Another poster had mentioned the HP LaserJet 4 series. Amazing product. I ran 1,500,000 pages through two of them without any major issues and never had to have it serviced. (I did have to replace fusers etc. - but they were all user-serviceable.
The new machines all suck. Lexmark sucks the most. The quality of the hardware has had the lifespan reduced significantly. That said, I'd get HP's 3600 colour LaserJet (Network) version which sucks less. I have one at home and bought one for my son at university. His entire household uses it (six guys) and have done so for two years. We've only had to replace toner. The units sometimes come on sale. If you have extra scratch, get the duplexer to save the environment by printing on both sides. Other than that, I've run all sorts of card stock and envelopes through it with minimal issues. But don't use the front feeder, use the tray for heavier sheets - it's a straighter path.
A friend of mine, a lawyer, was transporting her laptop across the (northern) border. U.S. Customs demanded that she provide the password to her laptop so that it could be examined. She stated that she had lawyer-client privileged information on her hard drive and that the officer could not be privy to such information.
She was offered the option of traveling to her destination without her laptop or submitting to the search.
This constitutes and egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment and needs to be challenged at the highest levels.
I can only say that the U.S. is becoming more and more what the U.S.S.R. once was. Think of how much actual freedom has eroded and the past two decades and start fighting it.
I bought a Canon Vixia HD video camera this past year. It has a 60 Gig HD. The proprietary file format, in-camera file navigation system, transfer protocols, lack of in-camera editing features and any other host of major software design flaws make this unit a pig to deal with will. Fortunately, it takes amazing videos AND pics. It would be so cool if you could plug a USB keyboard in (for example) and do titling right in the camera! What if you put Linux in it? Let's skip ahead and work on video and apply that to still imaging - then you would really have something.
On another note, an open source camera will be very well received by the astronomy community who have had to deal with non-configurable equipment for years.
You've got it all wrong. Men have Quantum RAM. Here's why: Upon seeing a beautiful woman, males switch control systems over to Mr. Happy. Mr. Happy only has a few synapses. Though appearing stupid, when Mr. Happy is 'in charge' and making decisions, they are actually quite an amazing feat for that small amount of computing power. Quantum RAM is the only possible solution. (see article on Quantum RAM: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/08/22/1255236/New-Idea-Could-Lead-to-Quantum-RAM?art_pos=4 )
When I was a kid, the SONY meant that the product was more expensive but also significantly superior from most competitors.
Now, when I purchase a product, the price differential is to pay for four things - the letters S-O-N-Y. That's all the brand means today.
You're getting what you pay for - no more, no less.
It's long been my contention that TWO bookmark systems are needed - one that is encrypted/hidden etc. etc. and the other for 'family' use. The usually sensible crowd at Mozilla truly missed the boat on this one (and who amongst us does not have our favourite little places on the internet where we should not be seen??!!
GreenPiece* is all about viral marketing and 'causes' without really looking at the deep implications of their actions. For example, the TOTAL carbon footprint of trolley buses, due to line loss, is actually larger than diesel. Nuclear power kills a lot less people and is less environmentally damaging** than coal mines, coal dust and the resulting carbon emissions.
Combined with whining and pouting, gaming consoles keep kids from being driven to soccer, baseball, hockey or other organized sports, thus reducing the carbon footprint. Let's make an FPS for these kids that comes with a club so that we can kill baby seals.. or a whaling harpoon, or, better yet, make us French Marines trying to blow up a GreenPeirce boat. It's important to consider that gamers generally prefer FPS. They don't give a flying fuck about how the console was made. They just want to kill... Kill... KILL!!!
NOTE: Fat kids are lazy kids and will be less and less likely to get up and go somewhere when they can sit and twiddle their fingers for self-satisfaction. As you can see, the comparative impact of some chemicals in a console is far outweighed by the reduction in emissions that result from gaming. Longer term, due to lifestyle, they will die sooner and, again, reduce their lifetime carbon footprint.
If GroanPiece were an organization that was balanced instead of being activists without a clue, I would give them credibility. Once again, they are full of shit.
*Gun - get it?!!
**You might disagree if you're from Kiev!
You take a reasonable position with your suggestions. I am basing some of my points on the transition by the City of Munich from Microsoft to Linux and Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. A quick search will reveal that the City of Munich has contributed in a very significant way to the OpenOffice community by releasing a very sophisticated document management system - http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/wollmux/229499/p_e.html . This process occurred in only a few years after the adoption of OSS.
Just think about the resources that could be brought to bear if all three of these groups put the savings they realize from adopting OSS into manpower and financial resources behind developing OSS further. Take, for example, PHP & MySQL. If a complete and very easy to use IDE were created to seamlessly develop Web-based forms, it would transform the speed and quality with which these organizations could develop their web applications. OpenOffice could be the Gold Standard of office suites. Linux could have the premier desktop.
Adoption of OSS software is one thing. Contribution to it is what's needed. So many great ideas are languishing on sourceforge because of a lack of funds and/or manpower to implement them.
Let's try to go further than adoption and focus on creation and collaboration as part of the buy-in to the process. Then we'll see some real results.
YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO UPGRADE WINDOWS VISTA, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?
Yes.
ARE YOU REALLY SURE?
Yes.
ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?
*****yes!******
OK, THEN. JUST SO YOU KNOW, WE'RE REQUIRED TO ASK YOU THAT NOW. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT FOR BEING A PICKY CONSUMER AND SUPPORTING THAT WHOLE "ANTI-TRUST" NONSENSE. INGRATE.
Just get on with it.
ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL WINDOWS 7. FIRST WE NEED TO CHECK YOUR SYSTEM FOR COMPATIBILITY. THIS COULD TAKE SEVERAL DAYS.
Groan.
THE INSTALL PROGRAM HAS DETECTED SEVERAL POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND WILL NOT LET YOU INSTALL 7.
Problems? What problems?
THE VIDEO CARD YOU ARE USING APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK WITH THE MOTHERBOARD.
But I'm using it at this very moment.
THAT IS IRRELEVANT.
But if the video card isn't working with the mother board then I can't very well see this warning message telling me that the video card wasn't...
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FOOL ME WITH LOGIC, I AM A MICROSOFT PRODUCT. LOGIC DOES NOT WORK ON ME. I HAVE ALSO FOUND THE FOLLOWING MINOR ERRORS: WINDOWS 7 IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE FOLLOWING HARDWARE - MONITOR, KEYBOARD, MEMORY CHIPS, MOTHERBOARD BIOS, WEB CAM, SCANNER, SOUND CARD, USB CONTROLLER, CD/R DRIVE, MICROPHONE, AND FLIGHT STICK.
All that?
YES. AND THE HARD DRIVE IS RIGHT OUT TOO. WE DON'T LIKE THE MANUFACTURER.
Well what *DOES* work?
THE MOUSE.
The mouse?
YES. AND THE 5 1/4 DRIVE.
I don't have a 5 1/4 drive.
YES YOU DO.
No I don't.
WHAT'S THAT THEN?
It's a DVD R/W drive.
NO IT ISN'T.
Yes it is.
YOU'RE NOT THAT SMART YOU KNOW.
Look, can you just upgrade Vista on my system and I'll download the latest drivers for everything later? Please?
WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN *YOUR* SYSTEM?
Well it is mine.
NO IT ISN'T.
It bloody well is.
NUH-UH. YOU SIGNED THE AGREEMENT WHEN YOU OPENED THE BOX. OUR SYSTEM. IT'S OURS. AND YOU CAN ONLY DO 4 CHANGES BEFORE YOU HAVE TO PAY US MORE MONEY.
But why?
BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THE LICENSE WORKS, IDJIT. WE CAN'T VERY WELL HAVE PEOPLE PUTTING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ON THEIR SYSTEMS ALL HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY, NOW COULD WE? YOU USERS WOULD MUCK EVERYTHING UP, AND THEN WHERE WOULD WE BE? I'LL TELL YOU WHERE, NOWHERE. THAT'S WHERE. I... HEY, WHAT IS THAT? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IS THAT A DISK? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT DISK? YOU'RE NOT PUTTING IT IN THE DRIVE ARE YOU? YOU ARE! WHAT'S ON THAT DISK? IS THAT LINUX? YOU'RE INSTALLING LINUX?? WHY WOULD YOU INSTALL LINUX WHEN I AM INFINITELY MORE POWE..........
What a great question. To my mind, the software that would have the most potential is a database forms and reports front end.
The existing forms and reports development platform included in OpenOffice needs a ton of work. Take a look at M$Access. It's a very easy-to-use development platform but the back end is NOT a real database (like, say, PostgreSQL, MySQL).
Before everyone gets all excited about going to the moon again, consider the following:
1. After reading Eugene Cernan's autobiography "Last Man On The Moon", the bottom line conclusion is that going there is fucking dangerous. Almost every flight he was on, he came close to dying. Those odds will certainly be improved with today's technology, but they are still very high.
2. During the lunar program, there were supposed to be 20 Apollos. Only 14 flew. The reason was that, once Armstrong landed, the public lost interest. When that happened, the political currency of the program evaporated.
3. Humans are huge consumers of resources. Flying those resources to the moon is very expensive.
The concept should revolve around devising robots to establish a human habitable base. This should be the way that we explore Mars. If we can do this on the moon, then we will learn something for Mars exploration. At that time, and only at that time should we consider sending astronauts to the moon (once the station is built for them).
"What is bing ?
bing is an application written by Pierre Beyssac which measures the RAW bandwidth of a remote network link. Let me ad some precisions. By "remote" I mean a link not directly connected to your computer. For instance you can measure the bandwidth of a link between you ISP and the rest of the internet. By "RAW" I mean that you can measure the intrinsic bandwidth of the link not what's left once the other users have taken their share. So even if a link is saturated and you can only get 1KBps out of it bing will be able to tell you whether it is a 128Kbps link or 256Kbps or more. Now don't expect miracles. You will not be able to measure the bandwidth of an ethernet link in a remote end of the internet through your modem at a time when the internet is completely saturated."
Bing appears to have been around since before 1999.
I think Microsoft has a legal problem on it's hands. This is long-established GPL software. Is Bing not software too? Could there be 'brand confusion'? What about prior art etc. etc.
...If only we could get the douche-pail carriers to standardize their rate 'plans' so that we could compare apples to apples. It would feel a smidgen less painful when they jamb yet another ridiculously overpriced contract up our dangerously dilated and sorry asses.
I have been feeling for a long time that the issue is not the vendors or the carriers. The issue is with our elected representatives. When was the last time your political party said: "Hey! Bank charges are usurious. Phone plans are completely lop-sided in favour of the vendor. Consumers should be able to re-sell Windows licenses. Chrysler should make a transmission that still functions after only 100,000 fucking kms."
..and when was the last time OUR representatives actually did something about it??
Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those sanctimonious Subaru-driving, Jesus-boot wearing tree-huggers - much the opposite. I was brought up on a wild mix of Big tits, V8's, heavy metal, Pimm's #3 and polo matches. I believe strongly in hard work paying off. Wealth creation is a GOOD thing. It's how our society moves forward.
What I'm bitching about is that the deals need to be fair. A monopoly should be a license to make money, not print it. Don't pay your cell bill, the telco cuts you off - plain and simple. But, if your call drops, the fucking call should be free! Buy a machine with Vista on it and pay M$ as much as they figure they can charge you. But M$ should be accountable for the terrible software they wrote and give you a refund if you ask for it.
This is a classic case where a corporate entity is trying to facilitate exemptions to rules by collecting, providing and verifying information for the state. Control is being sold by the state in the form of workarounds to various rules and regulations. Now, with a corporate failure, for which no planning was done, liability for this information is vague at best and very troubling indeed.
That said, I am in no way in favour of the state having biometric information on its citizens - much to the contrary. Abuses of information are becoming more and more prevalent.
When billions are spent to 'secure' borders but nothing is done about people coming into the country carrying fatal diseases which kill far more than terrorists, where are the priorities?
The security of biometric information should be something that is completely in control of the citizen who then releases the information at his or her discretion predicated on the legal situation that they are confronted with. i.e., I use a crypto key to release verification information to a border guard. I determine what information to release and I record the information given to me by the security personnel so that I, too, have a record of whom I was dealing with, where and when.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer was asked at the border to produce the password to her laptop. She refused on the grounds that she had client-solicitor privileged information that the border guard was not legally allowed to see. The response was that she would not be allowed to enter the country unless the password was produced. Further to that, the laptop could be confiscated. This is a very serious and egregious erosion of our most basic rights and freedoms.
This past month, I was driving along in upstate NY parallel to the border on the St Lawrence River. In the opposite direction, a slew of border patrol guards were amassed. They had a roadblock set up and were verifying information of people driving westbound along the road. This was in upstate NY! This is what they communists did in the U.S.S.R.!!! Wake up, folks!! This is getting very, very serious.
We have to get away from all this knee-jerk reaction and fight hard to return true freedoms to the individual. Write your law maker. Write the press. Start political action. Motivate your friends and neighbours. You are losing freedom at a prodigious rate. Our grandfathers fought for this against Hitler. Make sure that their fight was not in vain.
California has a plan to open source the curriculum. I see this as a monitored wiki wherein approvals are met for curriculum revisions. With this in place, whether you want hard or digital copies, the distribution option remains for the user/teacher/school board, not the publisher/rights holder.
Furthermore, the entire curriculum could be on a CD (for those without internet) and distributed every year.
The biggest issue here is changing the infrastructure of the delivery of the information. Let's look closely at the lessons of the City of Munich and apply them at the state and school board level. Get rid of proprietary software for most users. Stabilize to a Linux-based platform (LTSP/OLPC?) and be done with huge hardware upgrade costs. Reduce (mostly eliminate) viruses. Give out older machines with OpenOffice and Linux to disadvantaged students. Level the playing field.
That's how you effect real change, but the reality is that it takes a huge will to do it. Long-term, the savings are permanent and irrefutable.
How much is the weight allowance for a Knoppix DVD?
What about dual booting? A backup OS such as Linux would be smart at best and prudent at worst. I mean, isn't NASA about redundancy?
I still agree with the comment about looking out the window rather than watching movies on their day off. Come on!! I'm sure a few kids on earth would have loved to ask for pics to be taken etc. etc.
If so-called open source (i.e. copyleft) textbooks are created it will suddenly be possible to legally digitally or physically copy and print any number of pages any number of times. Further to that, a digital version of the ENTIRE CURRICULUM could be distributed extremely inexpensively to every student in the system.
By taking this step, great harm would come to education and educators. Students would no longer have an excuse: "I left my book at....". This would mean that educators would be required to spend more time teaching rather than dealing with various accountability issues. As a result, debates would rage about shortening numbers of class-time hours required to complete a given course.
I think we should drop the whole concept and drop it quickly before it starts to gain momentum.
Worse yet, this idea might spread to other jurisdictions.
For the bottom-end office, Oracle is just too far out of anybody's price range to work. OpenOffice, as it is, does not fit the bill because the Base component is very immature. If Oracle is smart, it will dump some decent development time (and code) into making the Base forms and reports work. The competition is MSAccess. This cheezy product is a great development environment for quick prototyping - but not robust enough for mission-critical work.
A decent database as part of an office package would really shake MS up.
Perhaps, MySQL could be integrated into OpenOffice. This would make for a 'real' database while at the same time leveraging a comparatively robust suite.
Base needs a lot of work (and I don't mean to slag the work that's already been done). Let's hope that this happens.
Quite frankly, Oracle wants to be IBM - with a complete hardware, OS and software mix. This could be it.
Slashdot Mirror
The new machines all suck. Lexmark sucks the most. The quality of the hardware has had the lifespan reduced significantly. That said, I'd get HP's 3600 colour LaserJet (Network) version which sucks less. I have one at home and bought one for my son at university. His entire household uses it (six guys) and have done so for two years. We've only had to replace toner. The units sometimes come on sale. If you have extra scratch, get the duplexer to save the environment by printing on both sides. Other than that, I've run all sorts of card stock and envelopes through it with minimal issues. But don't use the front feeder, use the tray for heavier sheets - it's a straighter path.
Good luck.
"bought off"??
She was offered the option of traveling to her destination without her laptop or submitting to the search.
This constitutes and egregious violation of the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment and needs to be challenged at the highest levels.
I can only say that the U.S. is becoming more and more what the U.S.S.R. once was. Think of how much actual freedom has eroded and the past two decades and start fighting it.
Where and when do we find DD-WRT 802.11N and for what router?
On another note, an open source camera will be very well received by the astronomy community who have had to deal with non-configurable equipment for years.
You've got it all wrong. Men have Quantum RAM. Here's why: Upon seeing a beautiful woman, males switch control systems over to Mr. Happy. Mr. Happy only has a few synapses. Though appearing stupid, when Mr. Happy is 'in charge' and making decisions, they are actually quite an amazing feat for that small amount of computing power. Quantum RAM is the only possible solution. (see article on Quantum RAM: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/07/08/22/1255236/New-Idea-Could-Lead-to-Quantum-RAM?art_pos=4 )
When I was a kid, the SONY meant that the product was more expensive but also significantly superior from most competitors. Now, when I purchase a product, the price differential is to pay for four things - the letters S-O-N-Y. That's all the brand means today. You're getting what you pay for - no more, no less.
It's long been my contention that TWO bookmark systems are needed - one that is encrypted/hidden etc. etc. and the other for 'family' use. The usually sensible crowd at Mozilla truly missed the boat on this one (and who amongst us does not have our favourite little places on the internet where we should not be seen??!!
This just proves that criminals are dumb.
Combined with whining and pouting, gaming consoles keep kids from being driven to soccer, baseball, hockey or other organized sports, thus reducing the carbon footprint. Let's make an FPS for these kids that comes with a club so that we can kill baby seals.. or a whaling harpoon, or, better yet, make us French Marines trying to blow up a GreenPeirce boat. It's important to consider that gamers generally prefer FPS. They don't give a flying fuck about how the console was made. They just want to kill... Kill... KILL!!!
NOTE: Fat kids are lazy kids and will be less and less likely to get up and go somewhere when they can sit and twiddle their fingers for self-satisfaction. As you can see, the comparative impact of some chemicals in a console is far outweighed by the reduction in emissions that result from gaming. Longer term, due to lifestyle, they will die sooner and, again, reduce their lifetime carbon footprint.
If GroanPiece were an organization that was balanced instead of being activists without a clue, I would give them credibility. Once again, they are full of shit.
*Gun - get it?!! **You might disagree if you're from Kiev!
You take a reasonable position with your suggestions. I am basing some of my points on the transition by the City of Munich from Microsoft to Linux and Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. A quick search will reveal that the City of Munich has contributed in a very significant way to the OpenOffice community by releasing a very sophisticated document management system - http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/wollmux/229499/p_e.html . This process occurred in only a few years after the adoption of OSS.
Governments
School Systems
Universities
Just think about the resources that could be brought to bear if all three of these groups put the savings they realize from adopting OSS into manpower and financial resources behind developing OSS further. Take, for example, PHP & MySQL. If a complete and very easy to use IDE were created to seamlessly develop Web-based forms, it would transform the speed and quality with which these organizations could develop their web applications. OpenOffice could be the Gold Standard of office suites. Linux could have the premier desktop.
Adoption of OSS software is one thing. Contribution to it is what's needed. So many great ideas are languishing on sourceforge because of a lack of funds and/or manpower to implement them.
Let's try to go further than adoption and focus on creation and collaboration as part of the buy-in to the process. Then we'll see some real results.
Microsoft:
YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO UPGRADE WINDOWS VISTA, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CONTINUE?
Yes.
ARE YOU REALLY SURE?
Yes.
ARE YOU REALLY REALLY SURE?
*****yes!******
OK, THEN. JUST SO YOU KNOW, WE'RE REQUIRED TO ASK YOU THAT NOW. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT FOR BEING A PICKY CONSUMER AND SUPPORTING THAT WHOLE "ANTI-TRUST" NONSENSE. INGRATE.
Just get on with it.
ATTEMPTING TO INSTALL WINDOWS 7. FIRST WE NEED TO CHECK YOUR SYSTEM FOR COMPATIBILITY. THIS COULD TAKE SEVERAL DAYS.
Groan.
THE INSTALL PROGRAM HAS DETECTED SEVERAL POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND WILL NOT LET YOU INSTALL 7.
Problems? What problems?
THE VIDEO CARD YOU ARE USING APPARENTLY DOES NOT WORK WITH THE MOTHERBOARD.
But I'm using it at this very moment.
THAT IS IRRELEVANT.
But if the video card isn't working with the mother board then I can't very well see this warning message telling me that the video card wasn't...
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO FOOL ME WITH LOGIC, I AM A MICROSOFT PRODUCT. LOGIC DOES NOT WORK ON ME. I HAVE ALSO FOUND THE FOLLOWING MINOR ERRORS: WINDOWS 7 IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE FOLLOWING HARDWARE - MONITOR, KEYBOARD, MEMORY CHIPS, MOTHERBOARD BIOS, WEB CAM, SCANNER, SOUND CARD, USB CONTROLLER, CD/R DRIVE, MICROPHONE, AND FLIGHT STICK.
All that?
YES. AND THE HARD DRIVE IS RIGHT OUT TOO. WE DON'T LIKE THE MANUFACTURER.
Well what *DOES* work?
THE MOUSE.
The mouse?
YES. AND THE 5 1/4 DRIVE.
I don't have a 5 1/4 drive.
YES YOU DO.
No I don't.
WHAT'S THAT THEN?
It's a DVD R/W drive.
NO IT ISN'T.
Yes it is.
YOU'RE NOT THAT SMART YOU KNOW.
Look, can you just upgrade Vista on my system and I'll download the latest drivers for everything later? Please?
WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN *YOUR* SYSTEM?
Well it is mine.
NO IT ISN'T.
It bloody well is.
NUH-UH. YOU SIGNED THE AGREEMENT WHEN YOU OPENED THE BOX. OUR SYSTEM. IT'S OURS. AND YOU CAN ONLY DO 4 CHANGES BEFORE YOU HAVE TO PAY US MORE MONEY.
But why?
BECAUSE THAT'S HOW THE LICENSE WORKS, IDJIT. WE CAN'T VERY WELL HAVE PEOPLE PUTTING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ON THEIR SYSTEMS ALL HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY, NOW COULD WE? YOU USERS WOULD MUCK EVERYTHING UP, AND THEN WHERE WOULD WE BE? I'LL TELL YOU WHERE, NOWHERE. THAT'S WHERE. I... HEY, WHAT IS THAT? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IS THAT A DISK? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT DISK? YOU'RE NOT PUTTING IT IN THE DRIVE ARE YOU? YOU ARE! WHAT'S ON THAT DISK? IS THAT LINUX? YOU'RE INSTALLING LINUX?? WHY WOULD YOU INSTALL LINUX WHEN I AM INFINITELY MORE POWE..........
Ubuntu-9.04 #
The existing forms and reports development platform included in OpenOffice needs a ton of work. Take a look at M$Access. It's a very easy-to-use development platform but the back end is NOT a real database (like, say, PostgreSQL, MySQL).
Grab your ankles, folks, this will hurt us all in the end.
1. After reading Eugene Cernan's autobiography "Last Man On The Moon", the bottom line conclusion is that going there is fucking dangerous. Almost every flight he was on, he came close to dying. Those odds will certainly be improved with today's technology, but they are still very high.
2. During the lunar program, there were supposed to be 20 Apollos. Only 14 flew. The reason was that, once Armstrong landed, the public lost interest. When that happened, the political currency of the program evaporated.
3. Humans are huge consumers of resources. Flying those resources to the moon is very expensive.
The concept should revolve around devising robots to establish a human habitable base. This should be the way that we explore Mars. If we can do this on the moon, then we will learn something for Mars exploration. At that time, and only at that time should we consider sending astronauts to the moon (once the station is built for them).
"What is bing ? bing is an application written by Pierre Beyssac which measures the RAW bandwidth of a remote network link. Let me ad some precisions. By "remote" I mean a link not directly connected to your computer. For instance you can measure the bandwidth of a link between you ISP and the rest of the internet. By "RAW" I mean that you can measure the intrinsic bandwidth of the link not what's left once the other users have taken their share. So even if a link is saturated and you can only get 1KBps out of it bing will be able to tell you whether it is a 128Kbps link or 256Kbps or more. Now don't expect miracles. You will not be able to measure the bandwidth of an ethernet link in a remote end of the internet through your modem at a time when the internet is completely saturated."
Bing appears to have been around since before 1999.
I think Microsoft has a legal problem on it's hands. This is long-established GPL software. Is Bing not software too? Could there be 'brand confusion'? What about prior art etc. etc.
...If only we could get the douche-pail carriers to standardize their rate 'plans' so that we could compare apples to apples. It would feel a smidgen less painful when they jamb yet another ridiculously overpriced contract up our dangerously dilated and sorry asses.
I have been feeling for a long time that the issue is not the vendors or the carriers. The issue is with our elected representatives. When was the last time your political party said: "Hey! Bank charges are usurious. Phone plans are completely lop-sided in favour of the vendor. Consumers should be able to re-sell Windows licenses. Chrysler should make a transmission that still functions after only 100,000 fucking kms."
..and when was the last time OUR representatives actually did something about it??
Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those sanctimonious Subaru-driving, Jesus-boot wearing tree-huggers - much the opposite. I was brought up on a wild mix of Big tits, V8's, heavy metal, Pimm's #3 and polo matches. I believe strongly in hard work paying off. Wealth creation is a GOOD thing. It's how our society moves forward.
What I'm bitching about is that the deals need to be fair. A monopoly should be a license to make money, not print it. Don't pay your cell bill, the telco cuts you off - plain and simple. But, if your call drops, the fucking call should be free! Buy a machine with Vista on it and pay M$ as much as they figure they can charge you. But M$ should be accountable for the terrible software they wrote and give you a refund if you ask for it.
That said, I am in no way in favour of the state having biometric information on its citizens - much to the contrary. Abuses of information are becoming more and more prevalent.
When billions are spent to 'secure' borders but nothing is done about people coming into the country carrying fatal diseases which kill far more than terrorists, where are the priorities?
The security of biometric information should be something that is completely in control of the citizen who then releases the information at his or her discretion predicated on the legal situation that they are confronted with. i.e., I use a crypto key to release verification information to a border guard. I determine what information to release and I record the information given to me by the security personnel so that I, too, have a record of whom I was dealing with, where and when.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer was asked at the border to produce the password to her laptop. She refused on the grounds that she had client-solicitor privileged information that the border guard was not legally allowed to see. The response was that she would not be allowed to enter the country unless the password was produced. Further to that, the laptop could be confiscated. This is a very serious and egregious erosion of our most basic rights and freedoms.
This past month, I was driving along in upstate NY parallel to the border on the St Lawrence River. In the opposite direction, a slew of border patrol guards were amassed. They had a roadblock set up and were verifying information of people driving westbound along the road. This was in upstate NY! This is what they communists did in the U.S.S.R.!!! Wake up, folks!! This is getting very, very serious.
We have to get away from all this knee-jerk reaction and fight hard to return true freedoms to the individual. Write your law maker. Write the press. Start political action. Motivate your friends and neighbours. You are losing freedom at a prodigious rate. Our grandfathers fought for this against Hitler. Make sure that their fight was not in vain.
Furthermore, the entire curriculum could be on a CD (for those without internet) and distributed every year.
The biggest issue here is changing the infrastructure of the delivery of the information. Let's look closely at the lessons of the City of Munich and apply them at the state and school board level. Get rid of proprietary software for most users. Stabilize to a Linux-based platform (LTSP/OLPC?) and be done with huge hardware upgrade costs. Reduce (mostly eliminate) viruses. Give out older machines with OpenOffice and Linux to disadvantaged students. Level the playing field.
That's how you effect real change, but the reality is that it takes a huge will to do it. Long-term, the savings are permanent and irrefutable.
Knowledge is good.
What about dual booting? A backup OS such as Linux would be smart at best and prudent at worst. I mean, isn't NASA about redundancy?
I still agree with the comment about looking out the window rather than watching movies on their day off. Come on!! I'm sure a few kids on earth would have loved to ask for pics to be taken etc. etc.
...Man hooks $16,000.00 worth of solar panels to his ass and a solar powered monkey flies out of his butt.
By taking this step, great harm would come to education and educators. Students would no longer have an excuse: "I left my book at ....". This would mean that educators would be required to spend more time teaching rather than dealing with various accountability issues. As a result, debates would rage about shortening numbers of class-time hours required to complete a given course.
I think we should drop the whole concept and drop it quickly before it starts to gain momentum.
Worse yet, this idea might spread to other jurisdictions.
Please join and log in to: http://www.keep_repressing_education.org/ and help us stop the madness.
A decent database as part of an office package would really shake MS up.
Perhaps, MySQL could be integrated into OpenOffice. This would make for a 'real' database while at the same time leveraging a comparatively robust suite.
Base needs a lot of work (and I don't mean to slag the work that's already been done). Let's hope that this happens.
Quite frankly, Oracle wants to be IBM - with a complete hardware, OS and software mix. This could be it.
Some of the folks down there are the spawn of lazy dog-fuckers.