Living in continental Europe, I find the statement that A Christmas Carol is "eternal and universal" amusing and sad at the same time. Let's face it, outside of Anglo-Saxon countries, A Christmas Carol is obscure at best. The same goes for Star Trek, although you might get a little more name recognition there, just because its later incarnations are occasionally on TV (dubbed into the local language) - but it gets lost, more or less, among all the other U.S. TV cruft that gets dubbed, broadcast at odd hours, and forgotten.
Americans should travel more. It sounds like this particular OP has never been outside the continental 48.
Come on, just do it. Even a trip to Canada will broaden your horizons. (Although it's possible that A Christmas Carol is beaten to death every year there, too.)
Is there a "save all changes" option in Picasa? Or do you have to hit Save on every individual file that you've modified in Picasa?
For example, I'd like to do this: 1. back up all the original files, 2. run "Save All Changes" in Picasa 3. migrate to a different photo manager
The reality of family photos is that there are way too many of them. Picasa is great because non-geek family members can easily edit their photos, but if at some point all those edits can "disappear", it loses a great deal of its appeal.
I live in Europe and can confirm no Expeditions here, fortunately for me. Aside from the rare Hummer, the SUVs I see here (mostly BMW, Mercedes) are smaller, on average, than in the U.S.
Now that I mention it, almost EVERYTHING is smaller here than in the U.S.
Human psychology is the same everywhere, though. Europeans tend to aspire for bigger possessions, just as Americans do. The difference is, over here bigger gets impractical more quickly.
I had never seen it before, either, and I had the same reaction as you ("Huh?") to the term "Google word search definition". But I found it _is_ there, just very small and easy to miss.
1. Go to Google 2. Type in a single word (I typed "retch") 3. In the bar just above where the search results start, on the far right, I see this: Results 1 - 10 of about 311,000 for retch [definition]. (0.34 seconds)
The word "definition" in brackets is a link to Google Dictionary's page on "retch".
My wife is 50 and knows almost nothing about computers, yet she has come to expect near-instant network response. Whenever there's a delay in a web page coming up, she immediately calls out: "The computer isn't working - come fix it!"
My Grandparents, who live in rural Wisconsin, told me their only information on what's happening outside of the U.S.A. is the local evening news, which gives a 60-second whirlwind medley of the day's international events. I asked them if they ever remembered anything from it and they said no, not because they're not interested but because it goes by too fast - they don't have time to focus in on any of the content.
Ah yes - news reporting - just another reason from the long list of reasons why I'm glad I emigrated when I was 21.
Quoting from the URL you cited: "[Windows Fundamentals] allows for a limited number of workloads to be executed locally, including security software, management software, terminal emulation software, document viewers, and the.NET Framework."
Document viewers aside, those don't sound like applications that schoolchildren in poor Third World countries would want to run.
This is a known feature of cellular handsets. At least here in Europe it is. There's no way to turn it off, although you can get around it by removing the battery or leaving the phone at home. Politicians and businessmen here routinely remove the batteries from their cell-phones during sensitive negotiations. Basically, carrying a cell-phone is like voluntarily carrying a remote-controlled mic with you everywhere.
There are relatively easy hard-wire mods (at least for some phones) to make the light on your cell-phone activate whenever the phone is transmitting. That way at least you know when you're being listened in on.
I heard about this in the local (European) news several years back...
Yes but is anyone actually working on that? I've seen lots of converters, but all far from perfect. Google does a fairly good job of converting DOC to HTML, but it's just a rough approximation.
Maybe the reason nobody is working on it is fear - of being sued by M$ (for reverse engineering, for example).
No sample sentence, sorry. What I've found, though, is that a lot of business types are used to being self-reliant and they aren't comfortable signing or otherwise associating their name with something that they don't themselves understand. So a certain amount of hand-holding is in order. Since they've never had to read a severely broken text in their own language, and they overestimate their own English language proficiency, they have trouble accepting that their version is deficient. I think this has something to do with basic human psychology.
While it's a bit of a blow to my ego that a client would trust MS grammar-checking software more than me, I do understand and try to be patient. The software is like a dictionary - since it's published and it's something you buy, it must be authoritative. The idea that there's an authoritative source out there is comforting and the reality that these are just tools of limited value is difficult to accept. Often I hear things like "according to the dictionary, the translation should be..." I've found that translating the broken sentence into a similarly absurd sentence in their own language often helps drive the point home.
I'm a professional translator and a native speaker of English. Once I wrote a grammatically and stylistically correct English sentence in a translation. When the client (a corporate executive who is not a native English speaker) ran it through MS's spelling and grammar checking software, the software claimed it was grammatically incorrect. The client immediately called me. The only way to satisfy him was to rephrase the sentence so the software would accept it.
The government would have an easier time with the non-profit, simply because non-profits have less incentive to "play the system to the hilt for what it's worth" and "bend the rules to the breaking point and beyond", whereas for-profits are notorious for doing just that.
Also, since Municipal WiFi is about giving Internet access to the people, a non-profit is a logical choice because the people will be more inclined to support it. Of course, it would have to be well-managed to garner and keep that support, but the same applies to for-profits with the added risk that the management of the for-profit will be looking to line its pockets.
With a for-profit provider, there has to be really strict regulation to ensure that only providing good WiFi service, and nothing else, leads to fulfillment of the profit motive. And as the Big Dig has shown, Massachusetts doesn't have a good track record in the "supervision of contractors" department. But then again, what State DOES?
In the USA it's easy to say "Just open more universities" because the USA is a rich nation and the university students cover a significant portion of each university's operating costs by paying tuition (with the possible exception of California). In many other countries, however, the education system is part of the government and there is no tuition, even at university.
This leads directly to the situation described in the article. Supply of universities is low, the cost to students is zero, so there is cutthroat competition to get into the most attractive institutions. The motivation to cheat at the entrance exams is high.
Since universities are expensive to run (and not getting any cheaper), and every university is exclusively government-funded, the Education Ministry (or equivalent) has to compete with other ministries for its slice of the budget pie. Out of whatever it gets, it has to run all the schools in the country, from kindergarten up to post-graduate.
It's easy to see that there won't be much money left to establish new institutions, much less to fund their ongoing operation. So, what it comes down to is, either live with the status quo or start charging tuition. Unfortunately, "tuition-free university" is something of a political sacred cow in many countries.
Question is, does this apply to wikis, blogs and (perish the thought)/. as well?
As you say, with the works of Shakespeare the evaluation process could be automated, since the "correct" answer is known. But with vexing unsolved problems in math and physics, the solution is NOT known in advance. It's not clear if anyone will recognize the correct solution once a./ poster (or a monkey) comes up with it.
Just think, THIS VERY MESSAGE COULD BE THE SOLUTION TO ONE (OR MORE) OF THE PROBLEMS!
Well put. The last thing Microsoft needs is a real standard (standard as in ASCII7). MS's track record is clear: whenever a promising standard emerges, they immediately set about "improving" it, thereby causing it to cease being a standard.
It's sad, though, because the absence of a real standard for Office-type documents means that we are all forced to use MS Office, whether we clearly understand that or not. The general public hasn't figured out that this state of affairs is a direct result (or component) of Microsoft's policy of undermining standards to maintain its hegemony over the SW market.
The Office formats are MS's Achilles Heel (or perhaps one of several). When MS is forced to accept an open format for Word, it will be devastating for them. They know well that the ability to open MS Office documents is the only reason left why a lot of people still use MS products. If the Office document standards becpome real standards, it won't make any difference what operating system or Office suite you have installed - you can still open those documents and they will look the same. This possibility is a nightmare for them. That explains their hysterical response to what is happening in Mass.
One is tempted to ask: Why hasn't the government caught on to this earlier? Don't we have a right to open standards? How about a Constitutional right? The 5-4 Conservative majority on the Supreme Court, if this issue ever made it that high, would say the answer is simple: "the Constitution says nothing about open standards, or computer software at all for that matter, so there is no Constitutional right to them. We're just being faithful to what the original framers of the Constitution intended!"
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Living in continental Europe, I find the statement that A Christmas Carol is "eternal and universal" amusing and sad at the same time. Let's face it, outside of Anglo-Saxon countries, A Christmas Carol is obscure at best. The same goes for Star Trek, although you might get a little more name recognition there, just because its later incarnations are occasionally on TV (dubbed into the local language) - but it gets lost, more or less, among all the other U.S. TV cruft that gets dubbed, broadcast at odd hours, and forgotten.
Americans should travel more. It sounds like this particular OP has never been outside the continental 48.
Come on, just do it. Even a trip to Canada will broaden your horizons. (Although it's possible that A Christmas Carol is beaten to death every year there, too.)
Is there a "save all changes" option in Picasa? Or do you have to hit Save on every individual file that you've modified in Picasa?
For example, I'd like to do this:
1. back up all the original files,
2. run "Save All Changes" in Picasa
3. migrate to a different photo manager
The reality of family photos is that there are way too many of them. Picasa is great because non-geek family members can easily edit their photos, but if at some point all those edits can "disappear", it loses a great deal of its appeal.
I'll wait until it makes a super ULTRA smart phone.
I live in Europe and can confirm no Expeditions here, fortunately for me. Aside from the rare Hummer, the SUVs I see here (mostly BMW, Mercedes) are smaller, on average, than in the U.S.
Now that I mention it, almost EVERYTHING is smaller here than in the U.S.
Human psychology is the same everywhere, though. Europeans tend to aspire for bigger possessions, just as Americans do. The difference is, over here bigger gets impractical more quickly.
which two countries have these patent issues?
I had never seen it before, either, and I had the same reaction as you ("Huh?") to the term "Google word search definition". But I found it _is_ there, just very small and easy to miss.
1. Go to Google
2. Type in a single word (I typed "retch")
3. In the bar just above where the search results start, on the far right, I see this:
Results 1 - 10 of about 311,000 for retch [definition]. (0.34 seconds)
The word "definition" in brackets is a link to Google Dictionary's page on "retch".
Whether you're a computer user or a small shop owner in the Bronx, nobody likes paying for security.
My wife is 50 and knows almost nothing about computers, yet she has come to expect near-instant network response. Whenever there's a delay in a web page coming up, she immediately calls out: "The computer isn't working - come fix it!"
. . .
(and no, the cat's not got my tongue)
My Grandparents, who live in rural Wisconsin, told me their only information on what's happening outside of the U.S.A. is the local evening news, which gives a 60-second whirlwind medley of the day's international events. I asked them if they ever remembered anything from it and they said no, not because they're not interested but because it goes by too fast - they don't have time to focus in on any of the content.
Ah yes - news reporting - just another reason from the long list of reasons why I'm glad I emigrated when I was 21.
Quoting from the URL you cited: "[Windows Fundamentals] allows for a limited number of workloads to be executed locally, including security software, management software, terminal emulation software, document viewers, and the .NET Framework."
Document viewers aside, those don't sound like applications that schoolchildren in poor Third World countries would want to run.
This is a known feature of cellular handsets. At least here in Europe it is. There's no way to turn it off, although you can get around it by removing the battery or leaving the phone at home. Politicians and businessmen here routinely remove the batteries from their cell-phones during sensitive negotiations. Basically, carrying a cell-phone is like voluntarily carrying a remote-controlled mic with you everywhere.
There are relatively easy hard-wire mods (at least for some phones) to make the light on your cell-phone activate whenever the phone is transmitting. That way at least you know when you're being listened in on.
I heard about this in the local (European) news several years back...
Add an unassuming "n" and the Roman God (and the dog) suddenly morph into an intrusive igneous rock body!
Yes but is anyone actually working on that? I've seen lots of converters, but all far from perfect. Google does a fairly good job of converting DOC to HTML, but it's just a rough approximation.
Maybe the reason nobody is working on it is fear - of being sued by M$ (for reverse engineering, for example).
No sample sentence, sorry. What I've found, though, is that a lot of business types are used to being self-reliant and they aren't comfortable signing or otherwise associating their name with something that they don't themselves understand. So a certain amount of hand-holding is in order. Since they've never had to read a severely broken text in their own language, and they overestimate their own English language proficiency, they have trouble accepting that their version is deficient. I think this has something to do with basic human psychology.
While it's a bit of a blow to my ego that a client would trust MS grammar-checking software more than me, I do understand and try to be patient. The software is like a dictionary - since it's published and it's something you buy, it must be authoritative. The idea that there's an authoritative source out there is comforting and the reality that these are just tools of limited value is difficult to accept. Often I hear things like "according to the dictionary, the translation should be..." I've found that translating the broken sentence into a similarly absurd sentence in their own language often helps drive the point home.
Sounds like O'Reilly has unwittingly given IT@Cork massive publicity for their conference!
I'm a professional translator and a native speaker of English. Once I wrote a grammatically and stylistically correct English sentence in a translation. When the client (a corporate executive who is not a native English speaker) ran it through MS's spelling and grammar checking software, the software claimed it was grammatically incorrect. The client immediately called me. The only way to satisfy him was to rephrase the sentence so the software would accept it.
The Maryland State police has a computer crimes unit.
I first read this (I'm not normally dyslexic) as "The Maryland police state..."
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
If it is an error, then by definition it can't be intentional. You need to rephrase your manual.
The government would have an easier time with the non-profit, simply because non-profits have less incentive to "play the system to the hilt for what it's worth" and "bend the rules to the breaking point and beyond", whereas for-profits are notorious for doing just that.
Also, since Municipal WiFi is about giving Internet access to the people, a non-profit is a logical choice because the people will be more inclined to support it. Of course, it would have to be well-managed to garner and keep that support, but the same applies to for-profits with the added risk that the management of the for-profit will be looking to line its pockets.
With a for-profit provider, there has to be really strict regulation to ensure that only providing good WiFi service, and nothing else, leads to fulfillment of the profit motive. And as the Big Dig has shown, Massachusetts doesn't have a good track record in the "supervision of contractors" department. But then again, what State DOES?
In the USA it's easy to say "Just open more universities" because the USA is a rich nation and the university students cover a significant portion of each university's operating costs by paying tuition (with the possible exception of California). In many other countries, however, the education system is part of the government and there is no tuition, even at university.
This leads directly to the situation described in the article. Supply of universities is low, the cost to students is zero, so there is cutthroat competition to get into the most attractive institutions. The motivation to cheat at the entrance exams is high.
Since universities are expensive to run (and not getting any cheaper), and every university is exclusively government-funded, the Education Ministry (or equivalent) has to compete with other ministries for its slice of the budget pie. Out of whatever it gets, it has to run all the schools in the country, from kindergarten up to post-graduate.
It's easy to see that there won't be much money left to establish new institutions, much less to fund their ongoing operation. So, what it comes down to is, either live with the status quo or start charging tuition. Unfortunately, "tuition-free university" is something of a political sacred cow in many countries.
Question is, does this apply to wikis, blogs and (perish the thought) /. as well?
./ poster (or a monkey) comes up with it.
As you say, with the works of Shakespeare the evaluation process could be automated, since the "correct" answer is known. But with vexing unsolved problems in math and physics, the solution is NOT known in advance. It's not clear if anyone will recognize the correct solution once a
Just think, THIS VERY MESSAGE COULD BE THE SOLUTION TO ONE (OR MORE) OF THE PROBLEMS!
I hope I'm not going to lose sleep over this.
Well put. The last thing Microsoft needs is a real standard (standard as in ASCII7). MS's track record is clear: whenever a promising standard emerges, they immediately set about "improving" it, thereby causing it to cease being a standard.
It's sad, though, because the absence of a real standard for Office-type documents means that we are all forced to use MS Office, whether we clearly understand that or not. The general public hasn't figured out that this state of affairs is a direct result (or component) of Microsoft's policy of undermining standards to maintain its hegemony over the SW market.
The Office formats are MS's Achilles Heel (or perhaps one of several). When MS is forced to accept an open format for Word, it will be devastating for them. They know well that the ability to open MS Office documents is the only reason left why a lot of people still use MS products. If the Office document standards becpome real standards, it won't make any difference what operating system or Office suite you have installed - you can still open those documents and they will look the same. This possibility is a nightmare for them. That explains their hysterical response to what is happening in Mass.
One is tempted to ask: Why hasn't the government caught on to this earlier? Don't we have a right to open standards? How about a Constitutional right? The 5-4 Conservative majority on the Supreme Court, if this issue ever made it that high, would say the answer is simple: "the Constitution says nothing about open standards, or computer software at all for that matter, so there is no Constitutional right to them. We're just being faithful to what the original framers of the Constitution intended!"