Screen size is a matter of "form". A "short fat screen" has a different form factor than a "tall skinny screen", right? A properly designed web page is not constrained to any one resolution or window size. CSS has provisions for layout boxes defined as a %-age of the parent element and for floating elements. If I resize my browser window, the web page should reflow into the available content area, not be locked to a particular presentation.
Do you really want to build a site 4 times to accommodate 4 different ways a user might access it? What happens if a 5th method is developed — do you retrofit all your existing sites? No! Build the site correctly and you only have to do it once!
Remember when most sites had a "text only" link? Maybe if the browsers make it easy to identify text-only users then that kind of duality can come back.
There never was a duality, except when lazy web designers were involved. Web content is primarily textual. If you have inline images or other media, you're expected to provide ALT text and similar fallback mechanisms. Graceful degradation and device independence are the key, but the concept seems to have flown right over the heads of an entire generation of dee-zyne-ers.
Imagine never having to answer stupid questions like "flash or html?" "800x600 or 1024x768?"
Imagine sending your content in a universally accessible fashion, rather than a proprietary format that requires a plugin. Imagine designing a site correctly so that it automatically fits any size browser with no extra work or finagling on your part.
Its possible that based on the connection speed, you could default modem users to the HTML site and broadband customers to the flash site (of course, with links to the opposite choice).
If you recognize here that people want a choice, why don't you recognize their choices (system preferences) in other areas as well?
You could also arrange the tables so people with smaller screen sizes are scrolling left to right and people with large screen sizes aren't forced to scroll down a website that fits into the first three inches of their screen.
See above. A good design accommodates variable screen sizes without the need for "detection scripts" and such. You don't need to know the user's screen size.
I do think there is something else they should flag...system color scheme. I use a darker scheme where my text is white and my workspace is black. On many websites with hardcoded white background I can't read a thing. I usually end up having to disable them. It would be nice if a website could ask my browser what my default text color is and send out the appropriate background.
Similar functionality exists in CSS. If the site uses your system colors it will behave as you describe.
Why is it that so many Christians have persecution complexes?
Maybe because this thread is proof? Posts denigrating faith in God and generally anti-Christian in tone get moderated up. Posts defending belief and pro-Christian get moderated down. Why? Certainly wasn't based on the quality of the post itself, which is what moderation is supposed to rate.
Say the AC posted a very one-sided comment about Mexicans (to use your example) being lazy. Maybe the AC even has a few examples of lazy Mexicans he's seen. Then, say I post a reply that Mexicans are hard workers, along with examples of people I know. Furthermore, the AC gets moderated up and I get moderated down. What would you surmise? The moderators obviously agree that Mexicans are lazy. Persecution of Mexicans, wouldn't you say? That's exactly what's happened here.
The Slashdot community, it seems, has a strong anti-Christian bias. They are unwilling to give up their preconceived notions of Christianity. Slashdot (and increasingly our culture in general) wants to believe that Christianity is responsible for lots of bad things (witch trials, Crusades) which did undeniably happen, but also wants to deny it's responsible for lots of good things (art, science, medicine) too. Looking at only one side of the truth about somebody is prejudice just as much as believing lies about him is.
That's a distinction you'd do well to learn. Don't mod me down just because you don't like what I say.
Where exactly did I say something intentionally incendiary? What was it that is potentially attracting flames? I challenge you to find it.
Times like this make me glad that/. is not a representative sample of humanity. The obvious flamebait above me gets Insightful mods, and when I post some truth I get the Flamebait mods. Go figure.
Why is it that the only prejudice it's Politically Correct to have is anti-Christian prejudice?
Score: 4 (Insightful)? What are the moderators smoking today? This AC is spewing nothing but Flamebait.
How dare you associate the Holocaust with Christianity? The Holocaust was the sick dream of one sick man, who has been quoted that when the Jews were gone, the Christians were next. Hitler hated God and anything that had to do with Him.
"Religion kills." Sadly, it's true that people have killed in the name of religion. But try looking at the whole picture. Some of humanity's greatest science, art, and literature was also inspired by God. Newton was on a quest to "think God's thoughts after him," and his contemporaries were sometimes disappointed that he spent a majority of his later years writing about the Bible rather than science. This is a common theme throughout the Renaissance. Bach, Beethoven, Michelangelo...so many of history's greatest minds were inspired to that greatness by their Creator. This is the Renaissance we're talking about here, man! One of mankind's greatest intellectual awakenings!
Without the influence of Jesus Christ, this world would be a much sadder place. You really need to read What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? by Kennedy and Newcombe to get the full picture. Social justice, respect for human life and decline of cannibalism, the end of slavery, rise of medicine/arts/science...all can be attributed in great part to the message of Jesus Christ: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. These are the results of faith in action.
Or get rid of it entirely -- a moderate state income tax like Michigan's is a lot more fair anyhow.
I disagree. My money is my money, not the government's. Income taxes rob me of my economic freedom. (Let alone that the tax money is used to fund unconstitutional activities I don't agree with.) On the other hand, sales taxes are more fair. If I choose to exercise my freedom to buy, I pay taxes. If I choose to exercise my freedom to save/invest, I don't pay as much tax. But it's my choice.
As for Europa the view from the surface is spectacular, but the radiation is intense.
At what altitude are Jupiter's radiation belts? I know Io is right in the middle of it, but I thought the other Galileans might be high enough to be beyond them. It would be nice if there were the possibility of building an easily accessible base (ie, on the surface) on a Jovian moon large enough to provide decent gravity. A bubble under a couple miles of ice isn't the most accessible base.
The Revolution was in part about taxes. It was just as much about the other abuses by government that I mentioned. Yes, the pilgrims left the Netherlands, which was even then a very tolerant nation. The problem with tolerance is that it can go too far into permissiveness. The pilgrims didn't want their religious beliefs dictated to them by the Church of England, but neither did they like the culture encouraging their children to abandon their beliefs.
Yes, the government may be better armed than I am. That doesn't do anything to the argument that by owning a gun I can defend myself, my family, and my property from criminals. The principle hasn't changed, and I'm certainly not going to roll over and die just because someone invents a bigger gun than mine.
I am all for a gov't with a strong third party presence. We won't get it in the US until we have a different election system, though. (Did you happen to see the November 2000 issue of Discover?) Personally, I prefer the Condorcet method over Borda, approval, and IRV. We also need to get states to rethink the "winner takes all" approach to their Electoral votes. Nebraska does just fine apportioning the votes by district. I believe keeping the EC is a good idea, though.
In a very general sense, Libertarians and Constitutionalists desire many of the same things, like smaller (constitutionally limited) gov't and all the things that go with it. However, the Libertarians are pragmatic while the Constitutionalists are principled. That means the L's want liberty for liberty's sake, so they can do whatever they please. The C's want liberty because it's the moral thing to do, and a gov't without morals will ultimately fail. (Oversimplification, but it will do.)
Cameras may cut down on random crimes, true. But they will definitely cut down on freedom. Many of the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights implicitly assume a basic right to privacy. I won't give up that right. On the other hand, an armed responsible citizenry will also deter crimes. The major problem is that our present society is one that shirks responsibility. We see it all the time in the court system. Sue somebody, it's his fault; I plead innocent, I was raised this way; I can't help it, it's my genetics. That's a load of bull. If you're an animal, maybe you've got "your nature" as an excuse, but if you're human you've got a mind and an intellect to make decisions with.
The fact that Americans can't handle their cars any better than their guns is hardly something to be proud of.
I'm not saying I'm proud of it. I'm just wondering why there isn't an anti-auto lobbyist group in Washington five times bigger than the anti-gun groups. Why isn't there a Million Mom (or rather, 40k Misinformed Mothers) March to get cars off the roads? Why doesn't a car rampage get as much press as a gun rampage? Spin/FUD by the media and others with an agenda, that's why.
You think the American Revolution was merely about taxes? There was a lot more to it than that. Many colonists came to escape religious persecution, and there was threat of an "official religion" being instituted. The government was quartering soldiers in private homes without compensation or respect for privacy and private property. That's just a start. And when the Virginians didn't like it, the government tried to take away their guns. Gosh, you don't like it when the gov't disrespects your privacy, your possessions, and your thoughts, and then they try to take away your means of defending these rights. Sounds familiar.
I'm not talking about just the police abusing their power. I'm talking about the entire system going bad. And yes, the Nazis are a perfect example of this. Without their guns, no one had even a small chance of opposing them. But hey! The economy was on the rebound so who cares! Whatever.
The US government itself has multiple agencies unconstitutionally equipped to bear arms against its own citizenry. Add to that the numerous state and local agencies. This is wrong and I don't deny that. This is why I vote Constitution, because no other party is working to change this. As another poster said somewhere in this story, US gov't in practice is a far cry from what it is on paper.
I'm not talking about petty thieves, here. I'm talking about somebody that wants you dead for whatever reason. If he's willing to break that law, I'm sure he can track down a gun (or a simple baseball bat to bash your head with!) if he wants to. An armed victim is a good deterrant.
That's just ridiculous. Would you rather have the American system where citizens take law (read guns) into their own hands? Excellent idea we've already seen how well this american model works.
Yeah, it worked really well back in 1776, didn't it? Dang authoritarian governments restricting civil liberties...good thing some folks had some guns to do something about it.
If you won't even consider the possibility of abuse by the authorities, then abuse is inevitable. What if the police do start abusing their power? You have no recourse, no means to defend yourself and your family. Nazi Germany disarmed their population, too, BTW. And fat lot of good a camera is going to do if a criminal with an illegal gun breaks into your house and shoots you dead. Sure, he'll be caught, but it's a little too late by then for you law-abiding non-gun-owning citizens, isn't it?
More kids are killed in car accidents every year in the US than in gun accidents. A nut driving down kids in a school parking lot gets no media attention, but a nut with a gun in school gets every major network. Don't tell me there's not an attack on our freedoms.
If I were on speaking terms with a buckyball, I would address him as "Mr. Ball," or perhaps "Bucky" if we became good friends.
OK, it's lame, sue me.
Re:Loss of computers == America as 3rd world count
on
Rebooting The World?
·
· Score: 1
Well, the farmers would be in luck. Maybe they'd be able to get decent prices, instead of relying on gov't subsidy to survive. Of course, most farmers have been forced to specialize to be profitable, so even they are heavily reliant on the infrastructure. Used to be that a farmer had several kinds of animals and grew at least three kinds of grain so he could still make it if one of these failed. Now if the infrastructure collapsed, even the farmers might not make it.
Heck, if I even went back one hundred years in time, my skills would be worthless. Here's what I figure I could do.
teach mathematics (have a BS in that)
teach science (minored in physics, so I suppose I could give Einstein and Bohr an early nudge in the right direction)
teach just about any other subject (always been a pretty good student)
preach (which is "teach the bible" if you think about it)
Pretty sad to think that many of us have no practical skills that would help us survive. We'd be reduced to grunt labor. The last century has seen so many tech advances that have forced us to specialize. Going back 200, 300, or 1000 years wouldn't be tremendously different than just 100.
This makes me feel like I'm reading _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ again.
Exactly! If you know you're never going to respond to ads, it makes sense that you'll save the advertiser money if they don't have to deliver the ad to you. If the advertiser is smart, anyway...he should be paying the publisher a small rate for views and a higher rate for click-thrus. This is more of a gamble for the publisher, who will want to get a high CTR to break even, since views alone (at a lower rate) will not pay off as well...maybe not enough to cover his bandwidth costs.
I keep this link on my homepage for just such times as this. Go read it.
Having the system figure out what you like would be a waste of time. Just put a new section in the user preferences to select kinds of ads to view. Opera does this for their ad-ware browser, and it works just fine. My wife set up our copy at home to cover our combined interests as soon as she got into the prefs.
I agree. What the kid did was wrong. The principal could have sued for slander, libel, defamation of character, or whatever. (IANAL) But it should have been the principal as an individual, not the school. I'd love to see the principal turn around and do that now, and get the money back from the kid. Of course, only the lawyers are getting rich...
There's a lot more to social life than consuming alcohol, you know.
Heck yes I consider my social life. It's part of the whole "quality of life" package. I just wish it weren't so blamed hard to find a tech job in smaller communities, because I hate city life. I'm leaving Des Moines for Rochester, MN.
In smaller towns, the "rat race" (and traffic) doesn't stink so bad.
In smaller towns, there seems to be more emphasis on building relationships within the community. Social life is more easily found outside the bars.
In smaller towns, it's easier to get out into the "Big Blue Room" and go fishing, biking, whatever.
Smaller towns are generally safer places to raise a family.
These are things I value. So darned right I consider social life when looking at my career. Yeah, you take a hit in the pay, assuming you can find a job to begin with, but it's worth it.
I never implied that free==Free. What I said was that a "traditional" license usually means that I get monetary compensation. The GPL means I get a different kind of compensation...essentially the right to use any derivative or extension of my Free code.
The code itself is Free. The users of the code have the restriction that they cannot impinge on the Freedom of the code. It's the same between people, if you want to view it that way. Freedom to one is restriction to another. Your Freedom is a restriction on me against killing you (for example).
If Microsoft came in and worked on the software and packaged it and sold it, they would be ripping you off by not giving you the new additions for free?
I say that is bullshit. You with the GPL are forcing them to be ripped off by taking their work for free if they want yours.
You still have your work. They still have theirs. No one is hurt by that situation.
You're wrong. I have my code. MS has their code and my code. By taking my work, they are getting value from me, which I think I deserve compensation for. I am not a MS employee, and the code is Free, so I am not seeking monetary compensation. What I'm seeking is a free exchange of ideas for mutual improvement. I have a reasonable expectation that improvements to my Free work will also be Free. That is my compensation.
I never forced MS to use my code! If they want to use it, they abide by the restrictions, or they can implement the same thing themselves. If I were using a more traditional license, they'd have to pay me a royalty fee to use my code. The GPL's requirement that modified Free code must also be Free is just a different stipulation.
Heh, you're welcome. I'm somewhat surprised that so many people agreed with me. At least, enough to get me a 5. It sort of encourages me to get around to writing that letter on behalf of the Excelsior campaign.
Rick Berman doesn't know good Trek from a hole in the ground. What we really wanted was Excelsior! Get it straight, Berman!
I'm personally fed up with the over-merchandised crud that's being pushed on us under the guise of Star Trek nowadays. The quality of the series has been consistently declining since TNG. Even the low-budget TOS (my personal fave because it's the original) beats DS9 and VOY.
I agree with Hatch's sentiment, but this idea is ludicrous. You can't just take someone's copyright away. That will never fly. He's right in that the recording companies need a good kick in the rear to get them to offer the services that customers want, but this isn't the way to do it.
Napster is fine in theory, but in reality people were stealing music they never planned to pay for. There does need to be a way to digitally distribute music on the 'net...the demand is there. People are willing to pay a reasonable price for the use of music. The record companies need to realize that and get a service in place.
Too bad there isn't a good way for music artists to become well-known without the companies' marketing machine. Eliminating the middleman would be good for artists and fans.
Now, I don't follow the actions of individual senators that closely, so take this with a grain of salt.
Orrin Hatch seems like a fairly decent guy. I don't agree with everything he does, and you probably don't either. But he seems to make an honest effort at really learning about the issues. He may make a mistake the first time out, but he seems to learn his lesson and do better on that issue the second time it comes up. Normally Republicans are depicted as "corporatist", but now it seems he realizes their power has gone too far.
I don't know if I necessarily agree with this either, but hey, I didn't read the article yet. We'll see how close the/. summary is.
Slashdot Mirror
Screen size is a matter of "form". A "short fat screen" has a different form factor than a "tall skinny screen", right? A properly designed web page is not constrained to any one resolution or window size. CSS has provisions for layout boxes defined as a %-age of the parent element and for floating elements. If I resize my browser window, the web page should reflow into the available content area, not be locked to a particular presentation.
Do you really want to build a site 4 times to accommodate 4 different ways a user might access it? What happens if a 5th method is developed — do you retrofit all your existing sites? No! Build the site correctly and you only have to do it once!
There never was a duality, except when lazy web designers were involved. Web content is primarily textual. If you have inline images or other media, you're expected to provide ALT text and similar fallback mechanisms. Graceful degradation and device independence are the key, but the concept seems to have flown right over the heads of an entire generation of dee-zyne-ers.
Flamebait != Disagree
Imagine sending your content in a universally accessible fashion, rather than a proprietary format that requires a plugin. Imagine designing a site correctly so that it automatically fits any size browser with no extra work or finagling on your part.
If you recognize here that people want a choice, why don't you recognize their choices (system preferences) in other areas as well?
See above. A good design accommodates variable screen sizes without the need for "detection scripts" and such. You don't need to know the user's screen size.
Similar functionality exists in CSS. If the site uses your system colors it will behave as you describe.
Flamebait != Disagree
Maybe because this thread is proof? Posts denigrating faith in God and generally anti-Christian in tone get moderated up. Posts defending belief and pro-Christian get moderated down. Why? Certainly wasn't based on the quality of the post itself, which is what moderation is supposed to rate.
Say the AC posted a very one-sided comment about Mexicans (to use your example) being lazy. Maybe the AC even has a few examples of lazy Mexicans he's seen. Then, say I post a reply that Mexicans are hard workers, along with examples of people I know. Furthermore, the AC gets moderated up and I get moderated down. What would you surmise? The moderators obviously agree that Mexicans are lazy. Persecution of Mexicans, wouldn't you say? That's exactly what's happened here.
The Slashdot community, it seems, has a strong anti-Christian bias. They are unwilling to give up their preconceived notions of Christianity. Slashdot (and increasingly our culture in general) wants to believe that Christianity is responsible for lots of bad things (witch trials, Crusades) which did undeniably happen, but also wants to deny it's responsible for lots of good things (art, science, medicine) too. Looking at only one side of the truth about somebody is prejudice just as much as believing lies about him is.
Flamebait != Disagree
That's a distinction you'd do well to learn. Don't mod me down just because you don't like what I say.
Where exactly did I say something intentionally incendiary? What was it that is potentially attracting flames? I challenge you to find it.
Times like this make me glad that /. is not a representative sample of humanity. The obvious flamebait above me gets Insightful mods, and when I post some truth I get the Flamebait mods. Go figure.
Why is it that the only prejudice it's Politically Correct to have is anti-Christian prejudice?
Flamebait != Disagree
Score: 4 (Insightful)? What are the moderators smoking today? This AC is spewing nothing but Flamebait.
How dare you associate the Holocaust with Christianity? The Holocaust was the sick dream of one sick man, who has been quoted that when the Jews were gone, the Christians were next. Hitler hated God and anything that had to do with Him.
"Religion kills." Sadly, it's true that people have killed in the name of religion. But try looking at the whole picture. Some of humanity's greatest science, art, and literature was also inspired by God. Newton was on a quest to "think God's thoughts after him," and his contemporaries were sometimes disappointed that he spent a majority of his later years writing about the Bible rather than science. This is a common theme throughout the Renaissance. Bach, Beethoven, Michelangelo...so many of history's greatest minds were inspired to that greatness by their Creator. This is the Renaissance we're talking about here, man! One of mankind's greatest intellectual awakenings!
Without the influence of Jesus Christ, this world would be a much sadder place. You really need to read What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? by Kennedy and Newcombe to get the full picture. Social justice, respect for human life and decline of cannibalism, the end of slavery, rise of medicine/arts/science...all can be attributed in great part to the message of Jesus Christ: Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. These are the results of faith in action.
Flamebait != Disagree
I disagree. My money is my money, not the government's. Income taxes rob me of my economic freedom. (Let alone that the tax money is used to fund unconstitutional activities I don't agree with.) On the other hand, sales taxes are more fair. If I choose to exercise my freedom to buy, I pay taxes. If I choose to exercise my freedom to save/invest, I don't pay as much tax. But it's my choice.
Flamebait != Disagree
At what altitude are Jupiter's radiation belts? I know Io is right in the middle of it, but I thought the other Galileans might be high enough to be beyond them. It would be nice if there were the possibility of building an easily accessible base (ie, on the surface) on a Jovian moon large enough to provide decent gravity. A bubble under a couple miles of ice isn't the most accessible base.
Flamebait != Disagree
The Revolution was in part about taxes. It was just as much about the other abuses by government that I mentioned. Yes, the pilgrims left the Netherlands, which was even then a very tolerant nation. The problem with tolerance is that it can go too far into permissiveness. The pilgrims didn't want their religious beliefs dictated to them by the Church of England, but neither did they like the culture encouraging their children to abandon their beliefs.
Yes, the government may be better armed than I am. That doesn't do anything to the argument that by owning a gun I can defend myself, my family, and my property from criminals. The principle hasn't changed, and I'm certainly not going to roll over and die just because someone invents a bigger gun than mine.
I am all for a gov't with a strong third party presence. We won't get it in the US until we have a different election system, though. (Did you happen to see the November 2000 issue of Discover?) Personally, I prefer the Condorcet method over Borda, approval, and IRV. We also need to get states to rethink the "winner takes all" approach to their Electoral votes. Nebraska does just fine apportioning the votes by district. I believe keeping the EC is a good idea, though.
In a very general sense, Libertarians and Constitutionalists desire many of the same things, like smaller (constitutionally limited) gov't and all the things that go with it. However, the Libertarians are pragmatic while the Constitutionalists are principled. That means the L's want liberty for liberty's sake, so they can do whatever they please. The C's want liberty because it's the moral thing to do, and a gov't without morals will ultimately fail. (Oversimplification, but it will do.)
Cameras may cut down on random crimes, true. But they will definitely cut down on freedom. Many of the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights implicitly assume a basic right to privacy. I won't give up that right. On the other hand, an armed responsible citizenry will also deter crimes. The major problem is that our present society is one that shirks responsibility. We see it all the time in the court system. Sue somebody, it's his fault; I plead innocent, I was raised this way; I can't help it, it's my genetics. That's a load of bull. If you're an animal, maybe you've got "your nature" as an excuse, but if you're human you've got a mind and an intellect to make decisions with.
Flamebait != Disagree
I'm not saying I'm proud of it. I'm just wondering why there isn't an anti-auto lobbyist group in Washington five times bigger than the anti-gun groups. Why isn't there a Million Mom (or rather, 40k Misinformed Mothers) March to get cars off the roads? Why doesn't a car rampage get as much press as a gun rampage? Spin/FUD by the media and others with an agenda, that's why.
Flamebait != Disagree
You think the American Revolution was merely about taxes? There was a lot more to it than that. Many colonists came to escape religious persecution, and there was threat of an "official religion" being instituted. The government was quartering soldiers in private homes without compensation or respect for privacy and private property. That's just a start. And when the Virginians didn't like it, the government tried to take away their guns. Gosh, you don't like it when the gov't disrespects your privacy, your possessions, and your thoughts, and then they try to take away your means of defending these rights. Sounds familiar.
I'm not talking about just the police abusing their power. I'm talking about the entire system going bad. And yes, the Nazis are a perfect example of this. Without their guns, no one had even a small chance of opposing them. But hey! The economy was on the rebound so who cares! Whatever.
The US government itself has multiple agencies unconstitutionally equipped to bear arms against its own citizenry. Add to that the numerous state and local agencies. This is wrong and I don't deny that. This is why I vote Constitution, because no other party is working to change this. As another poster said somewhere in this story, US gov't in practice is a far cry from what it is on paper.
I'm not talking about petty thieves, here. I'm talking about somebody that wants you dead for whatever reason. If he's willing to break that law, I'm sure he can track down a gun (or a simple baseball bat to bash your head with!) if he wants to. An armed victim is a good deterrant.
Flamebait != Disagree
Yeah, it worked really well back in 1776, didn't it? Dang authoritarian governments restricting civil liberties...good thing some folks had some guns to do something about it.
If you won't even consider the possibility of abuse by the authorities, then abuse is inevitable. What if the police do start abusing their power? You have no recourse, no means to defend yourself and your family. Nazi Germany disarmed their population, too, BTW. And fat lot of good a camera is going to do if a criminal with an illegal gun breaks into your house and shoots you dead. Sure, he'll be caught, but it's a little too late by then for you law-abiding non-gun-owning citizens, isn't it?
More kids are killed in car accidents every year in the US than in gun accidents. A nut driving down kids in a school parking lot gets no media attention, but a nut with a gun in school gets every major network. Don't tell me there's not an attack on our freedoms.
Flamebait != Disagree
Oops, sorry! The phrasing of my original post did make it sound like education was grunt labor, didn't it? That wasn't what I intended.
If I were on speaking terms with a buckyball, I would address him as "Mr. Ball," or perhaps "Bucky" if we became good friends.
OK, it's lame, sue me.
Well, the farmers would be in luck. Maybe they'd be able to get decent prices, instead of relying on gov't subsidy to survive. Of course, most farmers have been forced to specialize to be profitable, so even they are heavily reliant on the infrastructure. Used to be that a farmer had several kinds of animals and grew at least three kinds of grain so he could still make it if one of these failed. Now if the infrastructure collapsed, even the farmers might not make it.
Heck, if I even went back one hundred years in time, my skills would be worthless. Here's what I figure I could do.
Pretty sad to think that many of us have no practical skills that would help us survive. We'd be reduced to grunt labor. The last century has seen so many tech advances that have forced us to specialize. Going back 200, 300, or 1000 years wouldn't be tremendously different than just 100.
This makes me feel like I'm reading _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_ again.
Exactly! If you know you're never going to respond to ads, it makes sense that you'll save the advertiser money if they don't have to deliver the ad to you. If the advertiser is smart, anyway...he should be paying the publisher a small rate for views and a higher rate for click-thrus. This is more of a gamble for the publisher, who will want to get a high CTR to break even, since views alone (at a lower rate) will not pay off as well...maybe not enough to cover his bandwidth costs.
I keep this link on my homepage for just such times as this. Go read it.
Having the system figure out what you like would be a waste of time. Just put a new section in the user preferences to select kinds of ads to view. Opera does this for their ad-ware browser, and it works just fine. My wife set up our copy at home to cover our combined interests as soon as she got into the prefs.
I agree. What the kid did was wrong. The principal could have sued for slander, libel, defamation of character, or whatever. (IANAL) But it should have been the principal as an individual, not the school. I'd love to see the principal turn around and do that now, and get the money back from the kid. Of course, only the lawyers are getting rich...
There's a lot more to social life than consuming alcohol, you know.
Heck yes I consider my social life. It's part of the whole "quality of life" package. I just wish it weren't so blamed hard to find a tech job in smaller communities, because I hate city life. I'm leaving Des Moines for Rochester, MN.
In smaller towns, the "rat race" (and traffic) doesn't stink so bad.
In smaller towns, there seems to be more emphasis on building relationships within the community. Social life is more easily found outside the bars.
In smaller towns, it's easier to get out into the "Big Blue Room" and go fishing, biking, whatever.
Smaller towns are generally safer places to raise a family.
These are things I value. So darned right I consider social life when looking at my career. Yeah, you take a hit in the pay, assuming you can find a job to begin with, but it's worth it.
I never implied that free==Free. What I said was that a "traditional" license usually means that I get monetary compensation. The GPL means I get a different kind of compensation...essentially the right to use any derivative or extension of my Free code.
The code itself is Free. The users of the code have the restriction that they cannot impinge on the Freedom of the code. It's the same between people, if you want to view it that way. Freedom to one is restriction to another. Your Freedom is a restriction on me against killing you (for example).
You're wrong. I have my code. MS has their code and my code. By taking my work, they are getting value from me, which I think I deserve compensation for. I am not a MS employee, and the code is Free, so I am not seeking monetary compensation. What I'm seeking is a free exchange of ideas for mutual improvement. I have a reasonable expectation that improvements to my Free work will also be Free. That is my compensation.
I never forced MS to use my code! If they want to use it, they abide by the restrictions, or they can implement the same thing themselves. If I were using a more traditional license, they'd have to pay me a royalty fee to use my code. The GPL's requirement that modified Free code must also be Free is just a different stipulation.
Heh, you're welcome. I'm somewhat surprised that so many people agreed with me. At least, enough to get me a 5. It sort of encourages me to get around to writing that letter on behalf of the Excelsior campaign.
Rick Berman doesn't know good Trek from a hole in the ground. What we really wanted was Excelsior! Get it straight, Berman!
I'm personally fed up with the over-merchandised crud that's being pushed on us under the guise of Star Trek nowadays. The quality of the series has been consistently declining since TNG. Even the low-budget TOS (my personal fave because it's the original) beats DS9 and VOY.
OK, I just read the article.
I agree with Hatch's sentiment, but this idea is ludicrous. You can't just take someone's copyright away. That will never fly. He's right in that the recording companies need a good kick in the rear to get them to offer the services that customers want, but this isn't the way to do it.
Napster is fine in theory, but in reality people were stealing music they never planned to pay for. There does need to be a way to digitally distribute music on the 'net...the demand is there. People are willing to pay a reasonable price for the use of music. The record companies need to realize that and get a service in place.
Too bad there isn't a good way for music artists to become well-known without the companies' marketing machine. Eliminating the middleman would be good for artists and fans.
Now, I don't follow the actions of individual senators that closely, so take this with a grain of salt.
Orrin Hatch seems like a fairly decent guy. I don't agree with everything he does, and you probably don't either. But he seems to make an honest effort at really learning about the issues. He may make a mistake the first time out, but he seems to learn his lesson and do better on that issue the second time it comes up. Normally Republicans are depicted as "corporatist", but now it seems he realizes their power has gone too far.
I don't know if I necessarily agree with this either, but hey, I didn't read the article yet. We'll see how close the /. summary is.