Are looks and the name Apple really that important to you? Or is it, that the other phones that they offer in the USA are even worse?
The other phones are significantly worse for the average user.
I mean, I'd love to make a business out of importing European and Japanese phones into the US market. There's no reason you should be that limited, that you think, the iPhone is great...
Yeah, good luck with that. The telephone companies in the US have higher rates and use those rates to subsidize phones. That means you're trying to sell unsubsidized phones to people in competition with subsidized ones. Add onto that the fact that there is no guarantee any of the cool features or services of the phones will work on a particular network, and your market is going to be pretty small.
You hit the nail on the head. There's a reason the EU is being more proactive with antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, and that is merely because MS is a strategic global resource for the US and a huge profit generator.
Do you have some evidence that the EU goes after foreign companies more often or more aggressively than EU companies with regards to antitrust?
With MS being in the US, the US can dictate to an extent how certain MS operating system features work via legislation...
Umm, the US can't even enforce our own laws against MS because they donate too much money to our politicians and said politicians undermine our courts.
Sure, this is all speculation. I think the important key here is that a monoculture in the consumer computing realm is destructive and only the foreign nations are willing to do something about it.
It's just motivation on part of those enforcing the law. The EU commission is hard to bribe and you can't contribute to their election funds because they don't have them. We could do the same in the US if we'd just make it illegal for anyone other than an individual to donate any money to election funds, effectively making corporate lobbying illegal.
I just wish the EU would take a harder line on Microsoft. Microsoft is not a European company,they are a monopoly extorting cash from EU citizens. Can you imagine if Ford was the only car maker in Europe. We would just not put up with it. I don't see why we should allow MS to import their products at all. At the very least we should impose very high import tariffs.
you talk senselessly. if ford was the only car maker in europe, instead of fining ford, europeans should make their own car company. because its not ford's fault is europe doesn't know how to make cars.
The issue, however, is not as presented. It's not illegal to be the only maker of some product. Having a monopoly is legal. It's using that monopoly to undermine other markets that is illegal. For example, if Ford was the only automaker and they put locks on the gas caps that would only open when used in conjunction with special Ford brand gas pumps.
Though I am wondering how they are doing price fixing. If they have a suggested retail price on the box that does not fall under price fixing.
They paid a retailer to set a particular pice for resold versions of their software, undermining the ability for the free market to decide that price through supply and demand.
In all honesty setting a suggested retail price != price fixing.
It is if you're a monopolist paying them to do it.
BTW i highlighted the "anticompetitive manner" it doesnt' state against what.
Other retailers and companies selling OS's and related products.
They don't care what the retailers sell it at as long as they get their money for each box sold (which they set the price).
Except MS's monopoly influence allows them to charge more than a free market would allow, so they are motivated to spend money to maintain that monopoly.
The number 1 company in a given market is always viewed as the evil of the world.
No it isn't. Often the number one company in a market obeys the law and while it might not be considered benevolent, it is at least not criminal and undermining the free market. When was the last time you heard about the evils of Symbian from a smart phone user?
Since they have tons of money it's "OK" to sue.
Sue? This is application of criminal law, not a lawsuit. They broke the law and were charged and convicted. They knew the law beforehand and everyone else has to obey it. How do you excuse such criminal acts?
On a side note I find fault with statements like this
Russia recently announced that it was considering adding Microsoft to a list of companies with high market share that might be subject to additional scrutiny under that country's antitrust laws,
I suspect that's because you don't understand antitrust law at all.
So if I create a prodcut that EVERYONE loves and EVERYONE MUST HAVE I should be put under scrutiny and sued?
No, if you create a product everyone must have you actions in other markets are scrutinized because controlling such a product is power, which can and is abused in illegal ways. Once again, antitrust law is just a category of law. It's not being sued in a civil case.
Even if I didn't do anything wrong I am supposed to be punished because everyone loves my product?
No one is punished for having a successful product. They're punished if you use a successful market to win market share in other markets, despite not necessarily having the best or cheapest product in those markets. I suggest you find out what antitrust law is before continuing to complain about it. You're equating being scrutinized with being punished. Guess what, all sorts of companies with a lot of power are scrutinized. Russia looks more closely at companies with overwhelming market share in a market, because that power can be used to break the law. They also look more closely at companies that manufacture large quantities of explosives, because those stockpiles can be used to break the law. Scrutiny is not punishment.
The American dream (or any other countries dream) being torn down one lawsuit at a time.
I'll say it one more time. This is NOT a lawsuit. You're right, about the old American dream though. It used to be gain power in one market and leverage it into an empire by undermining every other market as a robber baron. See Ma Bell, or Standard Oil for examples. That's why we made antitrust laws and why every other country did too. Because a much more productive dream is work hard and make the best product for the best price to win that market. Not win that market, then undermine all other markets with inferior products while the people working hard to make the best and cheapes
9.04 includes Brasero nicely integrated for CD/DVD burning, parity for multiple monitor support, faster boot times, an XGrid clone, some added filesystems, and other miscellany.
It is also useful if you want to run some of the end user software still in development that is targeting upcoming Linux releases and is not as stable/usable on 8.04. Personally, I installed it in a VM to test out, but found it not yet stable for me. I'll try again in a bit.
The vast majority of gamers are casual gamers and most games run just fine on laptops. That's why "The Sims" franchise is the best selling game of all time.
No, they aren't. The vast majority of game players are casual. 'Gamer' is a specific term referring to people who build high end machines with the intent of getting the most graphic and CPU performance from them in order to play the newest games.
The dictionary disagrees with you:
gamer - noun
a person who plays a game or games, typically a participant in a computer or role-playing game. (esp. in sports) a person known for consistently making a strong effort.
The term you seem to have wanted is usually "extreme gamer".
And, no, gamers do not play on laptop keyboards. They play on fucking custom keyboards with rows of extra buttons macro'd to hotkeys.
Please. I used to play Warcraft3 and Diablo2 at LAN parties on a laptop all the time and I used the regular old keyboard with the regular old F keys mapped to my macros.
No. That's not what I meant by 'gamer', which is a specific self-identified subset of computer owners, and that's not what I meant by 'gamer laptop', which are absurdly expensive laptops designed to be purchased by that subset.
I see the misunderstanding. I still think you're being presumptuous. Many people have different needs and wants than you and are better off choosing a laptop for their gaming needs, even if they do it professionally.
Journalists should report the news as objectively as they can. Paying attention to their readers is pandering, and it results in a feedback loop with predictable consequences.
This isn't a truism. Paying attention to readers can lead to pandering, or it can lead to providing factual information that reporters had assumed was well known enough to not need to be stated. I think an interesting experiment would be a paper that does allow comments and pays attention to them, and directly responds to ones that present factually incorrect information or premise conclusions upon it.
Such an experiment might result in much more informed readers and discussion, although it would also be a lot of extra work and might drive away those who are so set in their beliefs they refuse to consider the facts.
We need a thoughtful critical press capable of asking hard questions and not settling for non-answers from those in the news.
Agreed. Moreover, we need a populace that demands answers both from the press and from politicians who refuse to answer direct questions. We need a populace who is willing to vote based upon which politicians actually answer questions.
We need a system in which the President (and others in power) cannot exclude a journalist because he/she asks those hard questions.
I'm not sure our current system isn't the best we're likely to get in that regard. We just need the public to be aware and care enough when t happens and vote the bastards out.
Incidentally, attempting to buy a laptop to run games on is the stupidest waste of money ever.
The vast majority of gamers are casual gamers and most games run just fine on laptops. That's why "The Sims" franchise is the best selling game of all time.
You'll never get one as good as a desktop machine, your battery performance will suck, and you can't upgrade the video card or DVD to blueray or add another hard drive to hold your ISOs or whatever.
Most people don't need as good of specs as a high end desktop to play games. Battery performance will suck compared to the battery in your desktop? Does that make any sense? Most people never upgrade components of their desktops either.
And who the hell plays games in their lap on that little keyboard?
I do at LAN parties.
If you're setting it down and plugging in a keyboard and mouse, you don't need a 'laptop'!
Umm, some of us perform more than one task with our computers. You know, like we use it to get work done at the coffee shop, to stay in contact with the home office when on the road, to do real work at the office, to surf the Web at home one the couch, and to play games, at my desk at home. For some of those I plug in a keyboard and trackpad and second monitor For some, I need the portability and for some I want more performance. I sure don't want two machines I have to synch.
Just buy a easily portable case with shock mounts for the hard drive, ya fools.
Yeah, that will work well on the plane. Your needs are not the needs of everyone else or even the majority of people.
If the margin of victory was greater then 2 percent, then it should be non-issue as far as who is in office. But it should be fixed for the next election.
There were several issues here. First, according to some sources, a few elections were close enough that 2% may have made a difference. Second, the machines put in place did not have adequate safeguards against fraud or adequate ability to do accurate recounts. The former is enough to have to do one or two elections over, but the latter was such that the people running the elections were declared to have been potentially acting in bad faith and the equivalent of a constitutional right to equal voting was violated, requiring the process to be redone. It's sort of like throwing out a criminal case and all evidence involved when there is wrongdoing on the part of police, since you can no longer trust the other evidence in the case and as a way to discourage others from trying to profit by such actions in future.
Or, for a more reliable solution, do the same thing they do with cash machines and, rather than using a touch screen, put a row of buttons next to the screen and get users to push the button next to the candidate's name.
I've seen poorly calibrated ATMs where they have two options with arrows pointing to the side of the monitor and neither lines up with a button, so you have to guess which button applies to which.
What's the Air rated at for battery life, and then how does it actually do?
Apple claims 4.5 hours and in reality, under heavy use it delivers about 2.5 hours according to reviewers. So, close enough to the Adamo to not matter.
...I seem to be a reading comprehension wizard, at least compared to most Slashdotters. They covered both the battery and heating issues in TFA.
"Even with our 128GB SSD configuration, the Adamo is rarely a silent machine. The fan, incidentally hidden behind some of the most stylish vents I've ever seen, runs almost nonstop during basic operation."
...and a battery life about the same as the MacBook Air from the same reviewers:
And I was able to play back a high-def WMV for just over half Dell's claim. Total Run Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
That's fine for a demo. I wouldn't want to run a chat server with hundreds of users that way.
Do you mean you wouldn't run a production server as a VM image or you wouldn't run it using a VM image you did not create yourself? If the former, you should know a lot of servers are moving to running VMs for ease of: scaling, hardware sharing, backups, hardware migration, and cheaper "in the cloud" hosting. Why wouldn't you want to run your production server in a VMWare VM?
I did RTFA, it does explain how to install it, but besides that what does openfire actually do? Jabber support, graphs showing who is online, what else?
It's a Jabber server. What else do you expect it to do? Your comment is like saying you know Apache supports serving Web pages, but what else does it do?
Additionally, you're seriously misguided about the quality of American cars. You're either stuck in the past, living in the 70s and early 80s when American cars were crap, or you merely eat up whatever the media feeds you.
I've owned numerous domestic made cars, Ford and GM. I care about longterm reliability, cost of repairs, gas mileage, offroad performance, and price. All the domestic cars I've owned were made in the 80's and 90's and (quite frankly) I got sick to death of fixing them, both performing the repairs and buying the parts or hiring people for stuff I couldn't do. They simply sucked. They rusted everywhere and everything broke and there were design flaws I could see at a glance. When I finally started making a little money, I unloaded my old Pontiac and bought a Geo Tracker. It was sold by GM but made by Suzuki and was an incredibly reliable and cheap and performed very well for what I needed. It was also fun to drive. It was just about bulletproof. Aside from minor maintenance I had to do one or two minor repairs over the whole time I owned it and when I found a really good deal on a larger, newer Suzuki truck (made in Canada) I upgraded and sold my old one to a friend who got another few years out of it (including rolling it at speed on the expressway in a snow storm and driving it home after the accident) who traded it in on his new car. I still see those well made little things driving around. They look odd, but they work. My new truck has similarly been pretty decent about reliability with some minor issues with accessories.
So, after my horrible experiences with US cars and very good experiences with foreign brands, what have domestic auto makers done to win me back and convince me their vehicles have improved and are on par? Why in the world would I consider buying another US car? When I buy something I usually do the research, but for newer cars, it takes many years for long term reliability to show up as hard data and anything else is probably just marketing. So as of a few years ago, what were independent review companies, who are paid entirely by their subscribers and don't take any cash or even donated vehicles from automakers saying:
Of the 47 vehicles on the most-reliable list, 39 were from Japanese automakers. Six came from the domestic automakers, and one each came from South Korea and Europe. Twenty-one Toyota vehicles earned top ratings. Honda had 11 vehicles at the top of our ratings. Ford, General Motors, and Subaru each had three, Mitsubishi and Nissan each had two, while Hyundai and Mini each had one.
Of the 45 least reliable models, 19 were European, 20 were from U.S. manufacturers, 5 were Japanese, and 1 was South Korean. General Motors had 12, Mercedes-Benz had 8, Ford and Nissan each had 5, Chrysler and Volkswagen each had 3, BMW and Jaguar each had 2, while Kia, Land Rover, Porsche, Saab, and Volvo each had 1.
And what do they say about long term reliability numbers?
And those reliable older models tend to be Hondas and Toyotas. If they're well-maintained, they still have a long, useful life ahead.
And:
Overall, the most reliable vehicles come from Asian nameplates. Though domestic cars are getting better, they still trail the Japanese models.
They also provide the data from their studies that backs up their claims. So with US automakers decades later still significantly behind japanese manufacturers, why should I support their failure to deliver. If US automakers want my money, the answer is simple, make reliable cars that meet my needs and keep the reliability at that level for 5 years so it shows up on the hard data. Don't promote the jackass who finds another way to cut costs at the expense of long term reliability that doesn't show up until years after they have been promoted and moved on. Make a real commitment to invest in the brand and make me respect it again.
Right now, in my mind and based upon the data I pay unbiased third parties to provide me, American cars really do seem to suck (in general).
My best case, optimistic theory is that the bureaucrat handling this paperwork classified it because they classify everything and think that is both acceptable and desirable to the people in charge. Then, There was a FOIA request and Obama ordered the executive branch to release everything unless they could document a real security reason to keep it classified. The people working on this, however, either did not pay attention to that order or did not take it seriously. Then, they started to hear murmuring about their actions on "the intarwebs" in relation to said executive order or at least someone noticed the discussion and made them aware. Now, they're in damage control mode and trying to cover their ass. They don't want to release the agreement itself because it might piss someone off, but they also don't want to do nothing because as an old school Republican appointee, appearing to ignore an executive order while also pissing off select members of the public sets them up for a dismissal and as a convenient scapegoat if the issue ever becomes more mainstream. They now fear for their job at the hands of of the negotiators and at the hands of the new Obama appointees. So they take this middle ground and (hopefully) try to pass the buck up the chain of command, where the real policy makers will make a decision.
It's a technology that almost no one wants except for those who are in a position to abuse it. That makes it difficult or impossible to view it as a "neutral" thing.
I've seen quite a few "good" uses of DPI, from filtering out content trying to contact worm control channels to gathering statistics on Web site usage for academia. You can use DPI to slow down traffic going to any video hosting site not paying you a kickback or you can use it to filter out a DDoS attack on one of your network's clients. The technology is useful today, but we do need legislation to keep it from being abused.
Wow, the selection listed on wikipedia is just sad. The fastest electric motorcycle in production tops out at 70 mph (that's not fast enough for the expressway with comfort and safety) and has a range of 60 miles. The only bike scheduled to be made that has decent range and speed is forecast to cost almost 70 grand. Ouch!
I own an old Honda cruiser. It goes 140 mph, gets 70 mpg, has a range of about 200 miles, and cost me about a grand used. It looks like it will be a long time before electric is an economic alternative for anything other than a short range scooter for local commutes.
There is no controversy. There are a bunch of rumors and nonsense and a smear campaign and a bunch of hysterical idiots
That's a controversy alright.
In an actual controversy there are a significant number of people on both sides arguing something. That doesn't seem to be the case here. There seem to be the vast majority of people thinking (like reasonable people do) that he was born in the US. Then there are a few religious nutjobs who keep claiming otherwise on religious talk radio or in conspiracy forums. They're spurred on my some PR people trying to intentionally mislead.
It's manufactured and inconsequential, but it exists.
You could say that, sort of like there is controversy over if the earth is spherical or flat, if we've been to the moon, or if the pentagon is used to contain and control a super-powerful demon.
I do find it highly likely that he is a US Citizen, but there is a difference between a certificate of live birth and a certification of live birth, he provided the later which has less legal qualifications to obtain, for example if the certificate of live birth is destroyed it's still possible to get a certification of live birth.
Except that didn't happen. They went to court in 2008 and Hawaii confirmed it matched the original records they had on file. At this point, any assertion that he is not a US citizen is officially a conspiracy theory, because it requires conspirators in and out of Hawaii to be lying to the public and it requires all the investigative reporters who looked into it to have been duped or in on it.
So the claims that he never proved citizenship aren't all that absurd...
Yeah, I'd say they are pretty absurd. They're not impossible, but they're no more likely than a lot of the "out there" JFK assassination conspiracy theories in terms of evidence and probability.
...but really i doubt that he would be president right now if the GOP could have proven he wasn't a citizen.
It's more than the GOP not having proof. Neither they nor anyone else who did research has found any evidence at all to present or at the very least has not presented that evidence. There just isn't any evidence that would make a reasonable person give credence to these wild theories.
As I said, Obama provided a Certification of Live Birth, NOT a Certificate of Live Birth, the difference...
Yes, but not one that matters. They sued, the courts, asked Hawaii to verify the certificate issued matched their original records and they confirmed that. Then they threw out the case. Several other cases were filed, the judges looked at the evidence and tossed those out too. No matter what is provided nutjobs (such as yourself) continue to field conspiracy theories. Assuming you had the originally issued one in your hands, you'd probably come up with some theory as to how it is an elaborate forgery and all the people who knew him growing up are illuminati agents. Or, like other conspiracy nutjobs, you'd claim his Kenyan dual citizenship somehow nullified it. It doesn't matter. At some point reasonable people stop humoring you and start classifying you as nutjobs and ignoring you. That time was in 2008 after every reasonable person had seen the preponderance of evidence and all the investigative reporters had failed to find anything to support said theories.
Just give it up already, or at least stop being surprised for being modded troll.
Slashdot Mirror
Are looks and the name Apple really that important to you? Or is it, that the other phones that they offer in the USA are even worse?
The other phones are significantly worse for the average user.
I mean, I'd love to make a business out of importing European and Japanese phones into the US market. There's no reason you should be that limited, that you think, the iPhone is great...
Yeah, good luck with that. The telephone companies in the US have higher rates and use those rates to subsidize phones. That means you're trying to sell unsubsidized phones to people in competition with subsidized ones. Add onto that the fact that there is no guarantee any of the cool features or services of the phones will work on a particular network, and your market is going to be pretty small.
A-12: CIA-flown single-seater
Actually, at least one variant of the A-12 had two seats... although I think it is the one they blew up testing the drone.
You hit the nail on the head. There's a reason the EU is being more proactive with antitrust proceedings against Microsoft, and that is merely because MS is a strategic global resource for the US and a huge profit generator.
Do you have some evidence that the EU goes after foreign companies more often or more aggressively than EU companies with regards to antitrust?
With MS being in the US, the US can dictate to an extent how certain MS operating system features work via legislation...
Umm, the US can't even enforce our own laws against MS because they donate too much money to our politicians and said politicians undermine our courts.
Sure, this is all speculation. I think the important key here is that a monoculture in the consumer computing realm is destructive and only the foreign nations are willing to do something about it.
It's just motivation on part of those enforcing the law. The EU commission is hard to bribe and you can't contribute to their election funds because they don't have them. We could do the same in the US if we'd just make it illegal for anyone other than an individual to donate any money to election funds, effectively making corporate lobbying illegal.
I just wish the EU would take a harder line on Microsoft. Microsoft is not a European company,they are a monopoly extorting cash from EU citizens. Can you imagine if Ford was the only car maker in Europe. We would just not put up with it. I don't see why we should allow MS to import their products at all. At the very least we should impose very high import tariffs.
you talk senselessly. if ford was the only car maker in europe, instead of fining ford, europeans should make their own car company. because its not ford's fault is europe doesn't know how to make cars.
The issue, however, is not as presented. It's not illegal to be the only maker of some product. Having a monopoly is legal. It's using that monopoly to undermine other markets that is illegal. For example, if Ford was the only automaker and they put locks on the gas caps that would only open when used in conjunction with special Ford brand gas pumps.
Though I am wondering how they are doing price fixing. If they have a suggested retail price on the box that does not fall under price fixing.
They paid a retailer to set a particular pice for resold versions of their software, undermining the ability for the free market to decide that price through supply and demand.
In all honesty setting a suggested retail price != price fixing.
It is if you're a monopolist paying them to do it.
BTW i highlighted the "anticompetitive manner" it doesnt' state against what.
Other retailers and companies selling OS's and related products.
They don't care what the retailers sell it at as long as they get their money for each box sold (which they set the price).
Except MS's monopoly influence allows them to charge more than a free market would allow, so they are motivated to spend money to maintain that monopoly.
The number 1 company in a given market is always viewed as the evil of the world.
No it isn't. Often the number one company in a market obeys the law and while it might not be considered benevolent, it is at least not criminal and undermining the free market. When was the last time you heard about the evils of Symbian from a smart phone user?
Since they have tons of money it's "OK" to sue.
Sue? This is application of criminal law, not a lawsuit. They broke the law and were charged and convicted. They knew the law beforehand and everyone else has to obey it. How do you excuse such criminal acts?
On a side note I find fault with statements like this
Russia recently announced that it was considering adding Microsoft to a list of companies with high market share that might be subject to additional scrutiny under that country's antitrust laws,
I suspect that's because you don't understand antitrust law at all.
So if I create a prodcut that EVERYONE loves and EVERYONE MUST HAVE I should be put under scrutiny and sued?
No, if you create a product everyone must have you actions in other markets are scrutinized because controlling such a product is power, which can and is abused in illegal ways. Once again, antitrust law is just a category of law. It's not being sued in a civil case.
Even if I didn't do anything wrong I am supposed to be punished because everyone loves my product?
No one is punished for having a successful product. They're punished if you use a successful market to win market share in other markets, despite not necessarily having the best or cheapest product in those markets. I suggest you find out what antitrust law is before continuing to complain about it. You're equating being scrutinized with being punished. Guess what, all sorts of companies with a lot of power are scrutinized. Russia looks more closely at companies with overwhelming market share in a market, because that power can be used to break the law. They also look more closely at companies that manufacture large quantities of explosives, because those stockpiles can be used to break the law. Scrutiny is not punishment.
The American dream (or any other countries dream) being torn down one lawsuit at a time.
I'll say it one more time. This is NOT a lawsuit. You're right, about the old American dream though. It used to be gain power in one market and leverage it into an empire by undermining every other market as a robber baron. See Ma Bell, or Standard Oil for examples. That's why we made antitrust laws and why every other country did too. Because a much more productive dream is work hard and make the best product for the best price to win that market. Not win that market, then undermine all other markets with inferior products while the people working hard to make the best and cheapes
What "latest" stuff? Don't be vague.
9.04 includes Brasero nicely integrated for CD/DVD burning, parity for multiple monitor support, faster boot times, an XGrid clone, some added filesystems, and other miscellany.
It is also useful if you want to run some of the end user software still in development that is targeting upcoming Linux releases and is not as stable/usable on 8.04. Personally, I installed it in a VM to test out, but found it not yet stable for me. I'll try again in a bit.
Agreed. 9.04 (Beta) feels way stabler than 8.10 (Beta)...
Hmm, for me 8.10 runs just fine. 9.04 can't keep X up long enough for me to debug so I had to roll it back.
The vast majority of gamers are casual gamers and most games run just fine on laptops. That's why "The Sims" franchise is the best selling game of all time.
No, they aren't. The vast majority of game players are casual. 'Gamer' is a specific term referring to people who build high end machines with the intent of getting the most graphic and CPU performance from them in order to play the newest games.
The dictionary disagrees with you:
gamer - noun
a person who plays a game or games, typically a participant in a computer or role-playing game. (esp. in sports) a person known for consistently making a strong effort.
The term you seem to have wanted is usually "extreme gamer".
And, no, gamers do not play on laptop keyboards. They play on fucking custom keyboards with rows of extra buttons macro'd to hotkeys.
Please. I used to play Warcraft3 and Diablo2 at LAN parties on a laptop all the time and I used the regular old keyboard with the regular old F keys mapped to my macros.
No. That's not what I meant by 'gamer', which is a specific self-identified subset of computer owners, and that's not what I meant by 'gamer laptop', which are absurdly expensive laptops designed to be purchased by that subset.
I see the misunderstanding. I still think you're being presumptuous. Many people have different needs and wants than you and are better off choosing a laptop for their gaming needs, even if they do it professionally.
Journalists should report the news as objectively as they can. Paying attention to their readers is pandering, and it results in a feedback loop with predictable consequences.
This isn't a truism. Paying attention to readers can lead to pandering, or it can lead to providing factual information that reporters had assumed was well known enough to not need to be stated. I think an interesting experiment would be a paper that does allow comments and pays attention to them, and directly responds to ones that present factually incorrect information or premise conclusions upon it.
Such an experiment might result in much more informed readers and discussion, although it would also be a lot of extra work and might drive away those who are so set in their beliefs they refuse to consider the facts.
We need a thoughtful critical press capable of asking hard questions and not settling for non-answers from those in the news.
Agreed. Moreover, we need a populace that demands answers both from the press and from politicians who refuse to answer direct questions. We need a populace who is willing to vote based upon which politicians actually answer questions.
We need a system in which the President (and others in power) cannot exclude a journalist because he/she asks those hard questions.
I'm not sure our current system isn't the best we're likely to get in that regard. We just need the public to be aware and care enough when t happens and vote the bastards out.
Incidentally, attempting to buy a laptop to run games on is the stupidest waste of money ever.
The vast majority of gamers are casual gamers and most games run just fine on laptops. That's why "The Sims" franchise is the best selling game of all time.
You'll never get one as good as a desktop machine, your battery performance will suck, and you can't upgrade the video card or DVD to blueray or add another hard drive to hold your ISOs or whatever.
Most people don't need as good of specs as a high end desktop to play games. Battery performance will suck compared to the battery in your desktop? Does that make any sense? Most people never upgrade components of their desktops either.
And who the hell plays games in their lap on that little keyboard?
I do at LAN parties.
If you're setting it down and plugging in a keyboard and mouse, you don't need a 'laptop'!
Umm, some of us perform more than one task with our computers. You know, like we use it to get work done at the coffee shop, to stay in contact with the home office when on the road, to do real work at the office, to surf the Web at home one the couch, and to play games, at my desk at home. For some of those I plug in a keyboard and trackpad and second monitor For some, I need the portability and for some I want more performance. I sure don't want two machines I have to synch.
Just buy a easily portable case with shock mounts for the hard drive, ya fools.
Yeah, that will work well on the plane. Your needs are not the needs of everyone else or even the majority of people.
If the margin of victory was greater then 2 percent, then it should be non-issue as far as who is in office. But it should be fixed for the next election.
There were several issues here. First, according to some sources, a few elections were close enough that 2% may have made a difference. Second, the machines put in place did not have adequate safeguards against fraud or adequate ability to do accurate recounts. The former is enough to have to do one or two elections over, but the latter was such that the people running the elections were declared to have been potentially acting in bad faith and the equivalent of a constitutional right to equal voting was violated, requiring the process to be redone. It's sort of like throwing out a criminal case and all evidence involved when there is wrongdoing on the part of police, since you can no longer trust the other evidence in the case and as a way to discourage others from trying to profit by such actions in future.
Or, for a more reliable solution, do the same thing they do with cash machines and, rather than using a touch screen, put a row of buttons next to the screen and get users to push the button next to the candidate's name.
I've seen poorly calibrated ATMs where they have two options with arrows pointing to the side of the monitor and neither lines up with a button, so you have to guess which button applies to which.
What's the Air rated at for battery life, and then how does it actually do?
Apple claims 4.5 hours and in reality, under heavy use it delivers about 2.5 hours according to reviewers. So, close enough to the Adamo to not matter.
... but you are not a computer wizard either.
...I seem to be a reading comprehension wizard, at least compared to most Slashdotters. They covered both the battery and heating issues in TFA.
"Even with our 128GB SSD configuration, the Adamo is rarely a silent machine. The fan, incidentally hidden behind some of the most stylish vents I've ever seen, runs almost nonstop during basic operation."
...and a battery life about the same as the MacBook Air from the same reviewers:
And I was able to play back a high-def WMV for just over half Dell's claim. Total Run Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Correction, that last MacBook Air should be the 1.86GHz model.
Dell Adamo, for when you want to be pretentious, but you can't afford Apple.
Umm...
Dell Adamo:
Apple MacBook Air:
I'm no math whiz, but...
That's fine for a demo. I wouldn't want to run a chat server with hundreds of users that way.
Do you mean you wouldn't run a production server as a VM image or you wouldn't run it using a VM image you did not create yourself? If the former, you should know a lot of servers are moving to running VMs for ease of: scaling, hardware sharing, backups, hardware migration, and cheaper "in the cloud" hosting. Why wouldn't you want to run your production server in a VMWare VM?
I did RTFA, it does explain how to install it, but besides that what does openfire actually do? Jabber support, graphs showing who is online, what else?
It's a Jabber server. What else do you expect it to do? Your comment is like saying you know Apache supports serving Web pages, but what else does it do?
Additionally, you're seriously misguided about the quality of American cars. You're either stuck in the past, living in the 70s and early 80s when American cars were crap, or you merely eat up whatever the media feeds you.
I've owned numerous domestic made cars, Ford and GM. I care about longterm reliability, cost of repairs, gas mileage, offroad performance, and price. All the domestic cars I've owned were made in the 80's and 90's and (quite frankly) I got sick to death of fixing them, both performing the repairs and buying the parts or hiring people for stuff I couldn't do. They simply sucked. They rusted everywhere and everything broke and there were design flaws I could see at a glance. When I finally started making a little money, I unloaded my old Pontiac and bought a Geo Tracker. It was sold by GM but made by Suzuki and was an incredibly reliable and cheap and performed very well for what I needed. It was also fun to drive. It was just about bulletproof. Aside from minor maintenance I had to do one or two minor repairs over the whole time I owned it and when I found a really good deal on a larger, newer Suzuki truck (made in Canada) I upgraded and sold my old one to a friend who got another few years out of it (including rolling it at speed on the expressway in a snow storm and driving it home after the accident) who traded it in on his new car. I still see those well made little things driving around. They look odd, but they work. My new truck has similarly been pretty decent about reliability with some minor issues with accessories.
So, after my horrible experiences with US cars and very good experiences with foreign brands, what have domestic auto makers done to win me back and convince me their vehicles have improved and are on par? Why in the world would I consider buying another US car? When I buy something I usually do the research, but for newer cars, it takes many years for long term reliability to show up as hard data and anything else is probably just marketing. So as of a few years ago, what were independent review companies, who are paid entirely by their subscribers and don't take any cash or even donated vehicles from automakers saying:
Of the 47 vehicles on the most-reliable list, 39 were from Japanese automakers. Six came from the domestic automakers, and one each came from South Korea and Europe. Twenty-one Toyota vehicles earned top ratings. Honda had 11 vehicles at the top of our ratings. Ford, General Motors, and Subaru each had three, Mitsubishi and Nissan each had two, while Hyundai and Mini each had one.
Of the 45 least reliable models, 19 were European, 20 were from U.S. manufacturers, 5 were Japanese, and 1 was South Korean. General Motors had 12, Mercedes-Benz had 8, Ford and Nissan each had 5, Chrysler and Volkswagen each had 3, BMW and Jaguar each had 2, while Kia, Land Rover, Porsche, Saab, and Volvo each had 1.
And what do they say about long term reliability numbers?
And those reliable older models tend to be Hondas and Toyotas. If they're well-maintained, they still have a long, useful life ahead.
And:
Overall, the most reliable vehicles come from Asian nameplates. Though domestic cars are getting better, they still trail the Japanese models.
They also provide the data from their studies that backs up their claims. So with US automakers decades later still significantly behind japanese manufacturers, why should I support their failure to deliver. If US automakers want my money, the answer is simple, make reliable cars that meet my needs and keep the reliability at that level for 5 years so it shows up on the hard data. Don't promote the jackass who finds another way to cut costs at the expense of long term reliability that doesn't show up until years after they have been promoted and moved on. Make a real commitment to invest in the brand and make me respect it again.
Right now, in my mind and based upon the data I pay unbiased third parties to provide me, American cars really do seem to suck (in general).
My best case, optimistic theory is that the bureaucrat handling this paperwork classified it because they classify everything and think that is both acceptable and desirable to the people in charge. Then, There was a FOIA request and Obama ordered the executive branch to release everything unless they could document a real security reason to keep it classified. The people working on this, however, either did not pay attention to that order or did not take it seriously. Then, they started to hear murmuring about their actions on "the intarwebs" in relation to said executive order or at least someone noticed the discussion and made them aware. Now, they're in damage control mode and trying to cover their ass. They don't want to release the agreement itself because it might piss someone off, but they also don't want to do nothing because as an old school Republican appointee, appearing to ignore an executive order while also pissing off select members of the public sets them up for a dismissal and as a convenient scapegoat if the issue ever becomes more mainstream. They now fear for their job at the hands of of the negotiators and at the hands of the new Obama appointees. So they take this middle ground and (hopefully) try to pass the buck up the chain of command, where the real policy makers will make a decision.
It's a technology that almost no one wants except for those who are in a position to abuse it. That makes it difficult or impossible to view it as a "neutral" thing.
I've seen quite a few "good" uses of DPI, from filtering out content trying to contact worm control channels to gathering statistics on Web site usage for academia. You can use DPI to slow down traffic going to any video hosting site not paying you a kickback or you can use it to filter out a DDoS attack on one of your network's clients. The technology is useful today, but we do need legislation to keep it from being abused.
Wow, the selection listed on wikipedia is just sad. The fastest electric motorcycle in production tops out at 70 mph (that's not fast enough for the expressway with comfort and safety) and has a range of 60 miles. The only bike scheduled to be made that has decent range and speed is forecast to cost almost 70 grand. Ouch!
I own an old Honda cruiser. It goes 140 mph, gets 70 mpg, has a range of about 200 miles, and cost me about a grand used. It looks like it will be a long time before electric is an economic alternative for anything other than a short range scooter for local commutes.
There is no controversy. There are a bunch of rumors and nonsense and a smear campaign and a bunch of hysterical idiots
That's a controversy alright.
In an actual controversy there are a significant number of people on both sides arguing something. That doesn't seem to be the case here. There seem to be the vast majority of people thinking (like reasonable people do) that he was born in the US. Then there are a few religious nutjobs who keep claiming otherwise on religious talk radio or in conspiracy forums. They're spurred on my some PR people trying to intentionally mislead.
It's manufactured and inconsequential, but it exists.
You could say that, sort of like there is controversy over if the earth is spherical or flat, if we've been to the moon, or if the pentagon is used to contain and control a super-powerful demon.
I do find it highly likely that he is a US Citizen, but there is a difference between a certificate of live birth and a certification of live birth, he provided the later which has less legal qualifications to obtain, for example if the certificate of live birth is destroyed it's still possible to get a certification of live birth.
Except that didn't happen. They went to court in 2008 and Hawaii confirmed it matched the original records they had on file. At this point, any assertion that he is not a US citizen is officially a conspiracy theory, because it requires conspirators in and out of Hawaii to be lying to the public and it requires all the investigative reporters who looked into it to have been duped or in on it.
So the claims that he never proved citizenship aren't all that absurd...
Yeah, I'd say they are pretty absurd. They're not impossible, but they're no more likely than a lot of the "out there" JFK assassination conspiracy theories in terms of evidence and probability.
...but really i doubt that he would be president right now if the GOP could have proven he wasn't a citizen.
It's more than the GOP not having proof. Neither they nor anyone else who did research has found any evidence at all to present or at the very least has not presented that evidence. There just isn't any evidence that would make a reasonable person give credence to these wild theories.
As I said, Obama provided a Certification of Live Birth, NOT a Certificate of Live Birth, the difference...
Yes, but not one that matters. They sued, the courts, asked Hawaii to verify the certificate issued matched their original records and they confirmed that. Then they threw out the case. Several other cases were filed, the judges looked at the evidence and tossed those out too. No matter what is provided nutjobs (such as yourself) continue to field conspiracy theories. Assuming you had the originally issued one in your hands, you'd probably come up with some theory as to how it is an elaborate forgery and all the people who knew him growing up are illuminati agents. Or, like other conspiracy nutjobs, you'd claim his Kenyan dual citizenship somehow nullified it. It doesn't matter. At some point reasonable people stop humoring you and start classifying you as nutjobs and ignoring you. That time was in 2008 after every reasonable person had seen the preponderance of evidence and all the investigative reporters had failed to find anything to support said theories.
Just give it up already, or at least stop being surprised for being modded troll.