Imagine how the French would feel if someone suggested painting the Eiffel tower in all different neons to make it stand out more.
The Eiffel Tower was covered with blinking lights for the last year or so as part of a celebration, though I think they've been removed for a little while. It was very pretty.
Heck, just read the messages in this disussion so far, and you'll see that even geeks, the ones you think would be more interested in new things and change, are freaking out, and attacking the idea even though there's not a single valid complaint that I've seen so far.
I don't know where you get this impression. Geeks can be just as conservative as any other group. It may be a stereotype that geeks are more "progressive," just like it's a stereotype that older people are more conservative, but in reality I've seen plenty of older, life-long, progressive people, and it's very common to see conservative geeks clinging to their beliefs for the sake of feeling they are on top of things, just like any other redneck. In fact, many geeks get by (and perhaps even build up their skills) by sticking to a set of beliefs, stereotypes, prejudgements, when in reality, except for a few examples, life is really much more open to other realities.
I just paid somafm money last week. Not that I regret it, they are a terrific station that plays music I wouldn't hear elsewhere.
It just doesn't make any sense to have the internet, which creates a worldwide marketplace and communications medium, limited by the same old forces that want to create artificial economies of scarcity because they can't see past their "today's spreadsheet," prejudged view of the world. But they're succeeding, and they'll continue to dominate what we can see and do. It may create stability in some people's minds, but it's not natural.
I bought a "big LCD projector dealy" almost a year ago to use all the time, an Epson 700c (6lbs, 1024x768, 800 lumens). The bulb is rated for 2000 hours. Contrary to what you've said, the contrast is not that great, though you don't notice it most of the time. The screen can be "too big," causing neckstrain, and it is noisy and creates a lot of heat in a room (though there are quieter models).
It is much more difficult if not impossible to have "correct" posture and therefore avoid body pain with this kind of arrangement, so I still use ye olde desktop display for many computing sessions.
It's lots of fun for multiple people sharing a computing session, excellent for films, and if you set it up right with a good couch, it can be a very nice slacker monitor. However, I have a friend with very poor vision, and he still had trouble seeing the display on a wall.
By the way, projectors, depending on the model, can display a variety of resolutions.
I am suprised no one else has mentioned this, but Java3D, which is available on Windows, Linux, and Solaris (as well as, I think, Irix and some BSDs), enables native accelerated 3D rendering so you could do 3D visuals with decent performance. It is built on top of OpenGL or DirectX (your choice of either on Windows). There have been some pretty impressive demos for it, and it's pretty easy to code with.
J2SE1.4, without Java3D, now supports features such as accessing the video card's memory directly (last I saw, for NVidia chips only).
A 3D Java product wouldn't compete with the most optimized platform dependant code but it'd be good enough for something that was more dependant on reaching all the major platforms than it was on the most leading edge graphics. Though I guess I'm in the minority by thinking a competitive product wouldn't require the most leading edge graphics, I could see something taking off with that kind of cross platform support, 'specially once all the consoles have a net connection...
My first comment is this; it's a global network. With that kind of audience, one expects the price to be low. Targetting magazine prices is not reasonable. [print] magazines have a staff of professional writers, professional photographers, editors, printers, etc. Slashdot has, well, a bunch of hacks. No offense, but with the number of mistakes that are made and the uneveness of the stories posted here, the quality is indistinguishable from any other random group of people. In fact more often than not the people replying to stories are offering more thoughtful and relevant comments than the slashdot editors.
The only thing that sets slashdot apart is it was there at the right time and right place to gain critical mass and become "the" nerd system for this particular point of view (which is, sort, of, open source/linux issues, though I really find the editors often have more of a cynical, jackal point of view than anything). The moderation system is an interesting interesting 1990s technology (though of course it's been around much longer than that, vis pyroto mountain) but I rarely think it brings out the best postings and it's generally a waste of time contributing because by the time I read a topic and think to contribute, its out of date and no one will see my posting. And as others have said, the people who put the most into slashdot end up paying the most. How does that make sense?
I'll continue to view slashdot, with the ads blocked when possible, and if somehow the content is completely blocked, I'll go elsewhere. Hopefully somewhere with a more global perspective, slashdot is very American centered, tiresomely so and with very little self awareness. I hope to soon see a more sensible, intelligent, distributed content system so issues like bandwidth are not such a problem. When that happens I expect the people involved will not only have more thoughtful points of view but will also offer more progressive and innovative cost solutions.
I don't mean to be harsh, but I expect much more if I'm going to pay.
I don't agree with this at all. There is plenty of reliable open source software and plenty of finicky non open source software. Making this kind of generalization is very harmful. Just think for a second of linux (the kernel, not the graphical environments:>), bsd, mysql, postgresql, apache, etc, etc, etc. All chugging away without a problem. I will agree open source products tend to be harder to configure and perhaps maintain properly, but you usually get extra flexibility in exchange for the additional burden, not to mention being able to debug or improve software more easily. And not to mention not supporting entities who think it's appropriate to "hide" their "secret" software rather than realizing that being the first or the best is more important than being childish and greedy.
Why is a TV-Stereo combo a very bad idea? In a modern networked environment, "appliances" can be formed out of aggregates of functionality. Seperating things into a "TV" and "stereo" sounds kind of retro to me. Lesse, there's an amp, some speakers, a display, a data source/network connection, now route your media accordingly.
I wouldn't be suprised if Gates is personally on the side of free source. After all, he did intentionally change from being the head business guy to being more the technical guy, and stereotypes aside, I'm sure Microsoft could adapt to an open or free source world, or maybe Gates will split off on his own.:> In any case, they could survive like many others by providing the service layer and innovation (or in their case, copycatting and lowest common denominatorizing) of software, though I can see why this is different and scary enough for them to want to hold it off .
The internet has the potential to enable more people to participate in the decisions in the world. Perhaps if people felt they had some power they wouldn't be so anti-progressive. Information brings intelligence, peace, and sanity. What we need is people who will push for computers and business models to be used for OPEN DATA and SHARING and therefore fair and non-hypocritical business, government, and society which allows the full knowledge and participation of whoever wants to be involved. We could be pushing for a world where each individual can choose what they are interested in and feel they have some role in determining their own reality, Joy wants a mob of consumers who can click to buy. Open data should be so instilled in society that people expect and demand it. Instead people like Joy just want to turn the net into a sales machine based on the past, where a designated group produces merchandise, and another designated group purchases it.
Even his choices reflect his point of view, going on about how affordable books are, but books are not easily accessible to those without wealth. They could be. Instead we have an artifical economy of scarcity enforced by scared people with guns. Sad.
Java's JMF is quite an impressive media API and includes support for RTP/RTSP, the real time streaming protocol largely put together by Real but also supported by others. There is work by the Blackdown people to provide platform native accelleration, like that available for Windows and Solaris. The users would have to install the 5MB JMF files though.
I have had a fujitsu lifebook b2130 for about a year now. It's a 3lb subnotebook with a 10.4" screen. The keyboard is 90% of full size. It's handy to be able to carry it anywhere and the keyboard doesn't cause me many problems even when I use it for hours in a row (which I often do) (although the touch screen helps with useability a lot!). However if it were any smaller it would be a serious problem for long term use. The only use for a smaller system would be as a carry-everywhere PDA replacement, but they're still way too big for that and don't have anything close to instant-on, it takes about 45 seconds for the system to resume from hard disk. By the way, it should be possible to install linux on any of these systems, assuming someone can bother to support their more esoteric hardware devices.:>
Is that true though? activision for example came out with their classic game packs. You can never predict what will become trendy in the future. Not that I'm for copyright, after all every achievement is the global (quantum) result of human cooperation, but I don't think your argument stands up.
I have a fujitsu lifebook b2130, which has a touchscreen, and I'm suprised it's not a more requested feature. It's not great for text selection, but otherwise it's very pleasant and intuitive to use and works especially well on small devices (like the b2130) since you don't have to move your whole arm to use it.
Notebooks/tables of the future are going to be very nice to use.
I worked in a mall computer game shop in the 80s and there was an automated knitting machine peripherial announced for Nintendo. It turned out to be vapourware, at least for the North American market.
The ewoks were cute? They capture a bunch of obviously intelligent humanoids who weren't even trying to hurt them and tried to roast them alive. Real cute.
If I read your condescending remarks correctly, you're saying it's better to receive tons of completely irrelevant, annoying advertising than a smaller amount of relevant advertising? Eventually, when there are enough people using them, it will become increasingly difficult to see content if you're blocking banners, since the pages have to be paid for by someone, and I'd rather see relevant ads that mean something to me instead of the ton of noise I see today. Targetted advertising would be a/good/ thing if it truly allowed us to tailor what we saw and what was produced for us, and there would probably be far fewer ads since advertisers wouldn't need to put so many ads out to reach their potential customers. But I realize I'd get more slashdotkarmapoints if I towed the party line and just shut my eyes and ears whenever something was disturbing me in my cubbyhole. As for the advertising that's targetting at "people who think they're too smart for advertising to affect them," well, to be effective on me, it would have to be non-insulting, to the point, and relevant, in which case it would certainly be effective. Bring it on, I'd rather be assaulted by that than the irritating garbage I am subjected to everyday.
My point was I find this whole thing a bit exaggerated. For sure it can easily get out of hand and become invasive, but it makes sense for producers to try and understand their consumers better, instead of just throwing out mass-market garbage perhaps we could have nicer stuff - starting with not seeing ads we're not interested in. Companies understand (or would be made to understand) if they cross lines and piss customers off. It's like saying every time you walk into a store and explain what it is you're looking for (building a relationship), this information should be thrown away so next time you have to explain it all over again. One of the biggest potentials of the internet is this richer communication, but it's being discarded in favour of mass market approaches.
Slashdot Mirror
The Eiffel Tower was covered with blinking lights for the last year or so as part of a celebration, though I think they've been removed for a little while. It was very pretty.
I don't know where you get this impression. Geeks can be just as conservative as any other group. It may be a stereotype that geeks are more "progressive," just like it's a stereotype that older people are more conservative, but in reality I've seen plenty of older, life-long, progressive people, and it's very common to see conservative geeks clinging to their beliefs for the sake of feeling they are on top of things, just like any other redneck. In fact, many geeks get by (and perhaps even build up their skills) by sticking to a set of beliefs, stereotypes, prejudgements, when in reality, except for a few examples, life is really much more open to other realities.
I just paid somafm money last week. Not that I regret it, they are a terrific station that plays music I wouldn't hear elsewhere.
It just doesn't make any sense to have the internet, which creates a worldwide marketplace and communications medium, limited by the same old forces that want to create artificial economies of scarcity because they can't see past their "today's spreadsheet," prejudged view of the world. But they're succeeding, and they'll continue to dominate what we can see and do. It may create stability in some people's minds, but it's not natural.
I bought a "big LCD projector dealy" almost a year ago to use all the time, an Epson 700c (6lbs, 1024x768, 800 lumens). The bulb is rated for 2000 hours. Contrary to what you've said, the contrast is not that great, though you don't notice it most of the time. The screen can be "too big," causing neckstrain, and it is noisy and creates a lot of heat in a room (though there are quieter models).
It is much more difficult if not impossible to have "correct" posture and therefore avoid body pain with this kind of arrangement, so I still use ye olde desktop display for many computing sessions.
It's lots of fun for multiple people sharing a computing session, excellent for films, and if you set it up right with a good couch, it can be a very nice slacker monitor. However, I have a friend with very poor vision, and he still had trouble seeing the display on a wall.
By the way, projectors, depending on the model, can display a variety of resolutions.
J2SE1.4, without Java3D, now supports features such as accessing the video card's memory directly (last I saw, for NVidia chips only).
A 3D Java product wouldn't compete with the most optimized platform dependant code but it'd be good enough for something that was more dependant on reaching all the major platforms than it was on the most leading edge graphics. Though I guess I'm in the minority by thinking a competitive product wouldn't require the most leading edge graphics, I could see something taking off with that kind of cross platform support, 'specially once all the consoles have a net connection...
please. compare tim horton's coffee with a americano from any shop with a good espresso maker and staff who care even a little.. there is no contest.
Try this: put some sugar and 99% cream in a food item. You'll short circuit this whole race and win the fastfood coffee shop wars instantly!
Now, to the first chain that offers decent food without killing off all its patrons (d'oh!), goes a nobel prize.
My first comment is this; it's a global network. With that kind of audience, one expects the price to be low. Targetting magazine prices is not reasonable. [print] magazines have a staff of professional writers, professional photographers, editors, printers, etc. Slashdot has, well, a bunch of hacks. No offense, but with the number of mistakes that are made and the uneveness of the stories posted here, the quality is indistinguishable from any other random group of people. In fact more often than not the people replying to stories are offering more thoughtful and relevant comments than the slashdot editors.
The only thing that sets slashdot apart is it was there at the right time and right place to gain critical mass and become "the" nerd system for this particular point of view (which is, sort, of, open source/linux issues, though I really find the editors often have more of a cynical, jackal point of view than anything). The moderation system is an interesting interesting 1990s technology (though of course it's been around much longer than that, vis pyroto mountain) but I rarely think it brings out the best postings and it's generally a waste of time contributing because by the time I read a topic and think to contribute, its out of date and no one will see my posting. And as others have said, the people who put the most into slashdot end up paying the most. How does that make sense?
I'll continue to view slashdot, with the ads blocked when possible, and if somehow the content is completely blocked, I'll go elsewhere. Hopefully somewhere with a more global perspective, slashdot is very American centered, tiresomely so and with very little self awareness. I hope to soon see a more sensible, intelligent, distributed content system so issues like bandwidth are not such a problem. When that happens I expect the people involved will not only have more thoughtful points of view but will also offer more progressive and innovative cost solutions.
I don't mean to be harsh, but I expect much more if I'm going to pay.
I don't agree with this at all. There is plenty of reliable open source software and plenty of finicky non open source software. Making this kind of generalization is very harmful. Just think for a second of linux (the kernel, not the graphical environments :>), bsd, mysql, postgresql, apache, etc, etc, etc. All chugging away without a problem. I will agree open source products tend to be harder to configure and perhaps maintain properly, but you usually get extra flexibility in exchange for the additional burden, not to mention being able to debug or improve software more easily. And not to mention not supporting entities who think it's appropriate to "hide" their "secret" software rather than realizing that being the first or the best is more important than being childish and greedy.
Why is a TV-Stereo combo a very bad idea? In a modern networked environment, "appliances" can be formed out of aggregates of functionality. Seperating things into a "TV" and "stereo" sounds kind of retro to me. Lesse, there's an amp, some speakers, a display, a data source/network connection, now route your media accordingly.
I wouldn't be suprised if Gates is personally on the side of free source. After all, he did intentionally change from being the head business guy to being more the technical guy, and stereotypes aside, I'm sure Microsoft could adapt to an open or free source world, or maybe Gates will split off on his own. :> In any case, they could survive like many others by providing the service layer and innovation (or in their case, copycatting and lowest common denominatorizing) of software, though I can see why this is different and scary enough for them to want to hold it off .
Even his choices reflect his point of view, going on about how affordable books are, but books are not easily accessible to those without wealth. They could be. Instead we have an artifical economy of scarcity enforced by scared people with guns. Sad.
Java's JMF is quite an impressive media API and includes support for RTP/RTSP, the real time streaming protocol largely put together by Real but also supported by others. There is work by the Blackdown people to provide platform native accelleration, like that available for Windows and Solaris. The users would have to install the 5MB JMF files though.
I have had a fujitsu lifebook b2130 for about a year now. It's a 3lb subnotebook with a 10.4" screen. The keyboard is 90% of full size. It's handy to be able to carry it anywhere and the keyboard doesn't cause me many problems even when I use it for hours in a row (which I often do) (although the touch screen helps with useability a lot!). However if it were any smaller it would be a serious problem for long term use. The only use for a smaller system would be as a carry-everywhere PDA replacement, but they're still way too big for that and don't have anything close to instant-on, it takes about 45 seconds for the system to resume from hard disk. By the way, it should be possible to install linux on any of these systems, assuming someone can bother to support their more esoteric hardware devices. :>
Is that true though? activision for example came out with their classic game packs. You can never predict what will become trendy in the future. Not that I'm for copyright, after all every achievement is the global (quantum) result of human cooperation, but I don't think your argument stands up.
I have a fujitsu lifebook b2130, which has a touchscreen, and I'm suprised it's not a more requested feature. It's not great for text selection, but otherwise it's very pleasant and intuitive to use and works especially well on small devices (like the b2130) since you don't have to move your whole arm to use it. Notebooks/tables of the future are going to be very nice to use.
I worked in a mall computer game shop in the 80s and there was an automated knitting machine peripherial announced for Nintendo. It turned out to be vapourware, at least for the North American market.
Roasting another creature alive is simply a form of torture. I want those ewoks eradicated!
The ewoks were cute? They capture a bunch of obviously intelligent humanoids who weren't even trying to hurt them and tried to roast them alive. Real cute.
If I read your condescending remarks correctly, you're saying it's better to receive tons of completely irrelevant, annoying advertising than a smaller amount of relevant advertising? Eventually, when there are enough people using them, it will become increasingly difficult to see content if you're blocking banners, since the pages have to be paid for by someone, and I'd rather see relevant ads that mean something to me instead of the ton of noise I see today. Targetted advertising would be a /good/ thing if it truly allowed us to tailor what we saw and what was produced for us, and there would probably be far fewer ads since advertisers wouldn't need to put so many ads out to reach their potential customers. But I realize I'd get more slashdotkarmapoints if I towed the party line and just shut my eyes and ears whenever something was disturbing me in my cubbyhole. As for the advertising that's targetting at "people who think they're too smart for advertising to affect them," well, to be effective on me, it would have to be non-insulting, to the point, and relevant, in which case it would certainly be effective. Bring it on, I'd rather be assaulted by that than the irritating garbage I am subjected to everyday.
My point was I find this whole thing a bit exaggerated. For sure it can easily get out of hand and become invasive, but it makes sense for producers to try and understand their consumers better, instead of just throwing out mass-market garbage perhaps we could have nicer stuff - starting with not seeing ads we're not interested in. Companies understand (or would be made to understand) if they cross lines and piss customers off. It's like saying every time you walk into a store and explain what it is you're looking for (building a relationship), this information should be thrown away so next time you have to explain it all over again. One of the biggest potentials of the internet is this richer communication, but it's being discarded in favour of mass market approaches.
Right, we wouldn't want the producers to know anything about the consumers would we? After all, they might try to sell us stuff we're interested in.