So, when do the telecom companies start bribing city officials to kill this project? Free citywide Wifi would seem to me to be a deathblow for anyone currently selling dialtone. Won't everyone just start using VOIP?
And just wait until VOIP enabled mobile handsets become commonplace...
Who was the Slashdick who modded me redundant? I can't really think of a more appropriate topic for this post and for this forum. The global balance of power is shifting more rapidly right now than in the last 100 years, and America (by most calculations) would appear to be the big loser. America has very little industrial/export capacity left and two if its remaining powerhouse industries are tech and pharma. I'm a huge supporter of OSS, and yet I frequently wonder about larger issues like the general balance of trade because geopolitically and economically it is clear that America is teetering.
Redundant? Uh... wow. Sorry for boring you with uninteresting and non-current issues.
Yar screw Sony and Micro$oft. Wii rocks. Apple really loves me. SCO is stoopid. Yay Google. LOL Penguins, get it? OMG Ponies! Yawn.
At what point does our loathing of Microsoft and our support of OSS equate to a massive economic loss to our own nation? At what point do American supporters of OSS achieve a shot to their own shared national foot?
Just curious to hear views on national self-interest vs. the interest of technological freedoms and associated liberties which go hand in hand with the movement towards OSS.
Typical Mac fanboy fanatacism. Try not to break a sweat next time you post. My post was rational. Yours, fanatical.
First off, the Mighty Mouse is 3 times as useful? Let's forget about the math. If its so wonderful, why do more Mac users use third party wheel mice instead of it? The Mighty Mouse smacks of: "we invented the mouse and we *must* re-invent it rather than follow Windows' lead here."
Maximize is wasteful? Hmm... Let's see, there's no 1cm border on the outside of my work window. It seems to me that its OSX that's wasteful here. "Drag" in general is a system that is fading from interface design, so background visibility is less necessary every day.
Finder certainly isn't based on Explorer. You're right. Its got a very strange horizontal orientation and it badly, badly needs an overhaul. But PC's had a hierarchical system long before Mac's which used nested subwindows for years.
The Dock is yet another example of "Dear God, please don't let us get caught following Windows' lead". How many flavors of Linux favor the taskbar approach over the dock approach? Because that's a pretty good indication. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Why is there no "-1 Yawn.. its yet another fanatic Mac loving, Anti-Microsoft basher" mod choice?
Realize that most Slashdotters use Windows. Not Macs. Not Linux. Its the dirty little secret of the/. community.
Like with the infinitely superior wheel-mouse? Or windows that maximize? Or a hierarcichal file explorer? Or a taskbar? I could go on and on... but there's a whole lot in OSX that came from Windows.
I love bashing MSFT as much as the next guy, and I know its fun to deny Microsoft any credit as an innovator. But anyone who knows multiple OS's knows it simply isn't true.
ps: And Apple's "fun little idea" of a gaming service as you put it... is hardly innovative. They are the last player at the table here. Like so many of Apple's "innovations", they are only innovative for those who only know Apple.
Oblivion is an RPG lite. Aside from the completely broken levelling system, and rather bland computer generated forests, it has a limited number of options and playstyles, and the world doesn't actually have that much variety contrary to the claims of its biggest fans. My recommendation for anyone who thinks Oblivion is the cat's meow is to play Baldur's Gate II -- which is arguably the best single-player RPG ever made. It doesn't look as pretty (its a decade old now, but then again, it'll probably play on your laptop), but its still one of the most engrossing RPG's ever made.
I put Oblivion down after 1 weekend. I've played Baldur's Gate all the way through about 4 times. The last time was a little over a year ago. Its still that good.
No, not at all. Quite the opposite. I clarified the term design to having two potential meanings aesthetics and form ("organization"). Then I expressed my *opinion* that in terms of "form" I do not believe that Google has significantly differentiated themselves from their competitors.
"Design" is a dangerous word to use here, since it seems to me that what we're really talking about it "organization". Afterall Google's result pages are about as graphics-lite as a page can possibly be. Furthermore, they're affected by client-side issues from screen-size to font settings. So the look of the results page is in many ways a matter of client side rendering.
So I'm guessing we're talking about patenting the "organization" of data, and not the specific visual identity of the search results themselves. So.... I'm not sure I see the originality here. Google's advantage over previous-generation browsers was ultimately speed and a kickass search & pagerank algorithm. But ultimately the organization of the results doesn't seem entirely dissimilar from other search engines.
And since this wasn't awarded a "utility" patent, we know we're not talking about anything that has functional value -- just "visual originality". Take away the Google logo and IMHO there's a whole lot of "visual originality" to the results.
"Don't like the one-button mouse? This is your weakest complaint, and it's been gone over a million times by now. ANY two-button USB mouse will work just fine with OS X"
So... Apple wants me to go and by a Logitech mouse for their superior-design computer? I'll continue to call b.s. Its time for Apple to pull their stick out of the mud and admit that their precious mouse has been radically improved upon by the design of others.
Other industries improve their products over time. Where's the product improvement here? Last time I checked Apple was still trying to sell DRM'd low-fidelity 128-bit MP3's. Ultimately iTunes is a store for ignorant music shoppers who don't know that the music they're buying is crippled and sounds significantly worse than a CD. When the public becomes more discerning, its typically time to improve your products. Hello? Apple?
I took a few weeks off work, and returned to find my favorite geek website had replaced its standard content with content completely unrelated to the topics which used to make it great. Even more disturbing was the fact that no one else seemed to notice.
Slashdot Mirror
Did this happen? Intel changes their campaign up every year,
and they now use "Leap Ahead"...but there's been no
real rebranding as far as i can tell.
I predict Cringley is going to get even more annoying and
no one will even notice.
So, when do the telecom companies start bribing city officials to kill this project?
Free citywide Wifi would seem to me to be a deathblow for anyone currently selling
dialtone. Won't everyone just start using VOIP?
And just wait until VOIP enabled mobile handsets become commonplace...
Wow. I'll say it again: I haven't made any arguments. Nor have I expressed any opinions.
Apparently everyone here feels so strongly on this subject that they're asassinating me for even asking the question.
Wow.
Easy people. Settle.
"I find your comment to be very pompous."
Did I express some opinion in my comment?
Who was the Slashdick who modded me redundant? I can't really think of a more appropriate topic for this post and for this forum.
The global balance of power is shifting more rapidly right now than in the last 100 years, and America (by most calculations) would appear
to be the big loser. America has very little industrial/export capacity left and two if its remaining powerhouse industries are tech
and pharma. I'm a huge supporter of OSS, and yet I frequently wonder about larger issues like the general balance of trade because
geopolitically and economically it is clear that America is teetering.
Redundant? Uh... wow. Sorry for boring you with uninteresting and non-current issues.
Yar screw Sony and Micro$oft. Wii rocks. Apple really loves me. SCO is stoopid. Yay Google. LOL Penguins, get it? OMG Ponies! Yawn.
At what point does our loathing of Microsoft and our support of OSS equate to a massive economic loss to our own nation?
At what point do American supporters of OSS achieve a shot to their own shared national foot?
Just curious to hear views on national self-interest vs. the interest of technological freedoms and associated liberties
which go hand in hand with the movement towards OSS.
Do you store receipts for everything you own in someplace outside your house (and city)?
One of the big problems with Katrina losses is that so frequently all evidence of
ownership and purchase was also washed away.
...Just another way of looking at it.
... or those penalties are a wee bit silly.
Now either Russia doesn't have a very big GDP (the world's 14th largest)
One more indication that the underlying problem here is an overvaluation of
intellectual property.
Typical Mac fanboy fanatacism. Try not to break a sweat next time you post. My post was rational. Yours, fanatical.
/. community.
First off, the Mighty Mouse is 3 times as useful? Let's forget about the math. If its so wonderful, why do more Mac users use third party wheel mice instead of it? The Mighty Mouse smacks of: "we invented the mouse and we *must* re-invent it rather than follow Windows' lead here."
Maximize is wasteful? Hmm... Let's see, there's no 1cm border on the outside of my work window. It seems to me that its OSX that's wasteful here. "Drag" in general is a system that is fading from interface design, so background visibility is less necessary every day.
Finder certainly isn't based on Explorer. You're right. Its got a very strange horizontal orientation and it badly, badly needs an overhaul. But PC's had a hierarchical system long before Mac's which used nested subwindows for years.
The Dock is yet another example of "Dear God, please don't let us get caught following Windows' lead". How many flavors of Linux favor the taskbar approach over the dock approach? Because that's a pretty good indication. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Why is there no "-1 Yawn.. its yet another fanatic Mac loving, Anti-Microsoft basher" mod choice?
Realize that most Slashdotters use Windows. Not Macs. Not Linux. Its the dirty little secret of the
Now ask "why"? Is it "the man" or is it choice.
The development of MMORPG's for handhelds is going to be simply enormous.
Just wait until the crack addiction can be taken anywhere...
IMHO, the company that gets there first (and does it well) could easily win the battle.
Really, MSFT rips off Apple?
Like with the infinitely superior wheel-mouse?
Or windows that maximize?
Or a hierarcichal file explorer?
Or a taskbar?
I could go on and on... but there's a whole lot in OSX that came from Windows.
I love bashing MSFT as much as the next guy, and I know its fun to deny Microsoft any credit as an innovator.
But anyone who knows multiple OS's knows it simply isn't true.
ps: And Apple's "fun little idea" of a gaming service as you put it... is hardly innovative. They are the last player at the table here.
Like so many of Apple's "innovations", they are only innovative for those who only know Apple.
No really, eom.
yay
And all this time I thought I was getting sexier.
Oblivion is an RPG lite. Aside from the completely broken levelling system, and rather bland computer generated forests, it has a limited number of options and playstyles, and the world doesn't actually have that much variety contrary to the claims of its biggest fans. My recommendation for anyone who thinks Oblivion is the cat's meow is to play Baldur's Gate II -- which is arguably the best single-player RPG ever made. It doesn't look as pretty (its a decade old now, but then again, it'll probably play on your laptop), but its still one of the most engrossing RPG's ever made.
I put Oblivion down after 1 weekend. I've played Baldur's Gate all the way through about 4 times. The last time was a little over a year ago. Its still that good.
(sorry. I couldn't help it.)
... but they didn't. Because the whole point of the Roomba is that you don't
need to control it.
And why is this "awesome"? Is the Wii remote better than a standard joystick
remote (like those used for RC cars) for this application?
No, not at all. Quite the opposite. I clarified the term
design to having two potential meanings aesthetics and
form ("organization"). Then I expressed my *opinion* that
in terms of "form" I do not believe that Google has
significantly differentiated themselves from their
competitors.
Kapisch?
"Design" is a dangerous word to use here, since it seems to me that what we're
really talking about it "organization". Afterall Google's result pages are
about as graphics-lite as a page can possibly be. Furthermore, they're affected
by client-side issues from screen-size to font settings. So the look of
the results page is in many ways a matter of client side rendering.
So I'm guessing we're talking about patenting the "organization" of data, and not
the specific visual identity of the search results themselves. So.... I'm not sure
I see the originality here. Google's advantage over previous-generation browsers
was ultimately speed and a kickass search & pagerank algorithm. But ultimately
the organization of the results doesn't seem entirely dissimilar from other
search engines.
And since this wasn't awarded a "utility" patent, we know we're not talking about
anything that has functional value -- just "visual originality". Take away
the Google logo and IMHO there's a whole lot of "visual originality" to the
results.
How sad that this is news.
This is all part of a larger plan to increase the pool of Iraq recruits.
.."
"No... don't you worry Bud, I'm right behind you
Agreed. 100%.
Morrowind was creatively gorgeous. Oblivion was generic fantasy crap for first time RPG'ers.
"Don't like the one-button mouse? This is your weakest complaint, and it's been gone over a million times by now. ANY two-button USB mouse will work just fine with OS X"
So... Apple wants me to go and by a Logitech mouse for their superior-design computer?
I'll continue to call b.s.
Its time for Apple to pull their stick out of the mud and admit that their precious mouse has been radically improved upon by the design of others.
Other industries improve their products over time. Where's the product improvement here?
Last time I checked Apple was still trying to sell DRM'd low-fidelity 128-bit MP3's.
Ultimately iTunes is a store for ignorant music shoppers who don't know that the music
they're buying is crippled and sounds significantly worse than a CD. When the public
becomes more discerning, its typically time to improve your products. Hello? Apple?
I took a few weeks off work, and returned to find my favorite geek website had replaced its standard content with content completely unrelated to the topics which used to make it great. Even more disturbing was the fact that no one else seemed to notice.
What should *I* do?