Exactly the reason that someone needs to get off their butts and get the 7 new TLDs into operation! A.nom is exactly what you're looking for.
I also think it's somewhat unfair that some company can monopolize the use of a word and many variations of that word in all the TLD namespaces just because it has a trademark. If "meetjoeblack.com" was taken for last year's movie, fine. But if my own name is Joe Black, shouldn't I be able to have "meet-joe-black.com" for example? I agree, the web has become too commercialized, and the big companies have too much power that little non-profits and individuals have no chance against.
Hang tough, man. Many of the suggestions here are good. Publicize your case in the media. Contact the alumni. Make it unpopular for Purdue to do what they're doing. Then they'll be the ones caving.
I'd say that if you make your service better, it will become more profitable. The problem comes when unscrupulous persons try to go directly for the profit margin without improving the service in the process.
I also don't think it's feasible for the gov't to give free healthcare to everyone. What's the incentive to provide for yourself, as opposed to just being dead weight, if gov't take care of you? I'm not a heartless jerk, and voluntarily give away a good percentage of my income to help others. But I can't stand the thought of subsidizing someone's laziness.
So let charity and non-profits do that. Gov't mismanages the funding you give it anyway, and eats up too much with bureaucratic red tape. Non-profit orgs have incentive to be efficient because they're in the private sector. IMO it would be better to encourage people to give more to charity. Get the gov't out of the business of hand-holding, and say instead that that portion of income (or whatever) tax must instead to a list of "approved charities". This means that you still have to support something, but you get to choose what you support. And in the process, overall effectiveness of care (in this case) would go up. Those who are really needy get help. Those who are just lazy have to go out and work, and actually contribute to society.
Well it just makes sense to most Americans, myself included. When you have competition to drive it, it's gotta get better in order to compete!
I doubt we'll ever see the day gov't can do something (apart from national security) better than the private sector. IMO national security is about the only thing gov't should be involved in. It would lower my taxes.:)
How about something like a caricature of Gates (and other well known closed-source ppl) with arms wrapped protectively around a poorly wrapped gift, showing unwillingness to share, even though what they got ain't that great. Amidst them all, perhaps pushing the others out of the way, is Tux with a shiny, nicely wrapped present held out toward the reader. Perhaps marching behind/alongside are some other OSS mascots, to show that we're all in it together but Linux sort of leads the way (in many ppl's minds it does).
I'm generally pretty conservative, but I just don't see the ADA as being a burden on society. The intent is that society will benefit by allowing handicapped people to function as productive members of society. Anybody have a problem with this?
Now, there are people who try to abuse it. Like the policeman who was fired because he couldn't make a comprehensible report and claimed to have "Disability of Written Expression" or the people who tried to claim that they were discriminated against because they couldn't perform certain jobs, like being a pilot, that required a certain standard of uncorrected vision.
I agree with you. I think I've expressed my views in my other posts on this story. Everyone should have a fair shot in life, including online. But I think there should be a level of reality to it as well. How much accomodation is reasonable? How far do you go before it's lunacy? I don't think we need to cater to minorities. At the same time, it is only fair to go to a reasonable length to accomodate them the best we can.
I think I'll give up on that. No matter what I say someone is going to think I'm a hard nose while someone else will think I'm a bleeding heart. Heh.
I also like your policeman example. It reminds me of this guy on the city crew that I know. He's too fat to fit down a manhole. I guess he can be assigned other tasks, but it kind of sucks for his co-workers that he gets out of that part of the job.
To sum up, probably 95% of websites today can reasonably do more than they are to be accessibly designed. I think most blind web users would be thrilled just to have ALT text on 100% of the images out there. That in itself is an indicator of how bad it is...when just getting to mediocre would be welcomed! I use the Bobby validator, but I think several of its suggestions are quite extreme. Like a poster said in another thread (paraphrasing): a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm not going to but 1000 word LONGDESC in every image! I think somewhere between these two points is a good compromise.
Yes, unfortunately that's the case. Unless it's going to hurt the bottom line, many corporations aren't going to do a darn thing.
I just hate the precedent it sets. Legislation tends to be too sweeping to deal with many real-life situations. Like, I can see why you make it illegal to tamper with the mail and put stuff in someone's mailbox, but I have nothing against postal carriers who leave Christmas cards to those on their route. Do you know what I'm getting at?
Once you set the precedent, it's just that much more oppportunity for an overly litigious society full of greedy lawyers to go after honest people. I think if you've put a reasonable "good faith" effort into it, hey, that's sufficient. The more resources you have at your disposal, the more effort you can reasonably be expected to put forth.
On a slightly different tack, is there any sort of screening to prevent frivolous lawsuits? If there were the possibility that a suit could be thrown out earlier in the process, with some sort of fine attached, maybe we could expedite and improve the justice system. Things that might fall into this category: imprisoned felons suing because they only have b&w TV and not color, or ADA suits against small non-profits (as in too small to have a web site if someone wasn't donating it). What do you think?
I completely agree. As the 'net continues to gain importance, we risk relegating the disabled to second-class status unless we all do our parts to make our web sites accessible.
I am a huge supporter of a widely supported HTML/CSS standard, accessible web design, ALT tags, Any Browser/Any Resolution/Any Color Depth web design. Just because someone else doesn't have exactly the same system configuration you do is no reason they shouldn't be able to access the content of your site in some fashion. The web is about communication, you know? Personally I think it's just plain foolish for any business to turn away potential clients just because they're lax. "It is too much hassle to make a curb cut. We don't really need business from paraplegics anyway," or "Bah, ALT text is for wimps. We don't need the business of any blind people." It amounts to the same thing.
However, I really hope this lawsuit fails utterly. You can't legislate everything that people do. Pretty soon there will be laws against talking too quietly, too loudly, or slurring, because people with hearing impairment might not be able to make out what you say.:P I could go on with examples, but I'll spare you.:)
This country (USA) is too PC for its own good. Harrison Bergeron, indeed. I've never liked the PC movement. I find that biblical principles suffice. If you love your neighbor, you'll do things for him without being mandated by law to do so.
Anyone who has seen voyager knows that the current Star Trek idea is over. Insurection sucked and so does voyager. They should've ran with that idea of doing a show about Captain Sulu and the U.S.S excelsior. The old series never went bad
They actually thought of doing that? I thought I was the only person that thought of that! I'd love to see Sulu and Rand flying around in the Excelsior! They're still young enough, and it would show some good "missing years" stuff.
Do you think that a show set before TOS would have a chance? Say, early days of the Federation, not too long after the discovery of warp drive.
In any case, I usually have it just for background noise. If it's loud enough that I can make out my favorite songs well, I end up jamming along with them instead of getting anything useful done.:) My employers would take a dim view of that, I think.
Actually, it's the Netscape/IE rendering that's lame. Opera does a darn good job from what I've seen. If you haven't noticed, Mozilla also "breaks" alot of HTML that works fine with Netscape/IE, so that it "looks 'weird'".
Yes, Opera's interface is a little weird. It's that darn single window thing. I hope like heck that the Mac version will follow standard conventions and use multiple windows.
It's their only product. Without pulling in money from somewhere, the guys don't get paid. If you can't make a living, you quickly go do something else. Duh. I haven't looked much into how the whole free software movement actually works, but somebody's gotta be paying your rent, right? So either you have a full time job on the side of your FS devel, or some big company is subsidizing the devel.
CT
still maintaining the same old dribble?
on
Managing Geeks
·
· Score: 1
If you want a lower TCO for your desktop, you buy a Mac. If you want a lower TCO for your servers, you go with *n*x. (Yes, the gurus can run *n*x on the desktop, too, but most people can't.)
I've just skimmed the first 3 dozen or so posts, and I'm just wondering if it's been so long since 2010 that you've all forgotten it? Most of you are claiming that 2061 was the first mention of this! Clarke proposed the giant diamond in 2010, not in 2061. 2061 was such a weak story that I had to be reminded about the diamond mountain found on Europa...I remembered the 2010 reference immediately. 2061 simply continued the plotline.
2010, as I recall. Dave Bowman was scoping out the life that existed in the Jovian atmosphere to see if it was viable for evolution into intelligence. It wasn't, so Jupiter gets turned into Lucifer so that Europan life might have a chance. In the process he finds that the carbon that filters down has been squeezed into an Earth-sized diamond.
And then he refers to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I thought it was humorous when I read it.
Did anyone else think 2061 was pretty abysmal? Has anyone read 3001? I'm guessing that is about the same.
Buy the kid an iMac if you're worried about the "gender differentiation" then. Cool colors, and the OS won't BSOD on you. And in less than a year you can install a BSD-based OS on it that will have the same UI that your kid has gotten used to. Beauty.
I remember when I was in the Transformers phase. I got a GoBot one year for Christmas. It sucked. The Transformers were characters. The GoBots were just changeable toys.
Now why did I reply to this post??? Darned if I know.
Personally, I think it ("Christianizing" a popular logo) is pretty cool. They're a great way of striking up conversation, same as saying, "Hey that's a cool Tommy Hilfiger shirt." (Of course, the response in this case would be, "Actually if you look again, it's not a Tommy Hilfiger shirt." "Oh? Oh hey, that's nifty. Where'd you get it?" Etc etc.)
Besides, American culture is so steeped in commercialism, that you can get people to pay you for the privilege of wearing your logo! I don't feel like giving free advertising to a company I know nothing and care nothing about. I'd rather wear something that makes the kind of statement I want to. If I can do it in a way that attracts notice, hey, that's great.
As far as "Jesux" becoming a reality, I think it's somewhat absurd. We don't need the fragmentation.
Slashdot Mirror
If so, I'll have to tell my girlfriend about her alma mater. I'm sure she'll be thrilled.
CT
Exactly the reason that someone needs to get off their butts and get the 7 new TLDs into operation! A .nom is exactly what you're looking for.
I also think it's somewhat unfair that some company can monopolize the use of a word and many variations of that word in all the TLD namespaces just because it has a trademark. If "meetjoeblack.com" was taken for last year's movie, fine. But if my own name is Joe Black, shouldn't I be able to have "meet-joe-black.com" for example? I agree, the web has become too commercialized, and the big companies have too much power that little non-profits and individuals have no chance against.
Hang tough, man. Many of the suggestions here are good. Publicize your case in the media. Contact the alumni. Make it unpopular for Purdue to do what they're doing. Then they'll be the ones caving.
CT
I'd say that if you make your service better, it will become more profitable. The problem comes when unscrupulous persons try to go directly for the profit margin without improving the service in the process.
I also don't think it's feasible for the gov't to give free healthcare to everyone. What's the incentive to provide for yourself, as opposed to just being dead weight, if gov't take care of you? I'm not a heartless jerk, and voluntarily give away a good percentage of my income to help others. But I can't stand the thought of subsidizing someone's laziness.
So let charity and non-profits do that. Gov't mismanages the funding you give it anyway, and eats up too much with bureaucratic red tape. Non-profit orgs have incentive to be efficient because they're in the private sector. IMO it would be better to encourage people to give more to charity. Get the gov't out of the business of hand-holding, and say instead that that portion of income (or whatever) tax must instead to a list of "approved charities". This means that you still have to support something, but you get to choose what you support. And in the process, overall effectiveness of care (in this case) would go up. Those who are really needy get help. Those who are just lazy have to go out and work, and actually contribute to society.
CT
From what I've heard, I'm led to believe it's about half of that. $40-$50k. But I'll keep reading to see what the rest of you feel.
CT
Well it just makes sense to most Americans, myself included. When you have competition to drive it, it's gotta get better in order to compete!
I doubt we'll ever see the day gov't can do something (apart from national security) better than the private sector. IMO national security is about the only thing gov't should be involved in. It would lower my taxes. :)
CT
I never voted him in to begin with.
And I worked on getting him out in '96.
But then, this may be the best thing that his administration has done. Seems we disagree on several points. :)
CT
How about something like a caricature of Gates (and other well known closed-source ppl) with arms wrapped protectively around a poorly wrapped gift, showing unwillingness to share, even though what they got ain't that great. Amidst them all, perhaps pushing the others out of the way, is Tux with a shiny, nicely wrapped present held out toward the reader. Perhaps marching behind/alongside are some other OSS mascots, to show that we're all in it together but Linux sort of leads the way (in many ppl's minds it does).
Hope this helps spark an idea.
CT
I agree with you. I think I've expressed my views in my other posts on this story. Everyone should have a fair shot in life, including online. But I think there should be a level of reality to it as well. How much accomodation is reasonable? How far do you go before it's lunacy? I don't think we need to cater to minorities. At the same time, it is only fair to go to a reasonable length to accomodate them the best we can.
I think I'll give up on that. No matter what I say someone is going to think I'm a hard nose while someone else will think I'm a bleeding heart. Heh.
I also like your policeman example. It reminds me of this guy on the city crew that I know. He's too fat to fit down a manhole. I guess he can be assigned other tasks, but it kind of sucks for his co-workers that he gets out of that part of the job.
To sum up, probably 95% of websites today can reasonably do more than they are to be accessibly designed. I think most blind web users would be thrilled just to have ALT text on 100% of the images out there. That in itself is an indicator of how bad it is...when just getting to mediocre would be welcomed! I use the Bobby validator, but I think several of its suggestions are quite extreme. Like a poster said in another thread (paraphrasing): a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm not going to but 1000 word LONGDESC in every image! I think somewhere between these two points is a good compromise.
CT
Yes, unfortunately that's the case. Unless it's going to hurt the bottom line, many corporations aren't going to do a darn thing.
I just hate the precedent it sets. Legislation tends to be too sweeping to deal with many real-life situations. Like, I can see why you make it illegal to tamper with the mail and put stuff in someone's mailbox, but I have nothing against postal carriers who leave Christmas cards to those on their route. Do you know what I'm getting at?
Once you set the precedent, it's just that much more oppportunity for an overly litigious society full of greedy lawyers to go after honest people. I think if you've put a reasonable "good faith" effort into it, hey, that's sufficient. The more resources you have at your disposal, the more effort you can reasonably be expected to put forth.
On a slightly different tack, is there any sort of screening to prevent frivolous lawsuits? If there were the possibility that a suit could be thrown out earlier in the process, with some sort of fine attached, maybe we could expedite and improve the justice system. Things that might fall into this category: imprisoned felons suing because they only have b&w TV and not color, or ADA suits against small non-profits (as in too small to have a web site if someone wasn't donating it). What do you think?
CT
I completely agree. As the 'net continues to gain importance, we risk relegating the disabled to second-class status unless we all do our parts to make our web sites accessible.
Mine is. Is yours?
CT
I am a huge supporter of a widely supported HTML/CSS standard, accessible web design, ALT tags, Any Browser/Any Resolution/Any Color Depth web design. Just because someone else doesn't have exactly the same system configuration you do is no reason they shouldn't be able to access the content of your site in some fashion. The web is about communication, you know? Personally I think it's just plain foolish for any business to turn away potential clients just because they're lax. "It is too much hassle to make a curb cut. We don't really need business from paraplegics anyway," or "Bah, ALT text is for wimps. We don't need the business of any blind people." It amounts to the same thing.
However, I really hope this lawsuit fails utterly. You can't legislate everything that people do. Pretty soon there will be laws against talking too quietly, too loudly, or slurring, because people with hearing impairment might not be able to make out what you say. :P I could go on with examples, but I'll spare you. :)
This country (USA) is too PC for its own good. Harrison Bergeron, indeed. I've never liked the PC movement. I find that biblical principles suffice. If you love your neighbor, you'll do things for him without being mandated by law to do so.
CT
They actually thought of doing that? I thought I was the only person that thought of that! I'd love to see Sulu and Rand flying around in the Excelsior! They're still young enough, and it would show some good "missing years" stuff.
Do you think that a show set before TOS would have a chance? Say, early days of the Federation, not too long after the discovery of warp drive.
CT
Actually I imagine it sounding alot more like "zoot" ... which means we could make Holy Grail gags out of it.
Bad, naughty Xut!
CT
Oh yeah! If I could buy a box for cheap without having to deal with the M$ hassle, I'd do it. It would have to be cheap though, because I'm broke. :)
CT
Typically I listen to KZZQ nowadays. Unless it's not coming in due to the weather or other interference. Then I turn to my CD collection, which is mostly the sort of stuff they play on KZZQ anyway. Like Five Iron Frenzy, Smalltown Poets, Rebecca St. James, Satellite Soul, Cædmon's Call, etc.
In any case, I usually have it just for background noise. If it's loud enough that I can make out my favorite songs well, I end up jamming along with them instead of getting anything useful done. :) My employers would take a dim view of that, I think.
CT
Agreed. It was simply too bone-headed a decision to last.
I can see them changing prices for future Macs, maybe, but cancelling existing orders? No way. It would have ticked too many people off.
CT
Quick replies to your three points...
CT
Oh, you meant drivel. ;)
I was wondering where basketball came into this.
What a laugh.
If you want a lower TCO for your desktop, you buy a Mac. If you want a lower TCO for your servers, you go with *n*x. (Yes, the gurus can run *n*x on the desktop, too, but most people can't.)
Micros~1 trying to win a TCO debate is hilarious.
CT
I've just skimmed the first 3 dozen or so posts, and I'm just wondering if it's been so long since 2010 that you've all forgotten it? Most of you are claiming that 2061 was the first mention of this! Clarke proposed the giant diamond in 2010, not in 2061. 2061 was such a weak story that I had to be reminded about the diamond mountain found on Europa...I remembered the 2010 reference immediately. 2061 simply continued the plotline.
CT
Actually, I believe he died a few years ago. Sagan and Asimov are dead, too.
CT
2010, as I recall. Dave Bowman was scoping out the life that existed in the Jovian atmosphere to see if it was viable for evolution into intelligence. It wasn't, so Jupiter gets turned into Lucifer so that Europan life might have a chance. In the process he finds that the carbon that filters down has been squeezed into an Earth-sized diamond.
And then he refers to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. I thought it was humorous when I read it.
Did anyone else think 2061 was pretty abysmal? Has anyone read 3001? I'm guessing that is about the same.
CT
Buy the kid an iMac if you're worried about the "gender differentiation" then. Cool colors, and the OS won't BSOD on you. And in less than a year you can install a BSD-based OS on it that will have the same UI that your kid has gotten used to. Beauty.
CT
That's because GoBots sucked.
I remember when I was in the Transformers phase. I got a GoBot one year for Christmas. It sucked. The Transformers were characters. The GoBots were just changeable toys.
Now why did I reply to this post??? Darned if I know.
CT
Personally, I think it ("Christianizing" a popular logo) is pretty cool. They're a great way of striking up conversation, same as saying, "Hey that's a cool Tommy Hilfiger shirt." (Of course, the response in this case would be, "Actually if you look again, it's not a Tommy Hilfiger shirt." "Oh? Oh hey, that's nifty. Where'd you get it?" Etc etc.)
Besides, American culture is so steeped in commercialism, that you can get people to pay you for the privilege of wearing your logo! I don't feel like giving free advertising to a company I know nothing and care nothing about. I'd rather wear something that makes the kind of statement I want to. If I can do it in a way that attracts notice, hey, that's great.
As far as "Jesux" becoming a reality, I think it's somewhat absurd. We don't need the fragmentation.
CT