Openoffice still doesn't do good anti aliasing of vector graphics (for example, in a presentation). It seems idiotic to implement OpenGL "eye candy" before dealing with this half-decade old issue. Who is going to put up with crappy-looking drawings, just because they can now transition between them smoothly?
Here's one thread on the issue:
http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=33584
Problem: Buyers are giving sellers negative feedback even though the exchange was fair and square?
Solution: Don't allow sellers to give retaliatory negative feedback
I see... do you not know what the issue with retaliatory negative feedback is? It prevents buyers from being able to safely leave legitimate feedback for fear of retaliation. This has become a real issue on ebay. As a regular buyer, I know that it's not enough to see that someone has a high feedback rating (97%, whatever.) I scour every feedback page for evidence that the buyer is a dishonest one hiding behind feedback threats. Sometimes the evidence is obvious enough: mutually withdrawn feedback, negative comments hiding in postive feedback to avoid retaliation, etc.
The point is, ebay cannot expect its whole user base to be so diligent, which is why this step is absolutely the right one to take.
I agree that ebay took absolutely the wrong track on the hidden names issue, which is why I'm so surprised they stepped up on this one. I'll believe it when I see it.
In the long term, the feedback changes are really important for the sellers too. I've known lots of people who got ripped off on ebay, buying from sellers who had 98% positive feedback, because they hadn't bothered to go through and actually read all of that feedback---some of "mutually withdrawn"---to recognize that they're dealing with a sometimes dishonest seller who knows how to use feedback threats to keep their ratings high.
If ebay doesn't want people to be turned off, they need to get this under control.
Yes, I've heard it all, there are jerk buyers as there are sellers, and this will mean some honest sellers absorbing negative feedback they don't deserve. The point to keep in mind, is that this effect will be distributed more or less evenly among sellers, leaving it possible to reliably distinguish the good sellers from the bad. Under the current system, the dishonest sellers benefit the most, because they are the ones willing to use threats and retaliatory feedback to prop up their profile.
I'm still surprised ebay had the foresight to do this.
I have no problems with educating kids on copyright law, so long as it's done correctly. In particular, I am opposed to "abstinence only" education. While it is true that abstaining from file sharing is an effective deterrent to its harmful effects (financial ruin, bankruptcy, incarceration if the RIAA gets its way), studies have shown that students in abstinence-only copyright education classes aren't any less likely to download copyrighted materials. Therefore, classes should also cover "safer" downloading practices, which effectively avoid the scrutiny of law-enforcement and reduce chances of being the victim of harmful effects of file-sharing. The use of encrypted connections and anonymizing networks such as Tor, and basic techniques used to procure copyrighted material from newsgroups rather than insecure p2p protocols, etc., would all be covered in a well designed cirriculum.
Perhaps the issue is that The Simpsons: Hit And Run already ripped off the core GTA gameplay and satirized it, and Rockstar think it's time for The Simpsons to do something different.
Sure. Except that the whole point of the freedom of speech is that other people don't get to decide for you what you should be saying.
Maybe now this means we can have some dedicated video cards on the Ubuntu Dell Laptops, instead of just the onboard Intel chip they're using now because of the driver issues?
I agree with this advice. Go with a dobsonian scope. Check out the dobsonians at http://www.telescope.com/. You could even get a great scope for $500-$600, leaving extra money to expand your collection of eyepieces, etc., as your needs grow. They won't be good for photography unless you get an equatorial platform, but they really excel at "direct" observation and are a great way to get into the hobby. If you're dead-set on photography now, the compromise scope would be an equatorial-mounted newtonian.
And stay away from refractors (scopes made with lenses, as opposed to mirrors). You'll spend much, much more for a scope that is really a joy to use.
The obsession with aftermarket cooling solutions for all but the harder core overclockers strikes me as about as ridiculous as engine oil companies' claims of their oil increasing engine life over other oils. When was the last time you heard about an engine seizing that didn't straight-up run out of oil or suffer from a factory error?
Just to set the record straight here, preventing the engine from seizing isn't the only reason you have oil in your engine. Among other things, the oil plays an essential role in cooling the engine. Engines do fail, and when they do, whatever the failure, heat almost certainly played a role. There are many different oil types for many different uses. I'm assuming you've bought motor oil before, right? The SAE-grade of the oil specifies the weight of the oil, and different weights are used with different engines. (Sometimes even using different weights for different seasons can be advantageous: a heavier weight in the summer when extreme temperatures would result in lower oil pressure, a slightly lower weight in the winter if a heavier weight would be unsuitable before the engine warmed up. This is usually not necessary in more modern cars, though.) Look in the manual for your car, it will advise you which grades are suitable for your engine. In any case, the point is that the various properties of the oil vary greatly with temperature, so that an oil that can adequately cool the engine at 200F won't do the same at 275.
In addition to the SAE-grade, there is certainly a difference between good synthetics and dino-oil. In some situations, especially in extreme conditions like towing, etc., synthetic is more suitable, and they can allow for longer drainage intervals. Again, the manual of your car manufacturer should have recommendations here.
Now whether there is a difference between different BRANDS of motor oil is certainly up for debate. Who knows---hard to say. But it certainly is the case that the motor oil is essential to the running of the motor, and it's a much more complicated thing than just "something slippery".
Anyways, I mostly agree with the fact that the cooling modding stuff is stooopid, but I am someone who has had stock fans (not chips) fail (or get really noisy), almost certainly due to dust or whatever. Happened on my Athalon, my northbridge, and my vga chips. For the latter two, I went to passive cooling so I wouldn't have to deal with the problems again.
BTW the entire world should be supporting this guy as well.
Except for anyone who isn't blatantly racist or xenophobic (in this case: thinks we should build a big fence on the border, ship out all illegals or put them in jail, end birthright citizenship, etc., etc.,).
By the way, if Sony's hostility to their customers (like shutting down Lik-Sang, and forcing Blu-Ray on us all when it is simply not necessary) doesn't dissuade you from buying from Sony, then you are a tool and part of the problem.
I agree with the sentiment, but I think Slashdot comes down on the wrong side here from a long-term perspective. Putting asside for a moment the very possible dominance of Nintendo in at least some segment of the console market, the question is: who is it better to have controlling the high-end game market, Microsoft or Sony? To answer this question, we need to consider what each of their world-domination strategies entail. I don't think Sony's world domination strategy has a chance at success: since it is a media company, domination depends on DRM and hardware brand image. The former is technically infeasible; the latter has limited staying power if coupled with inferior products (this differs from the domination of Windows in the OS market, for example).
On the other hand, Microsoft's potential to dominate the software industry is very real, very with us, and very possible to remain unchecked. It is a big problem for freedom (if you lean radical) and the technology economy in general (even if you don't). If the big M succeeds at dominating a home-entertainment market, it will firm up their position to dominate the software industry, and further entrench developers in the Microsoft camp. This is why we should be opposing Microsoft more than Sony in the game market. Not because Sony has been nicer, but because Microsoft is more dangerous in the long run.
They detail a form of Sony Mii, with achievements accruing in an actual room as you succeed in playing games.
I can't help but see this sentence as as indicator that the Slashdot crowd is a bit disconnected from reality. In what sense is this an "actual" room??
" . ..for insomnia, you take a pill that contains super-diluted coffee."
I obviously knew that the stimulant effect of coffee is diminished as you dilute it, but I had no idea there was a threshold at which it would actually start to put you to sleep.
Exactly. This is how ridiculous homeopathic "medicine" is. I know this all sounds like a joke, but go to your nearest whole foods/whatever and look in the homeopathic section. It's freaky. And they charge you tons of money for the stuff too (have you heard of Oscillococcinum? It's showing up in stores for something like $10 a package).
An exception to FDA rules are a homeopathic medicines, which are subject to essentially no regulation so long as they are intended to treat "minor" conditions. Homeopathic medicines are the ones where you dilute as much as possible some "agent" that would be thought to cause a similar condition. So, for example, for insomnia, you take a pill that contains super-diluted coffee. No, I'm not making this shit up, go to your nearest whole foods and check at the homeopathic medicine section. On the back of the box (or tube or whatever) it will say ACTIVE INGREDIENT: give indications, and will nowhere say something like "these claims have not been evaluated by the FDA" (which they haven't).
I don't know... it seems to me that Microsoft might submit thousands of pages of obtuse VB code to support patents on things like "a mechanism for displaying conjugations of given verbs" and stuff like that. Of course, I agree that if what them submitted was short clean pseudocode which conveyed some basic idea, it might help communicate to a overworked dude in the USPO what exactly they're patenting. But in reality, it seems like this part of the patent application would be as much a target for obfuscation as everything else.
Slashdot Mirror
Openoffice still doesn't do good anti aliasing of vector graphics (for example, in a presentation). It seems idiotic to implement OpenGL "eye candy" before dealing with this half-decade old issue. Who is going to put up with crappy-looking drawings, just because they can now transition between them smoothly?
Here's one thread on the issue: http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=33584
The point is, ebay cannot expect its whole user base to be so diligent, which is why this step is absolutely the right one to take.
I agree that ebay took absolutely the wrong track on the hidden names issue, which is why I'm so surprised they stepped up on this one. I'll believe it when I see it.
In the long term, the feedback changes are really important for the sellers too. I've known lots of people who got ripped off on ebay, buying from sellers who had 98% positive feedback, because they hadn't bothered to go through and actually read all of that feedback---some of "mutually withdrawn"---to recognize that they're dealing with a sometimes dishonest seller who knows how to use feedback threats to keep their ratings high.
If ebay doesn't want people to be turned off, they need to get this under control.
Yes, I've heard it all, there are jerk buyers as there are sellers, and this will mean some honest sellers absorbing negative feedback they don't deserve. The point to keep in mind, is that this effect will be distributed more or less evenly among sellers, leaving it possible to reliably distinguish the good sellers from the bad. Under the current system, the dishonest sellers benefit the most, because they are the ones willing to use threats and retaliatory feedback to prop up their profile.
I'm still surprised ebay had the foresight to do this.
I have no problems with educating kids on copyright law, so long as it's done correctly. In particular, I am opposed to "abstinence only" education. While it is true that abstaining from file sharing is an effective deterrent to its harmful effects (financial ruin, bankruptcy, incarceration if the RIAA gets its way), studies have shown that students in abstinence-only copyright education classes aren't any less likely to download copyrighted materials. Therefore, classes should also cover "safer" downloading practices, which effectively avoid the scrutiny of law-enforcement and reduce chances of being the victim of harmful effects of file-sharing. The use of encrypted connections and anonymizing networks such as Tor, and basic techniques used to procure copyrighted material from newsgroups rather than insecure p2p protocols, etc., would all be covered in a well designed cirriculum.
but when it comes to politics (and this is politics), Linus Torvalds always seems naive to me.
Once they get this little pesky problem fixed, our government will be awesome!
How about they move into the console market by including videogame rentals in netflix subscriptions?
Maybe now this means we can have some dedicated video cards on the Ubuntu Dell Laptops, instead of just the onboard Intel chip they're using now because of the driver issues?
I agree with this advice. Go with a dobsonian scope. Check out the dobsonians at http://www.telescope.com/. You could even get a great scope for $500-$600, leaving extra money to expand your collection of eyepieces, etc., as your needs grow. They won't be good for photography unless you get an equatorial platform, but they really excel at "direct" observation and are a great way to get into the hobby. If you're dead-set on photography now, the compromise scope would be an equatorial-mounted newtonian. And stay away from refractors (scopes made with lenses, as opposed to mirrors). You'll spend much, much more for a scope that is really a joy to use.
Did someone say tor?
... "grew up on bottled air"
at least we're finally seeing some believable estimates as to the number of active second life users. 5 to 6.
People are going to like them a whole lot less if this turns into a big child porn site.
He is clearly delusional: he has said "Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so." (http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCate gory=33&idsub=128&id=8342&t=Czech+president%3A+Env ironmentalism+is+a+religion)
In addition to the SAE-grade, there is certainly a difference between good synthetics and dino-oil. In some situations, especially in extreme conditions like towing, etc., synthetic is more suitable, and they can allow for longer drainage intervals. Again, the manual of your car manufacturer should have recommendations here.
Now whether there is a difference between different BRANDS of motor oil is certainly up for debate. Who knows---hard to say. But it certainly is the case that the motor oil is essential to the running of the motor, and it's a much more complicated thing than just "something slippery".
Anyways, I mostly agree with the fact that the cooling modding stuff is stooopid, but I am someone who has had stock fans (not chips) fail (or get really noisy), almost certainly due to dust or whatever. Happened on my Athalon, my northbridge, and my vga chips. For the latter two, I went to passive cooling so I wouldn't have to deal with the problems again.
The article at that link is currently dated May 25, 2007
here: http://www.wiiaddiction.com/about108.html (from June of 2006)
On the other hand, Microsoft's potential to dominate the software industry is very real, very with us, and very possible to remain unchecked. It is a big problem for freedom (if you lean radical) and the technology economy in general (even if you don't). If the big M succeeds at dominating a home-entertainment market, it will firm up their position to dominate the software industry, and further entrench developers in the Microsoft camp. This is why we should be opposing Microsoft more than Sony in the game market. Not because Sony has been nicer, but because Microsoft is more dangerous in the long run.
An exception to FDA rules are a homeopathic medicines, which are subject to essentially no regulation so long as they are intended to treat "minor" conditions. Homeopathic medicines are the ones where you dilute as much as possible some "agent" that would be thought to cause a similar condition. So, for example, for insomnia, you take a pill that contains super-diluted coffee. No, I'm not making this shit up, go to your nearest whole foods and check at the homeopathic medicine section. On the back of the box (or tube or whatever) it will say ACTIVE INGREDIENT: give indications, and will nowhere say something like "these claims have not been evaluated by the FDA" (which they haven't).
I don't know... it seems to me that Microsoft might submit thousands of pages of obtuse VB code to support patents on things like "a mechanism for displaying conjugations of given verbs" and stuff like that. Of course, I agree that if what them submitted was short clean pseudocode which conveyed some basic idea, it might help communicate to a overworked dude in the USPO what exactly they're patenting. But in reality, it seems like this part of the patent application would be as much a target for obfuscation as everything else.