Why have super-fast internet based on a technology that be blocked with a carelessly placed piece of paper? Mobile phones that go out of range when you walk around a corner? Classroom networks with nodes that have to renegotiate a connection whenever the teacher walks past and blocks the light source?
While it is an interesting technology, IMHO it will only have limited application. High security buildings is one is one possibility. The inherent properties of visible or near visible light ie. it doesn't go around corners or through solid objects, make the technology pretty useless for most people.
My childhood preceded the period of hyper-vigilance about pedophiles that is the norm today (and way before the interweb thingy, you youngsters go on about). We frequently engaged in activities around my neighborhood without any adult supervision at all, riding our bicycles, organizing impromptu softball games, etc. Most of us survived this. What has been lost to the next generation after me, is the sense that you are entitled to any privacy as a child.
Did children ever have any real privacy? I don't think so. What changed between your generation and the younger ones is the closeness of community. Thanks to the wonders of modern communication (internet, cell phones, etc) and increasingly easy travel, our communities are breaking down. Instead, we are building communities of our own choosing which are often at a large distance from where we actually physically live. Before, the neighborhood was in the 'known' zone. We knew the people. In a known community there is a measure of safety and low-key supervision for our children. Now very often our neighborhood is in the unknown 'danger' zone and our faith in human nature is no more...
IMHO, the internet itself is not the real risk factor. The risk is in a potential lack of parental supervision. In day-to-day "real world" situations, there is generally some level of supervision, even if it is just a careful listening ear. Situations in which supervision is not possible or as easy, eg. children traveling to school by public transport etc. are considered more dangerous. The internet, for many, falls under that kind of 'more dangerous' category either through a lack of ability or intent to supervise what minors do and where they go online or an unfamiliarity of parents with the ever changing online realm.
Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back
Not a bad point. IMHO however, Beatles style music will be far more impacting on the general public rather than specific Beatles songs, which will stay more and more with enthusiasts.
In the end, like many "timeless" artists, the Beatles will mostly be known for one or at the most, two or three songs. Like Vivaldi (Four Seasons) and Pachelbel (Canon). They wrote heaps more music, but the general public would only really recognize the one piece from each.
Installing XP is ok. If it accepts the valid ID number you give it that is. Working with XP and configuring it or transferring settings etc can be a nightmare.
Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations. We can't really say that something from ours or our parents generation is timeless. Only declare hopefully that it will be.
It's NEW to their environment, so they respond with the basic and common human idiocy of fear of the unfamiliar or unknown. Then again, their brains are probably so fried they wouldn't know reason and sense if they fell over it.
Hasn't privatisation gone just a little too far this time? I mean it's bad enough that the UK is planning to spy like this on all it's citizens, but to outsource it to contractors?
If they outsource it to anyone, they should outsource it to google. They already know all our personal stuff anyway!
Only problem with reducing the pressure is that the pressure is the only thing keeping it safe.
A magma chamber apparently has a stack of gasses etc under high pressure. While they're under high pressure they stay in solution, but as soon as the pressure is released, all the gasses come out of solution, rapidly expand and well... #NO CARRIER
Maybe the problem is that office 07 tries to do it all for you - just the way MS thinks it should be done. I can sympathise with kt.foss.zealot in finding the 'intuitive' gui's from MS confusing as heck. The secretaries probably got it ok by using their 'female intuition' to understand the rubbish!
The one I find most amusing is when my customers see all the virus scanner popups (ie Kaspersky) and think that they are from a trojan! (Mind you, they may not be far off...)
I replace Kaspersky or whatever with Avast Home, make their security settings as quiet as possible and tell them it's fixed.
Create cells? We've got to understand them first! We'll all be having nano-ipods implanted in our skulls before we even come close to being able to engineer one human cell.
Just what I was thinking. Obviously other technologies would have to be developed alongside this processor/memory/whatever form it eventually possibly takes.
The day is coming though when we can take a piece of 'paper' from our pocket and the paper is the computer. The possibilities in regards to pervasive computing are interesting.
The true question isn't about when they can make a full usable computer using this technology. The real show-stopper is when they can make it affordable and market it in a world already tied to the use of earlier formats and protocols.
Just wondering how much personal information they want on the entrance form...
Oh, and don't worry about the clicks on the phone line. They already data-mined your phone records, so they wouldn't really bother to listen in, would they?
Never even bothered using Office 07 myself, the interface looked way too 'intuitive' - I guess I'm not intuitive enough to figure out MS's 'intuitive' software.
The thing I can say about oo.o is that it has far fewer points that annoy me than ms office 03 and still has far more features than I've needed in the last four years of study (and maybe 80,000 words of writing in three different languages/alphabets).
Maybe we could view electoral commission letters and tax office demands as junk mail. We may not have given our details personally and they also sent mail to thousands of other people!
Slashdot Mirror
Why have super-fast internet based on a technology that be blocked with a carelessly placed piece of paper? Mobile phones that go out of range when you walk around a corner? Classroom networks with nodes that have to renegotiate a connection whenever the teacher walks past and blocks the light source?
While it is an interesting technology, IMHO it will only have limited application. High security buildings is one is one possibility. The inherent properties of visible or near visible light ie. it doesn't go around corners or through solid objects, make the technology pretty useless for most people.
My childhood preceded the period of hyper-vigilance about pedophiles that is the norm today (and way before the interweb thingy, you youngsters go on about). We frequently engaged in activities around my neighborhood without any adult supervision at all, riding our bicycles, organizing impromptu softball games, etc. Most of us survived this. What has been lost to the next generation after me, is the sense that you are entitled to any privacy as a child.
Did children ever have any real privacy? I don't think so. What changed between your generation and the younger ones is the closeness of community. Thanks to the wonders of modern communication (internet, cell phones, etc) and increasingly easy travel, our communities are breaking down. Instead, we are building communities of our own choosing which are often at a large distance from where we actually physically live. Before, the neighborhood was in the 'known' zone. We knew the people. In a known community there is a measure of safety and low-key supervision for our children. Now very often our neighborhood is in the unknown 'danger' zone and our faith in human nature is no more...
IMHO, the internet itself is not the real risk factor. The risk is in a potential lack of parental supervision. In day-to-day "real world" situations, there is generally some level of supervision, even if it is just a careful listening ear. Situations in which supervision is not possible or as easy, eg. children traveling to school by public transport etc. are considered more dangerous. The internet, for many, falls under that kind of 'more dangerous' category either through a lack of ability or intent to supervise what minors do and where they go online or an unfamiliarity of parents with the ever changing online realm.
Fashion including music moves in circles, and Beatles-style music has already been back
Not a bad point. IMHO however, Beatles style music will be far more impacting on the general public rather than specific Beatles songs, which will stay more and more with enthusiasts.
In the end, like many "timeless" artists, the Beatles will mostly be known for one or at the most, two or three songs. Like Vivaldi (Four Seasons) and Pachelbel (Canon). They wrote heaps more music, but the general public would only really recognize the one piece from each.
Installing XP is ok. If it accepts the valid ID number you give it that is. Working with XP and configuring it or transferring settings etc can be a nightmare.
These people think that email is private?
Far out. I'll slap the next person who tells me Unix is hard to use, if that's Microsoft's idea of user-friendliness.
From someone who runs a PC repair business, XP makes Unix look like childs play... Man it even makes doing a Gentoo install look easy.
Give me a nice clean bash terminal any day.
A few. Three or more. Not just a couple. Will they be around and popular in another 25 years?
Perhaps timelessness is something only truly proven after a few generations. We can't really say that something from ours or our parents generation is timeless. Only declare hopefully that it will be.
Really ?? You must know better quality Christians and lower quality hippies than I do.
So who's stereotype of Christians do you go by?
It's NEW to their environment, so they respond with the basic and common human idiocy of fear of the unfamiliar or unknown.
Then again, their brains are probably so fried they wouldn't know reason and sense if they fell over it.
Hasn't privatisation gone just a little too far this time? I mean it's bad enough that the UK is planning to spy like this on all it's citizens, but to outsource it to contractors?
If they outsource it to anyone, they should outsource it to google. They already know all our personal stuff anyway!
Only problem with reducing the pressure is that the pressure is the only thing keeping it safe.
A magma chamber apparently has a stack of gasses etc under high pressure. While they're under high pressure they stay in solution, but as soon as the pressure is released, all the gasses come out of solution, rapidly expand and well... #NO CARRIER
Maybe the problem is that office 07 tries to do it all for you - just the way MS thinks it should be done. I can sympathise with kt.foss.zealot in finding the 'intuitive' gui's from MS confusing as heck. The secretaries probably got it ok by using their 'female intuition' to understand the rubbish!
Give me vim any day.
Bet the Zune 30 and 80 owners wish they had one of those...
All they've got is the Zune Screen of Death!
Encarta? What happened to that anyway?
The one I find most amusing is when my customers see all the virus scanner popups (ie Kaspersky) and think that they are from a trojan! (Mind you, they may not be far off...)
I replace Kaspersky or whatever with Avast Home, make their security settings as quiet as possible and tell them it's fixed.
If Microsoft got involved, it would need at least 3 controls...
(Ctrl-Alt-Del)
No, but someone ported Linux to it...:D
Create cells? We've got to understand them first! We'll all be having nano-ipods implanted in our skulls before we even come close to being able to engineer one human cell.
but how would you access it?
Just what I was thinking. Obviously other technologies would have to be developed alongside this processor/memory/whatever form it eventually possibly takes.
The day is coming though when we can take a piece of 'paper' from our pocket and the paper is the computer. The possibilities in regards to pervasive computing are interesting.
The true question isn't about when they can make a full usable computer using this technology. The real show-stopper is when they can make it affordable and market it in a world already tied to the use of earlier formats and protocols.
The links may be a cryptic clue...
Just wondering how much personal information they want on the entrance form...
Oh, and don't worry about the clicks on the phone line. They already data-mined your phone records, so they wouldn't really bother to listen in, would they?
Never even bothered using Office 07 myself, the interface looked way too 'intuitive' - I guess I'm not intuitive enough to figure out MS's 'intuitive' software.
The thing I can say about oo.o is that it has far fewer points that annoy me than ms office 03 and still has far more features than I've needed in the last four years of study (and maybe 80,000 words of writing in three different languages/alphabets).
Maybe we could view electoral commission letters and tax office demands as junk mail. We may not have given our details personally and they also sent mail to thousands of other people!