I was a user of Windows for a long time. I tried Linux when it was less mature, but I didn't become a "real" Linux user until I went to college. I used SuSE, primarily because it had drivers which actually worked on my ridiculously proprietary Vaio laptop. Ubuntu is very nice, as well.
Several months ago, I decided to get a Mac, which was a first. I've never been happier. It's easy to use, and it's BSD Unix, with a fully-functional command line. I still run Linux in a virtual machine, using Parallels, along with XP, but there is little point at running a completely separate instance of Linux, unless there is some specific program (or user interface) that one desires to run. It's difficult to deny that OS X is easier to use the any version of Linux in existence. I was sold when I saw that "installing" applications is usually unnecessary, and generally consists of dragging an icon.
The purpose of a user interface is to be functional and efficient, and I am constantly confronted with features that appear to exist simply because someone realized, "It would be easier if it were done this way." There are some annyance, as well: I think that having to press Command-O to open a directory is one keystroke too many, and that the fact that [Enter] renames a folder is backwards. I feel similarly about the fact that the Home and End keys do not function as they do in every other operating system in existence. I also find annoying that, when I select the "get info" option for a directory, I can't copy the full path to the clipboard (and thus to the terminal). This could probably be fixed with a line of code.
First, I think that you need to calm down.
Second, I think that you should realize that my post was highlighting the rationale used by establishment organizations which attempt to standardize. My intent was not to endorse the rationale.
If attempting to understand another's point of view makes my point "stupid and unintelligent," then so be it. Perhaps next time I should follow your example, and perfunctorily hurl mean-spirited insults at others' contributions to the discussion.
I'm not sure that I'd agree, but, even if you're correct, the point is that it is what will be used in the school now, and the fact that it is much more different from previous versions of Office than they were to themselves, some in the school district probably believe that homogeneity will minimize software-related problems.
I agree that that would be ideal, despite the fact that office software, and a great many other things, are, for all intents and purposes, standardized.
I was merely making the point that an English teacher doesn't want to have to deal with a paper which isn't formatted correctly because of some minute difference in user interface. I'm not trying to justify this thought process, but I think that this is part of the issue.
Yeah, I remember when I turned in my assignments in grade school, typed in PFS First Choice for DOS. It looked very professional (even more professional than what I type in modern word processors). I typed it on an 8088 Epson Apex, with 640K of RAM and a 20MB HDD. I suppose that it's true the the schools shouldn't care with what software the students are writing their papers, as long as it's turned in on time. When I was in school, we didn't typically bring disks to school to work on what we did at home. We did our assignments at home and turned them in in class.
It doesn't seem to be altogether unreasonable to recommend that students upgrade. It isn't as though the upgrade is being mandated. The school district is likely just trying to minimize problems.
It is a bit strange to propound that managing interoperability between the two versions is a tedious process. I think that a sheet of paper with instructions would be sufficient, even for the most computer illiterate students, few though they may be.
Concerning free alternatives, I don't think that we should expect widespread adoption of things such as OpenOffice, at least in public schools, for quite some time. Not all teachers are geeks, and they want to use that which they are accustomed to using. Even the slightest change can throw some people off.
This is quite a contrast to, say, university computer science departments, which are often filled with Linux computers, while the rest of the campus uses a plethora of Microsoft suites. It's just a different culture, with different expectations of what their computers and their computer software should do. When I tried to get my parents, who are not computer illiterate, to use OpenOffice, they became irritated, because they didn't want to have to learn something new. They just want it to work as expected, so that they can do what they need to do, in the way that they know how to do it. That's not unreasonable.
When moving to a new system, one must always weigh the cost, in time (and, consequently, money), of educating the people in the new software. Most of the world uses Microsoft Office. Unless someone releases something so similar to Office that it is nearly indistinguishable, this will likely remain unchanged, no matter how equal or superior the alternatives, free or not, are.
That's an interesting thought. I have synesthesia , so I'm very familiar with experiencing certain things in ways that are foreign to most other people. It's interesting to ponder what types of sensations can be created by external forces applied directly to the brain. Some studies have shown that direct stimulation to some parts of the brain can produce first-person sensations, such as smell, taste, etc. I think that some type of great leap in the way that we understand the brain would be necessary before something like that could even be thinkable.
Concerning your statement that we don't reach our brain capacity in our lifetime because we're slow at learning, there appears to be evidence to the contrary.
First, consider all of the information we take in. It's true that most people do not assimilate (as far as we know) all of the textual, factual information that they encounter. However, we remember so much more than simple factual information. We remember not only facts, but events and sensations. We, furthermore, remember the associations. Consider this: In just one day, what is there to remember? There are people, conversations, feelings, environments, thoughts, countless objects. We don't necessarily remember all of it, but we remember quite a bit.
Also consider some exceptional cases of people who can remember everything that they read (and read extremely quickly). There was a video about such a person on YouTube, but I can't seem to find it. He not only read at an incredible rate, but also could do calculations extremely quickly and reproduce entire landscapes. His brain has yet to get "full.'
In addition, any autistic people have been shown to factor large primes extremely quickly.
In any case, I think that it is very premature to refer to the brain as though it is merely a biological computer with a biological hard drive.
I'm not sure that anyone has ever reached the "storage capacity" of his brain, or that there is any confirmation that such a thing exists. Our memory seems to be more of a dynamic thing than a static collection of information with an identifiable upper limit.
As I think about it, controlling things across the room with a thought is potentially disastrous for most normally functioning people, given the rise in obesity and general sedentary nature of of many. Can anyone imagine the day when someone is too lazy to use a remote to turn on the TV? Convenience is good when it improves quality of life. The ability to control things without moving would be great for someone who can't move;giving everyday people the means completely eliminate what little exercise they get from their days would not. That would probably actually exacerbate medical problems.
"The future of medicine."
I'm sure. In any case, I'm always happy to hear about something to help people to live better lives, even if it sounds a bit too much like something out of a cyberpunk novel.
What does concern me are things such as, say, sensitivity to EMP. I'm sure that there will be ways to work around this...
This is interesting:
"We have intermediate designs that connect to the brain, interpret signals and can wirelessly send commands to devices," he said. "This is another path of technology we're pursuing."
While the summary doesn't mention this, the prospect of controlling things across the room with a thought is perhaps not as far away as one might think.
I lived in Japan for awhile, and the difference is, in part, cultural. Japanese people are technology crazy, by our standards. It's not a stereotype. They use their cell phones for everything. Often, students at the college I attended didn't own computers, but used their cell phones for e-mail, web browsing, etc. On trains, text messaging is all the rage. People do it constantly. Recently, full novels have been distributed over cell phone networks. The cell phone has become "the" device there. I visited Matsushita headquarters (Panasonic) back in 2004. While there, they showed technology which allowed cell phones to be used to control every thing from house security systems to air conditioning.
Americans are just much slower when it comes to adopting new technology. They'll think it's "cheesy" or "unnecessary." Often, one will hear things like, "We don't need all of those features." The Japanese eat it up. I do think that the iPhone will spawn a new generation of American devices, which will, one hopes, help us to catch up to the Japanese, in terms of what is expected on a cell phone.
Mac OS X users are perfectly happy with 6% of market share. It means that people are less likely to spend resources attempting to develop malware for it. Considering that OS X has been around for several years, it's unsurprising that it isn't growing at the same pace as Vista. It is worth noting that Apple's PC market share grew by 26% last year.
If one actually reads the interview, we see that she never actually said that we "biologically" require privacy. That is what Slashdot's summary says; so, before we unnecessarily attack strawmen, I would suggest reading the article without the lens of the summary.
It would rather suck if we became weary of handshaking for fear of filling our interfaced electronic devices with spam or (computer) viruses. I suppose that, in a bizarre way, it's a way for computer viruses to become human viruses.
I agree with that. My point was simply that the Wii's demographic intersects significantly with the Xbox 360's, regardless of rhetoric espousing their disjointedness. Casual gamers aren't the only people buying Wii systems, but traditional gamers are the only people buying Xbox 360 systems.
I know that Microsoft perceives the Wii as being, essentially, for a different demographic than its own Xbox 360 consoles, but one look at http://www.vgcharts.org/ shows that the Wii is catching up quickly. The fact of the matter is that many cost-conscious, non-casual gamers are getting cheaper Wiis, and might actually be satisfied enough to forgo paying $400 for a second console. Add to this the fact the third-parties flock to the console with the biggest installed bases and lowest development costs. If trends continue, the Wii will have both.
Microsoft had a healthy head start, and, in America, at least, it has the opportunity to expand upon it, before it is eroded by the Wii, as well as make things untenable for Sony. Complicating matters are the losses that Microsoft's game division has taken, recently. However, I think that it would pay off in the long term to make the Xbox 360 and unbeatable value, especially when compared to the ridiculously expensive PS3. It would seem that Microsoft is opting for a different, "safer" approach, however.
Here's a link, highlighting the fact that I mentioned earlier: that there is not a scientific consensus on the issue of cell phones: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-07021 8radiation-story,1,4538371.story?page=2&track=rss
Again, I don't know who you think "[I] and [my] crazy[,] ignorant cronies" are, but I was kindly suggest that you question your assumptions, and, perhaps, learn to discuss something without using ridiculous ad hominem attacks. It is counterproductive. Some people with whom you disagree may, in fact, actually be smarter and/or more educated than you are.
It's not a "we don't even know argument." It is a simple observation: namely, that placing foreign objects into the brain could maybe -- just maybe -- have side effects. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand, or so laughable as to warrant such biting facetiousness. Or perhaps you people are simply mean-spirited.
Actually, there have been conflicting studies with regard to whether the radiation from cell phones has effects on human beings. As for "crazy ignorant cronies," I hope that you realize that the "Mark of the Beast" comment something called sarcasm. I don't understand what your last sentence means.
I simply don't believe that most people are willing to have a computer implant put into their brains. I certainly wouldn't, and I love technology.
"Excuse me, Doctor. I've been blacking out recently. I think it may be the Mark of the Beast that I had implanted last year."
We still don't even know, for certain, what effects external devices, such as cell phones, impart upon us, in the long term. A more realistic goal, for now, is probably to pursue the parallel research of reading brain waves and using them for "training" in much the same way that we do for voice recognition. There are already videogame concepts which make use of this technology.
This seems sort of silly. They create an unconfirmed, ad-hoc explanation for this apparent correlation, involving hormones, even though there is, apparently, an unsupported claim. They find a correlation with finger length and grade-school tests, and then say that finger length might be a predictor of cognitive abilities. I think that that is irresponsible scholarship and stupid. There are many people who perform mediocrely on grade-school math tests and then go on to become mathematicians, once they're exposed to more advanced mathematics in a different environment.
The paper doesn't seem to be available yet; so, I can't see how strong (or, more likely, weak) this correlation is. However, the notion of "cognitive prediction" is a disturbing one to me, in part, because I know that, had I not had good teachers, who were willing to help me and who inspired me, I would not be as cognitively developed. This type of scholarship is not only sloppy; it is potentially destructive.
Maybe they should change their motto to "See no evil." In all seriousness, though, this kind of software should not be terribly surprising, when it comes from a company which catalogs incredible amounts of data about one's personal online habits, through its various services, such as Gmail, Google Search, etc., which is then mined. To Google's credit, it has recently given some assurance that it will delete said data after a certain period of time. However, I think that people are remiss when they start trusting corporations too much, lest we forget the AOL Search debacle from not long ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Several months ago, I decided to get a Mac, which was a first. I've never been happier. It's easy to use, and it's BSD Unix, with a fully-functional command line. I still run Linux in a virtual machine, using Parallels, along with XP, but there is little point at running a completely separate instance of Linux, unless there is some specific program (or user interface) that one desires to run. It's difficult to deny that OS X is easier to use the any version of Linux in existence. I was sold when I saw that "installing" applications is usually unnecessary, and generally consists of dragging an icon.
The purpose of a user interface is to be functional and efficient, and I am constantly confronted with features that appear to exist simply because someone realized, "It would be easier if it were done this way." There are some annyance, as well: I think that having to press Command-O to open a directory is one keystroke too many, and that the fact that [Enter] renames a folder is backwards. I feel similarly about the fact that the Home and End keys do not function as they do in every other operating system in existence. I also find annoying that, when I select the "get info" option for a directory, I can't copy the full path to the clipboard (and thus to the terminal). This could probably be fixed with a line of code.
ad infinitum.
First, I think that you need to calm down. Second, I think that you should realize that my post was highlighting the rationale used by establishment organizations which attempt to standardize. My intent was not to endorse the rationale. If attempting to understand another's point of view makes my point "stupid and unintelligent," then so be it. Perhaps next time I should follow your example, and perfunctorily hurl mean-spirited insults at others' contributions to the discussion.
I'm not sure that I'd agree, but, even if you're correct, the point is that it is what will be used in the school now, and the fact that it is much more different from previous versions of Office than they were to themselves, some in the school district probably believe that homogeneity will minimize software-related problems.
I agree that that would be ideal, despite the fact that office software, and a great many other things, are, for all intents and purposes, standardized. I was merely making the point that an English teacher doesn't want to have to deal with a paper which isn't formatted correctly because of some minute difference in user interface. I'm not trying to justify this thought process, but I think that this is part of the issue.
Yeah, I remember when I turned in my assignments in grade school, typed in PFS First Choice for DOS. It looked very professional (even more professional than what I type in modern word processors). I typed it on an 8088 Epson Apex, with 640K of RAM and a 20MB HDD. I suppose that it's true the the schools shouldn't care with what software the students are writing their papers, as long as it's turned in on time. When I was in school, we didn't typically bring disks to school to work on what we did at home. We did our assignments at home and turned them in in class.
It is a bit strange to propound that managing interoperability between the two versions is a tedious process. I think that a sheet of paper with instructions would be sufficient, even for the most computer illiterate students, few though they may be.
Concerning free alternatives, I don't think that we should expect widespread adoption of things such as OpenOffice, at least in public schools, for quite some time. Not all teachers are geeks, and they want to use that which they are accustomed to using. Even the slightest change can throw some people off.
This is quite a contrast to, say, university computer science departments, which are often filled with Linux computers, while the rest of the campus uses a plethora of Microsoft suites. It's just a different culture, with different expectations of what their computers and their computer software should do. When I tried to get my parents, who are not computer illiterate, to use OpenOffice, they became irritated, because they didn't want to have to learn something new. They just want it to work as expected, so that they can do what they need to do, in the way that they know how to do it. That's not unreasonable.
When moving to a new system, one must always weigh the cost, in time (and, consequently, money), of educating the people in the new software. Most of the world uses Microsoft Office. Unless someone releases something so similar to Office that it is nearly indistinguishable, this will likely remain unchanged, no matter how equal or superior the alternatives, free or not, are.
That's an interesting thought. I have synesthesia , so I'm very familiar with experiencing certain things in ways that are foreign to most other people. It's interesting to ponder what types of sensations can be created by external forces applied directly to the brain. Some studies have shown that direct stimulation to some parts of the brain can produce first-person sensations, such as smell, taste, etc. I think that some type of great leap in the way that we understand the brain would be necessary before something like that could even be thinkable. Concerning your statement that we don't reach our brain capacity in our lifetime because we're slow at learning, there appears to be evidence to the contrary. First, consider all of the information we take in. It's true that most people do not assimilate (as far as we know) all of the textual, factual information that they encounter. However, we remember so much more than simple factual information. We remember not only facts, but events and sensations. We, furthermore, remember the associations. Consider this: In just one day, what is there to remember? There are people, conversations, feelings, environments, thoughts, countless objects. We don't necessarily remember all of it, but we remember quite a bit. Also consider some exceptional cases of people who can remember everything that they read (and read extremely quickly). There was a video about such a person on YouTube, but I can't seem to find it. He not only read at an incredible rate, but also could do calculations extremely quickly and reproduce entire landscapes. His brain has yet to get "full.' In addition, any autistic people have been shown to factor large primes extremely quickly. In any case, I think that it is very premature to refer to the brain as though it is merely a biological computer with a biological hard drive.
I'm not sure that anyone has ever reached the "storage capacity" of his brain, or that there is any confirmation that such a thing exists. Our memory seems to be more of a dynamic thing than a static collection of information with an identifiable upper limit.
As I think about it, controlling things across the room with a thought is potentially disastrous for most normally functioning people, given the rise in obesity and general sedentary nature of of many. Can anyone imagine the day when someone is too lazy to use a remote to turn on the TV? Convenience is good when it improves quality of life. The ability to control things without moving would be great for someone who can't move;giving everyday people the means completely eliminate what little exercise they get from their days would not. That would probably actually exacerbate medical problems.
"The future of medicine." I'm sure. In any case, I'm always happy to hear about something to help people to live better lives, even if it sounds a bit too much like something out of a cyberpunk novel. What does concern me are things such as, say, sensitivity to EMP. I'm sure that there will be ways to work around this... This is interesting: "We have intermediate designs that connect to the brain, interpret signals and can wirelessly send commands to devices," he said. "This is another path of technology we're pursuing." While the summary doesn't mention this, the prospect of controlling things across the room with a thought is perhaps not as far away as one might think.
I lived in Japan for awhile, and the difference is, in part, cultural. Japanese people are technology crazy, by our standards. It's not a stereotype. They use their cell phones for everything. Often, students at the college I attended didn't own computers, but used their cell phones for e-mail, web browsing, etc. On trains, text messaging is all the rage. People do it constantly. Recently, full novels have been distributed over cell phone networks. The cell phone has become "the" device there. I visited Matsushita headquarters (Panasonic) back in 2004. While there, they showed technology which allowed cell phones to be used to control every thing from house security systems to air conditioning. Americans are just much slower when it comes to adopting new technology. They'll think it's "cheesy" or "unnecessary." Often, one will hear things like, "We don't need all of those features." The Japanese eat it up. I do think that the iPhone will spawn a new generation of American devices, which will, one hopes, help us to catch up to the Japanese, in terms of what is expected on a cell phone.
Mac OS X users are perfectly happy with 6% of market share. It means that people are less likely to spend resources attempting to develop malware for it. Considering that OS X has been around for several years, it's unsurprising that it isn't growing at the same pace as Vista. It is worth noting that Apple's PC market share grew by 26% last year.
I'm don't think that the summary is accurate. She not once uses the word "biological" to describe the necessity of privacy.
If one actually reads the interview, we see that she never actually said that we "biologically" require privacy. That is what Slashdot's summary says; so, before we unnecessarily attack strawmen, I would suggest reading the article without the lens of the summary.
It would rather suck if we became weary of handshaking for fear of filling our interfaced electronic devices with spam or (computer) viruses. I suppose that, in a bizarre way, it's a way for computer viruses to become human viruses.
Should this ever be implemented, I await with much interest the inevitable methods developed for eavesdropping.
That's a good point. I should have said that Microsoft says that the Wii is for a different target demographic.
I agree with that. My point was simply that the Wii's demographic intersects significantly with the Xbox 360's, regardless of rhetoric espousing their disjointedness. Casual gamers aren't the only people buying Wii systems, but traditional gamers are the only people buying Xbox 360 systems.
Microsoft had a healthy head start, and, in America, at least, it has the opportunity to expand upon it, before it is eroded by the Wii, as well as make things untenable for Sony. Complicating matters are the losses that Microsoft's game division has taken, recently. However, I think that it would pay off in the long term to make the Xbox 360 and unbeatable value, especially when compared to the ridiculously expensive PS3. It would seem that Microsoft is opting for a different, "safer" approach, however.
Here's a link, highlighting the fact that I mentioned earlier: that there is not a scientific consensus on the issue of cell phones: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-07021 8radiation-story,1,4538371.story?page=2&track=rss
Again, I don't know who you think "[I] and [my] crazy[,] ignorant cronies" are, but I was kindly suggest that you question your assumptions, and, perhaps, learn to discuss something without using ridiculous ad hominem attacks. It is counterproductive. Some people with whom you disagree may, in fact, actually be smarter and/or more educated than you are.
It's not a "we don't even know argument." It is a simple observation: namely, that placing foreign objects into the brain could maybe -- just maybe -- have side effects. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand, or so laughable as to warrant such biting facetiousness. Or perhaps you people are simply mean-spirited.
Actually, there have been conflicting studies with regard to whether the radiation from cell phones has effects on human beings. As for "crazy ignorant cronies," I hope that you realize that the "Mark of the Beast" comment something called sarcasm. I don't understand what your last sentence means.
"Excuse me, Doctor. I've been blacking out recently. I think it may be the Mark of the Beast that I had implanted last year."
We still don't even know, for certain, what effects external devices, such as cell phones, impart upon us, in the long term. A more realistic goal, for now, is probably to pursue the parallel research of reading brain waves and using them for "training" in much the same way that we do for voice recognition. There are already videogame concepts which make use of this technology.
This seems sort of silly. They create an unconfirmed, ad-hoc explanation for this apparent correlation, involving hormones, even though there is, apparently, an unsupported claim. They find a correlation with finger length and grade-school tests, and then say that finger length might be a predictor of cognitive abilities. I think that that is irresponsible scholarship and stupid. There are many people who perform mediocrely on grade-school math tests and then go on to become mathematicians, once they're exposed to more advanced mathematics in a different environment. The paper doesn't seem to be available yet; so, I can't see how strong (or, more likely, weak) this correlation is. However, the notion of "cognitive prediction" is a disturbing one to me, in part, because I know that, had I not had good teachers, who were willing to help me and who inspired me, I would not be as cognitively developed. This type of scholarship is not only sloppy; it is potentially destructive.
Maybe they should change their motto to "See no evil." In all seriousness, though, this kind of software should not be terribly surprising, when it comes from a company which catalogs incredible amounts of data about one's personal online habits, through its various services, such as Gmail, Google Search, etc., which is then mined. To Google's credit, it has recently given some assurance that it will delete said data after a certain period of time. However, I think that people are remiss when they start trusting corporations too much, lest we forget the AOL Search debacle from not long ago.