One of the aims of the great "modern" furniture designers of the 20th century was to design furniture with new materials, like tubular steel, but that the "user" should only touch natural materials such as wood, cloth or leather. Regardless of aesthetics, I think natural materials are more comfortable to touch.
I would like to see computers made with beautiful cases, mice, keyboards and monitors. Let's have retro 50's looking stuff, like many of the new appliances you see at Williams Sonoma. Let's have wood, or for the more budget minded they make a plastic that looks pretty close to a burled wood (it's already used in Nokia phone covers and Nissan Altima dashboards). How about brushed stainless steel! The trick would be to design the functional components so that they could be replaced or upgraded.
I would especially love a sturdy keyboard made with stainless steel or chrome with wood accents and leather wristrests. The keyboard should have the touch and feel of an IBM Thinkpad, and be replaceable. Are you listening, Lou?
You've obviously never seen a cold glass "sweat" on a hot and humid day.
OTOH, the hole problem can be easily "patched" with a piece of scotch tape. Personally, I'm building a mobile which I plan to hang in front of a window to reflect the rays of the sun.
I think all this resentment of the Y2K bug is misdirected. What hackers should resent is that some PHBs who don't understand things still manage to have power over us. Most companies tested for Y2K well in advance, so why did we all have to work that night? Because logic isn't good enough for people who don't understand computers. To them there can be no certainty about things like computers because they are incapable of certainty about anything, much less things they don't understand.
Anyone ever read Atlas Shrugged? There will always be a power struggle between politics and knowledge.
Actually, I can understand how it was better to use two digits when disk space was expensive. But what about the decisions made year after year to NOT spend the money to rewrite code once the disk space became inexpensive. There were so many opportunities to fix software since the days of expensive storage, but it wasn't "important" enough. Maybe it didn't help the "bottom line"?
The voice of "Joshua" the computer in War Games was done similar to this. I always thought they actually had some sort of computer voice generator, but I learned from the director's commentary track on the DVD that they faked it. They used John Wood's (Prof. Falken) voice, only they wanted the inflection to sound artificial, so they had him read the words backwards. Then they clipped each word and put all the pieces back together in order. Finally they ran it through some distortion/effects circuitry to give it a more artificial voice. I think the results are wonderful. Ever since then I've wanted a computer that could talk like that, but getting even the most sophisticated voice synthesizer to speak with a sort of distorted English accent with bad inflection is nearly impossible.
I wonder if John Wood is available to record my answering machine message?
Palm has long been underappreciated at 3COM. Considering it's the most successful product they have, it deserved much more funding for new product development. Now as an independent entity, it will have the money to develop new Palms and derivative devices. But it could be too late because the two founders left last year to start Handspring, which licenses the PalmOS from 3COM.
As always, the success of this company will depend on what it can do next. It won't be an automatic success just because the Palm[X] was successful. It will have a nice stream of licensing royalties from Handspring, and sales of existing products are good, but it will have to innovate in order to thrive. Imagine the irony of licensing Handspring's "springboard" expansion card technology?
I'm just waiting for a big notepad-sized palm with a color screen that can read regular web pages, has a nice text editor, and costs $300.
The superior (I believe he was the "Mission Director" or something like that) hadn't discovered Vincent/Jerome's secret. The only people who found out his secret were his girlfriend and his brother near the end of the movie. Oh, and the doctor (who apparently knew all along but kept it quiet for his own reasons).
They now sell consumer-grade foil printers at your local Compu* store, and any currency detecting logic (presumably in the scanner) could be circumvented.
The idea with the new US paper currency is that it uses a combination of many differnent anti-counterfeiting techniques, so a counterfeiter has to duplicate the paper, the watermark, the embedded plastic strip with the currency value printed on it, the directionally reflective foil, the microprint used around the vignette, and of course several unpublicized hidden features (probably microprint in odd places). While the Treasury knows that any one of these could be reproduced, it would take quite an organization to reproduce all of these things. It's probably easier to just rob a bank.
To return to topic, it's unlikely that the watermarking would stop counterfeiters, just like background checks never stop criminals from buying guns on the black market. The Secret Service has long focused it's anti-counterfeit efforts on the biggest offenders, not amateurs. So introducing digital watermarks on new and especially consumer-grade printers and scanners would only serve one purpose: taking away privacy from individuals. Government will always try to sell encroachments on personal freedom as a "security measure" for our "safety". Let's recognize it for the FUD that it is.
Gattaca was, IIRC, an independent film. And New Zealander writer/director Andrew Niccol is hardly the "voice of hollywood." Besides, it's more polite to argue points on their own merits rather than attack the source.
Gattaca brought up a very relevent argument that ambitious parents will be the driving force behind creating genetically engineered children. It also pointed out that the real problem is not that the "natural" kids won't be able to compete, but that they won't be given a chance. The danger to individual freedom was that the "natural" kid wouldn't be admitted to the best school, because the insurance wouldn't cover him. That when applying for jobs the employers wouldn't bother to test or measure his knowledge or skills when it's easier to just do a DNA test.
The best science fiction not only questions possible futures, but also the present. Even without the technology we have some versions of the same problems today. It will take a lot of change for the bureaucracies spawned by the 20th century to be replaced with a more human-centered system.
Absolutely! Look in the "man fvwm2" for the command "Key." If you're comfortable editing your fvwm2rc file, then you can add as many hot-keys as you like. They are context-dependent, so you can have the same hot-key work differently depending on where the focus is (one option is 'any' context in case you want a universal hot-key). Here's an example:
# Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Key F11 A SCM WindowList
F11 is the hotkey, A is the context(any), SCM is the keys that must be held down to activate the hotkey. This example is a shift-control-meta-F11 chord. Finally, when you press this hotkey it executes the function "WindowList".
You can use any function you like, especially all the functions that are normally mapped to mouse actions. You do not have to remove the mouse actions. I forget the syntax, but there are functions that will shift the focus to next or previous, which is twice as good as alt-tab in Windoze.
You can find more documentation at www.fvwm.org. It's just a matter of taking the time to RTM and figure out what you want your hot-keys to do for you.
Watching the news coverage of the WTO protests in Seattle last night, I heard someone say that the WTO was letting the goal of maximizing commerce outweigh all other considerations such as environmental protection, child labor, working conditions, etc. It reminded me of something from Bladerunner:
"Commerce... is our goal. More human than human our motto." -Dr. Eldon Tyrell
When Windows CE was first announced, wasn't it supposed to be a simpler re-write of Windows. I thought I read somewhere that they would use the simple Win CE for palms and such, but eventually they would scale it up for PCs to replace the bloated legacy-code Windows. They DO have Win CE "Win Terminals", which are kind of like network computers. Did they give up on this, or did WinCE code become part of W2K?
Another interesting thing I read once was that in a meeting, the Windows CE team was presenting a marketing plan to Bill, and they were saying how they needed to raise the price to make any money on it. Bill told them they were all wrong, because the point isn't to make a profit now, it's to gain marketshare. He reminded them how they used to sell MS-DOS for like $10 and didn't worry about profit, because the goal was to maximize marketshare. Then once in position, they could raise prices and make obscene profits. We all know that's the strategy, I'm just glad they're not so successful this time.
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I would like to see computers made with beautiful cases, mice, keyboards and monitors. Let's have retro 50's looking stuff, like many of the new appliances you see at Williams Sonoma. Let's have wood, or for the more budget minded they make a plastic that looks pretty close to a burled wood (it's already used in Nokia phone covers and Nissan Altima dashboards). How about brushed stainless steel! The trick would be to design the functional components so that they could be replaced or upgraded.
I would especially love a sturdy keyboard made with stainless steel or chrome with wood accents and leather wristrests. The keyboard should have the touch and feel of an IBM Thinkpad, and be replaceable. Are you listening, Lou?
OTOH, the hole problem can be easily "patched" with a piece of scotch tape. Personally, I'm building a mobile which I plan to hang in front of a window to reflect the rays of the sun.
Anyone ever read Atlas Shrugged? There will always be a power struggle between politics and knowledge.
Actually, I can understand how it was better to use two digits when disk space was expensive. But what about the decisions made year after year to NOT spend the money to rewrite code once the disk space became inexpensive. There were so many opportunities to fix software since the days of expensive storage, but it wasn't "important" enough. Maybe it didn't help the "bottom line"?
I wonder if John Wood is available to record my answering machine message?
As always, the success of this company will depend on what it can do next. It won't be an automatic success just because the Palm[X] was successful. It will have a nice stream of licensing royalties from Handspring, and sales of existing products are good, but it will have to innovate in order to thrive. Imagine the irony of licensing Handspring's "springboard" expansion card technology?
I'm just waiting for a big notepad-sized palm with a color screen that can read regular web pages, has a nice text editor, and costs $300.
The superior (I believe he was the "Mission Director" or something like that) hadn't discovered Vincent/Jerome's secret. The only people who found out his secret were his girlfriend and his brother near the end of the movie. Oh, and the doctor (who apparently knew all along but kept it quiet for his own reasons).
I wonder if Katz has seen the movie since '97?
The idea with the new US paper currency is that it uses a combination of many differnent anti-counterfeiting techniques, so a counterfeiter has to duplicate the paper, the watermark, the embedded plastic strip with the currency value printed on it, the directionally reflective foil, the microprint used around the vignette, and of course several unpublicized hidden features (probably microprint in odd places). While the Treasury knows that any one of these could be reproduced, it would take quite an organization to reproduce all of these things. It's probably easier to just rob a bank.
To return to topic, it's unlikely that the watermarking would stop counterfeiters, just like background checks never stop criminals from buying guns on the black market. The Secret Service has long focused it's anti-counterfeit efforts on the biggest offenders, not amateurs. So introducing digital watermarks on new and especially consumer-grade printers and scanners would only serve one purpose: taking away privacy from individuals. Government will always try to sell encroachments on personal freedom as a "security measure" for our "safety". Let's recognize it for the FUD that it is.
Gattaca brought up a very relevent argument that ambitious parents will be the driving force behind creating genetically engineered children. It also pointed out that the real problem is not that the "natural" kids won't be able to compete, but that they won't be given a chance. The danger to individual freedom was that the "natural" kid wouldn't be admitted to the best school, because the insurance wouldn't cover him. That when applying for jobs the employers wouldn't bother to test or measure his knowledge or skills when it's easier to just do a DNA test.
The best science fiction not only questions possible futures, but also the present. Even without the technology we have some versions of the same problems today. It will take a lot of change for the bureaucracies spawned by the 20th century to be replaced with a more human-centered system.
# Key keyname Context Modifiers Function
Key F11 A SCM WindowList
F11 is the hotkey, A is the context(any), SCM is the keys that must be held down to activate the hotkey. This example is a shift-control-meta-F11 chord. Finally, when you press this hotkey it executes the function "WindowList".
You can use any function you like, especially all the functions that are normally mapped to mouse actions. You do not have to remove the mouse actions. I forget the syntax, but there are functions that will shift the focus to next or previous, which is twice as good as alt-tab in Windoze.
You can find more documentation at www.fvwm.org. It's just a matter of taking the time to RTM and figure out what you want your hot-keys to do for you.
"Commerce... is our goal. More human than human our motto." -Dr. Eldon Tyrell
Another interesting thing I read once was that in a meeting, the Windows CE team was presenting a marketing plan to Bill, and they were saying how they needed to raise the price to make any money on it. Bill told them they were all wrong, because the point isn't to make a profit now, it's to gain marketshare. He reminded them how they used to sell MS-DOS for like $10 and didn't worry about profit, because the goal was to maximize marketshare. Then once in position, they could raise prices and make obscene profits. We all know that's the strategy, I'm just glad they're not so successful this time.