...My earlier comment on Digg when this story showed up there.
Personally I couldn't give two shits about _any_ browser getting "new and exciting!!!!" features right at the moment, and my reason is very simple,
They all fail at what they are supposed to do, first and foremost. Some fail utterly, and other fail a little bit, but they all _fail_.
There is not a single browser available for download at the moment that _fully_ supports the web standards laid down by the W3C, http://w3.org/ and developers who are working on Safari, Konqueror, Mozilla Firefox and Seamonkey, IE, Opera, Camino, and so on, all need to take a step back from their computers and say,
"Hey, how come we're adding new features to a program that isn't even standards-compliant?"
The continual lack of support for even the full subset of CSS 1 and 2.1 makes designing pages based on XHTML and CSS a frickin' pain in the arse.
If there was one browser, even just one, that was cross-platform and fully supported even just HTML, XHTML, CSS 1 and 2.1 (maybe even parts of 3), and was extensible to support such things as SVG and XVRML, then I would be using it in a damn shot, and then I'd _know_ that when a page failed to render properly, _I_ screwed up, not a bug in the browser.
Stop adding features guys, just follow the damn standards.
All I want, and I'm betting so do a great deal of other people who work with the web, is a browser that follows the standards for HTML, XHTML, CSS 1 & 2 (maybe even 3), Javascript, and DOM.
Extra features are nice, yes, but the top priority should be putting out a browser that follows the standards, first and foremost.
What good are extensions and themes and fancy bookmarking tools if the core program for seeing information on the web cannot render pages which have been correctly created?
It's been this way for 10 years now, since Windows 95 came out. Before then, to be a PC tech, you actually had to know something (IRQs or CONFIG.SYS commands, etc). Now days it's largely a button-pushing exercise with magic solutions produced by running one utility or another (defrag. regcleaner, antispyware, etc). It's astonshing how little technicians know about the inner workings of Windows NT, routinely recommending reinstalls for totally fixable problems after their magic utilities fail. Anyway, it's essentially become a bugger-flipping job and the pay is in line with that.
Any largish PC problems that are diagnosed by a tech on the phone are going to receive the suggestion of "that'll have to be reinstalled Sir/Ma'am" simply because it's just too painful to try to talk the owner of the PC through a proper solution.
I've done tech support for a long time on several types of systems used for a multitude of tasks. A reinstall is often the only thing you can tell a customer because guiding them through the registry, ini files, or the library of text in the/etc directory is simply not an option.
However, if I'm in the computer shop having a part installed - so if the employee of the shop fucks up, the shop pays for it, not me - then I watch the guy working on my computer like a hawk, and the first time he doesn't look like he knows what he's doing, I tell him what to do.
I do it politely, and phrase it like a question so it just seems like I'm curious, but they generally follow the query, and are happy that they figured out the problem - heh heh.;)
I do something similar at work when dealing with people who are "more important" than I. Works alright for being seen as "a real go-getter", and doesn't involve any actual arse-kissing.:)
No, but I've got a few as to how this will help the terrorists win! HAHAHAHAHA
It's quite simple really. When you're playing on a LAN simply have a few of the marines do a double-cross and shoot their own team mates, or have more gamers playing terrorists on pirated copies that you make up at the LAN.
There you go, now much more instances of "Terrorists Win" coming out of your computer's speakers...
Actually, here in Australia it's currently AU$5,073.99 for a 15.4" Macbook Pro with 2GB RAM and a 100GB 7200RPM HDD. Don't believe me? Go to apple.com.au and price one in the store.
The 17" model will likely be about $6,000 to $6,500.
After I buy the 17" model I'll be very tetchy about people touching my computer.
If someone I don't know approaches me while I'm at a Cafe - see above comments about San Francisco - or I ever hear the laptop's alarm going off, well...
I have a Nokia 7650 (GSM) that interferes with the speakers whenever it's updating to the towers or a SMS or call is coming in.
I've noticed though that depending on whether or not it's just an update of location, incoming SMS, or actual call, the pattern of the inteference and the volume differs.
I've actually learnt to ignore the location update interference - it's never very loud -, use the SMS interference to let me know without looking that I've got a message waiting, and when the speakers go,
Dit dah dah dit dah dit derrrrrr...
I pick up my phone and answer it even before it rings.:)
I suppose it could be annoying if you regularly get phone calls on your mobile, but my speakers - a cheap set of XMS 5.1 surround towers - seem to receive less interference from my phone when it's sitting about two feet to their left or right, rather than two-three feet in front.
What you should do is figure out the "sweet spot" for the level and volume of the interference. Then you can think about using the interference as another audible indicator, or just move it out of range of the speakers.:)
One thing to remember - I've noticed that it's not just the location of the phone which causes the volume of the inteference but also how loud your speakers are. This may seem logical to a number of people out there, but I never thought of it when I was first experimenting.
I can't remember what it was called, but I remember being told about a certain mindset that, for want of a better word, "evolved" in Japanese culture due to their population, general building materials of homes, and caste structure.
Basically, you can be three from someone on the other side of a paper wall, hollering and screaming up a storm during some wild sex and they won't notice, or rather, they notice, but their mind is societally conditioned to file it away under "None of my Damn Business".
It was difficult for the guy explaining it to translate it to english, and I'm probably fucking up the translation even further, but it basically boils down to listening to things and regarding people around you in a slightly different way.
If someone's talking to someone else and you're within earshot, it's honourable to simply not hear what they say because it doesn't concern you, like a kind of self-imposed deafness. If however, someone were to scream for help, you'd hear that because someone needed your assistance.
It's kind of taking the idea of personal space and internalising it as opposed to simply using artificial barriers to represent it, like wooden walls, the body of a car...:)
In most cases people wouldn't need a car for their normal day-to-day duties if they worked close to home or, even better, at home, could shop from a grocery store no further than a hundred metres up the street, and had plenty of public transport on their doorstep, but unfortunately not everywhere can be like Annerley, or Moorooka, or Ipswich, or a million other places like that.
People need personal transport, people need a place to live, people need a way to relax, and people need to realise that all these can be had with a lot less impact on the environment if they'd put a little thought into their situations.
Years ago we chose to believe that the environment could sustain us, without any problems, no matter what sort of houses we built, cars we drove, animals we killed and ate, chemicals we dumped into the oceans, and waste we buried in the ground.
We're paying for it now, both literally and figuratively.
Do the world, and yourself, a favour. Economise on your non-personal energy consumption, expend just a little bit more effort putting that recycleable waste into the recycling bin and that food waste into a compost for your garden. Turn the power off more often by listening to less radio, watching less television, reading more books, socialising with friends, exercising by walking or cycling, and make plans to reduce wastage in and around your immediate area or territory.
Remember, although we're not the same sort of animal as every other animal on this planet - thinking, planning, questioning our own existance -, we are still part of the same global ecology, and,
right now, we're shitting where we eat.
As a kind of an online version of GURPS, but the problem is that it would be a complete rewrite of the existing MMORPG's we all know and love to fit a more universal playing system, and very unlikely to happen.
I think the closest we're going to get to a "pervasive avatar" is a unified website where everyone can see how Jim Bob is doing in WoW, Vendetta Online, and GTA, at least until quantum computing and AI creates a computer that is able to be the electronic equivalent of the Uber-GM - but maybe without the weight problem and slightly cheesy odour.
"Our business is based on providing the best possible service at the lowest possible price. This strategy requires us to maximize all of our resources, particularly our technology assets," said Warren Adelman, GoDaddy.com president and COO. "It was clear from all of the testing we've conducted that Microsoft provides an efficient and scalable operating platform, while also providing the performance needed to handle our extraordinary growth."
Gnnrh, erk, urgh, aangh... twitch... spasm
"Microsoft solutions for the Web hosting industry have continued to gain traction in the market over the past several years. Go Daddy's decision to migrate its domains to the Windows platform is a significant validation point of our strategy," said Pascal Martin, general manager of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft. "The industry has reached a point where Web hosting providers must rapidly deploy new high-value services, while simultaneously reducing operating costs in order to compete. Microsoft along with its ecosystem of partners provides the solutions to help hosters fulfill both goals."
So let me get this straight, GoDaddy are going to "maximize all of our resources, particularly our technology assets" by switching to a system with higher general resource requirements and higher cash costs than they have now?
When did they change management and why has that man, or body of men, not been smacked around repeatedly with a nice fat, two tonne LART?
Well, month by month doesn't really qualify as a contract when you compare it to 12, 24, and 36 month contracts. I think plan works better for those short term things - "I plan to give you some money if you plan to let me use this service just for a few weeks".
It's all relative really, but my original point still stands - I am completely unaware of any phone companies in Australia selling locked GSM mobile phones.
No, wait, just thought of one - 3. Apparently their phones are locked down, and unfortunately it seems to be solely for marketing and business reasons, not technical. Oh well, one company out of a few ain't too bad, and I hear that they're not doing so well anyway because all their phones are pretty high-end things that normal people just flat out can't afford.
Who's that through? I haven't looked at mobile phones for sale on contracts for a while, got a nice $5 a month plan that has no contract and lets me either use the phone as much as I want or not at all.
Most mobile phone dealers I've looked at in the past gave you three options in mobile phones (the predominant type of mobile in Australia):-
Buy a normal GSM phone (all features intact) on contract, paying for the phone through your monthly access fee, which generally includes calls as well.
Buy a normal GSM phone outright and put it on a no contract access plan - generally a few bucks a month.
Or,
Get a Pre-paid CDMA phone which is locked but that's only because the phone is such a junky little thing that is generally regarded as a "throw-away" device, barely costing a few cents more than the cost of the pre-paid calls, and even then the "contract" is only from month to month. Any mobile phone shop should be able to switch you to a new provider without any trouble.
I haven't seen any GSM plans where phones that could be bought outright or on a plan have been locked to any service provider. I can take my phone and pop in someone elses SIM and I'm using his account.
CDMA is another issue, but that's only because the phone has the intention of a SIM built into it, and no, even GSM SIM's have to have their contract paid out if you want to leave, but you can still then go freely to another network with that SIM or CDMA phone. GSM phones that you buy can be swapped and switched on a whim from SIM to SIM.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - The IT industry in Australia is big fucking joke.
Upper-management generally knows less about computers than a grandmother, anyone's grandmother, even a dead one. Middle-management generally knows enough to fool upper management, but doesn't know enough to fool the techs beneath them, and therefore aren't respected by those techs. The techs on the ground floor, the guys that actually do the work, are ignored until something breaks, and then answers are demanded to certain questions, expensive questions, with expensive answers, that management wants made cheap.
If you're in IT in Australia, either work for yourself or get into another industry. The way things are going at the moment, IT is only going to get worse as more ignorant people get into it either directly - management - or indirectly - customers who want appliances instead of computers.
The humble janitor gets paid more than common IT people - help desk, assembly and repair, the usual grunt work - and the minimum award for IT is about $484 per week for full-timers, or $12.11 per hour for part timers.
...And needs to be hammered and polished into a new, updated shape for the information age.
I understand the reasoning that Judges can only pass judgements based on the arguments presented by lawyers on behalf of their clients, and this was fine for hundreds of years, but the computing universe that a lot people spend a considerable amount of time living in is far too different to the physical domain we live in.
A Judge who is not computer literate should not be prevailing over a case based on IT. Even us geeks have trouble coming up with analogies that are accurate enough to explain things properly to ordinary people when we're fixing their computers.
Judges shouldn't need analogies or "translators" when they hear a case centred around IT, they should know what CPU, GPU, NTFS, EXT2, HFS, etc, all mean, otherwise they cannot seriously be expected to form an accurate picture of what is being argued, and therefore cannot be expected to come up with a ruling based on any sort of accuracy.
Judging, he he, from this bit in the article,
(During oral argument last October, one judge wondered aloud: "Destroying a person's data--that's as bad as you can do to a computer.")
This Judge doesn't really know how a computer works.
Deleting files is certainly not the worst thing you can do to a computer. Hell, go ahead and delete critical operating system files. A restore disk, OS installation disk, or re-image later and the computer is back up and running.
It may seem like I'm arguing semantics, but it's just the way that phrase leapt out at me that leads me to think that the Judge seriously misunderstands the connection between the functions of a computer, and the way that data is stored within the computer.
Could he also misunderstand that the computer was probably going back to the company almost exactly as it had been issued, and therefore undamaged other than normal wear and tear?
"They'll come at you sideways. That's how they think, that's how they move. Sidle up with a smile... hit you where you're weak."
Serenity, Shepherd Book
Is a second sun some kind of harbringer of armageddon or something?
It was a vague reference to the movie 2010, the sequel to 2001, and a reference to the age old belief that is often trotted out by seriously die-hard christians that the sun and the sky and everything in it revolves around the earth, with absolutely no mention whatsoever of God creating, or intending to create, a second sun.
It was a spur of the moment joke which you, through probably no fault of your own, missed.
...To hear that the red spot has started going black, and then I'll just sit and smile when all the hardcore rightwing religious nuts freak out at a second sun soon after.:)
I did miss the budget line bit, mea culpa, but that still doesn't mean they can't be using Turion 64 ML-28's and MT-28's, or Athlon 64 3200+'s (939pin) in the desktops.
Maybe not the dual-core Intel's, fair enough, but 17 inch screens shouldn't be ignored because the laptops are "budget models".
Why can't anyone seem to bring out a design that has a starting configuration that is "budget" but can be configured to match almost any high-end DTR on the market? Look at the size of the new laptops from Dell, and tell me you can't design a chassis that has low end parts as standard, but is customisable to have high end gear instead?
On the other hand, the desktops are probably not too difficult to rebuild.
I thought the article was maybe way out of date for a moment when I read this bit about these laptops,
"The C Series includes an Intel 915 GM Chipset with choice of either Pentium® M or Celeron® M processors."
and these bits about the desktops,
"The Lenovo J100 features a SiS® 661 Chipset with choice of either Pentium® 4 or Celeron D® processors."
"The Lenovo J105 features an AMD Socket 754 board with either AMD Sempron® or Athlon® processors."
WTF?! Why not Turions for the laptops, or Intel's new dual-cores? Why not hint at later models using dual-core Turions? And will the laptops have 17 inch screens? I couldn't see it, nor find it with search. Why 754 sockets for the desktops - why not 939's?
I'm sorry, but I have to say that I don't think too highly of these "new" models.
Just look at some of the life that grows in a college student's dirty laundry pile. Scary.
You never know what situations you might create life in.
Funny you should say that. My Mum once bought this round rack thing with three bottles in it, meant for fancy cooking and what not.
In one of the bottles was, if I remember it correctly, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.
Because of the densities of the liquids, they tended to settle, light on top, dark below.
Long story short, Mum never uses the bottle with the vinegar and oil, and about twelve months later I pull it out of the pantry one day while wondering if there's anything left in it and find a cool thing.
Right inbetween the two layers was a layer of mold, built up a bit towards the centre of the plane and flatter near the edge touching the glass. It looked vaguely like a microscopic model of a city.
The whole computer isn't completely silent - he said as he listened to the gentle sounding, perpetually crashing waves on the beach -, just the three big mothers in the back (two case, one PSU) that push a lot of air but spin kind of slow. The little ones spin faster than the big'uns but they're not trying to spin at 10,000 RPM or more.
A little bit of heat isn't going to kill my machine.
I'm not deaf either, I can still hear the sound of muted television set.:)
This isn't scorn against the PSU mentioned in this article, nor those people who are searching for a silent PSU but I have to ask,
What the hell are people doing to make their PSU's noisy?
I've got a 450Watt PSU that came in my Codegen Mini-server case when I bought it a few years ago. I have never heard it, even when I stick my ear near it. The only way I know it's functioning is that I can feel the breeze blowing out the back of the PSU.
The noisiest fans in my case are the little fans on the back of my HDD racks, followed by the CPU and Video card fans, and all I can hear from them is a soft breezy sound. 9 fans - CPU, Video, two large ones mounted in the back of the case, one large one in the PSU, four HDD cooler fans - and all I can hear at night is the distant sound of the waves at the beach, forever rolling in.
How come so many people seem to have noisy computers? Pimped machines? Does an extra few decibels gets you more megahertz? OG computers?
If Sony is going to delay the launch of the PS3 so that they "get it right", so be it.
It's bad enough when you buy a personal computer and there's some sort of flaw or bug in the hardware, but I can imagine that it would a lot worse if it was a console.
I won't be buying a PS3 on general principal and because I prefer playing games on my personal computer, but it would be nice to see Sony take their time and do something right by their customers by releasing a console that is designed and built to be, for want of a better word, perfect.*
So what if it costs $900? A lot of people need to realise that a console computer is not a toy, it is a "real" computer that only differs from that box on their desk by having a different OS and interface, and that if people want games that blow them out of their chair, they'll pay for it, either now, or later through upgrades.
Remember, Sony's number one priority is to their shareholders, and then their customers, but, we can hope that with the PS3 they show that those two priorities are not as distant from each other as the DRM fiasco would suggest.
2007 release date? Those who would complain about it need to learn patience. Your PS2 is not going to suddenly become unusable tomorrow - saving the event of some major hardware flaw or some twit with a spilled drink - so just wait, play your games, and use this time to save up so that when the PS3 debuts you can go down to the store, plonk down $900, $1,100, or even $1,500 on the counter and say,
`Give me one of d'ose new `puter things from Sony, da one I plug into my tv and play all da games wid, and some gimme some shootin' games too. Er, can I get the Intarweb with dat?'
Camera's everywhere. In your home, car, toilet, bathroom, inner sanctum, the forests, the parks, car parks, office blocks, apartment complexes, eye-balls, and the backs of heads.
Now, give everyone free access to see everything these cameras see through the internet.
Utter, complete, disgusting freedom through knowing what everyone else is doing and no-one gets away with anything nasty. We'd either kill each other or have a very strange utopia.
Slashdot Mirror
All I want, and I'm betting so do a great deal of other people who work with the web, is a browser that follows the standards for HTML, XHTML, CSS 1 & 2 (maybe even 3), Javascript, and DOM.
Extra features are nice, yes, but the top priority should be putting out a browser that follows the standards, first and foremost.
What good are extensions and themes and fancy bookmarking tools if the core program for seeing information on the web cannot render pages which have been correctly created?
Any largish PC problems that are diagnosed by a tech on the phone are going to receive the suggestion of "that'll have to be reinstalled Sir/Ma'am" simply because it's just too painful to try to talk the owner of the PC through a proper solution.
I've done tech support for a long time on several types of systems used for a multitude of tasks. A reinstall is often the only thing you can tell a customer because guiding them through the registry, ini files, or the library of text in the /etc directory is simply not an option.
However, if I'm in the computer shop having a part installed - so if the employee of the shop fucks up, the shop pays for it, not me - then I watch the guy working on my computer like a hawk, and the first time he doesn't look like he knows what he's doing, I tell him what to do.
I do it politely, and phrase it like a question so it just seems like I'm curious, but they generally follow the query, and are happy that they figured out the problem - heh heh. ;)
I do something similar at work when dealing with people who are "more important" than I. Works alright for being seen as "a real go-getter", and doesn't involve any actual arse-kissing. :)
It's quite simple really. When you're playing on a LAN simply have a few of the marines do a double-cross and shoot their own team mates, or have more gamers playing terrorists on pirated copies that you make up at the LAN.
There you go, now much more instances of "Terrorists Win" coming out of your computer's speakers...
Sorry, what?
Actually, here in Australia it's currently AU$5,073.99 for a 15.4" Macbook Pro with 2GB RAM and a 100GB 7200RPM HDD. Don't believe me? Go to apple.com.au and price one in the store.
The 17" model will likely be about $6,000 to $6,500.
After I buy the 17" model I'll be very tetchy about people touching my computer.
If someone I don't know approaches me while I'm at a Cafe - see above comments about San Francisco - or I ever hear the laptop's alarm going off, well...
Maestro! Start the gladiatorial theme music!
Dun dun dah dah dah dahn daaaah...
I have a Nokia 7650 (GSM) that interferes with the speakers whenever it's updating to the towers or a SMS or call is coming in.
I've noticed though that depending on whether or not it's just an update of location, incoming SMS, or actual call, the pattern of the inteference and the volume differs.
I've actually learnt to ignore the location update interference - it's never very loud -, use the SMS interference to let me know without looking that I've got a message waiting, and when the speakers go,
Dit dah dah dit dah dit derrrrrr...
I pick up my phone and answer it even before it rings. :)
I suppose it could be annoying if you regularly get phone calls on your mobile, but my speakers - a cheap set of XMS 5.1 surround towers - seem to receive less interference from my phone when it's sitting about two feet to their left or right, rather than two-three feet in front.
What you should do is figure out the "sweet spot" for the level and volume of the interference. Then you can think about using the interference as another audible indicator, or just move it out of range of the speakers. :)
One thing to remember - I've noticed that it's not just the location of the phone which causes the volume of the inteference but also how loud your speakers are. This may seem logical to a number of people out there, but I never thought of it when I was first experimenting.
I can't remember what it was called, but I remember being told about a certain mindset that, for want of a better word, "evolved" in Japanese culture due to their population, general building materials of homes, and caste structure.
Basically, you can be three from someone on the other side of a paper wall, hollering and screaming up a storm during some wild sex and they won't notice, or rather, they notice, but their mind is societally conditioned to file it away under "None of my Damn Business".
It was difficult for the guy explaining it to translate it to english, and I'm probably fucking up the translation even further, but it basically boils down to listening to things and regarding people around you in a slightly different way.
If someone's talking to someone else and you're within earshot, it's honourable to simply not hear what they say because it doesn't concern you, like a kind of self-imposed deafness. If however, someone were to scream for help, you'd hear that because someone needed your assistance.
It's kind of taking the idea of personal space and internalising it as opposed to simply using artificial barriers to represent it, like wooden walls, the body of a car... :)
In most cases people wouldn't need a car for their normal day-to-day duties if they worked close to home or, even better, at home, could shop from a grocery store no further than a hundred metres up the street, and had plenty of public transport on their doorstep, but unfortunately not everywhere can be like Annerley, or Moorooka, or Ipswich, or a million other places like that.
People need personal transport, people need a place to live, people need a way to relax, and people need to realise that all these can be had with a lot less impact on the environment if they'd put a little thought into their situations.
Years ago we chose to believe that the environment could sustain us, without any problems, no matter what sort of houses we built, cars we drove, animals we killed and ate, chemicals we dumped into the oceans, and waste we buried in the ground.
We're paying for it now, both literally and figuratively.
Do the world, and yourself, a favour. Economise on your non-personal energy consumption, expend just a little bit more effort putting that recycleable waste into the recycling bin and that food waste into a compost for your garden. Turn the power off more often by listening to less radio, watching less television, reading more books, socialising with friends, exercising by walking or cycling, and make plans to reduce wastage in and around your immediate area or territory.
Remember, although we're not the same sort of animal as every other animal on this planet - thinking, planning, questioning our own existance -, we are still part of the same global ecology, and, right now, we're shitting where we eat.
"The desktop is the computer."
Kaizan (Kaizen?).
As a kind of an online version of GURPS, but the problem is that it would be a complete rewrite of the existing MMORPG's we all know and love to fit a more universal playing system, and very unlikely to happen.
I think the closest we're going to get to a "pervasive avatar" is a unified website where everyone can see how Jim Bob is doing in WoW, Vendetta Online, and GTA, at least until quantum computing and AI creates a computer that is able to be the electronic equivalent of the Uber-GM - but maybe without the weight problem and slightly cheesy odour.
Gnnrh, erk, urgh, aangh... twitch... spasm
So let me get this straight, GoDaddy are going to "maximize all of our resources, particularly our technology assets" by switching to a system with higher general resource requirements and higher cash costs than they have now?
When did they change management and why has that man, or body of men, not been smacked around repeatedly with a nice fat, two tonne LART?
Well, month by month doesn't really qualify as a contract when you compare it to 12, 24, and 36 month contracts. I think plan works better for those short term things - "I plan to give you some money if you plan to let me use this service just for a few weeks".
It's all relative really, but my original point still stands - I am completely unaware of any phone companies in Australia selling locked GSM mobile phones.
No, wait, just thought of one - 3. Apparently their phones are locked down, and unfortunately it seems to be solely for marketing and business reasons, not technical. Oh well, one company out of a few ain't too bad, and I hear that they're not doing so well anyway because all their phones are pretty high-end things that normal people just flat out can't afford.
Are you talking about GSM or CDMA?
Who's that through? I haven't looked at mobile phones for sale on contracts for a while, got a nice $5 a month plan that has no contract and lets me either use the phone as much as I want or not at all.
Most mobile phone dealers I've looked at in the past gave you three options in mobile phones (the predominant type of mobile in Australia):-
I haven't seen any GSM plans where phones that could be bought outright or on a plan have been locked to any service provider. I can take my phone and pop in someone elses SIM and I'm using his account.
CDMA is another issue, but that's only because the phone has the intention of a SIM built into it, and no, even GSM SIM's have to have their contract paid out if you want to leave, but you can still then go freely to another network with that SIM or CDMA phone. GSM phones that you buy can be swapped and switched on a whim from SIM to SIM.
Don't come to Australia to do IT work then.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - The IT industry in Australia is big fucking joke.
Upper-management generally knows less about computers than a grandmother, anyone's grandmother, even a dead one. Middle-management generally knows enough to fool upper management, but doesn't know enough to fool the techs beneath them, and therefore aren't respected by those techs. The techs on the ground floor, the guys that actually do the work, are ignored until something breaks, and then answers are demanded to certain questions, expensive questions, with expensive answers, that management wants made cheap.
If you're in IT in Australia, either work for yourself or get into another industry. The way things are going at the moment, IT is only going to get worse as more ignorant people get into it either directly - management - or indirectly - customers who want appliances instead of computers.
The humble janitor gets paid more than common IT people - help desk, assembly and repair, the usual grunt work - and the minimum award for IT is about $484 per week for full-timers, or $12.11 per hour for part timers.
I understand the reasoning that Judges can only pass judgements based on the arguments presented by lawyers on behalf of their clients, and this was fine for hundreds of years, but the computing universe that a lot people spend a considerable amount of time living in is far too different to the physical domain we live in.
A Judge who is not computer literate should not be prevailing over a case based on IT. Even us geeks have trouble coming up with analogies that are accurate enough to explain things properly to ordinary people when we're fixing their computers.
Judges shouldn't need analogies or "translators" when they hear a case centred around IT, they should know what CPU, GPU, NTFS, EXT2, HFS, etc, all mean, otherwise they cannot seriously be expected to form an accurate picture of what is being argued, and therefore cannot be expected to come up with a ruling based on any sort of accuracy.
Judging, he he, from this bit in the article,
This Judge doesn't really know how a computer works.
Deleting files is certainly not the worst thing you can do to a computer. Hell, go ahead and delete critical operating system files. A restore disk, OS installation disk, or re-image later and the computer is back up and running.
It may seem like I'm arguing semantics, but it's just the way that phrase leapt out at me that leads me to think that the Judge seriously misunderstands the connection between the functions of a computer, and the way that data is stored within the computer.
Could he also misunderstand that the computer was probably going back to the company almost exactly as it had been issued, and therefore undamaged other than normal wear and tear?
"They'll come at you sideways. That's how they think, that's how they move. Sidle up with a smile... hit you where you're weak."
Serenity, Shepherd Book
It was a vague reference to the movie 2010, the sequel to 2001, and a reference to the age old belief that is often trotted out by seriously die-hard christians that the sun and the sky and everything in it revolves around the earth, with absolutely no mention whatsoever of God creating, or intending to create, a second sun.
It was a spur of the moment joke which you, through probably no fault of your own, missed.
A boy can dream...
Throw the switch, Igor! Ha ha ha, HA HA!
Watches a once dead PC come back to life...
I did miss the budget line bit, mea culpa, but that still doesn't mean they can't be using Turion 64 ML-28's and MT-28's, or Athlon 64 3200+'s (939pin) in the desktops.
Maybe not the dual-core Intel's, fair enough, but 17 inch screens shouldn't be ignored because the laptops are "budget models".
Why can't anyone seem to bring out a design that has a starting configuration that is "budget" but can be configured to match almost any high-end DTR on the market? Look at the size of the new laptops from Dell, and tell me you can't design a chassis that has low end parts as standard, but is customisable to have high end gear instead?
On the other hand, the desktops are probably not too difficult to rebuild.
I thought the article was maybe way out of date for a moment when I read this bit about these laptops,
and these bits about the desktops,WTF?! Why not Turions for the laptops, or Intel's new dual-cores? Why not hint at later models using dual-core Turions? And will the laptops have 17 inch screens? I couldn't see it, nor find it with search. Why 754 sockets for the desktops - why not 939's?
I'm sorry, but I have to say that I don't think too highly of these "new" models.
Just look at some of the life that grows in a college student's dirty laundry pile. Scary.
You never know what situations you might create life in.
Funny you should say that. My Mum once bought this round rack thing with three bottles in it, meant for fancy cooking and what not.
In one of the bottles was, if I remember it correctly, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.
Because of the densities of the liquids, they tended to settle, light on top, dark below.
Long story short, Mum never uses the bottle with the vinegar and oil, and about twelve months later I pull it out of the pantry one day while wondering if there's anything left in it and find a cool thing.
Right inbetween the two layers was a layer of mold, built up a bit towards the centre of the plane and flatter near the edge touching the glass. It looked vaguely like a microscopic model of a city.
It's a shame Mum tossed it.
The whole computer isn't completely silent - he said as he listened to the gentle sounding, perpetually crashing waves on the beach -, just the three big mothers in the back (two case, one PSU) that push a lot of air but spin kind of slow. The little ones spin faster than the big'uns but they're not trying to spin at 10,000 RPM or more.
A little bit of heat isn't going to kill my machine.
I'm not deaf either, I can still hear the sound of muted television set. :)
This isn't scorn against the PSU mentioned in this article, nor those people who are searching for a silent PSU but I have to ask,
What the hell are people doing to make their PSU's noisy?
I've got a 450Watt PSU that came in my Codegen Mini-server case when I bought it a few years ago. I have never heard it, even when I stick my ear near it. The only way I know it's functioning is that I can feel the breeze blowing out the back of the PSU.
The noisiest fans in my case are the little fans on the back of my HDD racks, followed by the CPU and Video card fans, and all I can hear from them is a soft breezy sound. 9 fans - CPU, Video, two large ones mounted in the back of the case, one large one in the PSU, four HDD cooler fans - and all I can hear at night is the distant sound of the waves at the beach, forever rolling in.
How come so many people seem to have noisy computers? Pimped machines? Does an extra few decibels gets you more megahertz? OG computers?
If Sony is going to delay the launch of the PS3 so that they "get it right", so be it.
It's bad enough when you buy a personal computer and there's some sort of flaw or bug in the hardware, but I can imagine that it would a lot worse if it was a console.
I won't be buying a PS3 on general principal and because I prefer playing games on my personal computer, but it would be nice to see Sony take their time and do something right by their customers by releasing a console that is designed and built to be, for want of a better word, perfect.*
So what if it costs $900? A lot of people need to realise that a console computer is not a toy, it is a "real" computer that only differs from that box on their desk by having a different OS and interface, and that if people want games that blow them out of their chair, they'll pay for it, either now, or later through upgrades.
Remember, Sony's number one priority is to their shareholders, and then their customers, but, we can hope that with the PS3 they show that those two priorities are not as distant from each other as the DRM fiasco would suggest.
2007 release date? Those who would complain about it need to learn patience. Your PS2 is not going to suddenly become unusable tomorrow - saving the event of some major hardware flaw or some twit with a spilled drink - so just wait, play your games, and use this time to save up so that when the PS3 debuts you can go down to the store, plonk down $900, $1,100, or even $1,500 on the counter and say,
`Give me one of d'ose new `puter things from Sony, da one I plug into my tv and play all da games wid, and some gimme some shootin' games too. Er, can I get the Intarweb with dat?'
Ah consumerism culture...
It's not enough. Let's go that last mile.
Camera's everywhere. In your home, car, toilet, bathroom, inner sanctum, the forests, the parks, car parks, office blocks, apartment complexes, eye-balls, and the backs of heads.
Now, give everyone free access to see everything these cameras see through the internet.
Utter, complete, disgusting freedom through knowing what everyone else is doing and no-one gets away with anything nasty. We'd either kill each other or have a very strange utopia.