A better implementation exists, one that is not controlled by a convicted illegal monopolist: Semacode.
It uses Datamatrix 2-D (monochrome) barcodes to encode URLs on paper billboards and flyers, and has scanner implementations for many cellphones w/ built-in cameras.
In a prototypical application, a typical college student sees an advertisement attached to a bulletin board, for a local concert of Local Rock Band XYZ. There is a semacode symbol on the poster. He or she, uses cell phone to take a picture of the link, which automatically launches the cell's built in web browser to that URL (saving much tedious thumb-typing), and purchases concert tickets instantaneously.
When you buy a copy of Winblows XP, you're actually paying for replacement chairs for Steve Ballmer's office... He needs a lot of them, he goes through them faster than Hillary Clinton goes through hairstyles.
MIT's Open CourseWare has online videos of undergraduate and graduate course lectures of actual math, engineering, physics professors... Many of whom are top researchers in their fields. This is about as brainy as you can get!
I hate Big Brother just as much as the next guy, but incidents like these make me wonder if perhaps installing HDTV video cameras in all public areas, might make for a slightly safer environment. If this guy had been spotted carrying 2 guns sooner, maybe security guards could have confronted him and prevented this massacre. I mean college campuses are notoriously open and friendly environments... I would hate to see them "locked down" with barbed wire fences and metal detectors. Maybe security cameras really are a less obtrusive alternative to increasing security...
Then again, someone will always find a way to circumvent even the tightest security and observation..
Is this a problem we can solve with technology? Or is the true solution only psychological, cultural, emotional...?
If I sound confused, it's because I am... I don't understand why someone would inflict such pain and suffering on their fellow human beings... We're all in this together guys! Come on! Please stop the violence! Peace.
according to this guy, you train a programmer as if it were a dog. You punish it by yanking on the leash, when they make too many bugs. You reward it by giving it a biscut when it does something good, like write an amazing piece of software with crappy design documents as input.
Do managers really think this way ? Are we looked upon as professionals ? Or merely some kind of, easily trained, excitable, bark at the mailman, get lonely when the master leaves us alone and doesn't play fetch with us, peculiar species of mammal ?
We expect computers to give the exact same solution or answer when their program is executed once, twice, ten times, or a million times. Humans however make mistakes, our biological brains are better at pattern recognition and face recognition... But our logic is fuzzy... sometimes we will give a wrong answer or make a mistake on a simple calculation. So perhaps the ultimate goal is not to build a computer that thinks like a human, but rather apply (perfect) computer technology where it is appropriate and apply (imperfect) human thinking where it is needed. Actually the notion of the Mechanical Turk (article on slashdot a few weeks ago)... this is the future of Artificial Intelligence...
Why do you think that people are going bonkers over the offshore outsourcing trend? It's like Artificial Intelligence... You ask a question over the phone, or via chat window, and your question is magically answered by the thinking thing inside the box. It doesn't matter what the thing is on the other end of the line... all that matters is that it gives you a reasonably good answer that helps you make progress in your business or personal life.
We already have seen the face of Artificial Intelligence... it is staring back at us in the mirror.
After 6 years of his catastrophic presidency we have less civil rights and right to privacy than ever, and yet we are less safe and more paranoid and under attack than ever... This makes no sense whatsoever ! I wish we could elect a new president today, to start undoing all the damage this one man has done to our country.
Just like people will give away their passwords in exchange for free chocolate. They should tie their number-crunching into a hot game like GTA IV and people will give away free PS3 cycles, electricity, etc.
I don't want to sound bitter or anything, but I am deeply annoyed by Bill Gates and other Microsoft Millionaires. I mean, he is rich and everything, but let's not forget how he came about all that moolah. His company's illegal monopolistic business strategy of killing any and all competition in the Operating System marketplace, thus forcing consumers and the U.S. government to use an overpriced, inferior product channeled literally billions of dollars into his pockets over the last 20 years. We (you, me, and millions of other PC users and taxpayers) are funding Simonyi's and Gates' luxurious and extravagant lifestyles. Let's not lose sight of that...
Some will argue that Gates' philanthropic efforts balance out his company's illegal tactics... My counter-argument is that no matter how you spend money you acquired illegally, it is still stolen money. And how come they keep donating PCs running Vista to those poor elementary schools in developing countries ? Methinks some corporate strategist wants to get vendor-lock-in (MS Office proprietary document format) at 8, 9, 10 years old. Just like the tobacco companies -- hook 'em while they're young.
God only knows how many people are now paying twice or three times for a single copy of Winblows, due to the new Winblows Genuine Advantage and Business Software Alliance scare tactics.
I propose a lifetime per-person Net Worth cap of 10 Billion Dollars in the United States. Furthermore, Gates should return the money he illegally got using price-gouging tactics by refunding all customers the difference between monopoly and non-monopoly price. Finally, the government should pass legislation mandating that tech companies can only make CASH donations, not donations of their own product, to avoid creating artificial demand for their products and services due to vendor-lock-in. They take all kind of business-tax-write-offs on that donated technology anyway. So let's see how truly altruistic they are.
Anyway my point is, I read these articles about "ooh Ballmer has a big a$$ yacht and wow Gates donated Billions and OMG Simonyi is blasting off to Jupiter" and I think, well guess what if you had a Bujillion Dollars you would be doing crazy sh1t too !
if the server or the client takes a poop
Ok, you have made some valid points. However I have never lost any data using Yahoo mail... it has very reliable uptime and is almost always up and running... it works fine for me.
Just because you assign a name or a label to something doesn't make it true. Putting an "Organic" sticker on a vegetable doesn't make it organic. Calling someone a "terrorist" and saying they are making "WMDs" doesn't make it so. There is nothing intrinsic about the TLD.safe that will make it safer than any other TLD. No matter how many times you say it or repeat or how loudly you shout it.
In a way, labels are a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. People put labels on things in the hopes that the labels are true. This is why nobody names their child "Loser" or "Stupid". Because what if it becomes true?! Then the parents would blame themselves.
I think am going to name my children "Nobel" and "Pulitzer".
Aren't Integrated Development Environments (such as Eclipse, NetBeans, and Visual Studio) used by developers to create apps -- both Web and Desktop style apps -- Aren't they themselves desktop apps ? Essentially IDEs are Meta-Apps, because they can be used to create new Applications. I think that these tools are still alive and kicking... So it would seem that until we (or rather the tool creators) manage to figure out how to do away with those fundamentally useful tools, we won't ever truly be rid of the Desktop metaphor. If you are a professional software developer: Can you really imagine trying to develop a new application for your employer, using tools that are running totally inside of a browser window, streaming one click at a time over AJAX ? I mean, there would probably be some gee-whiz coolness factor at first, but I think the novelty would quickly wear off once it dawns on you that you have ceded so much control over to the System Administrator. It's bad enough as it is with things like Database Admins controlling access to my data, and Security Admins controlling access to my email.... I can't bear to give away the last piece of territory that is truly totally within my domain - my precious IDE !!!
So as long as the IDE shall live, so shall the Desktop App!
All hail King WIMP !
The value of good user interface design...
on
100 Million iPods
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
In my opinion the reason the iPod succeeded in the marketplace is the tight integration of hardware and software... the whole system just works. You don't have to worry about, missing DLLs, bad firmware that causes the interface to become unresponsive, or other strange errors that manifest themselves on competing digital music players. I used to have a no-brand hard disk based player that would cause a horrible screeching noise in the earphones whenever the disk spun up to access the next chunk of music data. Never had this problem on my iPod. Also, for example, when you pull your headphone plug out of the earphone jack, my iPod automatically goes into Pause mode. They obviously put a sensor on the earphone jack that detects the presence of something plugged in, and tied that into the firmware... this provides a seamless intuitive interface to the end-use. This is why they have sold 100 million players, and profited from it, and rightly so. Highly paid and well motivated creative engineers will always trounce cheap, carelessly designed and manufactured, knock-offs.
I agree... there seems to be little redeeming value in keeping this rather dilapidated looking building up. I would understand if the site had some intrinsic architectual or artistic value, but from the photo it looks to be somewhat of an eyesore. It makes more sense to reclaim that unused property and build some extra housing on the site. Last time I was in California, housing prices were ridiculously high... every extra bit of housing helps to make the cost of living affordable for the middle class. Sorry, Venture Capitalists, we're going to have to take away your run-down "historical" building and put it to better use. You have have a nice laser-etched plaque saying something like "Former site of XYZ corp."
On a somewhat related topic, does anybody remember the episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, where Data meets his maker, Dr. Noonian Soong, and the guy says something like "Humans are so nostalgic? Why ? Ask a and they will tell you, "Tear down that old bridge., build a newer, better, stronger one. But a human will demand to keep the old rickety bridge. Why?""
Good observation. It's fairly typical to make a big fuss an complain about problems in life... I mean, everybody's a critic, you know ? Whine whine whine, complain, complain, complain. Let's stop arguing about the problem, and make some changes, and get some real results and solutions. How hard can it be? We just need to elect a President who actually gives a damn about the environment instead of only paying lip service to it. Remember that next time you go to the voting booth... our democratically elected government has the power to incentivize clean energy and disincentivize dirty energy. Through tax credits, rebates, and tax cuts for clean alternative energy such as solar power, and corresponding higher taxes for fossil fuels.
Slashdot Mirror
That is the smell & noise of the CEOs at Research In Motion, Palm, and Pocket PC, collectively soiling their pants after hearing this news.
A better implementation exists, one that is not controlled by a convicted illegal monopolist: Semacode.
It uses Datamatrix 2-D (monochrome) barcodes to encode URLs on paper billboards and flyers, and has scanner implementations for many cellphones w/ built-in cameras.
In a prototypical application, a typical college student sees an advertisement attached to a bulletin board, for a local concert of Local Rock Band XYZ. There is a semacode symbol on the poster. He or she, uses cell phone to take a picture of the link, which automatically launches the cell's built in web browser to that URL (saving much tedious thumb-typing), and purchases concert tickets instantaneously.
http://semacode.org/
Hilarious... Very good ! I hate 99% of Nazis but Grammar Nazis and Soup Nazis are OK.
Ha ha ha. Personally I miss Crap 1.0. It's not as bloated as this new, stinking, Crap 2.0.
China already landed their 5th astronaut on the moon... Check out this Yahoo News Photo that was posted recently! It is conclusive evidence of China landing on the Moon!! http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070415/480/0396ebd938f 6423fab2ab1e8de16c8c2
When you buy a copy of Winblows XP, you're actually paying for replacement chairs for Steve Ballmer's office... He needs a lot of them, he goes through them faster than Hillary Clinton goes through hairstyles.
MIT's Open CourseWare has online videos of undergraduate and graduate course lectures of actual math, engineering, physics professors... Many of whom are top researchers in their fields. This is about as brainy as you can get!
l l1999/VideoLectures/index.htm
For example...
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-01Physics-IFa
I hate Big Brother just as much as the next guy, but incidents like these make me wonder if perhaps installing HDTV video cameras in all public areas, might make for a slightly safer environment. If this guy had been spotted carrying 2 guns sooner, maybe security guards could have confronted him and prevented this massacre. I mean college campuses are notoriously open and friendly environments... I would hate to see them "locked down" with barbed wire fences and metal detectors. Maybe security cameras really are a less obtrusive alternative to increasing security...
Then again, someone will always find a way to circumvent even the tightest security and observation..
Is this a problem we can solve with technology? Or is the true solution only psychological, cultural, emotional...?
If I sound confused, it's because I am... I don't understand why someone would inflict such pain and suffering on their fellow human beings... We're all in this together guys! Come on! Please stop the violence! Peace.
according to this guy, you train a programmer as if it were a dog. You punish it by yanking on the leash, when they make too many bugs. You reward it by giving it a biscut when it does something good, like write an amazing piece of software with crappy design documents as input.
Do managers really think this way ? Are we looked upon as professionals ? Or merely some kind of, easily trained, excitable, bark at the mailman, get lonely when the master leaves us alone and doesn't play fetch with us, peculiar species of mammal ?
WAAAHHH !!! I LIVE FOR BISCUTS!!! Doesn't he know that biscut's are a programmers lifeblood and he will wither and die without a steady supply !
We expect computers to give the exact same solution or answer when their program is executed once, twice, ten times, or a million times. Humans however make mistakes, our biological brains are better at pattern recognition and face recognition... But our logic is fuzzy... sometimes we will give a wrong answer or make a mistake on a simple calculation. So perhaps the ultimate goal is not to build a computer that thinks like a human, but rather apply (perfect) computer technology where it is appropriate and apply (imperfect) human thinking where it is needed. Actually the notion of the Mechanical Turk (article on slashdot a few weeks ago)... this is the future of Artificial Intelligence...
Why do you think that people are going bonkers over the offshore outsourcing trend? It's like Artificial Intelligence... You ask a question over the phone, or via chat window, and your question is magically answered by the thinking thing inside the box. It doesn't matter what the thing is on the other end of the line... all that matters is that it gives you a reasonably good answer that helps you make progress in your business or personal life.
We already have seen the face of Artificial Intelligence... it is staring back at us in the mirror.
After 6 years of his catastrophic presidency we have less civil rights and right to privacy than ever, and yet we are less safe and more paranoid and under attack than ever... This makes no sense whatsoever ! I wish we could elect a new president today, to start undoing all the damage this one man has done to our country.
FBO, WINE, ALSA, Cedega, Transgaming... Head Explodes
I needed one of these to power my iPod Femto for 3 seconds.
Just like people will give away their passwords in exchange for free chocolate. They should tie their number-crunching into a hot game like GTA IV and people will give away free PS3 cycles, electricity, etc.
I don't want to sound bitter or anything, but I am deeply annoyed by Bill Gates and other Microsoft Millionaires. I mean, he is rich and everything, but let's not forget how he came about all that moolah. His company's illegal monopolistic business strategy of killing any and all competition in the Operating System marketplace, thus forcing consumers and the U.S. government to use an overpriced, inferior product channeled literally billions of dollars into his pockets over the last 20 years. We (you, me, and millions of other PC users and taxpayers) are funding Simonyi's and Gates' luxurious and extravagant lifestyles. Let's not lose sight of that...
Some will argue that Gates' philanthropic efforts balance out his company's illegal tactics... My counter-argument is that no matter how you spend money you acquired illegally, it is still stolen money. And how come they keep donating PCs running Vista to those poor elementary schools in developing countries ? Methinks some corporate strategist wants to get vendor-lock-in (MS Office proprietary document format) at 8, 9, 10 years old. Just like the tobacco companies -- hook 'em while they're young.
God only knows how many people are now paying twice or three times for a single copy of Winblows, due to the new Winblows Genuine Advantage and Business Software Alliance scare tactics.
I propose a lifetime per-person Net Worth cap of 10 Billion Dollars in the United States. Furthermore, Gates should return the money he illegally got using price-gouging tactics by refunding all customers the difference between monopoly and non-monopoly price. Finally, the government should pass legislation mandating that tech companies can only make CASH donations, not donations of their own product, to avoid creating artificial demand for their products and services due to vendor-lock-in. They take all kind of business-tax-write-offs on that donated technology anyway. So let's see how truly altruistic they are.
Anyway my point is, I read these articles about "ooh Ballmer has a big a$$ yacht and wow Gates donated Billions and OMG Simonyi is blasting off to Jupiter" and I think, well guess what if you had a Bujillion Dollars you would be doing crazy sh1t too !
Ok, you have made some valid points. However I have never lost any data using Yahoo mail... it has very reliable uptime and is almost always up and running... it works fine for me.
Yahoo Mail has served as my email provider for about 7 years now... I see no reason to switch back to a desktop client anytime soon.
China requires Kids to undergo 3 hours of Communist Ideology Indoctrination Training.
If you lean into your honey for a kiss, she doesn't get all pixellated when you get close to her face.
When you press your face up against your HDTV panel, you should be able to tell the difference between 1080p and reality.
If you can't tell the difference between the two, then you might want to get your eyes checked.
Just because you assign a name or a label to something doesn't make it true. Putting an "Organic" sticker on a vegetable doesn't make it organic. Calling someone a "terrorist" and saying they are making "WMDs" doesn't make it so. There is nothing intrinsic about the TLD .safe that will make it safer than any other TLD. No matter how many times you say it or repeat or how loudly you shout it.
In a way, labels are a sort of self-fulfilling prophesy. People put labels on things in the hopes that the labels are true. This is why nobody names their child "Loser" or "Stupid". Because what if it becomes true?! Then the parents would blame themselves.
I think am going to name my children "Nobel" and "Pulitzer".
Aren't Integrated Development Environments (such as Eclipse, NetBeans, and Visual Studio) used by developers to create apps -- both Web and Desktop style apps -- Aren't they themselves desktop apps ? Essentially IDEs are Meta-Apps, because they can be used to create new Applications. I think that these tools are still alive and kicking... So it would seem that until we (or rather the tool creators) manage to figure out how to do away with those fundamentally useful tools, we won't ever truly be rid of the Desktop metaphor. If you are a professional software developer: Can you really imagine trying to develop a new application for your employer, using tools that are running totally inside of a browser window, streaming one click at a time over AJAX ? I mean, there would probably be some gee-whiz coolness factor at first, but I think the novelty would quickly wear off once it dawns on you that you have ceded so much control over to the System Administrator. It's bad enough as it is with things like Database Admins controlling access to my data, and Security Admins controlling access to my email.... I can't bear to give away the last piece of territory that is truly totally within my domain - my precious IDE !!!
So as long as the IDE shall live, so shall the Desktop App!
All hail King WIMP !
In my opinion the reason the iPod succeeded in the marketplace is the tight integration of hardware and software... the whole system just works. You don't have to worry about, missing DLLs, bad firmware that causes the interface to become unresponsive, or other strange errors that manifest themselves on competing digital music players. I used to have a no-brand hard disk based player that would cause a horrible screeching noise in the earphones whenever the disk spun up to access the next chunk of music data. Never had this problem on my iPod. Also, for example, when you pull your headphone plug out of the earphone jack, my iPod automatically goes into Pause mode. They obviously put a sensor on the earphone jack that detects the presence of something plugged in, and tied that into the firmware... this provides a seamless intuitive interface to the end-use. This is why they have sold 100 million players, and profited from it, and rightly so. Highly paid and well motivated creative engineers will always trounce cheap, carelessly designed and manufactured, knock-offs.
I agree... there seems to be little redeeming value in keeping this rather dilapidated looking building up. I would understand if the site had some intrinsic architectual or artistic value, but from the photo it looks to be somewhat of an eyesore. It makes more sense to reclaim that unused property and build some extra housing on the site. Last time I was in California, housing prices were ridiculously high... every extra bit of housing helps to make the cost of living affordable for the middle class. Sorry, Venture Capitalists, we're going to have to take away your run-down "historical" building and put it to better use. You have have a nice laser-etched plaque saying something like "Former site of XYZ corp."
On a somewhat related topic, does anybody remember the episode of Star Trek the Next Generation, where Data meets his maker, Dr. Noonian Soong, and the guy says something like "Humans are so nostalgic? Why ? Ask a and they will tell you, "Tear down that old bridge., build a newer, better, stronger one. But a human will demand to keep the old rickety bridge. Why?""
Good observation. It's fairly typical to make a big fuss an complain about problems in life... I mean, everybody's a critic, you know ? Whine whine whine, complain, complain, complain. Let's stop arguing about the problem, and make some changes, and get some real results and solutions. How hard can it be? We just need to elect a President who actually gives a damn about the environment instead of only paying lip service to it. Remember that next time you go to the voting booth... our democratically elected government has the power to incentivize clean energy and disincentivize dirty energy. Through tax credits, rebates, and tax cuts for clean alternative energy such as solar power, and corresponding higher taxes for fossil fuels.