Geocities has a lot of horrid pages on it, yet you don't hear nearly as much crap about geocities as you do myspace. Both services offer modest web pages for novice users, its just that myspace links them together as a network.
I was on geocities back when it was a decent free service (this was almost 10 years ago, back before they plastered ads on every square inch of white space with their DHTML abominations) I left when the ads started showing up.
My point is, geocities is old news and no one really cares about it anymore. It was popular once back in the day, but now you don't hear about it because it doesn't stand out like it used to. Eventually the same thing is going to happen to myspace when something more trendy comes along.
Geocities appears to be trying to play in the serious webhosting market in more recent times, so you can say that it is not in a position to compete with myspace anyway.
And Google for "maxtor sucks" if you want to read horror stories of people losing data due to the death of a hard drive.
I've heard a lot about the questionable quality of Maxtor drives, but my personal experience has been different.
I have an ancient 8 Gb Maxtor drive that I bought about 7-8 years ago as an upgrade for the computer that I was using then (an old Pentium 133) . When I got my most recent computer I found the Maxtor HD in a shoe box where it had been stashed for a few years and I decided to try it out. I hooked it up and all of the data was intact and readable. It still works great (I've got Kubuntu installed on it now and it's always been very reliable).
Either Maxtor's quality declined with time or maybe I got an exceptionally good one.
Given what I've heard [bestbuysux.org] about Best buy, I would venture to guess that your experience at that store is the norm rather than the anomaly. I've known people who work there, and they have had similar experiences, so the rest of it is probably true, too.
The biggest mystery is how BB stays in business when most of it's stores are primarily staffed by greedy and/or incompetent fools with only a few good people.
My manager was given $9000 to divide amongst a department of 11 people. We received half gallon jugs of maple syrup from her parents' farm, she received $9000. The best part was that she failed to notice the stamp across the label that read "Quality Control: Rejected".
What a bitch. Did the company do anything about that since she basically cut and ran with the money?
Computer knowledge is necessary in this day and age. If the schools pretended that computer skills were not important and glossed over it, students would be prepared for a world that no longer exists.
If you're worrying about infecting your computer with some DRM demon by feeding it a random music cd, then try ripping the cds with linux. Since most of the DRM software does not run under Linux (and even if it did you would have to authorize it with root access before it could install anything) you would likely be in the clear.
The real question is will it really be cracked (activation never was, well)
Windowx Xp activation cracks have been around for quite some time. My windows is ligit, but I still use it because I don't like the idea of having to beg microsoft to activate my install. The trick, of course, is finding one that is not a trojan.
I have a broadcom wifi device in my HP notebook and not even ndiswrapper could get the damn thing working under Kubuntu. To get wifi working at all I had to make the notebook a dual-boot.
Just fining these guys isn't going to make the problem go away. Unfortunately, I heard somewhere that the FTC doesn't have the power to shut down shit like this, you need the Department of Justice to do that. The only good thing about the FTC ruling is that it opens the door and provides good cause to get the DOJ involved. Whether that actually happens is another story.
One suggested cure for Autism is to enforce socialising on them. I'm dubious about the effectiveness of this, but I think if done in the right way it does help. However, the opposite is very possible and highly likely, a lack of socilising will make them worse.
Actually, this is one of the worst things that can be done, as it just makes the autistic person uncomfortable by making them do something that they don't want to do. This creates a very stressful situation and can easily lead to panic attacks (which many autistics are prone to)
As aspies/autistics get older we sometimes learn how to partially compensate for our social problems on our own without any assistance.
I wish I'd gotten in here sooner.
I am officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and I spent most of my childhood without TV. Even though I had to entertain myself in other ways such as reading, and indulging different hobbies (having several obsessive hobbies is in itself an autistic trait) I still turned out the way I did. The only way that TV could affect someone in this way is if they were already genetically or developmentally predisposed to it (or EVERYONE would be autistic, since nearly every kid watches TV in developed countries)
Also, it pisses me off when people try to "cure" autism. It's not some disease that I have, it's a part of who I am. If it were possible to remove all of my autistic traits, I wouldn't be the same person after said process was done. Autism is just a different way of seeing the world and interpreting things around me, and even though people mean well, the fact that they would want to override who I am and attempt to make me like they are does kind of insult me.
I feel that any headway with alternative fuels is going to come from the private sector, not from any state-sponsored program. I live in california, and things here are so bad that it takes months to get a pothole fixed and the people in sacramento are not people who I would trust to get anything done. Special interests practically run the state. There is already plenty of wasteful bureaucracy in this state and the last thing we need is another publically-funded think tank, especially one that is under no obligation to produce viable results.
Also, why should the oil companies have to pay for this? Gas in cali is high already because of our clean-air taxes, and just within the last few weeks it's gone down to under $3 for a 9/10 gallon. The oil companies are in this for a profit, and they're not about to take a loss over this tax. They'll find a way to recoup the loss, and the consumer is going to be inevitably stuck with it.
possibly b/c of tax. These guys are paying massive ammounts of income tax to the government due to their huge salaries, so the government actually wins by keeping these guys out of jail. Meanwhile, the shareholders get it up the ass.
I often like to really mess around with my digital images in Photoshop before I print them. Often, what I do goes beyond simple cropping and red eye removal. I often fix levels, clone out mistakes, among other things. Home printing can never be replaced for the real enthusiast b/c digital printing services probably don't bother to fix problems with the images too much when you order. Even if they do, it will probably cost you extra, and they aren't going to fix every little thing you want them to, so to get it done right you have to do it yourself.
Cubicles are a necessary evil. Companies use cubicles b/c they are simply more cost efficient. Giving everyone an office would be somewhat detrimental to profit margins, plus a building with that many small office-size rooms for rent would be somewhat difficult to find.
Slashdot Mirror
Geocities has a lot of horrid pages on it, yet you don't hear nearly as much crap about geocities as you do myspace. Both services offer modest web pages for novice users, its just that myspace links them together as a network. I was on geocities back when it was a decent free service (this was almost 10 years ago, back before they plastered ads on every square inch of white space with their DHTML abominations) I left when the ads started showing up. My point is, geocities is old news and no one really cares about it anymore. It was popular once back in the day, but now you don't hear about it because it doesn't stand out like it used to. Eventually the same thing is going to happen to myspace when something more trendy comes along. Geocities appears to be trying to play in the serious webhosting market in more recent times, so you can say that it is not in a position to compete with myspace anyway.
I don't like the name... KVM makes it sound like it's part of KDE, when it is not. SVM (Sun virtual machine would be better, IMO)
And Google for "maxtor sucks" if you want to read horror stories of people losing data due to the death of a hard drive.
I've heard a lot about the questionable quality of Maxtor drives, but my personal experience has been different. I have an ancient 8 Gb Maxtor drive that I bought about 7-8 years ago as an upgrade for the computer that I was using then (an old Pentium 133) . When I got my most recent computer I found the Maxtor HD in a shoe box where it had been stashed for a few years and I decided to try it out. I hooked it up and all of the data was intact and readable. It still works great (I've got Kubuntu installed on it now and it's always been very reliable). Either Maxtor's quality declined with time or maybe I got an exceptionally good one.
Given what I've heard [bestbuysux.org] about Best buy, I would venture to guess that your experience at that store is the norm rather than the anomaly. I've known people who work there, and they have had similar experiences, so the rest of it is probably true, too.
The biggest mystery is how BB stays in business when most of it's stores are primarily staffed by greedy and/or incompetent fools with only a few good people.
My manager was given $9000 to divide amongst a department of 11 people. We received half gallon jugs of maple syrup from her parents' farm, she received $9000. The best part was that she failed to notice the stamp across the label that read "Quality Control: Rejected".
What a bitch. Did the company do anything about that since she basically cut and ran with the money?
Computer knowledge is necessary in this day and age. If the schools pretended that computer skills were not important and glossed over it, students would be prepared for a world that no longer exists.
If you're worrying about infecting your computer with some DRM demon by feeding it a random music cd, then try ripping the cds with linux. Since most of the DRM software does not run under Linux (and even if it did you would have to authorize it with root access before it could install anything) you would likely be in the clear.
Bah, everyone knows that there is a constant blood shortage only because the vampire overlords secretly control the blood banks.
Any relation to Jack Thompson?
If they actually bother to enforce this, the legal system there is going to grind to a halt because there will be so many offenses.
I have a broadcom wifi device in my HP notebook and not even ndiswrapper could get the damn thing working under Kubuntu. To get wifi working at all I had to make the notebook a dual-boot.
Just fining these guys isn't going to make the problem go away. Unfortunately, I heard somewhere that the FTC doesn't have the power to shut down shit like this, you need the Department of Justice to do that. The only good thing about the FTC ruling is that it opens the door and provides good cause to get the DOJ involved. Whether that actually happens is another story.
The RIAA only opposes digital distribution that they don't completely control.
I wish I'd gotten in here sooner. I am officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and I spent most of my childhood without TV. Even though I had to entertain myself in other ways such as reading, and indulging different hobbies (having several obsessive hobbies is in itself an autistic trait) I still turned out the way I did. The only way that TV could affect someone in this way is if they were already genetically or developmentally predisposed to it (or EVERYONE would be autistic, since nearly every kid watches TV in developed countries) Also, it pisses me off when people try to "cure" autism. It's not some disease that I have, it's a part of who I am. If it were possible to remove all of my autistic traits, I wouldn't be the same person after said process was done. Autism is just a different way of seeing the world and interpreting things around me, and even though people mean well, the fact that they would want to override who I am and attempt to make me like they are does kind of insult me.
I feel that any headway with alternative fuels is going to come from the private sector, not from any state-sponsored program. I live in california, and things here are so bad that it takes months to get a pothole fixed and the people in sacramento are not people who I would trust to get anything done. Special interests practically run the state. There is already plenty of wasteful bureaucracy in this state and the last thing we need is another publically-funded think tank, especially one that is under no obligation to produce viable results. Also, why should the oil companies have to pay for this? Gas in cali is high already because of our clean-air taxes, and just within the last few weeks it's gone down to under $3 for a 9/10 gallon. The oil companies are in this for a profit, and they're not about to take a loss over this tax. They'll find a way to recoup the loss, and the consumer is going to be inevitably stuck with it.
possibly b/c of tax. These guys are paying massive ammounts of income tax to the government due to their huge salaries, so the government actually wins by keeping these guys out of jail. Meanwhile, the shareholders get it up the ass.
I often like to really mess around with my digital images in Photoshop before I print them. Often, what I do goes beyond simple cropping and red eye removal. I often fix levels, clone out mistakes, among other things. Home printing can never be replaced for the real enthusiast b/c digital printing services probably don't bother to fix problems with the images too much when you order. Even if they do, it will probably cost you extra, and they aren't going to fix every little thing you want them to, so to get it done right you have to do it yourself.
Cubicles are a necessary evil. Companies use cubicles b/c they are simply more cost efficient. Giving everyone an office would be somewhat detrimental to profit margins, plus a building with that many small office-size rooms for rent would be somewhat difficult to find.
FlexLM can still be cracked fairly easily (I know someone who did it, and I watched him do it) , so its hardly a major deterrant.