Most of mine ended up in the creek next to my house, buried in mud beside the driveway or in the middle of a field that was nearby. I had a knack for losing the lightsabers- I liked to pull them out of the arm and swap them around (I thought _everyone_ should have a red lightsaber instead of the stupid blue or green ones).
I also remember that the GI Joe characters (Snake Eyes was my favorite) were much more fun to play with because they were so much more versatile. You could put them in the star wars vehicles (unfortunately, the reverse was rarely true), and they actually bent in good places like ELBOWS and KNEES. That was something that always bothered me to no end about the star wars figures.
Also, if you unscrewed the little screw in their little GI Joe backs (in the hole where you stuck the pegs that were on the backpacks) you could remove the rubber band that held their arms, legs and hip-thingie (pelvis?) together and play 'Dr. Moreau'. I wasted a lot of time doing that.
Maybe they don't care because, in a way, it sort of helps Microsoft maintain it's desktop market. People can buy computers more cheaply now than ever before, and if they buy a Lindows machine (or have something like this put on an already installed system), then the Linux community is (to stretch things just a bit) training people to do things the Windows Way(tm) for free.
It's a wierd sort of PR for Microsoft. The linux community continues to try and bring people over, but they only way they seem to know how to do that is by emulating Microsoft interfaces. This effectively puts Microsoft in the 'Innovator' category and labels the Linux community as the 'Try and keep up' crowd. Obviously, this doesn't help anyone but Microsoft; and it leaves a large amount of people saying to themselves 'Well, this LOOKS like Windows- but I can't run my favorite software. So why bother.'
To them, since it looks like Windows, it IS windows. This means that if something doesn't work as expected or as soon as they find out that they can't run their newest [insert software here], then Linux is crap because it doesn't just 'work' like Windows does.
To them, their box is a broken Windows machine. They don't care why it doesn't work- they just know that since it looks like Windows, it should run like Windows. This kills the reputation of Linux among average users and boosts the perception of Microsoft as makers of quality software.
appropriate: transitive verb 3 : to take or make use of without authority or right
First, I don't recall seeing the word 'appropriate' anywhere in the parent.
I'd say that by downloading a movie, you are getting the movie/the information/the stream of copyrighted 1's and 0's into your possession without permission, and making use of it
Second, I didn't realise that 1's and 0's were copyrighted. I did see an Onion article about this a few years ago, but i assumed it was a joke. silly me.
If you never keep it on your hard drive, or watch it, or trade it, or do anything... then you're right. You're not stealing.
Third, since when is it illegal to store data on my hard drive? If I decide to take a vacation and want to watch Stargate-SG1 on my laptop while on the airplane I should be able to do so. If I purchase the DVDs legitimately and copy them to my hard drive so I do not have to bring an entire boxed set with me while travelling that is what is deemed as 'Fair Use'. I purchased these DVDs- shouldn't I be able to do with them what I please?
I certainly don't support the ??AA's, but don't try taking the moral high ground by playing word games.
I think you are the one playing word games and being ridiculous here. Who are you to decide what is and is not fair use? You are the one going to absurd lengths and playing games with semantics. It is people like you who make life difficult for people like me. Just because you cannot imagine a legitimate reason why someone would copy a DVD to their hard drive does not mean legitimate reasons do not exist.
We already had one Medieval period in history. Please don't help bring on a second.
This is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever seen. This person put computer components in a pumpkin? hmmm... I'm not very impressed- in much the same way that I'm not impressed by people spray painting their cases, cutting holes in it, filling said hole with a sheet of plexi-glass and maybe adding some neon lights for 'effect'.
Apparantly it's the mentality in the U.S. to switch jobs every year or even more often and it takes some time to find your way in the code of our software.
I agree with you completely. I recently graduated and have been (unsuccessfully) looking for work for around 3 months. Ideally, I would like to find a job where I can get my foot in the door, learn something and work my way up over an extended period of time. Most of my friends have tech-related jobs and all of them laugh at me saying that if I work at a job more than a year or two I essentially have to explain my laziness at my next interview.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Most of the people I know aren't willing to give anything to the company they work for, yet expect everything in return. Realistically, why should a company sink money into an employee if it knows they are just going to turn around and leave in a year?
It used to be that after you finished school (high school or otherwise), you found a job and worked there for 20-30 years. You had, for the most part, job security and could look forward to some sort of retirement.
Those days are gone. Personally, I think it's mostly due to greed and the MTV-induced need for selfish instant gratification. People aren't willing to give anything to get anything anymore.
Just found something in my post that may need clarification... When I mentioned that you could view pages across both screens- it seemed as if i was talking about maximizing the window across both screens. What I meant to say was that you could multiscreen the page vertically. In other words, as you scroll down one page, there is a second window open on the other screen that also scrolls the same page- but is further ahead in the page. this allows you to read ahead and maintain continuity.
You can also set it up to alternate window openings, so that new windows open on the opposite screen from the link. This allows you to follow links and still see where you came from.
I've had a multi-monitor setup for about two years now and I won't go back. Ever.
I use the second monitor mostly for reference. It's the equivalent of having a book open in front of you on the desk.
A good example is the html Java documentation pages. You can have the pages open on another screen for reference as you work in your editor on your main screen- with no need to move stuff around or click all over the place to make it visible.
Another example is html editing. You can work on one screen and see your results in a browser on the second screen at the same time. There's something to be said for being able to see what your code is actually doing- it allows you to get a better sense of the 'big picture' (pun intended).
Vendors are putting in features on the dual output cards now that are also handy. Matrox, for example, provides software that allows you to do things like view the same web page across both screens (handy for very long pages) or control which screen your pages open in.
In terms of cost, I chose multimonitor over one giant screen because, at the time, I could purchase a video card (matrox g450) and 2 17" monitors (philips 107t) for just over 1/2 the cost of a 21" monitor- and I have more screen space to work with.
Essentially, the advantage is that a multimonitor setup allows you to take in more information at once with little hassle. This frees you from opening and closing windows, moving stuff around and scrolling through smaller windows so that you can concentrate on getting your work done. It's also relatively cheap (especially now with falling crt prices).
oh, yeah- I chose the matrox card because it allowed me more integration and control between my monitors, but there's nothing stopping you from using a card you already have and purchasing another cheap one on the side.
The problem is that there is an open set of standards out there that banks should be developing to- not specific browsers. Otherwise, there isn't any point in having standards, is there?
And yes, you can code to standards without killing cross-browser compatibility. I think the idea that you can't is one of the biggest myths of web development. It takes work, but then if you are a professional that should be your job.
Generally speaking, I think these sites come around through lazy or inexperienced developers who only know or are required to use a specific set of tools because it's 'cost-effective' and/or 'faster' instead of actually doing their job.
Whether it's the developers fault or management is up in the air- probably a little bit of both.
My bank (Bank One) is excellent about accessibility. mozilla, netscape, opera and ie work fine. haven't tried konquerer there yet.
offtopic rant...
But I've had the same problems with college sites in general. For example, my college employment board requires all resumes to be submitted in MS *.doc or *.rtf format (for that stupid fscking buzzword parser).
Interestingly, if I create my report in staroffice 6.0 and save it as either a *.doc or *.rtf file, it STILL doesn't work. If I load the file into MS Office and then resave it it works fine. It's annoying to say the least; and I'm really curious as to why it doesnt work- especially the rtf version....end offtopic rant
I'm pretty lucky that my DSL provider lets me do whatever I want with the bandwidth I pay for, and I certainly hope that people like you don't prevent me from using my line for my own purposes, none of which are illegal.
Then you have legitimate uses. I didn't say that everyone using file-sharing programs was breaking the law- only the vast majority. When you say that you are lucky to be able to use the bandwidth you pay for in whatever way you want, I agree with you. After all, you are paying for it.
My beef is with people who eat up large chunks of other people's bandwidth just to collect movies and mp3s (maybe I didn't make this clear enough in my original post). It ultimately screws people like you and me because it costs the companies large amounts of money to deal with that situation. This translates into higher monthly bills without an increase in quality of service for legitimate users like you and I.
I'm not an ogre, and I agree (as I said earlier in this post) that if you are willing to pay for bandwidth, you should be able to do with it whatever you want. I also think people should be billed for what they use- no more, no less. Otherwise, people legitimately using their bandwidth are supporting those who don't.
Frankly, I disagree with the article. It talks about 'bandwidth hogs' as if they are good people who are being screwed by the 'system' because they use kazaa or morpheus (or both).
Well, fuck them. I think people who sit there and download pirated DVDs and mp3s 24/7 SHOULD be charged more because it interferes with my ability to actually go to websites and get information I want. Bandwidth costs money, and to be honest, probably 95-99% of the people using those programs are downloading stuff illegally. I have a fast connection because I like fast connections- i don't download music and i don't download movies- i just like to hop around and get the information i want as fast as i can.
This article makes it sound like because we are having difficulties turning the internet into TV that we are being denied some fundamental right. if I want to watch television, I go into my living room. The internet is about free information- not annoying animations, blinking lights and surround sound.
That first picture looks like a cross between something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, a Borg Cube and Tetsuo the Iron Man. The ones at the bottom are just plain bizarre.
These aren't servers, they're representative works of art- kind of like a city. Granted, these servers will die the same flaming death that Chicago did in the great fire, but it's still kind of neat.
I spent three years in the military. I was gone a lot (approximately 5-6 months out of the year) but rarely saw anything more than swamps, mountains, wooded areas and jungles.
There were some really cool things. My favorite was looking at stuff through night-vision goggles- especially the stars. Animals were cool,too- it was sort of like they knew you weren't really a threat because you can't see in the dark so they come out all around you. Another fun thing that you get to do in the army is board and ride passenger jets with automatic weapons.;)
Anyway, if you want to see the world (that is, cities and local people) without having to kill and bomb everything you meet then the army (or any military service for that matter) is the wrong choice. The Air Force might be better, but from friends I've talked to, if you REALLY want to get out and go places the Navy can't be beat.
Those guys go from one end of the globe to the other and get free time to wander around and explore- something we really didn't.
I'm guessing, though, that military service isn't what this guy is looking for.
quote: "I'm glad I live in a country where the ACLU can criticize me and vigorously debate the issues," Ashcroft says. "I consider it my job as attorney general to make sure that this and all our freedoms endure."
Well, he never says that HE is going to debate with the ACLU or even listen to them; only that they can debate and criticise him. It's a politician's truth.
And what 'freedoms' endure? For him and the system he represents, it's the freedom to take our freedoms away and entrench us in a beaurocratic madness that will probably take decades to unravel- if we even do. For us, it's the freedom to work hard our entire lives to support a government full of people like him.
Prepare to mod me down for failure to maintain a coherent thought, but I was struck with some off-the-top-of-my-head observations on your choices...
Focusing on the numbers, I noticed your associations for women tend towards shapes that are made up of curved figures. The shapes for men are mostly angular with the exception of 0. Incidentally, I also noticed you chose 'O' as a male letter too.
With the letters, the choices for men seem very 'linear'. That is, most of them can be drawn in a single stroke (with the exceptions of D, H, T) where the female associations are more complex and require 2 strokes or more (excepting I and S).
With the colors, the choices for women are generally softer mixtures of 'pure' colors while the male associations are strong 'clean' colors.
Long story short, what i get out of this is that we perceive:
(a) women as subtle, complex and 'circular thinking' (b) men as strong, simple and 'linear thinking' beings.
Don't ask how I got the 'thinking' part out of that.
My thing is that I see everything as heavy outlines and color planes. When I look at something, lines and curves jump out of it and define it's borders, and colors are broken down into simple color planes- with the end result that I kind of see the world in a sort of comic book art kind of way (and no- i don't do drugs).
But, to get to my point, I wonder how much of this is cultural or societal as well? Think about how the world would look if architects were primarily women. We'd probably have lots of round buildings and domes that, on a very subtle level, would cause us to think and percieve in radically different ways.
favorite quote: "A women's mind would bring a different angle to the game."
Maybe women could offer a new perspective on weapons. Things like guilt grenades, verbal tripwires, performance increasing sports bras (those things are huge- any woman will tell you it would hurt to jump around like that), crotch kicks, and keyring stabs would add a new dimension to the game.
Finally, female players would be able to work out their aggressions and live out their fantasies on a level equal to their male counterparts.
i bought the stargate season 2 dvd set the day it came out (a tuesday evening). i had watched all 22 episodes by the end of the second day (thursday). im guessing you are doing the same thing.
1969 is one of my favorite episodes in the set. watching that many episodes in such a short time does strange things to your head.
ai != chess champion
on
Men vs. Machines
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
i'd like to preface this entire comment by saying that i've been drinking. a lot.
in any event- im reminded of the checkers champion computer players... they always win. the real question is- how do they win? the answer is: by storing a set number of move in lookup tables. in other words- once a game gets to a certain point, the computer opponent looks up, in a database, a winning set of moves from the given point in the game. how is this ai? how is this 'machine bettering man' on a level playing field? the answer is that it isn't.
programming a computer to play until it reaches a point where the number of moves left in the game are finite, and the computer has a database of moves that guarantee wins from this position is not artificial intelligence- it's loading the deck.
if you really want to impress people, build a machine that has no idea what the rules are, but rather is taught the rules as it plays the game. if that machine can beat the best players in the world, then we have an argument for a machine intelligence that is both strategic and insightful.
until that point, we have nothing but technical deception; technical deception in the same sense that Eliza was programmed as an 'ai'. what it appears to be on the surface is not, in fact, what it actually is.
I am always amazed by Nielsen and his choice of UI's. It seems to me he's managed to eek out a career designing the ugliest, most useless interfaces on the web today.
In fact, the article itself violates a number of points he hammers into people's skulls as 'essential' to ui design in his books. For example, the text is sans-serif and it spans the entire page. sans-serif fonts are very difficult to read when there is a large amount of text, and it is well known that people absorb content better when the columns are narrow instead of wide- look at newspapers. I also remember trying to find stuff on the Sun website that he was responsible for... *shudder*...
anyway, i like the concepts behind the non-command user interfaces- but i'm not sure they are applicable in all situations. if i'm coding, a physical interface is not going to help me code any better or faster. a holographic projection might- because i would be able to arrange files around me in 3d, physically pull them forward and make changes, etc. (kind of like Minority Report).
i think the idea should be to allow the user to develop his or her own interface. information is information and should be separated from the ui completely - a user's habits should dictate an interface that's appropriate to how that user thinks. in other words, a machine may start out functioning one way and then turn into something else as the user uses the system. what's intuitive for one may not be so for the other.
for examples of this, look at the user interface clips on the calgary site linked to by the article. all the women are designing stuff like bugs on leaves and fish tanks that change color to let you know you have mail. the guys are designing things like lounging monsters. now, take these things out of context. how the hell am i supposed to know to look at my fishtank to check my mail?? (this, by the way, is another violation of nielsen's ideals.)
if any of these are taken out of context, they are completely useless. i guess my point is that the interface shouldn't be a static thing, but rather, should be completely controllable by the user.
yeah; im kind of concerned about red hat actually. demudi is old news, but (to me at least) agnula and rehmudi aren't. the articles say there are to be 2 distros- 1 rh based, another debian based; with, as you say, the red hat distro being boxed and supported.
the interesting thing is that the agnula project announcement is dated June 16th, and there is a news story on the Demudi site saying they are now officially part of the agnula project. to me, this seems a bit like 'embrace and extend'. this is going to be a big area in the future for linux- it is already growing and widely used in animation and there is the potential for huge profit.
my initial impression (not being any sort of expert) is that demudi has been quietly plugging away for a long time now and already has code available. red hat can come in, box it and work with agnula to sell it and carve out a niche for themselves without (it seems to me) really doing much.
based on this- i think that red hat can pull it off, because they have the support and connections of the agnula project and the work already done by the demudi team.
Maybe i'm missing something, but i don't really understand the logic behind purchasing a monitor like this. arguably, it's foot print is probably smaller (in terms of depth) and there may be some power saving issues (i wouldn't know) but, on the whole, it just doesn't make sense to me.
I looked around at larger monitors for a long time- including LCDs, and the conclusion i came to is that it's just not worth it. for a quarter of the price of this monstrosity i can get two 17 inch monitors and a couple of nice video cards and run a dual display that gives me more screenspace. i just think it's a better solution.
That's exactly what I did almost two years ago and i haven't regretted it since. i don't think i could ever go back to a single display at home- it would drive me nuts.
Slashdot Mirror
[raises hand]
Most of mine ended up in the creek next to my house, buried in mud beside the driveway or in the middle of a field that was nearby. I had a knack for losing the lightsabers- I liked to pull them out of the arm and swap them around (I thought _everyone_ should have a red lightsaber instead of the stupid blue or green ones).
I also remember that the GI Joe characters (Snake Eyes was my favorite) were much more fun to play with because they were so much more versatile. You could put them in the star wars vehicles (unfortunately, the reverse was rarely true), and they actually bent in good places like ELBOWS and KNEES. That was something that always bothered me to no end about the star wars figures.
Also, if you unscrewed the little screw in their little GI Joe backs (in the hole where you stuck the pegs that were on the backpacks) you could remove the rubber band that held their arms, legs and hip-thingie (pelvis?) together and play 'Dr. Moreau'. I wasted a lot of time doing that.
That's an interesting point.
Maybe they don't care because, in a way, it sort of helps Microsoft maintain it's desktop market. People can buy computers more cheaply now than ever before, and if they buy a Lindows machine (or have something like this put on an already installed system), then the Linux community is (to stretch things just a bit) training people to do things the Windows Way(tm) for free.
It's a wierd sort of PR for Microsoft. The linux community continues to try and bring people over, but they only way they seem to know how to do that is by emulating Microsoft interfaces. This effectively puts Microsoft in the 'Innovator' category and labels the Linux community as the 'Try and keep up' crowd. Obviously, this doesn't help anyone but Microsoft; and it leaves a large amount of people saying to themselves 'Well, this LOOKS like Windows- but I can't run my favorite software. So why bother.'
To them, since it looks like Windows, it IS windows. This means that if something doesn't work as expected or as soon as they find out that they can't run their newest [insert software here], then Linux is crap because it doesn't just 'work' like Windows does.
To them, their box is a broken Windows machine. They don't care why it doesn't work- they just know that since it looks like Windows, it should run like Windows. This kills the reputation of Linux among average users and boosts the perception of Microsoft as makers of quality software.
appropriate: transitive verb
3 : to take or make use of without authority or right
First, I don't recall seeing the word 'appropriate' anywhere in the parent.
I'd say that by downloading a movie, you are getting the movie/the information/the stream of copyrighted 1's and 0's into your possession without permission, and making use of it
Second, I didn't realise that 1's and 0's were copyrighted. I did see an Onion article about this a few years ago, but i assumed it was a joke. silly me.
If you never keep it on your hard drive, or watch it, or trade it, or do anything... then you're right. You're not stealing.
Third, since when is it illegal to store data on my hard drive? If I decide to take a vacation and want to watch Stargate-SG1 on my laptop while on the airplane I should be able to do so. If I purchase the DVDs legitimately and copy them to my hard drive so I do not have to bring an entire boxed set with me while travelling that is what is deemed as 'Fair Use'. I purchased these DVDs- shouldn't I be able to do with them what I please?
I certainly don't support the ??AA's, but don't try taking the moral high ground by playing word games.
I think you are the one playing word games and being ridiculous here. Who are you to decide what is and is not fair use? You are the one going to absurd lengths and playing games with semantics. It is people like you who make life difficult for people like me. Just because you cannot imagine a legitimate reason why someone would copy a DVD to their hard drive does not mean legitimate reasons do not exist.
We already had one Medieval period in history. Please don't help bring on a second.
I think the parent is a joke, but:
if all you have is a hammer, eventually everything begins to look like a nail.
This is one of the most ridiculous things i've ever seen. This person put computer components in a pumpkin? hmmm... I'm not very impressed- in much the same way that I'm not impressed by people spray painting their cases, cutting holes in it, filling said hole with a sheet of plexi-glass and maybe adding some neon lights for 'effect'.
This probably doesn't help you much as it's not a mozilla plugin- but it is pretty interesting and might make a good starting point for your project.
/dev/speech so that any text sent to it will be spoken.
speechd implements
Apparantly it's the mentality in the U.S. to switch jobs every year or even more often and it takes some time to find your way in the code of our software.
I agree with you completely. I recently graduated and have been (unsuccessfully) looking for work for around 3 months. Ideally, I would like to find a job where I can get my foot in the door, learn something and work my way up over an extended period of time. Most of my friends have tech-related jobs and all of them laugh at me saying that if I work at a job more than a year or two I essentially have to explain my laziness at my next interview.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Most of the people I know aren't willing to give anything to the company they work for, yet expect everything in return. Realistically, why should a company sink money into an employee if it knows they are just going to turn around and leave in a year?
It used to be that after you finished school (high school or otherwise), you found a job and worked there for 20-30 years. You had, for the most part, job security and could look forward to some sort of retirement.
Those days are gone. Personally, I think it's mostly due to greed and the MTV-induced need for selfish instant gratification. People aren't willing to give anything to get anything anymore.
Just found something in my post that may need clarification...
When I mentioned that you could view pages across both screens- it seemed as if i was talking about maximizing the window across both screens. What I meant to say was that you could multiscreen the page vertically. In other words, as you scroll down one page, there is a second window open on the other screen that also scrolls the same page- but is further ahead in the page. this allows you to read ahead and maintain continuity.
You can also set it up to alternate window openings, so that new windows open on the opposite screen from the link. This allows you to follow links and still see where you came from.
ok, enough evangelising...
I've had a multi-monitor setup for about two years now and I won't go back. Ever.
I use the second monitor mostly for reference. It's the equivalent of having a book open in front of you on the desk.
A good example is the html Java documentation pages. You can have the pages open on another screen for reference as you work in your editor on your main screen- with no need to move stuff around or click all over the place to make it visible.
Another example is html editing. You can work on one screen and see your results in a browser on the second screen at the same time. There's something to be said for being able to see what your code is actually doing- it allows you to get a better sense of the 'big picture' (pun intended).
Vendors are putting in features on the dual output cards now that are also handy. Matrox, for example, provides software that allows you to do things like view the same web page across both screens (handy for very long pages) or control which screen your pages open in.
In terms of cost, I chose multimonitor over one giant screen because, at the time, I could purchase a video card (matrox g450) and 2 17" monitors (philips 107t) for just over 1/2 the cost of a 21" monitor- and I have more screen space to work with.
Essentially, the advantage is that a multimonitor setup allows you to take in more information at once with little hassle. This frees you from opening and closing windows, moving stuff around and scrolling through smaller windows so that you can concentrate on getting your work done. It's also relatively cheap (especially now with falling crt prices).
oh, yeah- I chose the matrox card because it allowed me more integration and control between my monitors, but there's nothing stopping you from using a card you already have and purchasing another cheap one on the side.
I'm sure this is flamebait, but....
The problem is that there is an open set of standards out there that banks should be developing to- not specific browsers. Otherwise, there isn't any point in having standards, is there?
And yes, you can code to standards without killing cross-browser compatibility. I think the idea that you can't is one of the biggest myths of web development. It takes work, but then if you are a professional that should be your job.
Generally speaking, I think these sites come around through lazy or inexperienced developers who only know or are required to use a specific set of tools because it's 'cost-effective' and/or 'faster' instead of actually doing their job.
Whether it's the developers fault or management is up in the air- probably a little bit of both.
My bank (Bank One) is excellent about accessibility. mozilla, netscape, opera and ie work fine. haven't tried konquerer there yet.
...end offtopic rant
offtopic rant...
But I've had the same problems with college sites in general. For example, my college employment board requires all resumes to be submitted in MS *.doc or *.rtf format (for that stupid fscking buzzword parser).
Interestingly, if I create my report in staroffice 6.0 and save it as either a *.doc or *.rtf file, it STILL doesn't work. If I load the file into MS Office and then resave it it works fine. It's annoying to say the least; and I'm really curious as to why it doesnt work- especially the rtf version.
I'm pretty lucky that my DSL provider lets me do whatever I want with the bandwidth I pay for, and I certainly hope that people like you don't prevent me from using my line for my own purposes, none of which are illegal.
Then you have legitimate uses. I didn't say that everyone using file-sharing programs was breaking the law- only the vast majority. When you say that you are lucky to be able to use the bandwidth you pay for in whatever way you want, I agree with you. After all, you are paying for it.
My beef is with people who eat up large chunks of other people's bandwidth just to collect movies and mp3s (maybe I didn't make this clear enough in my original post). It ultimately screws people like you and me because it costs the companies large amounts of money to deal with that situation. This translates into higher monthly bills without an increase in quality of service for legitimate users like you and I.
I'm not an ogre, and I agree (as I said earlier in this post) that if you are willing to pay for bandwidth, you should be able to do with it whatever you want. I also think people should be billed for what they use- no more, no less. Otherwise, people legitimately using their bandwidth are supporting those who don't.
Frankly, I disagree with the article. It talks about 'bandwidth hogs' as if they are good people who are being screwed by the 'system' because they use kazaa or morpheus (or both).
Well, fuck them. I think people who sit there and download pirated DVDs and mp3s 24/7 SHOULD be charged more because it interferes with my ability to actually go to websites and get information I want. Bandwidth costs money, and to be honest, probably 95-99% of the people using those programs are downloading stuff illegally. I have a fast connection because I like fast connections- i don't download music and i don't download movies- i just like to hop around and get the information i want as fast as i can.
This article makes it sound like because we are having difficulties turning the internet into TV that we are being denied some fundamental right. if I want to watch television, I go into my living room. The internet is about free information- not annoying animations, blinking lights and surround sound.
That first picture looks like a cross between something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, a Borg Cube and Tetsuo the Iron Man. The ones at the bottom are just plain bizarre.
These aren't servers, they're representative works of art- kind of like a city. Granted, these servers will die the same flaming death that Chicago did in the great fire, but it's still kind of neat.
I spent three years in the military. I was gone a lot (approximately 5-6 months out of the year) but rarely saw anything more than swamps, mountains, wooded areas and jungles.
;)
There were some really cool things. My favorite was looking at stuff through night-vision goggles- especially the stars. Animals were cool,too- it was sort of like they knew you weren't really a threat because you can't see in the dark so they come out all around you. Another fun thing that you get to do in the army is board and ride passenger jets with automatic weapons.
Anyway, if you want to see the world (that is, cities and local people) without having to kill and bomb everything you meet then the army (or any military service for that matter) is the wrong choice. The Air Force might be better, but from friends I've talked to, if you REALLY want to get out and go places the Navy can't be beat.
Those guys go from one end of the globe to the other and get free time to wander around and explore- something we really didn't.
I'm guessing, though, that military service isn't what this guy is looking for.
quote:
"I'm glad I live in a country where the ACLU can criticize me and vigorously debate the issues," Ashcroft says. "I consider it my job as attorney general to make sure that this and all our freedoms endure."
Well, he never says that HE is going to debate with the ACLU or even listen to them; only that they can debate and criticise him. It's a politician's truth.
And what 'freedoms' endure? For him and the system he represents, it's the freedom to take our freedoms away and entrench us in a beaurocratic madness that will probably take decades to unravel- if we even do. For us, it's the freedom to work hard our entire lives to support a government full of people like him.
yay.
Prepare to mod me down for failure to maintain a coherent thought, but I was struck with some off-the-top-of-my-head observations on your choices...
Focusing on the numbers, I noticed your associations for women tend towards shapes that are made up of curved figures. The shapes for men are mostly angular with the exception of 0. Incidentally, I also noticed you chose 'O' as a male letter too.
With the letters, the choices for men seem very 'linear'. That is, most of them can be drawn in a single stroke (with the exceptions of D, H, T) where the female associations are more complex and require 2 strokes or more (excepting I and S).
With the colors, the choices for women are generally softer mixtures of 'pure' colors while the male associations are strong 'clean' colors.
Long story short, what i get out of this is that we perceive:
(a) women as subtle, complex and 'circular thinking'
(b) men as strong, simple and 'linear thinking' beings.
Don't ask how I got the 'thinking' part out of that.
My thing is that I see everything as heavy outlines and color planes. When I look at something, lines and curves jump out of it and define it's borders, and colors are broken down into simple color planes- with the end result that I kind of see the world in a sort of comic book art kind of way (and no- i don't do drugs).
But, to get to my point, I wonder how much of this is cultural or societal as well? Think about how the world would look if architects were primarily women. We'd probably have lots of round buildings and domes that, on a very subtle level, would cause us to think and percieve in radically different ways.
favorite quote:
"A women's mind would bring a different angle to the game."
Maybe women could offer a new perspective on weapons. Things like guilt grenades, verbal tripwires, performance increasing sports bras (those things are huge- any woman will tell you it would hurt to jump around like that), crotch kicks, and keyring stabs would add a new dimension to the game.
Finally, female players would be able to work out their aggressions and live out their fantasies on a level equal to their male counterparts.
welcome to my world...
i bought the stargate season 2 dvd set the day it came out (a tuesday evening). i had watched all 22 episodes by the end of the second day (thursday). im guessing you are doing the same thing.
1969 is one of my favorite episodes in the set. watching that many episodes in such a short time does strange things to your head.
in any event- im reminded of the checkers champion computer players... they always win. the real question is- how do they win? the answer is: by storing a set number of move in lookup tables. in other words- once a game gets to a certain point, the computer opponent looks up, in a database, a winning set of moves from the given point in the game. how is this ai? how is this 'machine bettering man' on a level playing field? the answer is that it isn't.
programming a computer to play until it reaches a point where the number of moves left in the game are finite, and the computer has a database of moves that guarantee wins from this position is not artificial intelligence- it's loading the deck.
if you really want to impress people, build a machine that has no idea what the rules are, but rather is taught the rules as it plays the game. if that machine can beat the best players in the world, then we have an argument for a machine intelligence that is both strategic and insightful.
until that point, we have nothing but technical deception; technical deception in the same sense that Eliza was programmed as an 'ai'. what it appears to be on the surface is not, in fact, what it actually is.
In fact, the article itself violates a number of points he hammers into people's skulls as 'essential' to ui design in his books. For example, the text is sans-serif and it spans the entire page. sans-serif fonts are very difficult to read when there is a large amount of text, and it is well known that people absorb content better when the columns are narrow instead of wide- look at newspapers. I also remember trying to find stuff on the Sun website that he was responsible for... *shudder*...
anyway, i like the concepts behind the non-command user interfaces- but i'm not sure they are applicable in all situations. if i'm coding, a physical interface is not going to help me code any better or faster. a holographic projection might- because i would be able to arrange files around me in 3d, physically pull them forward and make changes, etc. (kind of like Minority Report).
i think the idea should be to allow the user to develop his or her own interface. information is information and should be separated from the ui completely - a user's habits should dictate an interface that's appropriate to how that user thinks. in other words, a machine may start out functioning one way and then turn into something else as the user uses the system. what's intuitive for one may not be so for the other.
for examples of this, look at the user interface clips on the calgary site linked to by the article. all the women are designing stuff like bugs on leaves and fish tanks that change color to let you know you have mail. the guys are designing things like lounging monsters. now, take these things out of context. how the hell am i supposed to know to look at my fishtank to check my mail?? (this, by the way, is another violation of nielsen's ideals.)
if any of these are taken out of context, they are completely useless. i guess my point is that the interface shouldn't be a static thing, but rather, should be completely controllable by the user.
the interesting thing is that the agnula project announcement is dated June 16th, and there is a news story on the Demudi site saying they are now officially part of the agnula project. to me, this seems a bit like 'embrace and extend'. this is going to be a big area in the future for linux- it is already growing and widely used in animation and there is the potential for huge profit.
my initial impression (not being any sort of expert) is that demudi has been quietly plugging away for a long time now and already has code available. red hat can come in, box it and work with agnula to sell it and carve out a niche for themselves without (it seems to me) really doing much.
based on this- i think that red hat can pull it off, because they have the support and connections of the agnula project and the work already done by the demudi team.
this seems awful similar to the Debian Multimedia Distribution slashdot covered a awhile ago?
It's about time. I hated having to call my handler every time i bought a copy of The Catcher in the Rye.
Maybe i'm missing something, but i don't really understand the logic behind purchasing a monitor like this. arguably, it's foot print is probably smaller (in terms of depth) and there may be some power saving issues (i wouldn't know) but, on the whole, it just doesn't make sense to me.
I looked around at larger monitors for a long time- including LCDs, and the conclusion i came to is that it's just not worth it. for a quarter of the price of this monstrosity i can get two 17 inch monitors and a couple of nice video cards and run a dual display that gives me more screenspace. i just think it's a better solution.
That's exactly what I did almost two years ago and i haven't regretted it since. i don't think i could ever go back to a single display at home- it would drive me nuts.