Friendship and helping others is always a good thing. But you're still way off base. A good, helpful friend helps you deal with your problems -- they don't make you dependent on them. Which is why (from what I can see) disabled people really hate hovering do-gooders.
Anyway, for many isolated people, the Internet is itself an important source of human contact. If disability cuts a person off from this resource, it makes perfect sense to help them find the adaptive technology that will de-isolate them.
I wouldn't call that obfuscation. I'd call it a language that puts too much emphasis on clever and complicated idioms. It's designed by people with a good understanding of language, but are more concerned with having fun than with expressing themselves clearly.
And that's what's wrong with the standard Perl books too. They don't resort to the nasty clunkspeak that's standard for bad technical writing. But neither do they write well. There are too many humorous asides, the material is not well-organized, and there's no real sense of audience. It's too damn creative, and thus very frustrating to read when you just want to sort out some technical detail or another.
Phishers already pose as Anti-Phishers. ("Someone's trying to break into your account! Please send us your password so we can stop them!") So to be convincing, Anti-Phishers would have to pose as Phishers, posing as Anti-Phishers. Are we confused yet?
I know all that. I've even worked for a company that sold Unix software for phone switches. But the Unix running on that phone switches didn't come from Bell Labs. AT&T/Lucent bought Unixware, like all the other commercial Unix consumers. Once they abandoned their 3B processors and started basing their phone switches on commodity computers, it no longer made sense to develop their own flavor of Unix inhouse.
When you say "revolutionary/interesting", do you mean one word, or is the / shorthand for "or"? Because, press releases to the contrary, few things are all that revolutionary. And interesting is in the eye of the beholder. To most people any port is boring. To the right kind of hacker, all ports are fascinating.
Like most language nazis, you don't know WTF you're talking about. You're a citizen of both the state you live in and of the U.S. as a whole. The usage "citizen of a state" has been around for a while, and even appears in the U.S. Constitution (check out Article III, Section 2)
....the space program's failure to realize the sort of intergalactic exploration they once imagined as kids through the works of Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein
Which probably isn't helped by "experts" who use words like "intergalactic" without the slightest notion what they mean. Suffice to say that neither Clarke nor Heinlein wrote anything "intergalactic".
If all you need is character-at-a-time output, why not just use a typewriter? What's the point of emulating one with a computer?
The whole point of writing with a computer instead of a typewriter (or by hand) is being able to modify what you write before deliver it. If that's something you specifically do not want, you don't need a computer at all.
And if he had even more money to spend, he could get a bigger place to live. But he's got what he's got, so why waste everybody's time with answers to questions not asked?
It's dumb that the submitter doesn't know the difference between a Wiki and Wikipedia. It's sad that the editor didn't catch this. It's utterly, hopelessly, painfully ridiculous that the editor in question is Rob Malda himself.
Right now there are only three shows from the Independent Film Channel available on Aug 19, but it is a start.
No it isn't. As long as the big media companies refuse to play, online media will be marginal stuff. And big media companies never will play -- hoarding content is the name of the game for them.
Tivo's just thrashing around, trying to find a way to survive. Their original product is cool as hell, but doesn't have sustainable economics. Now they've decided they can enter the online media market with a few tweaks. And so that can -- but so what? It's not new technology, and they're not going to be able to get anything people will pay to see.
If maintaining student interest is your big problem, then you're not going to help it by changing languages. Visual Basic isn't the greatest language, but you can write some interesting programs in it -- interesting enough to attract somebody who's motivated to learn programming. If your class has a rep as boring, you're not going to fix it by changing the language you use. You need to look at your curriculum and teaching style. And maybe asking students what kind of software they want to learn to write.
So yes, it does have quite a bit to do with being seen as a drive by the desktop. Otherwise, your Windows machine wouldn't be able to talk to it.
Pay attention. The article claims it's seen as a CD-ROM drive. If that were true, communication would be pretty one-way.
And in any case, that doesn't explain how the device "takes over". I suppose you could boot off it, and it would supply an image that would turn your PC into a sort of terminal for the device. But their description sounds more plug-and-go than that.
I seem to recall reading those wirehead rats in a book by Arthur C. Clarke called Profiles of the Future, originally published in 1962. No indication where Clarke got his info. That's probably the source for this particular legend.
Don't feel bad about spreading an urban legend -- it's something everybody does from time to time. You hear a story that seems to make sense, and is too good to keep to yourself.
Variations of that story have been floating around since the 60s. In a more priggish time it was supposedly the "pleasure center" that was wired up. (Larry Niven's "wirehead" stories are, of course, based on this concept.) But I've come to suspect that this is pretty much an urban legend. There's probably some real-life experiment at the core of the story, but I doubt if it's as simple as "I'm wired to want to push this button, so I can't do anything else, like eat or drink or sleep."
(I could be wrong, of course. But please don't waste your time telling me I'm wrong unless you have something more than your own beliefs to point to. Like citations of the actual article with the wired mice.)
Addiction is real of course, and I even have my own Game-To-Death horror stories. But addiction's a lot more complicated than this urban legend suggests.
Probably not, since a computers mostly use digital media. The only exception I know of were early home computers that basically read and wrote data as tones, so that ordinary audio cassette decks could be used to store data. These were very slow, and disappeared as soon a floppy drives got reasonably cheap.
The Olivetti came out in 1977. That makes it a little late to be "first". Depending on your definition of "programmable computer", they'd been around somewhere between 30 and 100 years before that. The modern computer era basically begins during WW II.
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Anyway, for many isolated people, the Internet is itself an important source of human contact. If disability cuts a person off from this resource, it makes perfect sense to help them find the adaptive technology that will de-isolate them.
And that's what's wrong with the standard Perl books too. They don't resort to the nasty clunkspeak that's standard for bad technical writing. But neither do they write well. There are too many humorous asides, the material is not well-organized, and there's no real sense of audience. It's too damn creative, and thus very frustrating to read when you just want to sort out some technical detail or another.
Phishers already pose as Anti-Phishers. ("Someone's trying to break into your account! Please send us your password so we can stop them!") So to be convincing, Anti-Phishers would have to pose as Phishers, posing as Anti-Phishers. Are we confused yet?
I know all that. I've even worked for a company that sold Unix software for phone switches. But the Unix running on that phone switches didn't come from Bell Labs. AT&T/Lucent bought Unixware, like all the other commercial Unix consumers. Once they abandoned their 3B processors and started basing their phone switches on commodity computers, it no longer made sense to develop their own flavor of Unix inhouse.
When you say "revolutionary/interesting", do you mean one word, or is the / shorthand for "or"? Because, press releases to the contrary, few things are all that revolutionary. And interesting is in the eye of the beholder. To most people any port is boring. To the right kind of hacker, all ports are fascinating.
Didn't AT&T sell Unix to Novell back in 1993? What have these guys been working on since then?
Insensitive to who?
Like most language nazis, you don't know WTF you're talking about. You're a citizen of both the state you live in and of the U.S. as a whole. The usage "citizen of a state" has been around for a while, and even appears in the U.S. Constitution (check out Article III, Section 2)
And you're ashamed of Modesto ponies? As you should be!
Today Bryant Park! Tomorrow, THE WORLD . (Evil laugh.)
It's true! Several Google employees were spotted at a pony ride in Modesto!
Is this a dup, or we going to get another breathless "Firefox breaks another record!" every two weeks?
The whole point of writing with a computer instead of a typewriter (or by hand) is being able to modify what you write before deliver it. If that's something you specifically do not want, you don't need a computer at all.
Bad idea. Couches are good for slouching back, not sitting up and typing. No lumbar support. Good way to destroy your back.
And if he had even more money to spend, he could get a bigger place to live. But he's got what he's got, so why waste everybody's time with answers to questions not asked?
It's dumb that the submitter doesn't know the difference between a Wiki and Wikipedia. It's sad that the editor didn't catch this. It's utterly, hopelessly, painfully ridiculous that the editor in question is Rob Malda himself.
Tivo's just thrashing around, trying to find a way to survive. Their original product is cool as hell, but doesn't have sustainable economics. Now they've decided they can enter the online media market with a few tweaks. And so that can -- but so what? It's not new technology, and they're not going to be able to get anything people will pay to see.
If maintaining student interest is your big problem, then you're not going to help it by changing languages. Visual Basic isn't the greatest language, but you can write some interesting programs in it -- interesting enough to attract somebody who's motivated to learn programming. If your class has a rep as boring, you're not going to fix it by changing the language you use. You need to look at your curriculum and teaching style. And maybe asking students what kind of software they want to learn to write.
And in any case, that doesn't explain how the device "takes over". I suppose you could boot off it, and it would supply an image that would turn your PC into a sort of terminal for the device. But their description sounds more plug-and-go than that.
Don't feel bad about spreading an urban legend -- it's something everybody does from time to time. You hear a story that seems to make sense, and is too good to keep to yourself.
(I could be wrong, of course. But please don't waste your time telling me I'm wrong unless you have something more than your own beliefs to point to. Like citations of the actual article with the wired mice.)
Addiction is real of course, and I even have my own Game-To-Death horror stories. But addiction's a lot more complicated than this urban legend suggests.
Picture is an array? Then it should be "pictures".
The Olivetti came out in 1977. That makes it a little late to be "first". Depending on your definition of "programmable computer", they'd been around somewhere between 30 and 100 years before that. The modern computer era basically begins during WW II.