Macromedia make Flash (internet animation) and Dreamweaver (web editing).
Adobe make Acrobat (document distribution), Photoshop (image editing), Pagemaker (print document layout) and Premiere (video editing).
I don't see that much overlap here. And other than Flash and Acrobat, there seems to be fairly good competition.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Re:really a superconductor?
on
Quantum Wires
·
· Score: 1
BTW (regarding the very first post), some of the Slashdot Armchair Scientists (there are other sciences besides physics too you know) out here in computer land have Masters and PhDs and have published or worked in the field. Some of us have even met and/or worked with the people mentioned in the articles. I wouldn't be so quick to push aside honest criticism, afterall that is what scientists are trained to do - be skeptical:)
However, if when you remember the armchair product design and commerce experts of days gone by, it's only healthy to be skeptical about the credibility and competence of slashdot posters. And editors.
I only hope this news flashes through the industry and gets in the heads of CEOs and PHBs everywhere who then start aborting outsourcing attempts.
I'm not sure Indians are any more likely to jot down card numbers that thier minimum-wage US counterparts. Except, of course, that an Indian phone jockey makes a better wage (by local standards), arguably giving them less reason to committ such fraud.
It's annoying when you can't understand what someone says on the phone, sure, but I don't think they're any more likely to be criminals than thier western counterparts.
By not putting standard interfaces on, people are forced to pay for ringtones, where if they had USB, they could just drag a MIDI right to the phone.
I've seen about four posts saying this in this thread - and I'm browsing at +5.
Don't you guys have IrDA?
I'm in the UK, and pretty much every GSM phone I've come across in recent years has an IrDA port to connect to your laptop.
You can then go to the manufacturer's website and get a 'handset manager' program (aimed, I gather, at companies who want to give thier employees identical phonebooks and suchlike). You can then use the IR link to download and upload images, ringtones, operator logos (back when they existed), text messages, and phone books.
I for one would like to say I think that writeup is terribly written.
I say this because the writeup describes what 3D means bout four times, even though it's perfectly obvious from the first time it's said.
When it comes to the important bit - how it will actually work - there is no mention of it at all.
Are the heads going to detect things at multiple distances? Are these just going to be like multi-layer platters? Or is it going to be one solid block? How would that be read?
The article would have been much better if it had cut out all but one of the descriptions of what 3D is, instead giving us some details on how this will actually work.
All that is needed is money to build a test reactor based on *current* knowledge (no pun intended:), work out final nicks in application of the theory, and then we can build the first commercial fusion reactor.
The obstacle to fusion is not science (or lack thereof), but lack of funding. You see, what people heard in the 60s about fusion, they still think it applies today.
In these times of budget shortfalls and spiralling national debt, money has to be saved somewhere. Things with unknown results a long way in the future are an obvious target.
Does it suck? Sure. But America has shown in elections it doesn't want European-style high taxes to pay for stuff, and when you can't pay for stuff, you can't have stuff.
Blah blah economy blah blah free market forces blah blah alledgedly unpatriotic intellectuals blah blah small government blah blah starve the beast blah blah 9-11 blah blah blah.
Taking a year off to travel etc sounds nice now but it's the beginning of a very slippery slope known as sloth. Too much laziness will propel you into a life that's mediocre: it'll be okay but not great.
On the other hand, if you do things on your year off, it can make you a more interesting person when you get to university, since you'll have experiences to talk about other than 'I went to high school' 'really? me too!'.
Being interesting will make it easier for you to make friends, making your university experience substantially more enjoyable. That was the case for me, anyway.
On the other hand, if you're studying something mathsy (and you probably will be, if you're posting on slashdot:-p ) you might... temporarily forget it during a year out. On the plus side, when the time comes to relearn it, you'll find it comes back pretty easily.
What happens to choice for your child. If you have selected them to be a world class athlete [...] You then have expectations of them.
Well, by anaology to the abortion debate (I should mention I'm pro-choice myself), one could say the child gets no say in those particular choices, just as foetuses get no say in whether they are aborted.
What if they don't want to do what you want them to do?
Well, there are plenty of expensive private schools for rich kids. Is a genetic disposition for intelligence all that different from an expensive education? Both are ways to give a child a 'leg up' in life, by giving them greater ability.
Pushy parents will still be pushy, I'm sure, but perhaps non-pushy parents will remain non-pushy - not every parent paying for thier children's education and/or sporting activities is pushy. Most aren't, in fact. In my limited experience, anyway.
I'm thinking of the abortion debate. One of the things people say (not the only thing, of course) is "There are differing opinions on the ethics of abortion. Some of these opinions borrow from religious teachings. We should allow abortion, since doing so allows people to decide on ethics (which may depend on religion) themselves." Thus, 'Pro-Choice'.
Couldn't the same apply here? Some people may disagree with 'designer babies' (in some cases for religious reasons) while others don't have a problem with them. That is, could one be 'pro choice' on designer babies? Does that make sense here?
I'm not saying designer babies are an idea I'm completely comfortable with, but it's an interesting point to discuss nonetheless.
It's got a a media-processing graphics chipset? That should be a bit improvement on my current graphics chipset, which will do everything except media processing!
This would be entirely possible thanks to modern power electronics, if you really want to. Honestly I'm not sure it's worth the bother, but here you go:
Get a normal DC power supply that will supply the largest voltage you need and more current than you need. Or build one. Whatever.
Go to some electronics shop (If you're in the UK, Maplin are good) and get some Voltage Regulators. These are basically integrated circuits that can take in a wide range of voltages and output a fixed voltage.
Connect the voltage regulators' inputs to the output of the main power supply.
Connect the voltage regulators' outputs to your devices.
NOTE: Lots of external computer bits ask for unusual voltages. That might be a bother.
NOTE 2: There will be lots of books availiable on this topic. Look for 'Power Electronics' on Amazon - or in a local university's library (since textbooks are expensive). Don't get a book that's too old - some of this stuff is pretty recent technology.
NOTE 3: I am no expert. While I believe my design would work (and be pretty efficent), I can't promise anything.
You know what happens then? The same thing they do when you hamper your RSS feed in any other way, they scrape your HTML and create their own feeds. Slashdot doesn't monitor their front page as closely as they do their rss page, so you can get away with quite a bit of abuse, at least for a while. They've blacklisted my IP ocassionally when I got overzealous though.
From http://paperlined.org/rss/feeds/
slashdot.rss (perl source) (updated every 10 minutes) (if this gets hammered, it will be removed from public use
I looked at the fine pictures of Ashcroft's handwriting and entered them into one of those online handwriting analysis things.
For a graphologist, the spacing on the page reflects the writer's attitude toward their own world and relationship to things in his or her own space. If the inputted data was correct John has left lots of white space on the left side of the paper. John fills up the rest of the page in a normal fashion. If this is true, then John has a healthy relationship to the past and is ready to move on. The right side of the page represents the future and John is ready and willing to get started living now and planning for the future. John would like to leave the past behind and move on.
John is selective when picking friends. He does not trust everyone. He has a select group of people that are truly close to him, usually two or three. He is careful when choosing his inner circle of friends.
John has difficulty trusting anyone. In fact, he trusts no one completely. This is a result of his trust being betrayed in the past. He has closed up, thus ceasing to allow close friendships. John truly wants close friends and desires physical relationships, but he fears he will get hurt, again. He is lonely, yet has a crying need for close friends. This trait can cause much unhappiness. However, it can be changed.
John is capable of seeing far into the future. He plans two, three, even ten years in advance. John has high goals and can literally see them being reached. He is very self-confident and has a high self-esteem. John will reach whatever level of success he desires. John has the self-concept that is possessed by less than two percent of the population. That two percent contains the most successful people in the world. When a person has a high self-esteem, he frees himself to achieve an unlimited world of success. John has achieved this frame of mind. Congratulations. He has the self-confidence to take great risk, thus reaping the rewards. If he does fail, it doesn't break his confidence. He knows he can do it! In retrospect of our research, this trait is one of the most desirable to possess, because it releases the writer to achieve his full potential. We recommend everyone raise their self-esteem to this level.
In reference to John's mental abilities, he has a very investigating and creating mind. He investigates projects rapidly because he is curious about many things. He gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but he soon must slow down and look at all the angles. He probably gets too many things going at once. When John slows down, then he becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, he must slow down to do it. He then decides what projects he has time to finish. Thus he finishes at a slower pace than when he started the project. He has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. His mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. He can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. John can then switch into his low gear. When he is in the slower mode, he can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. He is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.
Diplomacy is one of John's best attributes. He has the ability to say what others want to hear. He can have tact with others. He has the ability to state things in such a way as to not offend someone else. John can disagree without being disagreeable.
John is secretive. He has secrets which he does not wish to share with others. He intentionally conceals things about himself. He has a private side that he intends to keep that way, especially concerning certain events in his past.
John is moderately outgoing. His emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, he can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. He has the ability to put himself into the other person's shoes. John wi
I'm fairly certain Dancin' Santa was trying to be funny.
You may have noticed earlier posters saying "Lock down all computers so users can't install anything or change any settings, if they want anything installed, let them get you to do it". In other words, make users go through you, inconveniencing them, to increase security.
Dancin' Santa mocked this stance by extending it to web access - and presenting a situation that is clearly absurd. No serious IT administrator would review web access on a page-by-page basis.
Here are some other examples of what he might have said:
Lock down Start menu access to those who can prove they need it. Give them desktop icons for Word and Excel, and if they need anything else, let them call you to thier desk and you can start the program for them.
or:
Lock down keyboard access to users who cannot prove they need it. This will cut down on the leaking copy-locked proprietry documents by printscreen, and will stop users tying up company assets when they are not in use with the 'lock workstation' key combination. Locking down Ctrl+Alt+Del cuts down on hard reboots, which can damage the machine. Restricting access to the : key ensures that should users get access to a command prompt, they will not be able to jump between drives all willy-knilly, wreaking havoc with file system organisation.
Clearly, while both of these stratergies would increase security, they would also be a barrier to employees doing thier jobs. Just as preventing any software installation would be a barrier to employees doing thier jobs.
In summary, Dancin' Santa was mocking authoritarian IT administrators by extension to absurdity. Clearly, though, his absurdity was not absurd enough since he seems to have evoked almost a dozen angry responses from people who didn't realise he was joking. Which is a sad reflection on how IT administrators are percieved.
they are supposed to talk you out of cancelling, and if they cancel too many accounts in a day they will be fired. They get bonuses for NOT cancelling - even though they're answering a line that is for cancellations only
Well then, why don't we put the number on here? Random people could phone up and pretend to be convinced not to cancel... everyone wins!
Slashdot Mirror
Are they really in competition at the moment?
Macromedia make Flash (internet animation) and Dreamweaver (web editing).
Adobe make Acrobat (document distribution), Photoshop (image editing), Pagemaker (print document layout) and Premiere (video editing).
I don't see that much overlap here. And other than Flash and Acrobat, there seems to be fairly good competition.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
BTW (regarding the very first post), some of the Slashdot Armchair Scientists (there are other sciences besides physics too you know) out here in computer land have Masters and PhDs and have published or worked in the field. Some of us have even met and/or worked with the people mentioned in the articles. I wouldn't be so quick to push aside honest criticism, afterall that is what scientists are trained to do - be skeptical :)
However, if when you remember the armchair product design and commerce experts of days gone by, it's only healthy to be skeptical about the credibility and competence of slashdot posters. And editors.
Michael
Is the drive dead or not?
Seems to me the drive is either working or it isn't.
If it's not working, software erasure isn't going to work. If it is working, it's not broken.
Just my $0.02
Michael
I only hope this news flashes through the industry and gets in the heads of CEOs and PHBs everywhere who then start aborting outsourcing attempts.
I'm not sure Indians are any more likely to jot down card numbers that thier minimum-wage US counterparts. Except, of course, that an Indian phone jockey makes a better wage (by local standards), arguably giving them less reason to committ such fraud.
It's annoying when you can't understand what someone says on the phone, sure, but I don't think they're any more likely to be criminals than thier western counterparts.
Michael
By not putting standard interfaces on, people are forced to pay for ringtones, where if they had USB, they could just drag a MIDI right to the phone.
I've seen about four posts saying this in this thread - and I'm browsing at +5.
Don't you guys have IrDA?
I'm in the UK, and pretty much every GSM phone I've come across in recent years has an IrDA port to connect to your laptop.
You can then go to the manufacturer's website and get a 'handset manager' program (aimed, I gather, at companies who want to give thier employees identical phonebooks and suchlike). You can then use the IR link to download and upload images, ringtones, operator logos (back when they existed), text messages, and phone books.
Does the US not have this?
Michael
As I understand it, sin(x) can have values between positive 1 and negative 1. Is my x going to be positive or negative?
A little bit of background: I have a value of x somewhere between 0 and pi.
If your value of x is between 0 and pi, I can confirm that your value for x will be positive.
I can also tell you your value for sin(x) will be positive or zero.
Michael
I for one would like to say I think that writeup is terribly written.
I say this because the writeup describes what 3D means bout four times, even though it's perfectly obvious from the first time it's said.
When it comes to the important bit - how it will actually work - there is no mention of it at all.
Are the heads going to detect things at multiple distances? Are these just going to be like multi-layer platters? Or is it going to be one solid block? How would that be read?
The article would have been much better if it had cut out all but one of the descriptions of what 3D is, instead giving us some details on how this will actually work.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
All that is needed is money to build a test reactor based on *current* knowledge (no pun intended :), work out final nicks in application of the theory, and then we can build the first commercial fusion reactor.
The obstacle to fusion is not science (or lack thereof), but lack of funding. You see, what people heard in the 60s about fusion, they still think it applies today.
Have you heard about ITER?
My understanding is it could start being built any time now...
Michael
In these times of budget shortfalls and spiralling national debt, money has to be saved somewhere. Things with unknown results a long way in the future are an obvious target.
Does it suck? Sure. But America has shown in elections it doesn't want European-style high taxes to pay for stuff, and when you can't pay for stuff, you can't have stuff.
Blah blah economy blah blah free market forces blah blah alledgedly unpatriotic intellectuals blah blah small government blah blah starve the beast blah blah 9-11 blah blah blah.
Michael
Taking a year off to travel etc sounds nice now but it's the beginning of a very slippery slope known as sloth. Too much laziness will propel you into a life that's mediocre: it'll be okay but not great.
:-p ) you might... temporarily forget it during a year out. On the plus side, when the time comes to relearn it, you'll find it comes back pretty easily.
On the other hand, if you do things on your year off, it can make you a more interesting person when you get to university, since you'll have experiences to talk about other than 'I went to high school' 'really? me too!'.
Being interesting will make it easier for you to make friends, making your university experience substantially more enjoyable. That was the case for me, anyway.
On the other hand, if you're studying something mathsy (and you probably will be, if you're posting on slashdot
Just my $0.02,
Michael
What happens to choice for your child. If you have selected them to be a world class athlete [...] You then have expectations of them.
Well, by anaology to the abortion debate (I should mention I'm pro-choice myself), one could say the child gets no say in those particular choices, just as foetuses get no say in whether they are aborted.
What if they don't want to do what you want them to do?
Well, there are plenty of expensive private schools for rich kids. Is a genetic disposition for intelligence all that different from an expensive education? Both are ways to give a child a 'leg up' in life, by giving them greater ability.
Pushy parents will still be pushy, I'm sure, but perhaps non-pushy parents will remain non-pushy - not every parent paying for thier children's education and/or sporting activities is pushy. Most aren't, in fact. In my limited experience, anyway.
Michael
Could one apply the logic of free choice here?
I'm thinking of the abortion debate. One of the things people say (not the only thing, of course) is "There are differing opinions on the ethics of abortion. Some of these opinions borrow from religious teachings. We should allow abortion, since doing so allows people to decide on ethics (which may depend on religion) themselves." Thus, 'Pro-Choice'.
Couldn't the same apply here? Some people may disagree with 'designer babies' (in some cases for religious reasons) while others don't have a problem with them. That is, could one be 'pro choice' on designer babies? Does that make sense here?
I'm not saying designer babies are an idea I'm completely comfortable with, but it's an interesting point to discuss nonetheless.
Michael
How about using them to... make slashdotters cry about how low-tech thier shit is, and how much great stuff the can't use?
That done, though, I'm not sure of what to do with them....
Michael
It's got a a media-processing graphics chipset? That should be a bit improvement on my current graphics chipset, which will do everything except media processing!
Michael
You know you're doing a bad job if your ex-employees open champagne upon hearing of your leaving.
In fact, you know before that; If your employees keep champagne in thier desks ready for when you leave, you're doing a bad job.
This would be entirely possible thanks to modern power electronics, if you really want to. Honestly I'm not sure it's worth the bother, but here you go:
Get a normal DC power supply that will supply the largest voltage you need and more current than you need. Or build one. Whatever.
Go to some electronics shop (If you're in the UK, Maplin are good) and get some Voltage Regulators. These are basically integrated circuits that can take in a wide range of voltages and output a fixed voltage.
Connect the voltage regulators' inputs to the output of the main power supply.
Connect the voltage regulators' outputs to your devices.
NOTE: Lots of external computer bits ask for unusual voltages. That might be a bother.
NOTE 2: There will be lots of books availiable on this topic. Look for 'Power Electronics' on Amazon - or in a local university's library (since textbooks are expensive). Don't get a book that's too old - some of this stuff is pretty recent technology.
NOTE 3: I am no expert. While I believe my design would work (and be pretty efficent), I can't promise anything.
Michael
Don't some car 'hands free' kits include an outside arial?
If so, the obvious thing to do seems to be to get one, and put the arial somewhere where it gets a signal.
Just my $0.02,
Michael
Seems to me that there have been a lot of attempts made to come up with better keyboard designs - Dvorak; that alphabetical keyboards; chordic keyboards; split keyboards; weird keyboards; other weird keyboards; and so on.
Call me when one of them has broad market acceptance.
Michael
Or, indeed, one could do this.
You know, if one wanted to...
Michael
Students owning textbooks? Which college are YOU at?
Michael
You know what happens then? The same thing they do when you hamper your RSS feed in any other way, they scrape your HTML and create their own feeds. Slashdot doesn't monitor their front page as closely as they do their rss page, so you can get away with quite a bit of abuse, at least for a while. They've blacklisted my IP ocassionally when I got overzealous though.
From http://paperlined.org/rss/feeds/
slashdot.rss (perl source) (updated every 10 minutes) (if this gets hammered, it will be removed from public use
Ironic.
And by ironic, I mean hypocritical.
Michael
I looked at the fine pictures of Ashcroft's handwriting and entered them into one of those online handwriting analysis things.
For a graphologist, the spacing on the page reflects the writer's attitude toward their own world and relationship to things in his or her own space. If the inputted data was correct John has left lots of white space on the left side of the paper. John fills up the rest of the page in a normal fashion. If this is true, then John has a healthy relationship to the past and is ready to move on. The right side of the page represents the future and John is ready and willing to get started living now and planning for the future. John would like to leave the past behind and move on.
John is selective when picking friends. He does not trust everyone. He has a select group of people that are truly close to him, usually two or three. He is careful when choosing his inner circle of friends.
John has difficulty trusting anyone. In fact, he trusts no one completely. This is a result of his trust being betrayed in the past. He has closed up, thus ceasing to allow close friendships. John truly wants close friends and desires physical relationships, but he fears he will get hurt, again. He is lonely, yet has a crying need for close friends. This trait can cause much unhappiness. However, it can be changed.
John is capable of seeing far into the future. He plans two, three, even ten years in advance. John has high goals and can literally see them being reached. He is very self-confident and has a high self-esteem. John will reach whatever level of success he desires. John has the self-concept that is possessed by less than two percent of the population. That two percent contains the most successful people in the world. When a person has a high self-esteem, he frees himself to achieve an unlimited world of success. John has achieved this frame of mind. Congratulations. He has the self-confidence to take great risk, thus reaping the rewards. If he does fail, it doesn't break his confidence. He knows he can do it! In retrospect of our research, this trait is one of the most desirable to possess, because it releases the writer to achieve his full potential. We recommend everyone raise their self-esteem to this level.
In reference to John's mental abilities, he has a very investigating and creating mind. He investigates projects rapidly because he is curious about many things. He gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but he soon must slow down and look at all the angles. He probably gets too many things going at once. When John slows down, then he becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, he must slow down to do it. He then decides what projects he has time to finish. Thus he finishes at a slower pace than when he started the project. He has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. His mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. He can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. John can then switch into his low gear. When he is in the slower mode, he can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. He is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.
Diplomacy is one of John's best attributes. He has the ability to say what others want to hear. He can have tact with others. He has the ability to state things in such a way as to not offend someone else. John can disagree without being disagreeable.
John is secretive. He has secrets which he does not wish to share with others. He intentionally conceals things about himself. He has a private side that he intends to keep that way, especially concerning certain events in his past.
John is moderately outgoing. His emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, he can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. He has the ability to put himself into the other person's shoes. John wi
The Iraqis got slaughtered, the US took eight wounded, and this is a "failure"?
Well, not a military failure, clearly.
But if technology has a clearly defined function that if fails to perform, that particular technology failed.
Example: I have to do some maths. I turn on my computer, but it does not start. I use a pocket calculator instead.
I still have the answer. And clearly, my pocket calculator did not fail. My computer, however, did fail.
Michael
Dancin Santa, fuck you and all others like you.
I'm fairly certain Dancin' Santa was trying to be funny.
You may have noticed earlier posters saying "Lock down all computers so users can't install anything or change any settings, if they want anything installed, let them get you to do it". In other words, make users go through you, inconveniencing them, to increase security.
Dancin' Santa mocked this stance by extending it to web access - and presenting a situation that is clearly absurd. No serious IT administrator would review web access on a page-by-page basis.
Here are some other examples of what he might have said:
Lock down Start menu access to those who can prove they need it. Give them desktop icons for Word and Excel, and if they need anything else, let them call you to thier desk and you can start the program for them.
or:
Lock down keyboard access to users who cannot prove they need it. This will cut down on the leaking copy-locked proprietry documents by printscreen, and will stop users tying up company assets when they are not in use with the 'lock workstation' key combination. Locking down Ctrl+Alt+Del cuts down on hard reboots, which can damage the machine. Restricting access to the : key ensures that should users get access to a command prompt, they will not be able to jump between drives all willy-knilly, wreaking havoc with file system organisation.
Clearly, while both of these stratergies would increase security, they would also be a barrier to employees doing thier jobs. Just as preventing any software installation would be a barrier to employees doing thier jobs.
In summary, Dancin' Santa was mocking authoritarian IT administrators by extension to absurdity. Clearly, though, his absurdity was not absurd enough since he seems to have evoked almost a dozen angry responses from people who didn't realise he was joking. Which is a sad reflection on how IT administrators are percieved.
Michael
they are supposed to talk you out of cancelling, and if they cancel too many accounts in a day they will be fired. They get bonuses for NOT cancelling - even though they're answering a line that is for cancellations only
Well then, why don't we put the number on here? Random people could phone up and pretend to be convinced not to cancel... everyone wins!
Michael