I wouldn't use this with my Palm; Palm themselves already do a cool keyboard.
Where it would be handy is for those screens where I've got nine xterms open; being able to flick between them without my hand leaving the keyboard would be very, er, handy.
OTOH, combinations look distinctly dodgy. CTRL-ALT-Left seems especially problematic. Of course, with an operating system where all keys are configurable this isn't much of a problem (if you know what you're doing), but it does add a level of complexity.
As for other operating systems: CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't look like an easy chord; that's just lack of foresight on the part of the inventor.
If I were to guess (and it is a guess), I'd say that the fault (apparently) lies with the telcos because they laid fibre on other people's property. It doesn't matter that they had permission from the railways; they railways didn't own the land, and the telcos didn't check that they asked the right people.
Of course, I imagine there's nothing to stop the railway companies being sued by the telcos for (what? negligence?)
Follow SPAM with "Luncheon Meat" or other descriptor. Remember, a trademark is a formal adjective and as such, should always be followed by a noun. I never knew that. But it does make life interesting. As well as arguing over linux vs. gnu/linux, we'll have the grammar nazis insisting it's the linux operating system, and the fsf grammar nazis insisting it's the gnu/linux operating environment.
Of course, it does mean I was right in referring to "that windows piece of shit"
If you're going to insist on putting spoilers in, you're going to ruin it for those of us who haven't seen it. I want to find out for myself whether the japanese end up attacking.
Waitaminnit... Michael Bay? Didn't he direct Armageddon? With Jerry Bruckheimer producing? Spoil all you like. No way am I going to watch it.
So it's not quite there yet, therefore it's dead? Bollocks.
We all agree that linux makes a great server; but was it a great server from the day Linus first made the code available? Nah.
The desktop is far from dead. It may take a little longer, but one pronouncement is not going make all those people working on the various desktops say "well, that's it. Back to windows." They'll continue to work, and some day we'll have a desktop non pareil.
Open Source doesn't adhere to timetables. We'll have a desktop when we have a desktop. Declaring its demise may put that date back a month or two, but it's not going to kill it.
Now:foo.com protested to the whole world that its servers were blackholed./. listed the story three times, and after two years and $1.2M, foo.com was once again off the list.
Then:foo.com.cygnus.alpha was blackholed. A memorial will be held during the Month of the Space Lizard.
Anyone can grab an AOL CD and get online, put their web page up and chat to people across the world Anyone with a computer can, anyway. That's still far too small a percentage of the population of any western country; taken as a percentage of the world's population, it's ridiculous.
I know that these are still early days, and the fact that the phrase 'digital divide' enjoys currency is testament to the fact that people are at least aware of the problem. But there's a long, long way to go. The web is, I suppose, a reflection of the rest of the world, and it won't be truly egalitarian until individual governments ensure that their respective populations can afford computers (and food). And we all know how likely that is in the next twenty years.
Not only did the build a table, they built - and I quote - a "fully functional table". D'you think they meant that in the same sense as Data is fully functional? How would that work?
Sorry. Didn't mean to fly off the handle. But after years of telling people the Cydonia face was only a rock, I thought I'd seen the end of this asininity, and it pisses me off that in this day an age, assholes are still willing to believe in Martians (or even, god help us, reticulans). Yours was the first post that seemed to give me reason to let fly.
You may think the site is a load of crap, but after examination you might think otherwise. Check you beliefs at the door...you might find something interesting... After examination, I still think it's a load of crap. I've had to make this point on other fora recently; it's getting silly.
Pick up any issue of Fortean Times. Examine its 'simulacra' section. Therein you'll find examples of everyday objects that look like people, things, whatever.
If it's got a beard, it must be Jesus
If it's got a quiff, it must be Elvis
Why is the "okay, so cydonia wasn't really alien. But this is" considered a valid argument for these structures being anything other than natural?
I really enjoyed Pasquale's Angel, and Fairyland was good fun. But Red Mars was without doubt the worst Mars book I've read. Ever. Given that the two good ones I've mentioned were written after, I suspect that there's hope for this book. But don't (don't) read Red Mars.
Ironic that you should talk about richness of language when referring to the author of Servants of the Wankh. Nonetheless I agree. With the exception of the stultifying Lyonesse series (I suppose Someone liked them), Vance is an excellent author, a fact that's all the more amazing when you consider how many authors have lost the plot as the years advanced (consider Foundation and Earth, Number of the Beast...)
$5m buys a lot influence (with me, anyway). I can see it now...
NEO: Wait a second... I've got the codes in my palm pilot
TRINITY: Palm pilot? There's no such thing. It exists only in the Matrix. Here's a winCE PDA.
NEO: WinCE? What about a linux based one?
TRINITY: Linux? You don't believe in linux, do you? You really think it's possible to have stable code that's open source?
RMS: You mean Free.
TRINITY: Whatever. Seriously, Neo. The only company to survive the OS wars was Microsoft, thanks to their stable, user-friendly software that's well worth relicencing every six months.
NEO: I guess you're right. It is the world's favourite operating system.
TRINITY: It's not just an operating system; it's a friend.
NEO: Thanks, Microsoft!
That's how conditioning works, and that's what's happened here. There is no way that violence has no effect. I'll - sort of - concede your point; one can become inured to violence. But I've spent years playing Manic Miner on my spectrum (and speccy emulator); so for it hasn't made me any more likely to jump over toilets. Equally, many nerd-hours spent on quake hasn't inculcated in me a desire to buy a shotgun (though I wouldn't mind a BFG).
My point: computer games aren't violent. Hands up everyone out there who's ever been hurt playing quake (RSI doesn't count)? Who, upon joining the army, was fasttracked into the special forces because they can kill the end-of-game monsters on Doom without dying once?
I like quake, for the same reason that I like Tapper. Both test my reflexes, and are fun to play. No-one dies when I play Quake, and no-one's teeth fall out after drinking soda when I play Tapper.
I'm not saying that people can't be adversely affected. But I am saying that those people were pretty close to the edge anyway, and that they could be tipped over by something as innocuous as a computer game, or as sinister as a game show. There's usually no way of knowing what the exact stimulus was, and there's never any point in blaming that stimulus.
So it is very good to see Russia given its proper dues on an American site, even if it is a counterculture site such as this. As my mother used to say "if you've only nice things to say about Americans, don't say anything at all". Nonetheless, I think you're doing a disservice to the citizens of the US. I've read this story on a whole bunch of sites today, most of them american (bottomquark, for example).
If only america as a whole could realise that it is just another country. No arguments here. I'm still wondering why the UN didn't send election observers in. But consider: the Americans did put a man on the moon. And a plethora of probes on mars. And, with the ESA, they gave us hubble. The US advances in space have been phenomenal up to about 1972, irrespective of motivation. The tragedy is that they didn't use this momentum; we (humanity) should be fishing through holes in Europan ice by now.
The worst part about the cold war is that the US thinks they won. Trillions spent unnecessarily on 'defense', and the US are still trying to convince the world that they were not just right, but victorious.
We rarely think of production artists, concept artists and storyboarders. Sure we do. We don't have a choice any more. Once upon a time you could watch a movie, and then watch it again six months later on video if it was any good. These days, you have to watch the 'making of' on television, an ad masquerading as a documentary before the film's released. Then you read the shitty novelisation[0]. Then you watch the movie. Then you buy the action figures. Then you get the limited edition storyboards, featuring unused concepts!
I flicked through this book; I'm a fan both of the film and of Geoff Darrow (anyone not read Hard Boiled, written by Frank Miller? Sheer excellence), but I have no desire to spend money on a book I'd flick through once.
Sorry to go off like that. Backroom boys do deserve some credit, and books like this are a way of giving them that credit. But that's only a secondary objective. Ever since the Star Trek Blueprints to a Ship that Appeared in an Episode Once Volume VII, these sorts of items have been used as another item of merchandise, instead of supplementary material on the DVD.
[0]Unless the film is the Abyss, and the novelistion is by Orson Scott Card, of course.
So fifteen nukes go off on an asteroid, and shortly afterwards it hits Telford. I don't think this'll fool all of the people all of the time.
Mr Holloway, who works on risk assessment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, likened the approach to one of a bad golfer. So an asteroid strike would make vast areas of land inaccessable for the masses? How is that like golf?
I signed up for the D2 beta first time around, and lo, fun was had. So I rushed (metaphorically, of course) over to the signup, and... the dropdown for country of residence includes only the US and Canada. Okay, I was born in Toronto, but I live inDublin. Whassup? Obviously I'm not going to refer to blizzard as bastards; after all, they gave use not only Diablo 1&2 and Starcraft, but I don't want to compromise may slight chance of getting a beta again.
But I'm worried. My windows box exists only for Diablo 2; if Bill is reading this, he should note that if I don't get a beta, Microsoft lose a toehold in another house. Not that I'm trying to apply pressure, you lovely blizzard people.
Is it a coincidence that this idea was put forward by those defenders of the Status Quo - lawyers? I think not.
Consider, if you will, your average pornster. Next year, when filters are as ubiquitous as fundamentalist christians at a hypocrites convention, the illiterati will become well-versed in the retrieval of hot lesbean aktion. Five years from now, they'll have forgotten how to read english altogether. Soon the only people who'll be able to vote will be those who can read proper English (well, American anyway), and millions of US citizens will be disenfranchised, and the corporations will be able to install their own man, who can run roughshod over teh wishes of the rest of the planet.
Actually, now that I think of it, the idea of votes not counting in the Bastion of Democracy is laughable. Sorry for wasting your time.
In 20 years time it will be the geeks here that created the moderation system moaning about it in YRO articles. This is, yet again in the geek community, hypocrisy. You seem to think there's an ideal solution; one that will please - if not everybody - then at least the 'right-thinking' people.
You've given a compelling argument for kicking off abusers; the argument against it is the oldest argument in free speech debates, and still the most potent: who decides which posts are trolls? I'd be willing to accept the will of the good Commander, but that's here. Twenty years hence, will I be as willing to accept the word of VA Microsoft, as they eject all posts that complain about MS Linux being a monopoly?
Moderation should not be used. It shouold be a free for all, with the irresponsible forced to face up to what they do. Again, who decides what's irresponsible? If you're willing to accept one man's[0] decisions on who is responsible, you're courting disaster.
I always found my Goblin deck superior to any white weenie deck. It got a bit pathetic, though; even for a gamer.
I found myself sneering at a friend because he had fireballs and lightning bolts in what he called a goblin deck, and I spent many a sleepless night wondering whether the Goblin Rock Sled - not a goblin card - should be allowed in my pure goblin deck.
It won most games, but I still cringe at the zeal with which I defended the deck.
On another topic: netrunner was and still is the best CCG ever. No, really. Ever. It's great. it's beyond great. If only I had people against whom to play.
I don't see any real benefit for ME to submit MY logs. In fact, I only see potential harm... "I don't see any real benefit for ME to stop spamming. In fact, I only see potential loss of revenue..."
Dude, information wants to be free, they can't charge $30 a year for something which is free to provide I don't read Salon for the news; I read it for the opinion columns. Whereas a fair number of stories do seem to be written by someone with his[^H^Her] head up their ass, a lot of them are interesting, literate and definitely worth reading. I imagine those columnists want to be paid, so pay I will. Maybe. I certainly won't be using junkbuster or downloading them from freenet (this attitude subject to revision should they do something that really pisses me off.)
why pay...when Junkbuster does this for free? Err... because $30 a year is nothing when you consider the quality of the writing on Salon?
Of course, most people will feel as you do, and Salon is relying on those happy few who consider their $30 to be well spent. They'll probably be happy enough with people who click occasionally, too.
I haven't decided which I'll be doing, but certainly Salon is well worth reading, and well worth paying a paltry sum for. And if I don't, I'll be happy to click on the occasional ad.
If I had a slow connection, things might be different, but when download speed isn't a factor I see no reason to not support them.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't use this with my Palm; Palm themselves already do a cool keyboard.
Where it would be handy is for those screens where I've got nine xterms open; being able to flick between them without my hand leaving the keyboard would be very, er, handy.
OTOH, combinations look distinctly dodgy. CTRL-ALT-Left seems especially problematic. Of course, with an operating system where all keys are configurable this isn't much of a problem (if you know what you're doing), but it does add a level of complexity.
As for other operating systems: CTRL-ALT-DEL doesn't look like an easy chord; that's just lack of foresight on the part of the inventor.
If I were to guess (and it is a guess), I'd say that the fault (apparently) lies with the telcos because they laid fibre on other people's property. It doesn't matter that they had permission from the railways; they railways didn't own the land, and the telcos didn't check that they asked the right people.
Of course, I imagine there's nothing to stop the railway companies being sued by the telcos for (what? negligence?)
Follow SPAM with "Luncheon Meat" or other descriptor. Remember, a trademark is a formal adjective and as such, should always be followed by a noun.
I never knew that. But it does make life interesting. As well as arguing over linux vs. gnu/linux, we'll have the grammar nazis insisting it's the linux operating system, and the fsf grammar nazis insisting it's the gnu/linux operating environment.
Of course, it does mean I was right in referring to "that windows piece of shit"
If you're going to insist on putting spoilers in, you're going to ruin it for those of us who haven't seen it. I want to find out for myself whether the japanese end up attacking.
Waitaminnit... Michael Bay? Didn't he direct Armageddon? With Jerry Bruckheimer producing? Spoil all you like. No way am I going to watch it.
So it's not quite there yet, therefore it's dead? Bollocks.
We all agree that linux makes a great server; but was it a great server from the day Linus first made the code available? Nah.
The desktop is far from dead. It may take a little longer, but one pronouncement is not going make all those people working on the various desktops say "well, that's it. Back to windows." They'll continue to work, and some day we'll have a desktop non pareil.
Open Source doesn't adhere to timetables. We'll have a desktop when we have a desktop. Declaring its demise may put that date back a month or two, but it's not going to kill it.
Now:foo.com protested to the whole world that its servers were blackholed. /. listed the story three times, and after two years and $1.2M, foo.com was once again off the list.
Then:foo.com.cygnus.alpha was blackholed. A memorial will be held during the Month of the Space Lizard.
Anyone can grab an AOL CD and get online, put their web page up and chat to people across the world
Anyone with a computer can, anyway. That's still far too small a percentage of the population of any western country; taken as a percentage of the world's population, it's ridiculous.
I know that these are still early days, and the fact that the phrase 'digital divide' enjoys currency is testament to the fact that people are at least aware of the problem. But there's a long, long way to go. The web is, I suppose, a reflection of the rest of the world, and it won't be truly egalitarian until individual governments ensure that their respective populations can afford computers (and food). And we all know how likely that is in the next twenty years.
Not only did the build a table, they built - and I quote - a "fully functional table". D'you think they meant that in the same sense as Data is fully functional? How would that work?
Sorry. Didn't mean to fly off the handle. But after years of telling people the Cydonia face was only a rock, I thought I'd seen the end of this asininity, and it pisses me off that in this day an age, assholes are still willing to believe in Martians (or even, god help us, reticulans). Yours was the first post that seemed to give me reason to let fly.
After examination, I still think it's a load of crap. I've had to make this point on other fora recently; it's getting silly.
Pick up any issue of Fortean Times. Examine its 'simulacra' section. Therein you'll find examples of everyday objects that look like people, things, whatever.
If it's got a beard, it must be Jesus
If it's got a quiff, it must be Elvis
Why is the "okay, so cydonia wasn't really alien. But this is" considered a valid argument for these structures being anything other than natural?
I really enjoyed Pasquale's Angel, and Fairyland was good fun. But Red Mars was without doubt the worst Mars book I've read. Ever. Given that the two good ones I've mentioned were written after, I suspect that there's hope for this book. But don't (don't) read Red Mars.
Ironic that you should talk about richness of language when referring to the author of Servants of the Wankh. Nonetheless I agree. With the exception of the stultifying Lyonesse series (I suppose Someone liked them), Vance is an excellent author, a fact that's all the more amazing when you consider how many authors have lost the plot as the years advanced (consider Foundation and Earth, Number of the Beast...)
$5m buys a lot influence (with me, anyway). I can see it now...
NEO: Wait a second... I've got the codes in my palm pilot
TRINITY: Palm pilot? There's no such thing. It exists only in the Matrix. Here's a winCE PDA.
NEO: WinCE? What about a linux based one?
TRINITY: Linux? You don't believe in linux, do you? You really think it's possible to have stable code that's open source?
RMS: You mean Free.
TRINITY: Whatever. Seriously, Neo. The only company to survive the OS wars was Microsoft, thanks to their stable, user-friendly software that's well worth relicencing every six months.
NEO: I guess you're right. It is the world's favourite operating system.
TRINITY: It's not just an operating system; it's a friend.
NEO: Thanks, Microsoft!
That's how conditioning works, and that's what's happened here. There is no way that violence has no effect.
I'll - sort of - concede your point; one can become inured to violence. But I've spent years playing Manic Miner on my spectrum (and speccy emulator); so for it hasn't made me any more likely to jump over toilets. Equally, many nerd-hours spent on quake hasn't inculcated in me a desire to buy a shotgun (though I wouldn't mind a BFG).
My point: computer games aren't violent. Hands up everyone out there who's ever been hurt playing quake (RSI doesn't count)? Who, upon joining the army, was fasttracked into the special forces because they can kill the end-of-game monsters on Doom without dying once?
I like quake, for the same reason that I like Tapper. Both test my reflexes, and are fun to play. No-one dies when I play Quake, and no-one's teeth fall out after drinking soda when I play Tapper.
I'm not saying that people can't be adversely affected. But I am saying that those people were pretty close to the edge anyway, and that they could be tipped over by something as innocuous as a computer game, or as sinister as a game show. There's usually no way of knowing what the exact stimulus was, and there's never any point in blaming that stimulus.
So it is very good to see Russia given its proper dues on an American site, even if it is a counterculture site such as this.
As my mother used to say "if you've only nice things to say about Americans, don't say anything at all". Nonetheless, I think you're doing a disservice to the citizens of the US. I've read this story on a whole bunch of sites today, most of them american (bottomquark, for example).
If only america as a whole could realise that it is just another country.
No arguments here. I'm still wondering why the UN didn't send election observers in. But consider: the Americans did put a man on the moon. And a plethora of probes on mars. And, with the ESA, they gave us hubble. The US advances in space have been phenomenal up to about 1972, irrespective of motivation. The tragedy is that they didn't use this momentum; we (humanity) should be fishing through holes in Europan ice by now.
The worst part about the cold war is that the US thinks they won. Trillions spent unnecessarily on 'defense', and the US are still trying to convince the world that they were not just right, but victorious.
We rarely think of production artists, concept artists and storyboarders.
Sure we do. We don't have a choice any more. Once upon a time you could watch a movie, and then watch it again six months later on video if it was any good. These days, you have to watch the 'making of' on television, an ad masquerading as a documentary before the film's released. Then you read the shitty novelisation[0]. Then you watch the movie. Then you buy the action figures. Then you get the limited edition storyboards, featuring unused concepts!
I flicked through this book; I'm a fan both of the film and of Geoff Darrow (anyone not read Hard Boiled, written by Frank Miller? Sheer excellence), but I have no desire to spend money on a book I'd flick through once.
Sorry to go off like that. Backroom boys do deserve some credit, and books like this are a way of giving them that credit. But that's only a secondary objective. Ever since the Star Trek Blueprints to a Ship that Appeared in an Episode Once Volume VII, these sorts of items have been used as another item of merchandise, instead of supplementary material on the DVD.
[0]Unless the film is the Abyss, and the novelistion is by Orson Scott Card, of course.
So fifteen nukes go off on an asteroid, and shortly afterwards it hits Telford. I don't think this'll fool all of the people all of the time.
Mr Holloway, who works on risk assessment at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, likened the approach to one of a bad golfer.
So an asteroid strike would make vast areas of land inaccessable for the masses? How is that like golf?
I signed up for the D2 beta first time around, and lo, fun was had. So I rushed (metaphorically, of course) over to the signup, and... the dropdown for country of residence includes only the US and Canada. Okay, I was born in Toronto, but I live inDublin. Whassup? Obviously I'm not going to refer to blizzard as bastards; after all, they gave use not only Diablo 1&2 and Starcraft, but I don't want to compromise may slight chance of getting a beta again.
But I'm worried.
My windows box exists only for Diablo 2; if Bill is reading this, he should note that if I don't get a beta, Microsoft lose a toehold in another house. Not that I'm trying to apply pressure, you lovely blizzard people.
Is it a coincidence that this idea was put forward by those defenders of the Status Quo - lawyers? I think not.
Consider, if you will, your average pornster. Next year, when filters are as ubiquitous as fundamentalist christians at a hypocrites convention, the illiterati will become well-versed in the retrieval of hot lesbean aktion. Five years from now, they'll have forgotten how to read english altogether. Soon the only people who'll be able to vote will be those who can read proper English (well, American anyway), and millions of US citizens will be disenfranchised, and the corporations will be able to install their own man, who can run roughshod over teh wishes of the rest of the planet.
Actually, now that I think of it, the idea of votes not counting in the Bastion of Democracy is laughable. Sorry for wasting your time.
In 20 years time it will be the geeks here that created the moderation system moaning about it in YRO articles. This is, yet again in the geek community, hypocrisy.
You seem to think there's an ideal solution; one that will please - if not everybody - then at least the 'right-thinking' people.
You've given a compelling argument for kicking off abusers; the argument against it is the oldest argument in free speech debates, and still the most potent: who decides which posts are trolls? I'd be willing to accept the will of the good Commander, but that's here. Twenty years hence, will I be as willing to accept the word of VA Microsoft, as they eject all posts that complain about MS Linux being a monopoly?
Moderation should not be used. It shouold be a free for all, with the irresponsible forced to face up to what they do.
Again, who decides what's irresponsible? If you're willing to accept one man's[0] decisions on who is responsible, you're courting disaster.
[0]You know what I mean.
I always found my Goblin deck superior to any white weenie deck. It got a bit pathetic, though; even for a gamer.
I found myself sneering at a friend because he had fireballs and lightning bolts in what he called a goblin deck, and I spent many a sleepless night wondering whether the Goblin Rock Sled - not a goblin card - should be allowed in my pure goblin deck.
It won most games, but I still cringe at the zeal with which I defended the deck.
On another topic: netrunner was and still is the best CCG ever. No, really. Ever. It's great. it's beyond great. If only I had people against whom to play.
I don't see any real benefit for ME to submit MY logs. In fact, I only see potential harm...
"I don't see any real benefit for ME to stop spamming. In fact, I only see potential loss of revenue..."
Dude, information wants to be free, they can't charge $30 a year for something which is free to provide
I don't read Salon for the news; I read it for the opinion columns. Whereas a fair number of stories do seem to be written by someone with his[^H^Her] head up their ass, a lot of them are interesting, literate and definitely worth reading. I imagine those columnists want to be paid, so pay I will. Maybe. I certainly won't be using junkbuster or downloading them from freenet (this attitude subject to revision should they do something that really pisses me off.)
why pay...when Junkbuster does this for free?
Err... because $30 a year is nothing when you consider the quality of the writing on Salon?
Of course, most people will feel as you do, and Salon is relying on those happy few who consider their $30 to be well spent. They'll probably be happy enough with people who click occasionally, too.
I haven't decided which I'll be doing, but certainly Salon is well worth reading, and well worth paying a paltry sum for. And if I don't, I'll be happy to click on the occasional ad.
If I had a slow connection, things might be different, but when download speed isn't a factor I see no reason to not support them.
"human-centric computing" me arse.
Without trying to sound inflammatory, computers are already human-centric; it's just that they don't always serve the humans that own them.