Why categorize at all? Because it's useful to us. Because it's practical. We distinguish between things--"human" and "non-human", "man" and "machine", "alive" and "inanimate", "conscious" and "unconscious"--because doing so lets you put that pork on your plate for supper. Many people draw their lines elsewhere and choose to eat carrots and potatoes.
Rifkin's sounds like a very postmodern attitude, which (if you ask me) is smart and accurate. But there comes a point when you've just gotta ask: which set of values helps me the most? And that's going to be the set of values you try to promote.
Oh, c'mon. Humans are natural too, and the things we do to control our environment--farming, building hospitals, and even playing with DNA--are as natural as, say, a beaver building a dam. Unless you want "natural" to exclude all human activity, but then I guess we'll have to rethink pottery and agriculture.
There may be good reasons to oppose genetic engineering and similar research, but that it is "unnatural" isn't one.
I don't want to sound like a fanboy, but in my experience there are Mac equivalents for most Windows software (excepting game titles). On the other hand, there are many Mac applications that have no Windows or Linux equivalents--particularly with new and cutting-edge stuff, like SubEthaEdit a couple years ago, or iTunes before Apple released the Windows port, or Exposé, to name an OS feature.
TeraTerm, of course, has about a billion equivalents on OS X, including Apple's own Terminal.app. As far as Visual Studio, you might want to see if Xcode suits your needs (though if you're targeting Windows, it probably won't).
My sister, a newspaper journalist, switched to Dvorak years ago after being diagnosed with carpal tunnel. She can't type as fast as she used to, but she swears up and down typing in Dvorak is much less painful than QWERTY. Could be the placebo effect, could be that statistically, your fingers don't travel as much when you type with Dvorak.
I dunno, I grew up typing in both (Dvorak at home, QWERTY at school) and I can type just as fast in both.
If you pick the Dvorak keyboard layout on Mac OS X, there's an option to preserve QWERTY keyboard shortcuts. Basically the effect is as if your Mac temporarily switched back to QWERTY for as long as you hold down the Command key.
You know you can set your upload limit with the "official" client, too? Just drop down the toolbar in the main window (click the lozenge on the right end of the title bar).
I haven't really kept up with PC vs. Mac benchmarks for quite some time, so I'm sorry I can't really answer your question.
But I have to ask... why is it relevant? Is your wife's Compaq too slow for web browsing, or something? I can tell you that any Mac you buy today (as long as you pump it full of RAM) is more than speedy enough for "general purpose computing." Menus pop down instantaneously. Flash animations are fast and responsive. DVDs play smoothly, even in the background as you browse the web.
Still, I'd suggest popping over to an Apple store and trying one out in person before committing the cash. You never know.
If you've got any other questions I'd be happy to oblige. Hope this helps...
"Wireless" is just a catchphrase. The real point is that it'd be pretty convenient not to have to plug/unplug all your little gizmos everywhere you go, just like it's convenient not to have to plug/unplug your Ethernet cable. Nothing revolutionary, but damn nice anyway.
That's exactly what they did, according to the now-slashdotted site. They also found a way to make the receiver less than a millimeter thick and moldable to conform to any shape.
"that requires a lot of advanced technology training, not the most prevelant thing in Sadam era Iraq"
Dude, Iraq under Saddam--despite all the sanctions, despite all the restrictions on freedom of expression, despite Uday's torture prisons--wasn't some kind of third-world la la land. There were (and still are) plenty of universities and institutions of higher education, including technical training institutes.
I think this has been clarified in the other reply to your post. The real reason I wanted to reply to you is that I noticed your other post, in which you addressed someone as "Baka." Speaking as a Japanese guy (with all the associated prepubescent fetishes and scat fascinations) it looks incredibly stupid when you write that word as if you were Japanese. Even if you are Japanese, it still looks stupid. This is Slashdot. We're not writing in Japanese here.
Firefox crawls on my (several years old) PowerBook like a harpooned whale across the desert. Every time I try to switch tabs, I know I'm in for a five to ten second wait as everything pages in from disk. Meanwhile, Safari's at least tolerable. Safari's currently got 45.42 MB resident and 156.86 MB paged to disk. Firefox has 44.79 MB resident, but a whopping 325.56 MB swapped out. For comparison purposes, I just quit and relaunched both browsers and opened the same four tabs in both.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoops, I meant Noske. My fault for skimming your post. :)
Why categorize at all? Because it's useful to us. Because it's practical. We distinguish between things--"human" and "non-human", "man" and "machine", "alive" and "inanimate", "conscious" and "unconscious"--because doing so lets you put that pork on your plate for supper. Many people draw their lines elsewhere and choose to eat carrots and potatoes.
Rifkin's sounds like a very postmodern attitude, which (if you ask me) is smart and accurate. But there comes a point when you've just gotta ask: which set of values helps me the most? And that's going to be the set of values you try to promote.
According to Google, the natural death rate in the U.S. is 0.121879864 hertz. What this means for humanity at large, I couldn't say.
Oh, c'mon. Humans are natural too, and the things we do to control our environment--farming, building hospitals, and even playing with DNA--are as natural as, say, a beaver building a dam. Unless you want "natural" to exclude all human activity, but then I guess we'll have to rethink pottery and agriculture.
There may be good reasons to oppose genetic engineering and similar research, but that it is "unnatural" isn't one.
Anyway, I wish you luck.
I don't want to sound like a fanboy, but in my experience there are Mac equivalents for most Windows software (excepting game titles). On the other hand, there are many Mac applications that have no Windows or Linux equivalents--particularly with new and cutting-edge stuff, like SubEthaEdit a couple years ago, or iTunes before Apple released the Windows port, or Exposé, to name an OS feature.
TeraTerm, of course, has about a billion equivalents on OS X, including Apple's own Terminal.app. As far as Visual Studio, you might want to see if Xcode suits your needs (though if you're targeting Windows, it probably won't).
I doubt Bill Gates sees saving the lives of millions as a "pissing contest." How sad that you evidently do.
Well, you could always just edit your keyboard layout. It's an XML file, so it doesn't look too hard (I haven't looked into it myself).
Personally, I found it easier (and less confusing in the long run) to just suck it up for a few days and relearn the key shortcuts.
Urge to kill... rising...
My sister, a newspaper journalist, switched to Dvorak years ago after being diagnosed with carpal tunnel. She can't type as fast as she used to, but she swears up and down typing in Dvorak is much less painful than QWERTY. Could be the placebo effect, could be that statistically, your fingers don't travel as much when you type with Dvorak.
I dunno, I grew up typing in both (Dvorak at home, QWERTY at school) and I can type just as fast in both.
If you pick the Dvorak keyboard layout on Mac OS X, there's an option to preserve QWERTY keyboard shortcuts. Basically the effect is as if your Mac temporarily switched back to QWERTY for as long as you hold down the Command key.
(BTW, it's called a "Mac.")
You know you can set your upload limit with the "official" client, too? Just drop down the toolbar in the main window (click the lozenge on the right end of the title bar).
I haven't really kept up with PC vs. Mac benchmarks for quite some time, so I'm sorry I can't really answer your question.
But I have to ask... why is it relevant? Is your wife's Compaq too slow for web browsing, or something? I can tell you that any Mac you buy today (as long as you pump it full of RAM) is more than speedy enough for "general purpose computing." Menus pop down instantaneously. Flash animations are fast and responsive. DVDs play smoothly, even in the background as you browse the web.
Still, I'd suggest popping over to an Apple store and trying one out in person before committing the cash. You never know.
If you've got any other questions I'd be happy to oblige. Hope this helps...
Spoken like someone who's never seen a Stevenote. Some things never change.
Thanks for the link, but unfortunately it cuts out right in the middle of the MacInTalk demo. Does anyone have a copy of the full (22MB) file?
My fault, looks like michael edited the submission after it was already posted, without bothering to note the change. Typical.
I'm confused... isn't that exactly what the submission says? Who's blaming Pew?
"Wireless" is just a catchphrase. The real point is that it'd be pretty convenient not to have to plug/unplug all your little gizmos everywhere you go, just like it's convenient not to have to plug/unplug your Ethernet cable. Nothing revolutionary, but damn nice anyway.
That's exactly what they did, according to the now-slashdotted site. They also found a way to make the receiver less than a millimeter thick and moldable to conform to any shape.
Patentable? That's for you to decide.
PDF is an open format, just like RTF, which was created by Microsoft (who still controls the specification).
"that requires a lot of advanced technology training, not the most prevelant thing in Sadam era Iraq"
Dude, Iraq under Saddam--despite all the sanctions, despite all the restrictions on freedom of expression, despite Uday's torture prisons--wasn't some kind of third-world la la land. There were (and still are) plenty of universities and institutions of higher education, including technical training institutes.
I think this has been clarified in the other reply to your post. The real reason I wanted to reply to you is that I noticed your other post, in which you addressed someone as "Baka." Speaking as a Japanese guy (with all the associated prepubescent fetishes and scat fascinations) it looks incredibly stupid when you write that word as if you were Japanese. Even if you are Japanese, it still looks stupid. This is Slashdot. We're not writing in Japanese here.
Just a friendly suggestion...
"The Iraqi elections are even more of a joke than those under Baathist rule."
You can't be serious.
Dude, I don't think that's actually Jason Kottke. I linked to it in my original post because it's a pretty well-known troll, or so I thought.
AOL integrated browser.
Firefox crawls on my (several years old) PowerBook like a harpooned whale across the desert. Every time I try to switch tabs, I know I'm in for a five to ten second wait as everything pages in from disk. Meanwhile, Safari's at least tolerable. Safari's currently got 45.42 MB resident and 156.86 MB paged to disk. Firefox has 44.79 MB resident, but a whopping 325.56 MB swapped out. For comparison purposes, I just quit and relaunched both browsers and opened the same four tabs in both.