Just look at what Microsoft's biggest selling point for Windows 7 boils down to - "It isn't Vista."
Microsoft has being using the sales argument that "It doesn't suck as badly as our previous Operating System release!" for every new release of Windows since Windows 95. You'd think eventually consumers would catch on. Their current mantra of Windows 7 will be less annoying than Vista comes as no surprise after claims that "Vista will be much more secure than XP", etc. Microsoft is in the unenviable position of trying to convince customers they should shell out big money and completely retrain users for every new release, despite the obvious fact that either the software they have already paid for is sufficient for their needs, or if it isn't, then why should the customer expect the latest release to do any better job of meeting their needs. Always seemed like a pretty dubious sales tactic to me -- kind of like Ford saying "Trade in your old Pinto on a NEW Ford Pinto -- it doesn't explode on impact like the old one did!" Of course, it's a tactic you can only use when your customer doesn't have any choice. Personally, I feel that if you are going to spend $2000 per seat (mostly in training costs and lost productivity) to switch from XP to Vista, you should consider focusing those scarce resources instead on getting off the treadmill that forces you to throw out all your old software and hardware and retrain all your users every couple years, just because the vendor no longer supports the old system.
I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings? I'm also not clear on how she managed to remortgage the house without her husband's signature.
When my friend got his MS at Stanford in the 80's, I believe the Computer Science curriculum was part of the Philosophy Department. Boolean logic is just a small subset of philosophy, isn't it? Computer Science is just the part of Philosophy that can be accurately represented by formal systems.
Yes, I know that boolean algebra is just a trivial subset of set theory, and as such it could be considered mathematics as well... so I guess you could say CS lives in overlap between philosophy and pure mathematics.
Hear, hear! Why waste time working on things like battery life, lack of memory, underpowered CPUs, and high cost, when obviously the single biggest roadblock to widespread adoption of new phones is the lack of ability to simultaneously run multiple Operating Systems!
But seriously -- in what drug-addled delusional model of reality does this even begin to make sense? Customers don't want to pay for the extra memory, and Telcos don't want to pay the additional support costs. Overall, you would think the market would be driving towards making phones simpler, not adding unnecessary complexity.
Credit card numbers were handled very carefully; a paid staffer processed the donation first, then very carefully obscured the numbers with a black marker before handing off the form to data entry. We did have access to name, address, and amount donated information for all supporters, but like you said, that is a matter of public record -- we had the same information for the competitor's donors (and yes, several people donated to both candidates). There is a huge amount of data there (e.g. the voter registration data of everyone in the state), but other than getting a press release a few hours before it's made public, I really don't think any of the information is particularly valuable to anyone else.
I volunteered to work on a Senate campaign. I was shocked to learn their headquarters was using an open wireless access point, but handing out WEP keys to hundreds of volunteers bringing their own laptops would have been unmanagable. Plus, you wouldn't even need to hack the network from the outside -- literally anyone can volunteer and gain access to their servers. Most of the data is just donor and supporter lists anyway; it's not like it does a candidate any good to keep their platform a secret! Since thousands of unvetted volunteers had access to the candidate's networks, I certainly hope they used a rule that no data should be placed on the campaign servers that you wouldn't want to see leaked to the newspapers the next day anyway. And everybody already knows if you're going to do something that is possibly unethical or unlawful, you NEVER mention it in email! I very much doubt you could find any information on McCain's or Obama's campaign computers that would be useful to anyone after the election.
I sincerely hope that he can keep all his promises he made to the American people...
Can you cite ANY president that has kept every promise he made? I voted for Obama, and he is certainly a huge improvement over Bush, but I'm not expecting him to work miracles.
"No one"?!? Haliburton and Blackwater are doing quite well right now, thank you very much! Much more accurate to say the Bush administration valued cronyism over competence, and put in place policies designed to benefit an elite few at a huge cost to many others. Also, socialism is when you redistribute resources to the poor and needy. Redistributing wealth to the already rich and powerful is more akin to fascism.
McCain would have been a much better president than Bush. It's not that difficult to be a better president than the worst president ever. One of McCain's problems was that Palin managed to combine all the worst aspects of Bush and Cheney, leading me to believe that Palin is one of the very few people around that had a chance of becoming a worse president than Bush.
My friends Gail and Carol might have a problem with this method, since both of them are male... Sam and Mel might have problem too, since Sam is short for Samantha and Mel is short for Melonie.
I prefer the solution used in the interactive game "Leather Goddesses of Phobos": at the start of the game, you have a sudden urge to use the restroom. Your gender for the rest of the game depends on which restroom door you choose.
Really, I think arbitrarily guessing people's gender is just going to alienate them when you guess wrong.
Is Microsoft using.NET 3.5 for any of their own internal development? Basing the future of your application on a development environment that MS won't use in-house seems a bit short sighted to me.
Don't outlaw the export of technology at all. If something is so dangerous that some subset of irresponsible people shouldn't have access to it, then outlaw manufacturing it in the first place!
Maxwell's Silver Hammer was very dark. Helter Skelter was just a hard-rocking song about a rollercoaster. It was never considered dark until it was (undeservedly) associated with Charles Manson. Part of the Beatles' appeal was their (McCartney's?) bizarre sense of humor, which led them to do songs like Rocky Racoon and Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
That justifies the conclusion faster than the Omnia. But I see no indication that the iPhone was on the T-Mobile network. iPhones in the US are tied to AT&T/Cingular; what network are they tied to in the UK?
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Microsoft has being using the sales argument that "It doesn't suck as badly as our previous Operating System release!" for every new release of Windows since Windows 95. You'd think eventually consumers would catch on. Their current mantra of Windows 7 will be less annoying than Vista comes as no surprise after claims that "Vista will be much more secure than XP", etc. Microsoft is in the unenviable position of trying to convince customers they should shell out big money and completely retrain users for every new release, despite the obvious fact that either the software they have already paid for is sufficient for their needs, or if it isn't, then why should the customer expect the latest release to do any better job of meeting their needs. Always seemed like a pretty dubious sales tactic to me -- kind of like Ford saying "Trade in your old Pinto on a NEW Ford Pinto -- it doesn't explode on impact like the old one did!" Of course, it's a tactic you can only use when your customer doesn't have any choice. Personally, I feel that if you are going to spend $2000 per seat (mostly in training costs and lost productivity) to switch from XP to Vista, you should consider focusing those scarce resources instead on getting off the treadmill that forces you to throw out all your old software and hardware and retrain all your users every couple years, just because the vendor no longer supports the old system.
I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings? I'm also not clear on how she managed to remortgage the house without her husband's signature.
Think of how much MORE good this money will do when invested into the Nigerian economy!
Yes, I know that boolean algebra is just a trivial subset of set theory, and as such it could be considered mathematics as well... so I guess you could say CS lives in overlap between philosophy and pure mathematics.
But... does Netcraft confirm it?
Hear, hear! Why waste time working on things like battery life, lack of memory, underpowered CPUs, and high cost, when obviously the single biggest roadblock to widespread adoption of new phones is the lack of ability to simultaneously run multiple Operating Systems!
But seriously -- in what drug-addled delusional model of reality does this even begin to make sense? Customers don't want to pay for the extra memory, and Telcos don't want to pay the additional support costs. Overall, you would think the market would be driving towards making phones simpler, not adding unnecessary complexity.
Oh wait...
Credit card numbers were handled very carefully; a paid staffer processed the donation first, then very carefully obscured the numbers with a black marker before handing off the form to data entry. We did have access to name, address, and amount donated information for all supporters, but like you said, that is a matter of public record -- we had the same information for the competitor's donors (and yes, several people donated to both candidates). There is a huge amount of data there (e.g. the voter registration data of everyone in the state), but other than getting a press release a few hours before it's made public, I really don't think any of the information is particularly valuable to anyone else.
I volunteered to work on a Senate campaign. I was shocked to learn their headquarters was using an open wireless access point, but handing out WEP keys to hundreds of volunteers bringing their own laptops would have been unmanagable. Plus, you wouldn't even need to hack the network from the outside -- literally anyone can volunteer and gain access to their servers. Most of the data is just donor and supporter lists anyway; it's not like it does a candidate any good to keep their platform a secret! Since thousands of unvetted volunteers had access to the candidate's networks, I certainly hope they used a rule that no data should be placed on the campaign servers that you wouldn't want to see leaked to the newspapers the next day anyway. And everybody already knows if you're going to do something that is possibly unethical or unlawful, you NEVER mention it in email! I very much doubt you could find any information on McCain's or Obama's campaign computers that would be useful to anyone after the election.
A. The tail section of the aircraft.
What?!? Too soon?
Can you cite ANY president that has kept every promise he made? I voted for Obama, and he is certainly a huge improvement over Bush, but I'm not expecting him to work miracles.
Priapistic? You use that word a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means!
"No one"?!? Haliburton and Blackwater are doing quite well right now, thank you very much! Much more accurate to say the Bush administration valued cronyism over competence, and put in place policies designed to benefit an elite few at a huge cost to many others. Also, socialism is when you redistribute resources to the poor and needy. Redistributing wealth to the already rich and powerful is more akin to fascism.
McCain would have been a much better president than Bush. It's not that difficult to be a better president than the worst president ever. One of McCain's problems was that Palin managed to combine all the worst aspects of Bush and Cheney, leading me to believe that Palin is one of the very few people around that had a chance of becoming a worse president than Bush.
If he does, I'm sure Fox News will immediately issue a headline report stating "Obama can't swim!"
Actually, being a text-based Infocom adventure, it was pretty tame. See the walk-through
My friends Gail and Carol might have a problem with this method, since both of them are male... Sam and Mel might have problem too, since Sam is short for Samantha and Mel is short for Melonie.
I prefer the solution used in the interactive game "Leather Goddesses of Phobos": at the start of the game, you have a sudden urge to use the restroom. Your gender for the rest of the game depends on which restroom door you choose.
Really, I think arbitrarily guessing people's gender is just going to alienate them when you guess wrong.
So, they are finally going to mandate use of the "evil bit" as described in RFC 3514 on April 1, 2003?
Is Microsoft using .NET 3.5 for any of their own internal development? Basing the future of your application on a development environment that MS won't use in-house seems a bit short sighted to me.
It has even been done by Fisher-Price.
Don't outlaw the export of technology at all. If something is so dangerous that some subset of irresponsible people shouldn't have access to it, then outlaw manufacturing it in the first place!
Hollowe'en wasn't created by :"Baby Jesus"! It was created by "I've returned from the dead and boy am I pissed" Zombie Jesus!"
Maxwell's Silver Hammer was very dark. Helter Skelter was just a hard-rocking song about a rollercoaster. It was never considered dark until it was (undeservedly) associated with Charles Manson. Part of the Beatles' appeal was their (McCartney's?) bizarre sense of humor, which led them to do songs like Rocky Racoon and Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
A: The drummer!
That justifies the conclusion faster than the Omnia. But I see no indication that the iPhone was on the T-Mobile network. iPhones in the US are tied to AT&T/Cingular; what network are they tied to in the UK?