Isn't the point of text messaging typically to say something you wouldn't want to say out loud? Nobody cares if you type something provocative, but if you say it while sitting there bored in a meeting, you're probably hosed. I'm not insinuating that the technology is a bad idea, I think it's really cool (particularly if it works better than most voice recognition software), but I don't see it contributing to the "Death of the Cell Phone Keypad as we know it".
"Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX6700" - There's a mouthful.
It's funny that Intel is continually trying to downplay the importance of this chip for the average user. They say it's best for "more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD"... sounds like gamers would flock to this. Maybe they realize it's a rushed product (to beat AMD to the punch), and it will be in short supply?
I really think this addresses a growing need, particularly amongst corporate intranet users. We use a Wiki (MediaWiki) internally at work, and there are so many times that we need to create a simple editable spreadsheet to display calculations on a web page. Right now we either use static tables or attach an Excel document (I tried Google Spreadsheets but didn't like the results for our needs). This is fine, but creates formula messes when people want to make changes.
WikiCalc appears to solve our need, although the video makes it look a little complex for the novice user (hopefully it looks this way because Dan Bricklin is trying to impress us nerds).
Sorry for my ignorance, but are there games in the U.S. that are free to play, but you have to pay for in-game items? This sounds like a great business model for areas like China where many gamers may not have the cash for subscription or one-time fees... I could see it working in the US too where some gamers would be willing to pay big bucks to bypass months of time getting to higher levels.
Beyond publicity, is there a point?
on
Blu-ray Laser Gadget
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
OK, so it seems pretty crazy to junk a blu-ray just to grab the laser, but there must be some reason they are doing this other than the publicity, right? Can someone explain the importance of a blue laser over a regular handheld red laser of the same power that sells for ~$20? Or is it just supposed to be cool looking?
Looking online, I see that the standard price for blue laser pointers is over $1000 (here's the cheapest I found, which has a longer wavelength and lower power than the Blu-ray)... are these so expensive just because they're expensive to make, or is there massive demand that keeps that the price up (and if so, what is that demand based on)?
Even after reading the article, it's rather difficult to say what it is a top 50 of... Scientific American calls it "Scientific American 50: Trends in Research, Business and Policy". What a mishmash. Looks like they originally wanted to have 3 top 50s and couldn't think of enough to fill all the slots, so threw what they had into one.
I thought it was interesting that the section on green cars ("on the road to green") mentioned GM and DaimlerChrysler for their work on new Hybrid technology, and HyMotion for their new plug-in Hybrid conversion kits, but didn't mention any of the advances with pure electric car designs. For example, the Tesla roadster has sold a couple hundred sports cars that perform well (0-60 in 4 seconds) with excellent range (250 miles). This achievement in a production auto certainly seems worthy of their top 50. While it's not exactly for your average consumer (it costs $100K), the company plans to offer family cars for their homepage.
Re:This is cronyism at its finest
on
More A's, More Pay
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Have you ever done taxes for someone who makes relatively little money? I do for quite a few, every year. They pay almost nothing in taxes. A friend of mine made $32,000 in 2005 (I'm actually looking at his tax return right now). He paid $1,400 in federal taxes, $400 in state taxes, and $2,400 in FICA. At the end of the year, he received back $5,000 (due to 100% refund of fed/state + child tax credit) - or $800 more than he paid. There's no possible way that he could afford his 2 children's education if we reduced his taxes any further, since they are already nothing.
Most families with children who make under 30 or 35K per year are in the same boat. If we eliminated property tax for landlords, this would amount to approximately $50-100 per month on an apartment valued at $50K. This would not solve the problem. And if we removed employer paid FICA, this would just kill Social Security and Medicare, which is all most of our poor population has to rely on after 65.
I'm not sure that removing publicly funded schools is the answer either. Who would pay for the kids in poor areas where most parents can barely pay for rent and food, let alone education? Removing the public funds would take us back to an era where poor children had little or no education, couldn't read or write, and were destined for back breaking manual labor which they didn't even have the education/smarts to object to. The opportunities afforded these children by publicly funded schools are phenomenal when compared to having no education at all.
Also, from what I have heard and read, the teachers are NOT the ones grading this... it is based on standardized test scores (e.g. achievement tests). If the teachers were doing the grading, I would certainly agree with you. Here's some more info on the program. They have similar programs in the DC and Philadelphia region where I live, supposedly based 100% on multiple choice computer read achievement tests (at least according to our local media). The only way they could really cheat is to whisper answers into the kids ears... which I'm sure still happens, but on a limited basis.
Re:IMO, a step towards improving our education
on
More A's, More Pay
·
· Score: 1
The teachers are NOT the ones grading this... it is based on standardized test scores (e.g. achievement tests). If the teachers were doing the grading, I would certainly agree with you. Here's some more info. They have similar programs in the DC and Philadelphia region where I live, all based on multiple choice achievement tests (computer analyzed). The only way they could really cheat is to whisper answers into the kids ears...
IMO, a step towards improving our education
on
More A's, More Pay
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I for one, am a huge proponent of this type of approach. In almost any corporation in America, there are bonuses that are offered when someone performs well. Teachers (and many other Union jobs) don't have such performance bonuses in place. Why not? Sure, you have to worry a little about cheating, but I have to (maybe naively) believe that teachers will not be slipping students answers to achievement tests while school administrators are monitoring test taking progress. Plus, the statistical analyses referred to in the article should catch teachers that are this egregious.
We expect our teachers to put more and more hours in (most work tons of nights and weekend hours) for "the love of the children", and without any incremental pay. Shouldn't we reward them for their good work? Instead, we treat all teachers the same, and then provide tenure after 5 years (or so, depending on the school/state) that protects even the poor performing teachers. This is detrimental to our children, our future, and to our teachers.
The only problem I see with the program is that it only addresses at-risk schools. While school teachers in more affluent areas often get paid more (in my area, the difference is ~$15,000 between the wealthy and inner city school teachers), saying they shouldn't be compensated for good performance is like saying our "at risk" students matter more than everyone else. Rolling out the bonus program to all school districts could be a huge win for our education system.
When it comes to Firebird, I certainly don't know what I'm talking about. This is why I stated I had only used it once a while ago, and now that I think about it, it was well over a year ago (since PostgreSQL 8.0 hadn't yet made it out of beta and we were evaluating Firebird vs. PostgreSQL vs. MySql for a web app).
Since we have you here... can you educate us on why Firebird may be better than MySql or PostgreSQL or BerkeleyDB or other open source databases? This is a serious request - I honestly don't know enough about Firebird, and the release bulletin seems more geared to existing Firebird users (it doesn't help someone uninformed dimwit like me make a better comparison for future projects).
I wonder if this was posted simply to see what fun folks might have comparing the name to Firefox. I've only used Firebird once, and I wasn't a big fan (who knows, maybe 2.0 is better). I'm having a great time reading the comments though, so nice job/. editors!
Considering that low-end desktop computers (w/ monitors and software) are now running in the $300 range from large computer vendors, it's tough to make a business case for selling $250 computers to third world countries... so it sounds like they made the right decision. Either that, or they realized that since even Negroponte's $140 alternative wasn't really catching on, there'd be no way that a $250 machine would.
Good point... I use those methods primarily on personal web pages, at work we use contact forms and never ever show an e-mail address. However, at work we get over 1000 spam messages a day coming from our contact form. We probably need to rewrite it to be a little less spambot friendly. In general though, if a person can click a button, so can a bot.
My two favorite methods are:
- Putting the e-mail in a distorted picture (like a captcha) - this is very difficult for spam crawlers to read
- Using a long human readable message "tset ta tset tod moc.reverse.each.word.prior.to.first.dot.for.addr"
In general, your best defense is to employ some method that requires human interpretation.
Many localities had no desire to move to electronic voting, but as of this year it is no longer in their capacity to make this decision. The Help America Vote Act moved the responsibility from the local/county level to the state level, while also mandating upgraded/electronic voting machines nationwide. I know my locality was P/O'd that they had to upgrade, even though it was partly subsidized by the federal government since they converted in time.
At a philosophical level, Novell probably didn't want to sign the agreement with Microsoft either... heck, Microsoft basically destroyed them as a leading software provider. But they're in an unenviable position of trying to turn a profit. That's the double edged sword of large companies getting in the open source game. On one side, they offer massive resources that can champion and push forward technologies that groups working in their spare time cannot. On the other, they must find a way to recoup some of those expenses, which sometimes lead them down the path that we've all worked hard to stay off (namely, software patents, commercialization, and closed sourcing parts of their product).
Unfortunately I think we'll just have to deal with some closed source Linux programs and some software patents for technologies that required massive investment. The key is to pick our battles - e.g. to ensure that the entire Linux kernel, and all "typical" programs are open source and protected under the GPL (or other similar license).
OK, I'll admit... I had NO CLUE what this article was talking about until I visited the websites. The limit of my recent gaming is Minesweeper and a little Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades (my wife loves it), and the last MMORPG I played was Ultima Online years ago.
So when I looked at some of the screenshots of EVE Online, I was blown away. Are these in-game shots? If so, wow wow wow.
Hopefully this merger helps them create better Online RPGs with those type of graphics, rather than detract from each of their focus's since White Wolf appears to be less focused on video games.
Hehehe... when you're a student, this "working with a bunch of morons" statement feels like the truth even if you're teamed up with brain trusters at a top CS school.
In college, the smart people are building their own businesses and doing other things on the side, and don't really want to deal with team projects that take insane amounts of time. The regular folks just want to party and get by with the least amount of work until they can get a real-world job. The true "morons" are the ones who love group projects, because they can do very little work and leach off the rest of the group. So a team-based software development project ends up catering to the folks who don't deserve it.
When you graduate, a CS major is typically hired to program. After a few years they can move into different positions, but why dilute their programming experience with skills that they'll learn better on the job?
My suggestion is that if you want business skills, take a few business classes. If you want project management classes, take a class or two dedicated to PM. Otherwise, code away.
Odd that the no fly zone would only extend 10,000 feet... unless it's just a small rocket test, Bezos would be just as likely to knock a jetliner out at 35,000 feet as 10,000.
Many people (particularly those with an interest in hiding India's massive contamination crisis) will claim that it's natural. In India and Bangladest though, this just isn't true. In these countries, all evidence shows that it's because of manmade contamination. Prior to the 1960's, British researchers found no evidence of high arsenic levels in either shallow or deep wells. By 2000 though, there were very high deposits that had been left by industrial and agricultural runoff.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't the point of text messaging typically to say something you wouldn't want to say out loud? Nobody cares if you type something provocative, but if you say it while sitting there bored in a meeting, you're probably hosed. I'm not insinuating that the technology is a bad idea, I think it's really cool (particularly if it works better than most voice recognition software), but I don't see it contributing to the "Death of the Cell Phone Keypad as we know it".
"Core 2 Extreme quad-core QX6700" - There's a mouthful. It's funny that Intel is continually trying to downplay the importance of this chip for the average user. They say it's best for "more for computational-heavy usage, including digital content creation, engineering analysis, such as CAD" ... sounds like gamers would flock to this. Maybe they realize it's a rushed product (to beat AMD to the punch), and it will be in short supply?
I really think this addresses a growing need, particularly amongst corporate intranet users. We use a Wiki (MediaWiki) internally at work, and there are so many times that we need to create a simple editable spreadsheet to display calculations on a web page. Right now we either use static tables or attach an Excel document (I tried Google Spreadsheets but didn't like the results for our needs). This is fine, but creates formula messes when people want to make changes. WikiCalc appears to solve our need, although the video makes it look a little complex for the novice user (hopefully it looks this way because Dan Bricklin is trying to impress us nerds).
Sorry for my ignorance, but are there games in the U.S. that are free to play, but you have to pay for in-game items? This sounds like a great business model for areas like China where many gamers may not have the cash for subscription or one-time fees ... I could see it working in the US too where some gamers would be willing to pay big bucks to bypass months of time getting to higher levels.
OK, so it seems pretty crazy to junk a blu-ray just to grab the laser, but there must be some reason they are doing this other than the publicity, right? Can someone explain the importance of a blue laser over a regular handheld red laser of the same power that sells for ~$20? Or is it just supposed to be cool looking?
... are these so expensive just because they're expensive to make, or is there massive demand that keeps that the price up (and if so, what is that demand based on)?
Looking online, I see that the standard price for blue laser pointers is over $1000 (here's the cheapest I found, which has a longer wavelength and lower power than the Blu-ray)
Even after reading the article, it's rather difficult to say what it is a top 50 of ... Scientific American calls it "Scientific American 50: Trends in Research, Business and Policy". What a mishmash. Looks like they originally wanted to have 3 top 50s and couldn't think of enough to fill all the slots, so threw what they had into one.
I thought it was interesting that the section on green cars ("on the road to green") mentioned GM and DaimlerChrysler for their work on new Hybrid technology, and HyMotion for their new plug-in Hybrid conversion kits, but didn't mention any of the advances with pure electric car designs. For example, the Tesla roadster has sold a couple hundred sports cars that perform well (0-60 in 4 seconds) with excellent range (250 miles). This achievement in a production auto certainly seems worthy of their top 50. While it's not exactly for your average consumer (it costs $100K), the company plans to offer family cars for their homepage.
Have you ever done taxes for someone who makes relatively little money? I do for quite a few, every year. They pay almost nothing in taxes. A friend of mine made $32,000 in 2005 (I'm actually looking at his tax return right now). He paid $1,400 in federal taxes, $400 in state taxes, and $2,400 in FICA. At the end of the year, he received back $5,000 (due to 100% refund of fed/state + child tax credit) - or $800 more than he paid. There's no possible way that he could afford his 2 children's education if we reduced his taxes any further, since they are already nothing.
Most families with children who make under 30 or 35K per year are in the same boat. If we eliminated property tax for landlords, this would amount to approximately $50-100 per month on an apartment valued at $50K. This would not solve the problem. And if we removed employer paid FICA, this would just kill Social Security and Medicare, which is all most of our poor population has to rely on after 65.
I'm not sure that removing publicly funded schools is the answer either. Who would pay for the kids in poor areas where most parents can barely pay for rent and food, let alone education? Removing the public funds would take us back to an era where poor children had little or no education, couldn't read or write, and were destined for back breaking manual labor which they didn't even have the education/smarts to object to. The opportunities afforded these children by publicly funded schools are phenomenal when compared to having no education at all.
... it is based on standardized test scores (e.g. achievement tests). If the teachers were doing the grading, I would certainly agree with you. Here's some more info on the program. They have similar programs in the DC and Philadelphia region where I live, supposedly based 100% on multiple choice computer read achievement tests (at least according to our local media). The only way they could really cheat is to whisper answers into the kids ears ... which I'm sure still happens, but on a limited basis.
Also, from what I have heard and read, the teachers are NOT the ones grading this
The teachers are NOT the ones grading this ... it is based on standardized test scores (e.g. achievement tests). If the teachers were doing the grading, I would certainly agree with you. Here's some more info. They have similar programs in the DC and Philadelphia region where I live, all based on multiple choice achievement tests (computer analyzed). The only way they could really cheat is to whisper answers into the kids ears ...
I for one, am a huge proponent of this type of approach. In almost any corporation in America, there are bonuses that are offered when someone performs well. Teachers (and many other Union jobs) don't have such performance bonuses in place. Why not? Sure, you have to worry a little about cheating, but I have to (maybe naively) believe that teachers will not be slipping students answers to achievement tests while school administrators are monitoring test taking progress. Plus, the statistical analyses referred to in the article should catch teachers that are this egregious.
We expect our teachers to put more and more hours in (most work tons of nights and weekend hours) for "the love of the children", and without any incremental pay. Shouldn't we reward them for their good work? Instead, we treat all teachers the same, and then provide tenure after 5 years (or so, depending on the school/state) that protects even the poor performing teachers. This is detrimental to our children, our future, and to our teachers.
The only problem I see with the program is that it only addresses at-risk schools. While school teachers in more affluent areas often get paid more (in my area, the difference is ~$15,000 between the wealthy and inner city school teachers), saying they shouldn't be compensated for good performance is like saying our "at risk" students matter more than everyone else. Rolling out the bonus program to all school districts could be a huge win for our education system.
When it comes to Firebird, I certainly don't know what I'm talking about. This is why I stated I had only used it once a while ago, and now that I think about it, it was well over a year ago (since PostgreSQL 8.0 hadn't yet made it out of beta and we were evaluating Firebird vs. PostgreSQL vs. MySql for a web app).
... can you educate us on why Firebird may be better than MySql or PostgreSQL or BerkeleyDB or other open source databases? This is a serious request - I honestly don't know enough about Firebird, and the release bulletin seems more geared to existing Firebird users (it doesn't help someone uninformed dimwit like me make a better comparison for future projects).
Since we have you here
Thanks a ton!
I wonder if this was posted simply to see what fun folks might have comparing the name to Firefox. I've only used Firebird once, and I wasn't a big fan (who knows, maybe 2.0 is better). I'm having a great time reading the comments though, so nice job /. editors!
Considering that low-end desktop computers (w/ monitors and software) are now running in the $300 range from large computer vendors, it's tough to make a business case for selling $250 computers to third world countries ... so it sounds like they made the right decision. Either that, or they realized that since even Negroponte's $140 alternative wasn't really catching on, there'd be no way that a $250 machine would.
Great idea (I went back and read the slashdot article on the same topic too). We'll definitely have someone make that change!
Good point ... I use those methods primarily on personal web pages, at work we use contact forms and never ever show an e-mail address. However, at work we get over 1000 spam messages a day coming from our contact form. We probably need to rewrite it to be a little less spambot friendly. In general though, if a person can click a button, so can a bot.
My two favorite methods are:"
- Putting the e-mail in a distorted picture (like a captcha) - this is very difficult for spam crawlers to read
- Using a long human readable message "tset ta tset tod moc.reverse.each.word.prior.to.first.dot.for.addr
In general, your best defense is to employ some method that requires human interpretation.
Many localities had no desire to move to electronic voting, but as of this year it is no longer in their capacity to make this decision. The Help America Vote Act moved the responsibility from the local/county level to the state level, while also mandating upgraded/electronic voting machines nationwide. I know my locality was P/O'd that they had to upgrade, even though it was partly subsidized by the federal government since they converted in time.
At a philosophical level, Novell probably didn't want to sign the agreement with Microsoft either ... heck, Microsoft basically destroyed them as a leading software provider. But they're in an unenviable position of trying to turn a profit. That's the double edged sword of large companies getting in the open source game. On one side, they offer massive resources that can champion and push forward technologies that groups working in their spare time cannot. On the other, they must find a way to recoup some of those expenses, which sometimes lead them down the path that we've all worked hard to stay off (namely, software patents, commercialization, and closed sourcing parts of their product).
Unfortunately I think we'll just have to deal with some closed source Linux programs and some software patents for technologies that required massive investment. The key is to pick our battles - e.g. to ensure that the entire Linux kernel, and all "typical" programs are open source and protected under the GPL (or other similar license).
OK, I'll admit ... I had NO CLUE what this article was talking about until I visited the websites. The limit of my recent gaming is Minesweeper and a little Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades (my wife loves it), and the last MMORPG I played was Ultima Online years ago.
So when I looked at some of the screenshots of EVE Online, I was blown away. Are these in-game shots? If so, wow wow wow.
Hopefully this merger helps them create better Online RPGs with those type of graphics, rather than detract from each of their focus's since White Wolf appears to be less focused on video games.
Hehehe ... when you're a student, this "working with a bunch of morons" statement feels like the truth even if you're teamed up with brain trusters at a top CS school.
In college, the smart people are building their own businesses and doing other things on the side, and don't really want to deal with team projects that take insane amounts of time. The regular folks just want to party and get by with the least amount of work until they can get a real-world job. The true "morons" are the ones who love group projects, because they can do very little work and leach off the rest of the group. So a team-based software development project ends up catering to the folks who don't deserve it.
When you graduate, a CS major is typically hired to program. After a few years they can move into different positions, but why dilute their programming experience with skills that they'll learn better on the job?
My suggestion is that if you want business skills, take a few business classes. If you want project management classes, take a class or two dedicated to PM. Otherwise, code away.
Wouldn't that be great if Bezos were really buying 1/4 million acres of ranchland so he could launch sticks of salami.
Don't tell Microsoft that, you might convince them to create visual effects to match each of their startup sounds!
Odd that the no fly zone would only extend 10,000 feet... unless it's just a small rocket test, Bezos would be just as likely to knock a jetliner out at 35,000 feet as 10,000.
Many people (particularly those with an interest in hiding India's massive contamination crisis) will claim that it's natural. In India and Bangladest though, this just isn't true. In these countries, all evidence shows that it's because of manmade contamination. Prior to the 1960's, British researchers found no evidence of high arsenic levels in either shallow or deep wells. By 2000 though, there were very high deposits that had been left by industrial and agricultural runoff.