It really isn't the hassle that most assume that it is, I assure you.:-)
Oh, not having a car is most certainly a hassle.
I'm 26 and I have yet to own a car. At this point, the novelty has been completely lost, and yet I still need one.
Shopping is ridiculous without one. I can only buy so much as I can carry, which in terms of groceries is usually half of what I want. In terms of capital investments like tools, lumber, or furniture, being carless becomes an absolute joke. Home Depot laughs if you ask about delivery; why would you go to home depot without a car?
I'm limited in my shopping range to only the most convenient, rather than cheapest/best stores, which means I spend more money on inferior products. And it takes a minimum of an hour to go to the supermarket, even though it's right inside my freaking neighborhood.
Travelling is a joke. I tried going to suburbia once without a car, I figured that since everyone in suburbia has one, it would be fine. Nope, disaster. And in the urban environment in which I live, the few people who have cars are so protective of them that asking to borrow one is a serious imposition.
The economics of public transportation are a joke. The next-nearest airport to this city is an hour away. Bus fare is cheap ($15), but if you add in shuttle or taxi fare, round trip becomes $50-80.
If it wasn't the airport, I'd rent a car, as I do for all other trips. A car is $50 a day. Divide by 12 for a two-hour stint, and that $80 trip to the airport should be $4. Where did the other $76 go? To pay for the bus driver?
I admire the fact that you went your whole life without a car, but I can't imagine that it wasn't a hassle, or that you did it without generous help from car owners. My experience being carless is that simple tasks become logistical nightmares. Being carless consumes far more of my planning abilities than it deserves.
AOL, meanwhile, has emphasized the project's independence.
"Mozilla.org remains an independent organization that exists to make Mozilla a successful open-source project, and it supports the entire Mozilla community," said Catherine Corre, an AOL spokeswoman.
I'd like to know what this means. Is AOL not planning to do any development on Mozilla? Is AOL not paying for Mozilla? What's in this deal for Mozilla?
Mozilla will get saddled with the obnoxious task of supporting a 35m customer base of end users. They will get no cash, no AOL developers, and AOL will bail as soon as they see how inadequate an open-source tool is for widespread corporate rollout.
I can't imagine why AOL would flirt with Mozilla, except that it's free, so they might as well investigate Mozilla's exploitability. Mozilla developers are probably gushing at the thought of massive exposure through AOL. Meanwhile, they are getting jacked.
Slowly, surely, inevitably... anime, because of its stories and quality... overtakes the U.S. animation companies... and leaves them behind.
Yeah right. I wish.
A friend of mine once predicted that Anime would be co-opted and destroyed by Hollywood. I said, "Anime is from Japan, how can it ever be destroyed by American corporate culture?" Well, I couldn't see the mechanism, but sadly, he was right.
Most high-visibility anime today has cross-continent appeal: DBZ, Pokemon, Final Fantasy etc. Japanese characters are becoming streamlined and Americanized, and American characters are starting to take on the quirky aspects of anime.
The result? An amorphous, bland mix between the two, highly convenient for film - and especially video game - companies who want to cross-market their products with a minimum of hassle.
I was raised on 80's anime classics like Gallforce, Ranma, and Fist of the North Star. I'm not an anime "expert" but I know enough to differentiate between Japanese film and cheesy OAV (i.e. direct-to-video) material.
Somewhere in the mid-90's, there was a huge OAV push. Since then, anime characters have been predictably hyperactive, poorly rendered and shallow. I've seen some anime that has given me hope (Cowboy Bebop, Mononoke), but based on the first few eps, Evangelion seemed like nothing more than tired OAV.
Now that Square has teamed up with Disney, expect the cross-blanding of American and Japanese styles to continue at full speed. This is the reality: distinct styling has no advantage in a global marketplace.
I find it interesting that dinosaurs were so goddamn BIG. You have to wonder how much more stable, lush, and vibrant the environment must have been to produce such gigantic creatures, and the massive quantities of food they consumed.
The global climate we're living in is basically just the rebound from a recent ice age, ten thousand years ago. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs lived in perpetual SoCal weather for sixty-five million years.
Probably the reason why they never developed intelligence or culture is because the environment was too comfortable to need it (I mean, just look at SoCal:) Meanwhile, we've gone too far in the opposite direction, having created so many adaptive technologies that we've long since conquered the climate and are now endangering it.
Life is a slow process, and so environmental stability is absolutely the critical element. I'm guessing the climate was better before the ice age, and so pottery, cities, and agriculture just weren't needed to survive. Hell, they say the Sahara used to be lush. Who needed camels and waterskins back then?
The data will be stored on ice. Reservations will be taken, but no dress code will be required.
The data will be distributed across several storage units, but otherwise centralized for the convenience of the servers.
Patrons will be able to select from a menu of options, and patrons under 30 will be required to present a valid photo ID.
Where to locate the establishment? Thirty-fourth floor of the World Trade Center, one floor below Giuliani's proposed mayoral bunker and emergency command center. Advantages? "Terrorist-proof."
I challenge anyone to describe the plot of Akira in a way that is accessible to anyone. Come on folks, have you actually looked at the movie?
Yet another person who watched half of Akira when he was fifteen and walked away thinking that it made no sense. Let me help you.
Akira is a straightforward action-adventure movie. The plot is: Tetsuo runs amok.
Metaphorically, the movie is an ego trip. Tetsuo is so powerful that he can't figure out what to do with himself. So he goes looking for Akira, his only possible match.
The main source of difficultly seems to be the cast of characters, who don't fit neatly into good/bad roles.
You have Kay, who is a political activist, and you have Kaneda who is trying to get in Kay's pants. You have the politicians, who are corrupt, and the military officer who eventually figures this out. You have the mad scientist, who is reckless, and you have the mutant kids, who are trying to fight Tetsuo.
As for "actually looking at the movie," I showed it to a stoned teenage girlfriend of mine, and she understood the whole thing on the first pass. She's not an anime fan either. Accessible? I would have to say yes.
A story that originally took many volumes of manga to tell is compressed to an hour and a half;
And yet, the movie made sense and the manga didn't. Hmm. Believe me, I would have read the manga if I could. Same for Battle Angel. It was all ridiculous, as are most comics, to be honest.
Everyone is ALWAYS working to make someone you never met rich.
Yes, and it's always been inefficient and corrupt. Sure, dumping all your money into the hands of the local warlord/emperor/CEO is a quick and easy way to get some projects started. But in that scenario, it's pretty much a roll of the dice as to whether the warlord comes around later in the day and rapes your wife.
It's what Adam Smith called "The Invisible Hand." It turns out that, most of the time, if everyone looks after their own interests, everyone benefits.
Adam Smith...ugh. What's next, Ayn Rand?
The fact that I can buy stuff cheaper at Meglomart than I can buy them from Mom and Pop means that I have more money to spend on more things.
Do you realize that your example, Megalomart, is from a show (KotH) that satires capitalism?
It occurs to me now that Microsoft may eventually be forced to strip down and server-ize Windows, because they aren't making inroads in the server market. And it's quite obvious why.
On one hand, you have these rackmount unix boxes, completely stripped-down and fast as hell. The LAST thing you'll see running on a unix server is a GUI like XWindows, because it's big and unstable and there's no point to it.
On the other hand, you have Windows2k, with its happy colors, transparency, shading, anti-aliasing, and Start! button. It's tweaked out to deliver Quake at framerates unheard-of on Unix, but there's too much cruft and feature-creep to run a simple webserver. It is, and always has been, a desktop OS.
Microsoft's primary strategy is to lower our expectations for performance. Failing that, they may have to strip the cruft out of Windows to compete in some markets.
At my last job, we experienced a change in management from a geek team to a bizdev deam. After the bizdevs settled in, you started to hear rumblings about getting all the developers to run Windows on their Linux boxes.
They did, for example, purchase an ActiveX accounting tool that any one of us could have written cross-platform in a day. (We were all supposed to use it, which is probably where the rumors started about installing Windows).
In any case, it was quite clear that we (the developers) had a lot of power over these bizdevs simply because we ran unix. We could type "rm webserver.conf" while talking to them, and they would have no idea. You don't get that same grace of power when you're constantly on the phone with Microsoft.
You would think that level-headed bizdevs would understand the bottom line in terms of licensing, etc. But the fact is, unix scares people. Windows is a lot more familiar and most ordinary management teams feel a lot more comfortable seeing it around the office.
We never switched, because switching would have destroyed our entire infrastructure. And I learned that 7 years into the web and 9 years into the NT project, Microsoft still can't build a high-volume webserver.
Microsoft has massive ground-level support from all the right people, which is scary. From a technical angle, it is still playing serious catch-up.
Where is it kept this archive known as the past. It is not a physical entity that one can manipulate or encounter. The past is in our minds. It is what we remember.
I like this.
Then you have this plane way up there further away from the earth. Equalling less gravity and less particals compacting it. Of course it is going to slow down.
Here you lose me. I think the designers of atomic clocks would be well aware if something like gravity or vacuum affected their operation. Those clocks slowed down because they were moving faster, and I'm sure they plugged the speed of the airplane into the equation and made sure it fit the theory.
The theory is relativity. It's eighty years old already. Have some faith in it - many experiments have been done to corroborate most of its tenets.
I suspect, based only on absolutely nothing, that only forward time travel is possible.
It's not based on nothing, it's based on all available evidence. Good call, what you "suspect" happens to be true.
I think it may be possible to go forward in time at an accelerated rate (time goes slower for you) or to slow down time (time goes faster for you), maybe to a complete stop.
Yes, that's called the theory of relativity. To stop time, you have to accelerate to the speed of light, which for any massful object would require all the energy in the universe.
After all, as you speed up, you gain mass, so it becomes a law of diminishing returns. The thrust to get from.99c to 1.0c would be infinite, as would your mass at that point. It's not possible.
Relativity is very simple. As you go faster:
* you gain mass. * your time slows down. * you get shorter in the direction of travel.
Strange? Read about it.
parallel universes and other untested theories
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
If his idea pans out, won't there be a host of potential paradoxes, such as time travelers killing their parents and making it impossible for them to exist? No, he says, explaining that those travelers would continue to exist in a ''parallel universe.''
As an armchair physicist, it's not clear to me that the parallel universe theory holds a lot of weight. People seem to forget that it stems from an attempt to explain quantum uncertainty, or why particles spread out into waves with a probability distribution, and only fall into a specific location when they are observed.
The theory is, well, every possible path is taken across an infitine number of universes. But it's equally likely that there is just one universe, and that we simply don't understand the mechanism by which quantum probabilites are selected.
As for time travel, the theory seems to be that, hey, time is a dimension like any other, why not traverse it? Nobody suggests that you can exist in two times simultaneously, or leap from place to place. But time travel suggests that you can be in two places at once, and leap from time to time. Why?
The other thing is that time is not like the other dimensions. It moves in only one direction, which nobody can explain, but it clearly does. We have access to left and right, up and down, but only through time. Where is the fifth dimension that will allow us to access the past and the future?
Time is consistent in a local frame of reference. If you want time travel, jump in a fast spaceship and stop aging with regards to earth. You can alter the rate of time, but it still goes forward. There is nothing in the theory of relativity that suggests otherwise.
I think that's the closest thing to time travel we'll see. And even achieving that much would take a hell of a lot of energy.
"Always wanted a PS2 but couldn't stomach dropping $300...well, here you go".
Three hundred? How about five?
When the PS2 came out, I thought about getting one. Then I realized I needed a second controller, memory cards, the DVD remote, and some games. Maybe a multi-tap, more controllers...who knows what else.
It's a substantial investment. Sure, I spent thousands on my NES and SNES games, but the $2-300 "price point" is becoming farcial with this generation of consoles.
Re:please think twice about stories like this.
on
When Looks Can Kill
·
· Score: 1
You may call this flamebait, but I'm not someone who posts this stuff every day to champion a cause. I just saw this story, and felt strange about it. I mean, it's not like GTA3. This is real life stuff. I would be glad to know what you think.
I agree. Assuming this helmet/tight-turning missile combo works, it's actually a pretty slick upgrade. But it also stems from a cold-war era mindset that says we have to constantly upgrade our weapons regardless of threat level.
You have to consider the implications of operating a military of the US's size. Besides the obvious financial drain, there's also the environmental impact of weapons testing (huge), and the diplomatic impact on other countries (huge). And you should consider how many military weapons programs are flawed, stalled, or never work at all (quite a lot).
I have to admit, I've been a fighter fanboy myself. Still am, to an extent. But at this point, I'm willing to admit that the money is a waste, and the investment is generating a negative return.
Some just show that these people do not understand UI design (all powerful right-click. Yup, nice idea, but when you say how many options there are in modern clients, I wonder how you expect them all to fit in a context menu?
I agree. In Window's right mouse menu, "rename" is right next to "delete."
Interfaces are generally either flat (the right mouse menu) or hierarchical (the standard menus). The next step in interface design is to become contextual, and after that, to be able to override/adjust context when the AI isn't working.
Of course "rename" and "delete" would still be in the same menu. The fact that they're next to each other is an indication of how little thought is put into modern-day UI design.
The one thing I would really like to see is for a variety of email applications to agree on a mailbox format.
Most use some variant of plain text but certainly not in a consistent way. Eudora and unix mail both represent a mailbox as one file, whereas unix mh uses a directory.
Considering that most of us use a variety of email clients these days - including web clients - the killer app would be an easy method of collating all of one's mail into a single location. But of course Yahoo doesn't let you batch download your mail, because then you wouldn't have to read their ads!
That said, the patent is a monster: 7 independent claims and 60 dependent claims. If you really want to go nuts, read those.
Heh. Okay, check this out, this is claim #1:
A method of generating a search result list substantially in real time in response to a search request from a searcher using a computer network, comprising:
OK, so they've specified "real-time." (They also haven't specified anything new.)
Now the analysis. I use the term "no-op" colloquially, to mean "no significant proprietary challenges":
* maintaining (a database). This amounts to CREATE TABLE. No-op. * receiving (web input). No-op. * identifying (a search result). Hell, search the database in linear time. No-op. * ordering (sorting). Unless they specify the method, I say no-op. Go bubble sort. * receiving. No-op again. * recording (auditing). INSERT. No-op.
What was that about real-time again? I didn't edit it out - it's not there to begin with.
Here's an analogy, a patent for taking out all of the trash cans in my apartment in less than five seconds:
* Maintain a database of trash cans in the apartment, comprising unique identifier, location, and last date of empty. * Identify trash cans that are full * Empty trash cans that have been identified * Record the fact that trash cans were emptied.
See, the actual act of taking out the trash was never fleshed out, merely wrapped in duly-obvious administrative tasks that weren't fleshed out either. You end up with a "method" that is "patentable" simply by stringing verbs together. And you can tack on something like "within five seconds" and nobody at the patent office notices that you haven't specified how to do so.
Wow. This is my first time looking at a patent, and you know what? It reminds me very much of every kind of half-assed spec my client handed me when I was a web programmer.
Read on for analysis:
The system and method of the present invention provides a database
Provides a database? How about "uses," "engages," "is dependent upon"? This usage of "provides" is so far out in left-field that it's almost backwards. And yet, I see this exact mistake a lot.
In addition, each account contains at least one search listing having at least three components: a description, a search term comprising one or more keywords, and a bid amount.
As always, input fields are detailed to a laughably meticulous degree. Not to mention, the usage of "comprising" is backwards. One or more keywords comprise a search term. A search term is composed of one or more keywords.
The network information provider enters the search term and the description into a search listing.
And the physical process of using the application is folded into the spec itself like it's some sort of revelation. "First, the user fires up the application." Woah, crucial info!
The rank value generated by the bidding process determines where the network information providers listing will appear on the search results list page that is generated in response to a query of the search term by a searcher located at a client computer on the computer network.
Meanwhile, the actual guts of the algorithm are never defined, instead replaced with tangential buzzwords like "client computer" and useless information about network topology.
This is the current state-of-the-art in spec, boys. This is why your programming job is hell.
I thought asbestosis wasn't cancer. I know asbestos is harmful, I didn't think it was a carcinogen?
"The National Cancer Institute states that: Malignant Mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, is a disease in which cancer (malignant) cells are found in the sac lining the chest (the pleura) or abdomen (the peritoneum). Most people with malignant mesothelioma have worked on jobs where they breathed asbestos."
yes, it sucks. refresh rate, supported resolutions, brightness and viewing angle...lcd's have a lot of catching up to do.
in their favor, they are, perhaps, more comfortable for extended viewing. i chose lcd's over sony's the last time i worked. those trinitrons will blot out the sun.
2. Increase your screen font size/tell the system about the new DPI of the screen.
yes. however, as someone who runs a half-assed semblance of reverse video under windows, i have to say that the accursed_os is mighty unfriendly to tweaking the gui. sucks because monitor+card@16x12 << $500, and yet boner-soft can't get their ass in gear and support it.
in fact, you can get 24x15 for the same five bills. i did (hitachi+matrox), but nobody bothers because like this guy said, the fonts are too small.
you should have the experience of bumping up your fonts, and then dropping back to 800, such that the windows are so large that now all the widget buttons are off the edge of the screen! changing font sizes is a nightmare. i did it anyway.
Maybe they have the same viewable area, but most of the times not the maximum resolution. Typically, you can get 1280x1024 in a 17" CRT, but not more than 1024x768 on a 15" LCD (on a laptop, for instance, the monitor must be SVGA+ our USVGA to achieve more than 1024x768).
And, IMHO, even more importantly...an LCD screen isn't as flexible in the number of screen resolutions it can support. That's because a CRT uses multiple color triads to render a pixel, whereas an LCD uses exactly one.
Thus, an LCD screen can't gracefully downshift from its maximum resolution. A 1024x768 LCD doesn't really support 800x600 or 640x480 because it doesn't have 1.28 or 1.6 of a pixel to give. It would either have to do some funky-ass pixel doubling, or, more likely, a big fat letterbox. I'm pretty sure I've seen both.
This has been my major disappointment with LCD's so far. If you plan to use an LCD, you have to pick a resolution and stick with it!
Slashdot Mirror
It really isn't the hassle that most assume that it is, I assure you. :-)
Oh, not having a car is most certainly a hassle.
I'm 26 and I have yet to own a car. At this point, the novelty has been completely lost, and yet I still need one.
Shopping is ridiculous without one. I can only buy so much as I can carry, which in terms of groceries is usually half of what I want. In terms of capital investments like tools, lumber, or furniture, being carless becomes an absolute joke. Home Depot laughs if you ask about delivery; why would you go to home depot without a car?
I'm limited in my shopping range to only the most convenient, rather than cheapest/best stores, which means I spend more money on inferior products. And it takes a minimum of an hour to go to the supermarket, even though it's right inside my freaking neighborhood.
Travelling is a joke. I tried going to suburbia once without a car, I figured that since everyone in suburbia has one, it would be fine. Nope, disaster. And in the urban environment in which I live, the few people who have cars are so protective of them that asking to borrow one is a serious imposition.
The economics of public transportation are a joke. The next-nearest airport to this city is an hour away. Bus fare is cheap ($15), but if you add in shuttle or taxi fare, round trip becomes $50-80.
If it wasn't the airport, I'd rent a car, as I do for all other trips. A car is $50 a day. Divide by 12 for a two-hour stint, and that $80 trip to the airport should be $4. Where did the other $76 go? To pay for the bus driver?
I admire the fact that you went your whole life without a car, but I can't imagine that it wasn't a hassle, or that you did it without generous help from car owners. My experience being carless is that simple tasks become logistical nightmares. Being carless consumes far more of my planning abilities than it deserves.
But which one is worse?
Granted.
AOL, meanwhile, has emphasized the project's independence.
"Mozilla.org remains an independent organization that exists to make Mozilla a successful open-source project, and it supports the entire Mozilla community," said Catherine Corre, an AOL spokeswoman.
I'd like to know what this means. Is AOL not planning to do any development on Mozilla? Is AOL not paying for Mozilla? What's in this deal for Mozilla?
Mozilla will get saddled with the obnoxious task of supporting a 35m customer base of end users. They will get no cash, no AOL developers, and AOL will bail as soon as they see how inadequate an open-source tool is for widespread corporate rollout.
I can't imagine why AOL would flirt with Mozilla, except that it's free, so they might as well investigate Mozilla's exploitability. Mozilla developers are probably gushing at the thought of massive exposure through AOL. Meanwhile, they are getting jacked.
Slowly, surely, inevitably...
anime, because of its stories and quality...
overtakes the U.S. animation companies...
and leaves them behind.
Yeah right. I wish.
A friend of mine once predicted that Anime would be co-opted and destroyed by Hollywood. I said, "Anime is from Japan, how can it ever be destroyed by American corporate culture?" Well, I couldn't see the mechanism, but sadly, he was right.
Most high-visibility anime today has cross-continent appeal: DBZ, Pokemon, Final Fantasy etc. Japanese characters are becoming streamlined and Americanized, and American characters are starting to take on the quirky aspects of anime.
The result? An amorphous, bland mix between the two, highly convenient for film - and especially video game - companies who want to cross-market their products with a minimum of hassle.
I was raised on 80's anime classics like Gallforce, Ranma, and Fist of the North Star. I'm not an anime "expert" but I know enough to differentiate between Japanese film and cheesy OAV (i.e. direct-to-video) material.
Somewhere in the mid-90's, there was a huge OAV push. Since then, anime characters have been predictably hyperactive, poorly rendered and shallow. I've seen some anime that has given me hope (Cowboy Bebop, Mononoke), but based on the first few eps, Evangelion seemed like nothing more than tired OAV.
Now that Square has teamed up with Disney, expect the cross-blanding of American and Japanese styles to continue at full speed. This is the reality: distinct styling has no advantage in a global marketplace.
I find it interesting that dinosaurs were so goddamn BIG. You have to wonder how much more stable, lush, and vibrant the environment must have been to produce such gigantic creatures, and the massive quantities of food they consumed.
:) Meanwhile, we've gone too far in the opposite direction, having created so many adaptive technologies that we've long since conquered the climate and are now endangering it.
The global climate we're living in is basically just the rebound from a recent ice age, ten thousand years ago. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs lived in perpetual SoCal weather for sixty-five million years.
Probably the reason why they never developed intelligence or culture is because the environment was too comfortable to need it (I mean, just look at SoCal
Life is a slow process, and so environmental stability is absolutely the critical element. I'm guessing the climate was better before the ice age, and so pottery, cities, and agriculture just weren't needed to survive. Hell, they say the Sahara used to be lush. Who needed camels and waterskins back then?
Besides, this is ammo for their argument that they're not a monopoly - they're nice and work with everyone.
Who are you referring to, Microsoft or Apple?
The data will be stored on ice. Reservations will be taken, but no dress code will be required.
The data will be distributed across several storage units, but otherwise centralized for the convenience of the servers.
Patrons will be able to select from a menu of options, and patrons under 30 will be required to present a valid photo ID.
Where to locate the establishment? Thirty-fourth floor of the World Trade Center, one floor below Giuliani's proposed mayoral bunker and emergency command center. Advantages? "Terrorist-proof."
I challenge anyone to describe the plot of Akira in a way that is accessible to anyone. Come on folks, have you actually looked at the movie?
Yet another person who watched half of Akira when he was fifteen and walked away thinking that it made no sense. Let me help you.
Akira is a straightforward action-adventure movie. The plot is: Tetsuo runs amok.
Metaphorically, the movie is an ego trip. Tetsuo is so powerful that he can't figure out what to do with himself. So he goes looking for Akira, his only possible match.
The main source of difficultly seems to be the cast of characters, who don't fit neatly into good/bad roles.
You have Kay, who is a political activist, and you have Kaneda who is trying to get in Kay's pants. You have the politicians, who are corrupt, and the military officer who eventually figures this out. You have the mad scientist, who is reckless, and you have the mutant kids, who are trying to fight Tetsuo.
As for "actually looking at the movie," I showed it to a stoned teenage girlfriend of mine, and she understood the whole thing on the first pass. She's not an anime fan either. Accessible? I would have to say yes.
A story that originally took many volumes of manga to tell is compressed to an hour and a half;
And yet, the movie made sense and the manga didn't. Hmm. Believe me, I would have read the manga if I could. Same for Battle Angel. It was all ridiculous, as are most comics, to be honest.
Everyone is ALWAYS working to make someone you never met rich.
Yes, and it's always been inefficient and corrupt. Sure, dumping all your money into the hands of the local warlord/emperor/CEO is a quick and easy way to get some projects started. But in that scenario, it's pretty much a roll of the dice as to whether the warlord comes around later in the day and rapes your wife.
It's what Adam Smith called "The Invisible Hand." It turns out that, most of the time, if everyone looks after their own interests, everyone benefits.
Adam Smith...ugh. What's next, Ayn Rand?
The fact that I can buy stuff cheaper at Meglomart than I can buy them from Mom and Pop means that I have more money to spend on more things.
Do you realize that your example, Megalomart, is from a show (KotH) that satires capitalism?
It occurs to me now that Microsoft may eventually be forced to strip down and server-ize Windows, because they aren't making inroads in the server market. And it's quite obvious why.
On one hand, you have these rackmount unix boxes, completely stripped-down and fast as hell. The LAST thing you'll see running on a unix server is a GUI like XWindows, because it's big and unstable and there's no point to it.
On the other hand, you have Windows2k, with its happy colors, transparency, shading, anti-aliasing, and Start! button. It's tweaked out to deliver Quake at framerates unheard-of on Unix, but there's too much cruft and feature-creep to run a simple webserver. It is, and always has been, a desktop OS.
Microsoft's primary strategy is to lower our expectations for performance. Failing that, they may have to strip the cruft out of Windows to compete in some markets.
At my last job, we experienced a change in management from a geek team to a bizdev deam. After the bizdevs settled in, you started to hear rumblings about getting all the developers to run Windows on their Linux boxes.
They did, for example, purchase an ActiveX accounting tool that any one of us could have written cross-platform in a day. (We were all supposed to use it, which is probably where the rumors started about installing Windows).
In any case, it was quite clear that we (the developers) had a lot of power over these bizdevs simply because we ran unix. We could type "rm webserver.conf" while talking to them, and they would have no idea. You don't get that same grace of power when you're constantly on the phone with Microsoft.
You would think that level-headed bizdevs would understand the bottom line in terms of licensing, etc. But the fact is, unix scares people. Windows is a lot more familiar and most ordinary management teams feel a lot more comfortable seeing it around the office.
We never switched, because switching would have destroyed our entire infrastructure. And I learned that 7 years into the web and 9 years into the NT project, Microsoft still can't build a high-volume webserver.
Microsoft has massive ground-level support from all the right people, which is scary. From a technical angle, it is still playing serious catch-up.
Where is it kept this archive known as the past. It is not a physical entity that one can manipulate or encounter. The past is in our
minds. It is what we remember.
I like this.
Then you have this plane way up there further away from the earth. Equalling less gravity and less particals compacting it. Of course it is going to slow down.
Here you lose me. I think the designers of atomic clocks would be well aware if something like gravity or vacuum affected their operation. Those clocks slowed down because they were moving faster, and I'm sure they plugged the speed of the airplane into the equation and made sure it fit the theory.
The theory is relativity. It's eighty years old already. Have some faith in it - many experiments have been done to corroborate most of its tenets.
I suspect, based only on absolutely nothing, that only forward time travel is possible.
.99c to 1.0c would be infinite, as would your mass at that point. It's not possible.
It's not based on nothing, it's based on all available evidence. Good call, what you "suspect" happens to be true.
I think it may be possible to go forward in time at an accelerated rate (time goes slower for you) or to slow down time (time goes faster for you), maybe to a complete stop.
Yes, that's called the theory of relativity. To stop time, you have to accelerate to the speed of light, which for any massful object would require all the energy in the universe.
After all, as you speed up, you gain mass, so it becomes a law of diminishing returns. The thrust to get from
Relativity is very simple. As you go faster:
* you gain mass.
* your time slows down.
* you get shorter in the direction of travel.
Strange? Read about it.
If his idea pans out, won't there be a host of potential paradoxes, such as time travelers killing their parents and making it impossible for them to exist? No, he says, explaining that those travelers would continue to exist in a ''parallel universe.''
As an armchair physicist, it's not clear to me that the parallel universe theory holds a lot of weight. People seem to forget that it stems from an attempt to explain quantum uncertainty, or why particles spread out into waves with a probability distribution, and only fall into a specific location when they are observed.
The theory is, well, every possible path is taken across an infitine number of universes. But it's equally likely that there is just one universe, and that we simply don't understand the mechanism by which quantum probabilites are selected.
As for time travel, the theory seems to be that, hey, time is a dimension like any other, why not traverse it? Nobody suggests that you can exist in two times simultaneously, or leap from place to place. But time travel suggests that you can be in two places at once, and leap from time to time. Why?
The other thing is that time is not like the other dimensions. It moves in only one direction, which nobody can explain, but it clearly does. We have access to left and right, up and down, but only through time. Where is the fifth dimension that will allow us to access the past and the future?
Time is consistent in a local frame of reference. If you want time travel, jump in a fast spaceship and stop aging with regards to earth. You can alter the rate of time, but it still goes forward. There is nothing in the theory of relativity that suggests otherwise.
I think that's the closest thing to time travel we'll see. And even achieving that much would take a hell of a lot of energy.
"Always wanted a PS2 but couldn't stomach dropping $300...well, here you go".
Three hundred? How about five?
When the PS2 came out, I thought about getting one. Then I realized I needed a second controller, memory cards, the DVD remote, and some games. Maybe a multi-tap, more controllers...who knows what else.
It's a substantial investment. Sure, I spent thousands on my NES and SNES games, but the $2-300 "price point" is becoming farcial with this generation of consoles.
You may call this flamebait, but I'm not someone who posts this stuff every day to champion a cause. I just saw this story, and felt strange about it. I mean, it's not like GTA3. This is real life stuff. I would be glad to know what you think.
I agree. Assuming this helmet/tight-turning missile combo works, it's actually a pretty slick upgrade. But it also stems from a cold-war era mindset that says we have to constantly upgrade our weapons regardless of threat level.
You have to consider the implications of operating a military of the US's size. Besides the obvious financial drain, there's also the environmental impact of weapons testing (huge), and the diplomatic impact on other countries (huge). And you should consider how many military weapons programs are flawed, stalled, or never work at all (quite a lot).
I have to admit, I've been a fighter fanboy myself. Still am, to an extent. But at this point, I'm willing to admit that the money is a waste, and the investment is generating a negative return.
Some just show that these people do not understand UI design (all powerful right-click. Yup, nice idea, but when you say how many options there are in modern clients, I wonder how you expect them all to fit in a context menu?
I agree. In Window's right mouse menu, "rename" is right next to "delete."
Interfaces are generally either flat (the right mouse menu) or hierarchical (the standard menus). The next step in interface design is to become contextual, and after that, to be able to override/adjust context when the AI isn't working.
Of course "rename" and "delete" would still be in the same menu. The fact that they're next to each other is an indication of how little thought is put into modern-day UI design.
The one thing I would really like to see is for a variety of email applications to agree on a mailbox format.
Most use some variant of plain text but certainly not in a consistent way. Eudora and unix mail both represent a mailbox as one file, whereas unix mh uses a directory.
Considering that most of us use a variety of email clients these days - including web clients - the killer app would be an easy method of collating all of one's mail into a single location. But of course Yahoo doesn't let you batch download your mail, because then you wouldn't have to read their ads!
I've been planning an email system that is based on searches rather than folders.
Yes, good call. Once you start thinking of email in terms of a database, certain things leap into focus.
The only thing from the article I thought was really poignant was integrated PGP. But it exists - I had it for Eudora 3 in college.
What I need:
* Ability to check multiple POP3 boxes at once
* Smart quoting (no wrapping artifacts)
* Performance
* Data integrity
I still use Eudora 3.0 (pre-HTML) and I have no major complaints. If Linux would catch up, I'd be set.
That said, the patent is a monster: 7 independent claims and 60 dependent claims. If you really want to go nuts, read those.
Heh. Okay, check this out, this is claim #1:
A method of generating a search result list substantially in real time in response to a search request from a searcher using a computer network, comprising:
OK, so they've specified "real-time." (They also haven't specified anything new.)
Now the method, in verbs:
maintaining, receiving, identifying, ordering, receiving, recording
Now the analysis. I use the term "no-op" colloquially, to mean "no significant proprietary challenges":
* maintaining (a database). This amounts to CREATE TABLE. No-op.
* receiving (web input). No-op.
* identifying (a search result). Hell, search the database in linear time. No-op.
* ordering (sorting). Unless they specify the method, I say no-op. Go bubble sort.
* receiving. No-op again.
* recording (auditing). INSERT. No-op.
What was that about real-time again? I didn't edit it out - it's not there to begin with.
Here's an analogy, a patent for taking out all of the trash cans in my apartment in less than five seconds:
* Maintain a database of trash cans in the apartment, comprising unique identifier, location, and last date of empty.
* Identify trash cans that are full
* Empty trash cans that have been identified
* Record the fact that trash cans were emptied.
See, the actual act of taking out the trash was never fleshed out, merely wrapped in duly-obvious administrative tasks that weren't fleshed out either. You end up with a "method" that is "patentable" simply by stringing verbs together. And you can tack on something like "within five seconds" and nobody at the patent office notices that you haven't specified how to do so.
Wow. This is my first time looking at a patent, and you know what? It reminds me very much of every kind of half-assed spec my client handed me when I was a web programmer.
Read on for analysis:
The system and method of the present invention provides a database
Provides a database? How about "uses," "engages," "is dependent upon"? This usage of "provides" is so far out in left-field that it's almost backwards. And yet, I see this exact mistake a lot.
In addition, each account contains at least one search listing having at least three components: a description, a search term comprising one or more keywords, and a bid amount.
As always, input fields are detailed to a laughably meticulous degree. Not to mention, the usage of "comprising" is backwards. One or more keywords comprise a search term. A search term is composed of one or more keywords.
The network information provider enters the search term and the description into a search listing.
And the physical process of using the application is folded into the spec itself like it's some sort of revelation. "First, the user fires up the application." Woah, crucial info!
The rank value generated by the bidding process determines where the network information providers listing will appear on the search results list page that is generated in response to a query of the search term by a searcher located at a client computer on the computer network.
Meanwhile, the actual guts of the algorithm are never defined, instead replaced with tangential buzzwords like "client computer" and useless information about network topology.
This is the current state-of-the-art in spec, boys. This is why your programming job is hell.
I thought asbestosis wasn't cancer. I know asbestos is harmful, I didn't think it was a carcinogen?
"The National Cancer Institute states that: Malignant Mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, is a disease in which cancer (malignant) cells are found in the sac lining the chest (the pleura) or abdomen (the peritoneum). Most people with malignant mesothelioma have worked on jobs where they breathed asbestos."
http://www.mesoth.com/diagnosis.htm
I'd at least like to adjust SOMETHING....
yes, it sucks. refresh rate, supported resolutions, brightness and viewing angle...lcd's have a lot of catching up to do.
in their favor, they are, perhaps, more comfortable for extended viewing. i chose lcd's over sony's the last time i worked. those trinitrons will blot out the sun.
2. Increase your screen font size/tell the system about the new DPI of the screen.
yes. however, as someone who runs a half-assed semblance of reverse video under windows, i have to say that the accursed_os is mighty unfriendly to tweaking the gui. sucks because monitor+card@16x12 << $500, and yet boner-soft can't get their ass in gear and support it.
in fact, you can get 24x15 for the same five bills. i did (hitachi+matrox), but nobody bothers because like this guy said, the fonts are too small.
you should have the experience of bumping up your fonts, and then dropping back to 800, such that the windows are so large that now all the widget buttons are off the edge of the screen! changing font sizes is a nightmare. i did it anyway.
Maybe they have the same viewable area, but most of the times not the maximum resolution. Typically, you can get 1280x1024 in a 17" CRT, but not more than 1024x768 on a 15" LCD (on a laptop, for instance, the monitor must be SVGA+ our USVGA to achieve more than 1024x768).
And, IMHO, even more importantly...an LCD screen isn't as flexible in the number of screen resolutions it can support. That's because a CRT uses multiple color triads to render a pixel, whereas an LCD uses exactly one.
Thus, an LCD screen can't gracefully downshift from its maximum resolution. A 1024x768 LCD doesn't really support 800x600 or 640x480 because it doesn't have 1.28 or 1.6 of a pixel to give. It would either have to do some funky-ass pixel doubling, or, more likely, a big fat letterbox. I'm pretty sure I've seen both.
This has been my major disappointment with LCD's so far. If you plan to use an LCD, you have to pick a resolution and stick with it!