Not that Verizons WANTS to be a Common Carrier. That would imply some sort of network neutrality.
To the contrary, I'm sure Verizon would like to redefine Common Carrier status the same way the RIAA has tried to redefine fair use - they want to get all the perks of common carrier status (not being liable for what they transmit) while still getting to choose what they transmit (network neutrality).
I agree. My girlfriend's mother owns a dance studio, and they recently opened another small building as an annex where they can hold classes for the younger dancers (ages 3 to 8), and because of ADA, she has to put TWO handicapped toilets in a dance studio annex. There's not room in the annex for three toilets, so the two handicapped toilets are the only ones they have, and the young kids need help climbing up to use the toilet. This is a dance studio - they have some kids who are mentally handicapped, but everyone there is physically capable enough to dance so I think they should be able to use a regular toilet. Admittedly, one handicap toilet might be practical if one of the dancers has a handicapped parent or grandparent, but two is definitely overkill.
Having read the article, it sounds to me that he got in trouble for downloading porn on the laptop issued to him by work, not necessarily at work. I know several people who have laptops assigned to them by their employers that they take everywhere - some don't even have their own computer at home. My guess is that he was using the laptop to download porn off the clock (possibly at home), but when word got out, the employer sacked him for misusing their laptop. I'm not going into whether or not he should have been doing this, or whether the employer had a right to fire him, I'm just stating that it doesn't sound to me like he was downloading porn at work.
You are severely exaggerating. I'm no windows fan, in fact I highly encourage my friends and family to try Ubuntu, and use it on one of my computers. My laptop runs Windows because there are a few apps I like having. When I have the time I'll set up a dual boot, but for now I use Windows XP.
The computer I had before my current laptop got incredibly bogged down with viruses that entered the system through a variety of means. Eventually I found it to be unusable, and switched it to Linux. My laptop, however, has been running XP for a year and a half and I have never had a problem with viruses. For a year I ran Norton Internet Security Suite, then got fed up with it and switched to Computer Associate's derivative of Zone Alarm. A large part of this time, it has been exposed directly to the internet with no form of hardware firewall in between. The software I use most of the time is Firefox, Gaim, OpenOffice.org, an ancient DOS app for managing my checkbook, iTunes for my iPod (though I've recently started using my iPod with Amarok on my Linux box instead), and I've played a few multi-player online games. Let me reiterate that I have never had a problem with viruses. I don't like having to pay $25-50 a year for an anti-virus and firewall, and I certainly wouldn't touch IE with a ten foot stick (I've recently started referring to IE as the Firefox download utility), but it is possible to maintain a windows system without having it affected by viruses.
I can certainly associate with that. I've got a Linux desktop and a Windows Laptop (not windows much longer), and I use my laptop for little other than web browsing and word processing when I'm away from my desktop. I'm trying to unlearn as much as I can about windows so I can stop doing tech support for friends and family. I also try to hint that family members ought to move towards Linux, whenever they ask a question I respond "well, that would be fairly simple on Linux, but on windows you have to..." and it's almost always true. Unfortunately, people are afraid of Linux. Last time my mom got a new computer I tried to convince her to let me install Ubuntu on it. I explained that it would be more secure, cheaper, and would have programs to do everything she's used to, plus I'd be able to use SSH to troubleshoot her computer while I'm away at school. But she had no desire to learn a new interface, so she stuck with windows, which I had to reinstall within 6 months because it became bogged down with viruses despite running Norton.
I'm rather looking forward to Vista, because I will be able to honestly say "I've never really used vista, I can't help you."
A window was destroyed and this is the biggest incident of domestic terrorism in five years?
I suppose extremists firebombing a neuro-scientist's neighbor doesn't count, since they bombed the wrong house.
And what about bombings at abortion clinics, which have been fairly widespread since the 1970's. A friend of my family works at an abortion clinic as a counselor who tries to persuade patients not to have abortions, and her car was set on fire by abortion protestors.
I'm not sure how you define domestic terrorism, but it hardly seems that this is the largest act of domestic terrorism this year, much less out of the last 5.
The parent to my comment suggested that people who were "on call" had a lot to look forward to. I certainly agree that an employer has no right to track you when you're not being paid. As for sleeping in, there are some jobs where that might be appropriate, but that doesn't work well for people who have meetings to attend, students to teach, customers to assist, etc.
Yeah, but what about the guy who only carries a $50 because he knows four bus drivers out of five won't want to make change? While US currency is legal tender for all debts public and private, that only applies for goods or services already rendered. The bus driver is well within his right to decline a rider who can't produce reasonable change.
I use Internet Explorer for nothing more than downloading Firefox. I'd prefer that Firefox came as the default web browser when I install Windows.
Likewise, if a common "Linux desktop" were ever established, many users would view it as one more thing they have to change before their computer works the way they want it to. It wouldn't create uniformity in the Linux experience any more than Internet Explorer creates a uniformity in the web browsing experience, except that everyone has to go through one more step to get things the way they want it.
Microsoft is using a new algorithm to monitor hardware changes and enforce licensing compliance, and the company says that it is more forgiving now than it was with Windows XP.
(Emphasis mine)
I've made all sorts of upgrades to XP without having to appeal to Microsoft. I've added RAM, hard drives, swapped video cards, sound cards, ethernet cards, optical drives, and I've never had any problems. If they're going to be more forgiving with what they consider significant changes, I suspect this means upgrading motherboards, or at least CPUs. My guess is even most gamers wouldn't notice this if it weren't on Slashdot.
As a sibling said, it depends on settings. I have my mythbox set to flag the commercials, and skip them when it's playing. As the detection is not 100% accurate, I fix any flaws while watching the show, then run mythtranscode to remove them from the file and reduce the size for storage (it doesn't actually reencode the file, it just copies all the frames, skipping parts listed in the cutlist).
Our next presidential election is November, 2008, but we can take a big step towards fixing things if we take enough congressional seats away from Republicans. The way things are now, republicans can pass anything they want through congress and get it approved at the presidency. If Democrats get some control back in congress and/or the senate, we'll start seeing more of what our country was founded on: compromise.
I agree. It's a fun toy, and it might lend itself to some useful new applications, but for current computer uses, it's not worth much. Web browsing wouldn't gain much if anything from that kind of interface. Word processing on such a computer would be a complete pain in the ass. Their photo organizing app looked pretty useless, but I could see that being made more practical. Web browsing, word processing, and media organization are the three main things the average joe uses their computer for, and media organization is the only thing this interface could conceivably help with.
The other issue is gestures. I use The Firefox extension All-in-one gestures. It's great for things like go back, go forward, close the screen, enlarge that image, remove that object, but I remember about 10 gestures out of the 50 or so offered by the extension. I wouldn't want to constantly have to refer to a gesture index to remember how to do slightly less common tasks, I'd rather just have a button I can push.
I've not seen many biologists suggest that we're moving towards a single gender species. I've heard several suggestions that the Y chromosome will eventually fade out of existence, but that another chromosome would likely replace it as the sex determining chromosome. The resulting species would be more feminine, but there would still be differentiation.
I use kubuntu edgy and I haven't run into either of the problems you mention. The browser has never closed on me, and Ctrl tab changes tabs for me, not desktops.
I will say that Edgy Eft has given me more trouble than any earlier version of Ubuntu (enough so that I'm thinking of moving to Gentoo), but Firefox is one thing that is working as expected.
Extensions generally aren't maintained by the same people who maintain Firefox. If the individual maintainers chose to update their extensions before the change, then they got updated, otherwise you have to wait for the maintainer decide they want to update. It's quite possible that some extensions will never get updated, simply because their creators no longer care. There were some extensions I used pre 1.5 that never got updated. I was sad to see them go, but unless I wanted to fix them myself, there wasn't much I could do.
That's the only purpose it ever served on my PC. In fact, I installed Opera solely because on the rare occasion that I have problems with Firefox, I don't want to have to use IE to troubleshoot my problems.
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I agree. My girlfriend's mother owns a dance studio, and they recently opened another small building as an annex where they can hold classes for the younger dancers (ages 3 to 8), and because of ADA, she has to put TWO handicapped toilets in a dance studio annex. There's not room in the annex for three toilets, so the two handicapped toilets are the only ones they have, and the young kids need help climbing up to use the toilet. This is a dance studio - they have some kids who are mentally handicapped, but everyone there is physically capable enough to dance so I think they should be able to use a regular toilet. Admittedly, one handicap toilet might be practical if one of the dancers has a handicapped parent or grandparent, but two is definitely overkill.
Having read the article, it sounds to me that he got in trouble for downloading porn on the laptop issued to him by work, not necessarily at work. I know several people who have laptops assigned to them by their employers that they take everywhere - some don't even have their own computer at home. My guess is that he was using the laptop to download porn off the clock (possibly at home), but when word got out, the employer sacked him for misusing their laptop. I'm not going into whether or not he should have been doing this, or whether the employer had a right to fire him, I'm just stating that it doesn't sound to me like he was downloading porn at work.
The computer I had before my current laptop got incredibly bogged down with viruses that entered the system through a variety of means. Eventually I found it to be unusable, and switched it to Linux. My laptop, however, has been running XP for a year and a half and I have never had a problem with viruses. For a year I ran Norton Internet Security Suite, then got fed up with it and switched to Computer Associate's derivative of Zone Alarm. A large part of this time, it has been exposed directly to the internet with no form of hardware firewall in between. The software I use most of the time is Firefox, Gaim, OpenOffice.org, an ancient DOS app for managing my checkbook, iTunes for my iPod (though I've recently started using my iPod with Amarok on my Linux box instead), and I've played a few multi-player online games. Let me reiterate that I have never had a problem with viruses. I don't like having to pay $25-50 a year for an anti-virus and firewall, and I certainly wouldn't touch IE with a ten foot stick (I've recently started referring to IE as the Firefox download utility), but it is possible to maintain a windows system without having it affected by viruses.
I'm rather looking forward to Vista, because I will be able to honestly say "I've never really used vista, I can't help you."
Have I left anything to continue the chain?
This is quite possibly the funniest comment I've ever read on slashdot. Kudos on that one.
I suppose extremists firebombing a neuro-scientist's neighbor doesn't count, since they bombed the wrong house.
And what about bombings at abortion clinics, which have been fairly widespread since the 1970's. A friend of my family works at an abortion clinic as a counselor who tries to persuade patients not to have abortions, and her car was set on fire by abortion protestors.
I'm not sure how you define domestic terrorism, but it hardly seems that this is the largest act of domestic terrorism this year, much less out of the last 5.
The parent to my comment suggested that people who were "on call" had a lot to look forward to. I certainly agree that an employer has no right to track you when you're not being paid. As for sleeping in, there are some jobs where that might be appropriate, but that doesn't work well for people who have meetings to attend, students to teach, customers to assist, etc.
I once had a teacher who was 45 minutes late to school because she'd accidentally slept in. Let's just say the principal was less than thrilled.
Is it really abuse to make sure your employees are where you're paying them to be?
There are a few people who mod their macs, it's just not nearly as easy as making PC mods.
Yeah, but what about the guy who only carries a $50 because he knows four bus drivers out of five won't want to make change? While US currency is legal tender for all debts public and private, that only applies for goods or services already rendered. The bus driver is well within his right to decline a rider who can't produce reasonable change.
Likewise, if a common "Linux desktop" were ever established, many users would view it as one more thing they have to change before their computer works the way they want it to. It wouldn't create uniformity in the Linux experience any more than Internet Explorer creates a uniformity in the web browsing experience, except that everyone has to go through one more step to get things the way they want it.
The same went for Dapper Drake, and Breezy Badger, and I assume versions that, so personally, I don't think it's unreasonable.
I've made all sorts of upgrades to XP without having to appeal to Microsoft. I've added RAM, hard drives, swapped video cards, sound cards, ethernet cards, optical drives, and I've never had any problems. If they're going to be more forgiving with what they consider significant changes, I suspect this means upgrading motherboards, or at least CPUs. My guess is even most gamers wouldn't notice this if it weren't on Slashdot.
As a sibling said, it depends on settings. I have my mythbox set to flag the commercials, and skip them when it's playing. As the detection is not 100% accurate, I fix any flaws while watching the show, then run mythtranscode to remove them from the file and reduce the size for storage (it doesn't actually reencode the file, it just copies all the frames, skipping parts listed in the cutlist).
Our next presidential election is November, 2008, but we can take a big step towards fixing things if we take enough congressional seats away from Republicans. The way things are now, republicans can pass anything they want through congress and get it approved at the presidency. If Democrats get some control back in congress and/or the senate, we'll start seeing more of what our country was founded on: compromise.
The other issue is gestures. I use The Firefox extension All-in-one gestures. It's great for things like go back, go forward, close the screen, enlarge that image, remove that object, but I remember about 10 gestures out of the 50 or so offered by the extension. I wouldn't want to constantly have to refer to a gesture index to remember how to do slightly less common tasks, I'd rather just have a button I can push.
Ever cleaned your monitor? It usually involves a cloth and a spray bottle, and takes a few seconds.
I'd much rather have to clean my monitor than my keyboard.
Hmmm...
I've not seen many biologists suggest that we're moving towards a single gender species. I've heard several suggestions that the Y chromosome will eventually fade out of existence, but that another chromosome would likely replace it as the sex determining chromosome. The resulting species would be more feminine, but there would still be differentiation.
I will say that Edgy Eft has given me more trouble than any earlier version of Ubuntu (enough so that I'm thinking of moving to Gentoo), but Firefox is one thing that is working as expected.
Extensions generally aren't maintained by the same people who maintain Firefox. If the individual maintainers chose to update their extensions before the change, then they got updated, otherwise you have to wait for the maintainer decide they want to update. It's quite possible that some extensions will never get updated, simply because their creators no longer care. There were some extensions I used pre 1.5 that never got updated. I was sad to see them go, but unless I wanted to fix them myself, there wasn't much I could do.
That's the only purpose it ever served on my PC. In fact, I installed Opera solely because on the rare occasion that I have problems with Firefox, I don't want to have to use IE to troubleshoot my problems.