It seems the service industry was the place where the ball was dropped. Our Heating and Air Service wants $2000+ USD to update their DOS-based controller, and our phone vendor is creating a proposal to update the i486 based voicemail system that incorrectly dates (or loses) messages.
Still, nothing has broken more software than the dreaded W2K... Windows2000. And it's getting harder to order systems with only Win98 preinstalled.
With the format for.SWF opened up, I could easily imagine Flash becoming the next HTML so to speak... It gives the kind of presentation you'd expect in a TV commercial, yet transports and scales very efficiently.
PERL is practically evolving into an operating system in itself, supporting::Telnet,::Ping, and loads of other file-and-network functions available through CPAN. It only seems natural that.SWF is moving into PERL, considering the growing support its obtaining in other platforms. (I just which the sounds-syncing features in the Linux driver I use would sync correctly in the Mondo Mini-shows I catch each week. Instead, they play like chipmunks on speed.)
Perhaps a standard for the platform will come about, similar to PC2001 specs. The current generation of Palms would likely not make the cut, but the next likely would.
That's a good point... Most of us aren't thinking in terms of making the 2D content anything more than a 3D rep of the old 2D. Let's consider:
2D Desktops
The desktop usually contains a 2D array of a 1D file list... However there is an implied Third Dimension that there is a depth of content under the surface of each icon. A possible 3D model may place a 2D ground map of file icons, each standing upon a 3D Pedistal which presents the file properties, like a dedication plaque, author photo, etc. Atop the pedastal would be the 3D representation of the content, its scale and depth, its motion of activity, etc.
3D Content
3D is more useful for real 3D content. It'd be great to do RAD development of houses just by a Fantasia of powers... a sorcerer's aprentice lifting walls and stairs at the wave of a hand. Actors animated by interperating the "data sock puppet." Quake designers coould go nuts!
3D Hardware
I've been waiting for videophones long before Max Headroom had them everywhere... but even a great show like that overlooked their use as a VR Interface. If you could go anywhere to use a Videophone booth, you could call your computer and communicate with speech and gesture recognition. Also, you could dial pay services for online videogaming using nothing more than the phone, navigating dungeons and swinging swords... physically or virtually. That kind of "non-appliance VR" is common since Myron Kruger's Videoplace.
Likewise, you could out-do Star Trek if we had 3D webcams and 3D projectors... even the keyboard could become a non-appliance solid-state projection, making the Trek sets look like cardboard.
I surely didn't expect those, but I've got to agree with at least half of them!
Trollies
I more disagree than agree here... High voltage wires, even when suspended, become a hazard with falling branches etc., and have to reach far into the suburbs for most implimentations. (Nearby Dayton, Ohio still uses 'em!)
Amiga
Right On Target there... Even as a small niche, the Amiga was the prototyper's dream. A decade ahead of the competition, you could plug in a $100US-or-less add-on to digitize video, do Max Headroom-esque video effects, process live wacked out audio effects in real time...
If it weren't for the proprietary hardware, it would have Ruled The Earth. It's most saving grace was the openness of its programming.
Slide Rules? Sure, good for visualization of functional relationships. Reel Mowers? No thanks, I've use a few. AutoWatch? An engineer's moral imperative! Airships? Works for Bladerunner!
...but then again, here in Cincinnati we're still using LED watches. "If the world were going to end, I'd go to Cincinnati... everything there happens 10 years later!" - Samuel Clemens
The older you get the more protein become important to your diet than carbohydrates. It's amazing how much of the american diet is high-fructose corn syrup/sweeteners.
Before this announcement, the greatest news from longevity research seems to have been related to telomeres. 'Telomerase' is the substance of repeated DNA sequences at the ends of genes. It has been compared to "those plastic sleeves on the end tips of your shoestrings," and serves a similar function to keep the ends from fraying and unravelling.
While many do not realize the danger of consuming "low octane fuels," I wonder who can tell us if it may also make sense to move to "higher octane" sources? In a car, higher octane burns cooler per the work output, causing less deterioration of the engine, if it's tuned for it. Since the virtues of complex carbohydrates vs simple sugars are well-studied, can anyone tell us if we can benefit from 'higher octane' (cooler burning) foods exists, and how they might benefit us?
"Eating right doesn't really make you live longer... It only FEELS like it's longer!"
10,000 times the volume of Earth is a bit extreme... Saturn is just one order of magnitude less dense than Earth. If Earth's mass were distributed to even 100 times the volume, the problem becomes one primarily of pressure. Liquid water must exist at a pressure above the triple-point.
Sure, we can discern some of the many differences between atmospheric density (pressure) and mean density of a planet's various layers... There can be/is great variety in each planet's frame. If you vaporize the metalic core, or even substitute it with an equivalent mass of atmospheric gases, what have you got? You'd have less than 1G coming from the earth-equivalent mass (Newton's Law of Gravity says the increased distance, *squared*, would proportionally reduce the gravitational force.)
Heating and cooling poses interesting questions... A solid mass stabilizes a lot of the mean temperature. Would the gases quickly take off, cooling the nebula in disappation? Would they heat like a greenhouse, and begin radiating like a gas-giant? Probably both, but in what portions? Actually, a scientist friend of mine points out that space's so-called vacuum is actually rather hot to the gases travelling through it... the free-flying particles have neither the shade nor the dense gravity to slow their velocity. Of course, a solid mass in shade might not notice, unless it were small enough for the exchange with light gas to transfer comparable tempurature/mass.
It takes a lot of gravity to make a gas giant. If you could stand on the surface of the Sun and sense the pull of distant planets, Jupiter has more than 11 times the pull of Earth, despite having four times its distance.
No sweat... It happens to the best of us... My "correction correction" could have looks *so* much more suave had I correctly spelled "empirical.";-)
I get that a lot when I share my
"Earth is Most Dense" discovery... People just reactively say "How can that be? Surely someone would have taught me that in school?!" The more I see such relationships escape the public attention, the more I am prone to tackle things like Goldbach's Conjecture.
"Curse my metal body--I wasn't fast enough!" -C3PO
The data from NASA corroborates my statement... I hope your 'correction' wasn't what you learned from the 'better class' you tout... You were close, but incorrect:
When you do the math as I suggested:
Mercury = 5.4299e+12 kg per cubic km
Earth = 5.5206e+12 kg per cubic km
That's what empiral data is good for... finding facts for yourself instead of accepting a spoon-fed generalization.
The Pressure-cooked comment doesn't draw these "completely unrelated" factors as the only variables... but rather as the major variables working in Earth's favor...
If density were indeed unrelated to atmospheric pressure, why doesn't Ceres have an atmosphere? Density, mass, and temperature are three, and not the only three, variables that influence such a thing. (A superdense asteroid the size of Ceres could hold a dense but shallow atmosphere.) Wouldn't Venus' atmosphere solidify at an increased distance? Would Titan's boil away if too close?
If Earth had its present density, but size were increased to that of Jupiter, it would lose the low gravitational mass I speak of.
Picked apart like hair-splitting equations, these relationships are indeed incomplete. But taken together, like the balance of relationships as which they were presented, they illustrate a useful component of the facts we'd need to address in colonizing other worlds.
And 'chaos' is not from a cult or religion, but from ancient greece, the birthplace of western civilization. Granted, many of those guys believed that life came from the chaos of fire, and to fire it would return. But if relating the word chaos to fractals or dynamic energy wigs you out, then you may find difficulty with certain fields of modern mathematics. (I'd also suggest avoiding 'Jurassic Park.');-)
Perhaps you've seen videotapes of Dr. Julius Sumner Miller... the rather animated British professor who would teach lessons of physics a few decades ago. He used the phrase in his video series once.
It's an antiquated expression, whereas 'sublimes' is more accurate and more acceptable in modern circles. 'Camphoring' is more likely from Middle English than technical. It uses a substance to describe a process, similar to the way 'ice' implies the substance 'water,' but could describe other substances solidifying.
The important thing is that a planet must have a good degree of pressure. On tall mountains, you can boil water away in a paper cup, but on a depressurized surface like Mars, you couldn't get water into liquid form to begin with, unless it is pressurized. On the moon, they're not about to look for liquid water, but it is believed that it can exist in solid form (ice) located in shadowed wells.
There are holes in this 'zone'...
Those familiar with the physics of Chemistry know that water has a triple-point: south of this point, the pressure is so light that there is no liquid water... it 'camphors' or evaporates straight from solid to gas. North of that triple-point, the increasing pressure broadens the range of liquid water, as the temperatures of melting-point and boiling-point move further apart.
So let's go back to the notion that we're not talking about extraordinary life, thriving under pressure. Let's talk worlds we can personally colonize. We really aught to be seeking small planets like ourown, but dense ones:
Earth is the most dense planet of our system. Just divide Mass by Volume, and the greatest mean density is our own. Saturn has hte least, which may account for its lovely rings. But there are many fine balancing points working in Earth's favor:
High Density==needed pressure for liquid water.
Small Size==low gravitational mass, ==fewer sheering stresses fighting life's 'order.'
Proximity to Sun==dynamic energy ('chaos') for creating (mixing) and sustaining (maintaining) life.
Distance from the Sun==cooler order to prevent life from burning away in excessive energy.
So earth is unique to our system in being a light-weigth pressure cooker for life. We actually have a better chance outside our own solar system, where greater planetary densities exist, if getting there can be trivialized. Then again, the technology to make insterstellar travel trivial would likely make terraforming even more trivial.
Last decade I was watching a video of how lyricist and artist Todd Rudgren used the fairly prototypical VideoToaster to make his music video "Change Myself." (Incidentally, he's a Mac Programmer too.) What was surprizing is how his criticisms and insights were far in advance of any VR Conference or journal I'd studied since:
Interface Should Be Invisible
Only recently have I encountered this concept starting to surface in places like the Enlightenment WM. If you're running pure E without Gnome, there is no start menu, no status bar, no obstuction to the task at hand... If you're not running something, all you see is the background, fullscreen. The menu comes up when you click. That has its PROs and CONs, of course... If you're running lots of windows, it is too much easier to click what *is* there than what *isn't*.
Instant Readiness
"I should be able to pick up my MIDI keyboard and start playing. I should be able to draw five lines on the tablet, at the computer should know it's a staff for composing music." None of this wait-ten-minutes-as-I-boot crap either. BEOS lowered the bar on unnecessary boot times. MS Windows swears that Whistler and whatever follows will boot in 20 seconds and 10 seconds respectively. (I gotta SEE that!) But these stupid enumerations and initializations are not what a computing appliance should be wasting our time doing. Today's sleep and suspend modes are just a hint at *the right thing*, at the ready, and even those aren't as instant as they should be.
One of the best lines in the video was his description of the Amiga applications of that day. (Like most older European software...) "Some programs were really bad... I mean, CREATIVELY bad! You'd have a maze of buttons, all alike, and somewhere in the center, is the exit!" We've come a long way...
How This got moderated down *twice* as offtopic is a mystery... the responsible moderators must be bereft of the significance:
IBM's support of its own hardware choices for Linux systems is sketchy at best... ThinkPads were merely the best example because of the fact they must use cutting edge technology to provide the best performance per battery costs.
Just as the S3 video for a ThinkPad's Mobile/Savage IX is hard to configure, so it is with the majority of the S3 line IBM uses. Does IBM take notice? If you examine the servers on their website, They say they support their hardware, but in the asterisksed footnotes, they say it is only tested to work is a plain-jane SVGA display.
Recently DELL made an announcement that it would incentivize hardware manufacturers to be more forthcoming on their specifications for Linux drivers. Can't IBM do likewise? Is the crippled support they actually impliment worth claiming as support at all?
Another site to check is Red Hat. They sort supported systems by manufacturer, including IBM. There you can see which systems are "supported" for RedHat (which in turn should mean support for redhat compatible Mandrake), and in what ways the support is held short.
64 bit processors are LEAGUES ahead of 32 bit processors when it comes to number crunching.
Most of the top rated systems throughout the world, sending packets for SETI@Home, are Compaq servers running Tru64 Unix. Most of this is due to the scientific data using 64bit accuracy, for which the "contemporary" systems of 32 bits just aren't adequate.
Other applications that crush with 64 bits include high-quality graphic rendering, vast database addressing, and, oh yeah, NETSCAPE 6!;-)
LaTeX is no replacement for HTML... it will never rule the web. Nor is HTML the conversant medium of math... it would have to evolve by orders of magnitude.
The TechExplorer mentioned has kept up with the times. The plug-in browses TeX, LaTeX, and MathML documents in Netscape and IE. Yet I seriously doubt that any of these three will triumph as the final answer... There is little overlap... or should I say mathematically, "LCD(LaTeX,MathML) << Need".;-)
Many LaTeX conventions are great for typing up formula descriptions conversationally. Netscape 6 does a bit of (optional) automatic conversion, like smilies, carets-to-superscripts and underscores-to-subscripts, and this is but a step toward what what is needed in places like sci.math and the web.
LaTeX PROs
A few ASCII keystrokes can compose well-balanced formulae.
A variety of fonts conventional to math are readily deployed.
Formulae can be expressed inline with text or in their full glory 'equation mode.'
LaTeX CONs
Layout commands are primarily for publishing, with hypertext, color, and other media inserted as less-graceful afterthoughts, far short of layered document graphics.
Conventional Math Fonts are not found on the majority of web-browsing systems.
The power of LaTeX is quite separate from the Javascript-spinning, graphically enhanced, interactive layers of modern web tech.
MathML PROs
It adds a LOT of missing pieces to HTML that are needed in Math.
It provides some very abstracted content that could be cut-and-pasted into powerful (XML-based?) applications.
MathML CONs
It does not add the scope of publishing packages you find in LaTeX, such as article styles for particular publications, or fonts conventional to math.
As abstract as most of its markup commands are, it is far from 'conversational' compared to LaTeX.
Ideally we should get be able to start with a lightweight comprimise, but extensible by fonts and stylesheets that are readable to all clients/browsers. Neither format offers this at present. Hopefully, programmers will turn to cultures like sci.math to see how they converse, and gleen the best of latex AND HTML.
LinuxFund and Missionary Mindset
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Geek Charities?
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· Score: 2
"...selfish Christian idea that the main purpose of charity is to save the soul of the giver, not to help the receiver." blah blah blah...
Most people I know who find *any* motive to give do so to better the world, not just to unload cash and a guilty conscience. Most, in fact, take pride in skillfully making the difference they do to the betterment of the environment around them.
On a small scale, we bathe, we place trash in the proper recepticals, we make our world a bit less intollerable, one action at a time. But a person with a Missionary Mindset has a larger vision of effectively improving some corner of the world.
I for one like the 'geekaid' idea... On the surface, it may not sound like it will help close a rift between the haves and have-nots. But deeper, it profoundly impacts the earth if hardworking freeware engineers are adequately funded to empower the moneyless with technology... far more impact than handing a twenty to some hobo who would blow it all on booze and cancersticks.
I'm a non-believer doing IT work for The Salvation Army. It's good to know that the purpose I serve has one of the world's lowest overheads in operating expenses, doing tons of underpublicized community work and Emergency Disaster Relief. Yet I think getting a credit card for LinuxFund is just as effective a contribution, because it helps people (not unlike myself) who pour their life's blood and sweat into helping those who have less.
"Back off, Romulan! I'm on a Mission From Kahless" --KwISt, the twistai guy }};-)
It is said that old war Generals tend to fight the previous wars over again. Maybe instead of getting with the times, they're instead still trying to undo the damage done when they let Gutenberg use the Printing Press!
The barrier of Posix compliance is the key thing holding back Linux from being accepted in most government and military installations. Even though WinNT is a poor bastardization of Unix, using backward slashmarks, it is still possible (with a lot of work) to make it POSIX compliant, using NT File Access controls on NTFS volumes... That is a key to how WinNT got any acceptance in big biz.
ACLs (Access Control Lists) are handled either by an operating system, or by an enterprise level application, ie Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino Servers. They provide to control freaks a near-total grip over who can access which bits of data. Granted, that much control can lead to headaches, since every IT department in the enterprise needs a good sense of what they're doing in order to avoid getting locked out of the data they need for doing their jobs.
A year or two ago, The Salvation Army, whose International Headquarters is in London, made an enterprise level decision to deploy Lotus Notes as their mail-and-database vehicle throughout every Territory on the planet. It's amazing, everything from directories to hymn books (containing nifty little MIDI accompaniments) can be replicated across the globe, with record by record synchronization.
Forget POSIX. Focus more on all the little bugs distros are introducing that give root permissions to processes that shouldn't need them.
When Notes Domino is running, even ROOT (NT's "Administrator" account) cannot violate sharing on these files. So while Lotus Notes does run on Linux, it would be more secure if Linux ran POSIX compliant ACLs on its own.
3D actually *is* being used in various environments, but there is an appropriate time and place for everything.
I wouldn't want 3D in my cellphone menus, for instance; I have trouble finding numbers as is.;-) In fairness, more media can make it easier, like Samsung's voice-triggered dialing, all I'd have to do to get my wife is flip it open and say, "Carol." Likewise, there are a lot of other media that can be added to 3D to make it easier, like laser sites for "Terminator point-and-click."
Real Uses
When Jaron Lanier invented the Data Glove (also licensed as the less-sophisticated PowerGlove), we did something fascinating: he taught himself to juggle using VR. Place a few objects, turn down the acceleration-of-gravity dial to give yourself plenty of time to get your hand under it, and viola'! A simulator to provide the eye-hand coordination you can only learn by experience!
Experience is a needed teacher... It's why Airlines and the military spend so much on simulators. Remember learning to drive? At first, it's all a jumble of Left-Brain rules that you try to juggle into logical order. Once you gain experience, it all transfers to Right-Brain pattern-matching and instinct.
3D turns good surgeons into brilliant ones. In an age where your likely to get the wrong foot amputated or your liver juxtaposed with your spleen, a surgeon greatly benefits from a strong sense of visualization. Likewise for Nuclear workers and Olympic Atheletes.
Sure, there are plenty of cases where 3D is a far-from-optimal medium for what you need, but NASA and other organizations are still advancing the state of the art.
Here's a method of verification that could bolster the confidence of voters... Imagine, the year is 2036, and you cruise your hoverbug up to the Drive-Thru window at Mickey-D's:
McMicrophone: Retinal identification confirmed... May I take your vote? Voter: Hmmm... What are the specials today? McMicrophone: We've got three new parties available... the Darwinist Party Pack, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger Junior... the Posthumanist Party, starring Max Moore... and Martian Party, starring the head of Leonard Nimoy. Voter: Uh, just gimme a large Green, a medium Democrat, and a Libertarian and NaturalLaw in small. McMicrophone: Here's your ticket *bwop*, please pull forward to the next window.
You pull forward, and insert your ticket which contains your anonymous voting data. The Display comes up and shows: You have ordered:
1 small Hagelin
1 small Browne
1 medium REFORM CANDIDATE
and 1 Large SOCIALIST
Hey! That isn't what I ordered!! Gimme the manager!
The Manager apologetically straightens it all out, with a complimentary order of fries.
Punchcards == Computers
on
eLection '04
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· Score: 5
Since we're already using computers in the regards that we punch mechanically tallied cards, it's time we started using computers right!
Authentication Issues
Passwords are one of the flimsiest forms available. At least with a signature there is a little real-time originality. It seems to me it is necessary that people shuld still physically visit the polls:
1. There is the opportunity to eye-witness the actions of the voter as (s)he presents ID, signs hte book, and proceeds to the booth.
2. There is no question as to what transpired at the poll, whereas a vote from the privacy of your own home invites the danger of mistakes (or accusations of mistakes) where no eye witnesses can verify anything.
3. Issues of equipment failure, verification of choices, answers for questions, are all kept public. Likewise, any imposters or similar frauds would have played out their actions before witnesses, making detection and reaction easier.
Computers used Right
1. Photo-confirmation of the Presidential-pick is a great idea. Those punchholes in Palm Beach couldn't be an issue, even if the choices exceed the ten that Florida dealt with.
2. Weighted Votes would be great: Rank the picks from top to bottom. The Computer could summarize your top pick, but also distribute the weighted results of the popular vote (i.e. Checking Nader, then Gore, then telling the others to smegg off).;-)
3. We could view the web results not only by county, but by district. If a district htinks they have been misrepresented, they could check with their neighbors and contest the results.
That last one has a funny tie-in with this Florida thang... Even though two-thirds of America would like to disban the Electoral College, it was the very thing that drew the attention to Florida's irregularities. Ironic. Yet, we can only guess how much of this goes on in the other 49 states and D.C.
I think that Netscape faces a lot of obstacles to its own survival, but sometimes all it takes is a single saving grace to make it worth the while.
Just as the Mac was saved by niche markets such as education and publishing productions, Netscape could have the corner on similar markets. Take MathML for instance. Mozilla and Netscape have MathML and IE doesn't. We are in an interesting phase of mathematical history where Fermat's Last Theorem has fallen, soon to be followed by Goldbach's Conjecture and the Reimann Hypothesis. Current publishers (AMS.org) have a bit of a stranglehold on all those crucial publications that individuals and higher institutiona need in order to cite reputable research. The web is positioned to topple its old metaphors... but it's not yet ready...
...Without a means to publish formulea on the web, the real revolution in math research is held back. MathML is the most likely candidate to mainstream this renneassance. It's already working in Mozilla/Netscape, but IE makes no mention of it, and will be playing lots of catch-up.
Likewise, the ability to dynamically move transparent objects over a page is exactly where Mo/Netscape excel, and IE will again be behind "the bleeding edge."
Sounds like both parties are focusing on the ugly aspect of the.NET idea: VisualBasic and C++/C# can battle Java all they want, but in the long run , the real merit behind any.NET idea is ASP and data sharing, and shackling that into any language is a bad way to make a standard. In fact, a proprietary infrastructure that brands you into fixed product models would be better described an antistandard.
I dual boot Linux and Windows... but in the programs I've been developing lately, I've been booting more to Linux using PERL than to Windows using VisualBasic. Why, when VB is set up with more of the functions I desire, would I do that? Simple: Microsoft locks the user into inflexible paradigms of "device" metaphors, making it nearly useless in several circumstances.
I went from DirectX to OpenGL back when MS was pushing "vertex buffers" and "callback routines" just to draw a single triangle on the screen. The device metaphor was crippling. In PERL, I can write a generic script whose output can easily be diverted to console, file, or device. In VBA, the object modelling constrains you to cast your functions against specific application objects... bleh.
Microsoft got their start in business licensing MS-BASIC to every home computer they could. Once they started the Windows gig, they said "Empower the user?!? What were we thinking!" Now their VBasic bundle is only found in applications, and empowerment comes at a price.
I cannot fathom their adversarial stance over their own customers. I believe the backlash is coming sooner rather than later.
I forgot to add:
It has apparently been proven that if for some reason the RH should be disproved, it is because some prime quartets would perchance land in a zero balance (real part?). However that would occur, don't ask me yet, I've not researched it.
The RH is much like Goldbach's Conjecture in how easy it is to "see" it as the answer, but proving it to infinity is extremely difficult. One math text descibed math as a way "to make the invisible visible." To me, RH and GB are too visible, but we need a proof that could make them evident to the blind. (Tribute to Euler)
The Reimann Hypothesis, as I understand, can be explained as follows:
Let z(x) represent the zeta function. It is known that z(x)=0 for all x that are negative even numbers (-2, -4, -6...) Those are Real numbers (no imaginary part.)
It is conjectured in RH that the other solutions, the 'non-trivial' solutions, are all of 'real part 1/2.' That could be represented that: z(x+yi)=0 iff (y=0 and x= an even negative) or (x=1/2 and y is undetermined).
I'm new to Number Theory, but I've got a lead on proving Goldbach's Conjecture through a non-ambiguous lower bound of solutions. After that, the RH is what I'd attack next... It's been the top target since Hilbert said so a century ago, and Andrew Wiles of the Fermat proof still concurs.
Slashdot Mirror
Still, nothing has broken more software than the dreaded W2K... Windows2000. And it's getting harder to order systems with only Win98 preinstalled.
PERL is practically evolving into an operating system in itself, supporting ::Telnet, ::Ping, and loads of other file-and-network functions available through CPAN. It only seems natural that .SWF is moving into PERL, considering the growing support its obtaining in other platforms. (I just which the sounds-syncing features in the Linux driver I use would sync correctly in the Mondo Mini-shows I catch each week. Instead, they play like chipmunks on speed.)
Perhaps a standard for the platform will come about, similar to PC2001 specs. The current generation of Palms would likely not make the cut, but the next likely would.
2D Desktops
The desktop usually contains a 2D array of a 1D file list... However there is an implied Third Dimension that there is a depth of content under the surface of each icon. A possible 3D model may place a 2D ground map of file icons, each standing upon a 3D Pedistal which presents the file properties, like a dedication plaque, author photo, etc. Atop the pedastal would be the 3D representation of the content, its scale and depth, its motion of activity, etc.
3D Content
3D is more useful for real 3D content. It'd be great to do RAD development of houses just by a Fantasia of powers... a sorcerer's aprentice lifting walls and stairs at the wave of a hand. Actors animated by interperating the "data sock puppet." Quake designers coould go nuts!
3D Hardware
I've been waiting for videophones long before Max Headroom had them everywhere... but even a great show like that overlooked their use as a VR Interface. If you could go anywhere to use a Videophone booth, you could call your computer and communicate with speech and gesture recognition. Also, you could dial pay services for online videogaming using nothing more than the phone, navigating dungeons and swinging swords... physically or virtually. That kind of "non-appliance VR" is common since Myron Kruger's Videoplace.
Likewise, you could out-do Star Trek if we had 3D webcams and 3D projectors... even the keyboard could become a non-appliance solid-state projection, making the Trek sets look like cardboard.
Trollies
I more disagree than agree here... High voltage wires, even when suspended, become a hazard with falling branches etc., and have to reach far into the suburbs for most implimentations. (Nearby Dayton, Ohio still uses 'em!)
Amiga
Right On Target there... Even as a small niche, the Amiga was the prototyper's dream. A decade ahead of the competition, you could plug in a $100US-or-less add-on to digitize video, do Max Headroom-esque video effects, process live wacked out audio effects in real time...
If it weren't for the proprietary hardware, it would have Ruled The Earth. It's most saving grace was the openness of its programming.
Slide Rules? Sure, good for visualization of functional relationships. Reel Mowers? No thanks, I've use a few. AutoWatch? An engineer's moral imperative! Airships? Works for Bladerunner!
Before this announcement, the greatest news from longevity research seems to have been related to telomeres. 'Telomerase' is the substance of repeated DNA sequences at the ends of genes. It has been compared to "those plastic sleeves on the end tips of your shoestrings," and serves a similar function to keep the ends from fraying and unravelling.
While many do not realize the danger of consuming "low octane fuels," I wonder who can tell us if it may also make sense to move to "higher octane" sources? In a car, higher octane burns cooler per the work output, causing less deterioration of the engine, if it's tuned for it. Since the virtues of complex carbohydrates vs simple sugars are well-studied, can anyone tell us if we can benefit from 'higher octane' (cooler burning) foods exists, and how they might benefit us?
"Eating right doesn't really make you live longer... It only FEELS like it's longer!"
Sure, we can discern some of the many differences between atmospheric density (pressure) and mean density of a planet's various layers... There can be/is great variety in each planet's frame. If you vaporize the metalic core, or even substitute it with an equivalent mass of atmospheric gases, what have you got? You'd have less than 1G coming from the earth-equivalent mass (Newton's Law of Gravity says the increased distance, *squared*, would proportionally reduce the gravitational force.)
Heating and cooling poses interesting questions... A solid mass stabilizes a lot of the mean temperature. Would the gases quickly take off, cooling the nebula in disappation? Would they heat like a greenhouse, and begin radiating like a gas-giant? Probably both, but in what portions? Actually, a scientist friend of mine points out that space's so-called vacuum is actually rather hot to the gases travelling through it... the free-flying particles have neither the shade nor the dense gravity to slow their velocity. Of course, a solid mass in shade might not notice, unless it were small enough for the exchange with light gas to transfer comparable tempurature/mass.
It takes a lot of gravity to make a gas giant. If you could stand on the surface of the Sun and sense the pull of distant planets, Jupiter has more than 11 times the pull of Earth, despite having four times its distance.
I get that a lot when I share my "Earth is Most Dense" discovery... People just reactively say "How can that be? Surely someone would have taught me that in school?!" The more I see such relationships escape the public attention, the more I am prone to tackle things like Goldbach's Conjecture.
"Curse my metal body--I wasn't fast enough!" -C3PO
When you do the math as I suggested:
Mercury = 5.4299e+12 kg per cubic km
Earth = 5.5206e+12 kg per cubic km
That's what empiral data is good for... finding facts for yourself instead of accepting a spoon-fed generalization.
If density were indeed unrelated to atmospheric pressure, why doesn't Ceres have an atmosphere? Density, mass, and temperature are three, and not the only three, variables that influence such a thing. (A superdense asteroid the size of Ceres could hold a dense but shallow atmosphere.) Wouldn't Venus' atmosphere solidify at an increased distance? Would Titan's boil away if too close?
If Earth had its present density, but size were increased to that of Jupiter, it would lose the low gravitational mass I speak of.
Picked apart like hair-splitting equations, these relationships are indeed incomplete. But taken together, like the balance of relationships as which they were presented, they illustrate a useful component of the facts we'd need to address in colonizing other worlds.
And 'chaos' is not from a cult or religion, but from ancient greece, the birthplace of western civilization. Granted, many of those guys believed that life came from the chaos of fire, and to fire it would return. But if relating the word chaos to fractals or dynamic energy wigs you out, then you may find difficulty with certain fields of modern mathematics. (I'd also suggest avoiding 'Jurassic Park.') ;-)
It's an antiquated expression, whereas 'sublimes' is more accurate and more acceptable in modern circles. 'Camphoring' is more likely from Middle English than technical. It uses a substance to describe a process, similar to the way 'ice' implies the substance 'water,' but could describe other substances solidifying.
The important thing is that a planet must have a good degree of pressure. On tall mountains, you can boil water away in a paper cup, but on a depressurized surface like Mars, you couldn't get water into liquid form to begin with, unless it is pressurized. On the moon, they're not about to look for liquid water, but it is believed that it can exist in solid form (ice) located in shadowed wells.
So let's go back to the notion that we're not talking about extraordinary life, thriving under pressure. Let's talk worlds we can personally colonize. We really aught to be seeking small planets like ourown, but dense ones:
Earth is the most dense planet of our system. Just divide Mass by Volume, and the greatest mean density is our own. Saturn has hte least, which may account for its lovely rings. But there are many fine balancing points working in Earth's favor:
- High Density==needed pressure for liquid water.
- Small Size==low gravitational mass, ==fewer sheering stresses fighting life's 'order.'
- Proximity to Sun==dynamic energy ('chaos') for creating (mixing) and sustaining (maintaining) life.
- Distance from the Sun==cooler order to prevent life from burning away in excessive energy.
So earth is unique to our system in being a light-weigth pressure cooker for life. We actually have a better chance outside our own solar system, where greater planetary densities exist, if getting there can be trivialized. Then again, the technology to make insterstellar travel trivial would likely make terraforming even more trivial.Interface Should Be Invisible
Only recently have I encountered this concept starting to surface in places like the Enlightenment WM. If you're running pure E without Gnome, there is no start menu, no status bar, no obstuction to the task at hand... If you're not running something, all you see is the background, fullscreen. The menu comes up when you click. That has its PROs and CONs, of course... If you're running lots of windows, it is too much easier to click what *is* there than what *isn't*.
Instant Readiness
"I should be able to pick up my MIDI keyboard and start playing. I should be able to draw five lines on the tablet, at the computer should know it's a staff for composing music." None of this wait-ten-minutes-as-I-boot crap either. BEOS lowered the bar on unnecessary boot times. MS Windows swears that Whistler and whatever follows will boot in 20 seconds and 10 seconds respectively. (I gotta SEE that!) But these stupid enumerations and initializations are not what a computing appliance should be wasting our time doing. Today's sleep and suspend modes are just a hint at *the right thing*, at the ready, and even those aren't as instant as they should be.
One of the best lines in the video was his description of the Amiga applications of that day. (Like most older European software...) "Some programs were really bad... I mean, CREATIVELY bad! You'd have a maze of buttons, all alike, and somewhere in the center, is the exit!" We've come a long way...
IBM's support of its own hardware choices for Linux systems is sketchy at best... ThinkPads were merely the best example because of the fact they must use cutting edge technology to provide the best performance per battery costs.
Just as the S3 video for a ThinkPad's Mobile/Savage IX is hard to configure, so it is with the majority of the S3 line IBM uses. Does IBM take notice? If you examine the servers on their website, They say they support their hardware, but in the asterisksed footnotes, they say it is only tested to work is a plain-jane SVGA display.
Recently DELL made an announcement that it would incentivize hardware manufacturers to be more forthcoming on their specifications for Linux drivers. Can't IBM do likewise? Is the crippled support they actually impliment worth claiming as support at all?
Another site to check is Red Hat. They sort supported systems by manufacturer, including IBM. There you can see which systems are "supported" for RedHat (which in turn should mean support for redhat compatible Mandrake), and in what ways the support is held short.
Most of the top rated systems throughout the world, sending packets for SETI@Home, are Compaq servers running Tru64 Unix. Most of this is due to the scientific data using 64bit accuracy, for which the "contemporary" systems of 32 bits just aren't adequate.
Other applications that crush with 64 bits include high-quality graphic rendering, vast database addressing, and, oh yeah, NETSCAPE 6! ;-)
The TechExplorer mentioned has kept up with the times. The plug-in browses TeX, LaTeX, and MathML documents in Netscape and IE. Yet I seriously doubt that any of these three will triumph as the final answer... There is little overlap... or should I say mathematically, "LCD(LaTeX,MathML) << Need". ;-)
Many LaTeX conventions are great for typing up formula descriptions conversationally. Netscape 6 does a bit of (optional) automatic conversion, like smilies, carets-to-superscripts and underscores-to-subscripts, and this is but a step toward what what is needed in places like sci.math and the web.
LaTeX PROs
- A few ASCII keystrokes can compose well-balanced formulae.
- A variety of fonts conventional to math are readily deployed.
- Formulae can be expressed inline with text or in their full glory 'equation mode.'
LaTeX CONsMathML PROs
- It adds a LOT of missing pieces to HTML that are needed in Math.
- It provides some very abstracted content that could be cut-and-pasted into powerful (XML-based?) applications.
MathML CONsIdeally we should get be able to start with a lightweight comprimise, but extensible by fonts and stylesheets that are readable to all clients/browsers. Neither format offers this at present. Hopefully, programmers will turn to cultures like sci.math to see how they converse, and gleen the best of latex AND HTML.
Most people I know who find *any* motive to give do so to better the world, not just to unload cash and a guilty conscience. Most, in fact, take pride in skillfully making the difference they do to the betterment of the environment around them.
On a small scale, we bathe, we place trash in the proper recepticals, we make our world a bit less intollerable, one action at a time. But a person with a Missionary Mindset has a larger vision of effectively improving some corner of the world.
I for one like the 'geekaid' idea... On the surface, it may not sound like it will help close a rift between the haves and have-nots. But deeper, it profoundly impacts the earth if hardworking freeware engineers are adequately funded to empower the moneyless with technology... far more impact than handing a twenty to some hobo who would blow it all on booze and cancersticks.
I'm a non-believer doing IT work for The Salvation Army. It's good to know that the purpose I serve has one of the world's lowest overheads in operating expenses, doing tons of underpublicized community work and Emergency Disaster Relief. Yet I think getting a credit card for LinuxFund is just as effective a contribution, because it helps people (not unlike myself) who pour their life's blood and sweat into helping those who have less.
"Back off, Romulan! I'm on a Mission From Kahless" --KwISt, the twistai guy }};-)
"Guns don't kill people... I do!" - Sledge Hammer
ACLs (Access Control Lists) are handled either by an operating system, or by an enterprise level application, ie Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino Servers. They provide to control freaks a near-total grip over who can access which bits of data. Granted, that much control can lead to headaches, since every IT department in the enterprise needs a good sense of what they're doing in order to avoid getting locked out of the data they need for doing their jobs.
A year or two ago, The Salvation Army, whose International Headquarters is in London, made an enterprise level decision to deploy Lotus Notes as their mail-and-database vehicle throughout every Territory on the planet. It's amazing, everything from directories to hymn books (containing nifty little MIDI accompaniments) can be replicated across the globe, with record by record synchronization.
When Notes Domino is running, even ROOT (NT's "Administrator" account) cannot violate sharing on these files. So while Lotus Notes does run on Linux, it would be more secure if Linux ran POSIX compliant ACLs on its own.I wouldn't want 3D in my cellphone menus, for instance; I have trouble finding numbers as is. ;-) In fairness, more media can make it easier, like Samsung's voice-triggered dialing, all I'd have to do to get my wife is flip it open and say, "Carol." Likewise, there are a lot of other media that can be added to 3D to make it easier, like laser sites for "Terminator point-and-click."
Real Uses
When Jaron Lanier invented the Data Glove (also licensed as the less-sophisticated PowerGlove), we did something fascinating: he taught himself to juggle using VR. Place a few objects, turn down the acceleration-of-gravity dial to give yourself plenty of time to get your hand under it, and viola'! A simulator to provide the eye-hand coordination you can only learn by experience!
Experience is a needed teacher... It's why Airlines and the military spend so much on simulators. Remember learning to drive? At first, it's all a jumble of Left-Brain rules that you try to juggle into logical order. Once you gain experience, it all transfers to Right-Brain pattern-matching and instinct.
3D turns good surgeons into brilliant ones. In an age where your likely to get the wrong foot amputated or your liver juxtaposed with your spleen, a surgeon greatly benefits from a strong sense of visualization. Likewise for Nuclear workers and Olympic Atheletes.
Sure, there are plenty of cases where 3D is a far-from-optimal medium for what you need, but NASA and other organizations are still advancing the state of the art.
McMicrophone: Retinal identification confirmed... May I take your vote?
Voter: Hmmm... What are the specials today?
McMicrophone: We've got three new parties available... the Darwinist Party Pack, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger Junior... the Posthumanist Party, starring Max Moore... and Martian Party, starring the head of Leonard Nimoy.
Voter: Uh, just gimme a large Green, a medium Democrat, and a Libertarian and NaturalLaw in small.
McMicrophone: Here's your ticket *bwop* , please pull forward to the next window.
You pull forward, and insert your ticket which contains your anonymous voting data. The Display comes up and shows:
You have ordered:
1 small Hagelin
1 small Browne
1 medium REFORM CANDIDATE
and 1 Large SOCIALIST
Hey! That isn't what I ordered!! Gimme the manager!
The Manager apologetically straightens it all out, with a complimentary order of fries.
Authentication Issues
Passwords are one of the flimsiest forms available. At least with a signature there is a little real-time originality. It seems to me it is necessary that people shuld still physically visit the polls:
1. There is the opportunity to eye-witness the actions of the voter as (s)he presents ID, signs hte book, and proceeds to the booth.
2. There is no question as to what transpired at the poll, whereas a vote from the privacy of your own home invites the danger of mistakes (or accusations of mistakes) where no eye witnesses can verify anything.
3. Issues of equipment failure, verification of choices, answers for questions, are all kept public. Likewise, any imposters or similar frauds would have played out their actions before witnesses, making detection and reaction easier.
Computers used Right ;-)
1. Photo-confirmation of the Presidential-pick is a great idea. Those punchholes in Palm Beach couldn't be an issue, even if the choices exceed the ten that Florida dealt with.
2. Weighted Votes would be great: Rank the picks from top to bottom. The Computer could summarize your top pick, but also distribute the weighted results of the popular vote (i.e. Checking Nader, then Gore, then telling the others to smegg off).
3. We could view the web results not only by county, but by district. If a district htinks they have been misrepresented, they could check with their neighbors and contest the results.
That last one has a funny tie-in with this Florida thang... Even though two-thirds of America would like to disban the Electoral College, it was the very thing that drew the attention to Florida's irregularities. Ironic. Yet, we can only guess how much of this goes on in the other 49 states and D.C.
Likewise, the ability to dynamically move transparent objects over a page is exactly where Mo/Netscape excel, and IE will again be behind "the bleeding edge."
I dual boot Linux and Windows... but in the programs I've been developing lately, I've been booting more to Linux using PERL than to Windows using VisualBasic. Why, when VB is set up with more of the functions I desire, would I do that? Simple: Microsoft locks the user into inflexible paradigms of "device" metaphors, making it nearly useless in several circumstances.
I went from DirectX to OpenGL back when MS was pushing "vertex buffers" and "callback routines" just to draw a single triangle on the screen. The device metaphor was crippling. In PERL, I can write a generic script whose output can easily be diverted to console, file, or device. In VBA, the object modelling constrains you to cast your functions against specific application objects... bleh.
Microsoft got their start in business licensing MS-BASIC to every home computer they could. Once they started the Windows gig, they said "Empower the user?!? What were we thinking!" Now their VBasic bundle is only found in applications, and empowerment comes at a price.
I cannot fathom their adversarial stance over their own customers. I believe the backlash is coming sooner rather than later.
It has apparently been proven that if for some reason the RH should be disproved, it is because some prime quartets would perchance land in a zero balance (real part?). However that would occur, don't ask me yet, I've not researched it.
The RH is much like Goldbach's Conjecture in how easy it is to "see" it as the answer, but proving it to infinity is extremely difficult. One math text descibed math as a way "to make the invisible visible." To me, RH and GB are too visible, but we need a proof that could make them evident to the blind. (Tribute to Euler)
It is conjectured in RH that the other solutions, the 'non-trivial' solutions, are all of 'real part 1/2.' That could be represented that:
z(x+yi)=0 iff (y=0 and x= an even negative) or (x=1/2 and y is undetermined).
I'm new to Number Theory, but I've got a lead on proving Goldbach's Conjecture through a non-ambiguous lower bound of solutions. After that, the RH is what I'd attack next... It's been the top target since Hilbert said so a century ago, and Andrew Wiles of the Fermat proof still concurs.