Is that why I've been getting page views that take forever to close their connection? They're keeping a download incomplete so that they can measure when the client gives up as time visited per page?
It's a technique that allows the web server to feed events to the browser. When the server wants to send an event to the browser, it sends the info through the open connection. The browser then handles the event, and then another download is started.
However, I found his premise inaccessible and, after reading the first part of this two part idea, I couldn't come up with a concrete advantage for using his method. At first, it seems like this is an argument for speed though I doubt rendering all those options in an overlay to display to the user would be much more efficient than a mouse click on a menu bar. The real estate gain is the obvious definitive advantage his system would have over everything I've used. However, the user must first know how to bring up the options overlay... and I think he mentions the issues that would be associated with subselections. I tried to imagine the GIMP using this in my mind but the submenus would get out of hand. For example, you would like to use script-fu? Well, there's two submenus under that of a dynamic allotment of add ons that I can structure in directories however I want. Tough to deal with stuff like that.
I think I have to agree that his system, after skimming it, seems intimidating and overly-complex.
However, one only need understand how computers of the past presented menus. It used to be that the function keys were VERY close to the monitor. Programs would put a list of functions on the bottom line; these would be directly placed in line with the exact key that did the function.
GWBasic, (where I get my handle from,) used to use such an interface. The bottom line displayed "F1: Load F2: Run F3: Save...
For programs like WordPerfect and Lotus, I used to use carboard overlays for the keyboard. They would nicely line up with the function keys.
In my opinion, we really can't "enhance" keyboard control until we get keyboards with mini-displays. Imagine moving the Mac's single menu bar to a keyboard with a display right above the function keys...
Funny story about work.
The current back-end system that translates front-end customer orders to actual tangible products often fails silently, and the person who wrote it (who's still with us), thinks that's okay.
Eventually, management got tired of people not getting their orders, or getting the wrong person's order, and not having a way of detecting that there's any problem. So they hired a new guy to write a new production system.
Talking to the new guy, he said that the system is almost working, but it fails silently, and he should add error handling if he has time.
DO PEOPLE NEVER LEARN!?!!
This is really a problem with management.
They made one of the following mistakes:
They hired an unqualified person when they needed a qualified person. Perhaps they are paying too little?
The programmer needs a mentor who is qualified and willing to gently step in and "lay down the law" when it comes to good engineering practice.
I would suggest that when you are writing code that is in excess of 80 columns you might be trying to do too much in one line. Sure I can write almost an entire program in one line with perl, but that doesn't mean anyone can understand what the heck I'm doing with it. But if I don't attempt to make everything fit into one line then I'm also going to tend towards more readable code, not more condensed.
Your comment made me go and look at the code that I have open in my IDE. I tend to work with about 100 columns. It's easier to write comments.
I also tend to have variables and classes with names that are in excess of 10 letters. For example, on my screen now, the widest line goes out to column 98. It's the start of a for loop, inside of an if statement, inside of a method, inside of a class, inside of a namespace. (It's C#) The line has 6 tokens, and is a run-of-the-mill foreach. If I had to squeeze my code inside of 80 columns, it would become unreadable.
The point is Apple doesn't really care about maintenance costs, or maintenance inconvenience. They care about aesthetics. People are pissed off because apples value of aesthetics causes usability problems. Who wants to send in a phone just to replace something as trivial as a battery, which is a component guaranteed to wear out?
...and the iPhone would probably be thicker if it had a user-removable battery.
Perhaps Apple would be so kind as to start offering in-store battery replacement?
Recorded music started out as singles and is going back to that format. The only reason I can see for the album was to promote and justify the 33 1/3 LP format. With digital music, this concept is totally outdated and destined to die.
It really depends on the kind of music. There are many albums that are incredible works of art, from start to finish. The Flaming Lips, NiN, Dream Theater, and the Apples in Stereo have all recently released excellent albums.
People have been writing long works of music for hundreds of years. Beethoven wrote 9 popular symphonies; the reason why a CD can hold 74 minutes of music is so that Beethoven's 9th could fit on 1 CD. Even today, people pay $100s of dollars to see Roger Waters perform Dark Side of the Moon as a continuous work.
Perhaps you have a short attention span? Perhaps you only listen to music that's not condusive to albums? So you don't like works of music that are 30-60 minutes long? It doesn't mean that the art form will fall out of favor.
Call me when they're competing with MIT's carbon nanotube based ultracapacitors. Conventional ultracapacitors can achieve an energy density of 6Wh/kg, but the CNT ultracapacitors being researched and developed by MIT are claimed to achieve an energy density of 60Wh/kg (or, let's say, ten times more than this "new" capacitory developed by North Carolina State University).
Overview: http://lees-web.mit.edu/lees/projects/cnt_ultracap _project.htm
More-detailed Poster (PDF): http://lees-web.mit.edu/lees/posters/RU13_signorel li.pdf
It's also important to take into consideration how the capacitors behave in differing operating conditions. Assuming the capacitor will be used in a car, will it work at -20 degrees? What aobut 130 degrees? Can it handle road vibrations? Will it still work after 10 years of abuse?
On the other hand, who's to say they're from space at all? Even if the stories are 100% true, there's not a shred of evidence to show that they're from space. We've never seen spacecraft, only aircraft. Is space alien really more plausible than some kind of technologically superior earthling who can live undetected (almost) on the same planet as us?
Maybe they are from space... The "aliens" could just be deformed bodies of astronauts from an American space program gone horribly, horribly wrong.
...Why?
I'm all for spimes/blogjects/fountains that respond to stock prices, but for crissakes why does my inanimate chair need an IPv6 address?
Inventory tracking
If your inanimate chair had a unique identifier, the store you bought it at would be able to know that you're returning the specific chair you bought, as opposed to returning a broken chair you bought 1 year ago. The manufacturer could fully track the purchase-return cycle of the chair. You could obtain the history of your chair if you bought it used.
Funny story: A few years ago, when I was moving, I bought a few record needles from a store that sold them ultra-cheap. After a year went by, I had to swap needles, so I grabbed my last "new" needle. When I put it in, it sounded worn. It turns out that someone had returned a worn needle! There was no way of tracking the culprit.
With all the hype over people getting sued and arrested for using someones open AP, I wonder if the iPhone autoconnects without user intervention or if it requires some manual selection. If auto this could cause legal problems as the user would be according to recent suits "stealing bandwith and computer fraud by illegally accessing an another persons network" I dont agree with it, but that appears to be the direction we're going.
I think the FCC will step in and state that open access points are subject to undesirable interfearence.
If I could get my Windows apps running on a Mac for little more than the cost of the Mac alone, it'll bring me one step closer to dropping Wintel altogether; migration just got easier.
A Parallels liscense costs $80. I'm going to assume you have access to a Windows liscense...
On my Core2Duo MacBook Pro, I run WindowsXP under Parallels. It integrates nicely into Mac's GUI.
On my Dual Core2Duo Mac Pro, I run 3 instances of WindowsXP under Parallels. One of them integrates nicely into Mac's GUI, the other two I keep as completly seperate VMs because they are part of a distributed server system that I wrote.
While I'm really happy with my Macs that run Windows under Parallels, I can't say that I'm ready to give Windows the boot. Apple still is kinda sketchy for general-purpose HTPCs and CarPCs, and I really don't like hacking at Linux.
Speaking of oldies, in both music and people terms, a big reason for declining sales is because us oldies already own all the cds we are interested in, basically from the time period in our youth when we had the greatest exposure to music. In terms of recent music, why would we bother to buy crap remixes of what we already have.
Fully agree - but CD quality was never as good a vinyl through the right equipment. Bob Dylan had a lot to say about that a few months back. To his ears there just haven't been any CDs that have achieved what vinyl, with the right engineers handling the mix, used to.
That's probably because vinyl's imperfections tend to make certain styles of music sound "better". The crackle can add an alive feeling, and the warping gives a natural variety to rythm ensuring that each copy will sound slightly different as they age.
All the discussion of "lossless" misses the point that at the rates CDs are sampled there's already a high degree of loss. Music is inherently analog; digital has to get an order of magnitude better (at least) before it'll be so realistic that it's worth a premium.
It's also worth noting that the cutting lathe on vinyl cuts off high frequencies, low frequencies need to be filtered for longer playback, ect, ect. This web site, from a record pressing company, describes vinyl's limitations: http://www.urpressing.com/tips.html.
I personally have a sizeable vinyl collection. My thoughts on the medium are here.
The last time I used an "ergonomic" mouse, it caused me problems after 2-3 months. I switched to an el-cheapo ($30) Microsoft mouse and my problems went away instantly.
Has anyone conducted any studies that confirm/deny that this mouse is more ergonomic then my standard-faire Microsoft mouse? I'd like to know what percentage of people have wrist problems after using this mouse for 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Just because the mouse is a funky shape doesn't mean it's any better.
The ag lobby has been claiming that we need "guest workers" (or illegals, or others) to pick these crops.
This is not unlike the H1B scandal. If you pay enough, you'll find people to do almost any job. The "need" isn't for workers per se, but people who will work a brief job for roughly minimum wage and then move on as a rootless nomad.
The need also exists because us Americans like to buy our food as cheap as possible. Who here would volunarily pay $10 for a head of brocolli, or $5 an apple?
All I can think about is a soldier walking around, surrounded by a ring of little robots. This reminds me of Super Paper Mario where you can walk around surrounded by a ring of little Marios that will protect you.
In my experience, you'll need a subscription DVR if you have pay channels like HBO, or if you get HDTV over cable. If all you care about is basic cable (standard definition,) or over-the-air TV; you should be all set with a non-subscription DVR.
The funny thing is, I don't want it. Credit is really just newspeak for "debt". The only debt I ever want to have, and I don't really want it very much, is a mortgage. Credit cards are useful occassionally - my fiancee and I use hers maybe three times a year - but I'd much rather use my debit card. Aside from anything else, my debit card doesn't pretend to be giving me something.
Credit isn't newspeak for debt. If you don't carry a balance, you end up ahead of someone who only uses cash / debit.
The beauty of credit cards is that, because of the way they work, if you pay them off every month, you actually pay less money then if you pay cash / debit. Why is this? Let's say you spend $1000 a month on a credit card, and you pay it off at the end of the month. This allows you to hold $1000 in a high-interest savings account like ING. Over the course of the year, because you're able to keep $1000 more in savings, you'll get some money in interest. For example, a 5% interest rate could give you about $50!
Another way to put it: When you buy a $2000 computer on a credit card, that $2000 isn't due until the next billing cycle, about 30-60 days after your purchase. This means that your $2000 can sit in a bank, making you money. As a result, your $2000 computer really cost about $1999.
Some people that I know will get cards with 0% interest introductory offers. Every month, they make the minimum payment and put the difference into a high-interest savings account or a CD. This allows them to make quite a bit of money on interest.
So really, credit cards ARE worth it, because you can use them to get interest on money that you normally would spend.
I was able to boot into safe mode, log in as root, remount the filesystem as read-write, and try to edit my xorg.conf file. In safe mode, I found that something was wrong with the line terminations when using vi, so I had to use less to view the files and then construct a sed substitution to change the video driver from "nv" to "vesa." Upon reboot, everything worked swimmingly.
Sounds terribly userfriendly, even my mother would have no trouble installing this.
wait...
No, because the person buying a Ferrari bought it to drive it, not clean it. Presumably if you pay to play a game, you're paying to play the game. Paying someone else to play a game for you is bordering on absurd. It would be like buying a Ferrari and paying someone else to dress up as you and drive it around town in your place.
Keep in mind that a Ferrari must be broken in before it can really be driven. There are people who actually do break in cars for rich people who just want to enjoy the car.
Granted, the vast majority of a Ferrari's life is spent in the stage where it doesn't need to be broken in. It appears that WoW is a game where the vast majority of time isn't spent doing fun things.
Apple hardware is like the Yankees, someone paid far too much and got so little.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll...
I bought a 17" MacBook pro. It crashes much less then my previous Windows laptop, hasn't had a midnight reboot due to an automatic update, and is less likely to get a virus. It's also quiet. To me, it was worth every penny.
I was so thrilled with my MacBook that I replaced my aging AMD K6-3 with a Mac Pro. It takes expensive RAM, but for me, it's worth it because the computer makes much less noise. (I REALLY hate computer noise.) The computer is also more stable then my old K6-3, and it is less likely to get a virus.
Did I overpay for my hardware? Not really, because it's so difficult for me to get a non-Apple computer that I like. Sure, I could have built a silent desktop; but after 12 years of futzing with home-built computers, I'd rather just pay for something that works as soon as I take it out of the box.
They dont have to release code.. just give out a 100% accurate specification, and don't threaten to sue just because you write a program that can parse Word 97/07 docs.
The "100% accurate specification" for binary Office formats probably doesn't exist. Older versions of Word were simply memory-mapped files where the data in the file correlated directly with data structures in RAM. Microsoft is providing the specs for their XML formats, and I think (but am not sure,) that they're provding binary - to - XML converters.
There are other ways to read binary Office files, if you're willing to think outside of the box. Office has an API for reading/writing documents; you could set up a free server to convert documents using a single liscensed version of Office.
The thing about Unix-like OSes isn't that they protect you from malicious programs so much as that they limit the damage that can be done by them without user input (though if your account has cron privileges or other means of auto-running programs and you get taken over you personally are screwed anyway). Barring a privilege-escalation exploit, the worst most things can do is turn your personal account into a radioactive wasteland, or possibly a black hole.
Many users are commenting that there are botnets that require user intervention to actually infect the machine. For example, the user will be sent a password-protected zip file with instructions to enter the password.
If *nix were the dominant OS, you'd see botnet emails that say things like, "Enter your root password". Granted, there would be less drive-by-downloads; but *nix isn't going to magically protect people from social engineering.
Seriously.. If this was possible, i can only start to imagine how the wrong people or even the right people could really mess up things with their first little test.
When I read TFA, I got the impression that the scientist thinks that time travel isn't possible, yet quantum mechanics says it is. He's basically exploring an area of quantum mechanics that we don't understand, and is under the assumption that we'll have a better understanding of quantum mechanics as a result of his experiment.
Looking back at history, I believe that sometimes it's worth looking into crackpot ideas. Apparently, modern chemistry has roots in discoveries made from people trying to turn lead into gold. Likewise, this scientist thinks he might discover something valuable, although probably not time travel.
Slashdot Mirror
Translation: A non-neutral net makes AT&T more money.
It's a technique that allows the web server to feed events to the browser. When the server wants to send an event to the browser, it sends the info through the open connection. The browser then handles the event, and then another download is started.
I think I have to agree that his system, after skimming it, seems intimidating and overly-complex.
However, one only need understand how computers of the past presented menus. It used to be that the function keys were VERY close to the monitor. Programs would put a list of functions on the bottom line; these would be directly placed in line with the exact key that did the function.
GWBasic, (where I get my handle from,) used to use such an interface. The bottom line displayed "F1: Load F2: Run F3: Save...
For programs like WordPerfect and Lotus, I used to use carboard overlays for the keyboard. They would nicely line up with the function keys.
In my opinion, we really can't "enhance" keyboard control until we get keyboards with mini-displays. Imagine moving the Mac's single menu bar to a keyboard with a display right above the function keys...
This is really a problem with management.
They made one of the following mistakes:
Your comment made me go and look at the code that I have open in my IDE. I tend to work with about 100 columns. It's easier to write comments.
I also tend to have variables and classes with names that are in excess of 10 letters. For example, on my screen now, the widest line goes out to column 98. It's the start of a for loop, inside of an if statement, inside of a method, inside of a class, inside of a namespace. (It's C#) The line has 6 tokens, and is a run-of-the-mill foreach. If I had to squeeze my code inside of 80 columns, it would become unreadable.
...and the iPhone would probably be thicker if it had a user-removable battery.
Perhaps Apple would be so kind as to start offering in-store battery replacement?
It really depends on the kind of music. There are many albums that are incredible works of art, from start to finish. The Flaming Lips, NiN, Dream Theater, and the Apples in Stereo have all recently released excellent albums.
People have been writing long works of music for hundreds of years. Beethoven wrote 9 popular symphonies; the reason why a CD can hold 74 minutes of music is so that Beethoven's 9th could fit on 1 CD. Even today, people pay $100s of dollars to see Roger Waters perform Dark Side of the Moon as a continuous work.
Perhaps you have a short attention span? Perhaps you only listen to music that's not condusive to albums? So you don't like works of music that are 30-60 minutes long? It doesn't mean that the art form will fall out of favor.
It's also important to take into consideration how the capacitors behave in differing operating conditions. Assuming the capacitor will be used in a car, will it work at -20 degrees? What aobut 130 degrees? Can it handle road vibrations? Will it still work after 10 years of abuse?
Maybe they are from space... The "aliens" could just be deformed bodies of astronauts from an American space program gone horribly, horribly wrong.
...Why? I'm all for spimes/blogjects/fountains that respond to stock prices, but for crissakes why does my inanimate chair need an IPv6 address?Inventory tracking
If your inanimate chair had a unique identifier, the store you bought it at would be able to know that you're returning the specific chair you bought, as opposed to returning a broken chair you bought 1 year ago. The manufacturer could fully track the purchase-return cycle of the chair. You could obtain the history of your chair if you bought it used.
Funny story: A few years ago, when I was moving, I bought a few record needles from a store that sold them ultra-cheap. After a year went by, I had to swap needles, so I grabbed my last "new" needle. When I put it in, it sounded worn. It turns out that someone had returned a worn needle! There was no way of tracking the culprit.
I think the FCC will step in and state that open access points are subject to undesirable interfearence.
A Parallels liscense costs $80. I'm going to assume you have access to a Windows liscense...
On my Core2Duo MacBook Pro, I run WindowsXP under Parallels. It integrates nicely into Mac's GUI.
On my Dual Core2Duo Mac Pro, I run 3 instances of WindowsXP under Parallels. One of them integrates nicely into Mac's GUI, the other two I keep as completly seperate VMs because they are part of a distributed server system that I wrote.
While I'm really happy with my Macs that run Windows under Parallels, I can't say that I'm ready to give Windows the boot. Apple still is kinda sketchy for general-purpose HTPCs and CarPCs, and I really don't like hacking at Linux.
...And 45 minutes of oldies isn't worth $15!
That's probably because vinyl's imperfections tend to make certain styles of music sound "better". The crackle can add an alive feeling, and the warping gives a natural variety to rythm ensuring that each copy will sound slightly different as they age.
It's also worth noting that the cutting lathe on vinyl cuts off high frequencies, low frequencies need to be filtered for longer playback, ect, ect. This web site, from a record pressing company, describes vinyl's limitations: http://www.urpressing.com/tips.html.
I personally have a sizeable vinyl collection. My thoughts on the medium are here.
The last time I used an "ergonomic" mouse, it caused me problems after 2-3 months. I switched to an el-cheapo ($30) Microsoft mouse and my problems went away instantly.
Has anyone conducted any studies that confirm/deny that this mouse is more ergonomic then my standard-faire Microsoft mouse? I'd like to know what percentage of people have wrist problems after using this mouse for 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Just because the mouse is a funky shape doesn't mean it's any better.
The need also exists because us Americans like to buy our food as cheap as possible. Who here would volunarily pay $10 for a head of brocolli, or $5 an apple?
All I can think about is a soldier walking around, surrounded by a ring of little robots. This reminds me of Super Paper Mario where you can walk around surrounded by a ring of little Marios that will protect you.
In my experience, you'll need a subscription DVR if you have pay channels like HBO, or if you get HDTV over cable. If all you care about is basic cable (standard definition,) or over-the-air TV; you should be all set with a non-subscription DVR.
Credit isn't newspeak for debt. If you don't carry a balance, you end up ahead of someone who only uses cash / debit.
The beauty of credit cards is that, because of the way they work, if you pay them off every month, you actually pay less money then if you pay cash / debit. Why is this? Let's say you spend $1000 a month on a credit card, and you pay it off at the end of the month. This allows you to hold $1000 in a high-interest savings account like ING. Over the course of the year, because you're able to keep $1000 more in savings, you'll get some money in interest. For example, a 5% interest rate could give you about $50!
Another way to put it: When you buy a $2000 computer on a credit card, that $2000 isn't due until the next billing cycle, about 30-60 days after your purchase. This means that your $2000 can sit in a bank, making you money. As a result, your $2000 computer really cost about $1999.
Some people that I know will get cards with 0% interest introductory offers. Every month, they make the minimum payment and put the difference into a high-interest savings account or a CD. This allows them to make quite a bit of money on interest.
So really, credit cards ARE worth it, because you can use them to get interest on money that you normally would spend.
I stopped reading at that point.
Keep in mind that a Ferrari must be broken in before it can really be driven. There are people who actually do break in cars for rich people who just want to enjoy the car.
Granted, the vast majority of a Ferrari's life is spent in the stage where it doesn't need to be broken in. It appears that WoW is a game where the vast majority of time isn't spent doing fun things.
I know I shouldn't feed the troll...
I bought a 17" MacBook pro. It crashes much less then my previous Windows laptop, hasn't had a midnight reboot due to an automatic update, and is less likely to get a virus. It's also quiet. To me, it was worth every penny.
I was so thrilled with my MacBook that I replaced my aging AMD K6-3 with a Mac Pro. It takes expensive RAM, but for me, it's worth it because the computer makes much less noise. (I REALLY hate computer noise.) The computer is also more stable then my old K6-3, and it is less likely to get a virus.
Did I overpay for my hardware? Not really, because it's so difficult for me to get a non-Apple computer that I like. Sure, I could have built a silent desktop; but after 12 years of futzing with home-built computers, I'd rather just pay for something that works as soon as I take it out of the box.
The "100% accurate specification" for binary Office formats probably doesn't exist. Older versions of Word were simply memory-mapped files where the data in the file correlated directly with data structures in RAM. Microsoft is providing the specs for their XML formats, and I think (but am not sure,) that they're provding binary - to - XML converters.
There are other ways to read binary Office files, if you're willing to think outside of the box. Office has an API for reading/writing documents; you could set up a free server to convert documents using a single liscensed version of Office.
Many users are commenting that there are botnets that require user intervention to actually infect the machine. For example, the user will be sent a password-protected zip file with instructions to enter the password.
If *nix were the dominant OS, you'd see botnet emails that say things like, "Enter your root password". Granted, there would be less drive-by-downloads; but *nix isn't going to magically protect people from social engineering.
When I read TFA, I got the impression that the scientist thinks that time travel isn't possible, yet quantum mechanics says it is. He's basically exploring an area of quantum mechanics that we don't understand, and is under the assumption that we'll have a better understanding of quantum mechanics as a result of his experiment.
Looking back at history, I believe that sometimes it's worth looking into crackpot ideas. Apparently, modern chemistry has roots in discoveries made from people trying to turn lead into gold. Likewise, this scientist thinks he might discover something valuable, although probably not time travel.