That gives me an idea - what a great way to deal with dead people. Why put them in a graveyard or cremate them when you could make them into a battery!
One thing people forget with voice recognition is that even if the software is accurate 100% - voice recognition would still be useless in some scenarios:
- A noisy factory (where nothing is easily heard) - An office (where everybody talking would be very distracting to others) - using passwords or anything private/confidential information. - where several inputs are required simultaneously (games, simulators etc)
1. Price - Manual is a lot cheaper 2. Performance - Manual cars are faster* 3. Economy - Manual is more economical 4. Automatic has an image problem. In europe its seen as something for old people, disabled people and people who are not sufficently competent to use a manual.**
*although some autos come close the reverse is never true
** In some countries if you pass your test on a manual you may then drive auto or manual. If you pass on an auto car you can only drive an auto.
yea but Saab 9000 Aero is front wheel drive which means torque steer with that much power. Also Saab's are renound for being good in straight lines, less so when it comes to cornering finesse, body control and overall handling.
So they built a mechanical bird. They gave it wings and the ability to move them. Of course its going to flap them when given 20 random instructions per minute.
What I cant see is what makes that anything more intelligent than a headless chicken
They also dont take into account that evolution also gave the bird the desire to create lift and want to fly in the first place. Surely that would take as much intelligence again.
Have a look at this article.. this was reported in December 1999. Tommorow's World demonstrated it really well; a dancefloor thats loud, but once you leave it, near silence. Also they should fun practical jokes - whisper in somebody's ear from hundreds of yards away.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/items/991229_rev ol utioninsound.shtml
I don't WANT people to have to learn lots of stuff *before* using a system just to be able to make a choice.
Well MS Windows does that too...
in Win95 you could choose the win3.1 interface (program manager etc remember that?!)
- Linux isnt the only that ever gave choices.
There are many choices when installing Windows, QNX, BeOS and most other operating systems. Ok choices range from what timezone to what apps you'd like but choices are nothing new or different...
But what IS worth discussing is what are the default options...
WindowMaker has really been demoted to the 3rd choice desktop interface by many distrobutions and developers.
Distros largely say something like "choose kde, gnome/sawfish or windowmaker" - when did you last see windowmaker mentioned first in that line-up when installing??
It is a pity that the distrobutions that push the "taskbar" approach (and default themes! as previous posts have said that other distro's do not have to display a Windows style theme).
Unfortunatly such moves to keep pushing the "taskbar" style interface to newbies are trying to emulate rather than inovate far too much. Is the Windows style inferface really that good? Do we need to give newbies a homogenised and familiar windowsy approach?
If linux is being marketed as an alternative why are such interfaces being pushed as the defaults?
Are we conceding that we have no better ways than to emulate? I dont mean to provoke anybody saying that one way is better than another but i'm sure you all agree that they are interesting questions.
Anyway take another approach - is faster necessarily better? Would some people not prefer an interface that is slower loading but more graphically intense with animations and such?
The media sometimes protrays linux as being faster in every way which is not always true depending on how it is set up and indeed not always the best option for certain specific implementations (as there are many other criteria to address). For some people a slow to load KDE is ok bacause it fulfills their needs. The solution is probably to give many choices.
I started with choices of WindowMaker and fvwm and a few other more spartan interfaces like twm etc.
I really wonder would I ever have the same opinion of Linux if I had been given a default of KDE or GNOME/Sawfish etc. Another interesting question to ponder on....
The thing that bothers me more than speed is the noise of my hard drive crunching and churning.
The best thing about solid state is the lack of moving parts and the subsequent lack of noise.
I presume the lack of moving parts means an increase in reliability which also may be a huge factor for most people.
Well i'm probably in the minority, but I listen (and buy) a lot of my music on vinyl - Now i dont wanna get into a vinyl vs cd debate - but i can make pretty good mp3 recordings from an analogue source so i'm sure that wont stop anybody else like me plugging the line out from their hi-fi amp into their sound card input and encoding that to mp3 or vorbis or whatever. So i'm sure somebody with a good sound card and other hardware could create a fairly decent quality analogue recording of a protected cd?
Not exactly the ideal solution in what is also a liberty issue, but it does make the point that encryption wont stop people making copies of their music. No doubt somebody will create an application to circumvent whatever security that is encoded into more of these "protected" cd's.
Telephone and Internet relies on copper/fibre too much. Perhaps if more internet devices were wireless it would be better. Or maybe just cell phones are the future?
But my suggestion? Probably carrier pigeons!
They dont get slashdotted and they cant be hi-jacked.
You could always write code and print out the source (erasing the soft copy) and bring that
with you. Floppy/zip disks are easy enough to carry around too. Encrypt the data of course, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Have you considered changing jobs? I dont think I could work in a place so restrictive. Larger companies tend to get like this as they grow. Paranoia is usually proportional to size.
BBC runs a science show weekly called "Tommorows World" which shows many new technologies and future technologies in development. One time about 10 years ago it was broadcast on April 1st.
They went on to explain that one of the technologies in the show was bogus - so you were concentrating on guessing which one it was.
At the end of the show they broadcast these buttons on screen and said "Ok now touch your TV set to select the article from tonights show that you think was the April Fools joke".
I often wonder how many people went over to their TV's and touched the screen to select their choice.
I've heard of this about some months ago on tv on Tommorows World. They did some interesting demonostrations. One was whispering in somebodys ear from a few hundred feet away to freak them out. The other was to play the sound of breaking glass aimed at the floor beside a waitress carrying a tray of stuff. Jeez the pranks you could do with one of these... i want one!
M$ rescue disk!? muhahahah you really
expect that to work?
I am sure there will be a winME equivalent of
Loadlin developed or adjustments to lilo. Whatever
brick walls Linux users have faced so far we've overcome - i dont see that changing.
I'm sure system commander will have a neat way of
dual booting. There are always options. Even for those who actually _use_ windows i'm sure it'll be possible to incorporate dos somehow - be it FreeDos or whatever.
The bandwidth in the college I am the sys admin in has only a 128k leased line. We were thinking of going to 512k but that would cost £16,000 a year (irish punts). This college is a private college and does not receive donations etc - it runs as a normal business. Our budget is pretty small at the moment so I doubt we will get a bandwidth upgrade for about 6 months. I have no interest in censoring anything. Ireland does not have the RIAA, so students can download whatever they like as far as i'm concerned. As long as I have sufficient bandwidth for downloading software updates and that staff have sufficient to do their daily work i'll be happy. Currently our line is saturated. I am not convinced that more bandwidth will solve that though - the usage will just increase and it will be saturated again within a week. I might organise some traffic shaping or maybe split our bandwidth into staff and student sections (as staff are a tad less demanding on bandwidth). I'm currently de-restricting our network. When i started in this job everything was locked down. It was ridiculously rigid. I have already opened stuff like ftp which was previously denied to students. I would like to allow them use telnet but am concerned that any mischevious students could some severe trouble from misuse/abuse etc.
Its my 6th birthday today although this is my 24th year in existance. Weird stuff the modern calendar. So how many people who have only had 6 birthdays do you know that run linux?
Slashdot Mirror
That gives me an idea - what a great way to deal with dead people. Why put them in a graveyard or cremate them when you could make them into a battery!
"whoa! granny is powering my webserver!!"
One thing people forget with voice recognition is that even if the software is accurate 100% - voice recognition would still be useless in some scenarios:
- A noisy factory (where nothing is easily heard)
- An office (where everybody talking would be very distracting to others)
- using passwords or anything private/confidential information.
- where several inputs are required simultaneously (games, simulators etc)
Us Europeans favour manuals for many reason.
1. Price - Manual is a lot cheaper
2. Performance - Manual cars are faster*
3. Economy - Manual is more economical
4. Automatic has an image problem. In europe
its seen as something for old people, disabled people and people who are not sufficently competent to use a manual.**
*although some autos come close the reverse is never true
** In some countries if you pass your test on a manual you may then drive auto or manual. If you pass on an auto car you can only drive an auto.
yea but Saab 9000 Aero is front wheel drive which means torque steer with that much power.
Also Saab's are renound for being good in straight lines, less so when it comes to cornering finesse, body control and overall handling.
So they built a mechanical bird. They gave it wings and the ability to move them. Of course its going to flap them when given 20 random instructions per minute.
What I cant see is what makes that anything more intelligent than a headless chicken
They also dont take into account that evolution also gave the bird the desire to create lift and want to fly in the first place. Surely that would take as much intelligence again.
Have a look at this article.. this was reported in December 1999. Tommorow's World demonstrated it really well; a dancefloor thats loud, but once you leave it, near silence. Also they should fun practical jokes - whisper in somebody's ear from hundreds of yards away.
v ol utioninsound.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/items/991229_re
Graham.
Surely it would be a good ideato develop
this idea so that the heat lost by the processor
could be regenerated back into electricity.
This would beparticularly useful in laptops
in conserving as much battery power as
possible.
I don't WANT people to have to learn lots of stuff *before* using a system just to be able to make a choice.
Well MS Windows does that too...
in Win95 you could choose the win3.1 interface (program manager etc remember that?!)
- Linux isnt the only that ever gave choices.
There are many choices when installing Windows, QNX, BeOS and most other operating systems. Ok choices range from what timezone to what apps you'd like but choices are nothing new or different...
But what IS worth discussing is what are the default options...
WindowMaker has really been demoted to the 3rd choice desktop interface by many distrobutions and developers.
Distros largely say something like "choose kde, gnome/sawfish or windowmaker" - when did you last see windowmaker mentioned first in that line-up when installing??
It is a pity that the distrobutions that push the "taskbar" approach (and default themes! as previous posts have said that other distro's do not have to display a Windows style theme).
Unfortunatly such moves to keep pushing the "taskbar" style interface to newbies are trying to emulate rather than inovate far too much. Is the Windows style inferface really that good? Do we need to give newbies a homogenised and familiar windowsy approach?
If linux is being marketed as an alternative why are such interfaces being pushed as the defaults?
Are we conceding that we have no better ways than to emulate? I dont mean to provoke anybody saying that one way is better than another but i'm sure you all agree that they are interesting questions.
Anyway take another approach - is faster necessarily better? Would some people not prefer an interface that is slower loading but more graphically intense with animations and such?
The media sometimes protrays linux as being faster in every way which is not always true depending on how it is set up and indeed not always the best option for certain specific implementations (as there are many other criteria to address). For some people a slow to load KDE is ok bacause it fulfills their needs. The solution is probably to give many choices.
I started with choices of WindowMaker and fvwm and a few other more spartan interfaces like twm etc.
I really wonder would I ever have the same opinion of Linux if I had been given a default of KDE or GNOME/Sawfish etc. Another interesting question to ponder on....
Safety deposit boxes tend to be made of metal
in a cube shape. I'm sure you've heard of a
"Faraday Cage" - thunderstorms aint a problem!
The thing that bothers me more than speed is the noise of my hard drive crunching and churning.
The best thing about solid state is the lack of moving parts and the subsequent lack of noise.
I presume the lack of moving parts means an increase in reliability which also may be a huge factor for most people.
Well i'm probably in the minority, but I listen (and buy) a lot of my music on vinyl - Now i dont wanna get into a vinyl vs cd debate - but i can make pretty good mp3 recordings from an analogue source so i'm sure that wont stop anybody else like me plugging the line out from their hi-fi amp into their sound card input and encoding that to mp3 or vorbis or whatever. So i'm sure somebody with a good sound card and other hardware could create a fairly decent quality analogue recording of a protected cd?
Not exactly the ideal solution in what is also a liberty issue, but it does make the point that encryption wont stop people making copies of their music. No doubt somebody will create an application to circumvent whatever security that is encoded into more of these "protected" cd's.
Telephone and Internet relies on copper/fibre too much. Perhaps if more internet devices were wireless it would be better. Or maybe just cell phones are the future?
But my suggestion? Probably carrier pigeons!
They dont get slashdotted and they cant be hi-jacked.
You could always write code and print out the source (erasing the soft copy) and bring that
with you. Floppy/zip disks are easy enough to carry around too. Encrypt the data of course, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Have you considered changing jobs? I dont think I could work in a place so restrictive. Larger companies tend to get like this as they grow. Paranoia is usually proportional to size.
BBC runs a science show weekly called "Tommorows World" which shows many new technologies and future technologies in development. One time about 10 years ago it was broadcast on April 1st.
They went on to explain that one of the technologies in the show was bogus - so you were concentrating on guessing which one it was.
At the end of the show they broadcast these buttons on screen and said "Ok now touch your TV set to select the article from tonights show that you think was the April Fools joke".
I often wonder how many people went over to their TV's and touched the screen to select their choice.
I've heard of this about some months ago on tv on Tommorows World. They did some interesting demonostrations.
One was whispering in somebodys ear from a few hundred feet away to freak them out.
The other was to play the sound of breaking glass aimed at the floor beside a waitress carrying a tray of stuff.
Jeez the pranks you could do with one of these... i want one!
The link the article about it on bbc is here
M$ rescue disk!? muhahahah you really
expect that to work?
I am sure there will be a winME equivalent of
Loadlin developed or adjustments to lilo. Whatever
brick walls Linux users have faced so far we've overcome - i dont see that changing.
I'm sure system commander will have a neat way of
dual booting. There are always options. Even for those who actually _use_ windows i'm sure it'll be possible to incorporate dos somehow - be it FreeDos or whatever.
The bandwidth in the college I am the sys admin in has only a 128k leased line. We were thinking of going to 512k but that would cost £16,000 a year (irish punts). This college is a private college and does not receive donations etc - it runs as a normal business. Our budget is pretty small at the moment so I doubt we will get a bandwidth upgrade for about 6 months. I have no interest in censoring anything. Ireland does not have the RIAA, so students can download whatever they like as far as i'm concerned. As long as I have sufficient bandwidth for downloading software updates and that staff have sufficient to do their daily work i'll be happy. Currently our line is saturated. I am not convinced that more bandwidth will solve that though - the usage will just increase and it will be saturated again within a week. I might organise some traffic shaping or maybe split our bandwidth into staff and student sections (as staff are a tad less demanding on bandwidth). I'm currently de-restricting our network. When i started in this job everything was locked down. It was ridiculously rigid. I have already opened stuff like ftp which was previously denied to students. I would like to allow them use telnet but am concerned that any mischevious students could some severe trouble from misuse/abuse etc.
Its my 6th birthday today although this is my 24th year in existance. Weird stuff the modern calendar. So how many people who have only had 6 birthdays do you know that run linux?