Actually, I'd disagree with that. The E=MC2 formula ultimately led to the development of atomic weapons and nuclear energy. Those developments have impacted just about everyone on the planet. Gandhi's influence on the world was very minor by comparison.
I have to second your statement about bad experiences at B&N. I'll never shop there again. I have placed three orders through them. Not one of them reached me. One was listed as 'in stock' and it turned out it wasn't. They waited a month then sent me email saying my order was canceled. They did the same thing with another order for a totally different book. Yet a third order was canceled because they claimed the book had been published when it hadn't, and sent me email over a month later canceling that order as well. B&N online bites the big one. Shame since their actual stores are very well done.
On the other hand, I've put numerous orders through Amazon, and only once even had a minor problem, and it was quickly resolved. I'm aggravated about the whole 1-click thing, but unless someone else comes along who does as good a job Amazon will get all of my book business.
It's true you can buy an LCD projector for only $1k, but you can't buy a good one. All you'll get for $1k is one that can do data projection (not video) for presentations. I'm part of an animation club and we buy our own LCD projectors and three-gun projectors, and good LCD projectors for screening video in an auditorium start at around $3k and go up from there. Prices between $3k and $10k seem to be the norm for the newest and best of the mid-range video capable LCD projectors. Try this link which lets you price LCD projectors to see what I mean.
If you know of an video LCD projector in the 500+ lumens range that only costs $1k new, let me know! I'd love to know about it. We're looking for a good but inexpensive back-up projector.
First let me say, I don't really know if the Dvorak keyboard is faster or not. I havn't learned the keyboard, and I havn't seen any real studies that prove it one way or the other. I did check out the myth links you had, but found them unconvincing. Nothing indicating a real study training a large group of people from scratch. The Reason Online article kept mentioning things like individual contests from the 1800's. Most of the studies were small, 18 people or so, and many of the people taught the Dvorak keyboard were retrained from the QWERTY as opposed to being taught from scratch. No real solid science.
For some reason the Dvorak vs. QWERTY thing seems to be based more on emotion than logic. As I said, I don't know which is actually correct. I gave the Dvorak keyboard the benefit of the doubt mainly because it has the most commonly used letters of the alphabet (except R and L) in the primary, or home slots rather than above and below the plane. That has to translate into less distance, so I figured the Dvorak claim was probably accurate. I still think it may be accurate, but everything is opinion since it doesn't look like a truly unbiased test using a statistically large enough sample has been done.
Problems with your fingers aching from typing usually mean that you are not typing correctly. What I mean is that you do not have the correct posture and angles. Generally people who type using the proper posture, height, and so forth do usually don't get CTS. Perhaps you should find a typing instructor and have them coach you about this. You may also just need to take more breaks when you are typing.
Another option is to get a Dvorak keyboard and see if that works better for you. A Dvorak keyboard is supposed to be much more efficient than the standard QWERTY keyboard. What I mean is that the space your fingers have to move to type most words is much less, reducing the strain on your hands. It's also supposed to be faster. Downside is learning a new layout. Here is an URL with some info on the Dvorak layout.
As for not using a mouse that gets tricky in a GUI environment. I've never tried it, and it is pricey, but footmouse.com has a foot operated mouse. If your goal is to reduce wear and tear on your hands, maybe it is worth looking into.
You could also check out the portion of the typing injury FAQ that deals with alternative input devices. Perhaps you could substitute something for the mouse or keyboard that is more to your liking.
Scientology is basically considered a criminal organization in Europe, along with new-Nazis and other dangerous cults.
The scientology cult has earned itself a VERY bad name in certain circles. They didn't get laws like this passed against them for nothing. They worked at it.
End Of Days was a real snoozer. It did have some very good moments in it, but good moments don't make a good movie. The whole thing had the feel of a made-for-TV movie to me. The two sides have had a thousand years to plan for this confrontation (occurs every millenium) and both sides are obviously totally winging it. They also violated one of the premises of the movie in the last five minutes. Oh well.
Toy Story 2 on the other hand was just simply awesome. If you havn't seen it, go see it.
I so totally agree with you. DVD video has a bright future, but DVD audio? MP3 has a brighter future IMO. This six month delay they are talking about should help guarantee that DVD audio is stillborn. The idiotic recording industry is going to lost the audio format war because of their fear of piracy.
The article mentions much more than a 50% increase.
The "silicon on insulator" advance combined with using copper gives the 50% increase that you quote, but that is only the first advance mentioned in the article.
The second advance, embedded DRAM, is claimed to increase performance two to three times, or 200% to 300%. Combined with the SOI and copper advances, that is enough to meet Moore's law for the next couple of years. It isn't enough to meet it for the next decade however.
Caine's statement was "We must take a stand NOW! The Australians are more and more getting cut off from the internet. Not just this, but previous censorships."
The second sentence can be interpreted a couple of ways, which makes Caine's statement ambiguous. Here are the two ways I can see to interpret his statement.
1: 'Not just this censorship tactic, but the previous censorship tactics as well are cutting the Australians off from the net.'
2: 'This (pricing) tactic is helping to cut the Australians off from the net, along with the earlier censorship tactics,'
Caine is guilty of bad grammar, so it isn't clear which meaning he meant. If number one, I agree with you. However I suspect he meant number two.
Personally, I prefer pricing to be based on quality of connection (speed and reliability) rather than quantity (per-meg).
To your points:
1: That spam messages are small. Spam messages are whatever size the spammer makes them. Nothing stopping them from embedding binaries of various types including images or other crap.
2: That you have a leg to stand on when charging a spammer: How are you going to charge the spammer? Are you assuming the spam originates in Australia? If so it is a bad assumption. I could spam you from someplace else in the world and you're SOL.
3: You can force the ISP to SHOW YOU what traffic they are charging you for. They can't just throw numbers at you, saying 'you used xx bytes': Sure they can. All they need to do is log the number of Megs that go to your connection. This isn't like a phone company where the rate is based on WHERE you called or WHAT you downloaded. Just how much. If laws were passed making them record where you went and what you downloaded, they could do that of course, but they would have to pass on the cost of recording you a la Big Brother. So your rates go up if you require this. Screwed either way.
Per-meg pricing also makes you vulnerable to attack. I can just send big attachments or ping you go death and drain your bank account.
Another problem. If you are hosting a web page, heaven help you if it becomes popular for some reason. Someone posts your web site on/. in an article for some reason for example, and you are so totally fscking screwed. I would think twice about putting up a web site if I were charged based on the number of people who visit it. It opens you to financial risk.
Come to think of it, this open a whole new avenue of messing with Aussie sites we don't like. Just/. them to death and drain their bank accounts. Cool.
First off, the publishing industry has nothing whatsover to do with OSS, Microsoft, or Red Hat except that they publish books on their products and so forth. Where is the tie-in here? Microsoft does have it's own publishing company Microsoft Press, but that is a pretty specific entity devoted to publishing resource kits and training kits. The practices of the publishing industry are well established and seperate.
Secondly, many companies and ESPECIALLY Microsoft do give you value for previous investments. It is called 'the upgrade version'. Microsoft has a long tradition of supplying full price versions and cheaper upgrade versions on it's software. Were you somehow ignorant of this well known fact, or did you just spout off without thinking? As for Red Hat, you can download the newest version for free or order it from someplace like CheapBytes for a couple of bucks. I just don't see the 'churn and burn' that you are talking about.
Thirdly, how would you propose that they supply the second edition changes to you for only 'a nominal fee'? Should they publish a small booklet with the extra chapters? There is a lot of fixed costs in creating a book big or small. The booklet will have to be priced high enough to cover all the costs including these fixed ones. They'd lose their shirt on it anyway because no one is going to buy the stupid booklet, and no stores are going to carry it anyway.
The only real option would be soft copy on a web site, available to everyone since there isn't any real way of checking to see if you bought the first edition. Not many people would be interested though, and all it could do is harm sales. No real point.
Fact is, if you don't want the second edition, don't buy it. If it doesn't have enough new material for you to justify spending the cash then you don't have to. If you do buy it, then obviously the new material added enough extra value for it to be worth your while to spend the dough, and you have no complaint coming.
He's actively using the site, so probably not. It only became a valuable domain after Bush raised such a fuss about it that he generated publicity for the site.
Bush is pretty SOL here. All they can do is threaten to sue the guy and hope he can't afford the lawsuit.
I consider it one of the flaws of our judicial system that rich people can have such strong control over other people's rights simply by threatening them.
This looks like a very open and shut First Amendment case to me. Why do you say "It's not an open and shut case?". Fact is that protecting political speech is the primary purpose of the First Amendment, and any attempt to restrict political speech has always been promptly squished by the courts.
I read the article and I still don't know anything more than I did before. Dr. David Whitehouse obvously doesn't understand what this thereom is. He gave no laymans terms for what this means, no analysis, nothing. The best he could do was quote a literal definition that only a mathmatician would understand, say that it relates numbers to shapes, and claim that it was one of the most important mathmatical discoveries of the 20th century.
I'll hunt the web to see what this is really about. As for the BBC, they should transfer Dr. Whitehouse to a job that doesn't require him to actually attempt to communicate with anyone else by any means whatsoever.
As for the IE-Windows mess, I had the misfortune of supporting IE for three months. It burrowed itself into areas that it had no business being, and was a mess. I saw IE 4.0 hose numerous machines when the first version of 4.0 came out. (In the case of the Compaq machines though, it was as much their fault as Microsoft's.) It was one of the few times Microsoft moved quickly with the updates because it was a serious problem. That doesn't change the fact that when browsing the web, IE does a better job that Netscape's browsers.
I loved how Gore said Bill would probably be worth one trillion one day, but that it would have probably been two trillion if he'd stayed in school.
Personally, I think if Bill had stayed in school and not grabbed the brass ring when he saw it, none of us would probably have even heard of him.
He was really in rare form I thought. For example, to protect kids in school we need to:
1: "tough measures to get guns away from kids and criminals"
Translation: More gun control that ensures that only criminals and disturbed kids have guns.
2: "more discipline and values in our schools"
Translation: More activism on the Political Correctness front in the schools.
3: "more self-restraint in the use of gratuitous violence in the entertainment media"
Translation: Censorship. (Remember, his wife is Tipper Gore!!). Of course countries like Japan have considerably more violence in many of their shows, but almost no violence...
4: "more parental involvement in the lives of our children"
Translation: He actually got it right on this one. Of course there is nothing he or government can do about this.
I could go on, but what is the point? The whole article was such a lump of half-masticated pap. Gore needs to update his android brain for one that doesn't require vacuum tubes and alligator clips.
He didn't comment on the stability of Linux vs. Windows. He commented on the stability and capability of the browser. I agree with him - MSIE is currently the best browser out there. Netscape's browser just isn't up to snuff. My friend's Mac locks up at random times when he runs Netscape. It never did get around to supporting all of the style tags properly. They wanted to wait until it was a set standard and fell behind. They did odd things in how they parsed HTML for tables. Just lots of little things.
I used to like Netscape better because it supported JavaScript and MSIE didn't. That changed however, and the truth is that while Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly, I believe that most of Netscape's problems came from internal problems, not Microsoft.
Once methods and strategies have become entrenched in a company as massive as Microsoft, they tend to have a life of their own. Inertia if you will. In this case it may not have been intentional - Microsft is such an insular and self-absorbed company they may give third party stuff only cursorary tests if any. Intentional or not it works out to acheiving the same ends - breaking third party stuff. This won't change unless Bill Gates himself restructures the entire company. Right now Micosoft is just doing what it has always done. They havn't changed their direction, so there is no reason to think that just because this stage of the anit-trust proceedings is over that their strategies would magically change.
If Bill Gates was to begin making massive changes in how his company does business, that would just be more ammunition to be used against Microsoft. He's damned either way. If he began implementing the changes necessary to actually stop things like this, it would quickly become known and be used as evidence that they had actually been engaging in these practices and that they were tacitly admitting to it.
It is also likely that Microsoft's employees do not believe that much will be done to Microsoft. There is still a lot of things that need to happen, and they may feel Bill Gates will work out a solution.
Personally I would have found it more surprising if Microsoft did suddenly do an about face and revamp their corporate structure. That stuff like this continues is a function of Microsoft's internal culture, and that isn't easily changed.
They can't regulate the newsgroup not because they don't want to, but because it simply isn't possible for them to do so. It is physically possible for them to coerce people in the country however. Things like 'rights' only have meaning if those rights are respected.
Re:This is absolutely ludicrous..
on
Usenet Gag Order
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· Score: 1
So what's your point? The U.S. government may not have jurisdiction over Usenet, but the government has jurisdiction over the individuals in question. So for them, the fine points about who has jurisdiction over Usenet itself doesn't matter.
Try posting something really illegal, like some child porn or the credit card numbers of someone you don't like. Then try to tell the authorities that they can't do anything because they don't have authority over Usenet. They'll laugh in your face and then arrest you.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I'd disagree with that. The E=MC2 formula ultimately led to the development of atomic weapons and nuclear energy. Those developments have impacted just about everyone on the planet. Gandhi's influence on the world was very minor by comparison.
On the other hand, I've put numerous orders through Amazon, and only once even had a minor problem, and it was quickly resolved. I'm aggravated about the whole 1-click thing, but unless someone else comes along who does as good a job Amazon will get all of my book business.
If you know of an video LCD projector in the 500+ lumens range that only costs $1k new, let me know! I'd love to know about it. We're looking for a good but inexpensive back-up projector.
For some reason the Dvorak vs. QWERTY thing seems to be based more on emotion than logic. As I said, I don't know which is actually correct. I gave the Dvorak keyboard the benefit of the doubt mainly because it has the most commonly used letters of the alphabet (except R and L) in the primary, or home slots rather than above and below the plane. That has to translate into less distance, so I figured the Dvorak claim was probably accurate. I still think it may be accurate, but everything is opinion since it doesn't look like a truly unbiased test using a statistically large enough sample has been done.
Another option is to get a Dvorak keyboard and see if that works better for you. A Dvorak keyboard is supposed to be much more efficient than the standard QWERTY keyboard. What I mean is that the space your fingers have to move to type most words is much less, reducing the strain on your hands. It's also supposed to be faster. Downside is learning a new layout. Here is an URL with some info on the Dvorak layout.
As for not using a mouse that gets tricky in a GUI environment. I've never tried it, and it is pricey, but footmouse.com has a foot operated mouse. If your goal is to reduce wear and tear on your hands, maybe it is worth looking into.
You could also check out the portion of the typing injury FAQ that deals with alternative input devices. Perhaps you could substitute something for the mouse or keyboard that is more to your liking.
Hope this was helpful.
The scientology cult has earned itself a VERY bad name in certain circles. They didn't get laws like this passed against them for nothing. They worked at it.
Toy Story 2 on the other hand was just simply awesome. If you havn't seen it, go see it.
I so totally agree with you. DVD video has a bright future, but DVD audio? MP3 has a brighter future IMO. This six month delay they are talking about should help guarantee that DVD audio is stillborn. The idiotic recording industry is going to lost the audio format war because of their fear of piracy.
The "silicon on insulator" advance combined with using copper gives the 50% increase that you quote, but that is only the first advance mentioned in the article.
The second advance, embedded DRAM, is claimed to increase performance two to three times, or 200% to 300%. Combined with the SOI and copper advances, that is enough to meet Moore's law for the next couple of years. It isn't enough to meet it for the next decade however.
The second sentence can be interpreted a couple of ways, which makes Caine's statement ambiguous. Here are the two ways I can see to interpret his statement.
1: 'Not just this censorship tactic, but the previous censorship tactics as well are cutting the Australians off from the net.'
2: 'This (pricing) tactic is helping to cut the Australians off from the net, along with the earlier censorship tactics,'
Caine is guilty of bad grammar, so it isn't clear which meaning he meant. If number one, I agree with you. However I suspect he meant number two.
To your points:
1: That spam messages are small. Spam messages are whatever size the spammer makes them. Nothing stopping them from embedding binaries of various types including images or other crap.
2: That you have a leg to stand on when charging a spammer: How are you going to charge the spammer? Are you assuming the spam originates in Australia? If so it is a bad assumption. I could spam you from someplace else in the world and you're SOL.
3: You can force the ISP to SHOW YOU what traffic they are charging you for. They can't just throw numbers at you, saying 'you used xx bytes': Sure they can. All they need to do is log the number of Megs that go to your connection. This isn't like a phone company where the rate is based on WHERE you called or WHAT you downloaded. Just how much. If laws were passed making them record where you went and what you downloaded, they could do that of course, but they would have to pass on the cost of recording you a la Big Brother. So your rates go up if you require this. Screwed either way.
Per-meg pricing also makes you vulnerable to attack. I can just send big attachments or ping you go death and drain your bank account.
Another problem. If you are hosting a web page, heaven help you if it becomes popular for some reason. Someone posts your web site on /. in an article for some reason for example, and you are so totally fscking screwed. I would think twice about putting up a web site if I were charged based on the number of people who visit it. It opens you to financial risk.
Come to think of it, this open a whole new avenue of messing with Aussie sites we don't like. Just /. them to death and drain their bank accounts. Cool.
Secondly, many companies and ESPECIALLY Microsoft do give you value for previous investments. It is called 'the upgrade version'. Microsoft has a long tradition of supplying full price versions and cheaper upgrade versions on it's software. Were you somehow ignorant of this well known fact, or did you just spout off without thinking? As for Red Hat, you can download the newest version for free or order it from someplace like CheapBytes for a couple of bucks. I just don't see the 'churn and burn' that you are talking about.
Thirdly, how would you propose that they supply the second edition changes to you for only 'a nominal fee'? Should they publish a small booklet with the extra chapters? There is a lot of fixed costs in creating a book big or small. The booklet will have to be priced high enough to cover all the costs including these fixed ones. They'd lose their shirt on it anyway because no one is going to buy the stupid booklet, and no stores are going to carry it anyway.
The only real option would be soft copy on a web site, available to everyone since there isn't any real way of checking to see if you bought the first edition. Not many people would be interested though, and all it could do is harm sales. No real point.
Fact is, if you don't want the second edition, don't buy it. If it doesn't have enough new material for you to justify spending the cash then you don't have to. If you do buy it, then obviously the new material added enough extra value for it to be worth your while to spend the dough, and you have no complaint coming.
Bush is pretty SOL here. All they can do is threaten to sue the guy and hope he can't afford the lawsuit.
I consider it one of the flaws of our judicial system that rich people can have such strong control over other people's rights simply by threatening them.
However the UK's laws have zero bearing on this issue.
This looks like a very open and shut First Amendment case to me. Why do you say "It's not an open and shut case?". Fact is that protecting political speech is the primary purpose of the First Amendment, and any attempt to restrict political speech has always been promptly squished by the courts.
I'll hunt the web to see what this is really about. As for the BBC, they should transfer Dr. Whitehouse to a job that doesn't require him to actually attempt to communicate with anyone else by any means whatsoever.
You could strangle then with your mouse cord.
You could throw one of the Windows Resource Kits at them and cave in their chest cavity.
As for the IE-Windows mess, I had the misfortune of supporting IE for three months. It burrowed itself into areas that it had no business being, and was a mess. I saw IE 4.0 hose numerous machines when the first version of 4.0 came out. (In the case of the Compaq machines though, it was as much their fault as Microsoft's.) It was one of the few times Microsoft moved quickly with the updates because it was a serious problem. That doesn't change the fact that when browsing the web, IE does a better job that Netscape's browsers.
Personally, I think if Bill had stayed in school and not grabbed the brass ring when he saw it, none of us would probably have even heard of him.
He was really in rare form I thought. For example, to protect kids in school we need to:
1: "tough measures to get guns away from kids and criminals"
Translation: More gun control that ensures that only criminals and disturbed kids have guns.
2: "more discipline and values in our schools"
Translation: More activism on the Political Correctness front in the schools.
3: "more self-restraint in the use of gratuitous violence in the entertainment media"
Translation: Censorship. (Remember, his wife is Tipper Gore!!). Of course countries like Japan have considerably more violence in many of their shows, but almost no violence...
4: "more parental involvement in the lives of our children"
Translation: He actually got it right on this one. Of course there is nothing he or government can do about this.
I could go on, but what is the point? The whole article was such a lump of half-masticated pap. Gore needs to update his android brain for one that doesn't require vacuum tubes and alligator clips.
He attached his name to it, he has to take both the blame and the credit.
I used to like Netscape better because it supported JavaScript and MSIE didn't. That changed however, and the truth is that while Microsoft has been ruled a monopoly, I believe that most of Netscape's problems came from internal problems, not Microsoft.
It was a very interesting article. You should be moderated up.
If Bill Gates was to begin making massive changes in how his company does business, that would just be more ammunition to be used against Microsoft. He's damned either way. If he began implementing the changes necessary to actually stop things like this, it would quickly become known and be used as evidence that they had actually been engaging in these practices and that they were tacitly admitting to it.
It is also likely that Microsoft's employees do not believe that much will be done to Microsoft. There is still a lot of things that need to happen, and they may feel Bill Gates will work out a solution.
Personally I would have found it more surprising if Microsoft did suddenly do an about face and revamp their corporate structure. That stuff like this continues is a function of Microsoft's internal culture, and that isn't easily changed.
They can't regulate the newsgroup not because they don't want to, but because it simply isn't possible for them to do so. It is physically possible for them to coerce people in the country however. Things like 'rights' only have meaning if those rights are respected.
Try posting something really illegal, like some child porn or the credit card numbers of someone you don't like. Then try to tell the authorities that they can't do anything because they don't have authority over Usenet. They'll laugh in your face and then arrest you.