You seem to think the JKR counts the years from the year the muggles believe Jesus Christ was born in. Nah. The Wizard year count starts from a different event. Which will be explained in the up coming Encyclopedia of Wizardry by JKR.
It was not the cell phones. There is a huge battle raging between the virtuous wizards and the evil Death Eaters of Voldemort. Hexes, jinxes, curses, spells and charms are flying all over Southern England. The Death Eaters are killing
the muggles and the Ministry of Magic is desperately trying to keep it hidden by erasing memories of many people. The stress they feel is just the side effect of these charms.
*Lastly -- every law should be understandable at a (4/5/6/7/8th) grade reading level, written in plain English.
Plain English does not cut it. The syntax of natural language is very forgiving and loose. It is not strict enough to express clear and unambiguous meaning. That is the fundamental problem in using simple plain English to write laws.
Take the simple easy to understand line from our Constitution that prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments". Is it really an and condition? Should the punishment be be both cruel and unusual to be unconstitutional? Or is the and really a something like "all", all cruel punishments and all unusual punishments are unconstitutional? In which case, the and is really or.
I would prefer if the laws are written in simple computer language like Basic. Would prefer C++ but that would be a pipe dream. We need clear grouping constructs, clear if/else/elseif blocks. We can do away with loops. We might need jumps. I know Iknow GOTO is really bad. But it is far easier than the current muck that pretends to be unambiguous law.
My pipe dream is go back to law school once I retire and rewrite all the laws in a programming language and start something like a wiki project to do so. So that we understand what the damned law is and we learn to debug and plug loop holes.
The best remote is the one my dear friend MKP had. That remote could obey the phone commands, turn on the fan, open the windows and put the tea kettle on the stove. It was a boy from Orissa working for some 500Rs a month. Oh! Those were the days. Mohan! Where are you!!!
Jobs probably hates user replaceable batteries even more. According to one article
he "hated" the NeXT assembly line moving from right to left, when looked out
of his office, and got it reversed. Is he Dumbledore or Voldemart GOK.
People are moving away from simple mother's maiden name and last four digits of ssn to biometric authentication. And you publish your cornea for the whole world to see. Your id will be stolen in a moments notice buster.
Windows is not really easier to use. It is more familiar. Most workplaces make their users use windows due to corporate policy. Since they are already familiar with Windows and they want to exchange data between workplace and their home PC they buy Windows.
If windows is easy to use, how do you explain that most people don't even use 10% of the capabilities of the machine? How many people have Media center pc with a DVD writer and go out and buy the DVD recorder from Circuit City because they could not figure out how to burn a DVD?
Windows wins because it is familiar, it is saturated, it is incompatible with everything else. And also because some Linux geeks would insult intelligence of the windows users rather than help them use Linux. Some other Linux geeks would tut tut and still help debug and fix their friends broken windows machines.
The main reason is that once people use Windows, they get locked in. Incompatible file formats, refusal to interoperate with anything other than Windows. The only choice they have after that is to continue to pirate or pay an enormous switching cost to go to Linux or pay the tax and become even more locked into MSFT. Since piracy is so rampant in those parts of the world, they will switch to Linux last. Though China and India are poor and could ill afford to pay full price for Windows, and you would logically expect them to be switching to Linux first, they wont because it is so easy to pirate Windows. So MSFT will protest and go through all the motions of fighting piracy but in reality it knows it is the piracy of windows that is keeping Linux at bay.
First you have show that whatever you are proposing will force the users to walk the upgrade-treadmill. Anything that eases the pain or something that allows them to get off the treadmill is a no-no. So first learn to present the project in the correct perspective. It might benefit the users, it might benefit the developers. But if it offers even a theoretical respite from the upgrade-treadmill, the project is a non starter.
You seem to be under the impression, there is competition and if MSFT does not do what is best for the customers, they will desert it in droves. Time and again MSFT has proved that its customer base is loyal to a fault and is a sucker for punishment. Now go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan for Windows-7 that will force all the weary recently upgraded to Vista finally dudes to plunck down more money to upgrade to Windows-7.
Choice in products, not in standards. You want GE and Sylvania and all other light bulb vendors fighting to sell you a light bulb which will fit the fixture you have in your house. GE should not be promoting its own "snap in" bulbs and Sylvania pushing its "screw in" standard and Phillips proposing a spring loaded catch standard. Just yesterday I discovered that the table lamp I bought from IKEA uses a bulb R17, and even IKEA does not carry replacement bulbs. I get R12 and R26 but not R17. Three "standard" bulb types and they manage to screw me. That lamp is junk now. That is what happens when you have multiple standards.
Do you really want both Betamax and VHS? Do you really want both DVD and Laserdisk? Come on. Demand real open standards. It is not about free software. It is not about open software. It is not about non-commercial software. It is perfectly OK to have two or three proprietary closed software supporting ODF and one or two Open Source but not-free software and a couple of Open Source and free software all supporting one document standard with perfect portability across them.
Only when users demand the ability to switch from one software to another without any loss of functionality they will have the power in negotiation. In the present situation, they have to buy whatever MSFT charges. Did you really think people will be forking over 150$ for a spreadsheet and word processor 10 years ago? The whole MS Office was selling for 50$. Now it is supposed to be 500$. Dont you see where the customers lost the ability to negotiate better prices because of vendor lock in?
From what I understand, the user visits a site and the browser dishes out the remembered username password to that site. Whenever that site requests the username and password, the browser would do so. If the site allows anyvisitor to post javascript code and it incorporates such posted code as part of its own page, then the user too can use javascript to request the username/password and use javascript to phone home.
Now why any of it is Firefox specific? Any browser/ browser-helper-object/password help toolbar would do the same. If you have only one user name for a site, firefox will pre-fill the field. And the javascript can read it without a get or post. I would guess this behaviour of prefilling when the username is unique is probably a Firefox thing.
Generally sites that allow users to post javascript code would be dangerous and should not be visited. But I would not know a priori these sites.
Free Press policy director Ben Scott said, "For too long, policymakers have been forced to operate in the dark, relying on misleading and sometimes inaccurate information about the U.S. broadband market. By providing detailed information about the deployment, availability and use of broadband services in this country, the Broadband Data Improvement Act promises to bring us one step closer to our shared goal of universal, affordable broadband."
Isn't this par for the course in almost all fields, not just broadband market? In almost every thing the Congress does there is an interest group that funds studies, think tanks, policy white papers all designed to muddy the waters. Everywhere, ODF adoption, credit report freeze, bankruptcy reform, S-Chip, ID vs Evolution... There is this huge industry whose sole purpose is to force the lawmakers and the public to act in the dark and providing inaccurate and misleading information. Why single out broadband alone?
I am surprised most sloshdotters assume the reduction of science and engg research in USA can be explained in purely Darwinian terms like scientists migrating to where they like to work, competition to get name recognition, commercial rewards, the weeding out and selection based on such rewards. Nothing could be farther from the Truth, (capitalization is intentional).
It is best explained in Intelligent Design paradigm. We the clergy have been intelligently molding the public opinion against all knowledge in general and science in particular. Let us not forget that we were banished from the Garden of Eden because we tasted the Fruit of Knowledge. We have already convinced 55% of America that Evolution is a hoax. Pretty soon we will have the other 45% too. Then it is party party party time for us. We will tell everyone what they should do and how they should live and we get 10% of their paychecks. And much more than 10% from the sinners, by selling them indulgences!
The pagan, nature worshipping, Linux running, Open Standards promoting, Microsoft bashing, Apple fanboiing slashdotters might think it is a bad thing. But they are the minority. We are the majority. We will use their own Democracy to steal the nation from them! That will teach them.
You think the "if it saves one child" crowd really makes a distinction between national security and "ordinary" crime? Pretty soon the Bobbies are looking at all vehicles. They are under pressure to "solve" crimes. Their definition of "solve" is to get someone convicted. Sure this provision will increase conviction rates. But dont be so sure all convicts would be the real perpetrators.
... FBI (and some if-it-will-save-one-child-it-is-worth-it legislators) demand all the OS vendors to install backdoors so that it can come in and install whatever spyware it wants to be installed?
You need competition among vendors. Not among standards. You want everyone from Yokohoma to Goodyear to Cooper to Bridgestone building tires compatible with your car. You dont want to choose between Ford-Tire Standard vs GM Tire Standard vs Toyota Tire Standard.
What do you gain by having to choose between.Net and C# and Java? If you have three vendors fighting on a single platform, be it.Net or C# or Java, they will sell you more and more feature rich IDEs, innovate and come up with increasingly more functional standards updates, fix security holes and reduce prices. If they dont they risk losing your business. If you choose.Net or C#, you would be where the internet was when Netscape was killed. There is no incentive for MSFT to innovate or improve anything. No pressure to reduce the prices. You are locked in and you have absolutely no negotiating power.
Slashdot Mirror
Where we will allow gambling and all other vices not available in Second Life.
You seem to think the JKR counts the years from the year the muggles believe Jesus Christ was born in. Nah. The Wizard year count starts from a different event. Which will be explained in the up coming Encyclopedia of Wizardry by JKR.
It was not the cell phones. There is a huge battle raging between the virtuous wizards and the evil Death Eaters of Voldemort. Hexes, jinxes, curses, spells and charms are flying all over Southern England. The Death Eaters are killing the muggles and the Ministry of Magic is desperately trying to keep it hidden by erasing memories of many people. The stress they feel is just the side effect of these charms.
Plain English does not cut it. The syntax of natural language is very forgiving and loose. It is not strict enough to express clear and unambiguous meaning. That is the fundamental problem in using simple plain English to write laws. Take the simple easy to understand line from our Constitution that prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments". Is it really an and condition? Should the punishment be be both cruel and unusual to be unconstitutional? Or is the and really a something like "all", all cruel punishments and all unusual punishments are unconstitutional? In which case, the and is really or.
I would prefer if the laws are written in simple computer language like Basic. Would prefer C++ but that would be a pipe dream. We need clear grouping constructs, clear if/else/elseif blocks. We can do away with loops. We might need jumps. I know Iknow GOTO is really bad. But it is far easier than the current muck that pretends to be unambiguous law.
My pipe dream is go back to law school once I retire and rewrite all the laws in a programming language and start something like a wiki project to do so. So that we understand what the damned law is and we learn to debug and plug loop holes.
What Mohammad did not start Islam? Next you will be telling me The Discovery Institute is not advocating the teaching of Intelligent Design!
When was the last time I saw an ad of a rival to Verizon in my verizon dsl line, I wonder.
The best remote is the one my dear friend MKP had. That remote could obey the phone commands, turn on the fan, open the windows and put the tea kettle on the stove. It was a boy from Orissa working for some 500Rs a month. Oh! Those were the days. Mohan! Where are you!!!
Jobs probably hates user replaceable batteries even more. According to one article he "hated" the NeXT assembly line moving from right to left, when looked out of his office, and got it reversed. Is he Dumbledore or Voldemart GOK.
People are moving away from simple mother's maiden name and last four digits of ssn to biometric authentication. And you publish your cornea for the whole world to see. Your id will be stolen in a moments notice buster.
The damned article makes a point to say it is an extension to Firebug not Firefox. Whats the difference?
If windows is easy to use, how do you explain that most people don't even use 10% of the capabilities of the machine? How many people have Media center pc with a DVD writer and go out and buy the DVD recorder from Circuit City because they could not figure out how to burn a DVD?
Windows wins because it is familiar, it is saturated, it is incompatible with everything else. And also because some Linux geeks would insult intelligence of the windows users rather than help them use Linux. Some other Linux geeks would tut tut and still help debug and fix their friends broken windows machines.
The main reason is that once people use Windows, they get locked in. Incompatible file formats, refusal to interoperate with anything other than Windows. The only choice they have after that is to continue to pirate or pay an enormous switching cost to go to Linux or pay the tax and become even more locked into MSFT. Since piracy is so rampant in those parts of the world, they will switch to Linux last. Though China and India are poor and could ill afford to pay full price for Windows, and you would logically expect them to be switching to Linux first, they wont because it is so easy to pirate Windows. So MSFT will protest and go through all the motions of fighting piracy but in reality it knows it is the piracy of windows that is keeping Linux at bay.
You seem to be under the impression, there is competition and if MSFT does not do what is best for the customers, they will desert it in droves. Time and again MSFT has proved that its customer base is loyal to a fault and is a sucker for punishment. Now go back to the drawing board and come up with a plan for Windows-7 that will force all the weary recently upgraded to Vista finally dudes to plunck down more money to upgrade to Windows-7.
Because the other 95% saw that you take too long to write code and your code executes too slowly and you are going to be fired because of it.
Do you really want both Betamax and VHS? Do you really want both DVD and Laserdisk? Come on. Demand real open standards. It is not about free software. It is not about open software. It is not about non-commercial software. It is perfectly OK to have two or three proprietary closed software supporting ODF and one or two Open Source but not-free software and a couple of Open Source and free software all supporting one document standard with perfect portability across them.
Only when users demand the ability to switch from one software to another without any loss of functionality they will have the power in negotiation. In the present situation, they have to buy whatever MSFT charges. Did you really think people will be forking over 150$ for a spreadsheet and word processor 10 years ago? The whole MS Office was selling for 50$. Now it is supposed to be 500$. Dont you see where the customers lost the ability to negotiate better prices because of vendor lock in?
Now why any of it is Firefox specific? Any browser/ browser-helper-object /password help toolbar would do the same. If you have only one user name for a site, firefox will pre-fill the field. And the javascript can read it without a get or post. I would guess this behaviour of prefilling when the username is unique is probably a Firefox thing.
Generally sites that allow users to post javascript code would be dangerous and should not be visited. But I would not know a priori these sites.
... for almost all communications on the road. Why bother with five finger salutes?
Better approach should be to get the major vendors, HPs and Dells to install Firefox as OEM. Why no one is doing it?
In general, one should not take advantage of mistakes. Like the guy who is getting premium gas for 0.41$ a gallon. That freeloader smooching gas
Isn't this par for the course in almost all fields, not just broadband market? In almost every thing the Congress does there is an interest group that funds studies, think tanks, policy white papers all designed to muddy the waters. Everywhere, ODF adoption, credit report freeze, bankruptcy reform, S-Chip, ID vs Evolution ... There is this huge industry whose sole purpose is to force the lawmakers and the public to act in the dark and providing inaccurate and misleading information. Why single out broadband alone?
It is best explained in Intelligent Design paradigm. We the clergy have been intelligently molding the public opinion against all knowledge in general and science in particular. Let us not forget that we were banished from the Garden of Eden because we tasted the Fruit of Knowledge. We have already convinced 55% of America that Evolution is a hoax. Pretty soon we will have the other 45% too. Then it is party party party time for us. We will tell everyone what they should do and how they should live and we get 10% of their paychecks. And much more than 10% from the sinners, by selling them indulgences!
The pagan, nature worshipping, Linux running, Open Standards promoting, Microsoft bashing, Apple fanboiing slashdotters might think it is a bad thing. But they are the minority. We are the majority. We will use their own Democracy to steal the nation from them! That will teach them.
You think the "if it saves one child" crowd really makes a distinction between national security and "ordinary" crime? Pretty soon the Bobbies are looking at all vehicles. They are under pressure to "solve" crimes. Their definition of "solve" is to get someone convicted. Sure this provision will increase conviction rates. But dont be so sure all convicts would be the real perpetrators.
Then they came for net access records, you did not care because you don't need privacy there
Someday they will come for you, and there will be no one left to care
... FBI (and some if-it-will-save-one-child-it-is-worth-it legislators) demand all the OS vendors to install backdoors so that it can come in and install whatever spyware it wants to be installed?
You need competition among vendors. Not among standards. You want everyone from Yokohoma to Goodyear to Cooper to Bridgestone building tires compatible with your car. You dont want to choose between Ford-Tire Standard vs GM Tire Standard vs Toyota Tire Standard.
What do you gain by having to choose between .Net and C# and Java? If you have three vendors fighting on a single platform, be it .Net or C# or Java, they will sell you more and more feature rich IDEs, innovate and come up with increasingly more functional standards updates, fix security holes and reduce prices. If they dont they risk losing your business. If you choose .Net or C#, you would be where the internet was when Netscape was killed. There is no incentive for MSFT to innovate or improve anything. No pressure to reduce the prices. You are locked in and you have absolutely no negotiating power.