So because the computer industry has fucked up on standards many times before, it's ok for them to do it again? I love this quote from the article:
"Right now, the standard is defined, but companies are using different specifications"
Translation: Right now, the standard is defined, but companies are so busy madly rushing products out the door that they don't bother following the specs or doing any compatibility testing.
I'm sick and tired of buying a shiny new upgrade and then finding out it doesn't work with my computer because:
the person who made the component didn't follow the spec
the person who made the thing it plugs into didn't follow the spec
the spec is not complete
I was really excited when I bought my TNT2 until I plugged it into my LX mobo and found out the AGP slot didn't provide enough voltage to drive the card. If this were any other kind of product, it would be considered defective.
Every keystroke or mouse click makes a beeping sound
If you enter an incorrect password even once, a blinking red "ACCESS DENIED" message fills the entire screen and klaxons go off
Instant access to any computer in the universe with no dialing or slow downloads and 100% compatibility with all platforms including those invented by aliens
Eerie voice synthesizer and nervous, insecure personality that occasionally goes berzerk and tries to kill you
This feature enables direct access to Internet and World Wide Web content, such as Web pages, to be directly integrated with telecommunication functions of the device...
The specific invention they are patenting is a wireless browser who's user interface, which is used to access the features of the device, is constructed with the same markup language that the browser views. Clearly they intend to build something like a cellphone that has it's own proprietary HTML tags that let you put a phone number link in a page and call it with one click. This makes the patent much more narrow but still a bit frivolous in my opinion as this would be an obvious feature for a cellphone browser.
It's not surprising that Intel was able to improve on crusoe power consumption so easily as this is not the original goal of the chip. IIRC the Transmeta story that was posted on/. a while ago told how they originally planned to use code morphing to make a processor with cutting edge performance. It was marketing that told them to focus on the low-power market.
Now they are paying the price for not exploiting all the benefits of the technology they developed. I hope for their sake that they can find more "markets" for code morphing or they will end up just another company crushed by the Intel goliath.
I think a pay service is a fine idea but they are going to have to give you a lot more than the hacked together search engine that they do now. For example, how about:
Releasing a 1.0 client that looks like a professional application (e.g. doesn't have buttons stretching halfway across the screen) and fixes the dozens of obvious bugs.
Implementing a sophistocated search engine that goes beyond simple keyword searches. It DESPERATELY needs boolean operators and making the Artist and # of results fileds work would be nice too.
Searching across ALL of their servers regardless of which one you log on to. You may not have noticed, but right now searches only hit users on the same server as you so you never get more than a fraction of Napster content at one time.
Now that Napster actually has a business model I think it's about time that they replaced Shawn Fanning's amateur project with a professional quality application.
Execution speed is only one of the minor problems behind Java. What really frustrated me when I tried using it to develop applications was it's inability to generate user interfaces that were compliant with any of the platforms it runs on. The problem is that the UI toolboxes and guidelines for, say, Windows and Macintosh programs are very different and incompatible. Java is forced to use the lowest common denominator between those two platforms and all others so you're always going to end up with apps that look ugly on all of them.
I don't think they actually intended it to be put in the drive bay of another computer. It's just a convenient size if you're using it as an embedded system or part of a server cluster. You could probably build a makeshift rack for it by tearing apart a full tower.
This is an excellent point. However, I believe there is a distinct difference between documenting a crime and trafficking a product that was created by committing a crime.
I personally think those Fox reality TV shows are in bad taste, but not unethical. It's not like they commit the crimes themselves just to get footage.
On the topic of simulated child porn, my view is that no unethical act was committed against anybody so it's not a crime.
Well they are already regarded as one of the worst search engines by savvy folks like us and we don't normally link to search engines anyway because they are all very easy to find.
AltaVista probably gets all their traffic from portal types who sadly don't read Slashdot and don't care about obscure issues like IP patents or boycotts.
Simple: Normally the lights turn themselves on and off (the sun rises and sets) and this is what your body expects. If you have to do it manually, it's not surprising that you'll do it less frequently so you can get that extra bit of sleep or or get a little more done before you go to bed.
I believe this is what happens to geeks with sleep problems as well. Unlike most people, they can actually occupy themselves quite well just sitting at home and so they have more reason to stay awake at night.
> Even after you realizing that its nothing too serious, the company has dropped a lot of time/money responding to and investigating this event.
They've spent a lot of money investigating something which they have erroneously detected as an attack. Technically, Quova is obeying internet rules and not doing anything that would legally be considered an attack. Whether they are following proper edicuit is another issue, but you can't sue somebody for breach of edicuit.
Then again, I don't make any predictions regarding the wacky American legal system.
This doesn't help anybody track an individual user. It just pinpoints your approximate geographical location based on your IP address which means they'll actually only get your ISPs location. The data they get for your IP will be the same as everybody else using your ISP. It does not uniquely identify you.
As always, individual users can be tracked using just their IPs, but this is unreliably due to dynamic IPs, shared IPs, rotating IPs etc. Cookies are still the most reliable way to track people between sites.
I believe broadband simply means "a lot of bandwidth".. basically anything better than a 56k modem and excluding expensive business connections like a T1.
Even if the word had a different technical definition at one point, it has since been superceded by the above due to widespread public use.
Some thought Myst was a brilliantly original and simple game concept and others thought it was boring and stupid.
Personally, I think it's a little of both. There are some good ideas there and some nice art direction but the puzzles aren't very interesting or well integrated into the game. You can get the same effect by stopping every 5 minutes to play minesweeper.
Porn sites want domains that get the most hits. If the.xxx TLD was all porn then most companies would block their employees from accessing it. This would cost porn sites a lot of traffic and make the domains undesireable.
A friend who works as a web developer at a porn company once told me that one of their peak hours is lunch time when office workers have their daily porn break.
Journalistic ethics on this site were dead the day CmdrTaco posted his first inflamatory editorial with a regular news article (and continued to do so with every subsequent story as well).
That said, I actually applaud this practice. So called ethics in Journalism is long dead. Every media outlet promotes their own agenda at the price of the truth. When CmdrTaco expresses his opinion, he makes it very obvious and you know your getting a biased perspective. If all journalists worked this way and used peer review to keep each other in check, the press would work much better for the public.
Last I heard depression alone hit about 1 in 4 people at some point in their lives so if only 1 in 10 IT workers has any one of those problems, they must be doing pretty well!
As far as I can tell, human beings that are not in extreme circumstances have about the same amount of ups and downs no matter what they do. It seems a certain amount of stress and discontent is inherent to the human condition.
>And from that day forward, little Johnny had to live with the knowledge that were it not for some quirk of fate, his parents wouldn't have had him.
Well, one way of looking at things is that every event is the result of an infinite number of infinitecimally unlikely events that occured before it. Another way is that everything that happens is inevitable and the concept of "luck" is an illusion.
Either way, it's rather silly thinking about the likelyhood of you being a different person or not existing at all. You just Are(TM).. that's all there is to it.
The people in this article seem like caring and devoted parents and I'm sure they will give all their love to both of their children. So why does it matter why they had them? They had the choice between two babies or no babies.. what would you choose?
People shouldn't be so concerned with WHY they exist.. just worry about existing.
> I'm curious to see if Sega/Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo are looking into grabbing Crusoe-type technology for handheld video games
I don't think there would be a point to that. As I understand it, Crusoe saves power relative to x86 by emulating it in software using a much simpler chip design. Consoles have no need to emulate x86 or any other bloated legacy architecture so they can use any simple chip design.
No console games? Gotta have at least a Playstation hooked up to that huge TV. We have a dedicated game room with two Konami dance pads.
Also, I'm surprised by all the boozing geeks here. All the geeks I know are completely dry. They like their brains and tend to enjoy things more when it's working properly. Sorry if I sound like a snob, but that's what I've found.
Slashdot Mirror
"Right now, the standard is defined, but companies are using different specifications"
Translation: Right now, the standard is defined, but companies are so busy madly rushing products out the door that they don't bother following the specs or doing any compatibility testing.
I'm sick and tired of buying a shiny new upgrade and then finding out it doesn't work with my computer because:
- the person who made the component didn't follow the spec
- the person who made the thing it plugs into didn't follow the spec
- the spec is not complete
I was really excited when I bought my TNT2 until I plugged it into my LX mobo and found out the AGP slot didn't provide enough voltage to drive the card. If this were any other kind of product, it would be considered defective.I like this one better.
http://csnation.counter-strike.net/cs2d/
It's all there including maps of terrorist bombing targets and hostage locations!
The specific invention they are patenting is a wireless browser who's user interface, which is used to access the features of the device, is constructed with the same markup language that the browser views. Clearly they intend to build something like a cellphone that has it's own proprietary HTML tags that let you put a phone number link in a page and call it with one click. This makes the patent much more narrow but still a bit frivolous in my opinion as this would be an obvious feature for a cellphone browser.
Now they are paying the price for not exploiting all the benefits of the technology they developed. I hope for their sake that they can find more "markets" for code morphing or they will end up just another company crushed by the Intel goliath.
I think a pay service is a fine idea but they are going to have to give you a lot more than the hacked together search engine that they do now. For example, how about:
- Releasing a 1.0 client that looks like a professional application (e.g. doesn't have buttons stretching halfway across the screen) and fixes the dozens of obvious bugs.
- Implementing a sophistocated search engine that goes beyond simple keyword searches. It DESPERATELY needs boolean operators and making the Artist and # of results fileds work would be nice too.
- Searching across ALL of their servers regardless of which one you log on to. You may not have noticed, but right now searches only hit users on the same server as you so you never get more than a fraction of Napster content at one time.
Now that Napster actually has a business model I think it's about time that they replaced Shawn Fanning's amateur project with a professional quality application.Execution speed is only one of the minor problems behind Java. What really frustrated me when I tried using it to develop applications was it's inability to generate user interfaces that were compliant with any of the platforms it runs on. The problem is that the UI toolboxes and guidelines for, say, Windows and Macintosh programs are very different and incompatible. Java is forced to use the lowest common denominator between those two platforms and all others so you're always going to end up with apps that look ugly on all of them.
I don't think they actually intended it to be put in the drive bay of another computer. It's just a convenient size if you're using it as an embedded system or part of a server cluster. You could probably build a makeshift rack for it by tearing apart a full tower.
I personally think those Fox reality TV shows are in bad taste, but not unethical. It's not like they commit the crimes themselves just to get footage.
On the topic of simulated child porn, my view is that no unethical act was committed against anybody so it's not a crime.
AltaVista probably gets all their traffic from portal types who sadly don't read Slashdot and don't care about obscure issues like IP patents or boycotts.
Do we really need a encyclopedias now that we have the web and great search engines like Google? An encyclopedia on the web seems especially ironic.
Except a bit colder
I believe this is what happens to geeks with sleep problems as well. Unlike most people, they can actually occupy themselves quite well just sitting at home and so they have more reason to stay awake at night.
They've spent a lot of money investigating something which they have erroneously detected as an attack. Technically, Quova is obeying internet rules and not doing anything that would legally be considered an attack. Whether they are following proper edicuit is another issue, but you can't sue somebody for breach of edicuit.
Then again, I don't make any predictions regarding the wacky American legal system.
As always, individual users can be tracked using just their IPs, but this is unreliably due to dynamic IPs, shared IPs, rotating IPs etc. Cookies are still the most reliable way to track people between sites.
Even if the word had a different technical definition at one point, it has since been superceded by the above due to widespread public use.
Personally, I think it's a little of both. There are some good ideas there and some nice art direction but the puzzles aren't very interesting or well integrated into the game. You can get the same effect by stopping every 5 minutes to play minesweeper.
A friend who works as a web developer at a porn company once told me that one of their peak hours is lunch time when office workers have their daily porn break.
That said, I actually applaud this practice. So called ethics in Journalism is long dead. Every media outlet promotes their own agenda at the price of the truth. When CmdrTaco expresses his opinion, he makes it very obvious and you know your getting a biased perspective. If all journalists worked this way and used peer review to keep each other in check, the press would work much better for the public.
As far as I can tell, human beings that are not in extreme circumstances have about the same amount of ups and downs no matter what they do. It seems a certain amount of stress and discontent is inherent to the human condition.
Well, one way of looking at things is that every event is the result of an infinite number of infinitecimally unlikely events that occured before it. Another way is that everything that happens is inevitable and the concept of "luck" is an illusion.
Either way, it's rather silly thinking about the likelyhood of you being a different person or not existing at all. You just Are(TM).. that's all there is to it.
The people in this article seem like caring and devoted parents and I'm sure they will give all their love to both of their children. So why does it matter why they had them? They had the choice between two babies or no babies.. what would you choose?
People shouldn't be so concerned with WHY they exist.. just worry about existing.
I don't think there would be a point to that. As I understand it, Crusoe saves power relative to x86 by emulating it in software using a much simpler chip design. Consoles have no need to emulate x86 or any other bloated legacy architecture so they can use any simple chip design.
Really? How disillusioning. Can you explain this in a bit more detail?
Thanx
Also, I'm surprised by all the boozing geeks here. All the geeks I know are completely dry. They like their brains and tend to enjoy things more when it's working properly. Sorry if I sound like a snob, but that's what I've found.