The only rough part is finding good ways to network with people that aren't part of your own circle. I for one need to work harder on networking with artists and people with money they'd like to invest. Luckily I'm already well networked on the technical end of things. If I could work my way into a community of artists and finance people though I could really roll out some cool stuff.
My idea application is a programming enviroment with an easy to use interface. Left to my own (ie no bossses hounding me with their ideas of how to do stuff) I tend to build every program I write as a program interpreter with it's very own language. (often I build on top of an existing interpreted language such as Python or Scheme) Hardcore users can manipulate the functionality in whatever ways they want using the programming language. On top of that I like to slap a user-friendly interface that allows more intuitive use of the same functionality. When possible I like to include a feature that, when turned on, gives access to a window that shows what commands the GUI is running and allows commands to be entered manually. CAD programs often have a feature like this and I think it's a great idea. The real benefit is that you get as much flexibility as you want but the UI makes it easy to slap out quick stuff and to learn the language.
I keep waiting to see a word processor that does this correctly. Personally I hate fighting with the GUI of these kinds of program because some arcane problem with the order I pressed the buttons did something undesired. I'd love to be able to just fix the underlying object model through a couple commands and then switch back to the GUI. For simply entering a document the GUI is much nicer than typing the whole document with commands as might be done with Tex or HTML.
A lot of programmers have also done tech support. I have learned a lot about usability by helping in labs. When I design a program it is largely based on this experience. I tend to test my programs by letting the least computer literate people I know try them out. If my friends and family can manage them without difficulty then I can be pretty sure I've got it ironed out.
Really the basic principals to interfaces are easy. Keep everything as simple as possible. Make everything obvious. Happily handle unexpected behavior on the part of the user. Do those and you should do fine.
I can understand that. I've been working on some opensourced educational apps for a little over a year now and I really enjoy doing that. I hope someday to be able to provide numerous free programs that everyone can use regardless as to what operating system they choose. I have to do other things to pay the bills but I wish I could afford to spend all day writing edutainment software. I wish I could afford to hire artists, QA, etc to help me. Personally I like targeting younger children and handicapped users but I can see how calculator software could be extremely beneficial.
Isn't that really the key to success in all parts of life? It's not what you know, it's who you know. If you know the right people and they like you well enough to do favors for you then you'll likely be a success.
Opensource plays this card a lot. One of the best ways to earn favors is by giving favors. If you write some cool code and give it away then people who use it will often be willing to return favors of one kind or another back to you. The fact that copying is easy in the digital age, the horror of Micrsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA, makes it easy to pass favors out. Pass them out in mass and you can get massive favors returned. The concept of a gift economy is really that easy.
That sounds, and correct me if I'm wrong, more like how Mozilla stores passwords. My way would actually generate on demand the codes needed for authentication. It'd be portable to any machine you sat at as nothing would need to be saved in order for the process to work.
It would be cool if it was built into the OS too so that all secure applications could use it. I just assume it'd be easier to get added into Firefox and Apache first. Work out any bugs and prove it works and then move on to world conquest.:)
Analysis wouldn't be that hard. Almost none of it would be done by hand. You'd use software to scan for anything suspicious and only make humans look at the suspicious activity.
Suspicious activity could include everything from certain IPs and keywords to text that seemed likely to contain hidden codes.
I've done a lot of AI-related coding and I think this project, while requiring a lot of computing power, would not be that difficult. It'd be on par with creating a Google for chat logs.
Not that I'd support anyone actually doing this. I just think it's better if people remember that this CAN be done and thus remember that they should be afraid of this being done.
So... how do I get a job where you work? I want to write MMO games as I spent years developing text-based MUDs before this whole newfangled graphical craze hit the world.;)
So if I setup a site to distribute copyrighted content all over 14 years old you'd support me? In this digital age when the majority of income for IP is made within the first year after the release of that IP it seems that the original 14 years of protection would more than cover what is needed to make sure artists are making a living.
A law that is constantly twisted to give power to one portion of society at the expense of the rest of society is an obvious sign of a corrupt government. A majority of people want to copy content and their voices are not being heard. May as well tax us without representation.
I'm a capitalist but I still am aware that pure capitalism will eat itself up if not kept in check by sensible laws. Giving a monopoly on IP rights for hundreds of years is just insane. You're not protecting an artist's right to feed themselves anymore. You're protecting the rich's right to milk everyone else out of their money even if it hinders the wellbeing of society in general.
Here's another idea. What if I wanted to use BT to distribute media but I only allowed one person to have a copy at a time. The media files could use DRM to make it difficult to copy so that most people couldn't keep a copy when they were done. They'd have to 'return' their copy before they could check out anything else out. It'd be an Internet-based library system. Why shouldn't that be legal? Should we try and see how long it'd be before the MPAA and RIAA came at me with their lawyers? I have hundreds of legally purchased DVDs so I could put up quite the library.
Really!? Can I setup a server there? Gilligan's Island - the new data haven. Mary Anne can monitor my hardware and I can check out her coconuts. Mmmmm.
I for one am sick of the concept of passwords for accessing information. Passwords make life online a pain in the ass. I access dozens of sites a day and hundreds of sites a week. Many have their own passwords and own password standards so that I can't even use the same password. Most contain only mildly sensitive information anyway. Having a different password for each site is overkill.
What we need is a browser that prompts for our keyphrase the first time a site requires authentication during our session. We should need only one keyphrase per user. Using an id seed that the site requesting authentication sends and the user's id seed the passphrase should be hashed into an individual return code that works only between the user and site in question. Thus the user need only remember their one passphrase but can access each site without giving away the passphrase to the sites (which may not be trustworthy).
This system would be more secure as it'd not require writing down your passwords or saving them in your browser.
My system would help in this situation because it's much easier to write down one passphrase for your family to find in case of your death than it is to write down 400 url, username, and password groups for them.
I've been running PHP with Apache 2 for a long time too and I haven't experienced any problems.
I agree that PHP could use some rethinking in certain area but overall it works great. For more complex problems it's better to switch to mod_python anyway as PHP grows increasingly more painful to maintain the larger the program gets. PHP5 does improve on this issue though.
It's possible to run PHP with different permissions for different server users but it is something of a pain to configure.
A train system is nothing more than cars that follow a predefined path rather than needing to be manually kept in check constantly. Newer trains can be automated fully. A train could be as simple as a specialized car on a specialized road that has some way to keep the car on track. Obviously one or two lanes used only by these authorized cars would be much easier to maintain than 8 lanes that have to allow every crazy vehicle people care to try to take on them. It should become even cheaper when you switch away from road-like building materials which are not all that durable (traffic, weather, age all cause serious damage that constantly has to be repaired) to rail systems which are more durable (being mostly just metal bars).
There is no reason trains can't be on-demand and go direct from your starting point to your destination. Several modern train systems have been designed to do just that. [There was even one featured in a Slashdot article not that long ago.] They don't have to pick people up in sequence or deliver them in sequence. They can however form instant carpools with several cars merging as needed to share their motive-power when they are following the same route at the same time.
This is pretty cool but I wonder why it needs a specialized drive to accomplish the job. It'd be awesome if they could just save their label image as an ISO and use any recorder available so as long as you had discs with their special labels. Stuff like this is pretty cool but if it requires buying a new cd/dvd burner I probably won't consider it until I need a new burner.
I'd like to see something like this, or better yet, like DiscT@2 , designed into future disc specifications. Why have labels at all when discs can be usable on both sides and labeled with tattoos such as these? Why suffer a sepperate process to label the discs when they can be labeled as part of the burning process?
While I'm wishing... give me multiple terabytes of storage per side of the disc and make it so both sides of the disc are usable without flipping the disc.:)
Koolance IS the original equipment manufacturer in this case unlike with do-it-yourself kits. Koolance cases have the usual spots for fans in the case. It's not a bad idea to put at least a couple fans in there. You're mostly just using the water cooling for those parts that get exceptionally hot. Also you can buy extra attachments to hook to secondary processors and such if you like if you feel they get hot enough to benefit from the water cooling too.
I have some mini-itx systems that are silent but they achieve that by being without moving parts. The systems run just fine without fans and they use compact flash to load their OS. They they do various useful tasks they were designed for including running X sessions from a server.
Unless you're willing to go without fans and a hdd though you're going to have some noise.
No real maintanence to such systems. They are pretty rugged givin that they have no moving parts to wear out. Configured properly they can be shoved out of the way and forgotten.
I have a Koolance system and so far have had no problem with it. It looks nice (a cool blue color) and seems to work fine. The case is fairly roomy and is designed such that it's easy to work with. It was definately much easier to setup than a from-scratch system. No leaks, no breaks, no algae, no problems of any kind.
My one complaint with the system is that it doesn't come with any front ports for usb, firewire, and sound which are common features these days and are somewhat expected.
My one suggestion, other than adding these ports, would be to use led lit fans in the top. These three fans are much more visible than the fans in most cases and it'd be cool if they were lit. Not being able to change out the fans myself is something of a disappointment.
I'd not say the system is silent though. The three fans on top run most of the time and they make quite a bit of noise. Not as bad as some systems I have but much noiser than my mini-itx systems which are mostly fanless and which have much quieter fans when they do have fans.
I'm not really sold on water cooling yet. It seems to have benefits but the trouble setting up and maintaining the systems leads me to think it'd be difficult for those that aren't techies. I'll probably buy more Koolance cases though as I think they make pretty good setups for high-power gaming machines.
I go to the theature several times a week. I own hundreds of legally purchased movies. I just don't feel any guilt for copying movies.
It really pisses me off that they're misleading people into thinking that copying movies is illegal. All the more reason to copy them.
Don't vote by not buying or going to see movies. You're dollar won't make a damn bit of difference. It's lost in the storm. Vote by contributing to open content projects. Let's make our own movies. Is there really nobody among us that knows how to write scripts, act, edit film, and such? Sure there is - so let's challenge the studios.
In theory? Possibly. It'll make it so your computer can handle multiple threads better. Therefore it could speed up downloads a little under ehavy network load.
Not to say that this isn't useful or cool but I really don't see how this sort of thing is that much of a benefit. It, like most client-side scripting, creates a non-standardized way to do a common task. In this case it might be useful for this ability to be intergrated into the basic protocols but the Javascript version is really nothing more than a bandaid for the ongoing problem that the basic protocols of the web HTML and HTTP really aren't meant to be used to write applications. Rather than creating more and more non-standardized web sites that are a usability nightmare it'd be much better to create some new standards.
So, as a prototype this rocks. I hope it, and other Javascript, doesn't spread to every site on the planet though. Client-side scripting sucks.:)
The group that would manage domain issues such as assigning controls of tld's would be a democracy. Such fights would simply be voted on. Whomever lost would just have to choose a different name. Most likely it'd be given first-come, first-served to whomever owned the trademark and petitioned first. Most likely there'd be some limitation on how man tld's a single organization or family of organizations could own but again that'd depend on how people voted. In the case of squatting or the like control might be reassigned. People that didn't like it would be free to go back to the ICANN system where they have practically zero chance of getting their own tld. No countries legal system should really be involved as the Internet should not be owned or controlled by any country. It should have it's own government.
ISPs refussing to carry their competitions domains could be a problem but how many of them currently are blocking access to their competitions domains or by other means such as firewalls? It's easy enough to do but I don't see many occurances.
Why? I've lived in rural areas. A train system is cheaper than installing and maintaining roads. Also trains can go much faster and can be automated which is something of a benefit when your ride is long. Modern train systems can be on demand so you don't have to wait for scheduled trips. Riding the train is much cheaper than owning a vehicle. I really don't see how rural people could lose on this.
The only use for automobiles is in areas that don't have paved roads. Automobiles are fine for off-road, or barely-road, conditions. It'd still be cheaper to drive to the nearest paved road and park and ride the train than it'd be to drive all the way to and from work.:)
I don't actually drive anywhere very often. I do do so now and then though. I'm certainly not denying that I contribute to the problem. I do bicycle, walk, carpool, and use public transportation most of the time though. I haven't actually driven anywhere, alone, in several years. If I was going to I'd get as effecient a vehicle as I could in order to do so. I do of course go places with friends and family sometimes and they choose to drive. It'd hardly help the situation for me to walk if they are going to drive anyway.
I think a solution can really only be found though when a critical mass of people are really interested in other ways to travel. Mini-vehicles have gained a lot of popularity lately so I think a surge is happening, mostly for economic reasons, but there is still a lot of resistence to addressing the problems involved on a social scale.
Slashdot Mirror
The only rough part is finding good ways to network with people that aren't part of your own circle. I for one need to work harder on networking with artists and people with money they'd like to invest. Luckily I'm already well networked on the technical end of things. If I could work my way into a community of artists and finance people though I could really roll out some cool stuff.
My idea application is a programming enviroment with an easy to use interface. Left to my own (ie no bossses hounding me with their ideas of how to do stuff) I tend to build every program I write as a program interpreter with it's very own language. (often I build on top of an existing interpreted language such as Python or Scheme) Hardcore users can manipulate the functionality in whatever ways they want using the programming language. On top of that I like to slap a user-friendly interface that allows more intuitive use of the same functionality. When possible I like to include a feature that, when turned on, gives access to a window that shows what commands the GUI is running and allows commands to be entered manually. CAD programs often have a feature like this and I think it's a great idea. The real benefit is that you get as much flexibility as you want but the UI makes it easy to slap out quick stuff and to learn the language.
I keep waiting to see a word processor that does this correctly. Personally I hate fighting with the GUI of these kinds of program because some arcane problem with the order I pressed the buttons did something undesired. I'd love to be able to just fix the underlying object model through a couple commands and then switch back to the GUI. For simply entering a document the GUI is much nicer than typing the whole document with commands as might be done with Tex or HTML.
A lot of programmers have also done tech support. I have learned a lot about usability by helping in labs. When I design a program it is largely based on this experience. I tend to test my programs by letting the least computer literate people I know try them out. If my friends and family can manage them without difficulty then I can be pretty sure I've got it ironed out.
Really the basic principals to interfaces are easy. Keep everything as simple as possible. Make everything obvious. Happily handle unexpected behavior on the part of the user. Do those and you should do fine.
I can understand that. I've been working on some opensourced educational apps for a little over a year now and I really enjoy doing that. I hope someday to be able to provide numerous free programs that everyone can use regardless as to what operating system they choose. I have to do other things to pay the bills but I wish I could afford to spend all day writing edutainment software. I wish I could afford to hire artists, QA, etc to help me. Personally I like targeting younger children and handicapped users but I can see how calculator software could be extremely beneficial.
Isn't that really the key to success in all parts of life? It's not what you know, it's who you know. If you know the right people and they like you well enough to do favors for you then you'll likely be a success.
Opensource plays this card a lot. One of the best ways to earn favors is by giving favors. If you write some cool code and give it away then people who use it will often be willing to return favors of one kind or another back to you. The fact that copying is easy in the digital age, the horror of Micrsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA, makes it easy to pass favors out. Pass them out in mass and you can get massive favors returned. The concept of a gift economy is really that easy.
Why would it matter? Everything is supplied from the user during the session.
That sounds, and correct me if I'm wrong, more like how Mozilla stores passwords. My way would actually generate on demand the codes needed for authentication. It'd be portable to any machine you sat at as nothing would need to be saved in order for the process to work.
:)
It would be cool if it was built into the OS too so that all secure applications could use it. I just assume it'd be easier to get added into Firefox and Apache first. Work out any bugs and prove it works and then move on to world conquest.
Analysis wouldn't be that hard. Almost none of it would be done by hand. You'd use software to scan for anything suspicious and only make humans look at the suspicious activity.
Suspicious activity could include everything from certain IPs and keywords to text that seemed likely to contain hidden codes.
I've done a lot of AI-related coding and I think this project, while requiring a lot of computing power, would not be that difficult. It'd be on par with creating a Google for chat logs.
Not that I'd support anyone actually doing this. I just think it's better if people remember that this CAN be done and thus remember that they should be afraid of this being done.
So... how do I get a job where you work? I want to write MMO games as I spent years developing text-based MUDs before this whole newfangled graphical craze hit the world. ;)
So if I setup a site to distribute copyrighted content all over 14 years old you'd support me? In this digital age when the majority of income for IP is made within the first year after the release of that IP it seems that the original 14 years of protection would more than cover what is needed to make sure artists are making a living.
A law that is constantly twisted to give power to one portion of society at the expense of the rest of society is an obvious sign of a corrupt government. A majority of people want to copy content and their voices are not being heard. May as well tax us without representation.
I'm a capitalist but I still am aware that pure capitalism will eat itself up if not kept in check by sensible laws. Giving a monopoly on IP rights for hundreds of years is just insane. You're not protecting an artist's right to feed themselves anymore. You're protecting the rich's right to milk everyone else out of their money even if it hinders the wellbeing of society in general.
Here's another idea. What if I wanted to use BT to distribute media but I only allowed one person to have a copy at a time. The media files could use DRM to make it difficult to copy so that most people couldn't keep a copy when they were done. They'd have to 'return' their copy before they could check out anything else out. It'd be an Internet-based library system. Why shouldn't that be legal? Should we try and see how long it'd be before the MPAA and RIAA came at me with their lawyers? I have hundreds of legally purchased DVDs so I could put up quite the library.
Really!? Can I setup a server there? Gilligan's Island - the new data haven. Mary Anne can monitor my hardware and I can check out her coconuts. Mmmmm.
I for one am sick of the concept of passwords for accessing information. Passwords make life online a pain in the ass. I access dozens of sites a day and hundreds of sites a week. Many have their own passwords and own password standards so that I can't even use the same password. Most contain only mildly sensitive information anyway. Having a different password for each site is overkill.
What we need is a browser that prompts for our keyphrase the first time a site requires authentication during our session. We should need only one keyphrase per user. Using an id seed that the site requesting authentication sends and the user's id seed the passphrase should be hashed into an individual return code that works only between the user and site in question. Thus the user need only remember their one passphrase but can access each site without giving away the passphrase to the sites (which may not be trustworthy).
This system would be more secure as it'd not require writing down your passwords or saving them in your browser.
My system would help in this situation because it's much easier to write down one passphrase for your family to find in case of your death than it is to write down 400 url, username, and password groups for them.
I've been running PHP with Apache 2 for a long time too and I haven't experienced any problems.
I agree that PHP could use some rethinking in certain area but overall it works great. For more complex problems it's better to switch to mod_python anyway as PHP grows increasingly more painful to maintain the larger the program gets. PHP5 does improve on this issue though.
It's possible to run PHP with different permissions for different server users but it is something of a pain to configure.
A train system is nothing more than cars that follow a predefined path rather than needing to be manually kept in check constantly. Newer trains can be automated fully. A train could be as simple as a specialized car on a specialized road that has some way to keep the car on track. Obviously one or two lanes used only by these authorized cars would be much easier to maintain than 8 lanes that have to allow every crazy vehicle people care to try to take on them. It should become even cheaper when you switch away from road-like building materials which are not all that durable (traffic, weather, age all cause serious damage that constantly has to be repaired) to rail systems which are more durable (being mostly just metal bars).
There is no reason trains can't be on-demand and go direct from your starting point to your destination. Several modern train systems have been designed to do just that. [There was even one featured in a Slashdot article not that long ago.] They don't have to pick people up in sequence or deliver them in sequence. They can however form instant carpools with several cars merging as needed to share their motive-power when they are following the same route at the same time.
This is pretty cool but I wonder why it needs a specialized drive to accomplish the job. It'd be awesome if they could just save their label image as an ISO and use any recorder available so as long as you had discs with their special labels. Stuff like this is pretty cool but if it requires buying a new cd/dvd burner I probably won't consider it until I need a new burner.
:)
I'd like to see something like this, or better yet, like DiscT@2 , designed into future disc specifications. Why have labels at all when discs can be usable on both sides and labeled with tattoos such as these? Why suffer a sepperate process to label the discs when they can be labeled as part of the burning process?
While I'm wishing... give me multiple terabytes of storage per side of the disc and make it so both sides of the disc are usable without flipping the disc.
Koolance IS the original equipment manufacturer in this case unlike with do-it-yourself kits. Koolance cases have the usual spots for fans in the case. It's not a bad idea to put at least a couple fans in there. You're mostly just using the water cooling for those parts that get exceptionally hot. Also you can buy extra attachments to hook to secondary processors and such if you like if you feel they get hot enough to benefit from the water cooling too.
I have some mini-itx systems that are silent but they achieve that by being without moving parts. The systems run just fine without fans and they use compact flash to load their OS. They they do various useful tasks they were designed for including running X sessions from a server.
Unless you're willing to go without fans and a hdd though you're going to have some noise.
No real maintanence to such systems. They are pretty rugged givin that they have no moving parts to wear out. Configured properly they can be shoved out of the way and forgotten.
I have a Koolance system and so far have had no problem with it. It looks nice (a cool blue color) and seems to work fine. The case is fairly roomy and is designed such that it's easy to work with. It was definately much easier to setup than a from-scratch system. No leaks, no breaks, no algae, no problems of any kind.
My one complaint with the system is that it doesn't come with any front ports for usb, firewire, and sound which are common features these days and are somewhat expected.
My one suggestion, other than adding these ports, would be to use led lit fans in the top. These three fans are much more visible than the fans in most cases and it'd be cool if they were lit. Not being able to change out the fans myself is something of a disappointment.
I'd not say the system is silent though. The three fans on top run most of the time and they make quite a bit of noise. Not as bad as some systems I have but much noiser than my mini-itx systems which are mostly fanless and which have much quieter fans when they do have fans.
I'm not really sold on water cooling yet. It seems to have benefits but the trouble setting up and maintaining the systems leads me to think it'd be difficult for those that aren't techies. I'll probably buy more Koolance cases though as I think they make pretty good setups for high-power gaming machines.
I go to the theature several times a week. I own hundreds of legally purchased movies. I just don't feel any guilt for copying movies.
It really pisses me off that they're misleading people into thinking that copying movies is illegal. All the more reason to copy them.
Don't vote by not buying or going to see movies. You're dollar won't make a damn bit of difference. It's lost in the storm. Vote by contributing to open content projects. Let's make our own movies. Is there really nobody among us that knows how to write scripts, act, edit film, and such? Sure there is - so let's challenge the studios.
In theory? Possibly. It'll make it so your computer can handle multiple threads better. Therefore it could speed up downloads a little under ehavy network load.
I'm not telling you to get rid of it. I'm telling you to make it a standard.
Not to say that this isn't useful or cool but I really don't see how this sort of thing is that much of a benefit. It, like most client-side scripting, creates a non-standardized way to do a common task. In this case it might be useful for this ability to be intergrated into the basic protocols but the Javascript version is really nothing more than a bandaid for the ongoing problem that the basic protocols of the web HTML and HTTP really aren't meant to be used to write applications. Rather than creating more and more non-standardized web sites that are a usability nightmare it'd be much better to create some new standards.
:)
So, as a prototype this rocks. I hope it, and other Javascript, doesn't spread to every site on the planet though. Client-side scripting sucks.
The group that would manage domain issues such as assigning controls of tld's would be a democracy. Such fights would simply be voted on. Whomever lost would just have to choose a different name. Most likely it'd be given first-come, first-served to whomever owned the trademark and petitioned first. Most likely there'd be some limitation on how man tld's a single organization or family of organizations could own but again that'd depend on how people voted. In the case of squatting or the like control might be reassigned. People that didn't like it would be free to go back to the ICANN system where they have practically zero chance of getting their own tld. No countries legal system should really be involved as the Internet should not be owned or controlled by any country. It should have it's own government.
ISPs refussing to carry their competitions domains could be a problem but how many of them currently are blocking access to their competitions domains or by other means such as firewalls? It's easy enough to do but I don't see many occurances.
Why? I've lived in rural areas. A train system is cheaper than installing and maintaining roads. Also trains can go much faster and can be automated which is something of a benefit when your ride is long. Modern train systems can be on demand so you don't have to wait for scheduled trips. Riding the train is much cheaper than owning a vehicle. I really don't see how rural people could lose on this.
:)
The only use for automobiles is in areas that don't have paved roads. Automobiles are fine for off-road, or barely-road, conditions. It'd still be cheaper to drive to the nearest paved road and park and ride the train than it'd be to drive all the way to and from work.
I don't actually drive anywhere very often. I do do so now and then though. I'm certainly not denying that I contribute to the problem. I do bicycle, walk, carpool, and use public transportation most of the time though. I haven't actually driven anywhere, alone, in several years. If I was going to I'd get as effecient a vehicle as I could in order to do so. I do of course go places with friends and family sometimes and they choose to drive. It'd hardly help the situation for me to walk if they are going to drive anyway.
I think a solution can really only be found though when a critical mass of people are really interested in other ways to travel. Mini-vehicles have gained a lot of popularity lately so I think a surge is happening, mostly for economic reasons, but there is still a lot of resistence to addressing the problems involved on a social scale.