beatgammit

It doesn't really matter how you write, as long as you try to be considerate of other people. I used to have heated discussions with people on the internet until I fully understand what I was doing. It is the same as arguing with people in person, except that they can't see you. It has the same effect on people, and people get just as angry. If the particular person that you made angry is motivated enough, they could do just like on the BBC channel and get violent, if they find you.I find it best to not let the discussion get to that point. My personal piece of advice is to not say anything to someone online that you would not say to their face. I have tried to live by this rule and have made alot of friends online. Friends are always better than enemies.

I use Firefox almost exclusively because more web developers take Firefox into consideration than Opera or Safari. I don't even talk about IE because it is so unstable and also does not adhere to conventions correctly. Most web applications work for Firefox now, but I cannot say the same about Opera and Safari, but things are getting better with the advent of AJAX. Web developers are starting to build applications that are truly cross-platform, but until then, I will use a bit higher-profile browser like Firefox than Opera or Safari.

Google is not too powerful. They have a great product, and they sell it well. They are dedicated to "controlling the world's information", and that is OK with me, as long as they don't disclose information about me. They have been dedicated to ensuring the privacy of their users. They have only been using the information they collect to provide better advertising for their clients. This is a good thing for the user as well as the advertiser, the advertiser gets a more viable link to their potential clients. Their clients get what they want, the advertisers get better business, and Google and their investors profit from this service. I see no problem with Google unless they target smaller companies. I don't care if they improve their product to improve their service, I just don't like seeing companies (like Microsoft) entering businesses that have nothing to do with their objectives. Google is getting a little close to this with their recent move into Radio Advertising, but they haven't alienated me yet.GOOGLE GOOD!!!

I have heard about that. The companies will have to put alot of towers up to transmit all of the high-def signals. The cable for high-def television is already present, so this will probably not be a great reality for the next few years, except in major cities with high pupulation per square mile. I think this will be kind of like cell-phones. For the first little while, it was quite rare, but now that they have the towers in place, everyone has it. My guess is that everything in the future will be run by satellites transmitting to dishes on earth, and then the signal being rebroadcast to individual homes, kind of a mixture between current Satellite TV and the new Wireless HDTV.If there is a big enough push/need/demand for this technology, I see no reason why we cannot have HDTV when we go camping, or in our cars as we go on trips. It will take awhile for it to catch on and for people to give up on regular cable.I give it about 3-5 years for it to be widely accepted, unless they get ALOT of backing from investors. This could be in conjunction with HD-Radio, and that is already in place.I say- SUCCESSFUL!!

I don't like it. I don't like the idea of fusing human DNA with a cow's DNA. I am a very religious man, and I do not think that this is what we should be doing with the bodies we have been given. I think that there is something holy about the human body and that we should not tamper with it, even if we only allow it to grow for a few days. Aside from religious reasons, what would happen if one of these embryos was not killed off and it grew to adulthood? We would have HUGE ethical issues regarding what to do with such a creature. We could also have problems with the "cures" to our diseases, because the embryos are not entirely of our species and many unforseen side-effects could present themselves and hurt people.

I use art made by artist M.C. Escher. I really like his art and it makes me unique. I change my desktop picture every few weeks or so, but I usually put a picture by M.C. Esher. I used to use pictures that I had drawn, but then I realized that I wasn't much of an artist, so I decided to go with Escher.

I personally don't believe in mermaids, but I do not agree with this statement. This would leave no room for religion. I have very strong religious beliefs, and I also believe alot of stuff that science tells me. Anyway, if mermaids existed, we would have learned about them by now, as pyost eloquently put it: It is too easy to generate a graphic now-days. Pictures just can't be trusted anymore.

I read a book called Net Force (its actually a series, but this is the first book) by Tom Clancy. It was about a gov't agency that patrols the internet looking for cyber-terrorists. I think that, while this is a noble goal, gov'ts should not have a finger in the internet.The internet is a place where people can freely exchange ideas. The only time that action should be taken is when copyrights are being infringed. If this were not the case, professional media (like music and movies) might cease to exist because they do not make enough money to make it worth their while. If this line is crossed, where action is taken outside of copyright laws, then we could end up with an internet that is controlled by a corporation, thus ending the free exchange of ideas. I like how Google is handling their dominance in the search world. They seek to control the world's information and only use this information to create add revenues. They do not use their huge power to take over other sectors of the internet, only focusing on search and services (like email and video). Regulations can be good, but as we see from George Orwell's 1984, once the gov't oversteps their bounds, there is no stopping gov't (or a very powerful company for that matter).Thus, I support the net nutrality act.

I personally don't agree with the death penalty being used for drug smuggling, but since this penalty was made very clear, I guess I can't argue with it.I believe in the idea of the death penalty. I believe that the death penalty should be applied whenever someone has the ability to harm people if left alive. This includes: serial killers, serial rapists (who have gone through therapy and failed multiple times), pedifiles (same as previous), calculating murderers (lots of pre-planning), terrorists, genocidal dictators (Saddam Hussein) and the like. I think the death penalty has not been used enough, with people like Gary Ridgeway (raped and killed 49 women before he was caught, got the death penalty, but got lessened to life terms instead because he told police about where and how he killed many of the women). If there is any way to rehabilitate the individual, then the death penalty should not be used, otherwise, the individual should be killed because he has no chance of rehab and does not deserve to live anymore (he has given up that right).Oh, I use he in the general sense referring to both men and women.

There's only one God. Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever". Jesus Christ, understood by many to be the God of this Earth, remains the same. If he changed, he would cease to be God, because God is a perfect being, and perfection is not changeable. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon or LDS for those of you who don't know our full name), and I believe that God the Father is a God of Justice, and that Jesus Christ is a God of Mercy, to satisfy Justice he performed the Atonement and died on the Cross. All in all, I believe that there is only one God (the father), but three distinct beings (God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost).

I use Windows almost exclusively, but I have played a bit with Linux/*nix. I like the idea of Linux/*nix, but it really isn't feasable for me. I need something stable that I can get work done on that is easy to use. Windows does that (it doesn't crash that much on me, I don't do much gaming). I a few years, I would like to try out Ubuntu linux, which is a great mixture of Windows' usability and *nix's fundamental principles.

I guess I'm weird. I say it both "charr" as in charge and care. I pronounce it charr when I am talking about a single character, but then I say care-array when I am talking about a string of such chars. I guess I haven't decided which one I like better.

Microsoft is making moves into the Linux/*nix arena by working with Novell. Microsoft is going to pay $240 million to Novell to allow open source Linux software to work with Windows. Link to article. This move has been reviewed by many critics. One reviewer postulates the idea of joining Windows and Linux (using the Linux kernal and Windows tools, libraries etc.). Link to article. The hope is to create an operating system that won't crash like Windows is want to do, but still with Windows' "infrastructure and applications". Today's world runs on Windows, but a mix of Windows/Linux could be great for everyone!! Nobody can deny that Windows has many great applications (not to mention, most video games are released to work on Windows). This would be a great integration of two great technologies.

I've used SmartFTP and FireFTP. I really like both of them. SmartFTP is a really good FTP client, but the fact that FireFTP is an extension of Firefox (which I use exclusively), this makes it much easier to upload files, and then look at my webpage, just by changing a tab, to see the changes I have added. Much of my webpage is PHP, so it is really easy to see the changes because everything is dynamic. I would strongly recommend FireFTP, unless you don't use Firefox, in which case I would use SmartFTP or just use Microsoft's embedded FTP client in IE (if that's what you use).

Google has a really good way to implement AJAX. They have a service called Google Web Toolkit (GWT). GWT takes Java code and "translates/compiles" it into JavaScript and HTML. It makes making web applications really easy. Sure, you aren't coding the JavaScript yourself, but that makes it better. Java code is much easier to maintain and it is easier, with the help of GWT, to make it work on "all" web browsers. I haven't had much time to play with it, but I am working on a project that I will use it for.AJAX is definitely a really good methodology. I hear that someone is going to improve it for the new Web 2.0 movement. This will make it even easier to make dynamic pages and make it easier to bring users relevant content. Hurrah to the AJAX movement!!!!

I took a few classes in high school and we used BlueJ primarily. It has a nice UML display that shows the relationship between your classes, interfaces, enums etc. I really like it and it gets the job done. It does not have code-completion (like intellisense), as Eclipse does, but I really like the UML design feature.I have been using Eclipse recently at home, but the installation is way too big to take with me. I have been working off a usb-drive, and BlueJ is only about 4.5 mb installed, so if you need to take your work with you and you don't want to install an IDE, this is the way to go. Eclipse is better in some respects because it has code completion and a bunch of other cool tools, but if you want a simple IDE, go with BlueJ.