As a monopoly, they should be required to invest some of the windfall into running DSL to rural locations. In fact, they should want to do this anyway, because people who have data, don't need a land line. That's the one ace in the hole they have, to make people keep a land line and pay for a cell phone, otherwise, it's just a cell phone.
But in our culture of greed, the choice between smart investments that will pay off later, vs. HUGE bonuses now....that's a tough call.
I got an email yesterday for a new Humble Bundle for Android (and Window/Mac/Linux). Just checked the total sold so far, and it is at over 484,000.00 already. As usual, Linux users pay the most for the bundle.
Seems like Linux/Android/Mac games are viable if you find a niche way to market them.
The above is a two week course aimed at kids: 7-10 | BEGINNER – ADVANCED
Software: Arcade or Platform game using Clickteam® Multimedia Fusion 2 Developer® and Adobe® Photoshop®. Build custom characters in Spore Creature Creator and import them into your game. Take breaks with supervised outside play, sports and techtivities.
If that isn't the right age range, find some that are.
Might also look at:
DarkBASIC 3D Games Creator The Games Factory 2
They get really good reviews, teach the basics of game programming, but probably aren't so hard as to scare the kids to death.
Python and Pygame (already mentioned).
And on Amazon, check out:
The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners (Book & CD)
It comes with a CD with some free software, and it is supposed to be good. I got a copy of it for my son for Christmas, but I haven't had time to look at it yet.
Yeah, I kind of understand the hate, but a person can do almost everything in Visual Basic that they can do in C#, but for some reason, VB is a red headed step child. If it is just MS hating, there are a lot of people that like C#, and both C# and VB compile to the exact same byte-code.
OMG, eggnog must cause reading comprehension problems or something. If you read what I said, I said we need to squeeze 60 Mhz out of military spectrum and do something similar to 802.11 (wifi), only this time, do it correctly. I never once said anything about cutting off anyone's N routers (even though never pushing them to people who didn't need them would have been the correct thing to do for America).
> but I use the hell out of that 300Mbps moving large files around my home network
For every one of you, there are 9 other people who do nothing but surf the Net and cause interference with each other. I would bet good money on it.
> And if interference is that big of a deal
If you think it is not that big a deal, you should go and wire a hotel for 802.11, or you should have to go work for a WISP and work customer support. I've done both. After you do that, get back with me. I'm painfully aware of all the unlicensed spectrum issues. Satan runs a wireless network in hell, and when really bad people die, they don't just go to hell, they are in charge of maintaining the wireless network. Yeah, it's that bad.
Then use existing tech. 99% of the people only use wireless for surfing the net. Do you not see how much spectrum is doing nothing but giving people less non-overlapping channels?
It's all fine and dandy when you live in the sticks. Go to an apartment and set up a router. Oh, there is nobody on channel one, and everyone else is on 6 and 11...but it seems a couple of idiots set their equipment to channel 3, which interferes with 1 & 6. Who the hell thought that one up. Let's let them think they were getting 11 channels, but only 3 are non-overlapping. Oh, and then let's give them a super turbo mode that uses up half the wifi band!
Try setting up wifi for a hotel with 3 channels and not getting self interference. Try operating a WISP and use 2.4. Wow, you get 3 channels to work with. You can use equipment that has 5 Mhz channels, but you shoot over Grandma's house, who's grandson got her a really fast N router to get her email and do facebook with.
Really, a person would think in America, we could do better, but hey, it is easier to sell wireless equipment when you can advertise it gets 300 Mbps. Now that's capitalism.
Yeah, they could probably squeeze another 60 Mhz out of the military's spectrum.
My wish list if they do:
The channels need to be 5 Mhz by default, so there would be 11 non-overlapping channels, instead of 3. The bandwidth would be fine for 99% of the people who just get on the Net with their wireless. If someone needs 100 Mbps, they need to not use this new spectrum. How much freaking bandwidth has been wasted getting people 300 Mbps, when most people are going as fast as their DSL goes!
The power needs to be on low by default, with the ability to log in and turn up the power if needed.
One of the shocking things to me is how cheap it is to buy your own laws. A million people could part with one dollar and easily block these laws. A million people isn't even 1% of the population. I think we need to start a PAC (or some type of corporation) and start buying our laws just like everyone else. Surly, as non-caring as everyone is about these issues, we could get 1% of the population to go in on some laws that favor the people.
Wait a minute. I'm a police chief, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about APCO P25. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature I have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any digital communications.
The case studies all use words like "secure", "interoperability ", "inter-agency communication" and "encryption" to describe the security of APCO P25. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some P25 systems even use Improved Multi-Band Excitation (IMBE) vocoders. That's rock solid in my book.
My main concern isn't with the security of APCO P25, but rather with getting my team to learn all about it so we can deploy some state of the art Motorola radios to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our communication, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to the next phase of the P25 project.
Well, I'm currently installing P25 systems in different counties -- and I also think we are moving toward a police state -- but I actually don't think the motive here is to hide communications. Most agencies we have converted are not using encryption, though the scanners are expensive. Most seem to care less about being able to encrypt.
I think they were sold a buzz word. The systems cost a fortune. Due to the nature of digital radio, they work well, or not at all. If you work for the city water system, that's fine. When you work for the police, not working at all is a huge problem. Several firefighters were killed somewhere up north because nobody heard their calls for help.
To get radios with federal grant money, the radios have to be P25 compliant. However, there is zero law that says they have to be used in digital mode. All the radios work in analog mode. All the systems we have put in will work in digital and analog mode. But no matter what the complaint of the new systems are, they can't reach over two inches and talk in analog. Why? Because it isn't a buzz word. I honestly don't think it has a thing to do with anything but that. It would almost be funny if the radios didn't cost hundreds of dollars more than their old radios.
See also: Google about the planned nationwide 700 Mhz system for public safety. It was falling through the cracks but Senator Jay Rockefeller is now trying to get the project going again. The Rockefeller family has a lot of power in Motorola. Who wants to guess how much money he/his family is probably getting in a round about way through Motorola.
This isn't about public safety. This is about multimillion dollar deals to enrich the same old people...in a country that is flat broke.
You know, I've been totally against not "owning" software most of my life, but I now think the business model for MS is wrong. They should have two versions of Windows, the normal line of Windows they have always had, and a Windows Business edition that basically gets support, security updates, and the occasional service pack, but otherwise stays the same *forever*. For the Business edition, you have to subscribe (pay) to get updates, security, new drivers, etc.
MS makes it's money from the next big version and upgrades. Imagine not having to have a new version rammed down your throat when what you had already did everything you needed it to do. It would be easier on developers (at least those targeting businesses), too.
As long as MS didn't get crazy with the fees, I think it would be a happy compromise from the forced upgrade path.
In fact, I think this would be a good business model for Mozilla as well. I would pay money just to get a stable version that works...and just *stays* the freaking same.
It's not that I hate change. It's that I think they are forcing new features that don't need to be there just to stoke their egos. Businesses don't need that. They just need something that works and stays the same.
Look up the term "petrodollar" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar) or Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar (http://www.amazon.com/Petrodollar-Warfare-Iraq-Future-Dollar/dp/0865715149/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319484642&sr=8-1).
Saddam, Kadafi, Chavez, and others all had one thing in common. They tried to sell oil in non-US dollars. Kadafi had big balls and even tried to start a gold-backed currency. You see where two out of the three are now.
Heck, I'm surprised Ron Paul is still alive...if he wasn't Ideologically Pure & Tough as Nails, I think he would be dead, too.
It all boils down to this. How many people are you willing to kill to maintain our standard of living?
Try to find out something useful about it by typing "Windows Share" into google (or bing).
Microsoft has a long history of this, as well. Let's call our groups of computers "domains," and our top programming language...let's give it the same name as a top level domain on the Net. That way, our developers will have to weed through a crap load of bad results to find what they are looking for. Developers, developers, developers (throws chair).
You can have millions of events on your blackberry calendar.
Why yes you can. But this sure the hell isn't obvious if someone sticks a blackberry in your hand. Thus all the alarm clock apps for 25.00 and 30.00 a pop? I mean, why just give people functionality, when you can sell more apps and make more money?
From crackberry.com discussing this issue:
For those of you who have overlooked this functionality, don't worry, you are far from the only one who has done this.
Really, I think every single cell phone I have ever had except for the Blackberry, you could set multiple alarms...and it was easy and obvious how to do it...with no need to justfuckinggoogleit.
I was given a Blackberry a few years back when working as a subcontractor for a company that required them.
I wanted to set up a couple of alarms on it. It could set exactly *one* alarm. Want more, tough crap. The only way I could get multiple alarms was by downloading an app. The alarm app I picked stated it was free, but after I got it installed, stated that it would work for 30 days and then I had to register it...for something like $30.00. So much for being free.
During the same time, I got the cheapest prepaid phone I could find for personal use. I think it was a Nokia. You could set five (or ten) different alarms on it.
A 30.00 phone vs. a 200.00 phone...and it did what you wanted. The Blackberry was usable, but I can't for the life of me understand what all the love was about. They just weren't all that.
That was my first thought as well. I wonder how the housing market would correlate to electricity demand? But it would seem that more empty houses would = a decrease in demand, to me. I bet shipping all our manufacturing overseas cuts demand, as well.
But seriously, if your money is tight and there is no sign of a raise in site, the only way to free up money is to cut your bills. If are hovering around minimum wage, you could almost have the choice of an air conditioner or using fan, and being able to afford gas for your car and some food.
Mozilla should learn from Ubuntu and release a Long Term Support version. Bleeding edge available? Check. Solid and stable version for businesses and less adventures people available? Check.
Seriously, this is being typed on an Ubuntu LTS version now and it's worked the same since I installed it.
I've been building a lot of mini-itx systems lately and attempting to keep them as quiet as possible. I've built several systems that are near silent and only have one fan in them, yet perform quite well...as long as the motherboard's built in video card is good enough for you. Just get a PICOPSU-160-XT and a (fan-less) power brick from mini-box, and it moves a great deal of the heat outside the case. Get a good, low-noise cpu fan and an SSD hard drive, and it will be whisper quite. Add a water cooled cpu cooler and it would be dead silent. Heck I live in Texas and don't use the AC a lot to save on my electric bill, and all my pico-psu systems have been holding up fine.
If you want a top of the line video card, throw all the above out, because a pico-psu just won't cut it. Outside of that, I love them.
Under Wikipedia for Azure: Microsoft has stated that, per the Patriot Act, the USA government can have access to the data even if the hosted company is not American and the data resides outside the USA.[20]
Let's see how the plus sign affects our searches. The plus sign in front of a term forces Google to use that term in its search. In other words, it forces Google to search for that term. And this is convenient for two scenarios, one is that is that if you have small words like the word the, or at, or and, about, after for, those words are called stop words and Google usually does not search for them. It usually will only search for the main word, the object word and it will disregard those small words. So, if you want Google to search for that word, included in your search you can always put a plus sign next to it, and now it will have to search for that term follows the sign, and don't put any space after the plus sign. It should be a plus that's right next to the word. The other scenario where the plus sign comes in handy is when you want to tell Google to search for a specific term and not use any similarities to that term. Like, for example, the search of favorite book. Now Google will probably come up with results that are, could be, a list of books, because it's going to take the singular and it's going to apply it to, it's going to also search for the plural of books. Or because the word book is found in the plural form of the books, without the s at the end. So it's going to give you long list, but if you only wanted to search for the singular for favorite book and not return lists, you can put a plus sign before the word book and Google will be forced to only return results, bring up results that only have the word book and not books in the plural. So this forces Google to use that specific search term.
Type Fracking and Earthquakes into google. Ground water contamination is not the only concern, though that's probably higher up on the list. I've done some work for a gas company doing SCADA. Fracking would be my biggest concern of the whole setup. Once the wells are going and everything is cleaned up, the environmental impact seems a tolerable trade off. But a person would have to have some pretty heavy duty blinders on (or make a lot of money from doing it) not have concerns about fracking.
I can reduce it to one sentence: An honest man, if given the choice, would make things worse on himself to help out a rich person, especially if the Constitution and religion are introduced into the equation.
If C# compiled and ran 20% faster than VB, I could understand the animosity, but C# and VB both compile to the same intermediate language and offer pretty much identical performance. I've been working with both and in some instances, the only difference between the two is putting a ";" at the end of the line or typing out "Next" instead of "}."
For all the MS bashing, this is one thing they did right with ASP.NET. Let people choose the language they want to work in, but produce the same results in the end.
This is Slash "Freedom of Choice" Dot, but we must kill off languages we don't like...because in VB you have to type a few more words out.
Really, if it wasn't for VB, you would have less people to feel superior to. Why would you want the final nail?
Slashdot Mirror
As a monopoly, they should be required to invest some of the windfall into running DSL to rural locations. In fact, they should want to do this anyway, because people who have data, don't need a land line. That's the one ace in the hole they have, to make people keep a land line and pay for a cell phone, otherwise, it's just a cell phone.
But in our culture of greed, the choice between smart investments that will pay off later, vs. HUGE bonuses now....that's a tough call.
I got an email yesterday for a new Humble Bundle for Android (and Window/Mac/Linux). Just checked the total sold so far, and it is at over 484,000.00 already. As usual, Linux users pay the most for the bundle.
Seems like Linux/Android/Mac games are viable if you find a niche way to market them.
http://www.humblebundle.com/
Look at programming boot camps or summer camps for kids in the same age range, and then see what software they are using:
http://www.internaldrive.com/courses-programs/video-game-camps/
The above is a two week course aimed at kids: 7-10 | BEGINNER – ADVANCED
Software: Arcade or Platform game using Clickteam® Multimedia Fusion 2 Developer® and Adobe® Photoshop®. Build custom characters in Spore Creature Creator and import them into your game. Take breaks with supervised outside play, sports and techtivities.
If that isn't the right age range, find some that are.
Might also look at:
DarkBASIC 3D Games Creator
The Games Factory 2
They get really good reviews, teach the basics of game programming, but probably aren't so hard as to scare the kids to death.
Python and Pygame (already mentioned).
And on Amazon, check out:
The Game Maker's Apprentice: Game Development for Beginners (Book & CD)
It comes with a CD with some free software, and it is supposed to be good. I got a copy of it for my son for Christmas, but I haven't had time to look at it yet.
You can't get a reasonable BASIC for your average GNU/Linux distro? http://www.mono-project.com/VisualBasic.NET_support
Yeah, I kind of understand the hate, but a person can do almost everything in Visual Basic that they can do in C#, but for some reason, VB is a red headed step child. If it is just MS hating, there are a lot of people that like C#, and both C# and VB compile to the exact same byte-code.
OMG, eggnog must cause reading comprehension problems or something. If you read what I said, I said we need to squeeze 60 Mhz out of military spectrum and do something similar to 802.11 (wifi), only this time, do it correctly. I never once said anything about cutting off anyone's N routers (even though never pushing them to people who didn't need them would have been the correct thing to do for America).
> but I use the hell out of that 300Mbps moving large files around my home network
For every one of you, there are 9 other people who do nothing but surf the Net and cause interference with each other. I would bet good money on it.
> And if interference is that big of a deal
If you think it is not that big a deal, you should go and wire a hotel for 802.11, or you should have to go work for a WISP and work customer support. I've done both. After you do that, get back with me. I'm painfully aware of all the unlicensed spectrum issues. Satan runs a wireless network in hell, and when really bad people die, they don't just go to hell, they are in charge of maintaining the wireless network. Yeah, it's that bad.
Then use existing tech. 99% of the people only use wireless for surfing the net. Do you not see how much spectrum is doing nothing but giving people less non-overlapping channels?
It's all fine and dandy when you live in the sticks. Go to an apartment and set up a router. Oh, there is nobody on channel one, and everyone else is on 6 and 11...but it seems a couple of idiots set their equipment to channel 3, which interferes with 1 & 6. Who the hell thought that one up. Let's let them think they were getting 11 channels, but only 3 are non-overlapping. Oh, and then let's give them a super turbo mode that uses up half the wifi band!
Try setting up wifi for a hotel with 3 channels and not getting self interference. Try operating a WISP and use 2.4. Wow, you get 3 channels to work with. You can use equipment that has 5 Mhz channels, but you shoot over Grandma's house, who's grandson got her a really fast N router to get her email and do facebook with.
Really, a person would think in America, we could do better, but hey, it is easier to sell wireless equipment when you can advertise it gets 300 Mbps. Now that's capitalism.
Yeah, they could probably squeeze another 60 Mhz out of the military's spectrum.
My wish list if they do:
The channels need to be 5 Mhz by default, so there would be 11 non-overlapping channels, instead of 3. The bandwidth would be fine for 99% of the people who just get on the Net with their wireless. If someone needs 100 Mbps, they need to not use this new spectrum. How much freaking bandwidth has been wasted getting people 300 Mbps, when most people are going as fast as their DSL goes!
The power needs to be on low by default, with the ability to log in and turn up the power if needed.
One of the shocking things to me is how cheap it is to buy your own laws. A million people could part with one dollar and easily block these laws. A million people isn't even 1% of the population. I think we need to start a PAC (or some type of corporation) and start buying our laws just like everyone else. Surly, as non-caring as everyone is about these issues, we could get 1% of the population to go in on some laws that favor the people.
Wait a minute. I'm a police chief, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about APCO P25. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature I have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any digital communications.
The case studies all use words like "secure", "interoperability ", "inter-agency communication" and "encryption" to describe the security of APCO P25. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some P25 systems even use Improved Multi-Band Excitation (IMBE) vocoders. That's rock solid in my book.
My main concern isn't with the security of APCO P25, but rather with getting my team to learn all about it so we can deploy some state of the art Motorola radios to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our communication, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to the next phase of the P25 project.
Well, I'm currently installing P25 systems in different counties -- and I also think we are moving toward a police state -- but I actually don't think the motive here is to hide communications. Most agencies we have converted are not using encryption, though the scanners are expensive. Most seem to care less about being able to encrypt.
I think they were sold a buzz word. The systems cost a fortune. Due to the nature of digital radio, they work well, or not at all. If you work for the city water system, that's fine. When you work for the police, not working at all is a huge problem. Several firefighters were killed somewhere up north because nobody heard their calls for help.
To get radios with federal grant money, the radios have to be P25 compliant. However, there is zero law that says they have to be used in digital mode. All the radios work in analog mode. All the systems we have put in will work in digital and analog mode. But no matter what the complaint of the new systems are, they can't reach over two inches and talk in analog. Why? Because it isn't a buzz word. I honestly don't think it has a thing to do with anything but that. It would almost be funny if the radios didn't cost hundreds of dollars more than their old radios.
See also: Google about the planned nationwide 700 Mhz system for public safety. It was falling through the cracks but Senator Jay Rockefeller is now trying to get the project going again. The Rockefeller family has a lot of power in Motorola. Who wants to guess how much money he/his family is probably getting in a round about way through Motorola.
This isn't about public safety. This is about multimillion dollar deals to enrich the same old people...in a country that is flat broke.
But hey, I'll still cash my paycheck! :)
You know, I've been totally against not "owning" software most of my life, but I now think the business model for MS is wrong. They should have two versions of Windows, the normal line of Windows they have always had, and a Windows Business edition that basically gets support, security updates, and the occasional service pack, but otherwise stays the same *forever*. For the Business edition, you have to subscribe (pay) to get updates, security, new drivers, etc.
MS makes it's money from the next big version and upgrades. Imagine not having to have a new version rammed down your throat when what you had already did everything you needed it to do. It would be easier on developers (at least those targeting businesses), too.
As long as MS didn't get crazy with the fees, I think it would be a happy compromise from the forced upgrade path.
In fact, I think this would be a good business model for Mozilla as well. I would pay money just to get a stable version that works...and just *stays* the freaking same.
It's not that I hate change. It's that I think they are forcing new features that don't need to be there just to stoke their egos. Businesses don't need that. They just need something that works and stays the same.
Look up the term "petrodollar" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar) or Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar (http://www.amazon.com/Petrodollar-Warfare-Iraq-Future-Dollar/dp/0865715149/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319484642&sr=8-1).
Saddam, Kadafi, Chavez, and others all had one thing in common. They tried to sell oil in non-US dollars. Kadafi had big balls and even tried to start a gold-backed currency. You see where two out of the three are now.
Heck, I'm surprised Ron Paul is still alive...if he wasn't Ideologically Pure & Tough as Nails, I think he would be dead, too.
It all boils down to this. How many people are you willing to kill to maintain our standard of living?
Try to find out something useful about it by typing "Windows Share" into google (or bing).
Microsoft has a long history of this, as well. Let's call our groups of computers "domains," and our top programming language...let's give it the same name as a top level domain on the Net. That way, our developers will have to weed through a crap load of bad results to find what they are looking for. Developers, developers, developers (throws chair).
You can have millions of events on your blackberry calendar.
Why yes you can. But this sure the hell isn't obvious if someone sticks a blackberry in your hand. Thus all the alarm clock apps for 25.00 and 30.00 a pop? I mean, why just give people functionality, when you can sell more apps and make more money?
From crackberry.com discussing this issue:
Really, I think every single cell phone I have ever had except for the Blackberry, you could set multiple alarms...and it was easy and obvious how to do it...with no need to justfuckinggoogleit.
http://crackberry.com/quick-tip-setting-multiple-alarms-your-blackberry-smartphone
I was given a Blackberry a few years back when working as a subcontractor for a company that required them.
I wanted to set up a couple of alarms on it. It could set exactly *one* alarm. Want more, tough crap. The only way I could get multiple alarms was by downloading an app. The alarm app I picked stated it was free, but after I got it installed, stated that it would work for 30 days and then I had to register it...for something like $30.00. So much for being free.
During the same time, I got the cheapest prepaid phone I could find for personal use. I think it was a Nokia. You could set five (or ten) different alarms on it.
A 30.00 phone vs. a 200.00 phone...and it did what you wanted. The Blackberry was usable, but I can't for the life of me understand what all the love was about. They just weren't all that.
That was my first thought as well. I wonder how the housing market would correlate to electricity demand? But it would seem that more empty houses would = a decrease in demand, to me. I bet shipping all our manufacturing overseas cuts demand, as well.
But seriously, if your money is tight and there is no sign of a raise in site, the only way to free up money is to cut your bills. If are hovering around minimum wage, you could almost have the choice of an air conditioner or using fan, and being able to afford gas for your car and some food.
Mozilla should learn from Ubuntu and release a Long Term Support version. Bleeding edge available? Check. Solid and stable version for businesses and less adventures people available? Check.
Seriously, this is being typed on an Ubuntu LTS version now and it's worked the same since I installed it.
I've been building a lot of mini-itx systems lately and attempting to keep them as quiet as possible. I've built several systems that are near silent and only have one fan in them, yet perform quite well...as long as the motherboard's built in video card is good enough for you. Just get a PICOPSU-160-XT and a (fan-less) power brick from mini-box, and it moves a great deal of the heat outside the case. Get a good, low-noise cpu fan and an SSD hard drive, and it will be whisper quite. Add a water cooled cpu cooler and it would be dead silent. Heck I live in Texas and don't use the AC a lot to save on my electric bill, and all my pico-psu systems have been holding up fine.
If you want a top of the line video card, throw all the above out, because a pico-psu just won't cut it. Outside of that, I love them.
Under Wikipedia for Azure: Microsoft has stated that, per the Patriot Act, the USA government can have access to the data even if the hosted company is not American and the data resides outside the USA.[20]
Wikipedia says Azure was available commercially in February of 2010. So it's been on the market for a little over a year and a half.
http://www.ehow.com/video_4432449_use-plus-sign-google-search.html
Let's see how the plus sign affects our searches. The plus sign in front of a term forces Google to use that term in its search. In other words, it forces Google to search for that term. And this is convenient for two scenarios, one is that is that if you have small words like the word the, or at, or and, about, after for, those words are called stop words and Google usually does not search for them. It usually will only search for the main word, the object word and it will disregard those small words. So, if you want Google to search for that word, included in your search you can always put a plus sign next to it, and now it will have to search for that term follows the sign, and don't put any space after the plus sign. It should be a plus that's right next to the word. The other scenario where the plus sign comes in handy is when you want to tell Google to search for a specific term and not use any similarities to that term. Like, for example, the search of favorite book. Now Google will probably come up with results that are, could be, a list of books, because it's going to take the singular and it's going to apply it to, it's going to also search for the plural of books. Or because the word book is found in the plural form of the books, without the s at the end. So it's going to give you long list, but if you only wanted to search for the singular for favorite book and not return lists, you can put a plus sign before the word book and Google will be forced to only return results, bring up results that only have the word book and not books in the plural. So this forces Google to use that specific search term.
Type Fracking and Earthquakes into google. Ground water contamination is not the only concern, though that's probably higher up on the list. I've done some work for a gas company doing SCADA. Fracking would be my biggest concern of the whole setup. Once the wells are going and everything is cleaned up, the environmental impact seems a tolerable trade off. But a person would have to have some pretty heavy duty blinders on (or make a lot of money from doing it) not have concerns about fracking.
I can reduce it to one sentence: An honest man, if given the choice, would make things worse on himself to help out a rich person, especially if the Constitution and religion are introduced into the equation.
You mean like Google did? And where are they now? In court. Something about patents or something.
If C# compiled and ran 20% faster than VB, I could understand the animosity, but C# and VB both compile to the same intermediate language and offer pretty much identical performance. I've been working with both and in some instances, the only difference between the two is putting a ";" at the end of the line or typing out "Next" instead of "}."
For all the MS bashing, this is one thing they did right with ASP.NET. Let people choose the language they want to work in, but produce the same results in the end.
This is Slash "Freedom of Choice" Dot, but we must kill off languages we don't like...because in VB you have to type a few more words out.
Really, if it wasn't for VB, you would have less people to feel superior to. Why would you want the final nail?