Interesting, given that they aren't touch screens... So he makes an analogy to portable DVD player screens, then says they plan on using OLPC displays, and _then_ says they'll be touch screens.
So how can this possibly be had for $20 a screen? that's $20+OLPC Screen Cost + Touch Screen Cost = ???
The author, I think, really seems to be lashing out at a bunch of random stuff, and being absolutely and totally wrong in many cases.
However, there was one shining gem at the end of the article. He goes on to talk about the lack of UI controls that are exported from "standard" Windows apps like Office to developers.
I think this is a general problem Microsoft has always had-- how many times have they introduced a new menubar or widget, not released this to any development environment (be it C++, VB, or.NET), and subsequently generated a small cottage industry of clones? Many of varying quality, and often hard to integrate into the general Windows framework (mainly due to undocumented calls).
This is where Apple seems to really come through-- rather than hide their new innovations (such as CoreGraphics, CoreData, etc), they immediately share them so that people who develop Mac applications have a much bigger common base of tools to work with. Why hide away the stuff that makes better [insert your system of choice here] programs?
In a way, Apple may actually be aiming for the simple, journeyman programmer that the author describes. They're more likely to use what's at hand-- you can make your iTunes clone without having to purchase nary a widget or toolkit!
Do you have some numbers to back your tax claims up? I hear all the time how Americans are taxed less than Canadians... but no one ever puts up numbers.
I'm not trying to be confrontational here, I'm just curious what the average person gets taxed? I think my income tax rate last year was around 27%. Since I'm renting, I didn't pay property tax, and otherwise it's just the sales tax (14% in this part of the country, but it's 6% in some provinces).
I don't necessarily see that as too much. The only people who really benefit by America's lower taxes are the minority of people who are making giant wads of cash I think.
This is entirely untrue. Canadians have even fewer rights than Americans in copying media (there is no fair use "right" in Canada). The levy is solely to recapture costs of piracy and in no way stipulates that this makes it ok for regular Canadians to do.
The only reason there are no MAFIAA cases in Canada is because the courts and the police generally don't like being pushed around by large companies... and well, the other laws that make such lawsuits difficult for the RIAA to bring forward.
Nevertheless, it has never been legal in Canada to copy your music to digital media. Levy or no levy. Of course, the fact that there IS a levy does muddy the legal waters because it gives the general population the idea that they are, indeed, paying for the ability to copy.
Longhorn was the biggest software project failure of all time, at least in the private sector.
Of course, especially considering they just shipped it.
Um, actually they didn't. They shipped Vista. Which contains pretty much none of the features of Longhorn aside from a new window manager. Which isn't even a new window manager but a DirectX application that takes over your whole screen from the old Windows window manager. Did it need to take 6 years?
Lighten up!
If everyone sat around thinking about all the things that could go wrong, we'd never do anything.
What if this toaster shorts out? What if I slip in my shower? What if I choke on my pillow?
It's pretty funny, actually. So far the only people who look bad are the Californians. They've quite thoroughly demonstrated that they have no sense of humour and/or they're jealous they didn't think of it themselves.
It's a sad sad world when they outlaw a little fun.
from the rabid "response" to the letter written by the folks at Mozillazine, it looks to me like they're taking the same high road that has made many companies (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) lose out on the innovation that smaller more agile companies (*cough* pre 4.0 Netscape *cough*) were able to come up with.
Come on guys! Take the advice from the WSP... although I'm sure it's not as bad as they say, they are right... You've definately lost the boat, and if you keep up the same rhetoric, the plot as well.
use solar wind to push a probe out to the fringes of the solar system... then kick in the ion propulsion engines, and you're off to the races. Saves a _lot_ on power that could be better used once you've reached the end of the sun's influence.
And unlike solar sails, it's a hell of a lot easier to turn of a field than it is to crumple back up a mylar sheet. Most people can barely get their tents back into the bags... bow to you expect a space probe to do it?:)
Although you are probably right, I think PlayStation 2 will probably beat out Sega in the long run. Why?
- PlayStation has a much bigger following than Nintendo and Sega outside of North America
- For a change, Sony has produced real quality with their Playstation, and hopefully with the sequel. How long has Playstation been around? Ages. Sega and Nintendo have inundated the market with various "revisions" of their machines, all trying (STILL!) to beat the old workhorse, the Playstation.
- Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.
That's my take, anyways... Not that I really _use_ consoles.:) long live interactive fiction!
BTW, I've got some CDs of infocom games around here... Anyone know of a good infocom interpreter for Linux??
If you want some realistic bus simulations, make sure you include surly drivers... you know, the kind that drive right past you, while you're waiting at the bus stop in the pouring rain?
There seem to be two main geek stereotypes going around these days:
Stereotype #1: bad hygiene, trek fan, pocket protector, social inept, clumsy, and usually inept at everything they try. This is the "old" geek stereotype. It's origins seem to come from the 50's (hence the pocket protectors and funky chunky glasses). This geek stereotype is of the kind of geek that can't really communicate with the outside world, and yet has very few redeeming qualities (they're not even that smart!). You've probably seen this kind of geek portrayed a million times in the media, and they usually end up pretty sadly off... or they change out of their geek ways and turn into writers. (Okay, I've been watching too much Back to the Future here).
Stereotype #2: the newer, post-minicomputer Stereotype. This is the liberal minded, extremely intelligent, hard working, reclusive genius. These are all the guys that moved from MIT to San Fran in the 70's (read the novel "Hackers" when you get the chance). Definately the hacker types, and not the kind of person who "bumbles around". People who probably would choose to read Voltaire over watching the tv or going to a movie. (okay, well, maybe a Voltmeter)
I think it's stereotype #2 that he's aiming for. Unfortunately, there's a lot more of #1 than #2, but I guess that's always the case.
I'm not sure where he's gotten the idea that geeks are socially adept. Quite frankly, I've never encounter any stereotype involving geeks, nerds, or whatever, as anything other than inable to communicate with fellow humans. That's why they're geeks-- they communicate better to machines through logic.
It's possible that the original poster could mean some of the "new media/internet startup/web page design" types... These folks are for the most part not geeks. They're publishers, writers, artists, and business-types. You know, the people with the cool stereotypes.:)
That's quite a leap from total anonymity to total anarchy.
Electronic ballots, I think, are much more likely to allow people to vote for the candidate they believe in. They can be set up to be more or less anonymous and secure (although you're right, definately not as secure as voting in person). The only issue would be making sure everyone only votes once-- perhaps everyone can go to a randomly assigned URL (vote.gov/x45623fgsd34523/, or something like that), which then expires the second someone has voted. The page could email the vote (as the httpd user, not from the voter's computer) to the vote counter, and voila. If done right, no one would ever know for whom you voted.
I certainly don't see how this would make everyone suddenly pressure others to vote, at least not more than they do already. I don't know if you've been to a church lately (or ever, for that matter, since they've been doing this for the last four thousand years), but what you describe is more or less accurate... just better disguised ("Senator such-and-such supports gay rights... what ever happened to good old family values", blah blah blah fud fud fud).
I think anything to get _more_ people to vote will certainly help, not hinder, the election process. Those that vote currently (for the most part) are those who are passionate about their politics and their party. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have more of "the average Joe" votes, to see what kind of government the average person wants.
Although, I must admit, as a Canadian, I sometimes get a good chuckle at the over-complification of the US election process. We probably get double the voter turnout up here, if only because it's _easy_. Plus we only vote for provincial and federal representatives in Parliament, and city council members-- not for the local dog-catcher. Nor for bills to be passed in Provincial government, that's why we voted for the politicians to begin with.:)
Make it easy on the public, and they will vote. Make it hard, and only a select few will vote, and often not in the public's best interests.
... many sound cards available today offer some pretty useful tools in "acquiring" audio from already digital sources.
My SB Live has the ability to record whatever is being played (from the computer) without any DA conversions. So, as long as you can play an SDMI file, you can record an exact dupe as MP3.
Not to mention that MP4 is going to blow SDMI right out of the water, quality-wise. Unlike consumer electronics, open standards in the computer industry move a lot faster than the industry developed ones.
Plus, I don't think they realize the psychological reasons why MP3 will win. Most people (especially the computer-illiterates I know) tend not to see files/downloads as any sort of product. To them, it's not a tangible item-- they can't hold it, they can't throw it at the cat, they can't put it in their bags to show off to some friends. Therefore, to them, it has no real value. They're certainly not going to pay for something that they believe has no value.
I know that's not the attitude for many of the computer-savvy individual. However, there are many people out there who would never even consider taking so much as a candy from the supermarket bulk bins, but would gladly download the latest Will Smith single.
Which also brings me to my last (finally) point-- much of the mp3's currently available on the internet are the more popular songs-- usually singles. Since those songs are heard on the radio (sometimes a few too many times, ala Spice Girls) it doesn't really seem like much of a crime to get an mp3 of a song that has already been broadcast to the world. It's public domain then, right? Who would pay for something that's already free?
SDMI is dead before it's started. The music industry shouldn't try to mess with a distribution system that is already in full force, and is definately doing much more good than harm. How difficult is it for an emerging artist to encode an MP3? Dead easy. How much will it cost to encode in SDMI? How many legal hassles will you have to go through? For many, it just ain't worth it.
And I won't say that MP3 and MP4 will win, because there is no challenge-- they won a long time ago.
But if IDE didn't exist you would be able to add 17 gigs of SCSI for less than 250. There's nothing inherently more expensive about SCSI, it's just that the existence of two incompatible standards has enabled the disk manufacturers to overcharge the high-enders
I'll agree with you that SCSI and ISDN are better standards-- but let's face it. IDE _did_ exist simply because it was easier/cheaper. New standards come and go, and most of the time they're better, but that doesn't mean we should all be jumping on to each new one that comes along.
I'm glad I missed out on ISDN. And although cable modems and ADSL aren't much "better" standards, they certainly are faster-- and much better supported.
It just takes a change in what society as a whole wants to make one standard or another the most popular. Back in the days when no one wore seatbelts and no one even bothered to do crash tests, I doubt paying twice the cost of a regular car for a "safer, better" Volvo would have got many customers. Nowadays, of course, almost all cars are as safe as a Volvo.
And of course, there are always those who will fork out even more for the Mercedes with quad-steel-graphite-diamond side-front-back-underneath impact beams.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough. I live in Canada where unfortunately I guess it feels a bit more like a hegemony, just not a military one.
Not a simple border search-- I've gone across the border a million times and never been searched _by the country I'm leaving_.
In fact, there's no way to easily do that at such border crossings like the Peace Arch (between WA/BC).
Look up "hegemony", it describes exactly what's happening.
Interesting, given that they aren't touch screens... So he makes an analogy to portable DVD player screens, then says they plan on using OLPC displays, and _then_ says they'll be touch screens.
So how can this possibly be had for $20 a screen? that's $20+OLPC Screen Cost + Touch Screen Cost = ???
He has some effed up math.
The author, I think, really seems to be lashing out at a bunch of random stuff, and being absolutely and totally wrong in many cases.
.NET), and subsequently generated a small cottage industry of clones? Many of varying quality, and often hard to integrate into the general Windows framework (mainly due to undocumented calls).
However, there was one shining gem at the end of the article. He goes on to talk about the lack of UI controls that are exported from "standard" Windows apps like Office to developers.
I think this is a general problem Microsoft has always had-- how many times have they introduced a new menubar or widget, not released this to any development environment (be it C++, VB, or
This is where Apple seems to really come through-- rather than hide their new innovations (such as CoreGraphics, CoreData, etc), they immediately share them so that people who develop Mac applications have a much bigger common base of tools to work with. Why hide away the stuff that makes better [insert your system of choice here] programs?
In a way, Apple may actually be aiming for the simple, journeyman programmer that the author describes. They're more likely to use what's at hand-- you can make your iTunes clone without having to purchase nary a widget or toolkit!
Do you have some numbers to back your tax claims up? I hear all the time how Americans are taxed less than Canadians... but no one ever puts up numbers.
I'm not trying to be confrontational here, I'm just curious what the average person gets taxed? I think my income tax rate last year was around 27%. Since I'm renting, I didn't pay property tax, and otherwise it's just the sales tax (14% in this part of the country, but it's 6% in some provinces).
I don't necessarily see that as too much. The only people who really benefit by America's lower taxes are the minority of people who are making giant wads of cash I think.
OpenGL 3.0 is due to be released in short order, and it's pretty much a complete redesign of the API.
Out with state machines and in with OO abstractions.
Since when was Google Desktop a browser? And why would Firefox need to be "looking over it's shoulder" because of it?
This is entirely untrue. Canadians have even fewer rights than Americans in copying media (there is no fair use "right" in Canada). The levy is solely to recapture costs of piracy and in no way stipulates that this makes it ok for regular Canadians to do.
The only reason there are no MAFIAA cases in Canada is because the courts and the police generally don't like being pushed around by large companies... and well, the other laws that make such lawsuits difficult for the RIAA to bring forward.
Nevertheless, it has never been legal in Canada to copy your music to digital media. Levy or no levy. Of course, the fact that there IS a levy does muddy the legal waters because it gives the general population the idea that they are, indeed, paying for the ability to copy.
Of course, especially considering they just shipped it.
Um, actually they didn't. They shipped Vista. Which contains pretty much none of the features of Longhorn aside from a new window manager. Which isn't even a new window manager but a DirectX application that takes over your whole screen from the old Windows window manager. Did it need to take 6 years?Um, actually I believe it's called sarcasm.
-g
I think you probably want to switch to this game instead:
http://www.i-p.se/index.aspx?page=mindball&mId=1
Restriced Area? You make it sound like it's a military installation...
it's a public space-- a LIBRARY. Sure, perhaps that library is mostly run by UCLA, but I'm sure a fair amount of tax payer money went into it, no?
And into the research it supports?
Do _you_ always have your ID on you? Next time you're out jogging, should you be tazed because you can't "produce your papers"?
Doesn't that sound like a shampoo ad to you?
What if this toaster shorts out? What if I slip in my shower? What if I choke on my pillow?
It's pretty funny, actually. So far the only people who look bad are the Californians. They've quite thoroughly demonstrated that they have no sense of humour and/or they're jealous they didn't think of it themselves.
It's a sad sad world when they outlaw a little fun.
from the rabid "response" to the letter written by the folks at Mozillazine, it looks to me like they're taking the same high road that has made many companies (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) lose out on the innovation that smaller more agile companies (*cough* pre 4.0 Netscape *cough*) were able to come up with.
Come on guys! Take the advice from the WSP... although I'm sure it's not as bad as they say, they are right... You've definately lost the boat, and if you keep up the same rhetoric, the plot as well.
- grish
Actually, for us, British Columbia is in the Pacific Southwest.
:)
:)
Of course, there's really not a whole lot much more North I guess.
Greg
Vancouver, BC
and write our MPs!
www.parl.gc.ca
Hey, who knows... It might actually work.
Here's an idea:
:)
use solar wind to push a probe out to the fringes of the solar system... then kick in the ion propulsion engines, and you're off to the races. Saves a _lot_ on power that could be better used once you've reached the end of the sun's influence.
And unlike solar sails, it's a hell of a lot easier to turn of a field than it is to crumple back up a mylar sheet. Most people can barely get their tents back into the bags... bow to you expect a space probe to do it?
- Greg
Although you are probably right, I think PlayStation 2 will probably beat out Sega in the long run. Why?
:) long live interactive fiction!
- PlayStation has a much bigger following than Nintendo and Sega outside of North America
- For a change, Sony has produced real quality with their Playstation, and hopefully with the sequel. How long has Playstation been around? Ages. Sega and Nintendo have inundated the market with various "revisions" of their machines, all trying (STILL!) to beat the old workhorse, the Playstation.
- Sony's licensing for games is practically nonexistant. Look at the myriad of playstation titles out there... They definately don't have to go through the hoops that game developers have to produce Nintendo and, to a lesser degree, Sega games.
That's my take, anyways... Not that I really _use_ consoles.
BTW, I've got some CDs of infocom games around here... Anyone know of a good infocom interpreter for Linux??
If you want some realistic bus simulations, make sure you include surly drivers... you know, the kind that drive right past you, while you're waiting at the bus stop in the pouring rain?
:)
Me? Bitter? Never.
- Greg
There seem to be two main geek stereotypes going around these days:
:)
Stereotype #1: bad hygiene, trek fan, pocket protector, social inept, clumsy, and usually inept at everything they try. This is the "old" geek stereotype. It's origins seem to come from the 50's (hence the pocket protectors and funky chunky glasses). This geek stereotype is of the kind of geek that can't really communicate with the outside world, and yet has very few redeeming qualities (they're not even that smart!). You've probably seen this kind of geek portrayed a million times in the media, and they usually end up pretty sadly off... or they change out of their geek ways and turn into writers. (Okay, I've been watching too much Back to the Future here).
Stereotype #2: the newer, post-minicomputer Stereotype. This is the liberal minded, extremely intelligent, hard working, reclusive genius. These are all the guys that moved from MIT to San Fran in the 70's (read the novel "Hackers" when you get the chance). Definately the hacker types, and not the kind of person who "bumbles around". People who probably would choose to read Voltaire over watching the tv or going to a movie. (okay, well, maybe a Voltmeter)
I think it's stereotype #2 that he's aiming for. Unfortunately, there's a lot more of #1 than #2, but I guess that's always the case.
I'm not sure where he's gotten the idea that geeks are socially adept. Quite frankly, I've never encounter any stereotype involving geeks, nerds, or whatever, as anything other than inable to communicate with fellow humans. That's why they're geeks-- they communicate better to machines through logic.
It's possible that the original poster could mean some of the "new media/internet startup/web page design" types... These folks are for the most part not geeks. They're publishers, writers, artists, and business-types. You know, the people with the cool stereotypes.
- Greg
That's quite a leap from total anonymity to total anarchy.
:)
Electronic ballots, I think, are much more likely to allow people to vote for the candidate they believe in. They can be set up to be more or less anonymous and secure (although you're right, definately not as secure as voting in person). The only issue would be making sure everyone only votes once-- perhaps everyone can go to a randomly assigned URL (vote.gov/x45623fgsd34523/, or something like that), which then expires the second someone has voted. The page could email the vote (as the httpd user, not from the voter's computer) to the vote counter, and voila. If done right, no one would ever know for whom you voted.
I certainly don't see how this would make everyone suddenly pressure others to vote, at least not more than they do already. I don't know if you've been to a church lately (or ever, for that matter, since they've been doing this for the last four thousand years), but what you describe is more or less accurate... just better disguised ("Senator such-and-such supports gay rights... what ever happened to good old family values", blah blah blah fud fud fud).
I think anything to get _more_ people to vote will certainly help, not hinder, the election process. Those that vote currently (for the most part) are those who are passionate about their politics and their party. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have more of "the average Joe" votes, to see what kind of government the average person wants.
Although, I must admit, as a Canadian, I sometimes get a good chuckle at the over-complification of the US election process. We probably get double the voter turnout up here, if only because it's _easy_. Plus we only vote for provincial and federal representatives in Parliament, and city council members-- not for the local dog-catcher.
Nor for bills to be passed in Provincial government, that's why we voted for the politicians to begin with.
Make it easy on the public, and they will vote. Make it hard, and only a select few will vote, and often not in the public's best interests.
... many sound cards available today offer some pretty useful tools in "acquiring" audio from already digital sources.
My SB Live has the ability to record whatever is being played (from the computer) without any DA conversions. So, as long as you can play an SDMI file, you can record an exact dupe as MP3.
Not to mention that MP4 is going to blow SDMI right out of the water, quality-wise. Unlike consumer electronics, open standards in the computer industry move a lot faster than the industry developed ones.
Plus, I don't think they realize the psychological reasons why MP3 will win. Most people (especially the computer-illiterates I know) tend not to see files/downloads as any sort of product. To them, it's not a tangible item-- they can't hold it, they can't throw it at the cat, they can't put it in their bags to show off to some friends. Therefore, to them, it has no real value. They're certainly not going to pay for something that they believe has no value.
I know that's not the attitude for many of the computer-savvy individual. However, there are many people out there who would never even consider taking so much as a candy from the supermarket bulk bins, but would gladly download the latest Will Smith single.
Which also brings me to my last (finally) point-- much of the mp3's currently available on the internet are the more popular songs-- usually singles. Since those songs are heard on the radio (sometimes a few too many times, ala Spice Girls) it doesn't really seem like much of a crime to get an mp3 of a song that has already been broadcast to the world. It's public domain then, right? Who would pay for something that's already free?
SDMI is dead before it's started. The music industry shouldn't try to mess with a distribution system that is already in full force, and is definately doing much more good than harm. How difficult is it for an emerging artist to encode an MP3? Dead easy.
How much will it cost to encode in SDMI? How many legal hassles will you have to go through? For many, it just ain't worth it.
And I won't say that MP3 and MP4 will win, because there is no challenge-- they won a long time ago.
- Greg.
But if IDE didn't exist you would be able to add 17 gigs of SCSI for less than 250. There's nothing inherently more expensive about SCSI, it's just that the existence of two incompatible standards has enabled the disk manufacturers to overcharge the high-enders
:)
I'll agree with you that SCSI and ISDN are better standards-- but let's face it. IDE _did_ exist simply because it was easier/cheaper. New standards come and go, and most of the time they're better, but that doesn't mean we should all be jumping on to each new one that comes along.
I'm glad I missed out on ISDN. And although cable modems and ADSL aren't much "better" standards, they certainly are faster-- and much better supported.
It just takes a change in what society as a whole wants to make one standard or another the most popular. Back in the days when no one wore seatbelts and no one even bothered to do crash tests, I doubt paying twice the cost of a regular car for a "safer, better" Volvo would have got many customers.
Nowadays, of course, almost all cars are as safe as a Volvo.
And of course, there are always those who will fork out even more for the Mercedes with quad-steel-graphite-diamond side-front-back-underneath impact beams.