I probably would too -- but the NYT website is very good, probably the best site out there that's roughly in the mold of a traditional newspaper.
I think the NYT might be one of the rare sites that could succeed with such relatively high subscription costs (lower than their normal subscription mind you), but very few other websites could get away with it, so it's not a good general solution.
Their blog grandly announces (or at least strongly implies) that they've solved the licensing/theft/etc problems with downloadable fonts, without using DRM, but while there's a lot of handwaving, they don't actually seem to go into any detail about how they've "solved" it.
Indeed. I am not upgrading to 3 because of the horrific address bar
I hated it at first, but now I love it. It is indeed different than the old address-bar, but actually... it works really well. I find that I completely rely on it to re-find random sites I know I visited in the past but didn't bother to bookmark.
You really ought to try it for a while before rejecting the entire browser because of it...
since all south korean online banking is done with windows computers, friday will seriously suck.
Hmmm, maybe we've been a bit hasty in judging these bot-writers... anything which provides some incentive for korean websites to change that crap can't be all bad...
Perhaps the dear-leader is just showing a bit of tough love?
But what I'm wondering is: is the noise and push over Mono as a popular platform a result of it being particularly strong, or a result of a few particularly desirable apps depending on it?
Neither, really. MS is clearly pushing C#/CLI very hard as the primary Windows development infrastructure -- so if you care about Windows, you probably need to care about them. Miguel is obsessed with duplicating everything MS does, so the Gnome project has put a lot of effort into cloning C#/CLI, but they don't really seem to have gained much traction in the FOSS world. I suspect that besides the patent fear, FOSS has much more solid alternatives than MS users do, and a far more diverse development culture; the general feel of bloat and "one giant do-all blob" that you get from CLI/C# may not be to many peoples' tastes.
Combine those factors with a general mistrust stemming from MS's hard-won reputation for turning around and stabbing its partners in the back, and things don't seem nearly so rosy for Mono on FOSS as they do for C#/CLI on windows...
A (wealthy) friend had his delivered recently. Here's my twisty road test report.
Executive Summary: Oh. My. God.
Systems Lacking: 4-point harnesses, sufficient handholds for passenger, automated system to maintain directional control during GLOC on launch, earplugs to block whimpering sounds from passenger seat
Soooo.... what you're saying is that your (wealthy) friend is an extremely bad driver...?
Why don't you just use the sidewalk yourself? It's easier to do in a car (people WILL move out of your way, and if not you're driving a ton of steel - just run them over) AND you'll get to your destination much quicker.
I visited East Germany (Halle) just after the wall fell, and the drivers there very much did use the sidewalk, if the road happened to be temporarily blocked (by a car stopped to let out a passenger, for instance). They didn't slow down much either. Even if the sidewalk was a narrow one in the busiest part of the the pedestrian-filled city center.
You clearly don't live in a city. It would be nice if nobody needed to, but most people do. Playing outside is... risky. Traffic is only one of the reasons.
I'll agree that staying inside at that age isn't healthy, but neither is being outside and unsupervised. (And, yes, when I was growing up I did that, and it was essentially safe. That doesn't make it safe now.)
I think it depends on a lot of factors, both the actual environment -- auto-oriented "american" cities tend to be worse than traditional people-oriented cities -- and attitude -- parents these days can be perversely risk-averse, to an extent which probably hurts their kids more than it helps.
I live in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and tons of kids play outside. They play in side streets (which are narrow, and traffic is rare), in parks (not just large obvious parks, but small parks which dot the city), in schoolyards,... they ride bikes, on the sidewalk. They walk to school (and play and goof off on the way).
Obviously you can't just chuck them out the door at age 3 -- their parents need to show them the ropes for a bit, and introduce them to their environment -- but kids learn fast, and they'll soon make the city their own.
Many fairly young kids are also quite capable of using the public transport system -- you see lots of 6- and 7-year-olds taking the train to school by themselves -- meaning they'll have a degree of independence even at a young age. Man, I wish I had grown up in an environment this cool!
But I like their consumer electronics, they're pretty and they're slick. A game device/phone coming from such a giant could be a huge thing.
Historically, Sony had very good industrial design -- conservative, but almost always elegant in an understated way. These days things seem considerably weirder.
Their laptops, for instance, are lovely, slim and elegant (though apparently a bit flimsy). Their MP3 players are a wacky bling-fest. SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment, playstation etc), apparently does all their own design, thus the absurdly ugly original playstation, and the hit and miss character of everything after that: PS2 -- big, but not so bad; PS3 -- shiny but clunky, awkward and huge; PSP: not too bad; PSP GO: a joke (but all of them feel very "non-Sony").
While Sony still has some cool stuff, sadly, they've really lost the consistently elegant design that typified their glory days. Now it seems almost more like a bunch of different companies in a loose alliance, than a single organization with a unified vision.
Its also possible that my opening of a coke can will unsettle the quantum state of the water molecules vaporized in the air consequentially causing a pony to spontaneously appear.
Which is precisely why Coke kill a pony for every can they make;)
I don't think this guy is really advocating "learned coders", he's advocating coding monkeys: coders that will meekly follow whatever wacky development model he subscribes to this week without question. What he hates is independent thought.
I could live well on that wage in the middle of the country-- but it would be impossible in the upper east coast or the west coast.
Consider that it would take the average indian programmer about 70 years to earn as a gross income enough to buy a "middle class" house in California.
Rathole apartments are $50,000 a year in New York.
Similar issues would exist in Tokyo.
I'm not sure what you mean by "issues"... Japanese salaries are on average much lower on average than what you'd make in Silicon Valley or something, but people still do fine. I suppose the crucial point is what you consider "living well" (note: that isn't synonymous with a giant house with a lawn and a three car garage, a lawn holding 2 giant SUVs).
Tokyo's not cheap, but it's an enormous city with a lot of housing available at all price levels, and the transportation system is good enough that you have a fair bit of choice where to live given a typical commute (and everyone has a commute, unless they get very lucky). The key tradeoff, if you live in Tokyo is space -- if you live like the typical person, you won't have anywhere near as much space as say a family in the suburbs of Buttfuck, Kansas (on the other hand, you get to live in Tokyo, not the suburbs of Buttfuck, Kansas!).
Anyway, it's not at all hard to live a decent life in Tokyo on an income of say $60,000/year. If you make $30,000, of course, you'll end up living like a student, and if you want the super deluxe and insanely huge expat apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper in the most expensive area of the city then...yeah, then you'll need more.
Personally, while I enjoy a challenge, I don't enjoy playing the same level for hours on end, and never getting any further. I'll be using the "I'm bored, please let me play the next bit" button sometimes.
Exactly. There was one of the Metroid Prime games where I got to one of the bosses and I had a bitch of a time fighting it. Never did beat it. I spent several hours going through the same routine... my ass wiped all over the floor, lather, rinse, repeat. I eventually just gave up. It's a shame too, cos I really liked the game. But putting one part in there that I couldn't get passed ruined the experience for me.
Exactly2!!
I gave up Metroid Prime 3 after attempting the same stupid boss like 50 times. No doubt it was my fault -- I just suck too much, and I'm not very good with the Wii controller -- but I play games for fun, not to brag how hard-core I am. I know it feels great to finally get past a hard bit after having honed your skills through endless attempts, but sometimes enough is enough.
Of course there are alternative approaches:
Dumb down the game generally. Seems obviously worse, because it takes away the choice from the player, and you know the same people bitching in this story would go insane if they did that.
Traditional (chosen at game start) difficulty levels. This gives the player some choice, but it's generally quite a clumsy approach, as it's very hard for a player to estimate beforehand what the appropriate difficulty level is.
Dynamically switchable difficulty levels. This is better but no doubt this also would result in bitching by the "no challenge" crowd.
Anyway, I'm glad they're doing something, because I like games, but I'm not always very good at them!
I've no idea what Intel/AMD claimed, but you'd have to be utterly naive to believe any claim involving a single fixed performance increase. Modern systems are very complex, and performance is insanely context dependent. Facebook's server apps are not going to be precisely like anybody else's apps, and there's simply no way to know how they'll perform without testing them.
...and of course you wouldn't expect somebody with the title "VP of technical operations" to be so technically naive... oh... wait. Facebook.
Apparently (it's hard to say for sure, since all the stories I found were kinda sensationalist) the project in Basel caused a magnitude 3.4 quake.
That's an extremely small earthquake.
Big trucks going a construction site also rumble and shake the ground when the go past. People bitch, but it's not considered a reason to stop construction projects (except perhaps in very exceptional circumstances).
Frankly the furor seems to be more the "OMG they're doing something we don't understand which doesn't involve overeating and reality television! Stop them!" sort than it does a well-grounded and considered opposition.
Given a choice between democracy and educated civil discourse, or a large smack of porn and screaming matches, 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the latter. And the 10th one was a cat walking over the keyboard.
The cat actually had some pretty insightful observations, though...
When Doctorow makes sweeping statements, it's best to back away and think through them. Sci-fi writers are good at sounding like they have authority. Sometimes, this leads to brilliant and revolutionary visions of the future in a superficial sense, other times you get Scientology.
I know he's got oodles of "internet cred," but I'd just like to state for the record that I don't choose to credit this man as an authority in this field and I think we should take anything he says with a grain of salt.
I've never understood why he seems to have so much "cred," as he never actually seems to do anything particularly noteworthy. He seems to be the blog version of a celebrity who's "famous for being famous"...
My typical procedure is to pick up a console when I come across a game I really want. I think that while the PS3's game lineup is hardly the best history's seen, it has some pretty good stuff. But every time I think "oh maybe I should just get it", the price of the console itself smacks me in the face and I end up thinking I'll just wait.
There's a vague price threshold below which I buy stuff without worrying too much about the price, and the PS3 is comfortably above that threshold. It isn't a impulse purchase, and I think that in many cases, that's the kiss of death.
I hope this comment is in jest pointing out that people have been claiming that AMD is in trouble for years
I never quite figured that out. Sure AMD's had a rough patch in recent years, but Intel spent years churning out crap sub-standard processors. Intel tried to fix their problems, and have come back with great products; there's no reason to think AMD can't do the same -- and indeed the Phenom II seems to be excellent (it doesn't completely crush Intel's offerings like AMD's products did a few years ago, but Intel's not turning out complete crap these days).
What was particularly surprising to me, though, is how quickly, and with what vehemency, people started declaring "AMD is finished!1!" after the core2 proved a better CPU that what AMD was offering at the time. I got the weird feeling that some of these people had been just waiting....
Slashdot Mirror
I probably would too -- but the NYT website is very good, probably the best site out there that's roughly in the mold of a traditional newspaper.
I think the NYT might be one of the rare sites that could succeed with such relatively high subscription costs (lower than their normal subscription mind you), but very few other websites could get away with it, so it's not a good general solution.
Their text was such a pretty green color
The vt100 (and vt102) used a pleasant white phosphor (google suggests it was P4 phosphor, the same as used on B&W televisions).
The case was tossed out too, making him look even more stupid!
I can imagine the Judge's reaction upon viewing the video evidence...
My verdict: you are a mega-wanker; he should have hit you harder!
NEXT!
So what's the deal with "typekit"?
Their blog grandly announces (or at least strongly implies) that they've solved the licensing/theft/etc problems with downloadable fonts, without using DRM, but while there's a lot of handwaving, they don't actually seem to go into any detail about how they've "solved" it.
Does anybody know?
I was expecting it to be titled "first post!"...
Indeed. I am not upgrading to 3 because of the horrific address bar
I hated it at first, but now I love it. It is indeed different than the old address-bar, but actually... it works really well. I find that I completely rely on it to re-find random sites I know I visited in the past but didn't bother to bookmark.
You really ought to try it for a while before rejecting the entire browser because of it...
since all south korean online banking is done with windows computers, friday will seriously suck.
Hmmm, maybe we've been a bit hasty in judging these bot-writers... anything which provides some incentive for korean websites to change that crap can't be all bad...
Perhaps the dear-leader is just showing a bit of tough love?
I use a keyboard with an IBM trackpoint so i don't keep moving my right hand between keyboard and mouse.
If only they'd release a happy-hacking keyboard model with a builtin eraserhead, I would make many sacrifices of dubious morality!
But what I'm wondering is: is the noise and push over Mono as a popular platform a result of it being particularly strong, or a result of a few particularly desirable apps depending on it?
Neither, really. MS is clearly pushing C#/CLI very hard as the primary Windows development infrastructure -- so if you care about Windows, you probably need to care about them. Miguel is obsessed with duplicating everything MS does, so the Gnome project has put a lot of effort into cloning C#/CLI, but they don't really seem to have gained much traction in the FOSS world. I suspect that besides the patent fear, FOSS has much more solid alternatives than MS users do, and a far more diverse development culture; the general feel of bloat and "one giant do-all blob" that you get from CLI/C# may not be to many peoples' tastes.
Combine those factors with a general mistrust stemming from MS's hard-won reputation for turning around and stabbing its partners in the back, and things don't seem nearly so rosy for Mono on FOSS as they do for C#/CLI on windows...
A (wealthy) friend had his delivered recently. Here's my twisty road test report.
Executive Summary: Oh. My. God.
Systems Lacking: 4-point harnesses, sufficient handholds for passenger, automated system to maintain directional control during GLOC on launch, earplugs to block whimpering sounds from passenger seat
Soooo.... what you're saying is that your (wealthy) friend is an extremely bad driver...?
(hope he doesn't read slashdot!)
Why don't you just use the sidewalk yourself? It's easier to do in a car (people WILL move out of your way, and if not you're driving a ton of steel - just run them over) AND you'll get to your destination much quicker.
I visited East Germany (Halle) just after the wall fell, and the drivers there very much did use the sidewalk, if the road happened to be temporarily blocked (by a car stopped to let out a passenger, for instance). They didn't slow down much either. Even if the sidewalk was a narrow one in the busiest part of the the pedestrian-filled city center.
In retrospect, I suppose it's an amusing story.
You clearly don't live in a city. It would be nice if nobody needed to, but most people do. Playing outside is ... risky. Traffic is only one of the reasons.
I'll agree that staying inside at that age isn't healthy, but neither is being outside and unsupervised. (And, yes, when I was growing up I did that, and it was essentially safe. That doesn't make it safe now.)
I think it depends on a lot of factors, both the actual environment -- auto-oriented "american" cities tend to be worse than traditional people-oriented cities -- and attitude -- parents these days can be perversely risk-averse, to an extent which probably hurts their kids more than it helps.
I live in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and tons of kids play outside. They play in side streets (which are narrow, and traffic is rare), in parks (not just large obvious parks, but small parks which dot the city), in schoolyards, ... they ride bikes, on the sidewalk. They walk to school (and play and goof off on the way).
Obviously you can't just chuck them out the door at age 3 -- their parents need to show them the ropes for a bit, and introduce them to their environment -- but kids learn fast, and they'll soon make the city their own.
Many fairly young kids are also quite capable of using the public transport system -- you see lots of 6- and 7-year-olds taking the train to school by themselves -- meaning they'll have a degree of independence even at a young age. Man, I wish I had grown up in an environment this cool!
But I like their consumer electronics, they're pretty and they're slick. A game device/phone coming from such a giant could be a huge thing.
Historically, Sony had very good industrial design -- conservative, but almost always elegant in an understated way. These days things seem considerably weirder.
Their laptops, for instance, are lovely, slim and elegant (though apparently a bit flimsy). Their MP3 players are a wacky bling-fest. SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment, playstation etc), apparently does all their own design, thus the absurdly ugly original playstation, and the hit and miss character of everything after that: PS2 -- big, but not so bad; PS3 -- shiny but clunky, awkward and huge; PSP: not too bad; PSP GO: a joke (but all of them feel very "non-Sony").
While Sony still has some cool stuff, sadly, they've really lost the consistently elegant design that typified their glory days. Now it seems almost more like a bunch of different companies in a loose alliance, than a single organization with a unified vision.
Which is precisely why Coke kill a pony for every can they make ;)
Ah, the well known Pony Preservation Principle.
Venezuela ... has been trying to figure out how to get rid of its F-16s to US enemies without violating transfer agreements.
Why, incidentally...? Just to be a dick?
I don't think this guy is really advocating "learned coders", he's advocating coding monkeys: coders that will meekly follow whatever wacky development model he subscribes to this week without question. What he hates is independent thought.
I could live well on that wage in the middle of the country-- but it would be impossible in the upper east coast or the west coast.
Consider that it would take the average indian programmer about 70 years to earn as a gross income enough to buy a "middle class" house in California. Rathole apartments are $50,000 a year in New York.
Similar issues would exist in Tokyo.
I'm not sure what you mean by "issues"... Japanese salaries are on average much lower on average than what you'd make in Silicon Valley or something, but people still do fine. I suppose the crucial point is what you consider "living well" (note: that isn't synonymous with a giant house with a lawn and a three car garage, a lawn holding 2 giant SUVs).
Tokyo's not cheap, but it's an enormous city with a lot of housing available at all price levels, and the transportation system is good enough that you have a fair bit of choice where to live given a typical commute (and everyone has a commute, unless they get very lucky). The key tradeoff, if you live in Tokyo is space -- if you live like the typical person, you won't have anywhere near as much space as say a family in the suburbs of Buttfuck, Kansas (on the other hand, you get to live in Tokyo, not the suburbs of Buttfuck, Kansas!).
Anyway, it's not at all hard to live a decent life in Tokyo on an income of say $60,000/year. If you make $30,000, of course, you'll end up living like a student, and if you want the super deluxe and insanely huge expat apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper in the most expensive area of the city then...yeah, then you'll need more.
Personally, while I enjoy a challenge, I don't enjoy playing the same level for hours on end, and never getting any further. I'll be using the "I'm bored, please let me play the next bit" button sometimes.
Exactly. There was one of the Metroid Prime games where I got to one of the bosses and I had a bitch of a time fighting it. Never did beat it. I spent several hours going through the same routine ... my ass wiped all over the floor, lather, rinse, repeat. I eventually just gave up. It's a shame too, cos I really liked the game. But putting one part in there that I couldn't get passed ruined the experience for me.
Exactly2!!
I gave up Metroid Prime 3 after attempting the same stupid boss like 50 times. No doubt it was my fault -- I just suck too much, and I'm not very good with the Wii controller -- but I play games for fun, not to brag how hard-core I am. I know it feels great to finally get past a hard bit after having honed your skills through endless attempts, but sometimes enough is enough.
Of course there are alternative approaches:
Anyway, I'm glad they're doing something, because I like games, but I'm not always very good at them!
... and just to make sure everybody's curiousity is satisfied:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaUqaVj51w4
Sometimes violence is the answer...
I've no idea what Intel/AMD claimed, but you'd have to be utterly naive to believe any claim involving a single fixed performance increase. Modern systems are very complex, and performance is insanely context dependent. Facebook's server apps are not going to be precisely like anybody else's apps, and there's simply no way to know how they'll perform without testing them.
...and of course you wouldn't expect somebody with the title "VP of technical operations" to be so technically naive ...
oh... wait. Facebook.
Never mind.
Apparently (it's hard to say for sure, since all the stories I found were kinda sensationalist) the project in Basel caused a magnitude 3.4 quake.
That's an extremely small earthquake.
Big trucks going a construction site also rumble and shake the ground when the go past. People bitch, but it's not considered a reason to stop construction projects (except perhaps in very exceptional circumstances).
Frankly the furor seems to be more the "OMG they're doing something we don't understand which doesn't involve overeating and reality television! Stop them!" sort than it does a well-grounded and considered opposition.
Given a choice between democracy and educated civil discourse, or a large smack of porn and screaming matches, 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the latter. And the 10th one was a cat walking over the keyboard.
The cat actually had some pretty insightful observations, though...
When Doctorow makes sweeping statements, it's best to back away and think through them. Sci-fi writers are good at sounding like they have authority. Sometimes, this leads to brilliant and revolutionary visions of the future in a superficial sense, other times you get Scientology.
I know he's got oodles of "internet cred," but I'd just like to state for the record that I don't choose to credit this man as an authority in this field and I think we should take anything he says with a grain of salt.
I've never understood why he seems to have so much "cred," as he never actually seems to do anything particularly noteworthy. He seems to be the blog version of a celebrity who's "famous for being famous"...
Hmm, not sure I agree.
My typical procedure is to pick up a console when I come across a game I really want. I think that while the PS3's game lineup is hardly the best history's seen, it has some pretty good stuff. But every time I think "oh maybe I should just get it", the price of the console itself smacks me in the face and I end up thinking I'll just wait.
There's a vague price threshold below which I buy stuff without worrying too much about the price, and the PS3 is comfortably above that threshold. It isn't a impulse purchase, and I think that in many cases, that's the kiss of death.
I hope this comment is in jest pointing out that people have been claiming that AMD is in trouble for years
I never quite figured that out. Sure AMD's had a rough patch in recent years, but Intel spent years churning out crap sub-standard processors. Intel tried to fix their problems, and have come back with great products; there's no reason to think AMD can't do the same -- and indeed the Phenom II seems to be excellent (it doesn't completely crush Intel's offerings like AMD's products did a few years ago, but Intel's not turning out complete crap these days).
What was particularly surprising to me, though, is how quickly, and with what vehemency, people started declaring "AMD is finished!1!" after the core2 proved a better CPU that what AMD was offering at the time. I got the weird feeling that some of these people had been just waiting ....