Yeah someone else already clarified that point for me, that its a 'backronym' if anything. I stand corrected. So substitute Tcl instead of Perl in the OP...:)
Proper use of KDE would be "KDE has been ported to" or "The K Desktop Environment (KDE) has been ported to".
If KDE didn't happen to be an acronym, but was instead just a word like say, "koala", how would we express it?
We'd say, "Koala, a desktop environment, has been ported to..." or we'd say "The Koala desktop environment has been ported to..." right?
Why should the fact that "KDE" happens to be an acronym that happens to expand to "K Desktop Environment" (instead of say, "Kevin's Demented Egotrip") change how we can use it in a sentence, especially if the reader doesn't know the expansion (and probably doesn't care either)?
If its not usually expanded and we aren't expanding it, then we should be able to use the "KDE" name the same as we'd use any other without regard for what it expands to. After all, its ONLY redundant *if* you expand it, and we didn't.
It's not perfectly alright to say "DOS operating system", "OS/2 operating system", and "BeOS operating system".
Obviously I disagree. And I stand by that. For example, I think "The BeOS operating system was made by the now defunct Be Inc." is a perfectly acceptable sentence.
Do you say the "CIA agency"? Or the "FBI bureau"? Or maybe the "Office of Secretary Defense office"?
If I were talking to someone from out of the country who didn't know what the CIA was, telling them it was a 'CIA agency' wouldn't exactly clear things up, would it? So while its a legitimate thing to say, its completely worthless, which is likely why no one says it.
So I'd probably say something like the CIA intelligence agency, or refer to an FBI agent as an FBI federal investigator or something like that. The fact that my descriptive adjectives happen to be partially co-incident with the acronym expansion doesn't strike me as a problem.
And yes, I do say "Does it have AGP?"...
But I asked if you said "Does it have *an* AGP?"
Generally we'd want to know whether we can put in a standalone video card and what technology that card would need to support. I can't recall ever really caring what technology an on-board video solution used. (Although you evidently have run into it.)
Also: Perl isn't an acronym
Thanks. I didn't know that it was a backronym until now.
I'll subsitute the emacs editor or tcl language for that example;)
Correct, but I'd rather teach people to use a format other people can readily use rather than require recipients to jump through hoops.
The burden of sending a conveniently readable file lies with the sender..doc may be proprietary but at least it meets the conveniently readable threshold, nearly any office software can handle.doc adequately.
That said, I personally don't recommend sending.doc files for most inter-business communication. PDF is a lot more sensible in most (but not all) circumstances.
This who debate is like the those stupid outlook emails with.dat attachments, because the sender is using outlook rich text format instead of plaintext or html. Sure I and all the other recipients *could* download a.dat file viewer, they do exist... but I shouldn't have to. The sender should be instructed to use formats that are compatible, especially when sending to recipients outside his organization.
KDE = K Desktop Environment. When you say "KDE Desktop Environment", you are actually saying "I don't really know what I'm talking about". Rant Over.
The "K Desktop Environment" abbreivated "KDE" is the full name of the project. Its not a project called "K". And KDE is a desktop environment, so the KDE desktop environment while somewhat 'redundant' if you expand the acronym, is perfectly acceptable: "The 'K Desktop Environment' desktop environment has been ported to..."
The same sort of thing applies to, say, DOS, OS/2, or BeOS. Where it is perfectly acceptable to say "The DOS operating system...", "The OS/2 operating system...", "The BeOS operating system...".
Do you ask if someone's PC has an AGP port? I've never ever heard anyone say, "Do you have an AGP?" Or maybe you say "AGP slot" which is still redudnant: As in "Do you have an accelerated graphics port slot"?
Do you take offense if someone refers to the the perl language? The POP, PPP, TCP/IP, or PPTP protocols? And I can only imagine how you must burn right up when told to enter your SIN number.;)
Not to mention that very very little on the Porsche aside from fuel is generally considered 'user replaceable'.;)
I wouldn't even want to try changing a tire on mine... wheel locks, funky collapsible spare, weird funky jack, and I'm not sure where I'd put the massive wheel I'd just taken off? Passenger seat?? It isn't going under the hood (the trunk? whatever you're supposed to call it on a rear-engine car)... no if I ever blow a tire I'll just get a tow truck. And not a regular tow truck either... send a flatbed, please.
If someone one hands you a standard to implement, you don't say, "hey that's stupid, I'm just going to do it this other way instead."
That is just beyond stupid.
Hell, I'd even be ok if MS had said, "w3c width is stupid, I'll just add a new tag, exwidth which does it the way we think makes sense." Because at least then they could still support the standard width tag to the standard, and render pages written to the standard correctly. If someone found exwidth easier to use, and used it instead those pages would also render fine in IE, and then break elsewhere in other browsers... although I could easily see support for 'exwidth' become a de-facto part of the standard and implemented in netscape/mozilla/firefox/whatever if enough people wanted it and enough pages used it... and that would be fine too. (In that at least we wouldn't have the mess we're in now.)
Bottom line, when your writing to a standard, write to the standard. If you don't like the standard, fine create your own (even if "your own" is just the original with some extensions), but don't write a broken implementation on purpose. It NEVER works out well for anybody. Users, developers, everybody suffers.
The difference being, of course, that people have to actually be willing to pay money for your product. Which is something Ubuntu can't boast... as has been proven all over the world, like in China, or Poland, or anywhere else. People would rather STEAL Windows than use Teh Lunix FOR FREE. Look at ANY country with high software piracy. Everyone STILL uses Windows.
Er... that undermines your argument. People in these countries aren't willing to pay money for windows, and they certainly aren't willing to pay over-inflated retail prices for windows.
But given a choice between not paying to use windows and not paying to use linux they choose to not pay to use windows because its what everyone else is using.
Are you kidding?:) Train someone to be janitor? That involves what, showing them where the mop is?
Sure, why do you try that, hire someone who's never been a janitor, show them the mop, and let them loose. Let me know how it works out for you. That ought to be worth a few laughs.
An experienced janitor can mop a floor, leaving it clean, and just about dry, in just a few minutes.
An inexperienced one, will leave it sopping wet, and/or dirty and/or leaving soap residue behind, splashing dirty water up on the baseboards, while taking twice to three times as long as the professional to do it.
No offense, but odds are you'd probably suck at mopping compared to a competent janitor.
And mopping is just one small part of the job.
Can you change a tube flourescent bulb without breaking those goddamned brittle diffuser panels? If the bulb has frozen into place what direction will you 'force' it? If after replacing the bulb, if it still doesn't work, do you know how to change the ballast or starter?
Could you manage and maintain industrial scale furnace, heating & ventilation systems, boilers?
I had a friend who worked janitorial for a bit, trust me, yes its blue collar and requires no special schooling, but its unfair and inaccurate to call it unskilled. Its not something you could do effectively without at least -some- training. And a lot of their duties are 'handiman' and you mostly pick them up with experience; so experience goes a long way towards making an applicant employable.
"I mopped my basement a few times", doesn't make you a qualified or competent janitor.
Even fast food isn't completely unskilled, but they are much better setup to provide training as you go, and have raised training to an art-form. So someone without any experience isn't an issue to a fast food restaurant.
Agreed! Everyone who failed to load ansi.sys and get a gloriously colored DOS prompt can turn his geek card back in. (Lifelong UNIX usage is a valid excuse, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the OP...)
WHAT?!! Most self respecting geeks upon receiving their new DOS PC immediately edited config.sys to remove ansi.sys. Who needs an almost pointless 8k driver slurping up your precious RAM?!
However, they are responsible for what happens on their premise.
No. Your an adult. Your responsible for what you do.
Ie Drinking underage. It's illegal in the dorms and if you're caught you'll be handed to the cops.
Correct. But its not their responsibility to 'catch you'. If they are forced to deal with you because you make a confrontation unavoidable (by being obnoxious and loud, or getting complained about, etc), they will deal with it appropriately by handing you over to the cops, but the cops haven't handed them deputy badges and said go forth and inspect every room every hour to ensure nobody underage is drinking... oh, and if you don't we're cutting off your funding!
Part of your argument hinged on the stupidity of some of the laws. (Damn hippies and ruining drugs for the rest of us). I agree with you on that but part of being in a society is agreeing to follow the laws. If you do not like them that's fine. Do something about it then.
Ignoring stupid laws -is- one of societies legitimate responses to laws it doesn't like. Especially when society is ignoring it wholesale. If its just you, that's not society, but when pretty much everyone with a computer is in violation of the law to some degree society is 'speaking' and sending a message of what it thinks of the law. And government is -supposed- to respect what society says.
It is my understanding that a number of universities are on the 'backbone' with their own fiber. Remember, the original arpanet linked a number of military and educational facilities directly together. I think a number of these universities are not 'ISP customers' in the traditional sense.
Number 1 is fine. Students *should* be well-informed about policies that affect them.
I agree that there is nothing inherently offensive about informing students about policies that affect them.
I think its borderline because I don't think the universities funding should be tied to this.
Why only copyright infringement? Does the university have to satisfy the feds that its displaying its policies on sexual harrassment or on racism, or sexual discrimination too before it gets any funding? Of course not.
I imagine most if not all universities already do all those anyway, and may even be required to, but is their any legislation directly tying their funding to it?
This isnt the 19th century, anyone can make a living wage if they want it. There are opportunities available for any able bodied american citizen who is willing to show up and do work.
Anyone can. Everyone can't.
There are help wanted ads at the place I work for janitors, they cant find any and they are paying more than double if not triple minimum wage.
Really. So why not walk into your local macdonalds, starbucks, walmart, or whatever and offer the first 6 people you see the job. If you are really offering a job that anyone can do, and its triple their current wage, you should have the position filled within an hour.
But something tells me though that your company is looking for something a little more specific? They probably want to hire a janitor, not hire someone unskilled and train them to be a janitor.
SEC. 494. CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION. (a) In General- Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable--
1) make publicly available to their students and employees, the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials required to be disclosed under section 485(a)(1)(P); and
(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.
Ok, what do you mean it doesn't look dire?
Number 1 is already borderline in my books, number 2 is right over the top.
Number 2 says the university must both actively promote some sort of legal alternative, while simultaneously seek technology to filter illegal activity. In order to qualify for federal funding.
Don't let the 'develop a plan' phrasing lull you. They want a strategy, with a timeframe, and deadline for implementation. You aren't getting off the hook with: "My plan for curbing torrents: 'put a port block on XXX'. To be implemented by the year 2058. The end."
There is no simply justification for federal funding to hinge on pandering to an industry lobby group. Not ever.
What's next? MADD gets to ram through some legislation where the university will have to develop a plan to prevent drinking and driving, including instituting technological measures to prevent it [just imagine what that would look like!], if they want federal funding.
And then the religious right wingnuts get theirs... the university has to develop a plan to ensure illegal sexual behaviour* is technologically prevented...
(*in some states anal and oral sex are illegal, but hey this could be expanded to cover anything remotely indecent or other riske mischief that students are particularly famous for...)
Bottom line, the university is not responsible for policing students. The police are. This is pure and utter bullshit. I sure hope there is some way of challenging the legality of this law itself.
You said so many other compelling things, this was entirely unnecessary. This great free market we have, is a helluva lot better than most of the rest of the world economically.
My point of discussing the poverty line wasn't to criticize America's economy, but rather to hilite that the free market doesn't lead to affordable necessities. That 12% of America lives below the poverty line and can't afford food/shelter/heat demonstrates this.
If the free market provided affordable food/shelter/heat then we'd not even have a poverty line in america, because everyone could afford the necessities.
Turning over health care to the free market would lead to the same situation, some significant percentage wouldn't be able to afford it. Given that 12% percent can't even afford the basics that 'significant percentage' that can't afford health care can't possibly less than 12% and probably rides up to 20% or higher. Thus simple free market health care is obviously a lousy solution.
But I think we agree on that. And some sort of regulated / socialized system is the way to go. Finding the right balance of course, is a difficult task.
A significant percentage of America lives like this; 'extreme' isn't a word I'd use.
4 people and only one is working and barely making above minimum wage.
'barely'? A lot of states are sitting around the $6/hour mark for minimum wage.
$6hr * 40hrs/wk * 52wk/s per year = $12,480 -gross- (and that's assuming you can get 40hrs... a lot of the time at these low level jobs jerk you around for hours giving you 6 and 7 hour shifts etc, which really eats into your income. If one person is making 22k/year they are making nearly double the minimum wage.
So, that's one parent working full time, and we're only at $12k. If the other one works full time, we can get another $12k, but we've got 2 kids that are going to need daycare now... figure around $20/day per kid if you dump them in some cheap unlicensed home daycare, so you're looking at $40/day in daycare expenses, and your making around $50. Net profit $10 x 5 days/wk * 52wks = $2600 gross and the kids are being raised by someone else. Bottom line both parents working full time gets us to $15k after childcare expenses.
If they're making $22k/year, its probably more a case that one parent is making 10$/hr or so.
In reality there are jobs available to people with no skills that pay 15 dollars an hour.
Yes there are. But for every one such job available, there hundreds of minimum wage employees. So if EVERY minimum wage employee tried to get one of the available $15/hr job, most of them would not find one, therefore most of them would stay minimum wage employees. So pointing out that there are $15/hr jobs available isn't a general solution. There simply aren't anywhere near enough of them.
And the more strapped for cash you are the harder it is to look for and get jobs. You need a resume, access to job listings, clothes, haircut -- your competing with a lot of people for that job, you've got to present yourself well. Desperation doesn't look good. And employers will prefer a canditiate that has their own car. Not having a cell phone with voicemail will be a detriment. Taking time off to deliver resumes and take interviews can be awkward and expensive...
And in your example only one person is working to support a family of 4, there is no reason why two people shouldnt be working.
The 2nd person doesn't really make any money after daycare expenses working a minimum wage job, especially after you factor in wardrobe requirements, transportation, and other costs of having a job.
Even on an income of 22000 dollars the basic necessities are affordable to a group of four people.
Your absolutely right. That is why they are at the poverty line. They -can- afford the basic necessities. They don't have money left over for health care though, which is my point. And these people and millions like them are [just] above the poverty line; another 36 million american's live below it.
The problem is that we have removed free markets from so much of healthcare in the name of providing access and it has crippled the ability to get affordable health care or insurance. Things like prescription drugs, imaging, etc. should not be covered. These would be affordable in a true free market society.
That's a nice fantasy.
The great 'free market' has some 12% of America living below the poverty line. 12% of America can't even afford an 'adequate standard of living' as it is. People just above the poverty line number in the millions... you really think a family of 4 making $22,000 is going to have the sort of disposable income needed for a hip replacement EVEN if medicine was a free market?
And the cost of food, fuel, heat, and rent are rising faster than wages.
Given that a (relatively) unregulated free market can't even make the BASIC NECESSECITIES of life suitably affordable to a LARGE fraction of Americans, what on earth makes you think exotic surgery, and medical procedures would be??
And even if it 'worked': Reducing a procedure thats been bloated out to $1,500,000 (due to the 'massive regulation inefficiencies' you claim) down to even $150,000 is still a death sentence to a *huge* number of people. Even $50,000 is out of reach.
If a iPhone can receive an update that unbricks it, then it was never bricked in the first place.
Correct. Welcome to the new age of blogger journalism where something is called bricked the moment even a single feature or other stops working.
My wireless keyboard is on the verge of being bricked, excuse me...... I had to go put in a new battery before I finished this post. Looks like it un-bricked my keyboard, whew.
I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.
Take the laptops. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.
Careful there.;) With OSX a casual/basic user -can- do video chat, burn their own movies, use a bluetooth mouse, play with photobooth, retouch digitial photos, etc... that is part of the Mac cachet.
If they started selling a Mac that couldn't do these things, without a camera, without bluetooth, with a celeron instead of core 2 duo then it it would be a dismal experience doing all the things we're told macs are so good at... and undermine the entire product line.
To use a car analogy, it would be like Porsche or BMW talking about their premium and luxury experience and then releasing a rebadged budget american hatchback (geo metro equivalent). It would tarnish the whole Porsche or BMW brand.
Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429).
On this point I am in 100% agreement. I need to install and work with a PCI video capture card, swap hard drives in and out, etc. A mini is a touch weak, and doesn't support a PCI add in card so that's a no go. And a Pro... I don't need an 8 core desktop PC with xeon processors, and I'm certainly not willing to pay the price for one from -any- manufacturer.
An imac is in the right performance range... but again no PCI cards, and I'd like to be able to drop in a better video card. I also use a KVM to control a few PCs, so I don't want an integrated unit.
I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.
This is a bit of a non-starter in my opinion, when you upgrade your PC you can sell the imac whole (including the monitor) and the resale value tends to be pretty good.
It is a valid complaint when your talking about KVM (my situation), and also when considering repairs -- if your lcd dies on your otherwise perfectly good imac you tend to face repair expenses that signifcantly exceed what the cost of a new standalone screen would be. Its ok to accept these limitations with laptops -- you get portablility out of the trade... but on a desktop? A little bit of counterspace?? Whoo. Not that I object to people who want imacs... I just don't want one, and they don't make a tower with comparable specs - which is what I do want.
Basically you intended the 'speaker' of that sentence to be understood to be Apple.
On re-reading your post, I agree that the context sufficiently establishes that, but its not strongly established that you are fully immersed 'in the character of apple'. (eg. had you written the entire post 'in character'.)
Without that, your use of parenthesis around the loser clause, specifically leads the reader to reasonably infer that this is an injection by -you-, the -author-, not the 'speaking character' of Apple.
Had you written something along the lines of...
Well we all know that Apple thinks, "People preferring one hand, not to mention those disabled losers, need not apply."
You would have been fine with that. But using parenthesis was your undoing. Punctuation counts.;)
In considering getting an HDTV, my wife casually asked about recording shows. Aghast, I had to admit I wasn't sure how that could be done! In the HDMI world - as the cartels intended - there just is no place to plug in a recorder, and DVRs don't come with disc writers. Yeah, I could hack up something involving a PC, HD tuner card, ill-supported software, bittorrent, etc. but it just would never meet the "insert blank, choose channel, hit 'Record'" it-just-works paradigm.
DVRs tend to be even MORE user friendsly than "insert blank, choose channel, hit record". Most people find that their is enough new content they want to watch that they literally don't have time to watch much of the old stuff anyway. So record, watch, delete works just fine. The idea of keeping copies of old shows to watch again later becomes moot if you always have 10-20 hours of new content sitting on your DVR ready to go.
The only items I take the trouble to make permanent copies of are kids movies, because those do actually get watched again. And I usually just buy them PV for $8 on DVD at the local video store.
That said, if you go the DVR route and do want to get the files off the drive there are a couple ways. Many of them have a working firewire port that you can capture from. (Although you have to 'play the show' and capture it in real time.
The other option is to remove the hard drive, mount it read only in your PC, and copy the files. Mine is a standard linux filesystem. The only issues with this is you have to open it up. (Although I've been contemplating a case mod to make the drive 'external'.) and the biggest issue, is that to remove the drive you have to power it off which means:
1) no recording while the hd is out, obviously 2) after you plug it back in it seems to take 45 minutes or so to get the TV guide data back into it, which is annoying.
Oh yes, I forgot: people who prefer using one hand (or are disabled losers) need not apply.
Really? You can't see an issue with that statement? Here, try this:
So your saying that if your an average person (including that UbuntuDupe loser) you'll find ctrl-clicking inconvenient?
How about now? Did you detect a little bit of a dig there? Something a certain ubuntudupe might take offense too? I mean, even though I was just saying that most people find ctrl-clicking inconvenient...?
The scoring system and letter distribution aren't copyrightable at all
Not directly. But the scoring system and letter distribution would be expressed in the rules. If the scoring system and letter distribution along with the game mechanics, turn sequence, etc, etc, are all identical to that of scrabble that implies that the rules text describing "this game" are constrained in that they must express exactly the same content as that of scrabble's, making infringement considerably more likely.
If the letter distribution, scoring system, etc of the game were different then the text of the rules would necessarily be significantly different than that of scrabble, and making infringement considerably less likely.
A similar board graphic may be infringing depending on how closely it matches the orginal but you can't copyright a layout of coloured squares only the particular way you draw them.
I can't tell if we agree or not here.
When you say you can't "can't copyright a layout of coloured squares" do you mean that you can't copyright the idea of "layouts of colored squares" or do you mean that you can't even copyright a particular layout of colored squares? (Only a particular drawing of a particular layout of colored squares?)
If its the latter, I disagree.
I'd contend that a 15x15 grid that is immediately recognizable to anyone as a scrabble board would be infringing even if Hasbro had never drawn it like that.
For example, if I drew a 15x15 grid, and used a 'stone texture' for the blank squares and a fish scale texture for the bonus squares, put a 7 pointed star in the middle, and labled the scoring squares "word x3" "letter x2" instead of "triple word score" and "double letter score".
To me that is clear copyright infringement, even though its a 'novel' way to draw the board, that Hasbro has never done.
Is clearly a scrabble-like game, but it is equally clearly, not scrabble. It is a different arrangement of colored squares on a 15x15 grid.
All that said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Scrabble has actually trademarked the 'look' of a scrabble board too. They probably could, the pattern of squares is distinct and well recognized and that's all that's required for a trademark. And a board that wasn't different enough could probably be argued as a trademark violation. (Although a DMCA process wouldn't be appropriate if that was how they were pursuing/protecting it.
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Yeah someone else already clarified that point for me, that its a 'backronym' if anything. I stand corrected. So substitute Tcl instead of Perl in the OP... :)
Proper use of KDE would be "KDE has been ported to" or "The K Desktop Environment (KDE) has been ported to".
;)
If KDE didn't happen to be an acronym, but was instead just a word like say, "koala", how would we express it?
We'd say, "Koala, a desktop environment, has been ported to..." or we'd say "The Koala desktop environment has been ported to..." right?
Why should the fact that "KDE" happens to be an acronym that happens to expand to "K Desktop Environment" (instead of say, "Kevin's Demented Egotrip") change how we can use it in a sentence, especially if the reader doesn't know the expansion (and probably doesn't care either)?
If its not usually expanded and we aren't expanding it, then we should be able to use the "KDE" name the same as we'd use any other without regard for what it expands to. After all, its ONLY redundant *if* you expand it, and we didn't.
It's not perfectly alright to say "DOS operating system", "OS/2 operating system", and "BeOS operating system".
Obviously I disagree. And I stand by that. For example, I think "The BeOS operating system was made by the now defunct Be Inc." is a perfectly acceptable sentence.
Do you say the "CIA agency"? Or the "FBI bureau"? Or maybe the "Office of Secretary Defense office"?
If I were talking to someone from out of the country who didn't know what the CIA was, telling them it was a 'CIA agency' wouldn't exactly clear things up, would it? So while its a legitimate thing to say, its completely worthless, which is likely why no one says it.
So I'd probably say something like the CIA intelligence agency, or refer to an FBI agent as an FBI federal investigator or something like that. The fact that my descriptive adjectives happen to be partially co-incident with the acronym expansion doesn't strike me as a problem.
And yes, I do say "Does it have AGP?"...
But I asked if you said "Does it have *an* AGP?"
Generally we'd want to know whether we can put in a standalone video card and what technology that card would need to support. I can't recall ever really caring what technology an on-board video solution used. (Although you evidently have run into it.)
Also: Perl isn't an acronym
Thanks. I didn't know that it was a backronym until now.
I'll subsitute the emacs editor or tcl language for that example
Correct, but I'd rather teach people to use a format other people can readily use rather than require recipients to jump through hoops.
.doc may be proprietary but at least it meets the conveniently readable threshold, nearly any office software can handle .doc adequately.
.doc files for most inter-business communication. PDF is a lot more sensible in most (but not all) circumstances.
.dat attachments, because the sender is using outlook rich text format instead of plaintext or html. Sure I and all the other recipients *could* download a .dat file viewer, they do exist... but I shouldn't have to. The sender should be instructed to use formats that are compatible, especially when sending to recipients outside his organization.
The burden of sending a conveniently readable file lies with the sender.
That said, I personally don't recommend sending
This who debate is like the those stupid outlook emails with
KDE = K Desktop Environment. When you say "KDE Desktop Environment", you are actually saying "I don't really know what I'm talking about". Rant Over.
;)
The "K Desktop Environment" abbreivated "KDE" is the full name of the project. Its not a project called "K". And KDE is a desktop environment, so the KDE desktop environment while somewhat 'redundant' if you expand the acronym, is perfectly acceptable: "The 'K Desktop Environment' desktop environment has been ported to..."
The same sort of thing applies to, say, DOS, OS/2, or BeOS. Where it is perfectly acceptable to say "The DOS operating system...", "The OS/2 operating system...", "The BeOS operating system...".
Do you ask if someone's PC has an AGP port? I've never ever heard anyone say, "Do you have an AGP?" Or maybe you say "AGP slot" which is still redudnant: As in "Do you have an accelerated graphics port slot"?
Do you take offense if someone refers to the the perl language? The POP, PPP, TCP/IP, or PPTP protocols? And I can only imagine how you must burn right up when told to enter your SIN number.
Not to mention that very very little on the Porsche aside from fuel is generally considered 'user replaceable'. ;)
... no if I ever blow a tire I'll just get a tow truck. And not a regular tow truck either... send a flatbed, please.
I wouldn't even want to try changing a tire on mine... wheel locks, funky collapsible spare, weird funky jack, and I'm not sure where I'd put the massive wheel I'd just taken off? Passenger seat?? It isn't going under the hood (the trunk? whatever you're supposed to call it on a rear-engine car)
If someone one hands you a standard to implement, you don't say, "hey that's stupid, I'm just going to do it this other way instead."
That is just beyond stupid.
Hell, I'd even be ok if MS had said, "w3c width is stupid, I'll just add a new tag, exwidth which does it the way we think makes sense." Because at least then they could still support the standard width tag to the standard, and render pages written to the standard correctly. If someone found exwidth easier to use, and used it instead those pages would also render fine in IE, and then break elsewhere in other browsers... although I could easily see support for 'exwidth' become a de-facto part of the standard and implemented in netscape/mozilla/firefox/whatever if enough people wanted it and enough pages used it... and that would be fine too. (In that at least we wouldn't have the mess we're in now.)
Bottom line, when your writing to a standard, write to the standard. If you don't like the standard, fine create your own (even if "your own" is just the original with some extensions), but don't write a broken implementation on purpose. It NEVER works out well for anybody. Users, developers, everybody suffers.
The difference being, of course, that people have to actually be willing to pay money for your product. Which is something Ubuntu can't boast... as has been proven all over the world, like in China, or Poland, or anywhere else. People would rather STEAL Windows than use Teh Lunix FOR FREE. Look at ANY country with high software piracy. Everyone STILL uses Windows.
Er... that undermines your argument. People in these countries aren't willing to pay money for windows, and they certainly aren't willing to pay over-inflated retail prices for windows.
But given a choice between not paying to use windows and not paying to use linux they choose to not pay to use windows because its what everyone else is using.
Are you kidding? :) Train someone to be janitor? That involves what, showing them where the mop is?
Sure, why do you try that, hire someone who's never been a janitor, show them the mop, and let them loose. Let me know how it works out for you. That ought to be worth a few laughs.
An experienced janitor can mop a floor, leaving it clean, and just about dry, in just a few minutes.
An inexperienced one, will leave it sopping wet, and/or dirty and/or leaving soap residue behind, splashing dirty water up on the baseboards, while taking twice to three times as long as the professional to do it.
No offense, but odds are you'd probably suck at mopping compared to a competent janitor.
And mopping is just one small part of the job.
Can you change a tube flourescent bulb without breaking those goddamned brittle diffuser panels? If the bulb has frozen into place what direction will you 'force' it? If after replacing the bulb, if it still doesn't work, do you know how to change the ballast or starter?
Could you manage and maintain industrial scale furnace, heating & ventilation systems, boilers?
I had a friend who worked janitorial for a bit, trust me, yes its blue collar and requires no special schooling, but its unfair and inaccurate to call it unskilled. Its not something you could do effectively without at least -some- training. And a lot of their duties are 'handiman' and you mostly pick them up with experience; so experience goes a long way towards making an applicant employable.
"I mopped my basement a few times", doesn't make you a qualified or competent janitor.
Even fast food isn't completely unskilled, but they are much better setup to provide training as you go, and have raised training to an art-form. So someone without any experience isn't an issue to a fast food restaurant.
Agreed! Everyone who failed to load ansi.sys and get a gloriously colored DOS prompt can turn his geek card back in. (Lifelong UNIX usage is a valid excuse, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the OP...)
WHAT?!! Most self respecting geeks upon receiving their new DOS PC immediately edited config.sys to remove ansi.sys. Who needs an almost pointless 8k driver slurping up your precious RAM?!
However, they are responsible for what happens on their premise.
No. Your an adult. Your responsible for what you do.
Ie Drinking underage. It's illegal in the dorms and if you're caught you'll be handed to the cops.
Correct. But its not their responsibility to 'catch you'. If they are forced to deal with you because you make a confrontation unavoidable (by being obnoxious and loud, or getting complained about, etc), they will deal with it appropriately by handing you over to the cops, but the cops haven't handed them deputy badges and said go forth and inspect every room every hour to ensure nobody underage is drinking... oh, and if you don't we're cutting off your funding!
Part of your argument hinged on the stupidity of some of the laws. (Damn hippies and ruining drugs for the rest of us). I agree with you on that but part of being in a society is agreeing to follow the laws. If you do not like them that's fine. Do something about it then.
Ignoring stupid laws -is- one of societies legitimate responses to laws it doesn't like. Especially when society is ignoring it wholesale. If its just you, that's not society, but when pretty much everyone with a computer is in violation of the law to some degree society is 'speaking' and sending a message of what it thinks of the law. And government is -supposed- to respect what society says.
It is my understanding that a number of universities are on the 'backbone' with their own fiber. Remember, the original arpanet linked a number of military and educational facilities directly together. I think a number of these universities are not 'ISP customers' in the traditional sense.
Number 1 is fine. Students *should* be well-informed about policies that affect them.
I agree that there is nothing inherently offensive about informing students about policies that affect them.
I think its borderline because I don't think the universities funding should be tied to this.
Why only copyright infringement? Does the university have to satisfy the feds that its displaying its policies on sexual harrassment or on racism, or sexual discrimination too before it gets any funding? Of course not.
I imagine most if not all universities already do all those anyway, and may even be required to, but is their any legislation directly tying their funding to it?
This isnt the 19th century, anyone can make a living wage if they want it. There are opportunities available for any able bodied american citizen who is willing to show up and do work.
Anyone can. Everyone can't.
There are help wanted ads at the place I work for janitors, they cant find any and they are paying more than double if not triple minimum wage.
Really. So why not walk into your local macdonalds, starbucks, walmart, or whatever and offer the first 6 people you see the job. If you are really offering a job that anyone can do, and its triple their current wage, you should have the position filled within an hour.
But something tells me though that your company is looking for something a little more specific? They probably want to hire a janitor, not hire someone unskilled and train them to be a janitor.
SEC. 494. CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION.
(a) In General- Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable--
1) make publicly available to their students and employees, the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials required to be disclosed under section 485(a)(1)(P); and
(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.
Ok, what do you mean it doesn't look dire?
Number 1 is already borderline in my books, number 2 is right over the top.
Number 2 says the university must both actively promote some sort of legal alternative, while simultaneously seek technology to filter illegal activity. In order to qualify for federal funding.
Don't let the 'develop a plan' phrasing lull you. They want a strategy, with a timeframe, and deadline for implementation. You aren't getting off the hook with: "My plan for curbing torrents: 'put a port block on XXX'. To be implemented by the year 2058. The end."
There is no simply justification for federal funding to hinge on pandering to an industry lobby group. Not ever.
What's next? MADD gets to ram through some legislation where the university will have to develop a plan to prevent drinking and driving, including instituting technological measures to prevent it [just imagine what that would look like!], if they want federal funding.
And then the religious right wingnuts get theirs... the university has to develop a plan to ensure illegal sexual behaviour* is technologically prevented...
(*in some states anal and oral sex are illegal, but hey this could be expanded to cover anything remotely indecent or other riske mischief that students are particularly famous for...)
Bottom line, the university is not responsible for policing students. The police are. This is pure and utter bullshit. I sure hope there is some way of challenging the legality of this law itself.
You said so many other compelling things, this was entirely unnecessary. This great free market we have, is a helluva lot better than most of the rest of the world economically.
My point of discussing the poverty line wasn't to criticize America's economy, but rather to hilite that the free market doesn't lead to affordable necessities. That 12% of America lives below the poverty line and can't afford food/shelter/heat demonstrates this.
If the free market provided affordable food/shelter/heat then we'd not even have a poverty line in america, because everyone could afford the necessities.
Turning over health care to the free market would lead to the same situation, some significant percentage wouldn't be able to afford it. Given that 12% percent can't even afford the basics that 'significant percentage' that can't afford health care can't possibly less than 12% and probably rides up to 20% or higher. Thus simple free market health care is obviously a lousy solution.
But I think we agree on that. And some sort of regulated / socialized system is the way to go. Finding the right balance of course, is a difficult task.
Your example is very extreme.
A significant percentage of America lives like this; 'extreme' isn't a word I'd use.
4 people and only one is working and barely making above minimum wage.
'barely'? A lot of states are sitting around the $6/hour mark for minimum wage.
$6hr * 40hrs/wk * 52wk/s per year = $12,480 -gross- (and that's assuming you can get 40hrs... a lot of the time at these low level jobs jerk you around for hours giving you 6 and 7 hour shifts etc, which really eats into your income. If one person is making 22k/year they are making nearly double the minimum wage.
So, that's one parent working full time, and we're only at $12k. If the other one works full time, we can get another $12k, but we've got 2 kids that are going to need daycare now... figure around $20/day per kid if you dump them in some cheap unlicensed home daycare, so you're looking at $40/day in daycare expenses, and your making around $50. Net profit $10 x 5 days/wk * 52wks = $2600 gross and the kids are being raised by someone else. Bottom line both parents working full time gets us to $15k after childcare expenses.
If they're making $22k/year, its probably more a case that one parent is making 10$/hr or so.
In reality there are jobs available to people with no skills that pay 15 dollars an hour.
Yes there are. But for every one such job available, there hundreds of minimum wage employees. So if EVERY minimum wage employee tried to get one of the available $15/hr job, most of them would not find one, therefore most of them would stay minimum wage employees. So pointing out that there are $15/hr jobs available isn't a general solution. There simply aren't anywhere near enough of them.
And the more strapped for cash you are the harder it is to look for and get jobs. You need a resume, access to job listings, clothes, haircut -- your competing with a lot of people for that job, you've got to present yourself well. Desperation doesn't look good. And employers will prefer a canditiate that has their own car. Not having a cell phone with voicemail will be a detriment. Taking time off to deliver resumes and take interviews can be awkward and expensive...
And in your example only one person is working to support a family of 4, there is no reason why two people shouldnt be working.
The 2nd person doesn't really make any money after daycare expenses working a minimum wage job, especially after you factor in wardrobe requirements, transportation, and other costs of having a job.
Even on an income of 22000 dollars the basic necessities are affordable to a group of four people.
Your absolutely right. That is why they are at the poverty line. They -can- afford the basic necessities. They don't have money left over for health care though, which is my point. And these people and millions like them are [just] above the poverty line; another 36 million american's live below it.
Trying to provide for a family of four on $22k a year is stupid.
Solution? Keep your clothes on until you have more money.
Let me know when you invent the time machine. Until then, that's not a solution.
The problem is that we have removed free markets from so much of healthcare in the name of providing access and it has crippled the ability to get affordable health care or insurance. Things like prescription drugs, imaging, etc. should not be covered. These would be affordable in a true free market society.
That's a nice fantasy.
The great 'free market' has some 12% of America living below the poverty line. 12% of America can't even afford an 'adequate standard of living' as it is. People just above the poverty line number in the millions... you really think a family of 4 making $22,000 is going to have the sort of disposable income needed for a hip replacement EVEN if medicine was a free market?
And the cost of food, fuel, heat, and rent are rising faster than wages.
Given that a (relatively) unregulated free market can't even make the BASIC NECESSECITIES of life suitably affordable to a LARGE fraction of Americans, what on earth makes you think exotic surgery, and medical procedures would be??
And even if it 'worked': Reducing a procedure thats been bloated out to $1,500,000 (due to the 'massive regulation inefficiencies' you claim) down to even $150,000 is still a death sentence to a *huge* number of people. Even $50,000 is out of reach.
If a iPhone can receive an update that unbricks it, then it was never bricked in the first place.
... I had to go put in a new battery before I finished this post. Looks like it un-bricked my keyboard, whew.
Correct. Welcome to the new age of blogger journalism where something is called bricked the moment even a single feature or other stops working.
My wireless keyboard is on the verge of being bricked, excuse me...
I'm not a Mac fanboy, hell I don't even own a Mac, but the biggest annoyance for me is Apple's gap in their product portfolio.
;) With OSX a casual/basic user -can- do video chat, burn their own movies, use a bluetooth mouse, play with photobooth, retouch digitial photos, etc... that is part of the Mac cachet.
... and undermine the entire product line.
Take the laptops. So if you want a laptop for email, the web and a little bit of word processing then you have a choice between a £699 MacBook or a £299 Dell. Yes the former has a bit more polish, but is it really worth the extra £400? Not for the casual/basic user.
Careful there.
If they started selling a Mac that couldn't do these things, without a camera, without bluetooth, with a celeron instead of core 2 duo then it it would be a dismal experience doing all the things we're told macs are so good at
To use a car analogy, it would be like Porsche or BMW talking about their premium and luxury experience and then releasing a rebadged budget american hatchback (geo metro equivalent). It would tarnish the whole Porsche or BMW brand.
Take Mac Mini's. There is nothing headless that sits between the most expensive Mac Mini (£499) and the cheapest Mac Pro (£1,429).
On this point I am in 100% agreement. I need to install and work with a PCI video capture card, swap hard drives in and out, etc. A mini is a touch weak, and doesn't support a PCI add in card so that's a no go. And a Pro... I don't need an 8 core desktop PC with xeon processors, and I'm certainly not willing to pay the price for one from -any- manufacturer.
An imac is in the right performance range... but again no PCI cards, and I'd like to be able to drop in a better video card. I also use a KVM to control a few PCs, so I don't want an integrated unit.
I have a perfectly good monitor and I don't want to have to be forced to buy a new one every time I upgrade my PC - so I'd like to avoid the iMac.
This is a bit of a non-starter in my opinion, when you upgrade your PC you can sell the imac whole (including the monitor) and the resale value tends to be pretty good.
It is a valid complaint when your talking about KVM (my situation), and also when considering repairs -- if your lcd dies on your otherwise perfectly good imac you tend to face repair expenses that signifcantly exceed what the cost of a new standalone screen would be. Its ok to accept these limitations with laptops -- you get portablility out of the trade... but on a desktop? A little bit of counterspace?? Whoo. Not that I object to people who want imacs... I just don't want one, and they don't make a tower with comparable specs - which is what I do want.
My memory is shot, I can't remember the term for this, or the process as a whole...)
Clean room reverse engineering? Or something along those lines right?
Ah I see. Lets see if I got this right?
Basically you intended the 'speaker' of that sentence to be understood to be Apple.
On re-reading your post, I agree that the context sufficiently establishes that, but its not strongly established that you are fully immersed 'in the character of apple'. (eg. had you written the entire post 'in character'.)
Without that, your use of parenthesis around the loser clause, specifically leads the reader to reasonably infer that this is an injection by -you-, the -author-, not the 'speaking character' of Apple.
Had you written something along the lines of...
Well we all know that Apple thinks, "People preferring one hand, not to mention those disabled losers, need not apply."
You would have been fine with that. But using parenthesis was your undoing. Punctuation counts.
cheers!
In considering getting an HDTV, my wife casually asked about recording shows. Aghast, I had to admit I wasn't sure how that could be done! In the HDMI world - as the cartels intended - there just is no place to plug in a recorder, and DVRs don't come with disc writers. Yeah, I could hack up something involving a PC, HD tuner card, ill-supported software, bittorrent, etc. but it just would never meet the "insert blank, choose channel, hit 'Record'" it-just-works paradigm.
DVRs tend to be even MORE user friendsly than "insert blank, choose channel, hit record". Most people find that their is enough new content they want to watch that they literally don't have time to watch much of the old stuff anyway. So record, watch, delete works just fine. The idea of keeping copies of old shows to watch again later becomes moot if you always have 10-20 hours of new content sitting on your DVR ready to go.
The only items I take the trouble to make permanent copies of are kids movies, because those do actually get watched again. And I usually just buy them PV for $8 on DVD at the local video store.
That said, if you go the DVR route and do want to get the files off the drive there are a couple ways. Many of them have a working firewire port that you can capture from. (Although you have to 'play the show' and capture it in real time.
The other option is to remove the hard drive, mount it read only in your PC, and copy the files. Mine is a standard linux filesystem. The only issues with this is you have to open it up. (Although I've been contemplating a case mod to make the drive 'external'.) and the biggest issue, is that to remove the drive you have to power it off which means:
1) no recording while the hd is out, obviously
2) after you plug it back in it seems to take 45 minutes or so to get the TV guide data back into it, which is annoying.
How does that make me look arrogant? \
You said:
Oh yes, I forgot: people who prefer using one hand (or are disabled losers) need not apply.
Really? You can't see an issue with that statement? Here, try this:
So your saying that if your an average person (including that UbuntuDupe loser) you'll find ctrl-clicking inconvenient?
How about now? Did you detect a little bit of a dig there? Something a certain ubuntudupe might take offense too? I mean, even though I was just saying that most people find ctrl-clicking inconvenient...?
The scoring system and letter distribution aren't copyrightable at all
Not directly. But the scoring system and letter distribution would be expressed in the rules. If the scoring system and letter distribution along with the game mechanics, turn sequence, etc, etc, are all identical to that of scrabble that implies that the rules text describing "this game" are constrained in that they must express exactly the same content as that of scrabble's, making infringement considerably more likely.
If the letter distribution, scoring system, etc of the game were different then the text of the rules would necessarily be significantly different than that of scrabble, and making infringement considerably less likely.
A similar board graphic may be infringing depending on how closely it matches the orginal but you can't copyright a layout of coloured squares only the particular way you draw them.
I can't tell if we agree or not here.
When you say you can't "can't copyright a layout of coloured squares" do you mean that you can't copyright the idea of "layouts of colored squares" or do you mean that you can't even copyright a particular layout of colored squares? (Only a particular drawing of a particular layout of colored squares?)
If its the latter, I disagree.
I'd contend that a 15x15 grid that is immediately recognizable to anyone as a scrabble board would be infringing even if Hasbro had never drawn it like that.
For example, if I drew a 15x15 grid, and used a 'stone texture' for the blank squares and a fish scale texture for the bonus squares, put a 7 pointed star in the middle, and labled the scoring squares "word x3" "letter x2" instead of "triple word score" and "double letter score".
To me that is clear copyright infringement, even though its a 'novel' way to draw the board, that Hasbro has never done.
On the other hand, something like this:
http://www.tprthai.net/img/games3.png
Is clearly a scrabble-like game, but it is equally clearly, not scrabble. It is a different arrangement of colored squares on a 15x15 grid.
All that said, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Scrabble has actually trademarked the 'look' of a scrabble board too. They probably could, the pattern of squares is distinct and well recognized and that's all that's required for a trademark. And a board that wasn't different enough could probably be argued as a trademark violation. (Although a DMCA process wouldn't be appropriate if that was how they were pursuing/protecting it.