> Of course the data produced by this approach is > subjective and inaccurate at times, but that's > part of why I built it: It's difficult for > consumers trace corporate actions through the > maze of corporate ownership, and find who is > really responsible.
I fail to see the logic here. Does giving consumers an easy way to read subjective and inaccurate data truly help them?
People who think Perl is great are totally ignorant of other languages, and have extremely bad taste.
Having some feelings there? I learned Perl after programming in C, C++, Lisp, Prolog, Forth, BASIC, Pascal, Awk, various shell scripts and countless other languages for about 15 years.
For all those niggling half-a-page scripts that I used it for, Perl was (and is) great. Of course, I do have mismatched socks....
I might have agreed with you if you had inserted a few caveats (such as "those who attempt to use Perl for large projects...").
In this earlier story [slashdot.org] we are told that AI is going no where due to the fact that graduate students are spending 3 years fixing broken robots instead of programming them.
I assume you're referencing Marvin Minsky's quote:
"The worst fad has been these stupid little robots...Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking."
Minsky's whining fails to take into account that different people have different interests.
If someone's into fixing toasters, you shouldn't complain because they aren't baking bread.
>> As an artist, I find that comment a bit short-sighted. They're trying to deliver an experience and you're saying "Na, just give me the pamphlet."
As someone who hates being bombarded with multimedia bullshit from "artists" when I'm seeking information, I found your comment a bit short-sighted as well.
Yes, they're trying to deliver an experience, but I'd like to be in control of when I receive an "experience". Having sound and slow-loading flash animations appear when I visit a website does not give me that control.
>> How are standards supposed to grow on the web if everybody complains that they want it in HTML?
If everyone is complaining, perhaps we should be paying attention to the complaints. The only folks that really love Flash-based websites, as far as I can tell, are other Flash artists.
Compared to the CM-100, the new casios are incredibly awful for my purposes. Lots of shifts needed to do hex conversions, and no dedicated A-F keys. They were clearly designed by a different person who wasn't actually planning on using the thing.
Computer-emulated calculators suck. I like having something I can hold in my hand with buttons.
The palm-pilot emulators are okay (and may be my best choice) but still not as tactile nor as simple as I would like.
BZFlag is a fun and simple network game that is a essentially a first-person shooter, but simply involves tanks - very much like Battle Zone, so parents shouldn't mind. It runs on Windows and Linux.
Just make sure the kids turn on the UDP option so they don't lag the other players out!
I don't know about Replay, but Tivo will still work if you're not subscribed to the service. At least according to their docs, it will. I haven't tried it, because I'd much rather use it with current program guide data.
I don't mind paying a subscription fee for the guide data. As someone who works making interactive program guides for "smart" cable settop boxes, I'm aware of how much effort goes into preparing said data. It's gotta be paid for somehow.
1. If you're in this for the money, get another job. I'm in this for the intellectual stimulation. The fact is, I live in a country in which the standard of living is enormously high compared to the rest of the world. I make enough to live in a nice house, send my kids to college and buy fun toys. I'm doing just fine. Going into management to make a few more bucks is not going to make me any happier. You need to realize when enough is enough, moneywise.
1. I have yet to find an employer who is suffering from a glut of programming talent. If you're good, there will always be work. You just have to stay sharp and keep your skills up. It also helps to not work in an area which is fueled by young, underpaid programmers (such as the game industry).
1. A great way to keep your skills up is to teach, using your gray hairs to other's advantage. I personally set aside one day a week for teaching. It's a money loss, but still rewarding professionally and pschologically.
0. Sometimes it sucks being managed by folks who are significantly younger than you. This is a psychological issue that many of us will all have to deal with as we get older, regardless of the profession.
1. On the plus side, one of the advantages of getting older is finding the rare job which has good management and sticking with it, instead of constantly searching for greater prestige and a fatter paycheck. I've been burnt multiple times by accepting more money to work for folks I don't respect. No more of that, hopefully!
The reason the device has to make a phone call is to get guide data, which makes the interface much easier to use.
Both Tivo and Replay allow you to "program like an advanced VCR" as you describe. As a Tivo user, I can tell you, that programming "like an advanced VCR" is a pain-in-the-ass, and it's much easier to simply say "give me all the new episodes of 'The Osbournes'". The only reason for doing a time-based recording is when a particular show is on a heavy-repeat schedule and you only want certain showings (like "The Daily Show"). Otherwise, it's much easier to schedule recordings from the program guide. This means you still get your show even when the network moves it around.
Once these devices are hooked up to the Internet, they can get their guide data from there, and the phone call isn't needed.
Alternately, once the cable-companies start offering PVR capabilities in settop boxes (which they will), the guide data will be provided over the cable. Just as the satellite companies provide data over the satellite feed.
Sadly, once the cable companies start offering PVR, they will also eliminate consumer-friendly features like commercial skipping (or they'll embed the commercials in the interface itself!).
7. What happens if I go over my limit of 1,000 queries?
If you make more than 1,000 queries in a day, our server will respond with a SOAP Fault stating that you exceeded your daily query total. You might want to get some sleep and start querying again tomorrow.
* * *
My first reaction on hearing about these APIs, where that they might be an attempt on Google's part to cut down on automated searching without getting a lot of bad PR. They're providing limits in the guise of generosity.
The fact is, it was already pretty trivial to search Google using plain old HTML (via Perl or Java, or whatever).
But now, if Google starts prohibiting folks from using such search-bots (that use the HTML interface to Google), they can say "Look, we provided an API for this purpose!"
>> George Lucas states that there were parts of Episode One that were damaging >> to the Star Wars franchise. (shocker, I know) >> "The last movie did not live up to expectations."
Yes, the movie sucked.
No, Lucas did not actually say that.
In fact, as the article says, "Lucas declined to comment for this story."
Coolness. Now just add a real monitor and an external CD-ROM drive and a full-sized slot for my Radeon 8500 so I can play Max Payne oh yeah, and an actual keyboard and this'll be one sweeet box!!
Is your website promoting a movie or selling vacuum cleaners?
It could be a Flash site.
Does your website live in a tiny little pop-up window all it's own?
I betcha it's also a Flash site.
Does your website display the message "Loading" when you visit it?
Yep. Smells like a Flash site.
Does your website impress all your graphic designer buds?
Flash site.
Is your website incredibly fun to visit, but exactly one time only?
Might be a flash site.
Does your website have an animation of a bunch of semi-transparent oblong objects moving in a spiral pattern?
Flash site.
Does your website have a "skip intro" button?
I'd say there's a 99% probabililty that it's a Flash site.
Is your website invisible to users who are using ad-blocking tools like Proximitron, or slightly non-standard web browsing technology or computers that don't use one of three well known operating systems?
Well then maybe you're abusing javascript.
OR maybe it's a flash site.
Is your website immune to being bookmarked?
Hmmm. Maybe there's an outside chance it might be a flash site.
Is the content on your website 2 years out of date, because it's such a pain-in-the-ass to update?
Well then, there exists the possilibity it might be a flash site.
The reason Flash isn't more "open source" is because it is ultimately a proprietary technology under the tight control of the Macromedia company. Although Macromedia has released a publicly available description of the internal flash file format, this in itself does not an open-source standard make:
* The description Macromedia released is incomplete in some areas, and has not been kept up to date with more recent versions of Flash.
* I've used Macromedia's documentation to write a Perl library that outputs and modifies flash movies. I've found format to be highly optimized for playback unfortunately; you can't do much to modify existing movies in interesting ways (aside from moving existing elements around the screen, rearranging letters and so on).
* Macromedia has not released a description of the Flash *project* file (thus giving them a tight reign over authoring tools). Significant information is lost when a project is published in the (documented) flash format - information that would lend itself to making more dynamic and interesting sites.
* Macromedia likely does not view the prospect of 3rd party authoring tools as being a good thing, since Macromedia is largly an authoring tools company.
Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).
One of the problems with Flash is that it doesn't lend itself to sites which have a large amount of interaction between their users and the site authors. You can do it, but it's a huge pain-in-the-ass.
So I'm assuming you want to create a flashy presentation, and not much else.
MALIBU -- Scientists have discovered vast quantities of a hydrogen/oxygen compound, both of which are widely regarded as promising alternative to today's dwindling stocks of fossil fuels, lying in vast resevoirs on top of the Earth's crust. The discovery has stunned energy experts, who believe that it could provide virtually limitless supplies of clean fuel for cars, homes and industry.
"[The compound] apparently contains twice the amount of hydrogen as oxygen," said Professor Spicoli of Pepperdine University, "Which is great, because we need more hydrogen than oxygen. Although oxygen is pretty cool too." ...
I sent Schiff the following letter: As a democrat voter in your district, I have voted for you in the past, I am now beginning to regret it.
It has recently come to my attention that you are sponsering a bill that is the house-equivalent of Fritz Holling's CBDTPA.
I work in the Cable Television industry as an Engineer, as well as being a teacher and my income comes largely from entertainment giants such as AOL / Time Warner.
Nonetheless, I find this bill morally repugnant, in that it favors the rights of large media companies (such as AOL/Time Warner and Disney) over individuals and struggling artists / copyright owners.
I believe that "Fair Use" is a legally ambiguous term at this moment that needs to be given a clear and iron-clad legal definition. Until that happens, we should not be enacting legislation which attempts to define it by default.
Ultimately, a clear definition of "Fair Use" MUST include the right of the individual to make personal copies of legally-purchased information. Creating economic barriers to doing so only benefits large media companies (and big-time pirates with deep pockets) and no one else.
This bill is only one example of the way the large entertainment companies are making a power-grab to "lock up" the intellectual property space and prevent smaller entities from having a piece of it. Their efforts to shut-down a number of innovative Internet-based technologies, and their ongoing lawsuit against PVR manufacturer company Sonic Blue are others.
I have seen no evidence that these companies are massively hurting now because of rampant piracy. Only dire and hazy predictions.
One of the reasons I am a registered democrat is because I am a supporter of civil liberties, something which your Party has a better track record of supporting than the Republicans. Nonetheless, I find this bill a blow *against* civil liberties, and I hope you and other democrats will reconsider supporting it.
Meanwhile, I will reconsider my party affiliation...
I believe this is the same project that was reported February 8th as "Blue Marble".
Competing product with greater energy efficiency
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
Wow, that was fast! Apparently, this company has already introduced a product with reduced power consumption (and a pretty snazzy look, if you ask me)!
Slashdot Mirror
> Of course the data produced by this approach is > subjective and inaccurate at times, but that's > part of why I built it: It's difficult for
> consumers trace corporate actions through the
> maze of corporate ownership, and find who is
> really responsible.
I fail to see the logic here. Does giving consumers an easy way to read subjective and inaccurate data truly help them?
People who think Perl is great are totally ignorant of other languages, and have extremely bad taste.
Having some feelings there? I learned Perl after programming in C, C++, Lisp, Prolog, Forth, BASIC, Pascal, Awk, various shell scripts and countless other languages for about 15 years.
For all those niggling half-a-page scripts that I used it for, Perl was (and is) great. Of course, I do have mismatched socks....
I might have agreed with you if you had inserted a few caveats (such as "those who attempt to use Perl for large projects...").
the problem is seldom the language
This is a good point. It's not the language. It's the programming environment as a whole.
How long is your compile-test-debug cycle?
How accurately can your compiler identify what's wrong with your code?
Do you have adequate documentation that is both succinct and comprehensive?
Did your teammate get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?
Is the target platform a known quantity? Is it stable?
Are flamewars about languages on slashdot keeping you from getting your work done?
etc.
In this earlier story [slashdot.org] we are told that AI is going no where due to the fact that graduate students are spending 3 years fixing broken robots instead of programming them.
I assume you're referencing Marvin Minsky's quote:
"The worst fad has been these stupid little robots...Graduate students are wasting 3 years of their lives soldering and repairing robots, instead of making them smart. It's really shocking."
Minsky's whining fails to take into account that different people have different interests.
If someone's into fixing toasters, you shouldn't complain because they aren't baking bread.
>> As an artist, I find that comment a bit short-sighted. They're trying to deliver an experience and you're saying "Na, just give me the pamphlet."
As someone who hates being bombarded with multimedia bullshit from "artists" when I'm seeking information, I found your comment a bit short-sighted as well.
Yes, they're trying to deliver an experience, but I'd like to be in control of when I receive an "experience". Having sound and slow-loading flash animations appear when I visit a website does not give me that control.
>> How are standards supposed to grow on the web if everybody complains that they want it in HTML?
If everyone is complaining, perhaps we should be paying attention to the complaints. The only folks that really love Flash-based websites, as far as I can tell, are other Flash artists.
Clearly the best choice is Canada.
TO THE ANAL-RETENTIVE.
This sounds an awful lot like the HalfBakery (which isn't nearly as pretentious-sounding as the "DaVinci Institute").
Excellent points all. I think we're starting to see a backlash against the 80s-90s impulse to put everything on a computer screen.
A good example are the tactile knobs used in music studios using hard-disk based recording techniques.
Our brains are wired for doing things with our hands, and using a mouse to turn a knob (or push a button) just doesn't cut it.
Simple and Handheld are the keywords here...
Compared to the CM-100, the new casios are incredibly awful for my purposes. Lots of shifts needed to do hex conversions, and no dedicated A-F keys. They were clearly designed by a different person who wasn't actually planning on using the thing.
Computer-emulated calculators suck. I like having something I can hold in my hand with buttons.
The palm-pilot emulators are okay (and may be my best choice) but still not as tactile nor as simple as I would like.
- jbum
BZFlag is a fun and simple network game that is a essentially a first-person shooter, but simply involves tanks - very much like Battle Zone, so parents shouldn't mind. It runs on Windows and Linux.
Just make sure the kids turn on the UDP option so they don't lag the other players out!
I don't know about Replay, but Tivo will still work if you're not subscribed to the service. At least according to their docs, it will. I haven't tried it, because I'd much rather use it with current program guide data.
I don't mind paying a subscription fee for the guide data. As someone who works making interactive program guides for "smart" cable settop boxes, I'm aware of how much effort goes into preparing said data. It's gotta be paid for somehow.
1. If you're in this for the money, get another job. I'm in this for the intellectual stimulation. The fact is, I live in a country in which the standard of living is enormously high compared to the rest of the world. I make enough to live in a nice house, send my kids to college and buy fun toys. I'm doing just fine. Going into management to make a few more bucks is not going to make me any happier. You need to realize when enough is enough, moneywise.
1. I have yet to find an employer who is suffering from a glut of programming talent. If you're good, there will always be work. You just have to stay sharp and keep your skills up. It also helps to not work in an area which is fueled by young, underpaid programmers (such as the game
industry).
1. A great way to keep your skills up is to teach, using your gray hairs to other's advantage. I personally set aside one day a week for teaching. It's a money loss, but still rewarding professionally and pschologically.
0. Sometimes it sucks being managed by folks who are significantly younger than you. This is a psychological issue that many of us will all have to deal with as we get older, regardless of the profession.
1. On the plus side, one of the advantages of getting older is finding the rare job which has good management and sticking with it, instead of constantly searching for greater prestige and a fatter paycheck. I've been burnt multiple times by accepting more money to work for folks I don't respect. No more of that, hopefully!
The reason the device has to make a phone call is to get guide data, which makes the interface much easier to use.
Both Tivo and Replay allow you to "program like an advanced VCR" as you describe. As a Tivo user, I can tell you, that programming "like an
advanced VCR" is a pain-in-the-ass, and it's much easier to simply say "give me all the new episodes of 'The Osbournes'". The only reason for doing a time-based recording is when a particular show is on a heavy-repeat schedule and you only want certain showings (like "The Daily Show"). Otherwise, it's much easier to schedule recordings from the program guide. This means you still get your show even when the network moves it around.
Once these devices are hooked up to the Internet, they can get their guide data from there, and the phone call isn't needed.
Alternately, once the cable-companies start offering PVR capabilities in settop boxes (which they will), the guide data will be provided over the cable. Just as the satellite companies provide data over the satellite feed.
Sadly, once the cable companies start offering PVR, they will also eliminate consumer-friendly features like commercial skipping (or they'll embed the commercials in the interface itself!).
From the FAQ on Google:
7. What happens if I go over my limit of 1,000 queries?
If you make more than 1,000 queries in a day, our server will respond with a SOAP Fault stating that you exceeded your daily query total. You might want to get some sleep and start querying again tomorrow.
* * *
My first reaction on hearing about these APIs, where that they might be an attempt on Google's part to cut down on automated searching without getting a lot of bad PR. They're providing limits in the guise of generosity.
The fact is, it was already pretty trivial to search Google using plain old HTML (via Perl or Java, or whatever).
But now, if Google starts prohibiting folks from using such search-bots (that use the HTML interface to Google), they can say "Look, we provided an API for this purpose!"
>> George Lucas states that there were parts of Episode One that were damaging
>> to the Star Wars franchise. (shocker, I know)
>> "The last movie did not live up to expectations."
Yes, the movie sucked.
No, Lucas did not actually say that.
In fact, as the article says, "Lucas declined to comment for this story."
Coolness. Now just add a real monitor and an external CD-ROM drive and a full-sized slot for my Radeon 8500 so I can play Max Payne oh yeah, and an actual keyboard and this'll be one sweeet box!!
Odd. I always thought the lifeblood of the game industry was that orange stuff that drips from the slice of pizza at 2:30 AM.
Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy.
Is your website promoting a movie or selling vacuum cleaners?
It could be a Flash site.
Does your website live in a tiny little pop-up window all it's own?
I betcha it's also a Flash site.
Does your website display the message "Loading" when you visit it?
Yep. Smells like a Flash site.
Does your website impress all your graphic designer buds?
Flash site.
Is your website incredibly fun to visit, but exactly one time only?
Might be a flash site.
Does your website have an animation of a bunch of semi-transparent oblong
objects moving in a spiral pattern?
Flash site.
Does your website have a "skip intro" button?
I'd say there's a 99% probabililty that it's a Flash site.
Is your website invisible to users who are using ad-blocking tools like Proximitron,
or slightly non-standard web browsing technology or computers that don't use one
of three well known operating systems?
Well then maybe you're abusing javascript.
OR maybe it's a flash site.
Is your website immune to being bookmarked?
Hmmm. Maybe there's an outside chance it might be a flash site.
Is the content on your website 2 years out of date, because it's
such a pain-in-the-ass to update?
Well then, there exists the possilibity it might be a flash site.
The reason Flash isn't more "open source" is because it is ultimately a proprietary technology under the tight control of the Macromedia company. Although Macromedia has released a publicly available description of the internal flash file format, this in itself does not an open-source standard make:
* The description Macromedia released is incomplete in some areas, and has not been kept up to date with more recent versions of Flash.
* I've used Macromedia's documentation to write a Perl library that outputs and modifies flash movies. I've found format to be highly optimized for playback unfortunately; you can't do much to modify existing movies in interesting ways (aside from moving existing elements around the screen, rearranging letters and so on).
* Macromedia has not released a description of the Flash *project* file (thus giving them a tight reign over authoring tools). Significant information is lost when a project is published in the (documented) flash format - information that would lend itself to making more dynamic and interesting sites.
* Macromedia likely does not view the prospect of 3rd party authoring tools as being a good thing, since Macromedia is largly an authoring tools company.
Finally, I'm a bit perplexed why you would choose Flash as a good tool for educating people about "complicated policy questions" - this strikes me as something that would be served better by a more dynamic text-oriented approach (such as a Slash-code based site).
One of the problems with Flash is that it doesn't lend itself to sites which have a large amount of interaction between their users and the site authors. You can do it, but it's a huge pain-in-the-ass.
So I'm assuming you want to create a flashy presentation, and not much else.
MALIBU -- Scientists have discovered vast quantities of a hydrogen/oxygen compound, both of which are widely regarded as promising alternative to today's dwindling stocks of fossil fuels, lying in vast resevoirs on top of the Earth's crust.
The discovery has stunned energy experts, who believe that it could provide virtually limitless supplies of clean fuel for cars, homes and industry.
"[The compound] apparently contains twice the amount of hydrogen as oxygen," said Professor Spicoli of Pepperdine
University, "Which is great, because we need more hydrogen than oxygen. Although oxygen is pretty cool too."
...
I sent Schiff the following letter:
As a democrat voter in your district, I have voted for you in the past, I am now beginning to regret it.
It has recently come to my attention that you are sponsering a bill that is the house-equivalent of Fritz Holling's CBDTPA.
I work in the Cable Television industry as an Engineer, as well as being a teacher and my income comes largely from entertainment giants such as AOL / Time Warner.
Nonetheless, I find this bill morally repugnant, in that it favors the rights of large media companies (such as AOL/Time Warner and Disney) over individuals and struggling artists / copyright owners.
I believe that "Fair Use" is a legally ambiguous term at this moment that needs to be given a clear and iron-clad legal definition. Until that happens, we should not be enacting legislation which attempts to define it by default.
Ultimately, a clear definition of "Fair Use" MUST include the right of the individual to make personal copies of legally-purchased information. Creating economic barriers to doing so only benefits large media companies (and big-time pirates with deep pockets) and no one else.
This bill is only one example of the way the large entertainment companies are making a power-grab to "lock up" the intellectual property space and prevent smaller entities from having a piece of it. Their efforts to shut-down a number of innovative Internet-based technologies, and their ongoing lawsuit against PVR manufacturer company Sonic Blue are others.
I have seen no evidence that these companies are massively hurting now because of rampant piracy. Only dire and hazy predictions.
One of the reasons I am a registered democrat is because I am a supporter of civil liberties, something which your Party has a better track record of supporting than the Republicans. Nonetheless, I find this bill a blow *against* civil liberties, and I hope you and other democrats will reconsider supporting it.
Meanwhile, I will reconsider my party affiliation...
Jim Bumgardner
I believe this is the same project that was reported February 8th as "Blue Marble".
Wow, that was fast! Apparently, this company has already introduced a product with reduced power consumption (and a pretty snazzy look, if you ask me)!
We won't see decent natural language parsing until the porn industry gets involved.
Meanwhile, here's an incredible simulation of what we can look forward to.