I don't want to have to worry about whether my house is going to burn down or broken into and I lose all 300 of my CDs. I don't ever want to worry about scratching a CD or leaving it in the sun too long. I don't EVER want to have to worry about having to re-purchase a CD because I've lost my copy.
That's when I'll get involved in a physical music storage medium.
Typical response from someone who sees computers as an end and not a means. A truly powerful operating system is one that requires as little mental effort as possible so more can be devoted to solving problems.
Computers are not monuments. Computers are tools.
Don't be torn. The FCC shouldn't regulate content. That should be up to individuals. What content we view is a personal, private decision.
The FCC should regulate business models. That is a public decision that affects everyone.
The government should meddle in things that are public, like environmental laws, public health, and labor standards. They shouldn't meddle in things that are private, like gun ownership, abortion rights and marriage.
In other news: Only a very few people will get rich and everyone else will continue to have to work for a living, many of them in jobs they don't like.
Since when has not being a multi-millionaire been a bad thing?
Re:My short experience with perl...
on
What is Perl 6?
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· Score: 1
My wife and I had to get rid of an old washer/dryer that we got with our house. The previous owner said it needed parts, but it ran fine. Since we just wanted the damn thing gone, and we didn't want to put up the money for a newspaper ad, and it still worked and we didn't want to throw away something that was perfectly serviceable, I listed it at our local Freecycle group.
We got about 25 offers in the first hour of it being listed. Most of them were from the people who live around us; college kids and people with large families and limited incomes. Neither of these groups can be said to have too much time or stuff.
The eyesore in our basement eventually ended up going to a former appliance repairman and his disabled wife who, because of back surgery, couldn't go down into the basement to do laundry anymore. Shipping wasn't an issue because, since it's local, he came with his sons to pick it up. All in all, it turned what was, to us, a piece of junk into something that improved someone else's life and kept it out of the waste stream for a few more years.
It's less like eBay and more like a group of folks who don't want to or can't spend money on things, or don't want to see perfectly good stuff go to waste.
Acid rain is still around. It's not as bad because people heeded the warnings of environmentalists before it was too late.
Thinking that six billion people can't change the globe is shortsighted. As is thinking that six billion people would be unable to survive climate change. We're smart monkeys. We can fix things. I'm not worried.
I made my mother-in-law buy an eMac. I didn't want to have to support the thing. The only trouble she has is that she doesn't run permission repairs as often as she should, but since I've turned on SSH and can run them (and software update) remotely, this isn't really an issue. She's had it for over two years and hasn't had a virus or spyware problem. (Though she gives out her email address freely, and gets a ton of spam, but Mail's filter is quite good at catching it.)
My dad bought my niece an HP laptop for Christmas. The next day, I was installing some software (Firefox, AdAware) and got a pop up for "cheap mortgages". She was fiddling with it for all of three hours on Christmas day and got spyware.
Yes, I realize that these are anecdotal stories, but they're pretty typical of the experiences most tech people have in their families.
But, as someone posted earlier, if Macs are 5% of the computer market, why aren't 5% of the viruses and spyware on Macs? That would be tens of thousands, not a few dozen.
The site you linked to covered a wide variety of the 30 or so viruses available for the Mac. None of which run in OS X. A few of which are spread using Hypercard, which has been discontinued.
I completely agree. One of the first steps is to remove corporate contributions from politics and universities and increase the level to which scientists are involved in writing the regulations. Also, companies shouldn't be able to get away with ineffective models. Energy efficiency requires a new design, not just lower flow rates and new paint jobs. LG's new washer/dryers use a condensation drying method that uses a lot less water and electricity and still gets clothes dry. Better yet, they're self-contained units, so there's less to ship.
There are also much better methods of flushing, mostly using water pressure instead of gravity. Toilets are basically the same design as they were in the mid-1800s. Newer models have pressure tanks that can flush about a dozen golf balls in one flush, and still use less than a gallon of water.
BTW, I consider myself an environmentalist, as do my parents, and we have always hung our clothes outside, weather permitting. Methinks those who decry solar clothes drying are simply neighborhood busybodies. Or they're the type of "environmentalists" who buy a hybrid car to commute two hours to work instead of moving closer and simply walking.
Apple shouldn't make.Mac free. There are a lot of great services there for ordinary folks. I think Apple should make the iLife apps, especially iWeb, export to other WebDAV or even FTP servers. By not having.Mac, you're losing a lot of the functionality for these systems. But having.Mac significantly improves the lives of everyday Mac users who aren't technically savvy enough to set up, as I have, their own WebDAV server and hosting account.
I'm a very loyal mac user. If I could run IIS, SQL Server and VS.NET (for the one client who insists on using all Microsoft technology, despite the fact that our unfamiliarity makes us charge twice as much) on my Mac instead of having a PC hooked up to a KVM, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I'm not saying having vast sources of energy is bad. I'm saying that people shouldn't use more energy than is necessary. Energy efficient appliances and homes increase the percentage of energy available to do other things. They also lower the amount of energy lost in transmission. Most industrial centers are near transmission centers, but most houses aren't. Efficient residences also lower the cost of electricity because it is in lower demand, meaning it's cheaper to do the things you propose. (Which are great examples.)
I agree with you that having lots of clean energy is a good thing. And fast breeder reactors are a great way to use nuclear power. But I want to minimize the impact of producing that energy, both in terms of waste and land use. (I also want to save money on my energy bills.)
So what's the issue then? The issue is that the ID proponents don't seem to like the possibility that there might not be an Actor, and the evolution proponents don't like the idea that there must be an Actor. (And if you have any doubt as to which Actor ID proponents assume, just look who's backing it most forcefully. It ain't the Hindus, Jews or Muslims.)
However, evolutionary theory has been scientifically tested and can be reduced to very basic terms. The only 'unknown' is why genes mutate or habitats change. Science can provide answers (to a point) with research, ID says "god did it."
So there's no reason to teach ID in schools beyond "Something caused this electromagnetic ray or chemical to mutate this gene. We're not sure what, but that's not the point of this lesson."
There's something that everyone seems to be missing: Every kilowatt-hour saved is better than a kilowatt-hour being generated. Instead of taking more resources and polluting more to produce an additional kilowatt-hour so that we can continue to use heat^H^H^H^H light bulbs instead of switching to LEDs or CF bulbs or just turning off the lights when you leave a room. Putting more people onto existing capacity is better than eating up land to build power plants.
If you think:scaffold is all that Ruby on Rails is, you haven't used it enough.
And anyone who works in web development is that the vast majority of applications are CRUD. Anything that keeps me from having to duplicate all the hoops I have to jump through to get CRUD working on PHP or ASP.NET is wonderful.
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So you'd support a world currency?
I don't want to have to worry about whether my house is going to burn down or broken into and I lose all 300 of my CDs. I don't ever want to worry about scratching a CD or leaving it in the sun too long. I don't EVER want to have to worry about having to re-purchase a CD because I've lost my copy. That's when I'll get involved in a physical music storage medium.
Typical response from someone who sees computers as an end and not a means. A truly powerful operating system is one that requires as little mental effort as possible so more can be devoted to solving problems. Computers are not monuments. Computers are tools.
Don't be torn. The FCC shouldn't regulate content. That should be up to individuals. What content we view is a personal, private decision. The FCC should regulate business models. That is a public decision that affects everyone. The government should meddle in things that are public, like environmental laws, public health, and labor standards. They shouldn't meddle in things that are private, like gun ownership, abortion rights and marriage.
Since when has not being a multi-millionaire been a bad thing?
Python: "My God! It's full of whitespace!"
My wife and I had to get rid of an old washer/dryer that we got with our house. The previous owner said it needed parts, but it ran fine. Since we just wanted the damn thing gone, and we didn't want to put up the money for a newspaper ad, and it still worked and we didn't want to throw away something that was perfectly serviceable, I listed it at our local Freecycle group.
We got about 25 offers in the first hour of it being listed. Most of them were from the people who live around us; college kids and people with large families and limited incomes. Neither of these groups can be said to have too much time or stuff.
The eyesore in our basement eventually ended up going to a former appliance repairman and his disabled wife who, because of back surgery, couldn't go down into the basement to do laundry anymore. Shipping wasn't an issue because, since it's local, he came with his sons to pick it up. All in all, it turned what was, to us, a piece of junk into something that improved someone else's life and kept it out of the waste stream for a few more years.
It's less like eBay and more like a group of folks who don't want to or can't spend money on things, or don't want to see perfectly good stuff go to waste.
Thinking that six billion people can't change the globe is shortsighted. As is thinking that six billion people would be unable to survive climate change. We're smart monkeys. We can fix things. I'm not worried.
The original iMac G5 had a series of diagnostic lights inside that showed possible problems. Does this one have that?
My dad bought my niece an HP laptop for Christmas. The next day, I was installing some software (Firefox, AdAware) and got a pop up for "cheap mortgages". She was fiddling with it for all of three hours on Christmas day and got spyware.
Yes, I realize that these are anecdotal stories, but they're pretty typical of the experiences most tech people have in their families.
But, as someone posted earlier, if Macs are 5% of the computer market, why aren't 5% of the viruses and spyware on Macs? That would be tens of thousands, not a few dozen.
1995 called. They want their FUD email back.
There are also much better methods of flushing, mostly using water pressure instead of gravity. Toilets are basically the same design as they were in the mid-1800s. Newer models have pressure tanks that can flush about a dozen golf balls in one flush, and still use less than a gallon of water.
BTW, I consider myself an environmentalist, as do my parents, and we have always hung our clothes outside, weather permitting. Methinks those who decry solar clothes drying are simply neighborhood busybodies. Or they're the type of "environmentalists" who buy a hybrid car to commute two hours to work instead of moving closer and simply walking.
Apple shouldn't make .Mac free. There are a lot of great services there for ordinary folks. I think Apple should make the iLife apps, especially iWeb, export to other WebDAV or even FTP servers. By not having .Mac, you're losing a lot of the functionality for these systems. But having .Mac significantly improves the lives of everyday Mac users who aren't technically savvy enough to set up, as I have, their own WebDAV server and hosting account.
Some place where they're not allowed to be looking at /. apparently.
I'm a very loyal mac user. If I could run IIS, SQL Server and VS.NET (for the one client who insists on using all Microsoft technology, despite the fact that our unfamiliarity makes us charge twice as much) on my Mac instead of having a PC hooked up to a KVM, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Waking up is not at all like being drunk. When I wake up, I'm groggy and pissed off. When I'm drunk, I'm groggy and happy.
I'm a time traveler!
I agree with you that having lots of clean energy is a good thing. And fast breeder reactors are a great way to use nuclear power. But I want to minimize the impact of producing that energy, both in terms of waste and land use. (I also want to save money on my energy bills.)
However, evolutionary theory has been scientifically tested and can be reduced to very basic terms. The only 'unknown' is why genes mutate or habitats change. Science can provide answers (to a point) with research, ID says "god did it."
So there's no reason to teach ID in schools beyond "Something caused this electromagnetic ray or chemical to mutate this gene. We're not sure what, but that's not the point of this lesson."
There is a cure: Education. Unfortunately, poorly administered it can also be a catalyst for further cognitive dissonance.
If it's okay for others to judge Islam by its radical clerics, then it's okay for me to judge Christianity by its radical clerics.
And therefore science class should contain evolution and not ID, because evolution is the 'how' and ID is the 'why.'
We are in total agreement.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be (for the sake of the gene pool), but still...
There's something that everyone seems to be missing: Every kilowatt-hour saved is better than a kilowatt-hour being generated. Instead of taking more resources and polluting more to produce an additional kilowatt-hour so that we can continue to use heat^H^H^H^H light bulbs instead of switching to LEDs or CF bulbs or just turning off the lights when you leave a room. Putting more people onto existing capacity is better than eating up land to build power plants.
And anyone who works in web development is that the vast majority of applications are CRUD. Anything that keeps me from having to duplicate all the hoops I have to jump through to get CRUD working on PHP or ASP.NET is wonderful.