Au contraire, mon frere... I call to your attention "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", which was about fifty thousand times better than the first film. In the world of villainy, I'll take a menacing European with a cool accent over a creepy bald chick and a glowing spaceship any day. But that's just my opinion.
In a similar story, modern dishwashers are now being equipped with GPS receivers so you never get lost in your kitchen! Isn't this great? Atari games on our cell phones. Is it just me, or is this whole cell phone thing gotten completely out of hand? Now, personally, I think cell phones are great. It's indispensible if I ever get stranded on the side of the road, or get lost somewhere, or if I just really need to get in touch with someone and can't be tied to a regular telephone.
But now they're coming with web browsers, email clients, instant messaging tools... That one really made me laugh. I once saw a guy using IM on his cell phone. I'm there thinking, "You're on a cell phone, dude... just call the guy." It might be different if the thing had a keyboard. Then you might be able to type out a message in a reasonable amount of time. I just think that we're trying to put applications which, in theory, are very useful to have in a portable device, into the perfectly wrong kind of medium
Okay, so this isn't really about Atari for me, it's just about the whole issue of the technology getting bloated and companies trying to give these devices applications which are clearly impractical for them. Speaking of which, I love how dialup ISPs are still making money, even though the Internet has really, for the most part, outgrown narrowband access.
I'm not really sure what exactly it was that I was getting at with this, but seeing good technology get bloated like this just makes me queasy. But that, of course, is just my own opinion.
/* Steve */
Well, how about not using email?
on
RFC for Spammers
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· Score: 2
Personally, I've never been motivated to buy/use/look into something after getting an email from some random company. It seems like the best approach is really to find another means of advertising where users can't immediately delete the message upon seeing the subject header, and before seeing the actual content. Granted, these pop-up windows are just plain irritating, but it looks like that's where internet advertising is going to stay for a while.
As far as email ads, I put those in the same category as those infomercials with the same voiceover guy who did the salad shooter, the Egg-Wave, and the microwavable bacon-fryer. The quality of the ad is far too low-quality for me to want to invest any sort of trust in whatever they may happen to be selling, in the incalculably slim chance that it's not some kind of Don Lapris pyramid scheme. But that's just me.
Personally, I'm really interested in watching at least the first episode of this show. Yes, it's a Rick Berman series, so by precedent, it's going to suck. Or will it? I don't know, I'm sure Rick Berman surfs the Web, and you don't have to do much deep digging to learn that most would-be Trekkies think Voyager is total crap. Also, I like how Bakula will be adding creative input to the script. From what I've seen on Quantum Leap, he's really quite a talented actor, and knows how to get a character across, give him depth, and draw you into the character's own world for a while. So while there's a chance that it may suck royally, I really do want to see what they've got in store for us.
That being said, what I really want to know is how they're going to explain how technology suddenly takes a nosedive somewhere during the 21st century. There's WWIII, true, so maybe they'll play that up. ST:FC did make mention of a large chunk of the population being killed off. Still, though, if you think back to ST:TOS, their technology was pretty cheesy... They actually used an analog rollback odometer counter as one of their displays, their computer had AI capabilities to recognize and process human speech, but couldn't seem to generate a voice that wasn't a monotone Flash-Gordon/Dr.-Who-era drone. Also, the sets were boxy as hell, and had more pastel colors than the depth of suburban hell in the 1950s. I'm really curious to know how they're going to explain what happened to technology and what happened between now and ST:TOS to make space travel as campy as it was:)
Are you kidding? There's a HUGE market for PC speaker drivers! Personally, I'm waiting for Linux drivers for (1) dot matrix printers, (2) lightpens, (3) Laserdisc players, and (4) the human appendix. Come on, programmers, let's get coding!:-)
Yes, finally! Vince McMahon has come through to give us XFS: the eXtreme File System! Complete with new rules and directory structures, this will appeal to even the most hard-core file system fans. Under the new rules, all crosslinked files WILL be deleted on the spot, multiple programs attempting to write to the same block will be penalized for thirty million clock cycles, and all deletions are FINAL. And just check out the i-nodes on the cheerleaders. I think you'll agree this will be the new pop phenomenon.
Oh. Wait. Journaling file system? oops... never mind.
You know, I can't really help but think of this as being just as annoying as the kinds of people who anticipate the second half of all of your sentences and attempt to say them along with you.
Besides, I work at the helpdesk at a university, and I can tell you, there is *no* emotion whatsoever on the face of the average websurfer. Unless maybe that's the point. What I'd like to see is a computer that can analyze my face, figure out that I haven't slept in three days, and have it direct me to caffeine and hacker book vendors. Now that would be impressive technology...
So first we had a movie called "How Stella Got Her Groove Back". This was about a woman who got lucky for the first time in God knows how long. Now we've got "The Emperor's New Groove". I'm really hoping they've redefined "groove" for this picture...
Coming soon to theaters: "How the Emperor Got His Groove Back"!
I think Computer Science is rapidly joining the ranks of "Doctor" and "Lawyer" in terms of "jobs college students want for the money", rather than "jobs people pursue because they are personally driven toward learning the material. I took a course in programming language theory, in which we learned Scheme, a dialect of LISP. Personally, when I first saw it, I was scared out of my mind. Now that I've had the chance to work with it, I really like it, as it has features that are simply not seen in other languages. You wouldn't believe how many of the other people in my class cried foul when the first exams were handed back, and they realized that you can't bull$h!t a computer science exam. The class erupted into controversy, because they felt that the class was being taught unfairly, and that if so many of the students did so poorly on the exam, that reflects on the professor. Now, I did rather well on that exam, as did many other respectible/. readers and die-hard computer nerds. I also noticed that of the people who complained about the exam, not a single person asked a single question during the professor's lectures so that they might understand the material, and almost everyone put off the homework assignments until the night before, when they were too panic-stricken to effectively get their programs done.
Mind you, I've had classes kick my ass, so I know and understand the phenomenon. The difference is, when there's something I don't understand, I'll talk to my professor about it, and make damn sure that I get my money's worth out of the classes that I'm paying for. That's one problem with some of these colleges and universities. Mommy and Daddy pay for their kids' educations, so a lot of students don't feel an obligation to do well, because it's not their balance going down every semester. Now, my parents and I are splitting the cost of my education, and I am on scholarship. For these I am very grateful, and I'm doing rather well in school. This is because I feel personally driven in the area of just tinkering with computers and programming, maybe because I've been doing it since I was three years old. But then, I've always been an advocate of doing the things that put the fire in yer belly.
I've got this Operating Systems class, in which we're learning SOS (Simple Operating System), and the class is filled with some of the sorriest excuses for students I've ever seen. It's not that they're not intelligent, they're very bright people. The problem is that they'd rather spend the class period wasting time and trying to get the professor off track than actually trying to learn something from the course. The professor is at fault as well, for not staying true to the focus of the class. It's a sad state of affaris, because I want to learn something, and I'm embarrassed to be associated with a room full of people who insist on reverting back to high school tactics. I differ from them in that I want to walk out of college with more than just a piece of university-sealed paper that defines my value as a human being. I actually want to walk out of college with more knowledge than I had before I started this whole mess. I want to learn as much as I can about as much as I can. And from what I'm seeing, my best bet for doing that is to pick up some books, and learn it all myself...
I consider myself a "geek". This does not imply a lack of social life, nor does it imply a lack of cultural or aesthetic appreciation. If you want to use the literal definition, a "geek" refers to a person who will indiscriminately eat anything, frequently seen at a circus freakshow. While I'm sure that a minor subset of/. readers might fit the bill, I'm willing to bet that none of us, in the true definition of the term, is a "geek".
So what are we trying to say, here? I'm assuming that by a geek you mean a person who is very passionate about science, technology, engineering, or a related field, taking a personal interest in his or her work. If this is not your definition of the term, then you can reply with your own meaning. Being a geek myself, specifically in the area of computer science, I would have to strongly disagree with the generalization that's being made. I would venture to say that perhaps when many geeks are younger, they have few to no friends, and little appreciation for the arts. However, as most geeks get older, they tend to acquire an appreciation for these things, and because they are generally (correct me if I'm wrong) ostracized and alienated from their peers when they're younger, they learn to accept and appreciate their own opinions without feeling that they have to conform to some larger norm or accepted set of guidelines. Geeks have emotions as real as anyone else, and the arts very strongly appeal to those emotions. Especially when faced with the emotional strain of social alienation from one's peers, many geeks tend to turn to the arts to help them express and articulate the emotions they might have trouble with by themselves.
I realize that this post was not aimed at geeks as a whole, but rather a subset of them with certain characteristics. My purpose here is just to say that at least in my personal experience, this subset characterizes the exception, rather than the rule
TMBG is a great band. But, they have publically decried Napster and P2P in general. Why should we help them with something that is run 1980's technology? It seems to me that they are just trying to boost their online image with this sort of stunt.
Well, I was going to reply more thoughtfully, but it looks like others have beaten me to it. What I would like to point out is that TMBG does not resort to "stunts" in order to boost its online image. What they have done is given a free concert in Irving Plaza, which was broadcast live on the Internet via EMusic.com, simply to plug their latest album, "Long Tall Weekend", which was, mind you, entirely in MP3 format. TMBG has quite an online image. If they wanted to boost it, they'd do it, and they'd do it well.
That's as may be, but I think we'll start to see a serious imbalance of employment happening. Not everyone can be a cyberneticist, or a computer programmer. There are those among us who need jobs like janitor, fast food clerk, gas station attendant, etc., in order to make money to go to school and get more ambitious careers. Think about what will happen when people don't have the opportunity to get a job simply for the sake of having work and a weekly paycheck...
"Oh that'll be great. Computers will start thinking and the people will stop!"
Many people I know have already gotten a head start on this one, so I'm not sure how much of a real impact this will have on the world. But personally, I like this bit myself...
Around 2030, we should be able to flood our brains with nanobots that can be turned off and on and which would function as "experience beamers" allowing us to experience the full range of other people's sensory experiences and if we find ordinary experience too boring, we will have access to archives where more interesting experiences are stored.
Beamers, you say? Wow! I sure do love electronics, don't you? Dude, I've seen what happens when my toaster breaks down. Except when that happens, all you lose is breakfast. If one of these "beamers" decides to get ambitious, you end up stuck in John Malkovich's head or something. That also brings up some damned interesting and abusive uses of this technology. To what extent would we be capable of "experiencing the full range of sensory experience"? How much information gets broadcast to our own brain? If our senses are telling us we're experiencing artificial events from someone else's brain, then do we forget who we are? This is getting into the realms of philosophy, and I don't think I even want to begin delving into the implications here. Just know that there are many, and they're not all Utopian.
These robots, when they were developed, would do all the world's work: People could sit back and enjoy themselves, drinking their mint juleps in peace and quiet.
Say, I think I read a book about this somewhere... The Time Machine, perhaps? Is anybody else dismayed by the notion that this technology would allow us to become lazier than ever? I'm sure there are others, I'm sure I'm not in the minority in thinking this. Now, mind you, I really like nanotechnology. I think that it's capable of revolutionizing every corner of life, and could perhaps make many jobs automated, making services much, much cheaper, lower cost of living, and give people much more free time. Or just leave everyone out on the street desperate for a job, when companies don't bother lowering their prices on items that now cost practically pennies to make, standard of living stays the same, and you're left with scores of people out looking for a way to keep from starving to death for one more night.
Within 10 years, revolutions in genomics, proteomics, therapeutic cloning, and tissue engineering will be adding more than one year every year to human life expectancy
Wonderful! And when people stop dying, we'll have to colonize the seas. When the seas get full of folks, we'll burrow underground. When we've reached the limit to how much our natural resources can sustain us, we'll all turn into cannibals or something. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of living forever. I think the real issue is not expanding our life span, so miserable people can live their miserable lives for another miserable fifty or so years, but rather trying to improve quality of life, so that the few years we do have aren't so miserable. We've got six billion people on this spinning ball of dirt and water, and well over half of them (I don't have the stats in front of me) are dying of malnutrition, while we in the more developed nations waste enough food to sustain a few dozen small countries. Isn't it ironic that in a world where most humans are starving to death, the US is dealing with the growing rate of obesity. Doesn't this seem a tad unbalanced? I suppose the moral of this particular story is that we need to improve quality, not length, of life, and this can only be done by properly distributing the resources we have, if nanotechnology is going to have any kind of positive effect on the world.
As a side note, who will be getting these treatments? The wealthy? That's going to cause some serious social problems, if we suddenly end up with the rich crowding the world. And they won't be rich forever... so what happens then? So fine, we make it available to everyone who wants it. So that's great, who's going to fund this project? It's not going to be evenly and fairly distributed, it's just not. So only the rich/powerful/important will get the treatment, and the gap between the rich and the poor will widen beyond repair.
Okay. I'll stop now. The moral of this whole story is that I just don't think we're ready for this kind of revolution. We have to figure out what's really important about the quality of the life we're lenghtening before we make ourselves immortal. We have to learn more about the true nature of the self before we start bombarding our brains with other people's experiences. And we need to seriously get our collective heads our of our communal asses before we start restructuring society the way it will need to be when human workers become obsolete. But these are just things to think about. In the end, there's not a whole lot that I can do or say to stop this phenomenon. But we are indeed, as the Chinese curse proclaims, living in "interesting times."
Well, keep in mind that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution without the ability to gather information from across the country in anything less than a few weeks. I have not yet read your article in favor of the Electoral College, but I plan to. For now, I believe that one consequence of the EC is that it gives people the sense that their votes do not count, as they do not directly elect the President. Of course, one reason the EC was formed was that the people were not trusted to be able to make the proper decision. Maybe that's still the case, I honestly don't know. I'm not a political scientist.
But the way I see it, if Bush wins the election, he will do so by a minority of the popular vote. In an age where the people are more informed (or at least have more opportunity to be informed) than ever, it seems backward to have a system where our votes are sent to a "winner-takes-all" system which allows for something like this to happen. But that's just my opinion, and like I said before, I'll read your article. I could be wrong...
You do make a good point, the field of Linux apps is getting rather bloated, in the sense that there are very many apps to do the same thing, and we may not need lots of superfluous apps.
The way I see it, though, having used Nautilus, it seems to me to be the "Internet Explorer for Linux" that I tend to think the market needs. Mind you, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but part of the reason that IE and MS are so popular is that they offer user-friendly apps that are intuitive for common folk to use, and are very aesthetically pleasing, IMHO. This is something that Linux desperately needs. Nautilus is a sort of Swiss-army knife that can handle a wide variety of media; it's so thoroughly useful, and I have the utmost respect for the programmers working on the project.
One problem I have with the Linux-phenomenon (I use Linux as my primary OS, so I'm part of it too) is that it's too fragmented. Only now are we really seeing centralized efforts putting together serious software products (i.e., Helix Code, Eazel, KDE to an extent), and that is something that Linux desperately needs. If Linux is to be taken seriously as a viable consumer desktop OS, it is going to have to have applications like Nautilus.
I apologize if this post seems redundant or aimless, or if I didn't explain myself well. It's been a long day, so I hope my point is clear.
I couldn't possibly agree more here... It seems as if "having children" has become a staple assumed-requirement of today's society, where people do it because it's what they're expected to do, when in reality, they have neither the resources nor the time to properly care for their children.
So many parents today have children, only to pawn them off to day care, soothing their conscience with an obligatory allocation of "quality time", until such time as their children reach school-age. From there, put the responsibility in the hands of the school teachers, who, by the way, are now under so many restrictions and regulations so that they can't so much as put a supporting hand on a kid's shoulder without being brought up in front of a committee. Then these kids grow up, and their parents wonder why the hell the kids never come home, why they hate their parents, and why they have such a hard time expressing any genuine emotion.
We're getting emotionally sterilized. Daycare is basically going through the motions of parenting, without all that excess "love, caring, support, and guidance" baggage. After all, if our basic survival needs are met, those other things are just a technicality anyway, right? So how does this connect back with IT jobs and daycare? Not directly, I suppose, my problem is more in daycare, and how so many people I know are so emotionally walled-up or bottled-up because their parents never provided them with any real emotional support, so now they don't even trust themselves, let alone anyone else.
Yes, this is a rant. I'm sorry. But this is something I feel strongly about. Daycare is not the problem, it's a symptom of the emotional detachment of our society. When I finish graduate school, settle down somewhere, assuming I get married (a shaky prospect at best), I wouldn't even consider having children unless I made DAMN sure that I could be there for them in every respect. I don't want a daycare nanny getting paid by the hour to watch my child's first steps, hear my child's first words, and do all the things I want to do with my children. A child is not a trophy to be bronzed, put up on a shelf, and left for someone else to polish now and then, a child is a lifetime investment. Maybe we should start treating them this way. If you can't invest, then don't have the kids! With six billion people in this world, I don't think we're in any danger of going extinct.
Finally, I would think that IT would be the perfect kind of job to have as a mother or father, because it allows the greatest potential for telecommuting. If I were to have children, this would be my way of making sure that I could be there for them. If that is not an acceptable possibility, then maybe having children isn't something I should be considering. Life is full of experiences, parenthood being one of them. It's not, however, the be-all and end-all of human existence. That having been said, I'll get off my soap box. Take care, and remember to tuck your kids in tonight. They like that.
I like the idea! And what's more, they can utilize the superior Linux OS to cause a GUI that can crash 75% more efficiently, with an OpenGL-animated icon of a hard drive plunging into a bucket of boiling fat, as the windowing environment somehow repartitions your hard drive into 30 million 1-kilobyte drives. Impossible, you say? Bring Linux that close to Windows, and we just may see these things within our lifetimes...
I like Linux. A lot. I even like the emergence of desktop environments, such as KDE and Gnome (although AfterStep was fun for a while). I think Linux is steadily "coming of age" in the desktop market. The reason for that, in my opinion, is that it offers an alternative to the Apple/Microsoft-Intel-AOL-Time-Warner-Chrysler-Dai mler-Palmolive-OmniCorp computing environments which were the standards for so long. As has probably aleady been mentioned, if you want to use a Windows clone, you may as well just get Windows.
I don't think there's anything more that I can say that hasn't already been said...
This is a bit of an extension on the commentary already given in the article, as well as my own curiosity. What kind of market exists for this kind of service? Especially with MP3s circulating every which way, as well as RealAudio radio servers on the rise and ImagineRadio providing free customizable broadcasting to subscribers, I'm not sure if this will catch on. I mean, hell, my college radio station will soon be setting up a RealAudio server, so how hard can it be? These kinds of services are everywhere.
This is, I suppose, a comment not only to assess the available market for the technology, but also as a possible "suggestion box" to the company in charge of the project, as it would have to provide something that these free services lack. Personally, I agree with the idea of a "stand-up comedy" channel, so long as it provides broadcasts of the obscure performances of comedians not necessarily available in stores. Or perhaps they could rebroadcast "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Hell, I'd sign up right then and there. A lot of care has to be taken to make this service unique, appealing, and marketable.
Oh, this would be a treat, wouldn't it? "And now, will the congregation please rise, as we hear a hymn by 'Father DJ Busta Nutt, the Techno Soundguru'." (Begin chorus of "Day by Day", with heavy bassline and strobelights bombarding the senses)
Or maybe it just won't catch on. Personally, I'd start going to church again...
picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm
Oh, dear GOD. Suddenly, music stores begin selling mice genetically encoded with the latest Billboard hits. Christ, you want to talk about the ASPCA getting in your case... If I find a mouse with Backstreet Boys chromosomes, I'd want to bring the ones responsible to justice. That's not to mention the computer-related implications. You get a new computer, complete with 19" monitor, CDRW, and a 100GB mouse with Linux pre-installed (you could even color his fur to be like a little penguin. Hell, you're storing your MP3s on the guy, what's one more step?)
(that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)
Ooooh, here it comes... You wanna talk about file-sharing, this is the way to go! I, for one, long for the day when kids can come to school with the excuse "I don't have my homework, my hard-drive had babies and died last night". Ahh, wondrous technology, will the marvels ever cease?
No parrots were involved in the devlopment of the Linux 2.4 kernel for yet another month. The Council for the Advancement of Parrots said he was disappointed in the latest findings, and urged more action on this in the future. Of those who did make progress in the kernel development, none of them were indigenous to Africa, sat on the little wooden trapeze, or ate any of the yummy millet seed, yum yum...
Okay, that may have been a Monty Python rip-off, but I could not pass up this opportunity. Please keep flaming to a minimum, and may the Almighty Ueberparrot bless you all...
Very well, I stand corrected. I got the impression from the article that BSD was using Mac components. My knowledge of Mac/BSD is somewhat limited, so you'll have to forgive comments such as this. I've been spending the better part of the day writing computational geometry code, so my brain has taken quite a beating in the last couple of days...
I really do feel bad for Apple after all this... I mean, seriously. First, they come out with Mac, whose concept gets stolen by Microsoft. Then comes the Newton (which we're all still trying to figure out how that happened), and Palm took over that market. Now BSD is integrating Mac0SX's features? Next thing you know, Nintendo will offer game-bow in Mac-style new colors-- oh, wait. That's right.
Slashdot Mirror
Au contraire, mon frere... I call to your attention "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", which was about fifty thousand times better than the first film. In the world of villainy, I'll take a menacing European with a cool accent over a creepy bald chick and a glowing spaceship any day. But that's just my opinion.
/* Steve */
In a similar story, modern dishwashers are now being equipped with GPS receivers so you never get lost in your kitchen! Isn't this great? Atari games on our cell phones. Is it just me, or is this whole cell phone thing gotten completely out of hand? Now, personally, I think cell phones are great. It's indispensible if I ever get stranded on the side of the road, or get lost somewhere, or if I just really need to get in touch with someone and can't be tied to a regular telephone.
But now they're coming with web browsers, email clients, instant messaging tools... That one really made me laugh. I once saw a guy using IM on his cell phone. I'm there thinking, "You're on a cell phone, dude... just call the guy." It might be different if the thing had a keyboard. Then you might be able to type out a message in a reasonable amount of time. I just think that we're trying to put applications which, in theory, are very useful to have in a portable device, into the perfectly wrong kind of medium
Okay, so this isn't really about Atari for me, it's just about the whole issue of the technology getting bloated and companies trying to give these devices applications which are clearly impractical for them. Speaking of which, I love how dialup ISPs are still making money, even though the Internet has really, for the most part, outgrown narrowband access.
I'm not really sure what exactly it was that I was getting at with this, but seeing good technology get bloated like this just makes me queasy. But that, of course, is just my own opinion.
/* Steve */
Personally, I've never been motivated to buy/use/look into something after getting an email from some random company. It seems like the best approach is really to find another means of advertising where users can't immediately delete the message upon seeing the subject header, and before seeing the actual content. Granted, these pop-up windows are just plain irritating, but it looks like that's where internet advertising is going to stay for a while.
As far as email ads, I put those in the same category as those infomercials with the same voiceover guy who did the salad shooter, the Egg-Wave, and the microwavable bacon-fryer. The quality of the ad is far too low-quality for me to want to invest any sort of trust in whatever they may happen to be selling, in the incalculably slim chance that it's not some kind of Don Lapris pyramid scheme. But that's just me.
/* Steve */
Personally, I'm really interested in watching at least the first episode of this show. Yes, it's a Rick Berman series, so by precedent, it's going to suck. Or will it? I don't know, I'm sure Rick Berman surfs the Web, and you don't have to do much deep digging to learn that most would-be Trekkies think Voyager is total crap. Also, I like how Bakula will be adding creative input to the script. From what I've seen on Quantum Leap, he's really quite a talented actor, and knows how to get a character across, give him depth, and draw you into the character's own world for a while. So while there's a chance that it may suck royally, I really do want to see what they've got in store for us.
:)
That being said, what I really want to know is how they're going to explain how technology suddenly takes a nosedive somewhere during the 21st century. There's WWIII, true, so maybe they'll play that up. ST:FC did make mention of a large chunk of the population being killed off. Still, though, if you think back to ST:TOS, their technology was pretty cheesy... They actually used an analog rollback odometer counter as one of their displays, their computer had AI capabilities to recognize and process human speech, but couldn't seem to generate a voice that wasn't a monotone Flash-Gordon/Dr.-Who-era drone. Also, the sets were boxy as hell, and had more pastel colors than the depth of suburban hell in the 1950s. I'm really curious to know how they're going to explain what happened to technology and what happened between now and ST:TOS to make space travel as campy as it was
But of course, that's just my $0.02
/* Steve */
Are you kidding? There's a HUGE market for PC speaker drivers! Personally, I'm waiting for Linux drivers for (1) dot matrix printers, (2) lightpens, (3) Laserdisc players, and (4) the human appendix. Come on, programmers, let's get coding! :-)
/* Steve */
Yes, finally! Vince McMahon has come through to give us XFS: the eXtreme File System! Complete with new rules and directory structures, this will appeal to even the most hard-core file system fans. Under the new rules, all crosslinked files WILL be deleted on the spot, multiple programs attempting to write to the same block will be penalized for thirty million clock cycles, and all deletions are FINAL. And just check out the i-nodes on the cheerleaders. I think you'll agree this will be the new pop phenomenon.
Oh. Wait. Journaling file system? oops... never mind.
/* Steve */
You know, I can't really help but think of this as being just as annoying as the kinds of people who anticipate the second half of all of your sentences and attempt to say them along with you.
Besides, I work at the helpdesk at a university, and I can tell you, there is *no* emotion whatsoever on the face of the average websurfer. Unless maybe that's the point. What I'd like to see is a computer that can analyze my face, figure out that I haven't slept in three days, and have it direct me to caffeine and hacker book vendors. Now that would be impressive technology...
/* Steve */
So first we had a movie called "How Stella Got Her Groove Back". This was about a woman who got lucky for the first time in God knows how long. Now we've got "The Emperor's New Groove". I'm really hoping they've redefined "groove" for this picture...
Coming soon to theaters: "How the Emperor Got His Groove Back"!
/* Steve */
Oh, I wholeheartedly agree...
/. readers and die-hard computer nerds. I also noticed that of the people who complained about the exam, not a single person asked a single question during the professor's lectures so that they might understand the material, and almost everyone put off the homework assignments until the night before, when they were too panic-stricken to effectively get their programs done.
I think Computer Science is rapidly joining the ranks of "Doctor" and "Lawyer" in terms of "jobs college students want for the money", rather than "jobs people pursue because they are personally driven toward learning the material. I took a course in programming language theory, in which we learned Scheme, a dialect of LISP. Personally, when I first saw it, I was scared out of my mind. Now that I've had the chance to work with it, I really like it, as it has features that are simply not seen in other languages. You wouldn't believe how many of the other people in my class cried foul when the first exams were handed back, and they realized that you can't bull$h!t a computer science exam. The class erupted into controversy, because they felt that the class was being taught unfairly, and that if so many of the students did so poorly on the exam, that reflects on the professor. Now, I did rather well on that exam, as did many other respectible
Mind you, I've had classes kick my ass, so I know and understand the phenomenon. The difference is, when there's something I don't understand, I'll talk to my professor about it, and make damn sure that I get my money's worth out of the classes that I'm paying for. That's one problem with some of these colleges and universities. Mommy and Daddy pay for their kids' educations, so a lot of students don't feel an obligation to do well, because it's not their balance going down every semester. Now, my parents and I are splitting the cost of my education, and I am on scholarship. For these I am very grateful, and I'm doing rather well in school. This is because I feel personally driven in the area of just tinkering with computers and programming, maybe because I've been doing it since I was three years old. But then, I've always been an advocate of doing the things that put the fire in yer belly.
I've got this Operating Systems class, in which we're learning SOS (Simple Operating System), and the class is filled with some of the sorriest excuses for students I've ever seen. It's not that they're not intelligent, they're very bright people. The problem is that they'd rather spend the class period wasting time and trying to get the professor off track than actually trying to learn something from the course. The professor is at fault as well, for not staying true to the focus of the class. It's a sad state of affaris, because I want to learn something, and I'm embarrassed to be associated with a room full of people who insist on reverting back to high school tactics. I differ from them in that I want to walk out of college with more than just a piece of university-sealed paper that defines my value as a human being. I actually want to walk out of college with more knowledge than I had before I started this whole mess. I want to learn as much as I can about as much as I can. And from what I'm seeing, my best bet for doing that is to pick up some books, and learn it all myself...
/* Steve */
Okay, hold the phone, here...
/. readers might fit the bill, I'm willing to bet that none of us, in the true definition of the term, is a "geek".
I consider myself a "geek". This does not imply a lack of social life, nor does it imply a lack of cultural or aesthetic appreciation. If you want to use the literal definition, a "geek" refers to a person who will indiscriminately eat anything, frequently seen at a circus freakshow. While I'm sure that a minor subset of
So what are we trying to say, here? I'm assuming that by a geek you mean a person who is very passionate about science, technology, engineering, or a related field, taking a personal interest in his or her work. If this is not your definition of the term, then you can reply with your own meaning. Being a geek myself, specifically in the area of computer science, I would have to strongly disagree with the generalization that's being made. I would venture to say that perhaps when many geeks are younger, they have few to no friends, and little appreciation for the arts. However, as most geeks get older, they tend to acquire an appreciation for these things, and because they are generally (correct me if I'm wrong) ostracized and alienated from their peers when they're younger, they learn to accept and appreciate their own opinions without feeling that they have to conform to some larger norm or accepted set of guidelines. Geeks have emotions as real as anyone else, and the arts very strongly appeal to those emotions. Especially when faced with the emotional strain of social alienation from one's peers, many geeks tend to turn to the arts to help them express and articulate the emotions they might have trouble with by themselves.
I realize that this post was not aimed at geeks as a whole, but rather a subset of them with certain characteristics. My purpose here is just to say that at least in my personal experience, this subset characterizes the exception, rather than the rule
/* Steve */
TMBG is a great band. But, they have publically decried Napster and P2P in general. Why should we help them with something that is run 1980's technology? It seems to me that they are just trying to boost their online image with this sort of stunt.
Well, I was going to reply more thoughtfully, but it looks like others have beaten me to it. What I would like to point out is that TMBG does not resort to "stunts" in order to boost its online image. What they have done is given a free concert in Irving Plaza, which was broadcast live on the Internet via EMusic.com, simply to plug their latest album, "Long Tall Weekend", which was, mind you, entirely in MP3 format. TMBG has quite an online image. If they wanted to boost it, they'd do it, and they'd do it well.
/* Steve */
That's as may be, but I think we'll start to see a serious imbalance of employment happening. Not everyone can be a cyberneticist, or a computer programmer. There are those among us who need jobs like janitor, fast food clerk, gas station attendant, etc., in order to make money to go to school and get more ambitious careers. Think about what will happen when people don't have the opportunity to get a job simply for the sake of having work and a weekly paycheck...
/* Steve */
"Oh that'll be great. Computers will start thinking and the people will stop!"
Many people I know have already gotten a head start on this one, so I'm not sure how much of a real impact this will have on the world. But personally, I like this bit myself...
Around 2030, we should be able to flood our brains with nanobots that can be turned off and on and which would function as "experience beamers" allowing us to experience the full range of other people's sensory experiences and if we find ordinary experience too boring, we will have access to archives where more interesting experiences are stored.
Beamers, you say? Wow! I sure do love electronics, don't you? Dude, I've seen what happens when my toaster breaks down. Except when that happens, all you lose is breakfast. If one of these "beamers" decides to get ambitious, you end up stuck in John Malkovich's head or something. That also brings up some damned interesting and abusive uses of this technology. To what extent would we be capable of "experiencing the full range of sensory experience"? How much information gets broadcast to our own brain? If our senses are telling us we're experiencing artificial events from someone else's brain, then do we forget who we are? This is getting into the realms of philosophy, and I don't think I even want to begin delving into the implications here. Just know that there are many, and they're not all Utopian.
These robots, when they were developed, would do all the world's work: People could sit back and enjoy themselves, drinking their mint juleps in peace and quiet.
Say, I think I read a book about this somewhere... The Time Machine, perhaps? Is anybody else dismayed by the notion that this technology would allow us to become lazier than ever? I'm sure there are others, I'm sure I'm not in the minority in thinking this. Now, mind you, I really like nanotechnology. I think that it's capable of revolutionizing every corner of life, and could perhaps make many jobs automated, making services much, much cheaper, lower cost of living, and give people much more free time. Or just leave everyone out on the street desperate for a job, when companies don't bother lowering their prices on items that now cost practically pennies to make, standard of living stays the same, and you're left with scores of people out looking for a way to keep from starving to death for one more night.
Within 10 years, revolutions in genomics, proteomics, therapeutic cloning, and tissue engineering will be adding more than one year every year to human life expectancy
Wonderful! And when people stop dying, we'll have to colonize the seas. When the seas get full of folks, we'll burrow underground. When we've reached the limit to how much our natural resources can sustain us, we'll all turn into cannibals or something. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of living forever. I think the real issue is not expanding our life span, so miserable people can live their miserable lives for another miserable fifty or so years, but rather trying to improve quality of life, so that the few years we do have aren't so miserable. We've got six billion people on this spinning ball of dirt and water, and well over half of them (I don't have the stats in front of me) are dying of malnutrition, while we in the more developed nations waste enough food to sustain a few dozen small countries. Isn't it ironic that in a world where most humans are starving to death, the US is dealing with the growing rate of obesity. Doesn't this seem a tad unbalanced? I suppose the moral of this particular story is that we need to improve quality, not length, of life, and this can only be done by properly distributing the resources we have, if nanotechnology is going to have any kind of positive effect on the world.
As a side note, who will be getting these treatments? The wealthy? That's going to cause some serious social problems, if we suddenly end up with the rich crowding the world. And they won't be rich forever... so what happens then? So fine, we make it available to everyone who wants it. So that's great, who's going to fund this project? It's not going to be evenly and fairly distributed, it's just not. So only the rich/powerful/important will get the treatment, and the gap between the rich and the poor will widen beyond repair.
Okay. I'll stop now. The moral of this whole story is that I just don't think we're ready for this kind of revolution. We have to figure out what's really important about the quality of the life we're lenghtening before we make ourselves immortal. We have to learn more about the true nature of the self before we start bombarding our brains with other people's experiences. And we need to seriously get our collective heads our of our communal asses before we start restructuring society the way it will need to be when human workers become obsolete. But these are just things to think about. In the end, there's not a whole lot that I can do or say to stop this phenomenon. But we are indeed, as the Chinese curse proclaims, living in "interesting times."
/* Steve */
Well, keep in mind that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution without the ability to gather information from across the country in anything less than a few weeks. I have not yet read your article in favor of the Electoral College, but I plan to. For now, I believe that one consequence of the EC is that it gives people the sense that their votes do not count, as they do not directly elect the President. Of course, one reason the EC was formed was that the people were not trusted to be able to make the proper decision. Maybe that's still the case, I honestly don't know. I'm not a political scientist.
But the way I see it, if Bush wins the election, he will do so by a minority of the popular vote. In an age where the people are more informed (or at least have more opportunity to be informed) than ever, it seems backward to have a system where our votes are sent to a "winner-takes-all" system which allows for something like this to happen. But that's just my opinion, and like I said before, I'll read your article. I could be wrong...
/* Steve */
You do make a good point, the field of Linux apps is getting rather bloated, in the sense that there are very many apps to do the same thing, and we may not need lots of superfluous apps.
The way I see it, though, having used Nautilus, it seems to me to be the "Internet Explorer for Linux" that I tend to think the market needs. Mind you, I'm not a Microsoft fan, but part of the reason that IE and MS are so popular is that they offer user-friendly apps that are intuitive for common folk to use, and are very aesthetically pleasing, IMHO. This is something that Linux desperately needs. Nautilus is a sort of Swiss-army knife that can handle a wide variety of media; it's so thoroughly useful, and I have the utmost respect for the programmers working on the project.
One problem I have with the Linux-phenomenon (I use Linux as my primary OS, so I'm part of it too) is that it's too fragmented. Only now are we really seeing centralized efforts putting together serious software products (i.e., Helix Code, Eazel, KDE to an extent), and that is something that Linux desperately needs. If Linux is to be taken seriously as a viable consumer desktop OS, it is going to have to have applications like Nautilus.
I apologize if this post seems redundant or aimless, or if I didn't explain myself well. It's been a long day, so I hope my point is clear.
/* Steve */
I couldn't possibly agree more here... It seems as if "having children" has become a staple assumed-requirement of today's society, where people do it because it's what they're expected to do, when in reality, they have neither the resources nor the time to properly care for their children.
So many parents today have children, only to pawn them off to day care, soothing their conscience with an obligatory allocation of "quality time", until such time as their children reach school-age. From there, put the responsibility in the hands of the school teachers, who, by the way, are now under so many restrictions and regulations so that they can't so much as put a supporting hand on a kid's shoulder without being brought up in front of a committee. Then these kids grow up, and their parents wonder why the hell the kids never come home, why they hate their parents, and why they have such a hard time expressing any genuine emotion.
We're getting emotionally sterilized. Daycare is basically going through the motions of parenting, without all that excess "love, caring, support, and guidance" baggage. After all, if our basic survival needs are met, those other things are just a technicality anyway, right? So how does this connect back with IT jobs and daycare? Not directly, I suppose, my problem is more in daycare, and how so many people I know are so emotionally walled-up or bottled-up because their parents never provided them with any real emotional support, so now they don't even trust themselves, let alone anyone else.
Yes, this is a rant. I'm sorry. But this is something I feel strongly about. Daycare is not the problem, it's a symptom of the emotional detachment of our society. When I finish graduate school, settle down somewhere, assuming I get married (a shaky prospect at best), I wouldn't even consider having children unless I made DAMN sure that I could be there for them in every respect. I don't want a daycare nanny getting paid by the hour to watch my child's first steps, hear my child's first words, and do all the things I want to do with my children. A child is not a trophy to be bronzed, put up on a shelf, and left for someone else to polish now and then, a child is a lifetime investment. Maybe we should start treating them this way. If you can't invest, then don't have the kids! With six billion people in this world, I don't think we're in any danger of going extinct.
Finally, I would think that IT would be the perfect kind of job to have as a mother or father, because it allows the greatest potential for telecommuting. If I were to have children, this would be my way of making sure that I could be there for them. If that is not an acceptable possibility, then maybe having children isn't something I should be considering. Life is full of experiences, parenthood being one of them. It's not, however, the be-all and end-all of human existence. That having been said, I'll get off my soap box. Take care, and remember to tuck your kids in tonight. They like that.
/* Steve */
I like the idea! And what's more, they can utilize the superior Linux OS to cause a GUI that can crash 75% more efficiently, with an OpenGL-animated icon of a hard drive plunging into a bucket of boiling fat, as the windowing environment somehow repartitions your hard drive into 30 million 1-kilobyte drives. Impossible, you say? Bring Linux that close to Windows, and we just may see these things within our lifetimes...
i mler-Palmolive-OmniCorp computing environments which were the standards for so long. As has probably aleady been mentioned, if you want to use a Windows clone, you may as well just get Windows.
I like Linux. A lot. I even like the emergence of desktop environments, such as KDE and Gnome (although AfterStep was fun for a while). I think Linux is steadily "coming of age" in the desktop market. The reason for that, in my opinion, is that it offers an alternative to the Apple/Microsoft-Intel-AOL-Time-Warner-Chrysler-Da
I don't think there's anything more that I can say that hasn't already been said...
/* TNW */
This is a bit of an extension on the commentary already given in the article, as well as my own curiosity. What kind of market exists for this kind of service? Especially with MP3s circulating every which way, as well as RealAudio radio servers on the rise and ImagineRadio providing free customizable broadcasting to subscribers, I'm not sure if this will catch on. I mean, hell, my college radio station will soon be setting up a RealAudio server, so how hard can it be? These kinds of services are everywhere.
This is, I suppose, a comment not only to assess the available market for the technology, but also as a possible "suggestion box" to the company in charge of the project, as it would have to provide something that these free services lack. Personally, I agree with the idea of a "stand-up comedy" channel, so long as it provides broadcasts of the obscure performances of comedians not necessarily available in stores. Or perhaps they could rebroadcast "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". Hell, I'd sign up right then and there. A lot of care has to be taken to make this service unique, appealing, and marketable.
Suggestions, anyone?
/* TNW */
This would certainly change my church service
Oh, this would be a treat, wouldn't it? "And now, will the congregation please rise, as we hear a hymn by 'Father DJ Busta Nutt, the Techno Soundguru'." (Begin chorus of "Day by Day", with heavy bassline and strobelights bombarding the senses)
Or maybe it just won't catch on. Personally, I'd start going to church again...
/* TNW */
I, for one, am seriously thrilled to no end by this bit of news. Now, if only children came with this feature...
/* TNW */
picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm
Oh, dear GOD. Suddenly, music stores begin selling mice genetically encoded with the latest Billboard hits. Christ, you want to talk about the ASPCA getting in your case... If I find a mouse with Backstreet Boys chromosomes, I'd want to bring the ones responsible to justice. That's not to mention the computer-related implications. You get a new computer, complete with 19" monitor, CDRW, and a 100GB mouse with Linux pre-installed (you could even color his fur to be like a little penguin. Hell, you're storing your MP3s on the guy, what's one more step?)
(that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)
Ooooh, here it comes... You wanna talk about file-sharing, this is the way to go! I, for one, long for the day when kids can come to school with the excuse "I don't have my homework, my hard-drive had babies and died last night". Ahh, wondrous technology, will the marvels ever cease?
/* TNW */
Here we go, it's coming...
Slashdot for Parrots
No parrots were involved in the devlopment of the Linux 2.4 kernel for yet another month. The Council for the Advancement of Parrots said he was disappointed in the latest findings, and urged more action on this in the future. Of those who did make progress in the kernel development, none of them were indigenous to Africa, sat on the little wooden trapeze, or ate any of the yummy millet seed, yum yum...
Okay, that may have been a Monty Python rip-off, but I could not pass up this opportunity. Please keep flaming to a minimum, and may the Almighty Ueberparrot bless you all...
/* TNW */
Very well, I stand corrected. I got the impression from the article that BSD was using Mac components. My knowledge of Mac/BSD is somewhat limited, so you'll have to forgive comments such as this. I've been spending the better part of the day writing computational geometry code, so my brain has taken quite a beating in the last couple of days...
/* TNW */
Yes, I think that if we don't watch out, the moon will turn into a barren, lifeless, lump of rock-- oh, wait. Never mind.
/* TNW */
I really do feel bad for Apple after all this... I mean, seriously. First, they come out with Mac, whose concept gets stolen by Microsoft. Then comes the Newton (which we're all still trying to figure out how that happened), and Palm took over that market. Now BSD is integrating Mac0SX's features? Next thing you know, Nintendo will offer game-bow in Mac-style new colors-- oh, wait. That's right.
/* TNW */
When was the last time Mac had an idea to itself?