I do wish more people would actually do something useful when they get to the point where they have nothing to lose.
Recently, one man was pronounced dead because a man with an identical name had died. When he wanted to rectify that error, he was told "get out, you're dead" by an official. I know that in that situation I'd go on a killing spree, starting with that official. After all, I'd be dead; you cannot try a dead man.
It seems that they are not making her pay for the software, but for using their download service.
In that case, they should have made her pay up front. Every legitimate site does that. So now, even though they may have her personal data, I don't see why she couldn't claim a case of identity theft. Can they prove she'd downloaded it? Why wasn't the cost clearly stated? Who provides a service and sends a bill only later?
Hey, if that EULA is a contract, she should just draft an e-mail stating that by attempting to contact her in any way they agree to pay her a thousand euros.
In tests, I usually use my meta-testing knowledge. And show it plainly.
For instance, those godawful "20 sentences starting with I am..." tests I start filling out from the bottom, putting "I am well aware you have started reading this from the bottom" and similar sentences. This makes my test results both very good and useless, which is just the way I like them.
In interviews, I am frank. I also tend to show myself in a slightly worse light; if they still accept me, it means that even on a bad day I will not step on too many toes. If they refuse me, it is probably for the better. For me, not for them.
I am rather good at what I do. That means that yes, I will argue with my superiors if the need arise. If you hire me for my expertise, then I shall damn well give it to you, whether you want it or not.
Incidentally, my current workplace is very much to my liking. Nearly all of the people working there are kind of like that, so we all do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and respect other people's expertise in turn. It all works out very nicely, even though I, for one, would most certainly not fit in a typical corporate monoculture.
What is so bad about drive letters really? Is C:\ really so different from hda1, sda1 or/volumes/?
Yes, it is.
For one, sda1 or hda1 are/dev entries. The point is, you can mount those devices anywhere you damn well please. Of course, I do recall DOS commands JOIN and SUBST, which kind of enabled the same thing, but it was less transparent, and I don't even know if they are still available.
Furthermore,/dev/hda1 is/dev/hda1. It is the first partition on the first IDE HD. OTOH, C: is the oldest partition on the first HD. That is my best interpretation, anyway, as I have at one point decided to reinstall Windows, rearrange the partition layout, and left one partition intact. That partition became C:, and my system partition is now D: although it is/dev/hda1.
The whole alphabet-drives thing is also divisive instead of integrative, which is probably merely a matter of philosophical approach, but still.
No matter the cause of the delay. It was delayed. For a little while, sure, but we know Microsoft's track record with Vista.
Anyone care to guess how much Windows 7 will be delayed?
Do you mean that you should be able to sit at any Linux machine and use exactly the same command set and package names to manipulate the software load? Do you mean that you should be able to take package of binaries from a vendor and install it on any Linux machine? The latter is perfectly possible, as long as the vendor statically links all of the required libraries. They can even wrap it in a nice executable install script for you. See for instance the Quake 4 installer. And if the distribution you're installing it on top of complies with the Linux Standard Base, you might even get desktop icons and file associations.
I don't see why that would be a problem, as the same thing is used in OS X.app bundles. Therefore, the GP is just whining.
By the way, what would you guess each of these does from the name: Outlook, QuickTime, Skype, Safari, Excel, or Cubase?
Outlook: either for looking out the window(s) or for estimating the odds for something. So maybe some kind of spreadsheet?
QuickTime: something to make the time pass quicker. Something to do on a boring day at work? Maybe one of those programs where you detect hidden mines?
Skype: begins like a sky, rhymes with type... maybe one of those old-style text processors like WordPerfect which let you type on a sky-blue background?
Safari: roaming in a car and looking at wildlife. Sounds like browsing. Especially when there are trolls around.
Excel: sounds like a platform game. Something where you have to get to the top.
Cubase: a cubic base? A LEGO model builder/designer?
...is presumably the Year Of Linux On The Desktop?
No. It is not.
And why should it be?
The market is slowly moving away from the desktop and towards laptops, netbooks, embedded devices... and Linux is not that uncommon there. And is getting commoner.
By the by, I'm a Mac user. (And a Linux user. And, on occasion, a Windows user.)
I've spent quite a bit of time tweaking and adjusting my Mac. Of course, I've never touched the hardware, but the UI is fairly well adjusted to my needs. It was nice out of the box, but it is way better now.
Power users tweak the hell out of everything because they know what they want to do, how they want to do it, and then they make the machine do it the way they want it to. Linux, Mac, Windows... it's just an OS.
If I understood the idea correctly, tracing paths between letters gives you a curve, or at least a broken line with points where individual letters should stand. That means that, with practice, you simply draw a curve describing the word you want to enter.
Having started learning Chinese a few months ago, I'm beginning to wonder if we're re-inventing the wheel here...
Hey, at least if you have an idiot as the head of the state, at least said idiot was born into it, so you don't have to suffer through the collective self-blaming for having elected him. Or her. Or it, in case of tentacles.
Whatever Mr Vimes may say, kings are useful in that regard. They are born into it, so fuck'em and get on with your life.
Besides, revolutions are more... interesting than elections.
And that is the way I later used to train my father, his girlfriend and my grandparents.
A week of Solitaire and Mahjongg (also solitaire) gave them each enough practice with the mouse, though my grandfather still used to rearrange his KDE menu by accident.
One of the teachers in my high school often came to me for computer advice, and I used to help her with some paperwork, charts and whatnot. One day, I notice some really sticky keys, hard to press, hard to come up... so I ask her what had happened.
Turns out she'd spilled something sweet and caffeinated over it; I no longer recall whether it had been Coke or coffee. So I told her to unplug it, wash it thoroughly, turn it upside-down and leave it to dry over the weekend.
Luckily for her, it was a Model M; otherwise I'd just have told her to ask for a new keyboard.
I often rant about the very same thing.
My conclusion is that we do not get enough respect because "everyone uses computers" and doing things the wrong way does not actualy kill anyone.
I have seen a similar lack of respect towards translators and interpreters, just because speaking a language does not seem so difficult, and everyone speaks at least one.
I once tried to teach a fifty-year-old something about computers.
First of all, instead of watching the screen and listening to what I was telling him, he was taking notes. Detailed notes.
However, the reason I'm writing this isn't that. It's the mouse.
First it took me a while to explain him what it is, how it is used – he did take detailed notes about that, too, including details on left, right and middle click – and then I had to try and make him stop looking at the goddamned mouse while he moved it.
Instead of looking at the screen to see where he was moving the mouse, he kept looking at his hand moving the mouse.
Just a few weeks ago I saw several missed calls from my mother. I called her up to see what the fuss had been all about. She'd been trying to get me because the picture on her screen was rotated by 90 degrees.
Luckily, I knew what the problem was, and just told her to press Ctrl-Alt-UpArrow.
She'd probably sat on the keyboard or whatever.
However, when I got home, I heard all about the things that had happened while she was trying to get me. She and her boyfriend were trying to use the computer with the screen rotated. First they tried tilting their heads, which was uncomfortable. Then they tried turning the monitor over on one side.
However, whatever they did, the mouse cursor kept moving normally, as if the screen were still vertically oriented. That had been too much, so they waited for me to call them back.
The moment they told me that, I just asked: "Why didn't you just turn the mouse by 90 degrees?"
That got me five seconds of stunned silence, then "We hadn't thought of that."
I'm to be counted with those who will be buried with a Model M clenched firmly in my grasp.
There is no better burial weapon. And shield.
I own a black/silver SpaceSaver with blank keycaps and I expect it to outlive me. Since by the time I die USB will be just a dimly remembered thing of the past, just like ISA slots and DIN-5 connectors are, I may as well take it with me.
This does not sound like a bad idea, though: moving a part of the graphics into the kernel only makes the kernel a little more complex (as it has already had parts of the code in order to use the screen while booting), and at the same time, X can become less complex and thus both faster and less error-prone.
Slashdot Mirror
So are libertarian Slashdotters betraying their principles when watching porn?
Or is it just that they are wankers?
I do wish more people would actually do something useful when they get to the point where they have nothing to lose.
Recently, one man was pronounced dead because a man with an identical name had died. When he wanted to rectify that error, he was told "get out, you're dead" by an official. I know that in that situation I'd go on a killing spree, starting with that official. After all, I'd be dead; you cannot try a dead man.
Raising children costs money. Children are future taxpayers.
In effect, you are subsidizing future taxpayers.
Consider it an investment.
It seems that they are not making her pay for the software, but for using their download service.
In that case, they should have made her pay up front. Every legitimate site does that. So now, even though they may have her personal data, I don't see why she couldn't claim a case of identity theft. Can they prove she'd downloaded it? Why wasn't the cost clearly stated? Who provides a service and sends a bill only later?
Hey, if that EULA is a contract, she should just draft an e-mail stating that by attempting to contact her in any way they agree to pay her a thousand euros.
After that, she can pay them for OO.o.
It is good to be a pessimist. You are right nine times out of ten, and when you are wrong, you are pleasantly surprised.
In tests, I usually use my meta-testing knowledge. And show it plainly.
For instance, those godawful "20 sentences starting with I am..." tests I start filling out from the bottom, putting "I am well aware you have started reading this from the bottom" and similar sentences. This makes my test results both very good and useless, which is just the way I like them.
In interviews, I am frank. I also tend to show myself in a slightly worse light; if they still accept me, it means that even on a bad day I will not step on too many toes. If they refuse me, it is probably for the better. For me, not for them.
I am rather good at what I do. That means that yes, I will argue with my superiors if the need arise. If you hire me for my expertise, then I shall damn well give it to you, whether you want it or not.
Incidentally, my current workplace is very much to my liking. Nearly all of the people working there are kind of like that, so we all do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and respect other people's expertise in turn. It all works out very nicely, even though I, for one, would most certainly not fit in a typical corporate monoculture.
So, outside of your 'fucking' orgy...
What is so bad about drive letters really? Is C:\ really so different from hda1, sda1 or /volumes/?
Yes, it is.
For one, sda1 or hda1 are /dev entries. The point is, you can mount those devices anywhere you damn well please. Of course, I do recall DOS commands JOIN and SUBST, which kind of enabled the same thing, but it was less transparent, and I don't even know if they are still available.
Furthermore, /dev/hda1 is /dev/hda1. It is the first partition on the first IDE HD. OTOH, C: is the oldest partition on the first HD. That is my best interpretation, anyway, as I have at one point decided to reinstall Windows, rearrange the partition layout, and left one partition intact. That partition became C:, and my system partition is now D: although it is /dev/hda1.
The whole alphabet-drives thing is also divisive instead of integrative, which is probably merely a matter of philosophical approach, but still.
No matter the cause of the delay. It was delayed. For a little while, sure, but we know Microsoft's track record with Vista.
Anyone care to guess how much Windows 7 will be delayed?
Do you mean that you should be able to sit at any Linux machine and use exactly the same command set and package names to manipulate the software load? Do you mean that you should be able to take package of binaries from a vendor and install it on any Linux machine? The latter is perfectly possible, as long as the vendor statically links all of the required libraries. They can even wrap it in a nice executable install script for you. See for instance the Quake 4 installer. And if the distribution you're installing it on top of complies with the Linux Standard Base, you might even get desktop icons and file associations.
I don't see why that would be a problem, as the same thing is used in OS X .app bundles. Therefore, the GP is just whining.
By the way, what would you guess each of these does from the name: Outlook, QuickTime, Skype, Safari, Excel, or Cubase?
Outlook: either for looking out the window(s) or for estimating the odds for something. So maybe some kind of spreadsheet?
QuickTime: something to make the time pass quicker. Something to do on a boring day at work? Maybe one of those programs where you detect hidden mines?
Skype: begins like a sky, rhymes with type... maybe one of those old-style text processors like WordPerfect which let you type on a sky-blue background?
Safari: roaming in a car and looking at wildlife. Sounds like browsing. Especially when there are trolls around.
Excel: sounds like a platform game. Something where you have to get to the top.
Cubase: a cubic base? A LEGO model builder/designer?
How many did I guess?
...is presumably the Year Of Linux On The Desktop?
No. It is not.
And why should it be?
The market is slowly moving away from the desktop and towards laptops, netbooks, embedded devices... and Linux is not that uncommon there. And is getting commoner.
By the by, I'm a Mac user. (And a Linux user. And, on occasion, a Windows user.)
I've spent quite a bit of time tweaking and adjusting my Mac. Of course, I've never touched the hardware, but the UI is fairly well adjusted to my needs. It was nice out of the box, but it is way better now.
Power users tweak the hell out of everything because they know what they want to do, how they want to do it, and then they make the machine do it the way they want it to. Linux, Mac, Windows... it's just an OS.
Though supposedly welcoming and accepting, it views races like the Ferengi with distrust and even disdain.
And with good reason!! Those ugly swindling bastards would sell their own mothers if it would turn a profit.
Isn't that called capitalism?</tongueincheek>
If I understood the idea correctly, tracing paths between letters gives you a curve, or at least a broken line with points where individual letters should stand. That means that, with practice, you simply draw a curve describing the word you want to enter.
Having started learning Chinese a few months ago, I'm beginning to wonder if we're re-inventing the wheel here...
Hey, at least if you have an idiot as the head of the state, at least said idiot was born into it, so you don't have to suffer through the collective self-blaming for having elected him. Or her. Or it, in case of tentacles.
Whatever Mr Vimes may say, kings are useful in that regard. They are born into it, so fuck'em and get on with your life.
Besides, revolutions are more... interesting than elections.
And that is the way I later used to train my father, his girlfriend and my grandparents.
A week of Solitaire and Mahjongg (also solitaire) gave them each enough practice with the mouse, though my grandfather still used to rearrange his KDE menu by accident.
One of the teachers in my high school often came to me for computer advice, and I used to help her with some paperwork, charts and whatnot. One day, I notice some really sticky keys, hard to press, hard to come up... so I ask her what had happened.
Turns out she'd spilled something sweet and caffeinated over it; I no longer recall whether it had been Coke or coffee. So I told her to unplug it, wash it thoroughly, turn it upside-down and leave it to dry over the weekend.
Luckily for her, it was a Model M; otherwise I'd just have told her to ask for a new keyboard.
I often rant about the very same thing. My conclusion is that we do not get enough respect because "everyone uses computers" and doing things the wrong way does not actualy kill anyone.
I have seen a similar lack of respect towards translators and interpreters, just because speaking a language does not seem so difficult, and everyone speaks at least one.
I once tried to teach a fifty-year-old something about computers.
First of all, instead of watching the screen and listening to what I was telling him, he was taking notes. Detailed notes.
However, the reason I'm writing this isn't that. It's the mouse.
First it took me a while to explain him what it is, how it is used – he did take detailed notes about that, too, including details on left, right and middle click – and then I had to try and make him stop looking at the goddamned mouse while he moved it.
Instead of looking at the screen to see where he was moving the mouse, he kept looking at his hand moving the mouse.
Just a few weeks ago I saw several missed calls from my mother. I called her up to see what the fuss had been all about. She'd been trying to get me because the picture on her screen was rotated by 90 degrees.
Luckily, I knew what the problem was, and just told her to press Ctrl-Alt-UpArrow.
She'd probably sat on the keyboard or whatever.
However, when I got home, I heard all about the things that had happened while she was trying to get me. She and her boyfriend were trying to use the computer with the screen rotated. First they tried tilting their heads, which was uncomfortable. Then they tried turning the monitor over on one side.
However, whatever they did, the mouse cursor kept moving normally, as if the screen were still vertically oriented. That had been too much, so they waited for me to call them back.
The moment they told me that, I just asked: "Why didn't you just turn the mouse by 90 degrees?"
That got me five seconds of stunned silence, then "We hadn't thought of that."
My SpaceSaver has blank keycaps. I have had people sit down at my computer and then get right back up because they couldn't use it.
I'm to be counted with those who will be buried with a Model M clenched firmly in my grasp.
There is no better burial weapon. And shield.
I own a black/silver SpaceSaver with blank keycaps and I expect it to outlive me. Since by the time I die USB will be just a dimly remembered thing of the past, just like ISA slots and DIN-5 connectors are, I may as well take it with me.
His qidikeluoeryan count is off the charts!
This does not sound like a bad idea, though: moving a part of the graphics into the kernel only makes the kernel a little more complex (as it has already had parts of the code in order to use the screen while booting), and at the same time, X can become less complex and thus both faster and less error-prone.