You're not serious are you? I can't bring myself to believe that you might actually think like that.
Get off your lofty perch and actually read the article. If it makes you feel better, substitute "hupersons" or "myn" or whatever silly term floats your boat, but please don't get all uppity over the generic term "men" when it obviously applies to all people. If the article was meant to exclude women, it would say so or would use "males of zeal" or something else equally specific.
Gender issues are tough enough without having to make exhaustive grammer compromises to avoid the sin of actually using a gender specific term to describe a general, non-gender-specific population. I propose to you that there are other, more worthwhile battles to be fought against gender based discrimination.
"Who can?" Intel can. However it won't be designed or priced for the normal consumer/user, just like in the past with the PPro and Xeon. The chipsets for those CPUs were designed with stability in mind, not mind boggling quake performance or overclocking, and the CPUs themselves were priced out of reach for most people. That is how Intel approaches multiprocessor systems, and I highly doubt that Intel will change that until/unless Microsoft supports multiple processors in it's basic consumer OS.
Like it or not, Intel is going to design for the market and the market isn't driven by YOU, it's driven by your next door neighbor who hasn't even heard of Slashdot.
What you're missing is that the P4 is going to be a single-cpu part, so there's no reason to split up the bus. Even in a dual processor setup, each cpu isn't hitting the bus for it's full capacity anywhere close to 100% of the time unless it's running a loop or accessing memory that doesn't fit inside it's cache, in which case the software design is holding it back more than the system bus anyhow.
I don't think that many users would ever notice the difference, and intel probably can't afford to design it's next consumer level chip around a few percent of the market.
Re:I wrote that code - I'll tell you what it does
on
Mattel Spyware
·
· Score: 1
The problem for me is that the program would hijack control of my computer periodically. When running bandwidth/latency sensitive programs or using 100% of my cpu cycles for something (an online game, watching vid clips, burning a cdrom, ripping a CD, etc), a program waking up in the background and snagging even a few 2k chunks is unacceptable.
Imagine playing Q3 in a serious game and having your computer hiccough or pause as the computer waits for some http transactions?
This kind of thing going on in the background is essentially theft of my property just as much as any virus or trojan horse. When I install a bit of software, I expect it to do it's stated purpose and NOTHING MORE. Whenever I find a program auto-installing additional crap, I immediately uninstall it and go on a registry and.ini file hunt to ensure it's gone, then I never buy a product from that company or developer again unless I absolutely can't live without that product (hasn't happened yet except for win9x).
Hidden, undocumented background behavior is no better than a virus deliberately included with the software, and should be treated as such.
A good trick would be to get all of the owners of these ridiculous patents to start suing each other. I think Amazon.com would be a great first target... Just think of the millions of books they've sold by using the patented database post and get commands! I wonder if their point and click patent violates the post and get patent?
I want to patent a method for transferring an electron potential across a thin conductor sheathed in a layer of insulating material. I will call this invention (insert Dr Evil finger quotes) "Wire".
I flew the F-15E for 4 years, and it was common to have to reset a system because of some sort of glitch. Whether the glitch was hardware or software based, I didn't really care. If a system stopped working reliably or failed outright, it was time to troubleshoot. That usually meant first a software reset, a hardware reset, and in the worst case (but still common) a complete power down/wait 30 seconds/power up cycle.
2-3 times per flight is more than I usually experienced, but I think I had to reset at least one system on 50% or more of my flights. That's quite a bit more than 1 every 500 hours. Some aircraft were better than others too... One jet required it's radar to be reset every 15-20 minutes. That problem was eventually traced down to a wiring harness connector...
In addition, there were and still are known software problems in that aircraft. The known ones usually have some sort of workaround (if the heads up display freezes, cycle power on the display processor, stuff like that), but the occasional random crashes or glitches (like occasionally the plane will suddenly think it's flying 100,000 ft below the ground) have no known cause and the only fix is to reset something until the jet behaves itself again.
My last point is that the flight control software in the F-15E is designed to go offline if the aircraft exceeds certain parameters. In that case, the flight controls must be manually reset in one of four ways. There is a quick reset switch, a "hard" reset switch for pitch, roll, and yaw, we can cycle power for those systems, and worst case we can pull and reset the circuit breakers for the flight control system components.
The funny thing is, it works only because the rest of the design is very robust. Most systems have some sort of backup, and the plane flies just fine without any electrical power at all. Once the software problems are known, they're dealt with as simply one more environmental factor until they're fixed. The fix may take over a year, but they are usually fixed eventually.
Well, it's still happening. All cookies deleted, and it still happens.
I set MSIE to always refresh, set cache size to the min allowable, and STILL msie refuses to reload pages each time I visit them. This results in very odd and unpredictable results when reading through slashdot posts.
I'm not sure if it's helping, but holding down the ctrl key when clicking links here seems to help a lot.
I'm not a typical slashdot user. I simply find msie to be poorly documented, missing features, and rather buggy in some respects. Slashdot is not the only web site that msie refuses to refresh properly. Some UBBS sites also will not refresh properly using MSIE. I've had this problem ever since MSIE 4.0 came out, and it has been a problem with every MSIE release since then.
No really. A reasonable person would assume that there's a way to kill off or reset a cookie somewhere within a browser's menu system, but not only is that not the case with MSIE, they put a faker option in there that makes you THINK you killed off the cookie, when in fact all you have killed is the temporary copy of the cookie the browser happens to be using at the time. The cookie remains safe in it's little cookie folder.
I finally figured it out when multiple copies of the slashdot cookie started appearing, since the browser would make a new temp copy of the cookie, and since it was changed, would put the new copy neatly in place next to the original in the real cookie folder. After manually deleting every single cookie in the real honest to god cookie folder, things finally started working.
It still amazes me how a "simple" messed up cookie can cause the utterly corrupted web page displays I was seeing. I'd get a few pictures, sometimes most of the page would load, but then a table would be sized grossly wrong and random halves of html code lines would be interspersed around the display. Very very odd behavior, you'd think the browser wouldn't be so easily broken.
Then again, I AM using msie, so I shouldn't expect much.
Thanks for the help, I really never suspected that a bad cookie would cause such a bad virtual bellyache.
Come on... I don't know any serious computer users that didn't use some form of pkzip over the last decade. Permit me and others to feel a sense of loss about Phillip's passing. Pkzip is the only utility that has been on every single PC I've ever owned, and everyone who ever used it owed him some sort of gratitude.
It's pretty sick that you think it's disrespectful and shameful to feel saddened by the death of someone you never met personally, but who affected your life on a near continual basis for years.
So what happens when there's a computer related conference in Japan, and webmasters (or owners of companies that offer web hosting services) arrive at the airport? If their sites have ever had links to any illegal material, are they automatically arrested when they pass through customs?
Since a web site can be administered from anywhere in the world, is it reasonable to assume that this law can be applied to anyone who has ever linked to anything illegal the moment they step foot on Japanese soil?
Time to put a link on my web site to a warez newsgroup just to see if ninjas or yakuza death commandos come looking for me.
Is this law also mirrored in print media or on film? In other words, if a news article mentions that there's illegal prostitution in a certain part of town (low-tech linking to illegal activities), can the editor and author get arrested?
I know the laws regarding freedom of speech are different in other countries, but this is fairly ludicrous. In addition to being oppressive, it's also essentially unenforceable because web space is freely available on an anonymous basis. The government is just letting their people see one more chink in their virtual armor by passing a law that is sure to be broken and left unpunished except in a few cases.
One of the traditions used to be unbolting the static display aircraft from their mountings in the cadet area, and rolling the planes to a new, more creative location. There were 2 incidents that sort of put a halt to that particular trick though. First, an F-4 Phantom "got away" from the cadets as they rolled it down the big ramp, and it almost made it all the way across a parking lot to a 60 ft drop onto the parade ground. They finally got it back under control, but it was a close thing.
The event that finally caused the leadership to forbid messing with the planes was a classic though. The dorms at the Academy are organized in a series of open center "quads", with the rooms arranged around an open square. The quads are 6 stories high, some quads have grass inside, some have volley ball courts, etc. The cadets managed to squeeze an F-16 past the dorm support columns into the center of the quad.
The next day however, nobody could figure out how to get the plane back out. The engineering department went out and measured everything, and the dimensions were simply impossible. To this day, according to cadet lore nobody really knows how they managed to get the plane inside the quad. The result was that a very large construction crane was brought in and the F-16 was lifted straight up out of the quad back onto the terrazo where the static displays are.
Although the planes are still occasionally used as a backdrop or location for current pranks, actually moving them is now verboten. The consequences (potentially getting disenrolled thereby aborting any potential military career before it even starts) aren't worth any possible benefits from moving the planes anymore. Your kinder, gentler military at work.
Cadets at the USAF Academy also used to skulk through the underground tunnels and shelters underneath the cadet area, but the leadership at USAFA decided to make it grounds for disenrollment. Some still do some exploring, but for most people the consequences are simply not worth the risk involved.
Part of the problem of course is that cadets were going into the tunnels for illicit sex which is forbidden in the Academy facilities and grounds for rather severe disciplinary action. Some things never change...
I agree with your point about the "service" agreement, but I disagree about the use of the term "internet appliance". IMHO the hardware underneath the tool is nearly irrelevant. All the specific hardware does is facilitate carrying out the tasks a thing is designed for. How you package and actually USE that hardware determines what you call it.
If I broke my iopener and stuck little rubber feet on it, then it would be a "doorstop", not "still an x86 pc" albeit broken.
Likewise, I style myself as a "human" rather than a watery sack of proteins and other stuff. Although a cat might be made of the same basic parts (but you're both mammals!), there is a relatively clear distinction between people and cats.
I think I've stretched this as far off topic as possible... Carry on.
It looked to me like Katz was calling it like he sees it.
To be honest, I was also somewhat insulted by the tone of Q*bert's question because while I consider myself a reasonably intelligent college grad from a good school with a major focusing on computer science, half of the stuff on slashdot goes WAAAY over my head, partly due to me spending my time as a fighter pilot not a programmer. In any case, it's refreshing to hear commentary on "...but what does it MEAN?" instead of mere description. From my limited perspective, most of the flames directed against Katz are entirely opinion and style based, which seems about right for a writer with his stated objectives.
The news report I read on Yahoo (or was it CNet?) just before it also went down said that the FBI had narrowed "it" down to 50 potential web addresses.
Microsoft went down a few hours ago, and yahoo went back down less than an hour after posting a news report about this latest attack. I'm suprised slashdot doesn't have an article about it already on the front page.
If they find whoever's doing this, they're going to jail for life plus forever and a day... This has to be causing millions of dollars in damages. I suspect if it continues it'll be declared a national security issue or emergency, especially if the attack orchestrator is found to be outside the US.
At this rate, we'll have to turn on the freaking TV to get news about the network, sheesh.
I've seen waterproof headphones and earbuds before... Since they're sealed up the sound might be a little muffled but a little equalizer tuning and some more power output and they'd sound plenty good.
If they could double the memory and make it waterproof, this is about the right size for a nice sports music player. It would have to be TRULY waterproof though, not merely splash resistant or something. Clip it to your swimsuit while working out in the pool, etc...
FWIW, I don't give a crap about copy protection as long as it's unobtrusive. If it prevents me from making copies for my own use or makes me jump through hoops to use my own stuff, then it is BAD. But if it's all background and I never notice it, who cares? IMHO of course.
Hrmph. I'll get an off-topic for this one, but I gotta do it.
I didn't say there aren't any talented writers, I said there are no writers out there that I will buy and enjoy EVERYTHING they write. It's not too fun reading someone putting words in my mouth that aren't even close to what I think or write BTW...
Niven/Pournelle are the closest I've found to that ideal, but they just don't quite make it plus it seems that their production has dramatically tapered off in the last decade.
I've read many of those you mention and I like some of their stuff, but not all of it.
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places anymore, but it seems to me that finding great talents in the world is getting harder and harder.
I'm not sure if this means that there are fewer people who truly stand out in their areas of expertise, or if the truly talented are simply being drowned out in the flood of information available in our media-rich environment today.
For example, I read Science Fiction but I haven't found any single author since Heinlein and Asimov that I'll buy and enjoy everything they produce. The fading away of the Peanuts cartoon is another example. There are hundreds of cute cartoons out there, but very few are as timeless as Schultz's creations. The Cat in the Hat series is yet another example. How can the average person pick the jewels out of the many "merely shiny" stones all trying to grab a moment of our attention?
Where are the Great Talents going? This passing is the latest loss that seems irreplaceable today.
My first point was a joke. Good thing nobody figured that out otherwise I might not have had my first downward moderation.
Oh yea, that's a joke too. People are too reliant on emoticons nowadays and lots of good satire goes unnoticed. Too bad.
As for something on-topic, I agree with you on how silly the new windows names are. They're downright confusing IMHO. Of course, I'm just being redundant again and I'm also being redundant.
Oh damn, there's another joke without a little smiley face. Stop the madness.
I have 3 criteria when it comes to reasonable version labels. First, when I see two versions side by side, I want to immediately know which version is newer. Second, I want it to be easy to remember which version is latest. Third, I want to know what product the version is actually based on.
For example, if I see "Red Hat Linux Mandrake" next to "Red Hat Linux Poppycock", I will have no idea which version is newer unless I am already familiar with the product. Likewise, it is relatively easy to remember that Windows 98SE is the latest version once you hear about it. MS has stepped in it this time of course, and violates my third rule by naming their latest NT release using the naming convention of their more common desktop product. Win95 --> Win98, but like someone else pointed out, Win2000 is just the latest version of WinNT and Win98 will be updated as Windows Millenium.
Bah humbug, I just wonder what DOS version windows 2000 and windows millenium will ship with:)
There's probably some Trojan horse or virus out there that will check html docs for the word "Leonardo", then trash everything... Part of some elaborate plot to rule the world or something.
Well, it seems just as likely as the main story eh?
Slashdot Mirror
You're not serious are you? I can't bring myself to believe that you might actually think like that.
Get off your lofty perch and actually read the article. If it makes you feel better, substitute "hupersons" or "myn" or whatever silly term floats your boat, but please don't get all uppity over the generic term "men" when it obviously applies to all people. If the article was meant to exclude women, it would say so or would use "males of zeal" or something else equally specific.
Gender issues are tough enough without having to make exhaustive grammer compromises to avoid the sin of actually using a gender specific term to describe a general, non-gender-specific population. I propose to you that there are other, more worthwhile battles to be fought against gender based discrimination.
"Who can?" Intel can. However it won't be designed or priced for the normal consumer/user, just like in the past with the PPro and Xeon. The chipsets for those CPUs were designed with stability in mind, not mind boggling quake performance or overclocking, and the CPUs themselves were priced out of reach for most people. That is how Intel approaches multiprocessor systems, and I highly doubt that Intel will change that until/unless Microsoft supports multiple processors in it's basic consumer OS.
Like it or not, Intel is going to design for the market and the market isn't driven by YOU, it's driven by your next door neighbor who hasn't even heard of Slashdot.
What you're missing is that the P4 is going to be a single-cpu part, so there's no reason to split up the bus. Even in a dual processor setup, each cpu isn't hitting the bus for it's full capacity anywhere close to 100% of the time unless it's running a loop or accessing memory that doesn't fit inside it's cache, in which case the software design is holding it back more than the system bus anyhow.
I don't think that many users would ever notice the difference, and intel probably can't afford to design it's next consumer level chip around a few percent of the market.
The problem for me is that the program would hijack control of my computer periodically. When running bandwidth/latency sensitive programs or using 100% of my cpu cycles for something (an online game, watching vid clips, burning a cdrom, ripping a CD, etc), a program waking up in the background and snagging even a few 2k chunks is unacceptable.
.ini file hunt to ensure it's gone, then I never buy a product from that company or developer again unless I absolutely can't live without that product (hasn't happened yet except for win9x).
Imagine playing Q3 in a serious game and having your computer hiccough or pause as the computer waits for some http transactions?
This kind of thing going on in the background is essentially theft of my property just as much as any virus or trojan horse. When I install a bit of software, I expect it to do it's stated purpose and NOTHING MORE. Whenever I find a program auto-installing additional crap, I immediately uninstall it and go on a registry and
Hidden, undocumented background behavior is no better than a virus deliberately included with the software, and should be treated as such.
A good trick would be to get all of the owners of these ridiculous patents to start suing each other. I think Amazon.com would be a great first target... Just think of the millions of books they've sold by using the patented database post and get commands! I wonder if their point and click patent violates the post and get patent?
I want to patent a method for transferring an electron potential across a thin conductor sheathed in a layer of insulating material. I will call this invention (insert Dr Evil finger quotes) "Wire".
I flew the F-15E for 4 years, and it was common to have to reset a system because of some sort of glitch. Whether the glitch was hardware or software based, I didn't really care. If a system stopped working reliably or failed outright, it was time to troubleshoot. That usually meant first a software reset, a hardware reset, and in the worst case (but still common) a complete power down/wait 30 seconds/power up cycle.
2-3 times per flight is more than I usually experienced, but I think I had to reset at least one system on 50% or more of my flights. That's quite a bit more than 1 every 500 hours. Some aircraft were better than others too... One jet required it's radar to be reset every 15-20 minutes. That problem was eventually traced down to a wiring harness connector...
In addition, there were and still are known software problems in that aircraft. The known ones usually have some sort of workaround (if the heads up display freezes, cycle power on the display processor, stuff like that), but the occasional random crashes or glitches (like occasionally the plane will suddenly think it's flying 100,000 ft below the ground) have no known cause and the only fix is to reset something until the jet behaves itself again.
My last point is that the flight control software in the F-15E is designed to go offline if the aircraft exceeds certain parameters. In that case, the flight controls must be manually reset in one of four ways. There is a quick reset switch, a "hard" reset switch for pitch, roll, and yaw, we can cycle power for those systems, and worst case we can pull and reset the circuit breakers for the flight control system components.
The funny thing is, it works only because the rest of the design is very robust. Most systems have some sort of backup, and the plane flies just fine without any electrical power at all. Once the software problems are known, they're dealt with as simply one more environmental factor until they're fixed. The fix may take over a year, but they are usually fixed eventually.
Well, it's still happening. All cookies deleted, and it still happens.
I set MSIE to always refresh, set cache size to the min allowable, and STILL msie refuses to reload pages each time I visit them. This results in very odd and unpredictable results when reading through slashdot posts.
I'm not sure if it's helping, but holding down the ctrl key when clicking links here seems to help a lot.
I'm not a typical slashdot user. I simply find msie to be poorly documented, missing features, and rather buggy in some respects. Slashdot is not the only web site that msie refuses to refresh properly. Some UBBS sites also will not refresh properly using MSIE. I've had this problem ever since MSIE 4.0 came out, and it has been a problem with every MSIE release since then.
Microsoft sucks.
No really. A reasonable person would assume that there's a way to kill off or reset a cookie somewhere within a browser's menu system, but not only is that not the case with MSIE, they put a faker option in there that makes you THINK you killed off the cookie, when in fact all you have killed is the temporary copy of the cookie the browser happens to be using at the time. The cookie remains safe in it's little cookie folder.
I finally figured it out when multiple copies of the slashdot cookie started appearing, since the browser would make a new temp copy of the cookie, and since it was changed, would put the new copy neatly in place next to the original in the real cookie folder. After manually deleting every single cookie in the real honest to god cookie folder, things finally started working.
It still amazes me how a "simple" messed up cookie can cause the utterly corrupted web page displays I was seeing. I'd get a few pictures, sometimes most of the page would load, but then a table would be sized grossly wrong and random halves of html code lines would be interspersed around the display. Very very odd behavior, you'd think the browser wouldn't be so easily broken.
Then again, I AM using msie, so I shouldn't expect much.
Thanks for the help, I really never suspected that a bad cookie would cause such a bad virtual bellyache.
Post all the messages, links included, to USENET. They can't sweep it under the carpet from there.
Come on... I don't know any serious computer users that didn't use some form of pkzip over the last decade. Permit me and others to feel a sense of loss about Phillip's passing. Pkzip is the only utility that has been on every single PC I've ever owned, and everyone who ever used it owed him some sort of gratitude.
It's pretty sick that you think it's disrespectful and shameful to feel saddened by the death of someone you never met personally, but who affected your life on a near continual basis for years.
So what happens when there's a computer related conference in Japan, and webmasters (or owners of companies that offer web hosting services) arrive at the airport? If their sites have ever had links to any illegal material, are they automatically arrested when they pass through customs?
Since a web site can be administered from anywhere in the world, is it reasonable to assume that this law can be applied to anyone who has ever linked to anything illegal the moment they step foot on Japanese soil?
Time to put a link on my web site to a warez newsgroup just to see if ninjas or yakuza death commandos come looking for me.
Is this law also mirrored in print media or on film? In other words, if a news article mentions that there's illegal prostitution in a certain part of town (low-tech linking to illegal activities), can the editor and author get arrested?
I know the laws regarding freedom of speech are different in other countries, but this is fairly ludicrous. In addition to being oppressive, it's also essentially unenforceable because web space is freely available on an anonymous basis. The government is just letting their people see one more chink in their virtual armor by passing a law that is sure to be broken and left unpunished except in a few cases.
One of the traditions used to be unbolting the static display aircraft from their mountings in the cadet area, and rolling the planes to a new, more creative location. There were 2 incidents that sort of put a halt to that particular trick though. First, an F-4 Phantom "got away" from the cadets as they rolled it down the big ramp, and it almost made it all the way across a parking lot to a 60 ft drop onto the parade ground. They finally got it back under control, but it was a close thing.
The event that finally caused the leadership to forbid messing with the planes was a classic though. The dorms at the Academy are organized in a series of open center "quads", with the rooms arranged around an open square. The quads are 6 stories high, some quads have grass inside, some have volley ball courts, etc. The cadets managed to squeeze an F-16 past the dorm support columns into the center of the quad.
The next day however, nobody could figure out how to get the plane back out. The engineering department went out and measured everything, and the dimensions were simply impossible. To this day, according to cadet lore nobody really knows how they managed to get the plane inside the quad. The result was that a very large construction crane was brought in and the F-16 was lifted straight up out of the quad back onto the terrazo where the static displays are.
Although the planes are still occasionally used as a backdrop or location for current pranks, actually moving them is now verboten. The consequences (potentially getting disenrolled thereby aborting any potential military career before it even starts) aren't worth any possible benefits from moving the planes anymore. Your kinder, gentler military at work.
Cadets at the USAF Academy also used to skulk through the underground tunnels and shelters underneath the cadet area, but the leadership at USAFA decided to make it grounds for disenrollment. Some still do some exploring, but for most people the consequences are simply not worth the risk involved.
Part of the problem of course is that cadets were going into the tunnels for illicit sex which is forbidden in the Academy facilities and grounds for rather severe disciplinary action. Some things never change...
I agree with your point about the "service" agreement, but I disagree about the use of the term "internet appliance". IMHO the hardware underneath the tool is nearly irrelevant. All the specific hardware does is facilitate carrying out the tasks a thing is designed for. How you package and actually USE that hardware determines what you call it.
If I broke my iopener and stuck little rubber feet on it, then it would be a "doorstop", not "still an x86 pc" albeit broken.
Likewise, I style myself as a "human" rather than a watery sack of proteins and other stuff. Although a cat might be made of the same basic parts (but you're both mammals!), there is a relatively clear distinction between people and cats.
I think I've stretched this as far off topic as possible... Carry on.
It looked to me like Katz was calling it like he sees it.
To be honest, I was also somewhat insulted by the tone of Q*bert's question because while I consider myself a reasonably intelligent college grad from a good school with a major focusing on computer science, half of the stuff on slashdot goes WAAAY over my head, partly due to me spending my time as a fighter pilot not a programmer. In any case, it's refreshing to hear commentary on "...but what does it MEAN?" instead of mere description. From my limited perspective, most of the flames directed against Katz are entirely opinion and style based, which seems about right for a writer with his stated objectives.
But that's just me, I could be wrong.
The news report I read on Yahoo (or was it CNet?) just before it also went down said that the FBI had narrowed "it" down to 50 potential web addresses.
Make the bad man stop.
Microsoft went down a few hours ago, and yahoo went back down less than an hour after posting a news report about this latest attack. I'm suprised slashdot doesn't have an article about it already on the front page.
If they find whoever's doing this, they're going to jail for life plus forever and a day... This has to be causing millions of dollars in damages. I suspect if it continues it'll be declared a national security issue or emergency, especially if the attack orchestrator is found to be outside the US.
At this rate, we'll have to turn on the freaking TV to get news about the network, sheesh.
I've seen waterproof headphones and earbuds before... Since they're sealed up the sound might be a little muffled but a little equalizer tuning and some more power output and they'd sound plenty good.
If they could double the memory and make it waterproof, this is about the right size for a nice sports music player. It would have to be TRULY waterproof though, not merely splash resistant or something. Clip it to your swimsuit while working out in the pool, etc...
FWIW, I don't give a crap about copy protection as long as it's unobtrusive. If it prevents me from making copies for my own use or makes me jump through hoops to use my own stuff, then it is BAD. But if it's all background and I never notice it, who cares? IMHO of course.
Can't Kevin just copyright all his stuff, then claim that it's encrypted to prevent piracy? Works for DVD...
Hrmph. I'll get an off-topic for this one, but I gotta do it.
I didn't say there aren't any talented writers, I said there are no writers out there that I will buy and enjoy EVERYTHING they write. It's not too fun reading someone putting words in my mouth that aren't even close to what I think or write BTW...
Niven/Pournelle are the closest I've found to that ideal, but they just don't quite make it plus it seems that their production has dramatically tapered off in the last decade.
I've read many of those you mention and I like some of their stuff, but not all of it.
Maybe I'm not looking in the right places anymore, but it seems to me that finding great talents in the world is getting harder and harder.
I'm not sure if this means that there are fewer people who truly stand out in their areas of expertise, or if the truly talented are simply being drowned out in the flood of information available in our media-rich environment today.
For example, I read Science Fiction but I haven't found any single author since Heinlein and Asimov that I'll buy and enjoy everything they produce. The fading away of the Peanuts cartoon is another example. There are hundreds of cute cartoons out there, but very few are as timeless as Schultz's creations. The Cat in the Hat series is yet another example. How can the average person pick the jewels out of the many "merely shiny" stones all trying to grab a moment of our attention?
Where are the Great Talents going? This passing is the latest loss that seems irreplaceable today.
My first point was a joke. Good thing nobody figured that out otherwise I might not have had my first downward moderation.
Oh yea, that's a joke too. People are too reliant on emoticons nowadays and lots of good satire goes unnoticed. Too bad.
As for something on-topic, I agree with you on how silly the new windows names are. They're downright confusing IMHO. Of course, I'm just being redundant again and I'm also being redundant.
Oh damn, there's another joke without a little smiley face. Stop the madness.
Would that be 12 December 1899, 1999, or 2099?
:)
I have 3 criteria when it comes to reasonable version labels. First, when I see two versions side by side, I want to immediately know which version is newer. Second, I want it to be easy to remember which version is latest. Third, I want to know what product the version is actually based on.
For example, if I see "Red Hat Linux Mandrake" next to "Red Hat Linux Poppycock", I will have no idea which version is newer unless I am already familiar with the product. Likewise, it is relatively easy to remember that Windows 98SE is the latest version once you hear about it. MS has stepped in it this time of course, and violates my third rule by naming their latest NT release using the naming convention of their more common desktop product. Win95 --> Win98, but like someone else pointed out, Win2000 is just the latest version of WinNT and Win98 will be updated as Windows Millenium.
Bah humbug, I just wonder what DOS version windows 2000 and windows millenium will ship with
There's probably some Trojan horse or virus out there that will check html docs for the word "Leonardo", then trash everything... Part of some elaborate plot to rule the world or something.
Well, it seems just as likely as the main story eh?