Anyone have a technical explanation for why this is not the case? An alignment issue between the screen and the touchpad on top of it? A clock timing issue? A stylus issue in manufacturing? The software may be buggy but I'm wondering what kind of small margin of error in hardware exposed it.
Would have been nice if the article explained a bit more.
FINE, I just looked at the article..seems the only advantage is they are expected to be dirt cheap. I've heard that before. I'm still waiting to wallpaper my house in transparent OLED film:)
I've got my north wall wallpapered with an OLED screen broadcasting a white image and my south wall wallpapered with solar panels to catch it all.
I hereby claim prior art for all the future perpetual motion/infinite energy machine creators who attempt to patent my brilliant idea.
How do you go about modding an article flamebait? I know that this is, technically, news, but I don't see very many insightful comments to follow (this one included).
Just out of curiosity, is this the first time in our history that a group of workers have put themselves out of business by collectively creating tools to put themselves out of business?
It seems like a fine line in definition between 1) being supplanted by new technology to automate things you were doing before and 2) putting yourself out of work by doing your job well.
This isn't like a loom being created by someone else to put knitters out of business, this is like a knitter knitting a loom that could, in turn, knit other sweaters or auto-generate looms or something along those lines.
When people jumped from 56k to 1Mbps, the only thing that really changed for the *average joe* was grabbing mp3s and checking out more trailers.
Contrary to popular belief, most people are not out there downloading a 9GB collection of Friends, season 1 or grabbing a 20GB MAME set with flyers and cabinets. Most people will just go buy the DVD or grab Midway Arcade Treasures and be happy.
When people jumped from 1Mbps to 5Mbps, I've seen them take advantage of it by shopping on amazon 2ms faster than before.
I think the real "danger" with higher speeds would lie in the realm of more annoying/higher def advertising. When the day comes that it becomes trivial and technically possible on a large amount of computers to download and display a 1920x1080 30 sec interstitial ad before you can view a webpage, it *will* be done.
You can already see this transition happening with lower res video as people try to pack a highly-compressed 30 second FMV ad into a flash box.
Do you think you'll get an honest answer to this question? My guess is that the answer would be something along the lines of:
"Well we have been approached in by one or two big companies in the past that shall remain nameless. Despite what people think (or would like to think) the level of bribery is extremely low. Although the offers have been tempting we'd be doing our readership a disservice and I think our comics would clearly lose the creative edge they once had."
I've made a PDA purchase and a digital camera purchase at Future Shop over the last 1.5 years. Both times I've turned down the extended warranty, only to have an associate call on the manager who then tried to convince me to purchase the warranty.
After refusing the warranty in front of the manager, my purchase is processed but my name isn't logged into the computer and I'm warned by the employee that I *MUST* have my receipt in order to repair/exchange the item.
Any thoughts on why this is? The only theory I have going is that the employee would rather lose out on the commission and help their extended warranty % stats than log a sale that didn't have an extended warranty.
I once asked an employee what those bicycle horns meant (I have a habit of asking weird questions like that). He told me that they're used to indicate that a security person has walked through that given "high-theft" area. Look for a horn near the portable mp3 players. Some of them have a clipboard beside them, I guess to log the times the horn was honked.
"The "new role" mentioned by Edios' rep will likely be his further advice on the upcoming Tomb Raider game, the development for which he was reportedly overseeing at another Edios-owned studio, Crystal Dynamics. The new Tomb Raider, the seventh in the series, is due out next summer."
I dunno whether that's a good thing or a bad thing as I'm not really a big Tomb Raider fan. I always felt like it cashed in on horny gamers.
Bad: he might be "selling out."
Good: he could make that franchise into something truly great.
For the "who is this guy and why should I care" crowd, Warren Spector has worked on Deus Ex, System Shock, Thief, Ultima Underworld and Ultima VII part II. If that isn't a hell of a gaming resume I don't know what is.
Hopefully he'll move on to great things wherever he goes.
I agree with some other posters that I'd have to try it before deciding if I like it, but from what I see it looks far faster than writing each character by hand.
It also doesn't seem like the layout would mess with your QWERTY skills as your brain as I get the feeling your brain is in a different kind of mode when moving a pen around a display vs moving your fingers around on a keyboard.
I consider it a coincidence, not ironic, that a more elite person replies to correct a parent poster in order to tell them that they are using the word "ironic" incorrectly.
Responding to a coincidence that responds to a post using the word "ironic" is ironic, and responding to an ironic response to a coincidence that is a response to a post using the word "ironic" is, in itself, idiotic.
Therefore I am an idiot for replying to you.
Self-awareness of idiocy therefore makes me not an idiot and the only conclusion can be that none of my parent posters exist.
As a well-deserved reward for admitting in public that they've seen a screenshot of a PC game in the past, celebrities have been given the opportunity to play a pre-release version of Team Fortress 2 which is scheduled to be out "sometime soon."
Not only will they receive a copy of TF2, but they will receive a gold-plated Personal Computer (a modern device which does calculations) with which to play them on.
Now let's take a look at the chosen few:
Noam Chomsky, the post-modern Thor Aeckurlund of gaming gods (and a decent linguist too) was quoted as saying "I'm going to be all over this like media on East Timor."
Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, upon seeing how the gold-plated computer would fit snugly into his SUV's front panel was heard saying "We will unite the nations through team gameplay and a global punkbuster."
George W Bush was concerned as to whether or not the game would work on all three of his Internets but was quickly calmed by Gore who said it would work on all of the ones he invented.
Finally, to round out the chosen four, a copy was given to Bill O'r^]CONNECTION LOST
The hockey season in Toronto has been the following:
The Leafs getting off to a good start early in the season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs going on to a mediocre mid-season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs picking it up big time toward the end of the season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs win the first playoff game. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!!"
The Leafs lose the second playoff game brutally. Hockey fans say "The Leafs could have won it this year if it weren't for that call by referee X in period Y."
It has been this way since 1967. Everyone here seems to ignore the fact that the last time the Leafs won the cup the NHL only had 6 teams.
If ever there were a real-life city-wide reality distortion field, it would be in Toronto when dealing with the Leafs.
I love this city so much, but the Leafs fans are something else:)
Strangely enough, the Blue Jays seem to get bashed all the time despite winning two world series in a row about a decade ago.
-- Speaking as neither a baseball nor a hockey fan. Take it as you will.
"BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES DO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD. The danger posed is extremely minimal."
126m diameter from tip to (imagined) tip -> 63m radius.
Let's say it does 0.25 revolutions / sec.
circumference = 2 * pi * 63 = 395.64 m/revolution.
0.25 revolutions / sec * 395.64 m / revolution = 99 m/s at the turbine's tip which is ~= 360 km/h.
360 km/h = 225 miles an hour.
Are you telling me that a blunt, heavy object flying toward a bird at 225 miles an hour wouldn't hurt it really badly to say the least? "likely to cause injury" in the same way that jumping off a 200 story building is "likely to cause injury."
I live in a city that has two wind turbines. I've stood directly underneath both of them. The blades are moving incredibly fast and the power behind the sound is jarring.
If you don't believe the numbers, go to a turbine yourself and do the following: instead of looking at the turbine as a whole, concentrate on a single blade moving over a small distance and watch how fast it passes through that distance while standing directly underneath it.
I agree that wind turbines are also a good thing but I think it's a hell of an understatement to say they "likely cause injuries" to birds. As for your "BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES TO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD," comment, I agree. They tend to just make things explode; like taking a baseball bat to an egg.
If my math is wrong, someone feel free to correct me:)
Maybe it's based on the proportion of time that your account spends being near the 2MB mark compared to low volume users? The hope being that you'll get so tired of waiting that you'll bite the bullet and just buy a 2 gig account instead of waiting for the upgrade.
I don't know about America (I'm a Canuck) but people here seem to have a very disturbing addiction to cell phones.
One example of this would be a subway ride that gets people to the downtown core. Along the ride there are about two points where the subway rises above ground (and into range with a cell tower). The reception only lasts for a minute or so tops but I *still* see people trying to complete phone calls during this time.
I would say trying to desperately make phone calls like this (ESPECIALLY knowing that you're going to be able to make a reasonably lengthed phone call in 20 minutes or less) is far more disturbing than seeing how people react to going without the net for two weeks.
1) Even if Slashdot didn't report on it, other news sites have already reported it.
2) Even if Slashdot had a "WARNING: Spoiler re: Jeopardy" you could limit the story contents to two possibilities: He loses or the Jeopardy set ignites spontaneously.
3) Since interest in him is now mainstream americana, you'd hear about it at the water cooler from someone at work who likes to be the first to break the pop culture/gossip stories or from a family member/friend that does the same.
4) Even if Slashdot DIDN'T post the story, there'd be a group of trolls posting spoilers about the day he loses at +1 over and over to get the info out.
News like this could be prevented if Jeopardy just shot an episode a day and sent it out nightly. Of course, that'd drive up costs.
On the bright side you'll probably never see a spoiler like this again as the odds of someone coming close to his streak are pretty low.
-5 months: You "discover" a technology at a conference that no one seems to have picked up on.
-2 months: You read about it in the newspaper 3 months later. The article is done by a guy whose speciality is discussing nothing but gadgets.
0 months: The technology appears in stores in limited quantities, geeks foam at the mouth trying to acquire it. The girlfriends of geeks shake their head wondering why they would need it.
2 weeks: The geeks who can't find it in stores buy it on ebay for 3x the store cost. No girlfriends to shake their head at these guys.
1 year: Regular people begin buying the product.
1.5 years: Mainstream newspapers report on the popularity of the product.
2 years: Your girlfriend buys the product.
2.5 years: Your mother finally hears about the product.
3 years: Families begin buying the product. The product is finally mainstream.
5 years: The product begins appearing between the shaving razors and chocolate bars at the check-out counter.
7 years: The product/technology finally peters out and your grandmother goes around telling people that she knew it was a fad from the start (1 year ago, from her perspective).
"There is a common misconception that quantum computers can solve NP-Complete problems in polynomial time. That is not known to be true, and is generally suspected to be false."
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone have a technical explanation for why this is not the case? An alignment issue between the screen and the touchpad on top of it? A clock timing issue? A stylus issue in manufacturing? The software may be buggy but I'm wondering what kind of small margin of error in hardware exposed it.
Would have been nice if the article explained a bit more.
Ever try playing it with the analog joystick? Horrible. A drag to know I'll have to shell out more cash for an analog stick to play it.
FINE, I just looked at the article..seems the only advantage is they are expected to be dirt cheap. I've heard that before. I'm still waiting to wallpaper my house in transparent OLED film :)
I've got my north wall wallpapered with an OLED screen broadcasting a white image and my south wall wallpapered with solar panels to catch it all.
I hereby claim prior art for all the future perpetual motion/infinite energy machine creators who attempt to patent my brilliant idea.
Your friend has never seen The Wizard of Oz? Revoke his/her movie watching pass immediately.
How do you go about modding an article flamebait? I know that this is, technically, news, but I don't see very many insightful comments to follow (this one included).
Just out of curiosity, is this the first time in our history that a group of workers have put themselves out of business by collectively creating tools to put themselves out of business?
It seems like a fine line in definition between 1) being supplanted by new technology to automate things you were doing before and 2) putting yourself out of work by doing your job well.
This isn't like a loom being created by someone else to put knitters out of business, this is like a knitter knitting a loom that could, in turn, knit other sweaters or auto-generate looms or something along those lines.
When people jumped from 56k to 1Mbps, the only thing that really changed for the *average joe* was grabbing mp3s and checking out more trailers.
Contrary to popular belief, most people are not out there downloading a 9GB collection of Friends, season 1 or grabbing a 20GB MAME set with flyers and cabinets. Most people will just go buy the DVD or grab Midway Arcade Treasures and be happy.
When people jumped from 1Mbps to 5Mbps, I've seen them take advantage of it by shopping on amazon 2ms faster than before.
I think the real "danger" with higher speeds would lie in the realm of more annoying/higher def advertising. When the day comes that it becomes trivial and technically possible on a large amount of computers to download and display a 1920x1080 30 sec interstitial ad before you can view a webpage, it *will* be done.
You can already see this transition happening with lower res video as people try to pack a highly-compressed 30 second FMV ad into a flash box.
Do you think you'll get an honest answer to this question? My guess is that the answer would be something along the lines of:
"Well we have been approached in by one or two big companies in the past that shall remain nameless. Despite what people think (or would like to think) the level of bribery is extremely low. Although the offers have been tempting we'd be doing our readership a disservice and I think our comics would clearly lose the creative edge they once had."
Can anyone that works there explain this to me?
I've made a PDA purchase and a digital camera purchase at Future Shop over the last 1.5 years. Both times I've turned down the extended warranty, only to have an associate call on the manager who then tried to convince me to purchase the warranty.
After refusing the warranty in front of the manager, my purchase is processed but my name isn't logged into the computer and I'm warned by the employee that I *MUST* have my receipt in order to repair/exchange the item.
Any thoughts on why this is? The only theory I have going is that the employee would rather lose out on the commission and help their extended warranty % stats than log a sale that didn't have an extended warranty.
I once asked an employee what those bicycle horns meant (I have a habit of asking weird questions like that). He told me that they're used to indicate that a security person has walked through that given "high-theft" area. Look for a horn near the portable mp3 players. Some of them have a clipboard beside them, I guess to log the times the horn was honked.
"The "new role" mentioned by Edios' rep will likely be his further advice on the upcoming Tomb Raider game, the development for which he was reportedly overseeing at another Edios-owned studio, Crystal Dynamics. The new Tomb Raider, the seventh in the series, is due out next summer."
I dunno whether that's a good thing or a bad thing as I'm not really a big Tomb Raider fan. I always felt like it cashed in on horny gamers.
Bad: he might be "selling out."
Good: he could make that franchise into something truly great.
For the "who is this guy and why should I care" crowd, Warren Spector has worked on Deus Ex, System Shock, Thief, Ultima Underworld and Ultima VII part II. If that isn't a hell of a gaming resume I don't know what is.
Hopefully he'll move on to great things wherever he goes.
I agree with some other posters that I'd have to try it before deciding if I like it, but from what I see it looks far faster than writing each character by hand.
It also doesn't seem like the layout would mess with your QWERTY skills as your brain as I get the feeling your brain is in a different kind of mode when moving a pen around a display vs moving your fingers around on a keyboard.
Good stuff!
I consider it a coincidence, not ironic, that a more elite person replies to correct a parent poster in order to tell them that they are using the word "ironic" incorrectly.
Responding to a coincidence that responds to a post using the word "ironic" is ironic, and responding to an ironic response to a coincidence that is a response to a post using the word "ironic" is, in itself, idiotic.
Therefore I am an idiot for replying to you.
Self-awareness of idiocy therefore makes me not an idiot and the only conclusion can be that none of my parent posters exist.
As a well-deserved reward for admitting in public that they've seen a screenshot of a PC game in the past, celebrities have been given the opportunity to play a pre-release version of Team Fortress 2 which is scheduled to be out "sometime soon."
Not only will they receive a copy of TF2, but they will receive a gold-plated Personal Computer (a modern device which does calculations) with which to play them on.
Now let's take a look at the chosen few:
Noam Chomsky, the post-modern Thor Aeckurlund of gaming gods (and a decent linguist too) was quoted as saying "I'm going to be all over this like media on East Timor."
Boutrous Boutros-Ghali, upon seeing how the gold-plated computer would fit snugly into his SUV's front panel was heard saying "We will unite the nations through team gameplay and a global punkbuster."
George W Bush was concerned as to whether or not the game would work on all three of his Internets but was quickly calmed by Gore who said it would work on all of the ones he invented.
Finally, to round out the chosen four, a copy was given to Bill O'r^]CONNECTION LOST
The Leafs won the cup in the season spanning 1966-67, the year that the only had 6 teams. The expansion came in 1967-68 and that year the Leafs neither made it to the playoffs nor did they ever win again.
The hockey season in Toronto has been the following:
:)
The Leafs getting off to a good start early in the season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs going on to a mediocre mid-season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs picking it up big time toward the end of the season. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!"
The Leafs win the first playoff game. Hockey fans saying "The Leafs are gonna win it this year!!"
The Leafs lose the second playoff game brutally. Hockey fans say "The Leafs could have won it this year if it weren't for that call by referee X in period Y."
It has been this way since 1967. Everyone here seems to ignore the fact that the last time the Leafs won the cup the NHL only had 6 teams.
If ever there were a real-life city-wide reality distortion field, it would be in Toronto when dealing with the Leafs.
I love this city so much, but the Leafs fans are something else
Strangely enough, the Blue Jays seem to get bashed all the time despite winning two world series in a row about a decade ago.
-- Speaking as neither a baseball nor a hockey fan. Take it as you will.
"BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES DO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD. The danger posed is extremely minimal."
:)
126m diameter from tip to (imagined) tip -> 63m radius.
Let's say it does 0.25 revolutions / sec.
circumference = 2 * pi * 63 = 395.64 m/revolution.
0.25 revolutions / sec * 395.64 m / revolution =
99 m/s at the turbine's tip which is ~= 360 km/h.
360 km/h = 225 miles an hour.
Are you telling me that a blunt, heavy object flying toward a bird at 225 miles an hour wouldn't hurt it really badly to say the least? "likely to cause injury" in the same way that jumping off a 200 story building is "likely to cause injury."
I live in a city that has two wind turbines. I've stood directly underneath both of them. The blades are moving incredibly fast and the power behind the sound is jarring.
If you don't believe the numbers, go to a turbine yourself and do the following: instead of looking at the turbine as a whole, concentrate on a single blade moving over a small distance and watch how fast it passes through that distance while standing directly underneath it.
I agree that wind turbines are also a good thing but I think it's a hell of an understatement to say they "likely cause injuries" to birds. As for your "BIG, SLOW MOVING BLADES TO NOT CHOP THINGS UP. PERIOD," comment, I agree. They tend to just make things explode; like taking a baseball bat to an egg.
If my math is wrong, someone feel free to correct me
"spam costs them a fortune - far more then they could ever make selling lists to people hawking V!AGr4"
Of all the things I've ever expected to see on slashdot, my hotmail password wasn't one of them!
Maybe it's based on the proportion of time that your account spends being near the 2MB mark compared to low volume users? The hope being that you'll get so tired of waiting that you'll bite the bullet and just buy a 2 gig account instead of waiting for the upgrade.
Again, just a guess...
I don't know about America (I'm a Canuck) but people here seem to have a very disturbing addiction to cell phones.
One example of this would be a subway ride that gets people to the downtown core. Along the ride there are about two points where the subway rises above ground (and into range with a cell tower). The reception only lasts for a minute or so tops but I *still* see people trying to complete phone calls during this time.
I would say trying to desperately make phone calls like this (ESPECIALLY knowing that you're going to be able to make a reasonably lengthed phone call in 20 minutes or less) is far more disturbing than seeing how people react to going without the net for two weeks.
And here's why:
1) Even if Slashdot didn't report on it, other news sites have already reported it.
2) Even if Slashdot had a "WARNING: Spoiler re: Jeopardy" you could limit the story contents to two possibilities: He loses or the Jeopardy set ignites spontaneously.
3) Since interest in him is now mainstream americana, you'd hear about it at the water cooler from someone at work who likes to be the first to break the pop culture/gossip stories or from a family member/friend that does the same.
4) Even if Slashdot DIDN'T post the story, there'd be a group of trolls posting spoilers about the day he loses at +1 over and over to get the info out.
News like this could be prevented if Jeopardy just shot an episode a day and sent it out nightly. Of course, that'd drive up costs.
On the bright side you'll probably never see a spoiler like this again as the odds of someone coming close to his streak are pretty low.
I've taken this color blindness test myself and I have to say that I was shocked with the final results.
-5 months: You "discover" a technology at a conference that no one seems to have picked up on.
-2 months: You read about it in the newspaper 3 months later. The article is done by a guy whose speciality is discussing nothing but gadgets.
0 months: The technology appears in stores in limited quantities, geeks foam at the mouth trying to acquire it. The girlfriends of geeks shake their head wondering why they would need it.
2 weeks: The geeks who can't find it in stores buy it on ebay for 3x the store cost. No girlfriends to shake their head at these guys.
1 year: Regular people begin buying the product.
1.5 years: Mainstream newspapers report on the popularity of the product.
2 years: Your girlfriend buys the product.
2.5 years: Your mother finally hears about the product.
3 years: Families begin buying the product. The product is finally mainstream.
5 years: The product begins appearing between the shaving razors and chocolate bars at the check-out counter.
7 years: The product/technology finally peters out and your grandmother goes around telling people that she knew it was a fad from the start (1 year ago, from her perspective).
8 years: Slashdot reports on the product.
"There is a common misconception that quantum computers can solve NP-Complete problems in polynomial time. That is not known to be true, and is generally suspected to be false."
:)
Wikipedia said it. Not me.
I'll settle for silver. :(