Look, you can't go back and CHANGE YOUR POINT after I responded to it
Wow, this brings back fond memories of Usenet around 1988. The next thing that should happen is that one of the posters should threaten to unsubscribe from Slashdot.
Have you ever looked at a hospital bill? The most outrageous expenses are for the hospital. When my wife had a biopsy, the doctors got a few hundred dollars, while the hospital charged around $1000. She was only there for two hours!
Or it could be that supporting all the various flavors of Windows has eaten up their developer time. I sometimes think MS purposefully makes Win32 a PITA because they know developers have to support it, and want to ensure that those developers won't have the money or energy left to support anything else.
Being around too long, I remember when "Microsoft Windows" came out. At the time, there were several competing systems that ran on top of DOS: GEM from DRI, TopView from IBM, and (I think) DesQView from Quarterback(?). They were all referred to as "windowing" systems in the magazines.
A lot of Linux PC users really are using a "personal" computer, in that only one person generally uses it. This is my situation at work.
At home, though, the PC gets shared by 4 people. So, if I install something new, I'll often want to add it to one of my KDE menus. But then I have to remember to do the same for each of the other 3 users, or go through the pain of walking them through it.
Thus, one feature of my ideal package manager or installer would allow a root install to easily update the KDE/Gnome menus of all users, perhaps being able to choose those in a particular group.
When I taught a math course last year, I found Lyx and gnuplot excellent for creating tests and assignments. Lyx's equation editing works beautifully, and I also liked its ability to specify vertical space in inches.
My only gripe was the outdated Xforms GUI, but I believe that's being replaced by GTK.
Okay. I, like many readers here, have money in mutual funds. With all the money being saved, we should see new dividends flowing freely into our accounts, or prices rising to new highs.
Seems like prices have barely made it back to the point where they were when Bush took office.
My former employer used to make us attend quarterly meetings where a marketing type would show us Powerpoint slides for a couple hours in a darkened room.
Believe me, the time goes by a lot faster when you doze off, and you come out feeling energized to do some real work.
Kid: (Whine) (Whine) Dadddyyy!!! I'm bored! (Whine) I want to see a disney cartoon on the phone. Dad: Sorry, my phone won't do that. Kid: (Whine, Sniffle) But Joey gets to watch them on his dad's phone. Dad: I know, son, but I don't have the right kind of phone for that. Wife: Damnit, Bob! I told you not to buy that Linux phone. (Nag, nag, nag) All my friends bought phones that let their kids watch Disney, but you had to go buy another one of your geek toys!
Agreed. Most mathematics is universal almost by definition, because it is derived from things we see in nature. For example, the ratio of pairs of Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio, and those numbers appear commonly in nature.
And take the case of group theory. While it appears to be abstract, it's in many ways a generalization of notions of symmetry, which are also common in the natural world.
... is that a person used to be able to get a factory job immediately after graduating from high-school, while a technical job requires years of expensive college.
That said, I still think an uneducated person should be able to get a decent job.
I wonder when it started. I went to college and grad. school in the 70's, and it wasn't like that then. I still have a huge copy of "Biology Today" full of color illustrations that cost me $10, which was about 5 hours labor at minimum wage. Most of my other books were under $10, except for a few fairly thick graduate math books, which topped out at $20. Buying books never seemed like a big expense for me, but then, neither was the $250/quarter tuition at UCLA.
Students and/or their parents are really being screwed today, and I can't figure out why. Where is all the tax money going? And how could schools be so much more affordable back when I and all the millions of baby-boomers were taking advantage of them?
Depends how it's done. I taught a class there last year, and the electronic textbook was set up such that you could only download one chapter at a time. That meant that you couldn't get the whole thing off the internet without a lot of tedium, and nobody seemed very happy with the situation.
When I was in college, waaayy back, it was the graduate math books that were high-priced. Made sense, since they sold to a very limited audience. Later, I noticed it was computer books. This I could also see, since they'd be obsolete within a year.
But my daughter's taking a first-year Spanish class at PSU, and the textbook (with a couple CD's) was $160!!! And this is not a particularly thick or fancy book, either.
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Look, you can't go back and CHANGE YOUR POINT after I responded to it
Wow, this brings back fond memories of Usenet around 1988. The next thing that should happen is that one of the posters should threaten to unsubscribe from Slashdot.
Have you ever looked at a hospital bill? The most outrageous expenses are for the hospital. When my wife had a biopsy, the doctors got a few hundred dollars, while the hospital charged around $1000. She was only there for two hours!
Or it could be that supporting all the various flavors of Windows has eaten up their developer time. I sometimes think MS purposefully makes Win32 a PITA because they know developers have to support it, and want to ensure that those developers won't have the money or energy left to support anything else.
Yes, that's right (and it does sound a lot better than "quarterback").
And after you pay $45 to get into Disneyland, don't be surprised to find that the "premium" rides require an extra payment.
No, a dumb terminal would be completely reliable, easy and quick to turn off and on, would never get viruses, and would last for years.
Your PC will be a Windows PC, with all that implies.
Being around too long, I remember when "Microsoft Windows" came out. At the time, there were several competing systems that ran on top of DOS: GEM from DRI, TopView from IBM, and (I think) DesQView from Quarterback(?). They were all referred to as "windowing" systems in the magazines.
A lot of Linux PC users really are using a "personal" computer, in that only one person generally uses it. This is my situation at work.
At home, though, the PC gets shared by 4 people. So, if I install something new, I'll often want to add it to one of my KDE menus. But then I have to remember to do the same for each of the other 3 users, or go through the pain of walking them through it.
Thus, one feature of my ideal package manager or installer would allow a root install to easily update the KDE/Gnome menus of all users, perhaps being able to choose those in a particular group.
I guess that's one way of putting it when people start growling and muttering to themselves.
When I taught a math course last year, I found Lyx and gnuplot excellent for creating tests and assignments. Lyx's equation editing works beautifully, and I also liked its ability to specify vertical space in inches.
My only gripe was the outdated Xforms GUI, but I believe that's being replaced by GTK.
Now what we need is software that dials the phone and then automatically swears until a live person picks up.
Okay. I, like many readers here, have money in mutual funds. With all the money being saved, we should see new dividends flowing freely into our accounts, or prices rising to new highs.
Seems like prices have barely made it back to the point where they were when Bush took office.
My former employer used to make us attend quarterly meetings where a marketing type would show us Powerpoint slides for a couple hours in a darkened room.
Believe me, the time goes by a lot faster when you doze off, and you come out feeling energized to do some real work.
I used to excuse myself, saying I needed to use the restroom. Then I wouldn't come back.
Unfortunately, this strategy made it into my yearly performance review under the "Needs to improve" category.
(If anyone hasn't guessed yet, this was at a very large chip manufacturer.)
Kid: (Whine) (Whine) Dadddyyy!!! I'm bored! (Whine) I want to see a disney cartoon on the phone.
Dad: Sorry, my phone won't do that.
Kid: (Whine, Sniffle) But Joey gets to watch them on his dad's phone.
Dad: I know, son, but I don't have the right kind of phone for that.
Wife: Damnit, Bob! I told you not to buy that Linux phone. (Nag, nag, nag) All my friends bought phones that let their kids watch Disney, but you had to go buy another one of your geek toys!
I wonder how this will play out for all the mobile phones running non-MS operating systems.
Agreed. Most mathematics is universal almost by definition, because it is derived from things we see in nature. For example, the ratio of pairs of Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio, and those numbers appear commonly in nature.
And take the case of group theory. While it appears to be abstract, it's in many ways a generalization of notions of symmetry, which are also common in the natural world.
An interesting thing for programming newbies to do is to write a small piece of code in C or C++, then study the assembly output.
... is that a person used to be able to get a factory job immediately after graduating from high-school, while a technical job requires years of expensive college.
That said, I still think an uneducated person should be able to get a decent job.
No, that's when you'll finally see Congress take some action to "save jobs".
Fortunately, here in Oregon, self-service gasoline stations are illegal.
Tax measures?
I wonder when it started. I went to college and grad. school in the 70's, and it wasn't like that then. I still have a huge copy of "Biology Today" full of color illustrations that cost me $10, which was about 5 hours labor at minimum wage. Most of my other books were under $10, except for a few fairly thick graduate math books, which topped out at $20. Buying books never seemed like a big expense for me, but then, neither was the $250/quarter tuition at UCLA.
Students and/or their parents are really being screwed today, and I can't figure out why. Where is all the tax money going? And how could schools be so much more affordable back when I and all the millions of baby-boomers were taking advantage of them?
Depends how it's done. I taught a class there last year, and the electronic textbook was set up such that you could only download one chapter at a time. That meant that you couldn't get the whole thing off the internet without a lot of tedium, and nobody seemed very happy with the situation.
When I was in college, waaayy back, it was the graduate math books that were high-priced. Made sense, since they sold to a very limited audience. Later, I noticed it was computer books. This I could also see, since they'd be obsolete within a year.
But my daughter's taking a first-year Spanish class at PSU, and the textbook (with a couple CD's) was $160!!! And this is not a particularly thick or fancy book, either.