Mental retardation? Of course that is explained as they are using a full-size desktop computer like some sort of Walmart shopper. I have a usb dvd drive I use for those rare times I need one.
First Amazon replaced my local bookstores with selection. Amazingly I could actually buy the book I wanted when I wanted it. Then they were substantially cheaper. Then they could deliver within two days with free shipping. And Amazon can offer varied reviews by multiple customers and recommendations based on other customers.
Of course iBooks has replaced Amazon for most fiction for me but Amazon is still my resource for non-fiction. More importantly Amazon has replaced Walmart as my goto source for just about everything else. Again because of selection, price, and the useful additional information they provide.
Now what I need is a place that recycles delivery boxes.
Why would a vm for the project be annoying? What whole disk? They could look at the OS files installed I guess but there would be nothing belonging to any other project or user on there. If they change something they shouldn't you can roll it back. If you want to write data but not let them read it then write it to an external log server or a write-only disk. Complex security schemes are a lot more annoying than just properly dividing security between services.
I already spend more effort than I like ripping out useless security features. Every project has a virtual machine, or several, and they are isolated from each other. I don't need outdated security features that just get in the way. As it is I'd be more interested in a Linux distro that came with all that crap removed. It's been years since I used groups on a production server, I never found ACLs useful, I usually disable firewalls, filesystem permissions are a hassle far more often than they are useful, etc. Heck, the only time a real person logs into most of my systems is when something goes wrong with permissions or some other protection feature and causes a problem.
Make sure the virtualization servers are up to providing proper security between instances and from the network and then scrap all that stuff in the guest OS.
It's not so much how you put the code together as understanding the way the different components work together. Scratch doesn't hide the details very much - it just provides a graphical representation. Any experienced programmer knows that it doesn't really matter if you use Python, Perl, Java, or C so much as knowing how algorithms work. All that other crud is dealing with your language's syntax and limitations and how the code will be executed.
I've previously made a tool similar to Scratch for writing shell scripts and it was a pretty interesting experiment although I eventually decided the mouse was a slow way to program. I've also done some domain specific languages for games and tools that used a lot of visual components and it can work very well for those.
Recently I've been experimenting with making a tool for programming in a multitouch environment which I think works much better. Right now I'm working on producing JavaScript but thats only because it's easy to use on both iOS and Android. All the normal language features such as defining functions and variables, control statements, etc are simple gestures and instead of naming things with a string the programmer can make a doodle (or type in a string). Existing code is visually expressed and can be edited by touching the area that needs editing. I think the concept is strong although obviously certain details will need tweaking.
Sounds like a case of a company having absolutely no idea what makes a good tablet so they just try to do it all. Maybe throw in a lot of buzzwords to make it sound cool. The end product costs about the same as an iPad and the iPad is awesome. Why would I want to try a crappy knockoff that isn't even cheap?
Almost all of these companies would do better if they'd just create cool accessories for Apple products. I can think of many cool accessories nobody has done yet but instead I see consumer electronics companies cranking out crap tablets. You can only sell me a tablet once every couple years (and probably just once if it sucks) but I'll buy several cool accessories a year.
Of course in practice that's often not much of an improvement because the actual useful parts of your program change rapidly and drastically so that all your careful design is so broken that it is impossible to use what you already built without a major rewrite and all your fancy structure ends up making it even slower to adjust. I do think objects and good design can make a lot of sense in libraries and such long-term structures but in the majority of code not really. Real world projects just aren't that stable.
Touch typing is for weenies. Real geeks can be blind and not touching the keyboard and still hit the right keys. You could call it zen but really you're talking muscle memory. The same thing that makes you cringe when you're about to strike the wrong key before your finger even touches the key. The same thing that makes it so I can't tell you my password but I can type it.
Last time I took a typing test for a job the recruiters eyes about popped out because I looked like I was haphazardly pecking at the keyboard with whatever finger strikes my fancy without even looking at what I'm doing or trying to keep track of my hand placement and I still was typing well over 100 words a minute without making errors.
And now I have a condition that is gradually making it so I cant use a keyboard or mouse but thanks to the joy of good touch screen interfaces I can still do anything I need to.
If you don't mind carrying a keyboard around when it does nothing else. I prefer a single device that is screen, keyboard, mouse, etc all in a nice portable package. And it doesn't wear out nea as fast as a keyboard and is more spill resistant.
The biggest downside to virtual keyboards has nothing to do with being virtual but instead with bad keyboard design. I actually like my iPhone for a keyboard better than my iPad because on the iPad the keys are to big, to far apart, you still lack meta keys, and you still have to dig for many characters. In the same space I could easily fit a full size keyboard that would be easier to use and more comfortable to use. It's not about the n00b that needs huge keys to peck out their message - it's about the hardcore users that have developed the muscle memory to really use the virtual keyboard. With muscle memory and a virtual meyboard you can type super fast and the system can be smart enough to correct minor key misses that a real keyboard would screw up.
I'd doubt the validity of a breathalyzer test being held in uncontrolled conditions by poorly trained workers cranking people through on an industrial scale. That does not give them the right to draw my blood. If I've hurt someone, been speeding, etc then punish me for it and otherwise f off.
I don't drink [alcohol] but I might become very irate if some creepy cop started poking me with needles without my consent (which I would not give).
I hate unions but we need some kind of professional standard. Schools crank our thousands of CS grads every year that have no idea how to program anything. Those dimwits go out and represent themselves as programmers. After working through a few hopeless degree wielders employers get the idea that the best they can do is hire these guys in bulk at minimum wage and set them loose like the proverbial monkeys with typewriters which totally screws up the job market for developers. Certifications aren't any better. Students have been taught how to build a doghouse and suddenly they're thrown into a job market where they are expected to build skyscrapers. Of course they're going to be in over their head. And years of experience isn't a good judge either because it could be years done doing the same exact thing over and over or they could just be bad at it. And employers usually have no idea if you're doing a good job or not other than being disappointed that programming isn't as easy as typing their idea into a word processor.
Some sort of mentor organization and judgement by more experienced peers as to when a level of competence has been obtained would be more useful I think.
Starting a business and making it successful is fairly easy - just boring and hard work. It's more a matter of not doing anything stupid. Find something that is well understood, copy everything others do right, and correct the things they suck at. Keep doing it without screwing up. Decent marketing, decent prices, decent customer service, and decent treatment of your employees, contractors, and suppliers.
The geek need for a business buddy is just so you can work on the interesting hard parts while somebody else bothers with the boring stuff.
Ideas are rarely that important to success. Noticing when things suck and being willing to admit they suck and fix them even if it makes you look like a complete jerk is the vital part.
I usually don't install Flash or Java on my computers. Seems to help browser stability a lot and I seldom miss them. Usually it's on stupid things like fast food chains that opt for useless blinking sites instead of actually providing the information I want (hours for my local locations.. nutrition facts that aren't three years out of date). For the most part Javascript has sped up and gotten functional enough that you don't need Java and HTML and CSS can so most of what people use Flash for.
How would the screen break besides user abuse? They're pretty durable so I doubt they are spontaneously breaking as the user slides their finger around and taps the icons. Not an iPhone but my toddler has been hauling around an iTouch for two years without so much as scratching the screen. The only parts showing wear are the buttons. I've broken phone screens before but despite a muchmlarger screen the iTouch ahs held up much better.
I'd guess the people who break their screen don't use a screen protector, leave it banging against their keys, drop it, etc.
I suggest a Parrot to Dalvik translator as it'd let developers use any language that compiles to Parrot. Python, Perl, etc. Java is a suck language anyway and Android breaks from many Java conventions anyway.
GOOG-411 is actually one of their better services. It's a shame that they're scraping it and replacing it with some stupid mobile apps of dubious value. If I have a good enough connection to pull data from the web I can just Google the damn thing anyway. GOOG-411 is good because any crappy old phone can handle it even with a pretty bad signal and it's easy to understand. It's like the 411 we already are familiar with except it actually finds the right information for you and doesn't charge you a small fortune.
I really hope they reconsider the shutdown. Don't kill good products to make room for crap products. Instead why not try marketing it and making it a profit center?
The only rights that exist are the ones you take. Even if somebody else does the butt kicking to attain those rights for you if you don't defend them then you will lose them. So, sadly, I guess corporations will likely get whatever rights they want because they are designed to lack empathy, fear of law, respect of community, and so on.. which means they can grow bigger and bigger and become more and more abusive without anyone putting the brakes on. In many ways those in charge of corporations can only get in trouble if they try to maintain a code of ethics - they have to maintain growth at any cost. And in America they have us so brainwashed that most of us are proud of them for their bad behavior because it's the American dream and greed is good and all those bullshit things people use to defend unrestrained Capitalism.
I'm all for businesses but mega-corporations are evil by design.
I dunno. The VB was hard to use even if you were sitting still. The little stand thing on it was a horrible idea. I'd have rather it just strapped to my head even if it needed a counter balance. I have my doubts about the 3DS. For $300 you can get an iTouch which has apps that are overall on par, or better, than most DS games, are far cheaper, and you get a lot more functionality. I'm not sure a lot of people are itching for 3D. I'm barely interested in 3D HDTV and for mobile gaming I'm not sure it even rates a curiosity - but maybe other people are different.
I think Nintendo would be better off focusing on making their consoles and games cheaper and playing to their strength with casual and active games. A Nintendo branded Android device that had access to Nintendo's existing library of games would be interesting if it was affordable enough, gave Android a Nintendoish makeover, and was otherwise non-suck.
Even if they are looking out for it it still scares the crap out of me. My experience with complex systems is that even if you think you've thought of every possible problem that you'll always miss at least one and it'll hit at exactly the wrong time. It's just incredibly stupid to keep around a system that could kill us all if such a glitch happens.
Also it's one reason I believe we need to work on colonizing space. If some natural disaster or war doesn't kill us all then a computer glitch might. Something we can't deal with will happen eventually. The more we spread out the better chance we have of surviving as a species.
Which is why you design things with latency taken into account. Pretty obvious. For most things it isn't a significant factor as usually it's a slight factor compared with processing time.
I've pinged the commercial support for several of these open options and none of them have ever even bothered to respond. Pretty funny. It'd take a lot to switch though - user training could be horribly expensive and time consuming which is difficult with business so tight right now.
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Mental retardation? Of course that is explained as they are using a full-size desktop computer like some sort of Walmart shopper. I have a usb dvd drive I use for those rare times I need one.
First Amazon replaced my local bookstores with selection. Amazingly I could actually buy the book I wanted when I wanted it. Then they were substantially cheaper. Then they could deliver within two days with free shipping. And Amazon can offer varied reviews by multiple customers and recommendations based on other customers. Of course iBooks has replaced Amazon for most fiction for me but Amazon is still my resource for non-fiction. More importantly Amazon has replaced Walmart as my goto source for just about everything else. Again because of selection, price, and the useful additional information they provide. Now what I need is a place that recycles delivery boxes.
Maybe he should have read this book.
Why would a vm for the project be annoying? What whole disk? They could look at the OS files installed I guess but there would be nothing belonging to any other project or user on there. If they change something they shouldn't you can roll it back. If you want to write data but not let them read it then write it to an external log server or a write-only disk. Complex security schemes are a lot more annoying than just properly dividing security between services.
I already spend more effort than I like ripping out useless security features. Every project has a virtual machine, or several, and they are isolated from each other. I don't need outdated security features that just get in the way. As it is I'd be more interested in a Linux distro that came with all that crap removed. It's been years since I used groups on a production server, I never found ACLs useful, I usually disable firewalls, filesystem permissions are a hassle far more often than they are useful, etc. Heck, the only time a real person logs into most of my systems is when something goes wrong with permissions or some other protection feature and causes a problem.
Make sure the virtualization servers are up to providing proper security between instances and from the network and then scrap all that stuff in the guest OS.
It's not so much how you put the code together as understanding the way the different components work together. Scratch doesn't hide the details very much - it just provides a graphical representation. Any experienced programmer knows that it doesn't really matter if you use Python, Perl, Java, or C so much as knowing how algorithms work. All that other crud is dealing with your language's syntax and limitations and how the code will be executed.
I've previously made a tool similar to Scratch for writing shell scripts and it was a pretty interesting experiment although I eventually decided the mouse was a slow way to program. I've also done some domain specific languages for games and tools that used a lot of visual components and it can work very well for those.
Recently I've been experimenting with making a tool for programming in a multitouch environment which I think works much better. Right now I'm working on producing JavaScript but thats only because it's easy to use on both iOS and Android. All the normal language features such as defining functions and variables, control statements, etc are simple gestures and instead of naming things with a string the programmer can make a doodle (or type in a string). Existing code is visually expressed and can be edited by touching the area that needs editing. I think the concept is strong although obviously certain details will need tweaking.
Whereas the name iCloud was meant to sound like an Apple product? Anything named in that way is being named to make people connect it with Apple.
I think Apple should be more careful but this is obviously a case where both sides contributed to the problem.
Sounds like a case of a company having absolutely no idea what makes a good tablet so they just try to do it all. Maybe throw in a lot of buzzwords to make it sound cool. The end product costs about the same as an iPad and the iPad is awesome. Why would I want to try a crappy knockoff that isn't even cheap?
Almost all of these companies would do better if they'd just create cool accessories for Apple products. I can think of many cool accessories nobody has done yet but instead I see consumer electronics companies cranking out crap tablets. You can only sell me a tablet once every couple years (and probably just once if it sucks) but I'll buy several cool accessories a year.
Of course in practice that's often not much of an improvement because the actual useful parts of your program change rapidly and drastically so that all your careful design is so broken that it is impossible to use what you already built without a major rewrite and all your fancy structure ends up making it even slower to adjust. I do think objects and good design can make a lot of sense in libraries and such long-term structures but in the majority of code not really. Real world projects just aren't that stable.
If I were Google I'd just start buying up these media companies every time they go bankrupt. Soon enough the problem is fixed.
Touch typing is for weenies. Real geeks can be blind and not touching the keyboard and still hit the right keys. You could call it zen but really you're talking muscle memory. The same thing that makes you cringe when you're about to strike the wrong key before your finger even touches the key. The same thing that makes it so I can't tell you my password but I can type it.
Last time I took a typing test for a job the recruiters eyes about popped out because I looked like I was haphazardly pecking at the keyboard with whatever finger strikes my fancy without even looking at what I'm doing or trying to keep track of my hand placement and I still was typing well over 100 words a minute without making errors.
And now I have a condition that is gradually making it so I cant use a keyboard or mouse but thanks to the joy of good touch screen interfaces I can still do anything I need to.
If you don't mind carrying a keyboard around when it does nothing else. I prefer a single device that is screen, keyboard, mouse, etc all in a nice portable package. And it doesn't wear out nea as fast as a keyboard and is more spill resistant.
The biggest downside to virtual keyboards has nothing to do with being virtual but instead with bad keyboard design. I actually like my iPhone for a keyboard better than my iPad because on the iPad the keys are to big, to far apart, you still lack meta keys, and you still have to dig for many characters. In the same space I could easily fit a full size keyboard that would be easier to use and more comfortable to use. It's not about the n00b that needs huge keys to peck out their message - it's about the hardcore users that have developed the muscle memory to really use the virtual keyboard. With muscle memory and a virtual meyboard you can type super fast and the system can be smart enough to correct minor key misses that a real keyboard would screw up.
I'd doubt the validity of a breathalyzer test being held in uncontrolled conditions by poorly trained workers cranking people through on an industrial scale. That does not give them the right to draw my blood. If I've hurt someone, been speeding, etc then punish me for it and otherwise f off.
I don't drink [alcohol] but I might become very irate if some creepy cop started poking me with needles without my consent (which I would not give).
I hate unions but we need some kind of professional standard. Schools crank our thousands of CS grads every year that have no idea how to program anything. Those dimwits go out and represent themselves as programmers. After working through a few hopeless degree wielders employers get the idea that the best they can do is hire these guys in bulk at minimum wage and set them loose like the proverbial monkeys with typewriters which totally screws up the job market for developers. Certifications aren't any better. Students have been taught how to build a doghouse and suddenly they're thrown into a job market where they are expected to build skyscrapers. Of course they're going to be in over their head. And years of experience isn't a good judge either because it could be years done doing the same exact thing over and over or they could just be bad at it. And employers usually have no idea if you're doing a good job or not other than being disappointed that programming isn't as easy as typing their idea into a word processor.
Some sort of mentor organization and judgement by more experienced peers as to when a level of competence has been obtained would be more useful I think.
Starting a business and making it successful is fairly easy - just boring and hard work. It's more a matter of not doing anything stupid. Find something that is well understood, copy everything others do right, and correct the things they suck at. Keep doing it without screwing up. Decent marketing, decent prices, decent customer service, and decent treatment of your employees, contractors, and suppliers.
The geek need for a business buddy is just so you can work on the interesting hard parts while somebody else bothers with the boring stuff.
Ideas are rarely that important to success. Noticing when things suck and being willing to admit they suck and fix them even if it makes you look like a complete jerk is the vital part.
I usually don't install Flash or Java on my computers. Seems to help browser stability a lot and I seldom miss them. Usually it's on stupid things like fast food chains that opt for useless blinking sites instead of actually providing the information I want (hours for my local locations.. nutrition facts that aren't three years out of date). For the most part Javascript has sped up and gotten functional enough that you don't need Java and HTML and CSS can so most of what people use Flash for.
I want my head wired up and put in a jar Futurama style. My body should be frozen, shattered, and the frozen bits launched into space.
How would the screen break besides user abuse? They're pretty durable so I doubt they are spontaneously breaking as the user slides their finger around and taps the icons. Not an iPhone but my toddler has been hauling around an iTouch for two years without so much as scratching the screen. The only parts showing wear are the buttons. I've broken phone screens before but despite a muchmlarger screen the iTouch ahs held up much better.
I'd guess the people who break their screen don't use a screen protector, leave it banging against their keys, drop it, etc.
I suggest a Parrot to Dalvik translator as it'd let developers use any language that compiles to Parrot. Python, Perl, etc. Java is a suck language anyway and Android breaks from many Java conventions anyway.
GOOG-411 is actually one of their better services. It's a shame that they're scraping it and replacing it with some stupid mobile apps of dubious value. If I have a good enough connection to pull data from the web I can just Google the damn thing anyway. GOOG-411 is good because any crappy old phone can handle it even with a pretty bad signal and it's easy to understand. It's like the 411 we already are familiar with except it actually finds the right information for you and doesn't charge you a small fortune.
I really hope they reconsider the shutdown. Don't kill good products to make room for crap products. Instead why not try marketing it and making it a profit center?
The only rights that exist are the ones you take. Even if somebody else does the butt kicking to attain those rights for you if you don't defend them then you will lose them. So, sadly, I guess corporations will likely get whatever rights they want because they are designed to lack empathy, fear of law, respect of community, and so on.. which means they can grow bigger and bigger and become more and more abusive without anyone putting the brakes on. In many ways those in charge of corporations can only get in trouble if they try to maintain a code of ethics - they have to maintain growth at any cost. And in America they have us so brainwashed that most of us are proud of them for their bad behavior because it's the American dream and greed is good and all those bullshit things people use to defend unrestrained Capitalism.
I'm all for businesses but mega-corporations are evil by design.
I dunno. The VB was hard to use even if you were sitting still. The little stand thing on it was a horrible idea. I'd have rather it just strapped to my head even if it needed a counter balance. I have my doubts about the 3DS. For $300 you can get an iTouch which has apps that are overall on par, or better, than most DS games, are far cheaper, and you get a lot more functionality. I'm not sure a lot of people are itching for 3D. I'm barely interested in 3D HDTV and for mobile gaming I'm not sure it even rates a curiosity - but maybe other people are different.
I think Nintendo would be better off focusing on making their consoles and games cheaper and playing to their strength with casual and active games. A Nintendo branded Android device that had access to Nintendo's existing library of games would be interesting if it was affordable enough, gave Android a Nintendoish makeover, and was otherwise non-suck.
Even if they are looking out for it it still scares the crap out of me. My experience with complex systems is that even if you think you've thought of every possible problem that you'll always miss at least one and it'll hit at exactly the wrong time. It's just incredibly stupid to keep around a system that could kill us all if such a glitch happens.
Also it's one reason I believe we need to work on colonizing space. If some natural disaster or war doesn't kill us all then a computer glitch might. Something we can't deal with will happen eventually. The more we spread out the better chance we have of surviving as a species.
Which is why you design things with latency taken into account. Pretty obvious. For most things it isn't a significant factor as usually it's a slight factor compared with processing time.
I've pinged the commercial support for several of these open options and none of them have ever even bothered to respond. Pretty funny. It'd take a lot to switch though - user training could be horribly expensive and time consuming which is difficult with business so tight right now.