If the argument is portability, then surely I should be able to open this "portable" document format in what is (sadly) the most widely used office suite, not so?
There is better advice, but almost nobody takes it:
Own cheap expendable toys, buy them used, and don't waste your too-precious time and energy worrying about them. Put a dollar value on anxiety and add it to the price of any big-ticket items you are thinking of getting.
Then take all of that unwasted energy and put it towards having fun. You'd be amazed how much more fun life is when you aren't worrying about your possessions.
If you do this for an evolving project, please consider looking at the online versions of Bruce Eckel's "Thinking..." books.
His mechanism for collecting user feedback tagged to a specific paragraph and version is so mindblowingly obvious that I wonder why I have never seen it done anywhere else.
1. You want to accept mail from strangers. 2. Some strangers insist on anonymity.
Simply put, if you insist on accepting email from anonymous strangers, there is no way to guarantee that all of it is wanted.
Even if you don't want mail from anonymous entities, but still want mail from strangers, the problem of identity management is non-trivial. The only solution I see is a "web of trust," based on a very large relationship database like Orkut or PeopleAggregator.
Lots of people find other, cheaper things prettier, but still insist on diamonds as a token of fidelity.
The Royal Ontario Museum had a display on gemstones for a while, with a placard over the diamond display anwering the FAQ: "Why are diamonds so valuable?" with a simple "Scarcity and excellent marketing."
According to the OO website, they will not be doing an Aqua port until 2.0 because the graphics code is to be completely rewritten then; any work they did on it now would be thrown away in just over a year.
No point? Au contraire. If it existed, I'd buy a copy and run it on my existing hardware. And if I liked it for functionality, but was disappointed by driver support, my next machine would probably be an Apple. Hell, it might be anyway, just 'cause I'm curious.
I'd say that an inroad into a market 20x bigger than your current customer base constitutes "a point."
You seem quite certain that there is no technological solution to spam.
I have seen several that I think have a good chance of working, particularly if phased in as part of existing score-based antispam measures. The best of the bunch (no reference handy, sorry) is a web-of-association based solution.
All of the other problems that I can think of are similar, in that the problems are rooted in protocols designed in the good old days when strangers could be trusted.
in re: your point about "forcing Microsoft to raise prices in other ways"
This is a common fallacy. In fact, their prices are, and always have been, set in such a way as to maximize sales. This is how free-market capitalism works.
Increasing fixed expenses does nothing to vary the unit cost per sale, and so it does not change the equations which set retail prices. A fine like this affects _only_ the bottom line.
Subversion does not actually make it necessary to _upgrade_. I've been quite happily running a 2.x server (specifically for Subversion) in parallel with my 1.3 server.
After I decide that everything works on 2.0, I will probably decide to move it onto port 80, but there's no reason to go cold turkey.
Slashdot Mirror
That accomplished and you still don't have anything better to do than this?
That settles it, I'm _definitely_ not growing up.
If the computer's air intake fan is ducted to the outside, there will be positive pressure inside the case. Ergo, no dust.
If the argument is portability, then surely I should be able to open this "portable" document format in what is (sadly) the most widely used office suite, not so?
Yes, the members of an average american family _are_ that large.
There is better advice, but almost nobody takes it:
Own cheap expendable toys, buy them used, and don't waste your too-precious time and energy worrying about them. Put a dollar value on anxiety and add it to the price of any big-ticket items you are thinking of getting.
Then take all of that unwasted energy and put it towards having fun. You'd be amazed how much more fun life is when you aren't worrying about your possessions.
None of the above.
But I am afraid.
If you do this for an evolving project, please consider looking at the online versions of Bruce Eckel's "Thinking..." books.
His mechanism for collecting user feedback tagged to a specific paragraph and version is so mindblowingly obvious that I wonder why I have never seen it done anywhere else.
Perhaps it's because it works?
The bases of the problem are twofold:
1. You want to accept mail from strangers.
2. Some strangers insist on anonymity.
Simply put, if you insist on accepting email from anonymous strangers, there is no way to guarantee that all of it is wanted.
Even if you don't want mail from anonymous entities, but still want mail from strangers, the problem of identity management is non-trivial. The only solution I see is a "web of trust," based on a very large relationship database like Orkut or PeopleAggregator.
Funny, the metric I use is their personal evaluation of their happiness. Which, in my experience, is quite often the inverse of your metric.
So by your implied argument, it would cease to be OK if there was a scanner in that library?
I have a vague recollection of hearing that Intuit planned to stop using activation in their Canadian QuickTax products as well.
Does anyone know if there is progress on that front?
Lots of people find other, cheaper things prettier, but still insist on diamonds as a token of fidelity.
The Royal Ontario Museum had a display on gemstones for a while, with a placard over the diamond display anwering the FAQ: "Why are diamonds so valuable?" with a simple "Scarcity and excellent marketing."
Yup, good thing verbal notice doesn't constitute a resignation.
Reacability isn't in my dictionary, and I suspect it's not a misspelling of "Rockabilly". Care to define it?
According to the OO website, they will not be doing an Aqua port until 2.0 because the graphics code is to be completely rewritten then; any work they did on it now would be thrown away in just over a year.
Qualify every categorical statement you have made, and you will be telling the truth. As it stands, you look like an ignoramus.
Thanks for the warning. I'm sure as hell not even going to try. If it was meant to be read, it would have paragraph breaks.
No point? Au contraire. If it existed, I'd buy a copy and run it on my existing hardware. And if I liked it for functionality, but was disappointed by driver support, my next machine would probably be an Apple. Hell, it might be anyway, just 'cause I'm curious.
I'd say that an inroad into a market 20x bigger than your current customer base constitutes "a point."
The proper term in epidemiology would probably be "index cases."
Dude! What he's criticizing _is_ the wizard.
You seem quite certain that there is no technological solution to spam.
I have seen several that I think have a good chance of working, particularly if phased in as part of existing score-based antispam measures. The best of the bunch (no reference handy, sorry) is a web-of-association based solution.
All of the other problems that I can think of are similar, in that the problems are rooted in protocols designed in the good old days when strangers could be trusted.
in re: your point about "forcing Microsoft to raise prices in other ways"
This is a common fallacy. In fact, their prices are, and always have been, set in such a way as to maximize sales. This is how free-market capitalism works.
Increasing fixed expenses does nothing to vary the unit cost per sale, and so it does not change the equations which set retail prices. A fine like this affects _only_ the bottom line.
Subversion does not actually make it necessary to _upgrade_. I've been quite happily running a 2.x server (specifically for Subversion) in parallel with my 1.3 server.
After I decide that everything works on 2.0, I will probably decide to move it onto port 80, but there's no reason to go cold turkey.
Come off it.
9 out of 10 slashdotters can't give you a proper definition for bandwidth. Why would joe-sixpack end user even care?
Ah yes, this confused me at first as well. Then the answer hit me: YOU CAN'T READ.