(Almost) totally off topic, but does anyone remember a PC computer game from the 80s that involved some kind of robots-take-over-the-world plot and you as a player had to do math in binary and hexadecimal to solve puzzles and win. It came out around the same time as Carmen Sandiego and it was targeted at early to mid teens. Obviously an educational title. I think it was from Broderbund.
I am by no means a supporter of WAP. It's the worst possible choice, except for all the others. I develop for WAP, but only because that is where the market is.
That said, I had some problems with the article.
First, the article states that WAP is targeted at premium users, but WAP access is really cheap. At least where I am. Verizon (c.f. worst possible choice) gives me WAP access for 4.95 / month additional to my normal rate and the phone only cost $30. Now I did have to sign the next 12 months of my life away, but that's Verizon for you.
Second, i_Mode's packet switching, always on, may be wonderful, but the best part of WAP is it works with existing networks. Verizon did not upgrade their network, they just added WAP servers. Much more attractive on a price level - for both consumer and provider.
Third, WAP is designed for low bandwidth cell phone use, but there's no reason why it can't scale to greater bandwidth or processing power. It has limits, but they haven't been reached.
That said, don't let this post sound like an endorsement of WAP or (good, God!) Verizon. The WAP consortium, or whatever, has developed a proprietary and abusive standards process and Verizon only occasionally gets my bill correct, not to mention the www.myvzw.com site blows chunks. WML isn't pretty and the implementations are worse. But it's here now and it's cheap.
That's why the web exploded in the first place. No one thought Netscrape was great, but it worked. No one thought dialup (or AOL) was great, but it worked, and people used it. Then better faster, cheaper solutions came along. The same will happen with wireless web.
How will mobile services impact "the entire WWW"? What does censorship have to do with it?
The article mentions that some providers limit what users can access. Not all do. If you are in the market for a WAP phone, ask the provider. If they say, "Yes, you will only be able to access the sites we have bookmarked for you," take your money elsewhere. They are in the business of making money, and money doesn't grow on trees, it comes from your pocket.
the device can be turned off by the owner...if the owner knows its there.
This guy I know, went to Vegas, and met this really hot babe. He takes her back to his room, thinking he's going to get lucky, but she slips a drug in his drink. The next morning he wakes up in a bathrub filled with ice. He feels like shit and his neck hurts. Then he notices a sign on his chest that says, "Don't call 911. You're fine." He doesn't, and just goes home. He didn't know it, but his wife had paid someone to implant a chip in his neck, and now she tracks his every move.
Until recently, we clung to the notion that some institutions -- journalism, politics, academe, art and culture -- stood somewhat outside of the marketplace
Wait, if anyone still in the gene pool thinks that journalists and politicians are outside the marketplace, please remove yourself from the swimming area now.
ZDOC never did much for me as far as Palm Doc readers goes.
Though it has the worst name of any software ever released, CSpotRun is a high quality Doc reader that has been released under the GPL.
Thus, if I do something stupid with it - drink it, inhale the vapour, shove it up my bum, etc. - I have no comeback against the manufacturer
Your point is well made, but I still disagree.
If they sell malathion as an insecticide and include directions for appropraite safe use, as well as warnings against unsafe use (such as drinking) then they are watertight against liability. But if they market malathion as mouthwash, no warning label can help. The difference: use of the product as the manufacturer intended will cause harm. The only way tobacco companies could get out of this, is if they claimed cigarettes were only meant for decoration and not for smoking.
All this said, I think the attacks on tobacco companies are silly. Make it illegal or legal. Americans want it both ways. Legal to poison ouselves, but retaining the right to a big wad of cash when we're sick.
If they'd sold it, from when they first figured it out, on the basis that "this stuff will kill you: don't say you weren't warned that a little pleasure now will be paid for with a lot of pain later" they'd have been watertight
No, they would not have been watertight. Name another product that you could introduce from day one with a warning label that says, "Normal use of this product will result in a significantly increased risk of lung cancer." It's sale would not be allowed. And lawsuits would ensue if it were sold.
Don't underestimate the litigious nature of our culture. Beer, if it were introduced as new today, would not make it to market.
xerox created it, mac stole and implemented it first, and M$FT brought it to the masses
The Xerox system that the early Mac team saw bears little resemblance to what we think of as a modern GUI. For better or worse, the creation of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, represents the single most influential event in GUI history. Microsoft implemented poorly what Apple had created, then brought it to the masses.
The idea of a GUI is obvious, but gods live in details, and that is where Windows and the MacOS differ. What's needed now is close study and revision of the "laws" of a successful GUI.
Did anyone else notice the poor quality of the BBC page? I'm not expecting a midi file to play as I browse, but just wedging images in with the text is kind of silly. Or are all/. links going through dejavu.org now?
From the article: they can impose fines on their revenue of up to 10%, though the article goes on to say that fines rarely exceed 1%. I'm assuming they mean reevune from EU countries.
More importantly, cracker can be, but is not always, a subset of hacker.
A cracker can be a script kiddie who knows nothing, or he can be a creative person who uses his skills, knowledge and intuition to gain illicit security access, Rather than a crufty old UNIX hacker, who uses his skills knowledge and intuition to keep a mail server running.
The only thing the press gets correct is the byline, and even then...
As a Principal Lotus Notes Certified Developer (R4 & R5) I can unequivocally state that Notes blows as a mail client. It should be the basic messaging system for any company that plans to make use of Notes applications, but as a stand-alone client, it is the worst possible choice. Whatever security holes it has are minor compared to Outlook, but I would chose a well-configured Outlook over client only Notes. This does not change the fact that Notes and Domino can do wonderful things.
This is a good idea, but I think an easier solution would be for authors to take ownership of their work. Editing is a lot more than just finding typos.
Thank you. I couldn't agree more. Publishers have a lot of faults, but they aren't market leeches. They provide valuable services and take legitimate risks.
Editing any book is a huge task. As I mentioned in another post, take a look at self-published, unedited works on the internet, and you'll realize how hard this can be.
King has an editor for this book. Side note: he needs much more aggressive editors for anything he produces.
I speak from experience when I say that it's not easy to step out of the standard publishing industry. It's also not easy to step into.
King can be successful with this method, but I don't think it's viable for your average author. I also don't think the SPP is viable.
But for most writers and readers, the biggest problem for non-standard publishing is the lack of an editor. Take Katz for example. Not to pick on him, but if anyone remembers his early articles, they were ripe with typos and inaccuracies. My novel is published at www.xlibris.com, and if you look through the excerpts from other writers, you'll notice the same trend. Writers are notoriously bad at editing their own work. Most wouldn't even know where to begin.
King can afford his own editor. Jim Munroe self-published his second novel. Check it out at www.nomediakings.com He is good enough to edit his own work, and the result is an excellent novel.
Most readers will be profoundly disappointed by the quality of a raw novel.
But Disney's movies are all a financial success. And part of the reason for this is that they all share a high production quality. They look expensive. This is what I mean. There is no place for a low-budget, great script, innovative animation.
But the American market for adult animation is also almost non-existent. Since Bakshi disappeared, no one has made any real effort in this direction. We get movies targeted at teens or children, never any higher.
And if Fox makes four flops and one success, then eventually they'll have to declare animation as dead. The problem is not now, and never will be, animation itself. The problem is in the movies, not in the genre.
Don Bluth: "Computer-generated animation, it's the flavor of the month"
How wrong can one person be? CGI is no more the flavor of the month, than sound or color. It has changed the movie industry as a whole and revolutionized animation.
That said. There's no reason that traditional animation studios can't succeed. Disney does it. I didn't see Titan A.E., so I can't comment, but Quest for Camelot and Anna and the King were awful. QfC had a mid-grade Saturday morning quality to it. My daughter, who can sit through just about any movie, walked out on this one after 30 minutes.
No one in the industry really knows why some movies do great and others fail. The secret starts with a good script, and add quality on top of that. With animation, though, it has to look expensive, and most of the time that means it has to be expensive. There isn't much room for dog crap cartoons. Disney has set the bar too high.
Chris Carter said Patrick's character, FBI agent John Doggett, will be the virtual mirror opposite of Duchovny's alien-hunting, conspiracy-loving Fox Mulder.
Of course he will be Mulder's opposite. Every character introduced starts out as Mulder's opposite. Scully was the skeptic. Kraicheck (sp? sorry) was the perfect FBI man, right down to the boring, wide-striped ties. I wonder what Doggett will become.
Variety is the MacOS Rumors of the entertainment business. I personally won't believe this until I see it in USA Today. Bruce Campbell will be the one!
Mindstorms (at least the advanced set) will let you build fully-functional robots. In the long run, it may be a "dead end" in the sense that you're at least somewhat limited by what Lego provides, but look into what other people are doing with it. I think you'll find this will give you a good start.
After you have a feel for the macro engineering challenges, you can roll your own from brillo pads TI90 calculators if you still want to. No sense taking the MacGuyver route when there are viable alternatives that will get you farther down the road faster.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, email me and I'll send you the whole thing. I'm a cheap ho.
Anyone? Anyone?
That said, I had some problems with the article.
First, the article states that WAP is targeted at premium users, but WAP access is really cheap. At least where I am. Verizon (c.f. worst possible choice) gives me WAP access for 4.95 / month additional to my normal rate and the phone only cost $30. Now I did have to sign the next 12 months of my life away, but that's Verizon for you.
Second, i_Mode's packet switching, always on, may be wonderful, but the best part of WAP is it works with existing networks. Verizon did not upgrade their network, they just added WAP servers. Much more attractive on a price level - for both consumer and provider.
Third, WAP is designed for low bandwidth cell phone use, but there's no reason why it can't scale to greater bandwidth or processing power. It has limits, but they haven't been reached.
That said, don't let this post sound like an endorsement of WAP or (good, God!) Verizon. The WAP consortium, or whatever, has developed a proprietary and abusive standards process and Verizon only occasionally gets my bill correct, not to mention the www.myvzw.com site blows chunks. WML isn't pretty and the implementations are worse. But it's here now and it's cheap.
That's why the web exploded in the first place. No one thought Netscrape was great, but it worked. No one thought dialup (or AOL) was great, but it worked, and people used it. Then better faster, cheaper solutions came along. The same will happen with wireless web.
You're totally wrong.
How will mobile services impact "the entire WWW"? What does censorship have to do with it?
The article mentions that some providers limit what users can access. Not all do. If you are in the market for a WAP phone, ask the provider. If they say, "Yes, you will only be able to access the sites we have bookmarked for you," take your money elsewhere. They are in the business of making money, and money doesn't grow on trees, it comes from your pocket.
they don't go wrong
they only have 4 - 5 lines of text display
they're slow
they have little (or no) user accessible storage space
Though I agree that cell phones are pdas are the future, it's not a future that mutually exclusive of "desktop computing as we know it."
This guy I know, went to Vegas, and met this really hot babe. He takes her back to his room, thinking he's going to get lucky, but she slips a drug in his drink. The next morning he wakes up in a bathrub filled with ice. He feels like shit and his neck hurts. Then he notices a sign on his chest that says, "Don't call 911. You're fine." He doesn't, and just goes home. He didn't know it, but his wife had paid someone to implant a chip in his neck, and now she tracks his every move.
Wait, if anyone still in the gene pool thinks that journalists and politicians are outside the marketplace, please remove yourself from the swimming area now.
ZDOC never did much for me as far as Palm Doc readers goes. Though it has the worst name of any software ever released, CSpotRun is a high quality Doc reader that has been released under the GPL.
Your point is well made, but I still disagree.
If they sell malathion as an insecticide and include directions for appropraite safe use, as well as warnings against unsafe use (such as drinking) then they are watertight against liability. But if they market malathion as mouthwash, no warning label can help. The difference: use of the product as the manufacturer intended will cause harm. The only way tobacco companies could get out of this, is if they claimed cigarettes were only meant for decoration and not for smoking.
All this said, I think the attacks on tobacco companies are silly. Make it illegal or legal. Americans want it both ways. Legal to poison ouselves, but retaining the right to a big wad of cash when we're sick.
No, they would not have been watertight. Name another product that you could introduce from day one with a warning label that says, "Normal use of this product will result in a significantly increased risk of lung cancer." It's sale would not be allowed. And lawsuits would ensue if it were sold.
Don't underestimate the litigious nature of our culture. Beer, if it were introduced as new today, would not make it to market.
I feel much better now. I was about to move to Europe and make a killing with an old pirated copy of FrontPage and some clip art floppies.
The Xerox system that the early Mac team saw bears little resemblance to what we think of as a modern GUI. For better or worse, the creation of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, represents the single most influential event in GUI history. Microsoft implemented poorly what Apple had created, then brought it to the masses.
The idea of a GUI is obvious, but gods live in details, and that is where Windows and the MacOS differ. What's needed now is close study and revision of the "laws" of a successful GUI.
Look at Palm. Brilliant GUI in 160x160 pixels.
Did anyone else notice the poor quality of the BBC page? I'm not expecting a midi file to play as I browse, but just wedging images in with the text is kind of silly. Or are all /. links going through dejavu.org now?
From the article: they can impose fines on their revenue of up to 10%, though the article goes on to say that fines rarely exceed 1%. I'm assuming they mean reevune from EU countries.
A cracker can be a script kiddie who knows nothing, or he can be a creative person who uses his skills, knowledge and intuition to gain illicit security access, Rather than a crufty old UNIX hacker, who uses his skills knowledge and intuition to keep a mail server running.
The only thing the press gets correct is the byline, and even then...
As a Principal Lotus Notes Certified Developer (R4 & R5) I can unequivocally state that Notes blows as a mail client. It should be the basic messaging system for any company that plans to make use of Notes applications, but as a stand-alone client, it is the worst possible choice. Whatever security holes it has are minor compared to Outlook, but I would chose a well-configured Outlook over client only Notes. This does not change the fact that Notes and Domino can do wonderful things.
This is a good idea, but I think an easier solution would be for authors to take ownership of their work. Editing is a lot more than just finding typos.
Editing any book is a huge task. As I mentioned in another post, take a look at self-published, unedited works on the internet, and you'll realize how hard this can be.
King has an editor for this book. Side note: he needs much more aggressive editors for anything he produces.
I speak from experience when I say that it's not easy to step out of the standard publishing industry. It's also not easy to step into.
King can be successful with this method, but I don't think it's viable for your average author. I also don't think the SPP is viable.
But for most writers and readers, the biggest problem for non-standard publishing is the lack of an editor. Take Katz for example. Not to pick on him, but if anyone remembers his early articles, they were ripe with typos and inaccuracies. My novel is published at www.xlibris.com, and if you look through the excerpts from other writers, you'll notice the same trend. Writers are notoriously bad at editing their own work. Most wouldn't even know where to begin.
King can afford his own editor. Jim Munroe self-published his second novel. Check it out at www.nomediakings.com He is good enough to edit his own work, and the result is an excellent novel.
Most readers will be profoundly disappointed by the quality of a raw novel.
But the American market for adult animation is also almost non-existent. Since Bakshi disappeared, no one has made any real effort in this direction. We get movies targeted at teens or children, never any higher.
And if Fox makes four flops and one success, then eventually they'll have to declare animation as dead. The problem is not now, and never will be, animation itself. The problem is in the movies, not in the genre.
You're right. I meant, The King and I.
How wrong can one person be? CGI is no more the flavor of the month, than sound or color. It has changed the movie industry as a whole and revolutionized animation.
That said. There's no reason that traditional animation studios can't succeed. Disney does it. I didn't see Titan A.E., so I can't comment, but Quest for Camelot and Anna and the King were awful. QfC had a mid-grade Saturday morning quality to it. My daughter, who can sit through just about any movie, walked out on this one after 30 minutes.
No one in the industry really knows why some movies do great and others fail. The secret starts with a good script, and add quality on top of that. With animation, though, it has to look expensive, and most of the time that means it has to be expensive. There isn't much room for dog crap cartoons. Disney has set the bar too high.
Of course he will be Mulder's opposite. Every character introduced starts out as Mulder's opposite. Scully was the skeptic. Kraicheck (sp? sorry) was the perfect FBI man, right down to the boring, wide-striped ties. I wonder what Doggett will become.
Variety is the MacOS Rumors of the entertainment business. I personally won't believe this until I see it in USA Today. Bruce Campbell will be the one!
This is so wrong.
Mindstorms (at least the advanced set) will let you build fully-functional robots. In the long run, it may be a "dead end" in the sense that you're at least somewhat limited by what Lego provides, but look into what other people are doing with it. I think you'll find this will give you a good start.
After you have a feel for the macro engineering challenges, you can roll your own from brillo pads TI90 calculators if you still want to. No sense taking the MacGuyver route when there are viable alternatives that will get you farther down the road faster.