Yes, I suppose that is why we are periodically alerted by management that we have 45 minutes to clear all records of sensitive CC information from databases and backup media.
So when China bans things that hurt their government from the internet, congress calls in Microsoft and Google to harrass them for doing buisness there.
But then when online gambling takes tax money away from the US Government, Congress immediately goes about making it illegal/impossible to access/use gambling sites on the internet.
I guess I can always mail cash to the gambling site in a large manila envelope. Until congress makes a law telling me that I'm not even allowed to mail my own money where I want to unless they get to take their Vig first.
Disclaimer: This is from a guy who has only has his first mac for a few weeks. (Core Duo Mini)
I don't understand why anyone would WANT something to behave like OSX Gui.
The OSX Window manager has got to be the least responsive system I've ever worked with. The machine itself seems very quick, and capable, but the GUI is very unresponsive. Just clicking to bring a window into focus has a large delay. Probably the #1 thing for productivity is a quickly responsive GUI, and OSX seems to be the worst.
I feel like i'm spending a significant portion of my day waiting on the Window Manager, which is just silly. I'm assuming this is becuase of all the pretty bloat on the screen, which I would happily sacrifice for more performance.
Gnome 2.14 has hugely increased in this area, and the latest builds I've tried feel real-time.
As someone who has been using the latest builds of what is about to be Gnome 2.14, I can say with certainty that it is an awesome upgrade.
At first I wasn't sure if there was much difference, but after using it for an hour I started to realize I was enjoying it much more than ever before, without really being able to put my finger on what was different.
Basic speed increases give it a much more real-time feeling, and some minor graphical enhancements, while hardly noticable at first, make for a more enjoyable experience.
Hardware is an insignificant part of the problem. The infrastructure should be where the focus is.
If we could get cheap electric generators, water purifies, and telecommunications (sat uplink?) then I'm pretty confident we could find them some hardware to take advantage of those things.
There are millions, make that billions, of old computers laying around that can be donated or sold for far less than $100, and why do they need laptops anyway? So they can carry them to their big business meeting? A schoolhouse with some desktops and an electric generator is much more useful.
I really can't see the purpose of getting people these $100 laptop when there is no communications infrastructure. What good is the computer if they can't get online. The huge benefit of getting them on the web is so that they can have access to piles of information that was otherwise completely inaccessible to them. Books, news, events, all uncensored and up to date.
Without the communications infrastructure they can use the computer for what? Typing? Why would they need to make nice documents or excel files when they don't even have electricity? Couldn't they just use paper?
Without debating your comments, I'll just say that I certainly am not claiming they are successful in their financial management, but simply that they spend less, and have goals of spending continually less.
Right... and any hint of filthy, filthy Socialism is far worse than letting a significant chunk of the American populace go without any healthcare or get nearly wiped out by an emergency
I would expect that is a matter that each person will feel completely different about, and probably meaningful debate would be difficult.
In my inhumane opinion, which I do not expect anyone else to accept, I believe that we are setting ourselves up for disaster by supporting and promoting those that are the biggest drain in our society.
The same people that are using the welfare and free healthcare happen to be the ones that are reproducing the fastest, and continuing to give them gifts just escalates the problem. Eventually, there will not be enough wealthy people to support everyone else, and then we'll all be screwed. As uncaring as it may sound, I just can't find any logic in a society intentionally growing the weakest link at the expense of the stronger ones.
I suppose that is one of the ideas behind socialism; letting everyone be equal and distributing care equally. Except everyone is not equal, some people go to work every day and bust their asses. Some people are hugely intelligent and capable of making worth while achievments. Other people are lazy and do not work. So why should everyone be rewarded equally?
I would take care of all of those that were entirely unable to take care of themselves, the disabled, ill, elderly. But not those that didn't qualify for one of these categories, such as someone who just wants to sit around and smoke crack all day instead of getting a job.
Ideally nature would take its course and those that are weak would die out on their own, yet we continue to prop them up.
I suppose most will find that a sickeningly twisted Darwinian viewpoint. But yah, that's where I'm coming from, and no, i'm not asking anyone else to agree.
Well, I agree that Republicans are spending like Democrats used to. And I don't particularly care for it.
For all the crap Bush gets from Democrats, he sure is the most liberal (financially) president we've had in a while.
That being said, the Republican party still is the financially conservative party. It's been a while since i've seen the numbers, but I think the averages are something like 2% reduced spending while Republicans are in charge of congress and 4% increased spending while Democrats are in charge of congress.
Of course the part that really concerns me the most is what they are actually spending the money on... Which in the case of Republicans AND Democrats is usually a disaster.
But I would have prefered the newest party line read: guarantees every American will have affordable access to health care within five years.
The unfortunate truth is that health care is extremely expensive. If it becomes more affordable for you, then it becomes more expensive for someone else. Somewhere, someone has to pay for it.
If you'd prefer all the cost was put on those more wealthy individuals in the country so that the less wealthy can get free health care, then just go ahead and say that.
Although there are things that can be done to lower the costs somewhat, for instance the Democrat party could stop blocking all attempts to put caps on medical malpractice lawsuits that force doctors and drug companies to spend a significant portion of their revenue on insurance. Don't you think a cap at say, 20 million, would be reasonable for a person filing suit against a doctor? And that of course doesn't include any payment for actual damages.
And on the other hand, Republicans could stop trying to reduce competition for our American drug companies, so that they would be forced to try to keep costs down.
Neither of those things will make your health care affordable though, the only way it will be affordable is if you tax wealthy Americans more and use their money to pay for it. Which to me, just seems a bit too socialist.
Well, don't assume that just becuase you swipe it yourself that no one has access to it.
In the vast majority of systems, all the card numbers can be pulled up on the POS screen by a clerk, and these systems all transmit this data on a real-time or nightly basis to atleast one if not several other sources. Usually just by zipping up all the data for the day and FTPing it to a unsecured, unencrypted ftp site.
Not that any of this is how it should be, but with my experience working on these systems I can admit that it works this way. So to say you will avoid the internet doesn't mean any less of your personal data is on it.
In fact, in many cases, avoiding the internet puts you at more risk. For instance, the many websites available where you can purchase peoples phone logs (for their cell phone) work by going to the website of your cell phone provider and logging in using the default username/password that you never changed.
Just wanted to say that you had a rock solid submission there, if only submissions of that quality and depth could actually be accepted on slashdot then we'd all be alot more informed of current IT events.
Yes, if we had a free market. But the telco's buy whatever laws or tax breaks they need for our congressmen.
It seems there are a few people in congress that are actually making tiny changes to this problem, with new regulations and harsher penalties for those that accept bribes. But I don't know how much change is possible, as the Constition clearly specifies that these people have the right to Lobby to congress, and no number of laws can stop AT&T from "donating" a few million to congressman x's local education fund.
Well, I rather enjoy interactive services. The VideoOnDemand provided by my cable television company allows me to interactively browse a list of movies, and when watching the movie I can fast forward, rewind, pause, etc.
This OnDemand model is hugely more valuable than scheduled programming. I don't even have to Tivo an episode of sopranos, I just goto the HBO-OnDemand list and choose whichever episode I want to see.
It is though, a bit slow, as every key I press must be sent to the provider, and a video stream altered/chosen and sent back to me. So lower latency will help here.
I expect it won't be long until most all television is on demand, as things such as Tivo have shown that this is what people want.
Also, for those that do not have access to this service from their provider, let me explain that there are both pay and free items. For instance I can watch any shows/movies that air on Starz/Hbo/etc for free whenever I want, but new release movies (things on DVD) are available for $3.99 or $2.99, which is still much cheaper than my local blockbuster.
Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer?
Except that physical mechanics and safety rarely change. The experienced engineer certainly has the upper hand in your example. Computer science on the other hand is changing daily, and unfortunately "more experienced" in this field is often a very bad thing. If you've been doing it for more than a few years, it is likely obsolete.
There are of course many places that are using older technology, and these are exactly the places you find the older (more experienced) guys. But if you want in on a new technology, you have to realize your experience isn't worth crap, and your ability to adapt to new ideas real-time is the most important.
Well, then being a new mac owner myself (core duo mini) maybe you can shed some light on a few things:
What's the deal with the "x" button not exiting the application? What is making it different than "_" minimize in most cases? Why on earth is "x" different than file->exit? Thats one thing I can't get used to.
Next, why is there no good launch bar mechanism? Am I missing some feature that is there? It seems like Apple just decided that Apple Users only have 2 or 3 programs, so putting them all in this dock at the bottom of the screen is ok. But every other window manager (gnome/kde/windows) clearly understands the need for something like a "Start menu" so that I can have easy access to lots of apps. In my mac I am forced to browse the directory structure through the finder. That is a pain.
And lastly, what is with the insane anti-aliasing? Does it have something to do with Macs commonly being used by artists and the anti-aliasing making the font look more like print? Becuase its really just completely blurry with many shades of gray. They could learn something from Microsoft's ClearType that uses various colors to achieve sharp-edged looking fonts. Or just let you turn it all off, but theres no way to get rid of it completely. Every single non-mac-user just seems to be baffled and unable to read text.
Well those are the main three things that are bothering me. I do love my new mac, but I'm almost ready to install Gnome on it becuase the Tiger window manager seems so silly.
Slashdot Mirror
Then why don't you run?
Thats what democracy is all about. If you can do a better job, go do it.
If all your peers really agree that the options are so bad, then they should be happy to vote for you.
Maybe he has already found the Next Big Thing and just doesn't want us to catch on....
Sheesh, Everyone knows that Christians will destroy BioTech before anything useful comes to fruition.
Didn't you hear, you don't have to invent anything to get wallstreet to throw money at it.
But what good patents have been filed for since 1899?
Yes, I suppose that is why we are periodically alerted by management that we have 45 minutes to clear all records of sensitive CC information from databases and backup media.
Those all sound great, except 2 and 3, as a free market should take care of that.
So when China bans things that hurt their government from the internet, congress calls in Microsoft and Google to harrass them for doing buisness there.
But then when online gambling takes tax money away from the US Government, Congress immediately goes about making it illegal/impossible to access/use gambling sites on the internet.
I guess I can always mail cash to the gambling site in a large manila envelope. Until congress makes a law telling me that I'm not even allowed to mail my own money where I want to unless they get to take their Vig first.
Disclaimer: This is from a guy who has only has his first mac for a few weeks. (Core Duo Mini)
I don't understand why anyone would WANT something to behave like OSX Gui.
The OSX Window manager has got to be the least responsive system I've ever worked with. The machine itself seems very quick, and capable, but the GUI is very unresponsive. Just clicking to bring a window into focus has a large delay. Probably the #1 thing for productivity is a quickly responsive GUI, and OSX seems to be the worst.
I feel like i'm spending a significant portion of my day waiting on the Window Manager, which is just silly. I'm assuming this is becuase of all the pretty bloat on the screen, which I would happily sacrifice for more performance.
Gnome 2.14 has hugely increased in this area, and the latest builds I've tried feel real-time.
As someone who has been using the latest builds of what is about to be Gnome 2.14, I can say with certainty that it is an awesome upgrade.
At first I wasn't sure if there was much difference, but after using it for an hour I started to realize I was enjoying it much more than ever before, without really being able to put my finger on what was different.
Basic speed increases give it a much more real-time feeling, and some minor graphical enhancements, while hardly noticable at first, make for a more enjoyable experience.
Also noticed alot fewer bugs and annoyances.
Give it a shot!
The man makes a very valid point.
Hardware is an insignificant part of the problem. The infrastructure should be where the focus is.
If we could get cheap electric generators, water purifies, and telecommunications (sat uplink?) then I'm pretty confident we could find them some hardware to take advantage of those things.
There are millions, make that billions, of old computers laying around that can be donated or sold for far less than $100, and why do they need laptops anyway? So they can carry them to their big business meeting? A schoolhouse with some desktops and an electric generator is much more useful.
I really can't see the purpose of getting people these $100 laptop when there is no communications infrastructure. What good is the computer if they can't get online. The huge benefit of getting them on the web is so that they can have access to piles of information that was otherwise completely inaccessible to them. Books, news, events, all uncensored and up to date.
Without the communications infrastructure they can use the computer for what? Typing? Why would they need to make nice documents or excel files when they don't even have electricity? Couldn't they just use paper?
Without debating your comments, I'll just say that I certainly am not claiming they are successful in their financial management, but simply that they spend less, and have goals of spending continually less.
Right... and any hint of filthy, filthy Socialism is far worse than letting a significant chunk of the American populace go without any healthcare or get nearly wiped out by an emergency
I would expect that is a matter that each person will feel completely different about, and probably meaningful debate would be difficult.
In my inhumane opinion, which I do not expect anyone else to accept, I believe that we are setting ourselves up for disaster by supporting and promoting those that are the biggest drain in our society.
The same people that are using the welfare and free healthcare happen to be the ones that are reproducing the fastest, and continuing to give them gifts just escalates the problem. Eventually, there will not be enough wealthy people to support everyone else, and then we'll all be screwed. As uncaring as it may sound, I just can't find any logic in a society intentionally growing the weakest link at the expense of the stronger ones.
I suppose that is one of the ideas behind socialism; letting everyone be equal and distributing care equally. Except everyone is not equal, some people go to work every day and bust their asses. Some people are hugely intelligent and capable of making worth while achievments. Other people are lazy and do not work. So why should everyone be rewarded equally?
I would take care of all of those that were entirely unable to take care of themselves, the disabled, ill, elderly. But not those that didn't qualify for one of these categories, such as someone who just wants to sit around and smoke crack all day instead of getting a job.
Ideally nature would take its course and those that are weak would die out on their own, yet we continue to prop them up.
I suppose most will find that a sickeningly twisted Darwinian viewpoint. But yah, that's where I'm coming from, and no, i'm not asking anyone else to agree.
Well, I agree that Republicans are spending like Democrats used to. And I don't particularly care for it.
For all the crap Bush gets from Democrats, he sure is the most liberal (financially) president we've had in a while.
That being said, the Republican party still is the financially conservative party. It's been a while since i've seen the numbers, but I think the averages are something like 2% reduced spending while Republicans are in charge of congress and 4% increased spending while Democrats are in charge of congress.
Of course the part that really concerns me the most is what they are actually spending the money on... Which in the case of Republicans AND Democrats is usually a disaster.
But I would have prefered the newest party line read: guarantees every American will have affordable access to health care within five years.
The unfortunate truth is that health care is extremely expensive. If it becomes more affordable for you, then it becomes more expensive for someone else. Somewhere, someone has to pay for it.
If you'd prefer all the cost was put on those more wealthy individuals in the country so that the less wealthy can get free health care, then just go ahead and say that.
Although there are things that can be done to lower the costs somewhat, for instance the Democrat party could stop blocking all attempts to put caps on medical malpractice lawsuits that force doctors and drug companies to spend a significant portion of their revenue on insurance. Don't you think a cap at say, 20 million, would be reasonable for a person filing suit against a doctor? And that of course doesn't include any payment for actual damages.
And on the other hand, Republicans could stop trying to reduce competition for our American drug companies, so that they would be forced to try to keep costs down.
Neither of those things will make your health care affordable though, the only way it will be affordable is if you tax wealthy Americans more and use their money to pay for it. Which to me, just seems a bit too socialist.
The republican party has had legislative control for quite some time now.
To when are you refering?
I guess it was just too difficult to look at your code in a nice editor with color coding and intellisense.
I'd much rather navigate to my function with:
North
North
East
North
Look
Well, don't assume that just becuase you swipe it yourself that no one has access to it.
In the vast majority of systems, all the card numbers can be pulled up on the POS screen by a clerk, and these systems all transmit this data on a real-time or nightly basis to atleast one if not several other sources. Usually just by zipping up all the data for the day and FTPing it to a unsecured, unencrypted ftp site.
Not that any of this is how it should be, but with my experience working on these systems I can admit that it works this way. So to say you will avoid the internet doesn't mean any less of your personal data is on it.
In fact, in many cases, avoiding the internet puts you at more risk. For instance, the many websites available where you can purchase peoples phone logs (for their cell phone) work by going to the website of your cell phone provider and logging in using the default username/password that you never changed.
I see no purpose in my life for huge files anymore
You've discovered some amazing new way to compress porn?
Just wanted to say that you had a rock solid submission there, if only submissions of that quality and depth could actually be accepted on slashdot then we'd all be alot more informed of current IT events.
Yes, if we had a free market. But the telco's buy whatever laws or tax breaks they need for our congressmen.
It seems there are a few people in congress that are actually making tiny changes to this problem, with new regulations and harsher penalties for those that accept bribes. But I don't know how much change is possible, as the Constition clearly specifies that these people have the right to Lobby to congress, and no number of laws can stop AT&T from "donating" a few million to congressman x's local education fund.
Well, I rather enjoy interactive services. The VideoOnDemand provided by my cable television company allows me to interactively browse a list of movies, and when watching the movie I can fast forward, rewind, pause, etc.
This OnDemand model is hugely more valuable than scheduled programming. I don't even have to Tivo an episode of sopranos, I just goto the HBO-OnDemand list and choose whichever episode I want to see.
It is though, a bit slow, as every key I press must be sent to the provider, and a video stream altered/chosen and sent back to me. So lower latency will help here.
I expect it won't be long until most all television is on demand, as things such as Tivo have shown that this is what people want.
Also, for those that do not have access to this service from their provider, let me explain that there are both pay and free items. For instance I can watch any shows/movies that air on Starz/Hbo/etc for free whenever I want, but new release movies (things on DVD) are available for $3.99 or $2.99, which is still much cheaper than my local blockbuster.
Wowa, Step 3 works great. Thanks!
Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer?
Except that physical mechanics and safety rarely change. The experienced engineer certainly has the upper hand in your example. Computer science on the other hand is changing daily, and unfortunately "more experienced" in this field is often a very bad thing. If you've been doing it for more than a few years, it is likely obsolete.
There are of course many places that are using older technology, and these are exactly the places you find the older (more experienced) guys. But if you want in on a new technology, you have to realize your experience isn't worth crap, and your ability to adapt to new ideas real-time is the most important.
Well, then being a new mac owner myself (core duo mini) maybe you can shed some light on a few things:
What's the deal with the "x" button not exiting the application? What is making it different than "_" minimize in most cases? Why on earth is "x" different than file->exit? Thats one thing I can't get used to.
Next, why is there no good launch bar mechanism? Am I missing some feature that is there? It seems like Apple just decided that Apple Users only have 2 or 3 programs, so putting them all in this dock at the bottom of the screen is ok. But every other window manager (gnome/kde/windows) clearly understands the need for something like a "Start menu" so that I can have easy access to lots of apps. In my mac I am forced to browse the directory structure through the finder. That is a pain.
And lastly, what is with the insane anti-aliasing? Does it have something to do with Macs commonly being used by artists and the anti-aliasing making the font look more like print? Becuase its really just completely blurry with many shades of gray. They could learn something from Microsoft's ClearType that uses various colors to achieve sharp-edged looking fonts. Or just let you turn it all off, but theres no way to get rid of it completely. Every single non-mac-user just seems to be baffled and unable to read text.
Well those are the main three things that are bothering me. I do love my new mac, but I'm almost ready to install Gnome on it becuase the Tiger window manager seems so silly.