He now uses them as much as your average joe, though he is still no technophile. The idea that Mr Cyberpunk doesn't use a computer is so man-bites-dog, however, that it still gets reported as fact.
It's the first part of this that I care about, not the second -- it doesn't surprise me that he's not actually a Luddite. But still:
To the "average joe" computer user, technology is basically magic, and that's the point of view Gibson is clearly writing from.
You have to remember that Gibson doesn't actually know much about real technology -- I remember hearing that he doesn't even use a computer. He just thinks this cyber stuff is woah, cool man. This explains a lot -- remember the ridiculous X Files episode he wrote with the T1 line going to a trailer, and the brain-swapping and all that? The tech is just a cinematic device, and he never takes it seriously -- hence all the "psychological and sociological themes".
Now, there's nothing *wrong* with this. Lots of people who write westerns have never touched a horse, and cheap paperback romances don't bear much resemblance to real life.
It does, however, make Gibson less interesting to me as a real-life computer geek -- just as having a even hints of a real social life makes those paperback romances uninteresting.
You could follow the link in the story and find out what Sun has to say about it -- it's in their FAQ. Basically, the key word is "network-aware".
From a what-Sun's-not-saying standpoint, I imagine it appeals to them that you can write closed-source software for GNOME without having to pay Trolltech.
I know many Sun users who liked CDE because it was stable as a rock.
Oh yeah? Rocks come to my mind when I think of CDE, but for different reasons. For example, I liked it because of all of the gaping security holes in tooltalk that take Sun forever to patch whenever they crop up.
Not only has someone considered it, but Lego has a whole educational divesion, formerly known as Lego Dacta. Check out the website. It used to be they had some cool sets you couldn't get elsewhere, but with the newly-improved S@H, regular people can get those too.
Lego isn't plural because it's an adjective. The Officially Correct form is "LEGO building blocks". Both "lego" and "legos" are equally "incorrect" -- but of course it's clumsy to follow trademark rules all the time in common speech, so realistically, there's no problem with using either one informally.
So, where's the review?
on
XML and Perl
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I see the table of contents explained in paragraph form. And then one complaint about the organization of the book. And then I expect to read the review, but it's already on to "you can buy this book here", and user comments.
I know complaining about slashdot stories is like shooting those proverbial barreled fish, but sheesh.
Well, I can't see any other reason, so you must be at least somewhat right. But there *is* a whole community of people who make fonts for fun, often free (usually just in the beer sense). But since they do it for platforms for which there already are good core fonts, they tend to be fancy gimmick / display fonts, not basic workaday Times and Helvetica or Arial equivalents.
But it also seems like something someone with a vested interest in Linux might actually fund. I know money's a bit short in this economy, but still.
Those look pretty nice -- I'll probably put some of 'em in the next BU Linux distro. But how about a really nice basic serifed text font? Something that can be the default font in a web browser?
Yet... what is the gain/profit? Will they see an income stream for this?
"The fonts suck" is one of the most common complaints about Linux on the desktop. Having good free fonts available would be a huge step towards the Total World Domination goal -- it would help increase the spread of Linux and therefore the profit these companies make from it. Your argument can be made for *any* open source / free software project -- why are fonts an exception?
Oh, I've fiddled with it enough to know it'd be difficult. Three months is lower than the guesses I made in my last post, you'll notice. But that doesn't answer my real question...
Seriously, I'm perplexed. I understand that making a really nice, readable font is a lot of work -- I've even played around with Fontographer. Getting the kerning and hinting and everything right is both tedious and difficult. But is it actually next to impossible? Is it harder than making a whole Unix-like kernel from scratch? Or the whole rest of a Unix-like OS?
At the very least, why doesn't someone like Red Hat or even IBM hire a top-notch font designer and have him/her just make a few? How long does it take someone with good skills to make a good, basic font? A year? Six months? Two years?
Hmm. Not that I don't appreciate Bitstream's gift, but ugh, the kerning on those looks terrible -- especially the serif font. Look at the s in "Bitstream" -- it's smashed right up against the first t and a jarringly long way from the second. And the e seems to have a lot of space on both sides.
Unless you make hours of local calls every week, you might want to check if your telco has a plan where *all* calls are toll. This usually costs nine or ten bucks a month plus only pennies per call -- by far the cheapest plan for most people (assuming you have broadband and no teenage children).
Hmmm. Seems like grandiose use of terminology. The headline makes me picture C3PO standing there handing out medication, but in actuality, it sounds only slightly more advanced than one of those coffee vending machines at the bus station. Sure, it's a machine, but what exactly makes this a robot?
Which makes him sound less like an idiot, which is good, because I don't think he is one. Most reviewers certainly didn't understand the film, so having a meaningful viewpoint based merely on that would be impossible. And I'm not even going to consider the promotional material / trailer / etc.
Their business model was obviously superior. Judged on technical merit alone, though, the products weren't and aren't. And my question was: what actual innovations have come from Microsoft? Only a few, and those aren't exactly leaping to mind. This doesn't mean their success isn't "legitimate" -- but there's no evidence to support the idea that it comes from their contributions to technology.
Slashdot Mirror
He now uses them as much as your average joe, though he is still no technophile. The idea that Mr Cyberpunk doesn't use a computer is so man-bites-dog, however, that it still gets reported as fact.
It's the first part of this that I care about, not the second -- it doesn't surprise me that he's not actually a Luddite. But still:
To the "average joe" computer user, technology is basically magic, and that's the point of view Gibson is clearly writing from.
You have to remember that Gibson doesn't actually know much about real technology -- I remember hearing that he doesn't even use a computer. He just thinks this cyber stuff is woah, cool man. This explains a lot -- remember the ridiculous X Files episode he wrote with the T1 line going to a trailer, and the brain-swapping and all that? The tech is just a cinematic device, and he never takes it seriously -- hence all the "psychological and sociological themes".
Now, there's nothing *wrong* with this. Lots of people who write westerns have never touched a horse, and cheap paperback romances don't bear much resemblance to real life.
It does, however, make Gibson less interesting to me as a real-life computer geek -- just as having a even hints of a real social life makes those paperback romances uninteresting.
How many hours a day are you checking your appointments? If you use it as a PDA, it'll easily last all day.
You could follow the link in the story and find out what Sun has to say about it -- it's in their FAQ. Basically, the key word is "network-aware".
From a what-Sun's-not-saying standpoint, I imagine it appeals to them that you can write closed-source software for GNOME without having to pay Trolltech.
I know many Sun users who liked CDE because it was stable as a rock.
Oh yeah? Rocks come to my mind when I think of CDE, but for different reasons. For example, I liked it because of all of the gaping security holes in tooltalk that take Sun forever to patch whenever they crop up.
Not only has someone considered it, but Lego has a whole educational divesion, formerly known as Lego Dacta. Check out the website. It used to be they had some cool sets you couldn't get elsewhere, but with the newly-improved S@H, regular people can get those too.
Lego isn't plural because it's an adjective. The Officially Correct form is "LEGO building blocks". Both "lego" and "legos" are equally "incorrect" -- but of course it's clumsy to follow trademark rules all the time in common speech, so realistically, there's no problem with using either one informally.
I see the table of contents explained in paragraph form. And then one complaint about the organization of the book. And then I expect to read the review, but it's already on to "you can buy this book here", and user comments.
I know complaining about slashdot stories is like shooting those proverbial barreled fish, but sheesh.
"Ford Explorer" is most likely trademarked. Of course I can call Ford Explorers that way. I may not sell my own car under the name "Ford Explorer".
Unless, of course, your car is a Ford Explorer.
Well, I can't see any other reason, so you must be at least somewhat right. But there *is* a whole community of people who make fonts for fun, often free (usually just in the beer sense). But since they do it for platforms for which there already are good core fonts, they tend to be fancy gimmick / display fonts, not basic workaday Times and Helvetica or Arial equivalents.
But it also seems like something someone with a vested interest in Linux might actually fund. I know money's a bit short in this economy, but still.
Those look pretty nice -- I'll probably put some of 'em in the next BU Linux distro. But how about a really nice basic serifed text font? Something that can be the default font in a web browser?
Yet... what is the gain/profit? Will they see an income stream for this?
"The fonts suck" is one of the most common complaints about Linux on the desktop. Having good free fonts available would be a huge step towards the Total World Domination goal -- it would help increase the spread of Linux and therefore the profit these companies make from it. Your argument can be made for *any* open source / free software project -- why are fonts an exception?
Oh, I've fiddled with it enough to know it'd be difficult. Three months is lower than the guesses I made in my last post, you'll notice. But that doesn't answer my real question...
Seriously, I'm perplexed. I understand that making a really nice, readable font is a lot of work -- I've even played around with Fontographer. Getting the kerning and hinting and everything right is both tedious and difficult. But is it actually next to impossible? Is it harder than making a whole Unix-like kernel from scratch? Or the whole rest of a Unix-like OS?
At the very least, why doesn't someone like Red Hat or even IBM hire a top-notch font designer and have him/her just make a few? How long does it take someone with good skills to make a good, basic font? A year? Six months? Two years?
Hmm. Not that I don't appreciate Bitstream's gift, but ugh, the kerning on those looks terrible -- especially the serif font. Look at the s in "Bitstream" -- it's smashed right up against the first t and a jarringly long way from the second. And the e seems to have a lot of space on both sides.
Unless you make hours of local calls every week, you might want to check if your telco has a plan where *all* calls are toll. This usually costs nine or ten bucks a month plus only pennies per call -- by far the cheapest plan for most people (assuming you have broadband and no teenage children).
Yeah, but it's only got 32MB of built-in RAM. Between GPS maps and MP3s, you're going to want to use that for additional memory.
Just because there isn't a command line layer doesn't mean there's nothing underneath the GUI -- a CLI would be on top of that too, of course.
The NT core didn't come from VMS. One of the key developers was an import VMS person, and so there's some shared concepts, but it's a whole new beast.
It's called that because it's a project that was developed on the net. No, really -- it was named back when doing that was something new and strange.
Your priorities are probably different from those of someone writing a BIOS, which has to live on a relatively small chip.
Webster's definition #2 is obviously stupid. :)
I suppose it hinges on the "complicated" -- something for which I've apparently got higher standards than the people who wrote this article.
Hmmm. Seems like grandiose use of terminology. The headline makes me picture C3PO standing there handing out medication, but in actuality, it sounds only slightly more advanced than one of those coffee vending machines at the bus station. Sure, it's a machine, but what exactly makes this a robot?
Which makes him sound less like an idiot, which is good, because I don't think he is one. Most reviewers certainly didn't understand the film, so having a meaningful viewpoint based merely on that would be impossible. And I'm not even going to consider the promotional material / trailer / etc.
Their business model was obviously superior. Judged on technical merit alone, though, the products weren't and aren't. And my question was: what actual innovations have come from Microsoft? Only a few, and those aren't exactly leaping to mind. This doesn't mean their success isn't "legitimate" -- but there's no evidence to support the idea that it comes from their contributions to technology.