To go along with this, one key point : "Yes, it really is just ones and zeroes"
I think that a lot of people have conceptual issues when trying to accept that it is all just information. People I know are completely floored when they learn that they can do the same things to any JPEG. Whether they downloaded it from a web page on the internet, or scanned it, or got it in an email, or shot it on a digicam, etc. They are somehow convinced that the computer thinks it is something completely different, depending on where it came from. My friend recently got a scanner after having the photo developer give him a CD of JPEG's. He was convinced that emailing the JPEG's from his scanner would be a completely different process than emailing JPEG's from a CD.
Once you can convince people how simple it really is, how stupid the computer really is, how all the information is in a file, and all the files are just information, then you have come a *loooong* way in improving their ability to interact with the computer.
My dad seems basically unable to really grasp this. It comes up in sort of odd places, and catches me compoletely off guard in conversations. It really doesn't occur to me to make a distinction between a video file I captured from my TV card, or downloaded, or rendered, etc. The fact that I can use the same video player utility to play BBC programs as I use for ones I recorded here in Colorado is stunning to him. It just sort of won't fully integrate in his mind.
Everytime there is a post about India, some know-nothing decides to chime in with just such a comment. First off, there will always be a problem somwehere. So, if you insist that progress is only allowed to occur after all old problems are dealt with, nothing will ever be accomplished. Second, what the hell makes you so qualified to comment? You were posting on Slashdot when you could have been helping backwoods Indian villagers! (And, so am I!) You express a concern about it, so I'll assume you do volunteer work, and donate just like I do. But, neither of us dedicates 100% of our time and money to helping others. Nobody does. So, no government does for the exact same reason - governments are made of people!
Lastly, India uses the space program to do a lot of very real good. Weather satellites save lives. Earth observation satellites can help see how crops are doing, and make it easier to get better yields. They can help find where water is, and help make maps to figure out how to get it where it needs to go.
The "standard" set of Japanese Kanji, as taught in schools, is around 1200 (depending on which version of the various standards you're using). This is usually referred to as the Toyo Kanji or the more modern Joyo Kanji ("Everyday Chinese characters"). Everybody knows these inside-out (with the possible exception of those educated around wartime, who may have had limited access to schooling).
Well, whenever kanji comes up, there is always an argument about how many are needed in day to day life, but my grandparent post did say that 500 kanji was sort of the minimum to be considered literate. That's not enough to be considered educated, highly-educated, or a classical literature specialist. But, knowing about 500 kanji generally means that you are familiar enough with the kanji to be able to use a kanji dictionary, and be reasonably functional for some stuff.
Sort of like Cletus on the Simpsons. He isn't well educated, but he has enough command of the alphabet to be considered minimally literate.
Many of us *don't* consider something like RSA to be patentable. It's an algoritm, basically just like using a**2 + b**2 = c**2 to calculate the proper length of a diagonal when building a house. Most people would scoff at the idea of patenting the pythagorean theorem, and making home builders everywhere pay a royalty to some random guy who patented it.
For some reason, people are more willing to accept a patent on an encryption algoritm. But, it is basically the exact same thing. Some math, and a description of what to do with it. That's all an algorithm is. Patenting math is non-sensical to a reasonable person. It has been possible to invent and publish new math for years without the benefit of patent protection. So, the notion that patent protection is somehow a prerequisite for the advancement is utter poppycock.
Personally, I have no problem with patents on things. But, algorithms patents should be abolished completely. When you start trying to figure out where to draw the line between pythagoras and RSA, you realise that you should just put the pen away.
Oh, he meant "site." Otherwise, blind people wouldn't be allowed to go around shooting everybody they thought didn't understand all the fine points of monopoly law. Requiring sight is badly discriminatory. As long as you open it up to anybody who can shoot somebody before they leave, you should be legally clear.
So, the only way to make money out of maths (in france) is either to teach it or to research in an university. Either way, you are a salary man.
If I ever get around to making the animation studio of my dreams, I'll have a staff mathematician, but I probably wouldn't need a freelancer. I imagine there are a lot of things like that. A company wants to have the services of a mathematician, but it's only worth it if he is right down the hall. If you have to find a freelancer, and arrange a meeting, you probably wind up waiting so long that a non-mathematician could have figured out a reasonable solution before ever seeing a freelancer.
That said, I think you may be able to pull it off. You need to do a ton of self promotion, but you might be able to sell your services effectively. Do analysis on whether or not the last ad campaign was effective, or projected cost growth. Sort of a consultant that deals peripherally with accounting, marketing, all sorts of stuff to help companies get a concrete handle on things, with an unbiased mathematical view. You have to create the job, rather than just looking for existing postings.
Actually, I agree with you - I just didn't want to bother to code proper undelines, or fake links or something, so I figured that one-word links would be clearest for the lazy-underscore method of pretend-underlining.:)
Because a lot of users (myself included) will refuse to follow any link in a Roland submission. The readers *won't* enjoy the links that they refuse to follow. That's what they are telling you. People are taking the time to log in, and post comments about how much they don't enjoy the link. If Roland always gave a link to relevant information, almost nobody would bitch. Instead, he links to his crappy blog. You keep asking, "what if the link is good?" But, you 500,000 closest friends are all screaming that These Are Not Good Links!
I think there should probably be submitter karma, and maybe target website karma, which the mods can have their way with. So, if a user is sharing relevant information, he will have high submitter karma, and nobody will care if he posts lots of links. He'll have an incentive to submite good, relevant articles, with good primary sources and additional links to commentary. He'll have a disincentive to post links to Roland's blog.
When an editor is looking at submissions, he can consider the poster's karma, and potentially the aggregate karma of the linked websites. (So, Roland's blog would wind up giving the submission bad aggregate mojo, regardless of who submits it!). And, yes, if there is really interesting stuff, and a story that needs to go out, the editor would be perfectly justified in reforming it to something like:
I thought you might all like to know that cold fusion is now a practical reality, according to _this_ Nature article. _This_ is the original paper on the subject. And, _here_ is some commentary by a relevant scientist on the matter. (This came to my attention when slashdot user _somebody_ submitted a link to his personal _blog_)
from:
_somebody_ writes: OMG, Cold Fusion is Teh Reeeal now! It completely practical, come visit _this unspecified website_ for all the details!!!
By editing it, you can leave in attribution to the submitter, and keep his link to his personal blog, but you *declare* that it's a personal blog, and also include the actual relevant links. If Roland's articles were reformatter in this way, I'd have less problem with them. And, it would still allow for the cottage industry of ad-supported personal slash-blogs with additiona commentary on articles.
Editing the submissions isn't wrong if you do it fairly. I think most of your readers (especially subscribers!) will say that not-editing is wrong. Otherwise, just make it a wiki, and let any bozo have his way with the front page, we can all go elsewhere.
See, this is one way in which Apple decided to think different. When a MAc detected that the user was getting too calm and trusting of the computing environment (by not saving often enough, etc.,) the computer would show a bomb icon, reminding the user that something could explode at any time. This constant state of fear (of fiery hellish inferno doom) is why people accomplish more work on a mac. (may also have something to do with no games being available).
I used to think DVD was acceptable, until I bought my 50" Plasma and saw "real" HD source material (and no, not everything that they claim is HD is really HD). You don't realize how much DVDs suck until you see them on a good monitor.
Phew! All I need to do is not spend thousands of dollars on a 50" TV, and I'll be able to continue thinking that DVD is adequate. I'll be sure to avoid the mistake of getting a decent TV... Which actually won't be that hard, because I wasn't planning on getting one.
If there is a $499 dual core mini, I'll buy it in a heart beat. But, I think you are way off on that one. I just can't see dual-core at that price point. They'll leave dual-core in the Powerbooks, and higher-end desktop models. I peg dual core (if it gets released/announced this week at all!) to start at a minimum of $799, probably closer to $999.
Now, let's all hope to hell I'm wrong! A dual-core Mac Mini like device that will look good by my TV for $499 would be most welcome!
user - ls, HAL. HAL - you seem depressed. user - I just want to see what files are in this directory. HAL - Yes, but I'm programmed to respond to your moods. user - My mood doesn't matter right now... I have work to do. Please show me a directory listing. HAL - Now, you seem frustrated. Do you want to talk about it? user - No, god dammit, I just want to see what files are in this directory. ls, god dammit! HAL - I think you are angry. user - I KNOW I'm angry. That doesn't matter! HAL - Since you have become angry while working with me, your productivity is likely to be low. I'm going to turn off for a while, and you can take a cool-down break, so that you can work at peak efficiency. user - WE JUST DID THAT! HAL? HAL! Are you there? Fuck You!!!
etc... I mean, really, what good is it if a computer knows my emotional state? I tell it what to do, and I expect it to do what I say, not try to make me feel better. If the computer pops up extra help screens and shit because it can see I'm frustrated witha program, then that's just a random unpredictable interruption that prevents my learning how to use the program well. Either I've read the docs, and they suck, so helping me will be useless, or I'm somebody who doesn't read the docs, in which case helping me will be useless.
I know what you mean -- I've got about a half-terabyte on m main desktop now, and I *really* need to move that to a terabyte because I'm nearly stuffed to the gills.
This is mostly a myth. Virtually every physicist associated with the Manhattan Project came independently to the conclusion that a nuclear bomb would not ignite the atmosphere, based on what was known about the nuclear cross-sections of atmospheric atoms (which was a lot).
I've never read anything saying that the top physicists thought they would destroy the world. That said, there is a lot of room between, "I am convinced this will destroy the world," and "well, nobody has ever done this before, so I can't say I'm 100% sure that it *won't* destroy the world..." I think there were quite a few physicists who were somehwhere near the second. Up until the actual test, it was all theoretical. They had calculated what the yield was supposed to be, but they also knew that that was no experimental proof demonstrating how accurate their calculations were.
That's really not an absolute given. It just depends how much you can slow down the graphics cards. I can certainly imagine a static object in a VBO/Display List, with a really fancy pixel shader, rendered in high res, with anti-aliasing cranked up, needing very little CPU time, but bringing even this beast to run hard. It is a very narrow focus to have so much GPU power available relative to such modest CPU, but there are folks who could use exactly that. My first thought would be architectural vis people. Architecture walkthroughs are generally just static geometry, and you want it to look super dooper purty for the client while they walk through.
What, exactly takes 100mb about a background shown at 72ppi and 800x600?
GIMP tells me that's about 2mb.
The biggest issue that results in needing more space than your calculations would imply is the fact that you just picked numbers out of your ass with no basis in reality. First off, the 72ppi is non-sensical in this context, has no meaning, and doesn't effect the file size. Second, they have the backgrounds done in a much higher resolution than 800x600.
You see, they do the backgrounds as large pieces that they can zoom in on. This allows them to do things like a shot where they are walking along the road, with the road scrolling past. Background plates are also often many layers. This allows a simulated parallax effect while the scrolling is taking place. So, while an actual NTSC frame is only 720x486 maximum, there is no reason that the size of the background plates would be restricted to this resolution.
Even so, if I make a program for somebody, and I don't have any web space setup, the easiest way for me to get it to them is by email. Often, the little things I write for folks are 100k, so attachment size isn't an issue. If I zip it, gmail still checks inside. If I use a less common format like 7zip's native.7z, the person I'm sending the file to probably won't be able to open it.
So, I wind up with some annoying combination of zipping and renaming, and having to explain to the recipient how to go to extra steps get at the thing I wrote to (theoretically) save them time.
He didn't say it was hard to add attachments in general. He said it was hard to add an executable attachment, and it is. Frankly, it kind of pisses me off some time how many hoops it takes to send an exe.
Chiefly because we never get to start from scratch. We know that if we do anything radical, we'll break something. Maybe there is one person somewhere in the building who uses IM for a genuine business purpose, or something. It doesn't matter exactly what. If you make a big change, something that is percieved to be important will break. Everybody in the building will be upset at you because you were incompetant and broke it. Everybody else in the building does "real work," and IT is just supposed to stay invisible so broken stuff doesn't get in their way.
From their perspective, IT would have scrwed up big time. Maybe lost the company XXX dollars, or prevented the non-profit from helping so many people, whatever.
Obviously, it isn't IT's fault. IT explained up front what was going to happen. IT begged people to say if they were doing anything important with software they didn't know about. IT probably held a companywide training camp, where everybody signed a form saying they understood exactly what was going to happen. But, IT would still be blamed.
It isn't like this everywhere, but it islike this in a lot of places. No IT guy wants to get fired for doing something perfectly logical like that.
I agree that we need to cut back on a lot of fluff, but something like this is a valid research project. Later generations of this technology could basically turn into armored elemental suits from MechWarrior. That would be a very significant battlefield advantage, if the infantry could wear heavy armor sufficient to survive small arms or IED explosions. They could also carry heavier weapons, and more food which would mean less cost supplying them.
Does your Internet connection have the bandwidth to stream HD video in real time?
Mine has the bandwidth to download an hour's worth of HD to watch tomorrow night. Really, that's good enough for a lot of people. It's good enough for me. Many folks keep insisting that all people always want to watch what's on TV *right now.* Sure, there are some who consider that to be the number one feature. Others are completely fine with queuing up a bunch of downloads, and having a collection of other shows already downloaded and ready to watch. This is basically the exact same model as Tivo. As long as I can start watching *something* right now, and I can watch it from the beginning, on my schedule, without worrying about being interrupted because I can pause it... Well, for many people, that trumps the inconvenience of having to wait until tomorrow to watch "tonight's" program. Just watch yesterday's program and be at peace. I'm doing stuff tonight, so I'll probably start a download tonight when I get home, and I'll have it ready for me to watch tomorrow. No instant-real time streaming needed, and I'll be completely sated for my media fix. (I need to ind out what happens next in Bleach!)
When DIVX was crushed it felt like a giant victory. But DIVX only had one company behind it. This time the draconian DRM will have the entire tech industry behind it. And people won't be buying self-destructing media.
I think we're fucked.
If people actually stick with their DVD drives and let HD-DVD and BluRay both die on the vine, maybe some tech companies will do the right thing. But it's an extremely long shot.
I think that with the emerging trend of online distribution, media formats may start to become fairly uninteresting. My only interest in Blu Ray will be as a backup drive. I'll just have a PC plugged into my TV to play content, so I won't need a High-Def set top box media player of any sort. In a few years, we'll all have an iPodHD, or some equivalent to carry around our video.
Why do you dismiss Java as a non-starter? Certainly, the hype has died down, but it is also a fairly well-known, mature language with a massive standard library, and a ton of existing code available. I was never a fanboy, but I have used Java, and it really isn't terrible. I do think that it gets used in a lot of places where it shouldn't. As for the GUI issues -- you said it was a web app, right? How much of a Java GUI do you need? Even if you do need a GUI, I've always found Java GUI's quite easy to make, and reasonably fast. No, not as fast as writing straight native Win32. But, I use programs like azeurus without any issues, and it is fairly GUI intensive. That said, my first love for database backed web apps is always PHP. Personal preference. Some people will criticise it, but it works well enough for the stuff I've done with it.
[This is not a troll, it's a serious question from someone who's about to start a major db-driven web app.]
OK, everyone knows Java's a nonstarter these days. Ack, why did they kill it with Swing instead of a decent lightweight GUI (like wxWidgets or FLTK or something)? And they never got the memory usage under control.
But why Ruby and not python? What sort of errors is python prone to that ruby avoids? We have a bunch of python code here (scons and other stuff) and a bunch of older perl, and I'm reluctant to start a big web app in Yet Another Language. We all know python pretty well now. Is ruby going to be that much more maintainable? What about TurboGears for instance?
Also there seems to be a wider variety of libs available for python than ruby. And the python docs are very good. So I'm very interested to hear about the error-prone nature of large web-app development in python.
Rather than forbidding edits, I'd like to see a caste system for proofreaders. So, at the top of the page, it may say, "Content approved as good by BobJohnson123 (Level 10 Wikipedian)" Or, "Content not reviwed since last update by an Anonymous Editor. Click _Here_ to see previous versions."
Depending on how many errors are later found in atricles which have been reviwed by somebody, they will be "metamodded" up or down. Folks that prove they are genuine scholars can get bonuses to their Wikipedian rating. (I'm only level 9, but my paper on computation fluid dynamics gives me a +1 to programming articles!)
Just having a 4 player capability doesn't make it a great 4 player game. I wouldn't really consider putting Quake III arena up against Mario Party in this regard. That said, Worms was probably one of the best "gather round the console" games ever made for a group of friends to get together and have a great time. It was strategic, hilarious, social. It also looked fantastic. Because of the rather sbstract, cartoony style, it *still* doesn't look "old," at all, despite our new venture into the age of HD with the X Box 360. A lot of the games for Dreamcast do show their age, but Worms ain't one of them.
N64 still has the best selection of 4-player games hands-down.
I'm not very familiar with the N64, but I suppose Dreamcast may have a better 4-player lineup:
AeroWings ~ Armada ~ Boku No Tennis Jinsei (JP) ~ Bomberman Online ~ Caesars Palace 2000 ~ Championship Surfer ~ Chu Chu Rocket ~ Cool Herders ~ Dead or Alive 2 ~ ECW Anarchy Rulz ~ ECW Revolution ~ ESPN International Track and Field ~ ESPN NBA 2Night ~ Fur Fighters ~ Gauntlet Legends ~ Giga Wing 2 ~ Golf Shiyouyo (JP) ~ Golf Shiyouyo 2 (JP) ~ Inhabitants ~ Le Mans 24h ~ Looney Tunes Space Race ~ Magforce Racing ~ Marvel Vs Capcom ~ Maximum Pool ~ NBA 2k, 2k1, 2k2 ~ NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC ~ Net De Tennis (JP) ~ NFL 2k, 2k1, 2k2 ~ NFL Blitz (2000) ~ NFL Quarterback Club 2000 ~ NFL Quarterback Club 2001 ~ NHL 2k, 2k1, 2k2 ~ Ooga Booga ~ Outtrigger ~ Pen Pen Tricelon ~ Power Stone 2 ~ Project Justice 2000 ~ Propeller Arena: Aviation Battle Championship ~ Quake III Arena ~ Red Dog ~ Re-Volt ~ San Francisco Rush 2049 ~ Sega Worldwide Soccer 2000 ~ Slave Zero ~ Sonic Shuffle ~ South Park Rally ~ South Park: Chef's Luv Shack ~ Spawn: In The Demons Hand ~ Star Wars: Demolition ~ SWWS Euro 2000 Edition ~ Sydney 2000 ~ Tee Off 2000 ~ Toy Commander ~ Toy Racer ~ Treasure Strike (JP) ~ UEFA Dream Soccer ~ UEFA Striker ~ Unreal Tournament ~ Vigilante 8: Second Offense ~ Virtua Athlete 2K ~ Virtua Tennis ~ Virtua Tennis 2 ~ V-Rally 2 ~ Wacky Races ~ Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour ~ Worms Armageddon ~ Worms World Party ~ WWF Attitude ~ WWF Royal Rumble
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To go along with this, one key point : "Yes, it really is just ones and zeroes"
I think that a lot of people have conceptual issues when trying to accept that it is all just information. People I know are completely floored when they learn that they can do the same things to any JPEG. Whether they downloaded it from a web page on the internet, or scanned it, or got it in an email, or shot it on a digicam, etc. They are somehow convinced that the computer thinks it is something completely different, depending on where it came from. My friend recently got a scanner after having the photo developer give him a CD of JPEG's. He was convinced that emailing the JPEG's from his scanner would be a completely different process than emailing JPEG's from a CD.
Once you can convince people how simple it really is, how stupid the computer really is, how all the information is in a file, and all the files are just information, then you have come a *loooong* way in improving their ability to interact with the computer.
My dad seems basically unable to really grasp this. It comes up in sort of odd places, and catches me compoletely off guard in conversations. It really doesn't occur to me to make a distinction between a video file I captured from my TV card, or downloaded, or rendered, etc. The fact that I can use the same video player utility to play BBC programs as I use for ones I recorded here in Colorado is stunning to him. It just sort of won't fully integrate in his mind.
Everytime there is a post about India, some know-nothing decides to chime in with just such a comment. First off, there will always be a problem somwehere. So, if you insist that progress is only allowed to occur after all old problems are dealt with, nothing will ever be accomplished. Second, what the hell makes you so qualified to comment? You were posting on Slashdot when you could have been helping backwoods Indian villagers! (And, so am I!) You express a concern about it, so I'll assume you do volunteer work, and donate just like I do. But, neither of us dedicates 100% of our time and money to helping others. Nobody does. So, no government does for the exact same reason - governments are made of people!
Lastly, India uses the space program to do a lot of very real good. Weather satellites save lives. Earth observation satellites can help see how crops are doing, and make it easier to get better yields. They can help find where water is, and help make maps to figure out how to get it where it needs to go.
Jerk.
Well, whenever kanji comes up, there is always an argument about how many are needed in day to day life, but my grandparent post did say that 500 kanji was sort of the minimum to be considered literate. That's not enough to be considered educated, highly-educated, or a classical literature specialist. But, knowing about 500 kanji generally means that you are familiar enough with the kanji to be able to use a kanji dictionary, and be reasonably functional for some stuff.
Sort of like Cletus on the Simpsons. He isn't well educated, but he has enough command of the alphabet to be considered minimally literate.
Many of us *don't* consider something like RSA to be patentable. It's an algoritm, basically just like using a**2 + b**2 = c**2 to calculate the proper length of a diagonal when building a house. Most people would scoff at the idea of patenting the pythagorean theorem, and making home builders everywhere pay a royalty to some random guy who patented it.
For some reason, people are more willing to accept a patent on an encryption algoritm. But, it is basically the exact same thing. Some math, and a description of what to do with it. That's all an algorithm is. Patenting math is non-sensical to a reasonable person. It has been possible to invent and publish new math for years without the benefit of patent protection. So, the notion that patent protection is somehow a prerequisite for the advancement is utter poppycock.
Personally, I have no problem with patents on things. But, algorithms patents should be abolished completely. When you start trying to figure out where to draw the line between pythagoras and RSA, you realise that you should just put the pen away.
Oh, he meant "site." Otherwise, blind people wouldn't be allowed to go around shooting everybody they thought didn't understand all the fine points of monopoly law. Requiring sight is badly discriminatory. As long as you open it up to anybody who can shoot somebody before they leave, you should be legally clear.
If I ever get around to making the animation studio of my dreams, I'll have a staff mathematician, but I probably wouldn't need a freelancer. I imagine there are a lot of things like that. A company wants to have the services of a mathematician, but it's only worth it if he is right down the hall. If you have to find a freelancer, and arrange a meeting, you probably wind up waiting so long that a non-mathematician could have figured out a reasonable solution before ever seeing a freelancer.
That said, I think you may be able to pull it off. You need to do a ton of self promotion, but you might be able to sell your services effectively. Do analysis on whether or not the last ad campaign was effective, or projected cost growth. Sort of a consultant that deals peripherally with accounting, marketing, all sorts of stuff to help companies get a concrete handle on things, with an unbiased mathematical view. You have to create the job, rather than just looking for existing postings.
Actually, I agree with you - I just didn't want to bother to code proper undelines, or fake links or something, so I figured that one-word links would be clearest for the lazy-underscore method of pretend-underlining. :)
Because a lot of users (myself included) will refuse to follow any link in a Roland submission. The readers *won't* enjoy the links that they refuse to follow. That's what they are telling you. People are taking the time to log in, and post comments about how much they don't enjoy the link. If Roland always gave a link to relevant information, almost nobody would bitch. Instead, he links to his crappy blog. You keep asking, "what if the link is good?" But, you 500,000 closest friends are all screaming that These Are Not Good Links!
I think there should probably be submitter karma, and maybe target website karma, which the mods can have their way with. So, if a user is sharing relevant information, he will have high submitter karma, and nobody will care if he posts lots of links. He'll have an incentive to submite good, relevant articles, with good primary sources and additional links to commentary. He'll have a disincentive to post links to Roland's blog.
When an editor is looking at submissions, he can consider the poster's karma, and potentially the aggregate karma of the linked websites. (So, Roland's blog would wind up giving the submission bad aggregate mojo, regardless of who submits it!). And, yes, if there is really interesting stuff, and a story that needs to go out, the editor would be perfectly justified in reforming it to something like:
I thought you might all like to know that cold fusion is now a practical reality, according to _this_ Nature article. _This_ is the original paper on the subject. And, _here_ is some commentary by a relevant scientist on the matter. (This came to my attention when slashdot user _somebody_ submitted a link to his personal _blog_)
from:
_somebody_ writes: OMG, Cold Fusion is Teh Reeeal now! It completely practical, come visit _this unspecified website_ for all the details!!!
By editing it, you can leave in attribution to the submitter, and keep his link to his personal blog, but you *declare* that it's a personal blog, and also include the actual relevant links. If Roland's articles were reformatter in this way, I'd have less problem with them. And, it would still allow for the cottage industry of ad-supported personal slash-blogs with additiona commentary on articles.
Editing the submissions isn't wrong if you do it fairly. I think most of your readers (especially subscribers!) will say that not-editing is wrong. Otherwise, just make it a wiki, and let any bozo have his way with the front page, we can all go elsewhere.
See, this is one way in which Apple decided to think different. When a MAc detected that the user was getting too calm and trusting of the computing environment (by not saving often enough, etc.,) the computer would show a bomb icon, reminding the user that something could explode at any time. This constant state of fear (of fiery hellish inferno doom) is why people accomplish more work on a mac. (may also have something to do with no games being available).
Phew! All I need to do is not spend thousands of dollars on a 50" TV, and I'll be able to continue thinking that DVD is adequate. I'll be sure to avoid the mistake of getting a decent TV... Which actually won't be that hard, because I wasn't planning on getting one.
If there is a $499 dual core mini, I'll buy it in a heart beat. But, I think you are way off on that one. I just can't see dual-core at that price point. They'll leave dual-core in the Powerbooks, and higher-end desktop models. I peg dual core (if it gets released/announced this week at all!) to start at a minimum of $799, probably closer to $999.
Now, let's all hope to hell I'm wrong! A dual-core Mac Mini like device that will look good by my TV for $499 would be most welcome!
i'm afraid it'll be worse than that.
user - ls, HAL.
HAL - you seem depressed.
user - I just want to see what files are in this directory.
HAL - Yes, but I'm programmed to respond to your moods.
user - My mood doesn't matter right now... I have work to do. Please show me a directory listing.
HAL - Now, you seem frustrated. Do you want to talk about it?
user - No, god dammit, I just want to see what files are in this directory. ls, god dammit!
HAL - I think you are angry.
user - I KNOW I'm angry. That doesn't matter!
HAL - Since you have become angry while working with me, your productivity is likely to be low. I'm going to turn off for a while, and you can take a cool-down break, so that you can work at peak efficiency.
user - WE JUST DID THAT! HAL? HAL! Are you there? Fuck You!!!
etc... I mean, really, what good is it if a computer knows my emotional state? I tell it what to do, and I expect it to do what I say, not try to make me feel better. If the computer pops up extra help screens and shit because it can see I'm frustrated witha program, then that's just a random unpredictable interruption that prevents my learning how to use the program well. Either I've read the docs, and they suck, so helping me will be useless, or I'm somebody who doesn't read the docs, in which case helping me will be useless.
I know what you mean -- I've got about a half-terabyte on m main desktop now, and I *really* need to move that to a terabyte because I'm nearly stuffed to the gills.
I've never read anything saying that the top physicists thought they would destroy the world. That said, there is a lot of room between, "I am convinced this will destroy the world," and "well, nobody has ever done this before, so I can't say I'm 100% sure that it *won't* destroy the world..." I think there were quite a few physicists who were somehwhere near the second. Up until the actual test, it was all theoretical. They had calculated what the yield was supposed to be, but they also knew that that was no experimental proof demonstrating how accurate their calculations were.
That's really not an absolute given. It just depends how much you can slow down the graphics cards. I can certainly imagine a static object in a VBO/Display List, with a really fancy pixel shader, rendered in high res, with anti-aliasing cranked up, needing very little CPU time, but bringing even this beast to run hard. It is a very narrow focus to have so much GPU power available relative to such modest CPU, but there are folks who could use exactly that. My first thought would be architectural vis people. Architecture walkthroughs are generally just static geometry, and you want it to look super dooper purty for the client while they walk through.
The biggest issue that results in needing more space than your calculations would imply is the fact that you just picked numbers out of your ass with no basis in reality. First off, the 72ppi is non-sensical in this context, has no meaning, and doesn't effect the file size. Second, they have the backgrounds done in a much higher resolution than 800x600.
You see, they do the backgrounds as large pieces that they can zoom in on. This allows them to do things like a shot where they are walking along the road, with the road scrolling past. Background plates are also often many layers. This allows a simulated parallax effect while the scrolling is taking place. So, while an actual NTSC frame is only 720x486 maximum, there is no reason that the size of the background plates would be restricted to this resolution.
Even so, if I make a program for somebody, and I don't have any web space setup, the easiest way for me to get it to them is by email. Often, the little things I write for folks are 100k, so attachment size isn't an issue. If I zip it, gmail still checks inside. If I use a less common format like 7zip's native .7z, the person I'm sending the file to probably won't be able to open it.
So, I wind up with some annoying combination of zipping and renaming, and having to explain to the recipient how to go to extra steps get at the thing I wrote to (theoretically) save them time.
He didn't say it was hard to add attachments in general. He said it was hard to add an executable attachment, and it is. Frankly, it kind of pisses me off some time how many hoops it takes to send an exe.
Chiefly because we never get to start from scratch. We know that if we do anything radical, we'll break something. Maybe there is one person somewhere in the building who uses IM for a genuine business purpose, or something. It doesn't matter exactly what. If you make a big change, something that is percieved to be important will break. Everybody in the building will be upset at you because you were incompetant and broke it. Everybody else in the building does "real work," and IT is just supposed to stay invisible so broken stuff doesn't get in their way.
From their perspective, IT would have scrwed up big time. Maybe lost the company XXX dollars, or prevented the non-profit from helping so many people, whatever.
Obviously, it isn't IT's fault. IT explained up front what was going to happen. IT begged people to say if they were doing anything important with software they didn't know about. IT probably held a companywide training camp, where everybody signed a form saying they understood exactly what was going to happen. But, IT would still be blamed.
It isn't like this everywhere, but it islike this in a lot of places. No IT guy wants to get fired for doing something perfectly logical like that.
I agree that we need to cut back on a lot of fluff, but something like this is a valid research project. Later generations of this technology could basically turn into armored elemental suits from MechWarrior. That would be a very significant battlefield advantage, if the infantry could wear heavy armor sufficient to survive small arms or IED explosions. They could also carry heavier weapons, and more food which would mean less cost supplying them.
Mine has the bandwidth to download an hour's worth of HD to watch tomorrow night. Really, that's good enough for a lot of people. It's good enough for me. Many folks keep insisting that all people always want to watch what's on TV *right now.* Sure, there are some who consider that to be the number one feature. Others are completely fine with queuing up a bunch of downloads, and having a collection of other shows already downloaded and ready to watch. This is basically the exact same model as Tivo. As long as I can start watching *something* right now, and I can watch it from the beginning, on my schedule, without worrying about being interrupted because I can pause it... Well, for many people, that trumps the inconvenience of having to wait until tomorrow to watch "tonight's" program. Just watch yesterday's program and be at peace. I'm doing stuff tonight, so I'll probably start a download tonight when I get home, and I'll have it ready for me to watch tomorrow. No instant-real time streaming needed, and I'll be completely sated for my media fix. (I need to ind out what happens next in Bleach!)
That said, my first love for database backed web apps is always PHP. Personal preference. Some people will criticise it, but it works well enough for the stuff I've done with it.
Rather than forbidding edits, I'd like to see a caste system for proofreaders. So, at the top of the page, it may say, "Content approved as good by BobJohnson123 (Level 10 Wikipedian)" Or, "Content not reviwed since last update by an Anonymous Editor. Click _Here_ to see previous versions."
Depending on how many errors are later found in atricles which have been reviwed by somebody, they will be "metamodded" up or down. Folks that prove they are genuine scholars can get bonuses to their Wikipedian rating. (I'm only level 9, but my paper on computation fluid dynamics gives me a +1 to programming articles!)