Actually, even if it were geek bias, I've found that there are a lot of people in the IT industry who, counter to the stereotype, are great with computers but have struggled with math for their whole educational careers.
As it stands though, it's a valid news topic because if you've been through school, you took math. The way things are, there doesn't seem to be a good chance of changing that regardless of its practicality, so why not make it easier to learn?
heheh... I'm still waiting for the day when you can get a math library card for your standard neural overlay socket.:p
For the record though, in Elementary school, the "Number Munchers" game was easily the most popular of all on the old Apple IIes. I also played a PC game called "Math Blaster Plus," but both of these games were just an interface to answer math quizzes. I really haven't seen a fluctuation in the number of available educational games in the last 10-15 years, despite the common acceptance of computers in homes, but I think given a fair shot, some actual good ones could be made.
Actually, most readers here will probably have heard of Papero, the Japnese robot that can understand colloquial speech, and is being used to make an instant translator.
As for visual programming... Visual Basic.NET is just... comfy. You can sit down with an idea in your head, chisel it out, and have it working within a day. It doesn't freak out like C++ over minor syntax errors, and will even automatically add some things (like "Then" in an if-then-else statement.)
Designing and coding for a form is fast and intuitive, and the Intellisense option that lists available members when using the dot operator (for just about everything) allows you to know that a certain function does what you want, then feel around until you've implemented it right before you even compile. You really don't have to know much to write a solid program in VB.NET, it just helps greatly at higher levels....so yeah, I can definitely see movement towards a paradigm where a user basically tells their PC what they want a program to do, and the IDE assembles it for them. On the other hand, this type of coding still carries considerable baggage, which is why I'm trying to learn to code as efficiently as possible. I'll leave the desktop programming to the new generations, and work on firmware design and embedded applications myself.
"I'm so cool... I could've got an MP3 player that does more for less, but instead I sunk half a grand into this shiny Apple one! Marvel, peasants! Marvel at my excessive wealth!"
"*YOINK!*"
"Damn! Ah well, the battery was starting to go anyway. I'll have to buy another one tomorrow."
Actually, this comment really struck a chord with me. It's pretty sick the amount of paper a kid has to lug around these days. I had to start seeing a chiropractor around grade 7, and just about every time I come in, he comments on either lugging around too much stuff in my backpack, or spending too much time hunched over a book studying....what's worse is that I'm about 5 years out of high school, but I still have SCARS on my upper arms from the stretchmarks where my backpack straps dug in.
Something has to be done about this insanity before it goes even farther.
Their PDAs will do ATRAC3 if you have a special DRM-enabled memory stick. If not... just play MP3s off a normal stick like everyone else. I don't see how that's heavy handed?
I'd have to disagree there. I went from a Handspring Visor Deluxe (B&W) to a Sony Clie PEG-SJ33 (16-bit color), and when I'm displaying the same program at the same resolution with the backlight off, the Clie's way more readable. The text is almost as crisp as if it were printed, and I never have to change the contrast. When I double the resolution on the Clie it's different, but that's to be expected since the text is only half the width.
Wow.../. no longer allows me to view my full comment history, so I can't link to the extremely relevant essay I wrote on this ages ago.:(
To cut it short though, innovation still happens in gaming. Whole new genres have been spawned in the last 5-10 years, and there's so much innovation in Japan that the companies just don't believe will sell over here....that, and I'd play a lot more console games if the systems didn't cost as much as a PC these days. I mean, back in the day, you could get a new system for $120-200 or a PC for $1000-5000. Now it's more like a console OR a PC for $500. Hmm... crappy PC, but still not a hard choice.
Right on. I think Linux has almost as many uses as one can think of for it, it's just that the overzealous minority think it's the best solution for everything. I do programming, gaming, and multimedia on my home PC, so I happily use Windows. I can tell you though that if I were running a critical high-volume server, Windows would NOT be on the list of choices.:p It'd probably come to a version of Linux or BSD, depending on the specific application.
I'm also really looking forward to Longhorn now. I was pretty skeptical until I got Win 2003 since MS's track record for new OSes wasn't that great, but I'm afraid now I'm starting to gain a bias towards Windows. (watch my "geek points" drop dramatically;) ) WinFS sounds quite impressive so far, though if at all possible, I'm sure Linux will support it or implement a good copy of the ideas in it. Filesystem support is one place where I find some versions of Linux (like Mandrake) really shine. NTFS is great, but it'd be nice if I could mount any disk I could get my hands on natively. Still, I'd like to see what other innovations MS has in store for Longhorn as well. I can always hope it'll heat up the battle between Linux and Windows a bit until we see both sides cranking out new ideas. Fundamentally, OSes haven't changed much of their fundamentals in the last 30 years or more, but there's always room for a new take on things.
I totally agree with you. I have to add though that the *nix stereotype of Windows being slow and bloated is a ways out of date now.
The (arguably) most Windows-like distros, RedHat and Mandrake both span 3 CDs. OMG, that's bloated! Windows 2003 server Enterprise Edition is about 540MB.
"But that's just all the bundled apps!" Yeah, but Windows also bundles a bunch of useful apps, utilities, and (seemingly) every driver under the sun. Too bad you can't do much of an installation with just the first CD of these sets, otherwise it'd be possible to overlook.:/
Also, I don't know how fast Linux would boot fully optimized (with support for everything you need too.) I've only been using PCs for about 18 years - I don't have the expertise to do it in Linux yet (requiring the user to customize and compile a monolithic kernel is anachronistic, sadistic and insane IMHO.) Win 2k3 boots in about 15 seconds on my PC with default settings though (actually I've added some bloaty services from XP like System Restore too,) or 10 seconds if I'm cold-booting and restoring from hibernation (it's a desktop.) I've found various distros of Linux tend to take about 30-60 seconds.
I don't have stats on desktop application performance, but when using Linux through a window manager, MS had it beat back in Win 95. These days, Windows is so fast, it's no contest. This anecdote is far too dated to be of much use, but back on RedHat 6.1 with KDE, I found that a P100 wasn't enough to play a standard 128mps MP3 smoothly, and even trying was asking for a crash. This was quite a shock from my time on the same system running Win95, with Winamp in the background while surfing. Both OSes have made hige leaps since then, but Windows still wins for multimedia, and IMHO, multitasking less than a few dozen apps at once, especially in a Windowed environment.
Despite my apparent hate for Linux, I still believe it has it's uses (it's incredible in appliances, embedded applications and servers!) It's just that these Linux magazines read like an issue of an extreme fundamentalist newsletter with their ignorance, contempt, and biased arguments based on outdated info. Even if this IS/. I have to try and clear some of it up.
Back in the day of "PC user groups," there was more of a DOS community. These days it's kind of pointless since you can't walk a block without running into at least 1 Windows user. That, and Windows doesn't really need a community to support it anymore, as any major hardware/game vendor who wants to make a profit supports at least Windows.
Yeah, they're in it for the money. They've also made untold billions because they're the least of the available evils. (Though as candy-coated as it was, I'd like to have seen BeOS go somewhere...)
That's one possibility I guess. I've always found that knoppix requires a heap of "cheat codes" to boot on most systems.
A while ago, I got a Gentoo distribution that claimed it was optimally used with a Geforce and SB Live. So I got it, tried it on my PC with a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and SB Live... utter failure to regognize any of it, and no readily available solutions to fix it....yet I install good old Win 98 (*cringe*), and both worked fine, albeit in an unoptimized basic state before finding drivers.
I have to admit though, bootable Linux CDs are catching up at a blinding pace. I just wouldn't compare them to Windows in terms of compatibility just yet.
I figured some version of linux would be able to resume like that?
When I hibernate Windows 2003 on my desktop, I can be back where I left off from a cold boot in about 10 seconds. That's including the splash screen, POST, attempts to boot from CD and floppy, displaying info about my extra IDE card, and loading = 640MB of stored RAM data.
Actually, if you use Windows, you'll find that it holds your hand by default, but by the time you figure out what it's actually doing, you can do it another, quicker, more advanced way. i.e. the command prompt, batch files, directly running control panels.
In my experience, even the most user-friendly versions of *NIX just drop you into the middle of the jungle and go "have fun! Try not to break anything!" Don't even get me started on vi...
Basically, if you don't rely on wizards for everything, you grow just as proficient at using Windows as you use it; there's just the option to learn something by doing it instead of taking a weekend to read the manual that tells you how to use the software that you use to read the manual for what you want to do.:/
Get V1a-gra cheap! Lowers Prescripti&on on the intern Re: KJCNBW the last adventures "typography tabula twilight tenterhooks applause suspend chicanery"...I don't know... the spammer's mentality seems to be "oh, that poor user must have accicentally specifically blocked all messages about what I'm selling! I'll just sneak through the filter and they're bound to have a change of heart!"
Where is DoubleClick based from? I'd have thought somehow ad-blocking circumvention would go against America's anti-spam legislation? Or even the DMCA since you can't really turn on a PC without tripping over that...
Haha... that really made my day. If I go to a site with those commercials (gee, sound like ign at all?), I'll simply stop going there, and get my info from another site that DOESN'T use them. Gee, that was a tough choice.
Worst case, I'll uninstall shockwave. It showed some real potential for site design, but now it's mostly for banners and stupid meme vids anyway.
Sorry, but even DVD region encoding is harder to fix than this.:p
Don't know the artist, but the first MP2 I got was "Koi da! panikku!"
Had to play it in Xingsound... the sideways scrollbar showed position, but it couldn't seek, and much of the time the stop button would crash it... the player was an alpha or beta with only the simplest controls. >;
Still sounded 100x better than low-sample-rate.AU files though...
When MP3 came out, I didn't really get into it for a while since the 486 couldn't play them smoothly, so I don't remember the first.
Funny you should mention that... I was actually referring to horror stories I'd heard from someone's business trip to Texas. @_@;
In Western Canada here, it's pretty much all Telus or Rogers, the latter stretches across Canada. Not much choice, but decent rates, and never a second thought about roaming. (actually I get local rates for local calls in other cities if I dial the area code first since my provider owns towers everywhere I go.:D)
I'll pay twice as much for my handset up front, but I could leave it on while I drive across the country, west coast to east, and not be dinged for "roaming" fees from an unscrupulous little provider in the middle of a highway somewhere...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, even if it were geek bias, I've found that there are a lot of people in the IT industry who, counter to the stereotype, are great with computers but have struggled with math for their whole educational careers.
As it stands though, it's a valid news topic because if you've been through school, you took math. The way things are, there doesn't seem to be a good chance of changing that regardless of its practicality, so why not make it easier to learn?
heheh... I'm still waiting for the day when you can get a math library card for your standard neural overlay socket. :p
For the record though, in Elementary school, the "Number Munchers" game was easily the most popular of all on the old Apple IIes. I also played a PC game called "Math Blaster Plus," but both of these games were just an interface to answer math quizzes. I really haven't seen a fluctuation in the number of available educational games in the last 10-15 years, despite the common acceptance of computers in homes, but I think given a fair shot, some actual good ones could be made.
Hey Linux crowd...
You can use Windows XP skins unmodified on Windows 2003, so this is no new development really...
Funny, isn't it? The US tried to bomb them into the stone age, and accidentally bombed them into the space age. XD
I say more power to them! Certain intitutionalized societal ills aside, I could only wish we'd catch up to them...
I had the exact same problem with my GF2... except it doesn't HAVE a tv output.
Actually, most readers here will probably have heard of Papero, the Japnese robot that can understand colloquial speech, and is being used to make an instant translator.
.NET is just... comfy. You can sit down with an idea in your head, chisel it out, and have it working within a day. It doesn't freak out like C++ over minor syntax errors, and will even automatically add some things (like "Then" in an if-then-else statement.)
...so yeah, I can definitely see movement towards a paradigm where a user basically tells their PC what they want a program to do, and the IDE assembles it for them. On the other hand, this type of coding still carries considerable baggage, which is why I'm trying to learn to code as efficiently as possible. I'll leave the desktop programming to the new generations, and work on firmware design and embedded applications myself.
As for visual programming... Visual Basic
Designing and coding for a form is fast and intuitive, and the Intellisense option that lists available members when using the dot operator (for just about everything) allows you to know that a certain function does what you want, then feel around until you've implemented it right before you even compile. You really don't have to know much to write a solid program in VB.NET, it just helps greatly at higher levels.
"I'm so cool... I could've got an MP3 player that does more for less, but instead I sunk half a grand into this shiny Apple one! Marvel, peasants! Marvel at my excessive wealth!"
"*YOINK!*"
"Damn! Ah well, the battery was starting to go anyway. I'll have to buy another one tomorrow."
Actually, this comment really struck a chord with me. It's pretty sick the amount of paper a kid has to lug around these days. I had to start seeing a chiropractor around grade 7, and just about every time I come in, he comments on either lugging around too much stuff in my backpack, or spending too much time hunched over a book studying. ...what's worse is that I'm about 5 years out of high school, but I still have SCARS on my upper arms from the stretchmarks where my backpack straps dug in.
Something has to be done about this insanity before it goes even farther.
Their PDAs will do ATRAC3 if you have a special DRM-enabled memory stick. If not... just play MP3s off a normal stick like everyone else. I don't see how that's heavy handed?
I'd have to disagree there. I went from a Handspring Visor Deluxe (B&W) to a Sony Clie PEG-SJ33 (16-bit color), and when I'm displaying the same program at the same resolution with the backlight off, the Clie's way more readable. The text is almost as crisp as if it were printed, and I never have to change the contrast. When I double the resolution on the Clie it's different, but that's to be expected since the text is only half the width.
Wow... /. no longer allows me to view my full comment history, so I can't link to the extremely relevant essay I wrote on this ages ago. :(
...that, and I'd play a lot more console games if the systems didn't cost as much as a PC these days. I mean, back in the day, you could get a new system for $120-200 or a PC for $1000-5000. Now it's more like a console OR a PC for $500. Hmm... crappy PC, but still not a hard choice.
To cut it short though, innovation still happens in gaming. Whole new genres have been spawned in the last 5-10 years, and there's so much innovation in Japan that the companies just don't believe will sell over here.
Right on. I think Linux has almost as many uses as one can think of for it, it's just that the overzealous minority think it's the best solution for everything. I do programming, gaming, and multimedia on my home PC, so I happily use Windows. I can tell you though that if I were running a critical high-volume server, Windows would NOT be on the list of choices. :p It'd probably come to a version of Linux or BSD, depending on the specific application.
;) ) WinFS sounds quite impressive so far, though if at all possible, I'm sure Linux will support it or implement a good copy of the ideas in it. Filesystem support is one place where I find some versions of Linux (like Mandrake) really shine. NTFS is great, but it'd be nice if I could mount any disk I could get my hands on natively. Still, I'd like to see what other innovations MS has in store for Longhorn as well. I can always hope it'll heat up the battle between Linux and Windows a bit until we see both sides cranking out new ideas. Fundamentally, OSes haven't changed much of their fundamentals in the last 30 years or more, but there's always room for a new take on things.
I'm also really looking forward to Longhorn now. I was pretty skeptical until I got Win 2003 since MS's track record for new OSes wasn't that great, but I'm afraid now I'm starting to gain a bias towards Windows. (watch my "geek points" drop dramatically
I totally agree with you. I have to add though that the *nix stereotype of Windows being slow and bloated is a ways out of date now.
:/
/. I have to try and clear some of it up.
The (arguably) most Windows-like distros, RedHat and Mandrake both span 3 CDs. OMG, that's bloated! Windows 2003 server Enterprise Edition is about 540MB.
"But that's just all the bundled apps!" Yeah, but Windows also bundles a bunch of useful apps, utilities, and (seemingly) every driver under the sun. Too bad you can't do much of an installation with just the first CD of these sets, otherwise it'd be possible to overlook.
Also, I don't know how fast Linux would boot fully optimized (with support for everything you need too.) I've only been using PCs for about 18 years - I don't have the expertise to do it in Linux yet (requiring the user to customize and compile a monolithic kernel is anachronistic, sadistic and insane IMHO.) Win 2k3 boots in about 15 seconds on my PC with default settings though (actually I've added some bloaty services from XP like System Restore too,) or 10 seconds if I'm cold-booting and restoring from hibernation (it's a desktop.) I've found various distros of Linux tend to take about 30-60 seconds.
I don't have stats on desktop application performance, but when using Linux through a window manager, MS had it beat back in Win 95. These days, Windows is so fast, it's no contest. This anecdote is far too dated to be of much use, but back on RedHat 6.1 with KDE, I found that a P100 wasn't enough to play a standard 128mps MP3 smoothly, and even trying was asking for a crash. This was quite a shock from my time on the same system running Win95, with Winamp in the background while surfing. Both OSes have made hige leaps since then, but Windows still wins for multimedia, and IMHO, multitasking less than a few dozen apps at once, especially in a Windowed environment.
Despite my apparent hate for Linux, I still believe it has it's uses (it's incredible in appliances, embedded applications and servers!) It's just that these Linux magazines read like an issue of an extreme fundamentalist newsletter with their ignorance, contempt, and biased arguments based on outdated info. Even if this IS
Back in the day of "PC user groups," there was more of a DOS community. These days it's kind of pointless since you can't walk a block without running into at least 1 Windows user. That, and Windows doesn't really need a community to support it anymore, as any major hardware/game vendor who wants to make a profit supports at least Windows.
Yeah, they're in it for the money. They've also made untold billions because they're the least of the available evils. (Though as candy-coated as it was, I'd like to have seen BeOS go somewhere...)
That's one possibility I guess. I've always found that knoppix requires a heap of "cheat codes" to boot on most systems.
...yet I install good old Win 98 (*cringe*), and both worked fine, albeit in an unoptimized basic state before finding drivers.
A while ago, I got a Gentoo distribution that claimed it was optimally used with a Geforce and SB Live. So I got it, tried it on my PC with a GeForce 4 Ti 4200 and SB Live... utter failure to regognize any of it, and no readily available solutions to fix it.
I have to admit though, bootable Linux CDs are catching up at a blinding pace. I just wouldn't compare them to Windows in terms of compatibility just yet.
I figured some version of linux would be able to resume like that?
When I hibernate Windows 2003 on my desktop, I can be back where I left off from a cold boot in about 10 seconds. That's including the splash screen, POST, attempts to boot from CD and floppy, displaying info about my extra IDE card, and loading = 640MB of stored RAM data.
Actually, if you use Windows, you'll find that it holds your hand by default, but by the time you figure out what it's actually doing, you can do it another, quicker, more advanced way. i.e. the command prompt, batch files, directly running control panels.
:/
In my experience, even the most user-friendly versions of *NIX just drop you into the middle of the jungle and go "have fun! Try not to break anything!" Don't even get me started on vi...
Basically, if you don't rely on wizards for everything, you grow just as proficient at using Windows as you use it; there's just the option to learn something by doing it instead of taking a weekend to read the manual that tells you how to use the software that you use to read the manual for what you want to do.
Windows is an operating system for desktops.
Linux is an operating system for servers/appliances
"Hey, did you see the commercial where the guy's talking to a cow?"
:/"
"Um... no"
"Are you sure? It's on all the time on almost every station! It's hilarious!"
"Ok. Do you remember what it was for? Maybe I can download it..."
"Don't you watch TV?"
"Not really. Been levelling my assassin and doing VB homework.
*blank stare* "...oh"
"Hi"
"..."
"Great weather today!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Everyone's already so afraid to talk to strangers regardless of headphones, I just gave up. May as well have music instead of silence.
Get V1a-gra cheap! ...I don't know... the spammer's mentality seems to be "oh, that poor user must have accicentally specifically blocked all messages about what I'm selling! I'll just sneak through the filter and they're bound to have a change of heart!"
Lowers Prescripti&on on the intern
Re: KJCNBW the last adventures
"typography tabula twilight tenterhooks applause suspend chicanery"
Where is DoubleClick based from? I'd have thought somehow ad-blocking circumvention would go against America's anti-spam legislation? Or even the DMCA since you can't really turn on a PC without tripping over that...
Haha... that really made my day. If I go to a site with those commercials (gee, sound like ign at all?), I'll simply stop going there, and get my info from another site that DOESN'T use them. Gee, that was a tough choice.
:p
Worst case, I'll uninstall shockwave. It showed some real potential for site design, but now it's mostly for banners and stupid meme vids anyway.
Sorry, but even DVD region encoding is harder to fix than this.
Don't know the artist, but the first MP2 I got was "Koi da! panikku!"
.AU files though...
Had to play it in Xingsound... the sideways scrollbar showed position, but it couldn't seek, and much of the time the stop button would crash it... the player was an alpha or beta with only the simplest controls. >;
Still sounded 100x better than low-sample-rate
When MP3 came out, I didn't really get into it for a while since the 486 couldn't play them smoothly, so I don't remember the first.
Funny you should mention that... I was actually referring to horror stories I'd heard from someone's business trip to Texas. @_@;
:D)
In Western Canada here, it's pretty much all Telus or Rogers, the latter stretches across Canada. Not much choice, but decent rates, and never a second thought about roaming. (actually I get local rates for local calls in other cities if I dial the area code first since my provider owns towers everywhere I go.
I'll pay twice as much for my handset up front, but I could leave it on while I drive across the country, west coast to east, and not be dinged for "roaming" fees from an unscrupulous little provider in the middle of a highway somewhere...