I can only hope that the proposal in the courst right now for the MS settlement case goes through, the MS be prohibited from issuing "breakware" stuff that breaks other companies systems, software, etc.
I have said this many times before, but I used to like MS stuff alot, but now it seems the everything new thring they do just makes me more and more cynical of them. They have lost my trust long ago and far away.
The Army chose six women, including Mrs. Holberton, to program the ENIAC, which weighed 30 tons and filled a room. The women had to route data and electronic pulses through 3,000 switches, 18,000 vacuum tubes and dozens of cables.
"There were no manuals," one of the women, Kay McNulty Mauchley Antonelli, later told Kathleen Melymuka for an interview in Computer World. "They gave us all the blueprints, and we could ask the engineers anything. We had to learn how the machine was built, what each tube did. We had to study how the machine worked and figure out how to do a job on it. So we went right ahead and taught ourselves how to program."
Mrs. Holberton took responsibility for the central unit that directed program sequences. Because the ENIAC was a parallel processor that could execute multiple program sections at once, programming the master unit was the toughest challenge of her 50-year career, she later told Kleiman.
Now that is a programming challenge.
Imagine that the first programs were parrallel processing problems from the start, with no manuals or instructions in programing because they had to invent it all first. And the pressure of being in wartime as well.
very impressive indeed. one of those things that get done because no one knows it is impossible yet.
While engineers focused on the technology of computing, Mrs. Holberton lay awake nights thinking about human thought processes, she later told interviewers. - - - She came up with language using mnemonic characters that appealed to logic, such as "a" for add and "b" for bring. She designed control panels that put the numeric keypad next to the keyboard and persuaded engineers to replace the UNIVAC's black exterior with the gray-beige tone that came to be the universal color of computers.
Now we got folks who what their case midnight black.
But given all of the design issues we have seen, it is interesting to note that the human interface problem was being considered from the very beginning.
I would like go through a network backup solution and then do the removable hard drives.
Of course, data file should not be installed on a local drive, so that you can implement some sort of a disk imaging solution for the base installation. The disk image should be of the main drive with the core installation folders or mounts.
This way if someone screws up the system, you can blow out the main drive, replace it with a known good config, and then add the two or three apps you need, with the datafiles safely someplace else. This could even be done from a bootable CD, if needed.
Knowing what we do about the heat sink requirements of chip like the pentium IV, which basically a silicon wafer, I can imagine the heat output of a _cube_ of the same dimensions.
Fo one thing, if we go to a silicon cube, we will wind up having to heat sink 5 sides, not just the top.
There will like be a practical limit to cooling which means that we will not achieve a real cube in terms of proportions. For a long while with thinning layers will compensate for the increasing thinckness, so that even with hundreds of layers, it will likely be only as thick as many of the other earlier designs, say the 386 or 486. But the heat density is still going to be amazing.
The science fiction prediction imagines a story where computations are basically done by a pool of molten metal kept under high pressure to keep everything aligned.
Meanwhile the U.S.A. has become the only military superpower, an industrial powerhouse and moral beacon in the world. Why? --- Vast natural resources.
Also the fact of not having the division caused by a variety of factors such as wars, multiple languages, monetary systems, divison of resources amongst competing interests.
If no animation, then any decent video card with 32+ ram would do. Add in lots of conventional ram to help processing large graphics files. and a large drive to store them. Being able to run in True color at max rez is very nice indeed.
Add in an oversized monitor, 19" at least, check reviews for color trueness. Some earlier NECs were great, but ran warm, for example. Upgrade to a flat screen later.
Basically you do not need a super high end machine if you are not doing animations or video. You can go back one or two notches for the processor, thus you could get a 1 gighz and dump the rest into reliable hardware, large ram and large storage. It is not uncommon to have multiple files running from 10 to 50 megs, depending on work.
3D Rendering is another game entirely, and there the rendering time can extend into multiple hours, regardless. In this case, faster CPUs are great, but having the ram first is likely the best option.
This is about offering people an arbitrary (because the cost is nil) choice, then inferring from that what they will do if the cost is non-nil.
Well then the survey question would have to account for the circumstances, such as "if Bin Laden had killed your Significant Other, would you support the war?" Which is somewhat difficult to gauge as far as the validity of the result goes.
The actual effective support of the war via taxes verse the support vs votes and expressed opinions are mixing two classes of support. And the amount of opposition of needed to actually withhold payment of your taxes in opposition to a war is great indeed. Most people pay their taxes.
So the only way to conduct a survey that would satisfy your conditions would be to put people under an actual test. This could be considered cruel, given how many people are simply supported by social mechanisms, and would have a hard time without them.
From the questions, note that they do not ask people what they would do, but how they feel.
The suggestion that comes to my mind is, "strongly" and "weakly" are weasel words that the surveyors can use to nudge the outcomes of the survey any way they like.
Mosty professional surveys by politcal consultants do that anyhow, by prefixing the survey question with biased viewpoints.
For Example:
Are you in favor of Advancing Technology?
Are you in favor of Innovation?
Are you in favor of Making Computers Easier to Use?
Would you consider supporting Microsoft if I told you that Microsoft was a Leader in Innovation, Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use?
You would? Could you sign this petition?
End result: Most People support Microsft for being a Leader in Innovation, for Advancing Technology, and Making Computers Easier to Use
You can see how the biase was applied. you list out all the good things that people agree with, then align your candidate, product, company etc with the desired characteristics. This is far more complex then finding out how people really feel about something. But most posters are truly clueless about reading human emotion, and so you use a simply list.
For example "Strongly supporting the war
" covers a world of sins, including Strongly supporting with an Evil Laff, or with Anger, or with Pain, or with Joy (happy to go to war) or what ever.
So it really depends on what the purpose of the survey is. Simply put while a majority of Americans do support the war, many do so with some kind of second thoughts. It is definitely not "Rah Rah Rah!" for this whole thing.
While surveys should ask what you "need to know", what you think you need to know, and what you really need to know often differ. To say that 90% of the people support the war is misleading if you do not know that many people have reservation, and will cut someone to ribbons when they start to really screw up.
somehow surveys that just ast what a person does without asking how they feel seems a little off base.
a better example is one I 've seen at radio free nation, where the current survey asks if you stongly support the war, or is it worried support, or relectant support, or conversly strongly oppose, or is it worries opposition, or reluctant oppsition.
There's a bunch of folks who think everyone's crazy!
This woould show soft the support for a position is. I can imagine a similar survey on the internet experience, Micorsoft, or Open source, or whatever.
How many people would have reluctant support of Microsoft, or are frustrated by their ISP?
A red flag should go off when a Slashdot poster, or comment acceptor chooses a text with a link identical to one in an earlier story within a certain time period. Sort of a "Warning: Are you sure this hasn't been posted before? Check the story below to be sure this isn't a duplicate." message
I think a week or two would be adequate. Although to implement it would possibly be a pain because you would need a seperate table for both for Stories and links. I could see it in a three point zero release, however.
Translation: Not this week, anyhow.
Speed Dating = Job Fair?
on
The Year In Ideas
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
t's all about as romantic as a job fair
now that is a bothersome image. -
Socializing with all the romance of a job fair.
But if nothing else is working for your, then why not?
I can see this sort of working out if the atmosphere is right. Otherwise it would be a prime target for satire on SNL.
given the tendency of companies to shop around for the best appeal results, of course big business will try to muscle their way in into any new territory.
It is for this reason that I think that there should be an Infinite number of TLDs, or may just a damn large number. Of course there are reasons against it. but this would serve to blunt bully tactics to some degree
You need the following to do this: tongs-style soldering iron (to remove the existing flash device), a fine-tipped soldering iron, a microscope, flux, and some solder paste is always nice, but you can use just plain old fine solder too. If you don't have tongs-style soldering iron, you can just cut the device off the board if you have extras laying around (presumably you also have a ROM burner--I use the Needham's Electronics EMP series) or you can build your own (I built an improved version but I haven't got the docs on the web yet...)
So it looks like hardware hackers only with the appropriate tools and skills.
There was also this tidbit:
If you are looking for the FLASH ROM contents of the XBOX, you won't be able to download them even though I've extracted them. I got a call [recording edited to protect sensitive info] from Microsoft within 12 hours of posting this page regarding the binaries...
Sounds like MS is on the ball on this one, as far as protect their hardware secrets.
There were reports that a suffciently young unborn child can hear the ultrasound, as seen by reactions in the womb.
Since these things are loud, it would sort of be the the equivalent of suddenly being in side a noisy train station. There has been concern expressed about possible damage
So while ultrasound is very cool, there are some times when it needs to be used with care.
Heck I can remember when double speed CD players first came out. It was in April or May of whatever year it was at CompUSA. There was a combo package with 50 bazillion games and so on that cost for just under a Thousand dollars USA!
Fast forward to the month of August, the price was about 400 bucks, and so on.
I know this because I know of at least one guy who got nailed by this. (not me!) He wanted to get a refund from the store for the price drop, but they only did that for the first month, not the several that had past. The guy was seriously bummed out.
I always thought that the gravity on Mars was low enought that the atmosphere just leaked away. So the erosion of the Ice Caps might not do enough to do the job.
Isn't water vapor a Green House Gas(tm)? Recent reports are that Mars once had very large oceans. I see that Mars is a frigid, very dry desert these days. So the gas leakage problem may be a very big problem in planetary engineering.
The only possible fix would be a constant inflow of water and other resources to replace those that are being lost. Terraformiong wouod have to include a rain of very smal icy comets to allow for more water in the atmosphere, etc.
In a Way, I would be kinda cool to be there for the first rainfall on Mars in millions of years.
Currently there are 374 "disorders" listed in The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic And Statistical Manual For Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) These include mathematics disorder, nicotine use, caffeine intoxication, conduct disorder, opposition defiant disorder, and the catch-all "Phase of Life Problem." Anyone can be labeled mentally ill based on opinion since there is no true diagnostic test similar to physical dieases.
Now like any other industry, in this business people want to make money. The cynical will point out that one way to nake more money is to find more things to treat. Think of your typicasl consultants who keep trying to come up with news services that you might "need". That being said, imagine this is mental health.
Thus while there are many conditions that do need to be addressed, like why do people kill other people, abuse the rights of others, etc. it is easier to go after the easier fish like the soon to be listed Gaming Addiction Disorder. In most cases a diagnosis like this is junk science.
Very simply there are bazillions of things that can give a person pleasure. You can then get stuck into some sort of a positive feedback loop, especially if there other sources of pleasure are lacking in your life. To then name each one as a separate disease is with a matching chemical imbalance is short sighted at best.
To phrase it in electronics terms, there are un-implemented communications protocols in the human interaction interface. The missing protocols may include things like "Shake Hands", "Smile", "Show interest", "Flirt", etc. These are skill sets, not chemical imbalances. The Brain is a software/wetware combination that is capable of reconfiguring itself, sometimes with weird results. But you can bring things back in line if you get the correct items.
All these things are the equivalent of Software issues, not Hardware Issues. And they keep identifying the problem as hardware (chemical imbalances).
That they keep making money off it is merely extra brownie points for them.
To sum up, I think "Gaming Addiction" is not really an addiction in the classic sense of the term.
I do not know how you would do this, or what the right way to do it is, but I would like to see some responsibility for writing or creating secure systems.
I am thinking specifically of Microsoft, and the Microsoft Outlook Email Viruses, but this could certainly apply to plenty of other companies.
If companies are merely licensing the use of the software to us (and we do not own it), and charging the big bucks, shouldn't they be responsible and/or liable for the consequences - damages from using it? or is this a matter of they get all of the benefits, and we get all of the problems?
Slashdot Mirror
I can only hope that the proposal in the courst right now for the MS settlement case goes through, the MS be prohibited from issuing "breakware" stuff that breaks other companies systems, software, etc.
I have said this many times before, but I used to like MS stuff alot, but now it seems the everything new thring they do just makes me more and more cynical of them. They have lost my trust long ago and far away.
"There were no manuals," one of the women, Kay McNulty Mauchley Antonelli, later told Kathleen Melymuka for an interview in Computer World. "They gave us all the blueprints, and we could ask the engineers anything. We had to learn how the machine was built, what each tube did. We had to study how the machine worked and figure out how to do a job on it. So we went right ahead and taught ourselves how to program."
Mrs. Holberton took responsibility for the central unit that directed program sequences. Because the ENIAC was a parallel processor that could execute multiple program sections at once, programming the master unit was the toughest challenge of her 50-year career, she later told Kleiman.
Now that is a programming challenge.
Imagine that the first programs were parrallel processing problems from the start, with no manuals or instructions in programing because they had to invent it all first. And the pressure of being in wartime as well.
very impressive indeed. one of those things that get done because no one knows it is impossible yet.
Now we got folks who what their case midnight black.
But given all of the design issues we have seen, it is interesting to note that the human interface problem was being considered from the very beginning.
[Insert your Microsoft insult joke here]
I've even gone out of my way to pay for CDs etc.
Of course, data file should not be installed on a local drive, so that you can implement some sort of a disk imaging solution for the base installation. The disk image should be of the main drive with the core installation folders or mounts.
This way if someone screws up the system, you can blow out the main drive, replace it with a known good config, and then add the two or three apps you need, with the datafiles safely someplace else. This could even be done from a bootable CD, if needed.
Fo one thing, if we go to a silicon cube, we will wind up having to heat sink 5 sides, not just the top.
There will like be a practical limit to cooling which means that we will not achieve a real cube in terms of proportions. For a long while with thinning layers will compensate for the increasing thinckness, so that even with hundreds of layers, it will likely be only as thick as many of the other earlier designs, say the 386 or 486. But the heat density is still going to be amazing.
The science fiction prediction imagines a story where computations are basically done by a pool of molten metal kept under high pressure to keep everything aligned.
Like that would ever happen any place else.
Let Microsft donate the money top school, with no strings attached.
If the school by stuff, fine. If not, tough luck.
I wouldn't mind if they had to dish out a bit more money as well.
Also the fact of not having the division caused by a variety of factors such as wars, multiple languages, monetary systems, divison of resources amongst competing interests.
If no animation, then any decent video card with 32+ ram would do. Add in lots of conventional ram to help processing large graphics files. and a large drive to store them. Being able to run in True color at max rez is very nice indeed.
Add in an oversized monitor, 19" at least, check reviews for color trueness. Some earlier NECs were great, but ran warm, for example. Upgrade to a flat screen later.
Basically you do not need a super high end machine if you are not doing animations or video. You can go back one or two notches for the processor, thus you could get a 1 gighz and dump the rest into reliable hardware, large ram and large storage. It is not uncommon to have multiple files running from 10 to 50 megs, depending on work.
3D Rendering is another game entirely, and there the rendering time can extend into multiple hours, regardless. In this case, faster CPUs are great, but having the ram first is likely the best option.
Well then the survey question would have to account for the circumstances, such as "if Bin Laden had killed your Significant Other, would you support the war?" Which is somewhat difficult to gauge as far as the validity of the result goes.
The actual effective support of the war via taxes verse the support vs votes and expressed opinions are mixing two classes of support. And the amount of opposition of needed to actually withhold payment of your taxes in opposition to a war is great indeed. Most people pay their taxes.
So the only way to conduct a survey that would satisfy your conditions would be to put people under an actual test. This could be considered cruel, given how many people are simply supported by social mechanisms, and would have a hard time without them.
From the questions, note that they do not ask people what they would do, but how they feel.
which is not invalid.
Mosty professional surveys by politcal consultants do that anyhow, by prefixing the survey question with biased viewpoints.
You can see how the biase was applied. you list out all the good things that people agree with, then align your candidate, product, company etc with the desired characteristics. This is far more complex then finding out how people really feel about something. But most posters are truly clueless about reading human emotion, and so you use a simply list.For example "Strongly supporting the war " covers a world of sins, including Strongly supporting with an Evil Laff, or with Anger, or with Pain, or with Joy (happy to go to war) or what ever.
So it really depends on what the purpose of the survey is. Simply put while a majority of Americans do support the war, many do so with some kind of second thoughts. It is definitely not "Rah Rah Rah!" for this whole thing.
While surveys should ask what you "need to know", what you think you need to know, and what you really need to know often differ. To say that 90% of the people support the war is misleading if you do not know that many people have reservation, and will cut someone to ribbons when they start to really screw up.
a better example is one I 've seen at radio free nation, where the current survey asks if you stongly support the war, or is it worried support, or relectant support, or conversly strongly oppose, or is it worries opposition, or reluctant oppsition.
There's a bunch of folks who think everyone's crazy!
This woould show soft the support for a position is. I can imagine a similar survey on the internet experience, Micorsoft, or Open source, or whatever.
How many people would have reluctant support of Microsoft, or are frustrated by their ISP?
more than one way to skin a cat.
I think a week or two would be adequate. Although to implement it would possibly be a pain because you would need a seperate table for both for Stories and links. I could see it in a three point zero release, however.
Translation: Not this week, anyhow.
now that is a bothersome image. - Socializing with all the romance of a job fair.
But if nothing else is working for your, then why not?
I can see this sort of working out if the atmosphere is right. Otherwise it would be a prime target for satire on SNL.
It is for this reason that I think that there should be an Infinite number of TLDs, or may just a damn large number. Of course there are reasons against it. but this would serve to blunt bully tactics to some degree
Then, if you want ads, you can just turn them on.
So it looks like hardware hackers only with the appropriate tools and skills.
There was also this tidbit:
If you are looking for the FLASH ROM contents of the XBOX, you won't be able to download them even though I've extracted them. I got a call [recording edited to protect sensitive info] from Microsoft within 12 hours of posting this page regarding the binaries...
Sounds like MS is on the ball on this one, as far as protect their hardware secrets.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 91639
Since these things are loud, it would sort of be the the equivalent of suddenly being in side a noisy train station. There has been concern expressed about possible damage
So while ultrasound is very cool, there are some times when it needs to be used with care.
Fast forward to the month of August, the price was about 400 bucks, and so on.
I know this because I know of at least one guy who got nailed by this. (not me!) He wanted to get a refund from the store for the price drop, but they only did that for the first month, not the several that had past. The guy was seriously bummed out.
Isn't water vapor a Green House Gas(tm)? Recent reports are that Mars once had very large oceans. I see that Mars is a frigid, very dry desert these days. So the gas leakage problem may be a very big problem in planetary engineering.
The only possible fix would be a constant inflow of water and other resources to replace those that are being lost. Terraformiong wouod have to include a rain of very smal icy comets to allow for more water in the atmosphere, etc.
In a Way, I would be kinda cool to be there for the first rainfall on Mars in millions of years.
You know someone is going to want to be first on the holodeck with pr0n, etc.
Actually, he should see if MSN offers broadband. This might not hurt Microsoft, directly.
But he could express an interest in .Net which apparently would need a high speed connection.
Yes, there is hope in the world.
Now like any other industry, in this business people want to make money. The cynical will point out that one way to nake more money is to find more things to treat. Think of your typicasl consultants who keep trying to come up with news services that you might "need". That being said, imagine this is mental health.
Thus while there are many conditions that do need to be addressed, like why do people kill other people, abuse the rights of others, etc. it is easier to go after the easier fish like the soon to be listed Gaming Addiction Disorder. In most cases a diagnosis like this is junk science.
Very simply there are bazillions of things that can give a person pleasure. You can then get stuck into some sort of a positive feedback loop, especially if there other sources of pleasure are lacking in your life. To then name each one as a separate disease is with a matching chemical imbalance is short sighted at best.
To phrase it in electronics terms, there are un-implemented communications protocols in the human interaction interface. The missing protocols may include things like "Shake Hands", "Smile", "Show interest", "Flirt", etc. These are skill sets, not chemical imbalances. The Brain is a software/wetware combination that is capable of reconfiguring itself, sometimes with weird results. But you can bring things back in line if you get the correct items.
All these things are the equivalent of Software issues, not Hardware Issues. And they keep identifying the problem as hardware (chemical imbalances).
That they keep making money off it is merely extra brownie points for them.
To sum up, I think "Gaming Addiction" is not really an addiction in the classic sense of the term.
I am thinking specifically of Microsoft, and the Microsoft Outlook Email Viruses, but this could certainly apply to plenty of other companies.
If companies are merely licensing the use of the software to us (and we do not own it), and charging the big bucks, shouldn't they be responsible and/or liable for the consequences - damages from using it? or is this a matter of they get all of the benefits, and we get all of the problems?