into a system that isn't worth that much to the threats it deals with. now after 9/11 I will admit that if we can imagine it, it can happen. But this system is a throwback to the arms runup we had under Reagan. I think we are throwing money at a problem that isn't in the forefront because we don't want to give up on anything by the great Reagan, but who knows, there could be reasons why this is more important.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, the US government is trying to find ways to not make our ports hellish on sailors and commercial ships while still securing our borders. I commend them on the efforts they have done because they have done them without being horribly intrusive into my sailing(contrast to new border checks on immigrants, like photos and finger prints, which I do not see as useful in preventing any crime, but possibly catching a non-suicidal criminal).
40 is nothing like the dotcom days, the dotcom days were when Yahoo and AOL were over 1000(this happens very easiler when in a year you might take in 10 cents a share adn your share prices are well over 100 dollars. you shouldn't say 40 is a dotcom boom, it just spreads complete falsities as to what was the dotcom boom. for anyone to know, most major investors do not consider 40 anything bad and Charles Schwab usually recommends nothing beyond 100. See it more like a scale of risk, the higher you go, probably the more risky the venture(though this could be completely wrong in some cases). Try not to go by just numbers, you ought to have some understanding of what the company does that makes it a good investment for your needs. For some people, nothing but the powerhouses of stocks(those that are considered guaranteed winners with 5 years or more) is all that they want, others are more risky.
why is the 85 hour work week so bad? Why is it so hard for peolple to realize there are millions of people in developed countries doing them every week, non-stop, for most of their working years?
Of course, I believe you should be compensated for it, but you don't always get that. Salary men(and more and more woman in the last 15 years) will do more hours every week for most of their lives. A good family who I lived with for several months had this set up. 6am to 7pm 6 days a week and the working father was still expected to do about 3 hours of work at home every night. I remember him falling asleep at the computer at midnight knowing if he went to bed he wouldn't wake up from discomfort in an hour to finish his work. And this wasn't some life saving profession, it was a car auction house.
I have seen even worse hours by family members who decided to become doctors. Want to know something interesting about your doctor, especially if he or she is a surgeon? They have probably worked 120 and 130 hour work weeks consistently at times. I can remember not seeing my dad for 3-4 days straight simply because 1 hour of sleep in his bed at home wasn't worth 90 minutes of sleep in a doctor's lounge in the hospital. And there are worse. My cousin has done 90 hours straight, the entire time in surgery or prepping for surgery. Yeah, I know people can point out laws that say you can't do this, but if you need a doctor to do surgery when the call comes in, you get told tough luck. There are very few acceptable excuses(I'm on 3 hours of sleep in the last 2 days is not an excuse). If you really love your work, you just have to stand back up and do it, and if you don't love your work that much, then you just have to walk away.
so yeah, guess what, people do this every day and do it for a hell of a lot longer that this sob story so you can say tough and deal with it. If you can't deal with it, then you've obviously chosen the wrong profession. Of course, some people will say they didn't choose the profession expecting these hours. Unfortunately, thats what you've got. Of course, programming games and medicine aren't of the same value in most societies.
honest question,
ever since I got my hands on winamp, its all I used(except for version 3, which I dropped and thanked god I kept my install files for 2.9).
What didn't you like about it? I can't seem to get to the foobar page now to see what its like, but what about winamp's interface annoyed you? I personally dislike hte size of the buttoms sometimes but I've used it for so many years it doesn't matter to me anymore.
decent try, but real bad example. In most pack animals, the smallest and weakest are left to die when then chase is put on by the predator(your lizard if you want). There are very few mamalian species that rush to the rescue and try to fend off the attack, but their are a few(so I guess it works sometimes).
a good example is an elephant herd, in which the elders will protect the children from attack and if a parent is killed, the young are still cared for by others. This is not the norm though.
on the other hand, isn't everything you described what a profit maximizing business is about. take something, give it value for long enough to profit, and always reevaluate the prodcut to see if its still worth it to you. It could very well be that those employees are now out of work, but if their work wasn't profitable, there is no valid reason to keep them. Obviously AOL does not feel the work of Nullsoft to be profitable.
Of course, you could not blame AOL for failed companies and blame the greed of the head's of those companies who sold out to AOL rather than keep doing a good thing. You know, even if bill gates walks up to me and offers me a billion dollars for something I have, there is no force on this planet that forces the sale.
ok, I need to learn to type and preview comments, and not be moron. read the first line as
but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your landline useless.
no, but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your cell phone almost useful. and for all my experience, land lines give the best and far and away most consistent reception to be had.
Why can't people realize there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of phones. I will not make many important calls on my cell phone in certain areas(my dorm at my school for the last two years) because reception is just that bad at times. Its never at a dependable level. But that is what I have where I live so land lines are the best option. My friends in UF only have a cell phone because they are rarely in their apartment and reception is near 100% no matter where they are.
Slowly though, cell phones are moving to replace most land line uses, but for now, cell phones aren't the end all answer for everyone out there.
I love the RIAA, its the perfect example of how you can get people to sign about anything for a contract when they are some damn fools. I saw let this generation of artists burn for being stupid about it. This will hopefully teach the next generation not to sell everything your music could be worth for a little up front cash.
I think there is one difference between the RIAA and downloaders, what the RIAA does is supported by law. The RIAA never lied to the artists saying they would get all the money from album sales, they might have painted it in a different light, but didn't lie. Its all there in their contract. There isn't any agreement between downloaders and musicians so it gets a good bit more than foggy.
so correct me if I'm wrong, but all they really pantented accepting an order from over seas, communicating in a language of choice(Germans make the transacting in German), quoting a price, and then verifying payment. After verification, telling the person the transaction is complete? oh, and the real kicker, showing a picture of hte product to be purchased.
someone please tell me how this is not an obvious process? Before the internet was ever used for international orders people were doing this on the phone. They panted doing the EXACT SAME THING on a computer? In what way is this non obvious? I didn't read the whole patent, but please tell me they did something more than just this and got a patent? If they did, I really think slashdot should pick its most sensible yet obvious patent, we all get behind it and just see if we can get it through easily enough.
Thanks for the link even though I'm not more horrified than I was before.
violent felons are denied many things I will still call my rights. Felons aren't allowed to vote either, so now voting is not a right in our country, just a privalege.
If voting is a right, so is owning and carry a gun, though there are restrictions put on it.
And while the courts don't validate each enacted law, they can INVALIDATE any law they see as unconstitutional.
Why the abstract: she wasn't arrested, after a couple of days the people who did come down to our little town realized the story they were told over the phone was much more hysterical than needed to be, tucked tail and left. Why no news article: because I do not know where one might be. Not on the net as this happened ages ago(While I was still a child). Don't want to believe it, well, fine, it is the internet and in all honestly I'd tell you not to believe it.
and I honestly don't think my "sure as hell" had any meaning with the piss poor grammar, word choice, sentence structure etc. I used.
but it still stands. A great everyday example. I joke every day with my friends about me being a terrorist becuase my family is from India and I grow out a beard as we approach winter. We also joke about running drugs in the truck my friend just got. Glad my cars don't have On-star, becuase I would be in deep shit. I already can't say many things I used to in an airport simply because now I'm the most feared man in america. If I have to put up with this kind of fear mongering, I don't want it in my house so easily, and thats what the patriot act allows.
honest question, what kind of law did you vote on, county or state. If its county or smaller, yes we have that. But I'm doubting its state or nation wide. I know for florida we can't vote on a law directly but we can force it to be looked at and do have a choice for state constitution ammendments. If you did vote for a statewide law, I'd be interested to know where you are from.
yes, yes, you're such a great patriot of the USA, even though you sound just like someone in support of big brother in 1984. I mean, as long as I don't say anything that goes against the government, then I'm fine. As long as I am all for the person in power, I'm fine.
true story of what happens when things get out of hand: At my dad's office, a lady once was engaged in a conversation about the president and as she greatly disliked the president at this time she said she would rather see him dead. Some fool overheard this, reported it to the FBI, and they came to the office and pretty much stopped work for 2 days while interviewing everyone, making sure no one was possibly plotting against the government. Well now of course if she said she loved the president and wished nothing but good things for him, the FBI doesn't care.
so now I have to take specific views. worse yet, Personally I wouldn't mind seeing bush die in office, there is that real nice curse that Reagan messed up and I want it to get back on track. uh oh, with the patriot act, I could be in some deep shit for that one. but was I joking or not?
so sorry, I'm a patriot that actually believes in the rights this country was built on. I want the right to carry my gun, I want the right to not be forced to incriminate myself, and I want this bloat of a government we have to stay the hell outta my life until the courts say they have the right to do otherwise, and I sure as hell don't want people like you who don't believe in what this country was built on to stop acting like your patriotic in any shape of the word.
can any of you just stop with the mindless generalizations. I buy starbucks when I want a nice cold drink on a hot as balls summer afternoon down in florida. I want to make my next car a Nissan 350Z and sure if you were standing there you would think it is because of the look of the car but I also love the feel and the power it has when driving. My dad bought our last 2 SUV's with the sole purpose of having a vehicle that could meet a lot of our needs(hauling a boat, transporting plants for our garden, getting suitcases to the airport and back). Yes, lots of people buy things purely for the status of it, and a lot of people make the attempt to buy things that fit their needs and wants. Of course, any damn fool that was waiting in line for an hour and a half to get a cup of starbucks was just that, a damn fool. In my mind, that is when you are doing things for the status of the object. The grandparent had a damn good point about why people do a lot of things they do. Doesn't make the opposite point wrong, just clarifies a hell of a lot of people don't have the time or care to do things for the status.
I call competition. Get over it. This is what happens when you have to compete with other people and yeah, it sucks. Guess what, it has always happened. Someone is in power, something changes, and look at that, there is someone is a poor little country that can do your job just as well as you can.
well, what do you do then, you better make youself worth that extra money they can pay you because if the code is written and it does what it is supposed to, then does it matter who wrote it?
and yes, life does suck. and no, its never fair when you're the one being made to bend over. get over it, it happens.
Anyways, on the education, India and China send students to our colleges, considered the best in the world. They never send them to our high schools because frankly, when it comes to basic maths and sciences, the US is horribly behind where it should be(considering its historical lead in these fields). Now that you have made those good grades like those Indians and Chinese, you have 2 choices. Stay unemployed in the US or go to India or China and work, because its what these people are doing.
Yes yes, there are many foreigners working in the US but americans could take those jobs back if they worked for the same amount. Guess what, those foreigners working here have to deal with what all Americans do and those that return to their own country, well you can either go there and compete or sit here and complain.