There is something to be said about being an intellectual among a bunch of people who actually care about what happened on "Dancing with the Stars" last night, though. If you don't have anything in common to discuss, you won't make friends with someone very easily.
Then again it's also about if you actually try.
My wife and I have ridiculously differing tastes in entertainment. I used to categorically shun away from "reality TV crap", but these days we watch a lot of shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race together. It's not far fetched to discuss strategic and social engineering techniques in regards to Survivor, or cultural clash implications and teamwork strategies in The Amazing Race.
I could easily live without those shows, but with a little effort we have something common to talk about. I find myself looking forward to the evenings I know we're actually going to relax together on the couch, instead of just running the household and happening to spend time in the same apartment.
That being said, I'd probably die inside pretty quick if forced to watch Big Brother.
Our Wii sees the most action with games that entertain the largest possible number of people. I think a lot of people have bought the Wii due to a lot of great games to play in groups. The same people are unlikely to buy games that focus on a single- or two player experience.
I'm probably going to get House of the Dead: Maximum Overkill at some time. But I have a lot less time to game for myself compare to the time I can put into trying to beat my brother-in-law in (pick your favorite) in Wii Sports Resort, playing Mario Kart with the kids, or rediscovering social adventure gaming (everyone on the couch tries to solve the puzzles) with Monkey Island.
The Wii has a huge adult audience, but for a game to be successful it has to be more than just rated for adults. Most adult rated games forget that the key thing that made the Wii a success was not motion controlled stuff, it was social gaming. Factor in that a lot of Wiis get much of their use by women as well as men, and you have to design for a whole new target group.
I'm sure there is a future for mature games on the Wii, but traditional mature games aimed at the solo-gaming male? Much more limited...
Back in 1996 Neal Stephenson wrote a really excellent article, "Mother Earth Mother Board" in Wired. If you're curious about what it actually takes to wire the world it's a really excellent read.
I use Spotify, and especially the radio feature to find new music.Spotify's radio can be narrowed on genre and time, so I can set it on techno & house from the current decade to find new elecronic stuff.
As interesting stuff comes along I just add it to one of my playlists or make a note of the artist. When crap comes along I press 'next'.;)
I have more than one sound card... It's overkill to route youtube videos though my whole home studio setup. Integrated sound + headphones suffice for that.
I upgraded a week or so back, seems solid so far. PulseAudio seems to be properly configured now, haven't had weird audio routing issues yet at least...
Boot is supposed to be faster, haven't clocked it so I'm not sure it actually is. But then again my desktop has been through several dist upgrades already.
But if you have an ICE1712 / Envy24 (M-Audio Delta) based pro sound card stay away, it's currently broken. Fortunately I boot to windows for my music making needs...;)
Living in an area with trolleys, they have two main disadvantages: 1. Route changes are a PITA, traffic can be a mess in Helsinki for ages when they lay the tracks. 2. It only takes a single broke down car to mess things up. I trolley can't simply use the other lane to get around an obstacle.
The whole supercapacitor bus thing would work great in Helsinki, IMHO, since they already have trolley electrical infrastructure here.
I have to reply. I've been using Linux Audio for years making music. I rarely have to do any setup even after a system upgrade. If you use Jack and applications that support it - of which there are many, it's stable as a rock.
I'm going to quote myself here:
While it's totally doable to set up a working environment in Linux if you know what you want and which apps you want
I'm guessing you're all set up in that sense. I never said it's not possible, I just said I'd rather invest my free time in using working apps on Windows than finding out which apps I can get to work on Linux.
Care to make recommendations, by the way? I'm looking for something self contaied, similar to Propellerhead's Reason or Jeskola Buzz.
The largest problem with Linux audio is not really any particular driver model / sound server. OSS, ALSA, PulseAudio and Jack all work when set up properly, with supporting hardware, and supporting software. But it's never a given that a particular app will support whatever you're using, or give you the choice to select your output device if you have multiple sound cards.
I've been running Ubuntu for a long time now, and recently installed Windows as a dual boot for making music. Why? I can spend X hours on setting stuff up, or I can spend X hours on making music. I can simply count on any app that matters supporting ASIO or DirectSound on Windows.
While I actively try to convert people to Ubuntu for regular desktop apps I still tell people who plan to do audio/video stuff to go for Windows/OS X. While it's totally doable to set up a working environment in Linux if you know what you want and which apps you want, I like to play with stuff for fun. I'd rather invest my time in having fun creating content than trying to get stuff to work.
(And yes, I've tried Ubuntu Studio. Nice, but not there yet for me.)
Being male in today's world is not always easy. Being a fairly virile person myself I've always felt males get very mixed messages when many women tend to dress very sexily at work, and yet it's more or less forbidden to mention it.
Most people can joke about this stuff and most women will take a compliment like "nice top" like to compliment it is. But there are always the select few women who will feel 'violated' because of something like that, just as there are the select few men who abuse women by uninvited slaps on the rear and equivalent things.
I wish people could just accept that we're all just human, and if everyone just worked on getting along instead of freaking out on pointless issues we'd all be better off and have more resources to attack real issues.
But it's nice to see that there are more sensible women out there than just the one I was crazy enough to marry.:)
But generally speaking it seems like the devices just aren't quite there yet. I'm betting it's a few generations until we get to the really good stuff.
Early "smartphones" sucked too, and these days they are genuinely useful.:)
A sidenote on the Kindle: Available in Finland: Yes. Books available in Finnish: No. Same goes for 3G wireless... If the local press is to be believed anyway. I'm going for a more open device, thank you very much...
In Finland reading someone else's mail, of electronic or snail variety, is illegal. What about other legislations? This sounds like something that would be taken rather seriously here.
(Actually, due to how seriously this is taken a recent law has (unfortunately) been put in place, to explicitly allow employers to read employees' work mail. Google "lex Nokia" for more info.)
Hell, if I were single and had the opportunity this would be a really interesting experience.
I am sure that a lot of married people would be interested as well to get away for 8 months.
If you feel like you want to be away (without keeping in touch) from your wife and/or family for 8 months a divorce would be the logical option. Most people in a reasonably well functioning relationship and/or family would not like the idea of spending 8 months away from their spouse and/or children.
Then again, my kids are still rather small (3 and 5), so missing 8 months would be huge. I suspect the situation would be much different for teenagers, who can use email and stuff.:)
Whoever thinks this should be tagged waste of time is just silly. Hell, if I were single and had the opportunity this would be a really interesting experience. If the media attention helps to remind people even a little of the fragility of the ecological balance on the planet all the better, and surely not a waste of time.
(Disclaimer: I don't believe that an "ecological balance" equals no changes, but we can't honestly claim not to be raping the planet in several aspects at the moment. IMHO anyway...)
Here in Finland people talk mostly about the "ten-finger-system", which is more of what I was referring to. The term touch typing is not really used here.
Basically I'd like to learn a way that would strain my hands as little as possible. I'm not trying to keep my hands static, but I'd like to use all ten fingers to even out the load. Also I'd like to keep from doing combos like Ctrl+C with one hand and use two to avoid putting my wrist in a weird and uncomfortable position,
Having a non-US keyboard while programming is an issue too, but I need it for natural language. { [ ] } all have to be done with the dreaded Alt Gr key, which is only on the right side of the keyboard. I mapped Caps Lock to Alt Gr for a while, but never learned to use it properly.
But to reiterate, having learned a proper sensible technique from a start would have been nice.
I've been working with computers over ten years now, and playing with them since elementary school. I'm a programmer by trade, and I don't touch type.
Sure, I don't at the keyboard, but my typing technique could be way better. I'm using two-three fingers per hand, plus thumbs.
I've been trying to use the exellent Klavaro ( http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/ ) to improve my skill, there has been some progress but nothing huge. I can't be bothered quite enough.
I for one would have been grateful to have been force-fed the basics all those years back. I'm not saying it's the only option, I type fairly fast, but it's hard to unlearn all that muscle memory and use all fingers even if I'd want to.
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There is something to be said about being an intellectual among a bunch of people who actually care about what happened on "Dancing with the Stars" last night, though. If you don't have anything in common to discuss, you won't make friends with someone very easily.
Then again it's also about if you actually try.
My wife and I have ridiculously differing tastes in entertainment. I used to categorically shun away from "reality TV crap", but these days we watch a lot of shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race together. It's not far fetched to discuss strategic and social engineering techniques in regards to Survivor, or cultural clash implications and teamwork strategies in The Amazing Race.
I could easily live without those shows, but with a little effort we have something common to talk about. I find myself looking forward to the evenings I know we're actually going to relax together on the couch, instead of just running the household and happening to spend time in the same apartment.
That being said, I'd probably die inside pretty quick if forced to watch Big Brother.
Our Wii sees the most action with games that entertain the largest possible number of people. I think a lot of people have bought the Wii due to a lot of great games to play in groups. The same people are unlikely to buy games that focus on a single- or two player experience.
I'm probably going to get House of the Dead: Maximum Overkill at some time. But I have a lot less time to game for myself compare to the time I can put into trying to beat my brother-in-law in (pick your favorite) in Wii Sports Resort, playing Mario Kart with the kids, or rediscovering social adventure gaming (everyone on the couch tries to solve the puzzles) with Monkey Island.
The Wii has a huge adult audience, but for a game to be successful it has to be more than just rated for adults. Most adult rated games forget that the key thing that made the Wii a success was not motion controlled stuff, it was social gaming. Factor in that a lot of Wiis get much of their use by women as well as men, and you have to design for a whole new target group.
I'm sure there is a future for mature games on the Wii, but traditional mature games aimed at the solo-gaming male? Much more limited...
No, but the writing really is so good it's worth reading.
Whoever said it had to be done in one sitting? ;)
Back in 1996 Neal Stephenson wrote a really excellent article, "Mother Earth Mother Board" in Wired. If you're curious about what it actually takes to wire the world it's a really excellent read.
Paged:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
Single-page:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html
I use Spotify, and especially the radio feature to find new music.Spotify's radio can be narrowed on genre and time, so I can set it on techno & house from the current decade to find new elecronic stuff.
As interesting stuff comes along I just add it to one of my playlists or make a note of the artist. When crap comes along I press 'next'. ;)
I have more than one sound card... It's overkill to route youtube videos though my whole home studio setup. Integrated sound + headphones suffice for that.
Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress warmly recommended to spark your imagination.
I upgraded a week or so back, seems solid so far. PulseAudio seems to be properly configured now, haven't had weird audio routing issues yet at least...
Boot is supposed to be faster, haven't clocked it so I'm not sure it actually is. But then again my desktop has been through several dist upgrades already.
But if you have an ICE1712 / Envy24 (M-Audio Delta) based pro sound card stay away, it's currently broken. Fortunately I boot to windows for my music making needs... ;)
A server is not a physical manifestation. It's the services it provides that matter.
Living in an area with trolleys, they have two main disadvantages:
1. Route changes are a PITA, traffic can be a mess in Helsinki for ages when they lay the tracks.
2. It only takes a single broke down car to mess things up. I trolley can't simply use the other lane to get around an obstacle.
The whole supercapacitor bus thing would work great in Helsinki, IMHO, since they already have trolley electrical infrastructure here.
I have to reply. I've been using Linux Audio for years making music. I rarely have to do any setup even after a system upgrade. If you use Jack and applications that support it - of which there are many, it's stable as a rock.
I'm going to quote myself here:
While it's totally doable to set up a working environment in Linux if you know what you want and which apps you want
I'm guessing you're all set up in that sense. I never said it's not possible, I just said I'd rather invest my free time in using working apps on Windows than finding out which apps I can get to work on Linux.
Care to make recommendations, by the way? I'm looking for something self contaied, similar to Propellerhead's Reason or Jeskola Buzz.
The largest problem with Linux audio is not really any particular driver model / sound server. OSS, ALSA, PulseAudio and Jack all work when set up properly, with supporting hardware, and supporting software. But it's never a given that a particular app will support whatever you're using, or give you the choice to select your output device if you have multiple sound cards.
I've been running Ubuntu for a long time now, and recently installed Windows as a dual boot for making music. Why? I can spend X hours on setting stuff up, or I can spend X hours on making music. I can simply count on any app that matters supporting ASIO or DirectSound on Windows.
While I actively try to convert people to Ubuntu for regular desktop apps I still tell people who plan to do audio/video stuff to go for Windows/OS X. While it's totally doable to set up a working environment in Linux if you know what you want and which apps you want, I like to play with stuff for fun. I'd rather invest my time in having fun creating content than trying to get stuff to work.
(And yes, I've tried Ubuntu Studio. Nice, but not there yet for me.)
Thanks for being sensible. :)
Being male in today's world is not always easy. Being a fairly virile person myself I've always felt males get very mixed messages when many women tend to dress very sexily at work, and yet it's more or less forbidden to mention it.
Most people can joke about this stuff and most women will take a compliment like "nice top" like to compliment it is. But there are always the select few women who will feel 'violated' because of something like that, just as there are the select few men who abuse women by uninvited slaps on the rear and equivalent things.
I wish people could just accept that we're all just human, and if everyone just worked on getting along instead of freaking out on pointless issues we'd all be better off and have more resources to attack real issues.
But it's nice to see that there are more sensible women out there than just the one I was crazy enough to marry. :)
The IREX Digital Reader is likely the closest thing right now:
http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000
But generally speaking it seems like the devices just aren't quite there yet. I'm betting it's a few generations until we get to the really good stuff.
Early "smartphones" sucked too, and these days they are genuinely useful. :)
Also check out the E-book Reader Matrix, seems to be updated fairly often:
http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix
A sidenote on the Kindle: Available in Finland: Yes. Books available in Finnish: No. Same goes for 3G wireless... If the local press is to be believed anyway. I'm going for a more open device, thank you very much...
The movies are awful, the book is beautiful.
Living in a country where you can't sue people for amounts like forty million dollars for Facebook postings sounds, well, friggin ridiculous.
I wonder how much just keeping the legal system running and churning through all these cases costs in tax dollars for a US citizen...
If I'm reading TFA correctly this is more of an antenna an less of a full communication device. But very interesting none the less.
It would very nice to have a jacket that your phone could plug into for extended range, for example.
Say what you want about Microsoft, but their research division does a hell of a lot of genuine innovation.
This is an important problem area for future software systems, great that alternative approaches are being looked at. More power to them.
In Finland reading someone else's mail, of electronic or snail variety, is illegal. What about other legislations? This sounds like something that would be taken rather seriously here.
(Actually, due to how seriously this is taken a recent law has (unfortunately) been put in place, to explicitly allow employers to read employees' work mail. Google "lex Nokia" for more info.)
My apartment complex has electricity included. Why spend more than cheap $.40 bulbs?
Because some people actually care about the environment, not to mention making an effort not to fuck up the planet for future generations.
I am sure that a lot of married people would be interested as well to get away for 8 months.
If you feel like you want to be away (without keeping in touch) from your wife and/or family for 8 months a divorce would be the logical option. Most people in a reasonably well functioning relationship and/or family would not like the idea of spending 8 months away from their spouse and/or children.
Then again, my kids are still rather small (3 and 5), so missing 8 months would be huge. I suspect the situation would be much different for teenagers, who can use email and stuff. :)
Whoever thinks this should be tagged waste of time is just silly. Hell, if I were single and had the opportunity this would be a really interesting experience. If the media attention helps to remind people even a little of the fragility of the ecological balance on the planet all the better, and surely not a waste of time.
(Disclaimer: I don't believe that an "ecological balance" equals no changes, but we can't honestly claim not to be raping the planet in several aspects at the moment. IMHO anyway...)
s/don't at/don't look at/
Whoops. :)
A little clarification:
Here in Finland people talk mostly about the "ten-finger-system", which is more of what I was referring to. The term touch typing is not really used here.
Basically I'd like to learn a way that would strain my hands as little as possible. I'm not trying to keep my hands static, but I'd like to use all ten fingers to even out the load. Also I'd like to keep from doing combos like Ctrl+C with one hand and use two to avoid putting my wrist in a weird and uncomfortable position,
Having a non-US keyboard while programming is an issue too, but I need it for natural language. { [ ] } all have to be done with the dreaded Alt Gr key, which is only on the right side of the keyboard. I mapped Caps Lock to Alt Gr for a while, but never learned to use it properly.
But to reiterate, having learned a proper sensible technique from a start would have been nice.
I've been working with computers over ten years now, and playing with them since elementary school. I'm a programmer by trade, and I don't touch type.
Sure, I don't at the keyboard, but my typing technique could be way better. I'm using two-three fingers per hand, plus thumbs.
I've been trying to use the exellent Klavaro ( http://klavaro.sourceforge.net/ ) to improve my skill, there has been some progress but nothing huge. I can't be bothered quite enough.
I for one would have been grateful to have been force-fed the basics all those years back. I'm not saying it's the only option, I type fairly fast, but it's hard to unlearn all that muscle memory and use all fingers even if I'd want to.