There is so much stupidity going on in our state, including spending and tax increases in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression, knee-jerk reactions to viral advertising campaigns using lite-brites (which did NOT cause an overreaction in much larger, more vulnerable cities), and so forth. Therefore, I propose the following tags for stories involving stupidity here in Massachusetts (even in the event where a sudden outbreak of common sense occurs, because it was masshattery which got us there in the first place):
taxachusetts massholes masshattery
I hope you welcome and endorse this proposal. I, for one, am ashamed of what is going on here in my state and even as a business owner I am hoping that the sales tax and income tax and fuel tax increases in the midst of this recession break this state financially just to prove to the lawmakers that one cannot tax one's way back to prosperity.
What we need right now is deep spending and tax cuts, and that INCLUDES firing the moron police officers who resulted in this moronic case.
Regarding 64-bit Flash: the Linux 64-bit version was the first version of Flash 10 adobe shipped. Linux users experienced preferential treatment for once.
Regarding silverlight 2.x and the need for it: Netflix.
The kyoto treaty was never really about stopping global warming (which is probably not actually occurring, but the jury is still out on that); it's about creating a new type of stock exchange which gives certain elites the right to print more money and laugh all the way to the bank as everyone ranging from mom & pop shops to public utilities and everyone in between are required to trade 'carbon offsets' to meet the 'green' requirements.
It's a farce designed by Al Gore and a few others to get rich. Just watch and see - it's already happened. A few years ago I called it on the bandwidth caps (it's all about maintaining on-demand video monopolies, not alleviating network congestion) and you'll see I am right on this one as well. The whole "green" movement is bullshit.
Not that I am not for conservation: believe me, I'm all for it. However, I support it from a greedy, self-centered perspective (how can I use my resources most effectively) rather than some quasi-pantheistic philosophical view.
Can't a scangauge access those settings in an ODB-II car? One of my cars is a '91 is ODB-1 (and my car has no no Optispark distributor, thank God - those are the worst distributors ever made for any car, let alone the worst failure point in any 'Vette) with 1 coil per cylinder, and to change the timing I need to have a new EPROM burned with a new timing lookup table.
If you can do it with a scangauge, can't you adjust the timing on your ODB-II car? I know it can change some ECM parameters but I couldn't tell from the manual nor from the web site whether or not it can adjust timing profiles.
That may be true on the Dimension, Inspiron, XPS, and Studio lines, but is not true on Optiplex, Latitude, and Dimension.:-)
When you buy Dell crap, expect to get treated like crap. When you buy their higher-end lines, they don't treat you so badly by shoving spyware down your throat.
As far as Vostro is concerned, I have no idea, I have never dealt with their Vostro line yet. At the price levels I see, I should be glad because they're probably festering piles of crap.
Contrary to what we might prefer, the USA is not the center of the universe, and American English is not even the original, let alone only English dialect. In fact, we are so far off we spell words such as "standardise," "colour," "centre," "flavour," and many others incorrectly because one guy (Noah Webster) in the 1800s thought it would be a really great idea to dumb down the language a bit, and since words like "razor" and "colour" sound sorta-kinda-but-not-quite alike, dropping the "u" would be perfectly fine. and even though "standardise" was kind of a slurred "s" but not quite a "z" but sounded almost like a "z" it would be fine spelled with a z, because obviously Americans are too stupid to learn to spell words in this complicated language.
That trend of lowering the bar and dumbing down of America has continued ever since then and is showing no signs of slowing down.
In other words, "twig" may not have that common usage here, but it does elsewhere.
This is taking a moment to explain that the hard drive is one internal part, and that the entire "box" is the computer itself, it becomes a "computer system" when I/O devices (keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc.) are connected, will educate the customer and establish credibility.
Directed to the submitter:
But let me ask you this: how old are you? Are you in your 30s and did you use a Commodore, a Trash 80, Atari, an Apple IIc, or any of the other non-x86 personal computers of the '70s-'80s? If so, did you at any point ever refer to the computer itself as a "keyboard" even know you knew full well that the entire unit is not just a "keyboard?" More importantly, did other people understand you were not referring to just the PCB+springs+keycaps? Taking this a step further, did you understand what the customer meant when saying "hard drive?" If so, then why are you holding this against the customer?
This is a moment where you can win a customer for life and gain a handful of referrals, or you can piss them off and let them go tell 20 other people how much you suck. Win the customer over, even if it's peanuts, because that person may eventually lead to a referral for a big contract. Even if you don't want the work, just be nice to them and explain the issue without coming off as an arrogant jerk.
I'd say "flash card" is more accurate than "flash drive", except that people would say "but that's not an index card."
It's not a drive. Nothing is being "driven" internally. It's all solid state. So, techs are every bit as bad as laypersons where it comes to mis-using terms in certain cases.
A solid-state device is not a drive, regardless of what Windows might call it!
A distributor is what stone-age engines used to "distribute" electricity to spark plugs before engineers got smarter and started using magnetic triggers and individual coils.
In short, it's an unreliable mechanical device which will crack and take water in or just wear out or foul up at the worst possible time.
And I've got to admit that I probably rejected laptops with good specs specifically for their styling: "gamer" laptops with blinking lights and assorted dumb-nerd bling.
That strikes me as a good, practical use for Duck Tape or carbon fiber or glass matting and epoxy resin!:)
* occasional gaming (unfortunately I need to run Windows for that - neither cedega nor crossover games will run the games) * video editing and transcoding * graphic design * embroidery (unfortunately I need to run Windows for that) * web design * occasional small coding projects
My preferred environment is Linux. When I buy desktop computers, I build them myself; I want workstation-level motherboards and nvidia-based video cards with low failure rates and decent performance.
When I buy laptops, I seek out desktop performance. For me, that means Dell Precision, Dell Latitude, or a higher-end Asus. Fast dual core processor (quad core isn't worth the premium Dell charges), internal RAID, and the smallest hard drives and RAM they'll ship because I can upgrade those from a distributor or Newegg for 1/5 to 1/3 the markup Dell charges.
It'd be really neat if I could get a Precision M4400 or M6400 in purple or hot pink, or even blue, but unfortunately the only option is an orange color (Covet). Thanks but no thanks, I'll take the industrial-looking graphite.
Now, when it comes to a netbook, which I will buy, a nice blue would be nice. The Aspire One would do nicely but there is a huge range of options, and since the goal there is solely maximum portability, performance isn't the goal. For a netbook I will accept compromises for style.
A computer is a tool, not an accessory. When it comes to tools I try to be practical.
So you lose fanboys. Everyone else will continue reading, realizing that the writer is either trying to be funny by playing with Micro$oft's or $ony's name, or is trying to make a point, or is just as blindly bigoted as the fanboy. I use M$ sometimes to make fun of Microsoft - I used to be an avid fan of them, until they started to treat their customers like criminals with their activation and validation crap. When they started that I started doing the M$ thing to make fun.
kernel.org looks horrible though, and does not represent what a (complete) Linux system is capable site.
kernel.org is designed by geeks, for geeks. What is needed is a central site which is designed by designers, with marketing types' input, for regular people. THAT and getting the "RTFM" and "it's open source, fix it yourself" folks out of positions where they respond to user questions on project mailing lists and messageboards.
It's like Napster (original version): There are those who won't pay regardless. If it's not on P2P people will rip CDs or simply record off radio or cable music channels.
People who will buy will use copies like trial editions. I used Napster to explore, and in the time Napster was at its peak, I purchased more CDs than I did in the previous 13 years I owned CD players. I downloaded at random, explored the MP3s, went ought and bought what I liked, cleared off space on my HDD, and downloaded another bunch. I was buying several CDs per DAY. I discovered I like genres and artists I'd never have even remotely considered were I not able to try them at random for free.
When the RIAA started suing their customer base, I quit downloading, quit listening to pop radio, and most importantly, stopped buying CDs. I went almost five YEARS without buying even one CD. Now I buy maybe 1-2 new CDs per year; when I do buy I search out used CDs. Why? I am voting with my wallet.
Book publishers should take note of the backlash against the big labels; many book prices are a bit ridiculous, so it should not come as a shock to anyone that people are sharing books.
Doctorow has the right attitude; he is looking at P2P sharing of eBooks as free advertising. There sre those who won't buy regardless, so they would be likely to check them out of the libary or just sit in Borders or Barnes & Noble and read them in the store without buying them, so I wouldn't even worry about them. They aren't your target customer base anyhow; instead, leverage them to get the free advertising that only word-of-mouth can provide.
As for me, I have downloaded several eBooks. I've downloaded The Phantom Tollbooth (I own a paper copy, purchased new), The Chronicles of Narnia (I've bought three editions of that, all new, to replace old, dog-eared copies) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (again, I also own it on paper), 1984 (I've bought two copies), and Fahrenheit 451 (I've bought two copies). Why? I wanted to keep copies with me on my PDA to read in my spare time when traveling, or when stuck at work on late nights waiting for batch jobs to finish. They've received my money multiple times. No harm done. I recommend 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 to anyone who cares about Big Brother and propaganda in the media, and I recommend the Chronicles of Narnia series to anyone who has even an inkling of interest in fantasy/adventure books. I also download quite a bit of stuff off of project gutenberg.
I prefer the DRM-free format that has worked for thousands of years though (the printed page); I can hand a printed book to a friend at any time without any restrictions on who is able to read the book, and if the media is damaged (torn page) it is easily repaired (taped) and even if I do not repair it, it is still quite usable. Paper books just work, and they're far more comfortable for reading than a tiny PDA screen or even a large 24" to 26" computer monitor, and what's more, they even work without AC or batteries!:-D
But still, don't do what the RIAA did; embrace P2P and consider even seeding P2P networks with older works or older editions for the free publicity. Treat customers like drug dealers do; ge them addicted to your product by giving some out free so they keep coming back to buy more. It's simple and it can work.
Oh you can underline in a different color from the text? Awesome! That will go perfect for my next presentation when I choose six different typefaces in three different weights on each slide - with a sparkling effect! I was wondering how I can get my main points to stand out against the animated background! Thank you so much for the design tip!;)
Because I know the sites need revenue to survive and I don't want to subscribe to 850,000 web sites (okay, it'd be just a handful really) I refused to run anything like adblock. I'd block popups and let other ads display.
However modern ads are even more obnoxious than pop-up and pop-under ads: they pop out and float over the content, they start playing annoying videos and audio without my prompting it, and they stay in the way over the content even after they're through playing. I stuck it out about a week and then finally installed adblock.
Now, the sites and advertisers lose out. Eventually when everyone gets fed up and turns to ad blockers, everybody will lose because the sites will either go subscription-only or shut down completely. Advertisers have gone too far and are alienating people who were willing to not block them to keep revenue flowing, but do they really think I'm going to buy their crap if they negatively impact my computing experience? Hell no! I'll just block their ads, and won't even be aware of what they're selling. If I happen to buy from a competitor because I got so annoyed that I didn't see their advert, well, tough shit. They brought it on themselves.
I'm pretty sure he is referring to the transaction fee, which here in America can range anywhere from $.05 to $.30 per transaction - IN ADDITION to the discount rate, which in this case would be MOTO and not be eligible for the sub-2% "swiped" rates you commonly see advertised online, but more along the lines of 2% to 3.5% (or more, if they have a really, really bad deal or are a high-risk company with a LOT of chargebacks).
Incidentally, why does/. not support the ¢ HTML entity?
That would fall foul of the DMCA(which sucks; but it is pretty clear).
Bypassing encryption/protection/DRM for the purpose of interoperability is perfectly legal. In this case, the interoperability required is backup software for the fair use copy. Ergo, interoperability issue.:-D
I just search TESS on uspto.gov for a trademark ( SRJC ) and got this result:
No TESS records were found to match the criteria of your query. Click on the New User Form BACK button in your browser to return to the previous TESS screen
Seems to me they need a better lawyer. On what legal basis are they threatening staff and students?
Try CAH and hermaphroditism on for size. Bi-weekly injections? That's nothing. Try injections every three days. Testosterone injections? Oestrogen injections? Cortisol injections (which I refuse to do now - I switched to a high-cholesterol diet)? Been there/done that.:)
Slashdot Mirror
There is so much stupidity going on in our state, including spending and tax increases in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression, knee-jerk reactions to viral advertising campaigns using lite-brites (which did NOT cause an overreaction in much larger, more vulnerable cities), and so forth. Therefore, I propose the following tags for stories involving stupidity here in Massachusetts (even in the event where a sudden outbreak of common sense occurs, because it was masshattery which got us there in the first place):
taxachusetts
massholes
masshattery
I hope you welcome and endorse this proposal. I, for one, am ashamed of what is going on here in my state and even as a business owner I am hoping that the sales tax and income tax and fuel tax increases in the midst of this recession break this state financially just to prove to the lawmakers that one cannot tax one's way back to prosperity.
What we need right now is deep spending and tax cuts, and that INCLUDES firing the moron police officers who resulted in this moronic case.
It won't run the Netflix player yet. :(
Regarding 64-bit Flash: the Linux 64-bit version was the first version of Flash 10 adobe shipped. Linux users experienced preferential treatment for once.
Regarding silverlight 2.x and the need for it: Netflix.
They're illegal. In a bathroom you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Thank God humanity did not have to endure watching Plans 1 through 8!
The kyoto treaty was never really about stopping global warming (which is probably not actually occurring, but the jury is still out on that); it's about creating a new type of stock exchange which gives certain elites the right to print more money and laugh all the way to the bank as everyone ranging from mom & pop shops to public utilities and everyone in between are required to trade 'carbon offsets' to meet the 'green' requirements.
It's a farce designed by Al Gore and a few others to get rich. Just watch and see - it's already happened. A few years ago I called it on the bandwidth caps (it's all about maintaining on-demand video monopolies, not alleviating network congestion) and you'll see I am right on this one as well. The whole "green" movement is bullshit.
Not that I am not for conservation: believe me, I'm all for it. However, I support it from a greedy, self-centered perspective (how can I use my resources most effectively) rather than some quasi-pantheistic philosophical view.
Can't a scangauge access those settings in an ODB-II car? One of my cars is a '91 is ODB-1 (and my car has no no Optispark distributor, thank God - those are the worst distributors ever made for any car, let alone the worst failure point in any 'Vette) with 1 coil per cylinder, and to change the timing I need to have a new EPROM burned with a new timing lookup table.
If you can do it with a scangauge, can't you adjust the timing on your ODB-II car? I know it can change some ECM parameters but I couldn't tell from the manual nor from the web site whether or not it can adjust timing profiles.
*snickerfits*
Sorry, I didn't intend to confuse the issue further.
That may be true on the Dimension, Inspiron, XPS, and Studio lines, but is not true on Optiplex, Latitude, and Dimension. :-)
When you buy Dell crap, expect to get treated like crap. When you buy their higher-end lines, they don't treat you so badly by shoving spyware down your throat.
As far as Vostro is concerned, I have no idea, I have never dealt with their Vostro line yet. At the price levels I see, I should be glad because they're probably festering piles of crap.
Contrary to what we might prefer, the USA is not the center of the universe, and American English is not even the original, let alone only English dialect. In fact, we are so far off we spell words such as "standardise," "colour," "centre," "flavour," and many others incorrectly because one guy (Noah Webster) in the 1800s thought it would be a really great idea to dumb down the language a bit, and since words like "razor" and "colour" sound sorta-kinda-but-not-quite alike, dropping the "u" would be perfectly fine. and even though "standardise" was kind of a slurred "s" but not quite a "z" but sounded almost like a "z" it would be fine spelled with a z, because obviously Americans are too stupid to learn to spell words in this complicated language.
That trend of lowering the bar and dumbing down of America has continued ever since then and is showing no signs of slowing down.
In other words, "twig" may not have that common usage here, but it does elsewhere.
This is taking a moment to explain that the hard drive is one internal part, and that the entire "box" is the computer itself, it becomes a "computer system" when I/O devices (keyboard, mouse, monitor, etc.) are connected, will educate the customer and establish credibility.
Directed to the submitter:
But let me ask you this: how old are you? Are you in your 30s and did you use a Commodore, a Trash 80, Atari, an Apple IIc, or any of the other non-x86 personal computers of the '70s-'80s? If so, did you at any point ever refer to the computer itself as a "keyboard" even know you knew full well that the entire unit is not just a "keyboard?" More importantly, did other people understand you were not referring to just the PCB+springs+keycaps? Taking this a step further, did you understand what the customer meant when saying "hard drive?" If so, then why are you holding this against the customer?
This is a moment where you can win a customer for life and gain a handful of referrals, or you can piss them off and let them go tell 20 other people how much you suck. Win the customer over, even if it's peanuts, because that person may eventually lead to a referral for a big contract. Even if you don't want the work, just be nice to them and explain the issue without coming off as an arrogant jerk.
I'd say "flash card" is more accurate than "flash drive", except that people would say "but that's not an index card."
It's not a drive. Nothing is being "driven" internally. It's all solid state. So, techs are every bit as bad as laypersons where it comes to mis-using terms in certain cases.
A solid-state device is not a drive, regardless of what Windows might call it!
A distributor is what stone-age engines used to "distribute" electricity to spark plugs before engineers got smarter and started using magnetic triggers and individual coils.
In short, it's an unreliable mechanical device which will crack and take water in or just wear out or foul up at the worst possible time.
That strikes me as a good, practical use for Duck Tape or carbon fiber or glass matting and epoxy resin! :)
Recipes? Check.
Cooking videos? Check.
Calorie counting? Check.
However, I also do:
* occasional gaming (unfortunately I need to run Windows for that - neither cedega nor crossover games will run the games)
* video editing and transcoding
* graphic design
* embroidery (unfortunately I need to run Windows for that)
* web design
* occasional small coding projects
My preferred environment is Linux. When I buy desktop computers, I build them myself; I want workstation-level motherboards and nvidia-based video cards with low failure rates and decent performance.
When I buy laptops, I seek out desktop performance. For me, that means Dell Precision, Dell Latitude, or a higher-end Asus. Fast dual core processor (quad core isn't worth the premium Dell charges), internal RAID, and the smallest hard drives and RAM they'll ship because I can upgrade those from a distributor or Newegg for 1/5 to 1/3 the markup Dell charges.
It'd be really neat if I could get a Precision M4400 or M6400 in purple or hot pink, or even blue, but unfortunately the only option is an orange color (Covet). Thanks but no thanks, I'll take the industrial-looking graphite.
Now, when it comes to a netbook, which I will buy, a nice blue would be nice. The Aspire One would do nicely but there is a huge range of options, and since the goal there is solely maximum portability, performance isn't the goal. For a netbook I will accept compromises for style.
A computer is a tool, not an accessory. When it comes to tools I try to be practical.
$.02
So you lose fanboys. Everyone else will continue reading, realizing that the writer is either trying to be funny by playing with Micro$oft's or $ony's name, or is trying to make a point, or is just as blindly bigoted as the fanboy. I use M$ sometimes to make fun of Microsoft - I used to be an avid fan of them, until they started to treat their customers like criminals with their activation and validation crap. When they started that I started doing the M$ thing to make fun.
In other words, get over it.
kernel.org looks horrible though, and does not represent what a (complete) Linux system is capable site.
kernel.org is designed by geeks, for geeks. What is needed is a central site which is designed by designers, with marketing types' input, for regular people. THAT and getting the "RTFM" and "it's open source, fix it yourself" folks out of positions where they respond to user questions on project mailing lists and messageboards.
It's like Napster (original version): There are those who won't pay regardless. If it's not on P2P people will rip CDs or simply record off radio or cable music channels.
People who will buy will use copies like trial editions. I used Napster to explore, and in the time Napster was at its peak, I purchased more CDs than I did in the previous 13 years I owned CD players. I downloaded at random, explored the MP3s, went ought and bought what I liked, cleared off space on my HDD, and downloaded another bunch. I was buying several CDs per DAY. I discovered I like genres and artists I'd never have even remotely considered were I not able to try them at random for free.
When the RIAA started suing their customer base, I quit downloading, quit listening to pop radio, and most importantly, stopped buying CDs. I went almost five YEARS without buying even one CD. Now I buy maybe 1-2 new CDs per year; when I do buy I search out used CDs. Why? I am voting with my wallet.
Book publishers should take note of the backlash against the big labels; many book prices are a bit ridiculous, so it should not come as a shock to anyone that people are sharing books.
Doctorow has the right attitude; he is looking at P2P sharing of eBooks as free advertising. There sre those who won't buy regardless, so they would be likely to check them out of the libary or just sit in Borders or Barnes & Noble and read them in the store without buying them, so I wouldn't even worry about them. They aren't your target customer base anyhow; instead, leverage them to get the free advertising that only word-of-mouth can provide.
As for me, I have downloaded several eBooks. I've downloaded The Phantom Tollbooth (I own a paper copy, purchased new), The Chronicles of Narnia (I've bought three editions of that, all new, to replace old, dog-eared copies) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (again, I also own it on paper), 1984 (I've bought two copies), and Fahrenheit 451 (I've bought two copies). Why? I wanted to keep copies with me on my PDA to read in my spare time when traveling, or when stuck at work on late nights waiting for batch jobs to finish. They've received my money multiple times. No harm done. I recommend 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 to anyone who cares about Big Brother and propaganda in the media, and I recommend the Chronicles of Narnia series to anyone who has even an inkling of interest in fantasy/adventure books. I also download quite a bit of stuff off of project gutenberg.
I prefer the DRM-free format that has worked for thousands of years though (the printed page); I can hand a printed book to a friend at any time without any restrictions on who is able to read the book, and if the media is damaged (torn page) it is easily repaired (taped) and even if I do not repair it, it is still quite usable. Paper books just work, and they're far more comfortable for reading than a tiny PDA screen or even a large 24" to 26" computer monitor, and what's more, they even work without AC or batteries! :-D
But still, don't do what the RIAA did; embrace P2P and consider even seeding P2P networks with older works or older editions for the free publicity. Treat customers like drug dealers do; ge them addicted to your product by giving some out free so they keep coming back to buy more. It's simple and it can work.
Oh you can underline in a different color from the text? Awesome! That will go perfect for my next presentation when I choose six different typefaces in three different weights on each slide - with a sparkling effect! I was wondering how I can get my main points to stand out against the animated background! Thank you so much for the design tip! ;)
Because I know the sites need revenue to survive and I don't want to subscribe to 850,000 web sites (okay, it'd be just a handful really) I refused to run anything like adblock. I'd block popups and let other ads display.
However modern ads are even more obnoxious than pop-up and pop-under ads: they pop out and float over the content, they start playing annoying videos and audio without my prompting it, and they stay in the way over the content even after they're through playing. I stuck it out about a week and then finally installed adblock.
Now, the sites and advertisers lose out. Eventually when everyone gets fed up and turns to ad blockers, everybody will lose because the sites will either go subscription-only or shut down completely. Advertisers have gone too far and are alienating people who were willing to not block them to keep revenue flowing, but do they really think I'm going to buy their crap if they negatively impact my computing experience? Hell no! I'll just block their ads, and won't even be aware of what they're selling. If I happen to buy from a competitor because I got so annoyed that I didn't see their advert, well, tough shit. They brought it on themselves.
Everybody loses!
I'm pretty sure he is referring to the transaction fee, which here in America can range anywhere from $.05 to $.30 per transaction - IN ADDITION to the discount rate, which in this case would be MOTO and not be eligible for the sub-2% "swiped" rates you commonly see advertised online, but more along the lines of 2% to 3.5% (or more, if they have a really, really bad deal or are a high-risk company with a LOT of chargebacks).
Incidentally, why does /. not support the ¢ HTML entity?
oh come on whether you like or hate kdawson that was funny!
Bypassing encryption/protection/DRM for the purpose of interoperability is perfectly legal. In this case, the interoperability required is backup software for the fair use copy. Ergo, interoperability issue. :-D
I just search TESS on uspto.gov for a trademark ( SRJC ) and got this result:
No TESS records were found to match the criteria of your query.
Click on the New User Form BACK button in your browser to return to the previous TESS screen
Seems to me they need a better lawyer. On what legal basis are they threatening staff and students?
Shots hurt? Oh cry me a river.
Try CAH and hermaphroditism on for size. Bi-weekly injections? That's nothing. Try injections every three days. Testosterone injections? Oestrogen injections? Cortisol injections (which I refuse to do now - I switched to a high-cholesterol diet)? Been there/done that. :)