I think it's a psychological thing. Many people find being constantly reminded that what they're using and supporting is popular helps validate their own decisions. It's not a bad thing; everyone likes to hear they're not alone from time to time.
The funny part with things like this is that if Firefox replaces IE as the most common browser, a lot of the initial adopters will suddenly find themselves no longer so steadfast in their support of the Firefox package.
It's like when you discover an obscure new band that you really like, and one day one of their songs hit the radio and they take off. You start seeing droves of clueless teenagers walking around with a t-shirt with that band's picture on it, and you suddenly find the band just doesn't seem that cool anymore.
"Yeah, I liked that band/firefox before it became popular, but now it sucks"
I should remember this post; the way things are going, Firefox may reach dominance in the browser world in another 18 months. When the story hits Slashdot (and you'll bet it will) I'd wager you'll see a huge number of comments talking about how Opera is way better.
I like Firefox; it's been my default browser for quite some time. Browser dominance seems to go in 5-6 year cycles. When the web took off and reached mainstream acceptance, Netscape was the boss on the Windows platform. Then, somewhere around '99 we discovered that IE was actually much, much better. Now Firefox puts IE to shame, and folks are switching. I'll bet somewhere around 2010 Firefox will lose to someone else (it might be IE, but I doubt it.)
I really like that. It's the kind of thing I've thought of doing myself but, lacking either motivation or the basic knowledge needed, I've never got anywhere further then the daydream stage. Good job.
There are two things that could be done to make it a bit more enjoyable. The first is to keep the initial type hammers (if that's what they're called--the things which have the actual letter carved into the end that physically rises up and strikes the ribbon and paper) in tact. The circuit isn't completed until it actually hits where the ribbon and paper used to be.
When I was younger and actually was around manual typewriters, I remember hitting a key, watching the type hammer rise up, and thinking for a moment before completing the stroke if that's the letter I really wanted to use. The result would be a physical, viewable method to see how far the key should be pressed before the computer receives the input, as well as adding to a little auditory feedback, keeping the 'clickty click' sound in tact.
The second modification, and this involves a great deal of work for something that might end up to be pointless, is to put some sort of pressure sensors on the machine to see how hard the keys are being pressed. Swift, high pressure strikes would be detected and the interface software would autmatically turn on "bold".
In other words, lightly pressed keys would show up on the screen as light, normal text, while keys struck harder would show up as bold, somewhat simulating the effect you could get with some manual typewriters where the amount of pressure used in a keypress would effect the darkness of the typed letter.
Granted, that would take a lot of time and effort to engineer, and would likely proove to be an annoyance, as your documents end up with various random bold letters, and would be shut off shortly after development. But, it'd still be neat.
I have something similier in my car; an older 600mhz dell laptop connected to a power inverter in the seat and a Garmin handheld GPS. I have an 802.11b Orinoco card with a 5dbi mag-mount antenna connected to a pigtail to the card, and another 803.11b/g card with internal antenna. This setup can do just about everything the setup in the article has, with the exception of the live TV (though I can stream mpg video over the wireless lan), the cell phone interface (I have Sprint... ugh), and my system is not connected to my car stereo (though, in a pinch, I can burn a CD-R with MP3s and throw it in the car player).
The main difference though, between his setup and mine is, mine looks like garbage. When it's setup the passenger seat has the laptop (making it unusable) and there are wires running everywhere. To me, that's what makes this guys setup so friggin' cool. When this guy goes out on a date, he doesn't have to spend 20 minutes packing everything up and storing it in the trunk (because, believe it or not, most girls are not impressed by a car full of lose computer equipment and wires running everywhere).
I think when someone gets around to making custom kits for various vehicles for mobile computer installation--that blend in with the interior of the car like this guy's setup does--they'll do pretty well. While I wouldn't really care for streaming video (how am I supposed to watch TV while I'm driving?), I would like to see systems that made it easy for the car computer to connect to your wireless network, and from your desktop computer copy whichever mp3s (or OGG or whatever) you felt like having in your car's library.
I could imagine going over to a friends house, and him asking me "Have you heard XYZ's new album?" "No.. any good?" "It's great. Here, I'll burn you a copy" "Don't bother. I noticed you don't have WEP running on your wireless, so my car has probably already negotiated a connection and is on your LAN." (clicks on 'my network', and my shared folder configured through samba shows up) "There it is. Just drag and drop the music files into there".
Again, this all could be done using existing technology. The only hurdles are getting the dang thing configured for what you want it to do, and getting it installed into your car so it looks nice.
This reminds me of an idea I had some time ago. There are many out there (myself included) who don't see a problem in spending a good chunk of change for a computer case that looks nice. The problem is, pretty much every design out there is suited for modern looking decor.
My home office is largely decorated in rich, dark woods, while my computer case (currently silver) sticks out like a sore thumb. My idea is to use something I've never seen in computer case design before: wood. Now, I understand you'd still have to have a metal enclosure to shield against EM interference, but I don't see why you couldn't affix nice polished cherry or walnut panels to the outside (in a similar way that wood accents are attached to otherwise plastic dashboards in modern cars). I'm sure you have to have quite a few openings in the wood to allow for ventilation. Personally, I'd be pleased if I could transform the computer case to look more something like a vintage appliance, like an old radio or television set.
Has anyone done anything like this, or are there inherent problems with wood which prevent it from being attached to a metal case?
Going over the article, it seems to focus a lot on the mostly benign while overlooking the real danger.
It's not these scary terrorist webpages. Heck, I could start my own webpage tomorrow called "People's Jihad of America", or some such rubbish, then provide a link under "training" entitled "How to detonate a nuclear bomb"
The body could be something like: First you find a nuclear bomb. Bring the bomb into America. This is the tricky part because you might get caught, so we suggest trying to smuggle it in as discreetly as possible. Once you've got it in the United States, take it a city like New York or Los Angeles. You should do this because those are dense cities and the denser the city, the more people the bomb will kill. Finally, take the bomb to the center of the city because that's where most of the people live, and detonate it".
The next day, there would be news reports that "An American website affiliated with terrorist organizations published a training manual for a nuclear attack against the United States. Singling out either New York or Los Angeles for attack, the manual provides tips on how to smuggle a bomb into the country, and even instructs on the proper placement of the nuclear device to have maximum effectiveness.
Well . . . um . . . duh.
The real scary part is communication, not webpages. Anonymous emails and chat rooms abound where parent terrorist cells can disseminate orders and information to subordinate cells. Simply handwriting a note and scanning it, emailing the message as a jpg can defeat pretty much all of our best detection methods. This--which is the real threat--is all but ignored in the media.
But some yahoo puts up a website after thumbing through the Anarchist's Cookbook, and we're supposed to be scared of that.
Right now the astronauts are sitting in the shuttle, wondering when it's going to land. NASA has probably given them some B.S. story about 'technical difficultys' and passing out free headphones so the passengers can watch the crummy in flight movie.
Hopefully, some of those astronauts will make a fuss and get their next ticket for free, or, at the very least NASA will upgrade them to 1st class when (and if) they chose to fly NASA again.
Sadly, idiots then write description of the film without ever having watched it (Or paid attention). Idiot begats idiot.
While it's clear the movie was more of a comment on the nature of violence in America, anyone who watched it (and paid attention) could easily see that Moore used a pretty skewed approach, replete with sinsationalism, deception and lies to make his point.
I saw it, I even agree with him. But it's not an objective documentary, and shouldn't really be taken seriously as a tool to understand the problem.
It's not the subject matter of his movies that are bad, or even that the point he's trying to make is wrong. It's the process he employes; the editing to twist people's words around, the ambush interviews under false pretenses, and the conclusions he reaches under falatious logic.
He pisses off conservitives because he uses lies and deception to support a point they don't agree with.
He pisses me off (and I'm pretty liberal) because he uses lies and deception to support a point I do agree with.
If Moore tried to employ a little journalistic integrity or even simple objectivity (which even he admits he doesn't do), he could be a powerful voice. Instead he's a con artist who preys off those who have yet to learn how to read between his lines.
I felt the same way. What bothered me more was that it tended to anthropomorphize at the expense of actual facts. It seemed a lot was left out about the penguins as a biological species in order to show how these amazing little creatures are "a lot like us"
For example, they state that "somehow the penguins know how to all go to the same place they were born", as if this was some great mystery. I've read, and seen in other documentaries that many birds have features in their skulls which act more or less like a compass. I don't know if penguins possess this, but it seems reasonable.
But it's as if that sort of technical explanation would ruin the myth that the penguins follow some humanlike, almost spiritual journey, instead of simply following cues from instinct and biological features.
At the very least they could have explained how to tell the males from the females, because they all looked alike to me.
I'm a Sprint customer right now, and I can honestly say Sprint sucks. Granted, everyone has horror stories about any one particular wireless provider (none are perfect), but the issues I've had with Sprint have been insane.
It's not so much the service itself (which is not great, I still get dropped calls from time to time, but it's acceptable). It's their crummy customer service and problem resolution system. They disconnected my service 'accidentally', claiming I hadn't paid my bill when I had, despite the fact their customer service reps told me their computers showed a credit on my account followed by a "I don't understand why this happened. Don't worry, we'll fix it. Your service will be on within four hours." Four hours would pass, no service, I'd call again, same response with a "oh, this time it will be different". This lasted 3 ½ days. To make matters worse, every time I'd call their "customer care" number and punch in my phone number, they'd bump me to their collections department, where I'd wait on hold before getting to speak with somebody who would insist I hadn't paid my bill until I convinced them to look at their computer, then transfer me back into the queue for their regular customer service. To make matters worse, about one out of every three calls I made connected me with such a thick accent I couldn't understand them, and they had real trouble understanding me.
There's a lot more; this is just the problem I've had in the last week. I'm stuck in this contract with them for another 11 months and to date fully expect to ditch them as soon as my contract is up.
So my question is this: with Nextel, can I expect things to get any better?
One thing I'd be curious to find out is the amount of piracy that goes on in individual foreign nations, and how that affects the availability of legal music download services.
While I don't have any hard figures, if I had to guess there would be a strong one. In other words, music services like iTunes sees a particular country start to dive into to the illegal swapping of regional music on a P2P service, and uses that to gauge the market.
I can't help but wonder if p2p services, while fostering illegal distribution of copyrighted material, are actually warming new markets to the idea of getting music from the Internet instead of conventional CDs.
I highly doubt iTunes (or any of the other for-pay music download services) would have seen any success in the US if we hadn't had Nappster introduce the masses to the ease and convenience of keeping music in a digital format back in the 90s. The MP3 format in general would probably not achieved the status as a household word if it wasn't for p2p networks introducing us to it and making it popular, not to mention the sales of mp3 players like the iPod or the massive amount of mp3 ready audio devices (when I last purchased a new car stereo, I made sure that it would play mp3s, and I love it. My sister just bought a new car with a stock radio that plays mp3s.)
The question I'm getting at, and I'm just wondering out loud here, is how much profit has been realized by various industries stemming from the illegal swapping of files online? My guess would be that number is pretty high, since if it wasn't for p2p networks (or various other methods which have been used to swap music without permission from copyright holders), mp3s would be still be stuck in the domain of hobbyists. There would be no iPods or mp3 enabled CD players, and ultimately no iTunes.
An easy way to help quantify that figure would be to see how successful iTunes becomes in nations with a relatively high rate of illegal file swapping compared with a nation whose population is otherwise is into music, but the culture of file swapping never caught on.
The notable exception would be China, since their cultural attitudes towards media piracy is so lax that any attempt to legitimize to process by charging money would probably be met with indifference.
You've perfectly and succinctly summed up my point. Like computer animation, 3D should just be a tool used to tell a story. Pixar's CG movies are great movies which happen to be rendered with computers, as opposed to fancy computer rendering which happens to come together as a movie (which, honestly, I thought Toy Story would be).
If film makers saw 3D as a complimentary tool to tell their stories in a different way, and their work focused on the story, instead of the "gee-wiz everybody look it's 3D!", then I think we'd see progress made with the format. If enough film makers experimented with this tool, and more importantly enough movie studios kept the original 3D versions in wide release, it would catch on.
Granted, it was half a century ago, but it would be hard to argue that 3-D was never given a chance.
I can't speak for Hondo (since, until you mentioned it I never knew it was in 3D), but Dial M for Murder and Kiss Me Kate, while filmed in 3D only had a limited release in the format. I would say that that's a pretty solid argument; at the very least, the chance 3D has had in non sci-fi genres has been limited.
The fact that it was mildly succesfull in the sci-fi/horror genre did little more then stigmitize the process as a gimmick, not really acceptable for "real" films.
I think there are some basic problems with the moderation system which could be the cause.
I seem to always have mod points, which I rarely use simply because if there's a topic interesting enough to read, it's interesting enough to comment on.
So I comment all the time and typically get modded up (typically.. sometimes I'm faced with folks who don't get it and mod me down).Because of the frequency of comments, slashdot gives me a near unlimited number of mod points which I hardly use.
Meanwhile, Joe Average Slashdot user, who prefers to read the comments instead of posting on them seldom, if ever gets mod points.
The biggist flaw in this is the inability to mod in a topic which you're participating in. I would think that those who comment all the time, and are requiently modded up and have great karma could be trusted to be fair and objective modding coments in a thread he or she posts in.
As in "wow, that post says something interesting, and leads me to some questions. It deserves to be modded up, but I'm going to post a reply to it to ask a few more qiestions.
The second biggest problem is idiot mods. Personally, I don't think anyone should be able to mod a post down until the've been on Slashdot a long, long time. Somebody modded the parent to this post 'redundant', despite the fact nobody else has made anything remotely close to your post in this thread. If anything, "off topic" would make more sense, but it seems the kind of people who most often mod down are the most stupid people out there. The same type of mod will probably rate this reply as "off topic", despite the fact that it's right on topic with the parent post, irregardless of if it's insightful or informative.
Finally, I see a problem with Slashdot for not having a general discussion thread, where it would be apprioate to wonder outloud what you brought up without getting in the way of the discussion relivent to a particular story.
But over all, I'd say the biggest problem is people who place too much emphsis on mod points to begin with. Once your Karma hits a sufficently high level, you always post at +2. All this really means is you'll reach +5 more quickly then if you posted at +1, like most people do.
Moderation points do not strictly define who you are, or even the value of your post. They're just an arbitrary number which losely demonstrates your appeal to whomever has the mod points at the time. Personally, I've discovered posts I've written which I feel are very insightful and informitive, and those posts remain untouched by the mods. But I've also made quite a few posts which are not neccescarly great, and get +5.
I've always felt that it's better to get a reply then a moderation, and it's always better to reply to a good post then to mod them up, denining me the oppertunity to take part in the discussion.
But, you know, that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.
*** not posted anonymously, becase despite being relevent to the parent, some dorktard is going to mod it down as off topic, and I've got Karma to burn.
I made another post in this threat which addressed that, essentially comparing 3D to computer animation, and how just as CGI cartoons never took off until Toy Story, 3D will never take off until a artist makes a *good* movie that takes advantage of the 3D process.
I can't help to think that 3D hasn't taken off yet because, to date, there hasn't been a really good movie to take advantage of the process, which could explain that while 3D has existed in various forms for the last 60 years, it's rare to see a wide released feature film.
I can remember, as an example, computer animation. When it first hit the scene, it was more of a novelty, and I can remember thinking to myself "computer animation will never be successful, it's doomed to stay a novelty for all time, even if it does get better".
Then Toy Story came out, and my opinion instantly changed. It wasn't because I thought the graphics were especially good, it was because as a whole I really, really enjoyed the movie. They did some things in it that you couldn't do in convential ink and pen animation, and ommitted several traditional animation techniques commonly found in previous hand drawn films.
When I first saw Toy Story, it was on video shown at the free 'mini' theatre on my college campus. I avoided it at the box office because I thought "why spend money on something that's going to be a fad?", and only went to the free showing because going to the free movies was a great way to kill time while procrastinating on that paper you're supposed to be writing.
I really was taken aback. "This is a pretty good movie" I thought, and realized I was compleatly wrong about computer animation. Since the release of Toy Story, computer animation has become the rule instead of the exception, with (it seems to be, at least) more computer animation movies being released now then the tridtional hand drawn animated features.
If 3D could score a toy story, it could really take off. But since the bulk of all 3D movies are usually really bad, and nobody has yet to release a "masterpeice" in the format, I think most people's impressions of 3D are akin to my initial take on computer animation; that is, it's kind of neat, but not something I'd go out of my way for.
In regards to the artistic problems you mentioned: yes, a good deal of traditional methods of film making will have to be reevaluated in order to accomidate the different format. But that's kind of the point; filming in 3d can let the director try new techniques to bring out the qualities of 3D.
The Hitchcock movie I was thinking of is "Dial M For Murder". From the IMDB: Filmed in 3D, which explains the prevalence of low-angle shots with lamps and other objects between us and the cast members. There was only a brief original release in 3D, followed by a conventional, "flat" release; the 3D version was reissued in 1980.
While I've only seen the 'flat' version (as most people have), what this suggests is that Hitchcock understood, at least on some level, the various limitations traditional methods of film making pose when presenting a work in 3D. That doesn't mean one can't make an artistic work in the 3D format, it simply means that the film maker has to change the way he or she does things, throw out a lot of the traditional "rules" and techniques.
While certian lens effects now would have to be avoided, I could easily see new and different effects--which would never work in a 2D film--tried and developed.
To put it in a nutshell, I don't think going to 3D would neccescarlly be harder, it simply would be a dramatically different process, one that hasn't had the last 70 years or so to be perfected in as traditional 2D film makig has had. In time, as directors understand the different nuances of filming in 3D and develop new techniques for it, I'm positive that 3D will become a viable alternitive to what we've got now.
As for the suboptimable viewing angles, I have to wonder how that would be experienced in "stadium seating" configuration most new movie theatres are using. I would think, based on the IMAX films presented in 3D and amusement park 3D attractions which provide seating arrangements that are much closer to the new stadium seating regular theatres then the traditonal seating configuration theatres have had for decades.
The last time I saw a 3D presentation was the SpongeBob Squarepants attraction at Great America in San Jose, which not only was very entertaining, but was a signifigantly better 3D experience then my memories of watching Jaws "3D" a little over 20 years ago in a traditional theatre setting (that it was kind of crummy movie didn't help either).
Granted, SpongeBob had the seats all placed on actuators which shook you around during the movie and of course it's a cartoon, so it's hard to say if that had something to do with it in directing the viewers focus so well, but overall I thought the effort was one of the most well done productions I've seen in 3D.
I thought the same thing, but ultimatly I would hope that a user (or a particular version of a file) would be ranked on a level of credibility independant of any other identifyable attributes.
So, for example, file X is posted to a file sharing site by user XYZ123, (which would use a unique identifyer as the username stored in the p2p client.) As file X reaches more shared directories across the Internet, so as long as it's unmolested and unchanged, the credibility lended to the file by the initial user who put it up remains intact withen the index for that particular file, while the actual ID of that user is thrown out.
And of course, at no time is any inditifyiable information about the highly credible user who first put the file up associated with the file itself. The rest of the network only knows that the file was initially offered by "a very credible source", but not who that source is, his user ID or his IP address.
Monitoring or "rating" the credibility of any one particular user is done on the server side, with the associated unique user ID of the file orginator attached to the file in the index, which again only looks at the user id and is compleatly independant from the originating IP of that user.
So, if for some reason the data in the index gets into the hands of a litigious party, the only thing they have to go on is the user IDs which aren't associated with any real, solid identifying attributes.
Upon knowing that the index had been comprimised, the client could automatically be informed of this when logging on to the index server and change the random user ID to something else, then broadcast the new user ID with the last known (to the client) level of credibility. The index server is then told that a new user has logged on who has in the past offered a particular level of credibility, without having the knowledge of who that person is or with what files they used to gain that reputation.
The major downside to this, as I see it, would be that it places a signifigant burden on the indexing server, as now it not only has to determine who is sharing what, but the credibility and anonymous source of that credibility for each of the millions of unique files on the service. Also, with all that data stored on the server, whoever opperates the physical machine could easily become the focus of various lawsuits.
Either way, it's a tough nut to crack to keep a record of the reputation of individual users and files while keeping thouse user's identity private.
But somewhere along the line a stigma was attached to it which keeps anything other then sci-fi/horror filmmakers away from the format.
Hitchcock saw 3D as an exciting new direction to take the art of films, and originally shot and released one of his pictures in 3D format. Aparently, this wasn't enough to get it to catch on in serious film making circles.
Ultimatly the push towards 3D may simply be found in the new technology. Directors who never considered 3D--because of the 'out of sight, out of mind' nature of the "novelty" of 3D--might see the new and exciting equipment and processes for 3D production and give it a shot.
3D stands as one of the last methods in film making which has yet to be explored artistically (Alfred Hitchcock's single effort aside). I for one would be delighted if serious film makers picked up the process and did something more then "we can use this to make the audience feel like a shark is floating right in front of them, read to attack" or "watch as the blood splatter appears to fly out into the audience". In other words, I'd like to see a director try to do more with 3D then just gee-wiz novelty special effects and try to make a serious, artistic film which uses 3D to compliment the overall value of the work.
It is. No matter what, people are going to find a way to share copywrited material against the wishes of the copywrite owner.
All DRM will eventually accomplish is placing so many restrictions on the free, personal and moreover legal use of owned materials that consumers will find it's actually much, much easier to possess illegal copies of various media then purchasing them.
I may spend $18 on a CD because I want to own the music on it, but if it turns out that the CD won't play in all of my players and it's impossible for me to rip tracks off of it to make a legal 'mix tape', it doesn't take a brain scientist to figure out I'm going to bypass the tedious process of purchasing the CD and find the tracks I want online, with which I can do with whatever I want.
Good business thinking would suggest that if your sales are slumping, pissing off your remaining paying customers is probably not a good idea.
You're assuming that everything done on a P2P network is "illegal", and everything done by **AA members is "legal".
Granted, the bulk of file sharing going on on these P2P networks is the sharing of copywrited files without the permission of the copywrite owner. However, that does not preclude the many legitimate uses for the services.
As it stands, there's nothing to stop the RIAA from posting bogus files of a popular MP3 recorded by a non RIAA member studio who encourages the sharing of the file they own the copywrite to. If non RIAA record companys start to find that allowing the free exchange of music to be a marketing technique which ultimatly yeild more profits (which some are doing, and it's happening more and more each day), I wouldn't put it past the RIAA to try to sabotage that with underhanded tactics.
Considering the ethical track record of record companies for the last 50 years, suggesting they would start to employ subtrifuge and trickery to hurt comptition--especially when that compitition threatens their triditional marketing and distribution channels--is not an unreasonable idea.
File sharing of mp3s may technically be illegal, but the companies who are combating it are immoral and unethical. A research project such as this might make it easier to perform illegal acts, but its ultimate utility lies in dismanteling dishonest and unethical practices by the RIAA et. al.
Odd. The very first thing I thought of when I saw the page is "Microsoft finally gets it" too.
I can't speak for the rest of the Internet users out there, but for me if I'm going to have a start page I want it to be as simple and minimal as possible. No fancy graphics, no distracting ads or animations, just a few key headlines from my preferred news source, a quick check of my email, and the weather.
Until I discovered Google's start page, my home page was about:blank. That Microsoft's latest start page/portal seems to follow the "less is more" philosophy, I'm quite pleased. I hope that with time, more companies will understand that complexity in webpage design, unless it is somehow needed, is usually more of a hindrance then a help.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's a psychological thing. Many people find being constantly reminded that what they're using and supporting is popular helps validate their own decisions. It's not a bad thing; everyone likes to hear they're not alone from time to time.
The funny part with things like this is that if Firefox replaces IE as the most common browser, a lot of the initial adopters will suddenly find themselves no longer so steadfast in their support of the Firefox package.
It's like when you discover an obscure new band that you really like, and one day one of their songs hit the radio and they take off. You start seeing droves of clueless teenagers walking around with a t-shirt with that band's picture on it, and you suddenly find the band just doesn't seem that cool anymore.
"Yeah, I liked that band/firefox before it became popular, but now it sucks"
I should remember this post; the way things are going, Firefox may reach dominance in the browser world in another 18 months. When the story hits Slashdot (and you'll bet it will) I'd wager you'll see a huge number of comments talking about how Opera is way better.
I like Firefox; it's been my default browser for quite some time. Browser dominance seems to go in 5-6 year cycles. When the web took off and reached mainstream acceptance, Netscape was the boss on the Windows platform. Then, somewhere around '99 we discovered that IE was actually much, much better. Now Firefox puts IE to shame, and folks are switching. I'll bet somewhere around 2010 Firefox will lose to someone else (it might be IE, but I doubt it.)
I really like that. It's the kind of thing I've thought of doing myself but, lacking either motivation or the basic knowledge needed, I've never got anywhere further then the daydream stage. Good job.
There are two things that could be done to make it a bit more enjoyable. The first is to keep the initial type hammers (if that's what they're called--the things which have the actual letter carved into the end that physically rises up and strikes the ribbon and paper) in tact. The circuit isn't completed until it actually hits where the ribbon and paper used to be.
When I was younger and actually was around manual typewriters, I remember hitting a key, watching the type hammer rise up, and thinking for a moment before completing the stroke if that's the letter I really wanted to use. The result would be a physical, viewable method to see how far the key should be pressed before the computer receives the input, as well as adding to a little auditory feedback, keeping the 'clickty click' sound in tact.
The second modification, and this involves a great deal of work for something that might end up to be pointless, is to put some sort of pressure sensors on the machine to see how hard the keys are being pressed. Swift, high pressure strikes would be detected and the interface software would autmatically turn on "bold".
In other words, lightly pressed keys would show up on the screen as light, normal text, while keys struck harder would show up as bold, somewhat simulating the effect you could get with some manual typewriters where the amount of pressure used in a keypress would effect the darkness of the typed letter.
Granted, that would take a lot of time and effort to engineer, and would likely proove to be an annoyance, as your documents end up with various random bold letters, and would be shut off shortly after development. But, it'd still be neat.
Boy I'm getting tired. Sorry for all the typos above. It's my own dang fault for not hitting preview.
I have something similier in my car; an older 600mhz dell laptop connected to a power inverter in the seat and a Garmin handheld GPS. I have an 802.11b Orinoco card with a 5dbi mag-mount antenna connected to a pigtail to the card, and another 803.11b/g card with internal antenna. This setup can do just about everything the setup in the article has, with the exception of the live TV (though I can stream mpg video over the wireless lan), the cell phone interface (I have Sprint... ugh), and my system is not connected to my car stereo (though, in a pinch, I can burn a CD-R with MP3s and throw it in the car player).
The main difference though, between his setup and mine is, mine looks like garbage. When it's setup the passenger seat has the laptop (making it unusable) and there are wires running everywhere. To me, that's what makes this guys setup so friggin' cool. When this guy goes out on a date, he doesn't have to spend 20 minutes packing everything up and storing it in the trunk (because, believe it or not, most girls are not impressed by a car full of lose computer equipment and wires running everywhere).
I think when someone gets around to making custom kits for various vehicles for mobile computer installation--that blend in with the interior of the car like this guy's setup does--they'll do pretty well. While I wouldn't really care for streaming video (how am I supposed to watch TV while I'm driving?), I would like to see systems that made it easy for the car computer to connect to your wireless network, and from your desktop computer copy whichever mp3s (or OGG or whatever) you felt like having in your car's library.
I could imagine going over to a friends house, and him asking me "Have you heard XYZ's new album?" "No.. any good?" "It's great. Here, I'll burn you a copy" "Don't bother. I noticed you don't have WEP running on your wireless, so my car has probably already negotiated a connection and is on your LAN." (clicks on 'my network', and my shared folder configured through samba shows up) "There it is. Just drag and drop the music files into there".
Again, this all could be done using existing technology. The only hurdles are getting the dang thing configured for what you want it to do, and getting it installed into your car so it looks nice.
This reminds me of an idea I had some time ago. There are many out there (myself included) who don't see a problem in spending a good chunk of change for a computer case that looks nice. The problem is, pretty much every design out there is suited for modern looking decor.
My home office is largely decorated in rich, dark woods, while my computer case (currently silver) sticks out like a sore thumb. My idea is to use something I've never seen in computer case design before: wood. Now, I understand you'd still have to have a metal enclosure to shield against EM interference, but I don't see why you couldn't affix nice polished cherry or walnut panels to the outside (in a similar way that wood accents are attached to otherwise plastic dashboards in modern cars). I'm sure you have to have quite a few openings in the wood to allow for ventilation. Personally, I'd be pleased if I could transform the computer case to look more something like a vintage appliance, like an old radio or television set.
Has anyone done anything like this, or are there inherent problems with wood which prevent it from being attached to a metal case?
Going over the article, it seems to focus a lot on the mostly benign while overlooking the real danger.
It's not these scary terrorist webpages. Heck, I could start my own webpage tomorrow called "People's Jihad of America", or some such rubbish, then provide a link under "training" entitled "How to detonate a nuclear bomb"
The body could be something like: First you find a nuclear bomb. Bring the bomb into America. This is the tricky part because you might get caught, so we suggest trying to smuggle it in as discreetly as possible. Once you've got it in the United States, take it a city like New York or Los Angeles. You should do this because those are dense cities and the denser the city, the more people the bomb will kill. Finally, take the bomb to the center of the city because that's where most of the people live, and detonate it".
The next day, there would be news reports that "An American website affiliated with terrorist organizations published a training manual for a nuclear attack against the United States. Singling out either New York or Los Angeles for attack, the manual provides tips on how to smuggle a bomb into the country, and even instructs on the proper placement of the nuclear device to have maximum effectiveness.
Well . . . um . . . duh.
The real scary part is communication, not webpages. Anonymous emails and chat rooms abound where parent terrorist cells can disseminate orders and information to subordinate cells. Simply handwriting a note and scanning it, emailing the message as a jpg can defeat pretty much all of our best detection methods. This--which is the real threat--is all but ignored in the media.
But some yahoo puts up a website after thumbing through the Anarchist's Cookbook, and we're supposed to be scared of that.
Right now the astronauts are sitting in the shuttle, wondering when it's going to land. NASA has probably given them some B.S. story about 'technical difficultys' and passing out free headphones so the passengers can watch the crummy in flight movie.
Hopefully, some of those astronauts will make a fuss and get their next ticket for free, or, at the very least NASA will upgrade them to 1st class when (and if) they chose to fly NASA again.
Sadly, idiots then write description of the film without ever having watched it (Or paid attention). Idiot begats idiot.
While it's clear the movie was more of a comment on the nature of violence in America, anyone who watched it (and paid attention) could easily see that Moore used a pretty skewed approach, replete with sinsationalism, deception and lies to make his point.
I saw it, I even agree with him. But it's not an objective documentary, and shouldn't really be taken seriously as a tool to understand the problem.
It's not the subject matter of his movies that are bad, or even that the point he's trying to make is wrong. It's the process he employes; the editing to twist people's words around, the ambush interviews under false pretenses, and the conclusions he reaches under falatious logic.
He pisses off conservitives because he uses lies and deception to support a point they don't agree with.
He pisses me off (and I'm pretty liberal) because he uses lies and deception to support a point I do agree with.
If Moore tried to employ a little journalistic integrity or even simple objectivity (which even he admits he doesn't do), he could be a powerful voice. Instead he's a con artist who preys off those who have yet to learn how to read between his lines.
I felt the same way. What bothered me more was that it tended to anthropomorphize at the expense of actual facts. It seemed a lot was left out about the penguins as a biological species in order to show how these amazing little creatures are "a lot like us"
For example, they state that "somehow the penguins know how to all go to the same place they were born", as if this was some great mystery. I've read, and seen in other documentaries that many birds have features in their skulls which act more or less like a compass. I don't know if penguins possess this, but it seems reasonable.
But it's as if that sort of technical explanation would ruin the myth that the penguins follow some humanlike, almost spiritual journey, instead of simply following cues from instinct and biological features.
At the very least they could have explained how to tell the males from the females, because they all looked alike to me.
You have a cable channel that covers that live already. Two of them, actually. C-SPAN and C-SPAN2
I'm a Sprint customer right now, and I can honestly say Sprint sucks. Granted, everyone has horror stories about any one particular wireless provider (none are perfect), but the issues I've had with Sprint have been insane.
It's not so much the service itself (which is not great, I still get dropped calls from time to time, but it's acceptable). It's their crummy customer service and problem resolution system. They disconnected my service 'accidentally', claiming I hadn't paid my bill when I had, despite the fact their customer service reps told me their computers showed a credit on my account followed by a "I don't understand why this happened. Don't worry, we'll fix it. Your service will be on within four hours." Four hours would pass, no service, I'd call again, same response with a "oh, this time it will be different". This lasted 3 ½ days. To make matters worse, every time I'd call their "customer care" number and punch in my phone number, they'd bump me to their collections department, where I'd wait on hold before getting to speak with somebody who would insist I hadn't paid my bill until I convinced them to look at their computer, then transfer me back into the queue for their regular customer service. To make matters worse, about one out of every three calls I made connected me with such a thick accent I couldn't understand them, and they had real trouble understanding me.
There's a lot more; this is just the problem I've had in the last week. I'm stuck in this contract with them for another 11 months and to date fully expect to ditch them as soon as my contract is up.
So my question is this: with Nextel, can I expect things to get any better?
One thing I'd be curious to find out is the amount of piracy that goes on in individual foreign nations, and how that affects the availability of legal music download services.
While I don't have any hard figures, if I had to guess there would be a strong one. In other words, music services like iTunes sees a particular country start to dive into to the illegal swapping of regional music on a P2P service, and uses that to gauge the market.
I can't help but wonder if p2p services, while fostering illegal distribution of copyrighted material, are actually warming new markets to the idea of getting music from the Internet instead of conventional CDs.
I highly doubt iTunes (or any of the other for-pay music download services) would have seen any success in the US if we hadn't had Nappster introduce the masses to the ease and convenience of keeping music in a digital format back in the 90s. The MP3 format in general would probably not achieved the status as a household word if it wasn't for p2p networks introducing us to it and making it popular, not to mention the sales of mp3 players like the iPod or the massive amount of mp3 ready audio devices (when I last purchased a new car stereo, I made sure that it would play mp3s, and I love it. My sister just bought a new car with a stock radio that plays mp3s.)
The question I'm getting at, and I'm just wondering out loud here, is how much profit has been realized by various industries stemming from the illegal swapping of files online? My guess would be that number is pretty high, since if it wasn't for p2p networks (or various other methods which have been used to swap music without permission from copyright holders), mp3s would be still be stuck in the domain of hobbyists. There would be no iPods or mp3 enabled CD players, and ultimately no iTunes.
An easy way to help quantify that figure would be to see how successful iTunes becomes in nations with a relatively high rate of illegal file swapping compared with a nation whose population is otherwise is into music, but the culture of file swapping never caught on.
The notable exception would be China, since their cultural attitudes towards media piracy is so lax that any attempt to legitimize to process by charging money would probably be met with indifference.
Spelling error noted. It's the only way I'll learn. But why'd you have to call me stupid?
it's just a tool to tell a story.
You've perfectly and succinctly summed up my point. Like computer animation, 3D should just be a tool used to tell a story. Pixar's CG movies are great movies which happen to be rendered with computers, as opposed to fancy computer rendering which happens to come together as a movie (which, honestly, I thought Toy Story would be).
If film makers saw 3D as a complimentary tool to tell their stories in a different way, and their work focused on the story, instead of the "gee-wiz everybody look it's 3D!", then I think we'd see progress made with the format. If enough film makers experimented with this tool, and more importantly enough movie studios kept the original 3D versions in wide release, it would catch on.
Granted, it was half a century ago, but it would be hard to argue that 3-D was never given a chance.
I can't speak for Hondo (since, until you mentioned it I never knew it was in 3D), but Dial M for Murder and Kiss Me Kate, while filmed in 3D only had a limited release in the format. I would say that that's a pretty solid argument; at the very least, the chance 3D has had in non sci-fi genres has been limited.
The fact that it was mildly succesfull in the sci-fi/horror genre did little more then stigmitize the process as a gimmick, not really acceptable for "real" films.
I think there are some basic problems with the moderation system which could be the cause.
I seem to always have mod points, which I rarely use simply because if there's a topic interesting enough to read, it's interesting enough to comment on.
So I comment all the time and typically get modded up (typically.. sometimes I'm faced with folks who don't get it and mod me down).Because of the frequency of comments, slashdot gives me a near unlimited number of mod points which I hardly use.
Meanwhile, Joe Average Slashdot user, who prefers to read the comments instead of posting on them seldom, if ever gets mod points.
The biggist flaw in this is the inability to mod in a topic which you're participating in. I would think that those who comment all the time, and are requiently modded up and have great karma could be trusted to be fair and objective modding coments in a thread he or she posts in.
As in "wow, that post says something interesting, and leads me to some questions. It deserves to be modded up, but I'm going to post a reply to it to ask a few more qiestions.
The second biggest problem is idiot mods. Personally, I don't think anyone should be able to mod a post down until the've been on Slashdot a long, long time. Somebody modded the parent to this post 'redundant', despite the fact nobody else has made anything remotely close to your post in this thread. If anything, "off topic" would make more sense, but it seems the kind of people who most often mod down are the most stupid people out there. The same type of mod will probably rate this reply as "off topic", despite the fact that it's right on topic with the parent post, irregardless of if it's insightful or informative.
Finally, I see a problem with Slashdot for not having a general discussion thread, where it would be apprioate to wonder outloud what you brought up without getting in the way of the discussion relivent to a particular story.
But over all, I'd say the biggest problem is people who place too much emphsis on mod points to begin with. Once your Karma hits a sufficently high level, you always post at +2. All this really means is you'll reach +5 more quickly then if you posted at +1, like most people do.
Moderation points do not strictly define who you are, or even the value of your post. They're just an arbitrary number which losely demonstrates your appeal to whomever has the mod points at the time. Personally, I've discovered posts I've written which I feel are very insightful and informitive, and those posts remain untouched by the mods. But I've also made quite a few posts which are not neccescarly great, and get +5.
I've always felt that it's better to get a reply then a moderation, and it's always better to reply to a good post then to mod them up, denining me the oppertunity to take part in the discussion.
But, you know, that's just my opinion, and I could be wrong.
*** not posted anonymously, becase despite being relevent to the parent, some dorktard is going to mod it down as off topic, and I've got Karma to burn.
I made another post in this threat which addressed that, essentially comparing 3D to computer animation, and how just as CGI cartoons never took off until Toy Story, 3D will never take off until a artist makes a *good* movie that takes advantage of the 3D process.
I can't help to think that 3D hasn't taken off yet because, to date, there hasn't been a really good movie to take advantage of the process, which could explain that while 3D has existed in various forms for the last 60 years, it's rare to see a wide released feature film.
I can remember, as an example, computer animation. When it first hit the scene, it was more of a novelty, and I can remember thinking to myself "computer animation will never be successful, it's doomed to stay a novelty for all time, even if it does get better".
Then Toy Story came out, and my opinion instantly changed. It wasn't because I thought the graphics were especially good, it was because as a whole I really, really enjoyed the movie. They did some things in it that you couldn't do in convential ink and pen animation, and ommitted several traditional animation techniques commonly found in previous hand drawn films.
When I first saw Toy Story, it was on video shown at the free 'mini' theatre on my college campus. I avoided it at the box office because I thought "why spend money on something that's going to be a fad?", and only went to the free showing because going to the free movies was a great way to kill time while procrastinating on that paper you're supposed to be writing.
I really was taken aback. "This is a pretty good movie" I thought, and realized I was compleatly wrong about computer animation. Since the release of Toy Story, computer animation has become the rule instead of the exception, with (it seems to be, at least) more computer animation movies being released now then the tridtional hand drawn animated features.
If 3D could score a toy story, it could really take off. But since the bulk of all 3D movies are usually really bad, and nobody has yet to release a "masterpeice" in the format, I think most people's impressions of 3D are akin to my initial take on computer animation; that is, it's kind of neat, but not something I'd go out of my way for.
In regards to the artistic problems you mentioned: yes, a good deal of traditional methods of film making will have to be reevaluated in order to accomidate the different format. But that's kind of the point; filming in 3d can let the director try new techniques to bring out the qualities of 3D.
The Hitchcock movie I was thinking of is "Dial M For Murder". From the IMDB: Filmed in 3D, which explains the prevalence of low-angle shots with lamps and other objects between us and the cast members. There was only a brief original release in 3D, followed by a conventional, "flat" release; the 3D version was reissued in 1980.
While I've only seen the 'flat' version (as most people have), what this suggests is that Hitchcock understood, at least on some level, the various limitations traditional methods of film making pose when presenting a work in 3D. That doesn't mean one can't make an artistic work in the 3D format, it simply means that the film maker has to change the way he or she does things, throw out a lot of the traditional "rules" and techniques.
While certian lens effects now would have to be avoided, I could easily see new and different effects--which would never work in a 2D film--tried and developed.
To put it in a nutshell, I don't think going to 3D would neccescarlly be harder, it simply would be a dramatically different process, one that hasn't had the last 70 years or so to be perfected in as traditional 2D film makig has had. In time, as directors understand the different nuances of filming in 3D and develop new techniques for it, I'm positive that 3D will become a viable alternitive to what we've got now.
As for the suboptimable viewing angles, I have to wonder how that would be experienced in "stadium seating" configuration most new movie theatres are using. I would think, based on the IMAX films presented in 3D and amusement park 3D attractions which provide seating arrangements that are much closer to the new stadium seating regular theatres then the traditonal seating configuration theatres have had for decades.
The last time I saw a 3D presentation was the SpongeBob Squarepants attraction at Great America in San Jose, which not only was very entertaining, but was a signifigantly better 3D experience then my memories of watching Jaws "3D" a little over 20 years ago in a traditional theatre setting (that it was kind of crummy movie didn't help either).
Granted, SpongeBob had the seats all placed on actuators which shook you around during the movie and of course it's a cartoon, so it's hard to say if that had something to do with it in directing the viewers focus so well, but overall I thought the effort was one of the most well done productions I've seen in 3D.
I thought the same thing, but ultimatly I would hope that a user (or a particular version of a file) would be ranked on a level of credibility independant of any other identifyable attributes.
So, for example, file X is posted to a file sharing site by user XYZ123, (which would use a unique identifyer as the username stored in the p2p client.) As file X reaches more shared directories across the Internet, so as long as it's unmolested and unchanged, the credibility lended to the file by the initial user who put it up remains intact withen the index for that particular file, while the actual ID of that user is thrown out.
And of course, at no time is any inditifyiable information about the highly credible user who first put the file up associated with the file itself. The rest of the network only knows that the file was initially offered by "a very credible source", but not who that source is, his user ID or his IP address.
Monitoring or "rating" the credibility of any one particular user is done on the server side, with the associated unique user ID of the file orginator attached to the file in the index, which again only looks at the user id and is compleatly independant from the originating IP of that user.
So, if for some reason the data in the index gets into the hands of a litigious party, the only thing they have to go on is the user IDs which aren't associated with any real, solid identifying attributes.
Upon knowing that the index had been comprimised, the client could automatically be informed of this when logging on to the index server and change the random user ID to something else, then broadcast the new user ID with the last known (to the client) level of credibility. The index server is then told that a new user has logged on who has in the past offered a particular level of credibility, without having the knowledge of who that person is or with what files they used to gain that reputation.
The major downside to this, as I see it, would be that it places a signifigant burden on the indexing server, as now it not only has to determine who is sharing what, but the credibility and anonymous source of that credibility for each of the millions of unique files on the service. Also, with all that data stored on the server, whoever opperates the physical machine could easily become the focus of various lawsuits.
Either way, it's a tough nut to crack to keep a record of the reputation of individual users and files while keeping thouse user's identity private.
But somewhere along the line a stigma was attached to it which keeps anything other then sci-fi/horror filmmakers away from the format.
Hitchcock saw 3D as an exciting new direction to take the art of films, and originally shot and released one of his pictures in 3D format. Aparently, this wasn't enough to get it to catch on in serious film making circles.
Ultimatly the push towards 3D may simply be found in the new technology. Directors who never considered 3D--because of the 'out of sight, out of mind' nature of the "novelty" of 3D--might see the new and exciting equipment and processes for 3D production and give it a shot.
3D stands as one of the last methods in film making which has yet to be explored artistically (Alfred Hitchcock's single effort aside). I for one would be delighted if serious film makers picked up the process and did something more then "we can use this to make the audience feel like a shark is floating right in front of them, read to attack" or "watch as the blood splatter appears to fly out into the audience". In other words, I'd like to see a director try to do more with 3D then just gee-wiz novelty special effects and try to make a serious, artistic film which uses 3D to compliment the overall value of the work.
It is. No matter what, people are going to find a way to share copywrited material against the wishes of the copywrite owner.
All DRM will eventually accomplish is placing so many restrictions on the free, personal and moreover legal use of owned materials that consumers will find it's actually much, much easier to possess illegal copies of various media then purchasing them.
I may spend $18 on a CD because I want to own the music on it, but if it turns out that the CD won't play in all of my players and it's impossible for me to rip tracks off of it to make a legal 'mix tape', it doesn't take a brain scientist to figure out I'm going to bypass the tedious process of purchasing the CD and find the tracks I want online, with which I can do with whatever I want.
Good business thinking would suggest that if your sales are slumping, pissing off your remaining paying customers is probably not a good idea.
You're assuming that everything done on a P2P network is "illegal", and everything done by **AA members is "legal".
Granted, the bulk of file sharing going on on these P2P networks is the sharing of copywrited files without the permission of the copywrite owner. However, that does not preclude the many legitimate uses for the services.
As it stands, there's nothing to stop the RIAA from posting bogus files of a popular MP3 recorded by a non RIAA member studio who encourages the sharing of the file they own the copywrite to. If non RIAA record companys start to find that allowing the free exchange of music to be a marketing technique which ultimatly yeild more profits (which some are doing, and it's happening more and more each day), I wouldn't put it past the RIAA to try to sabotage that with underhanded tactics.
Considering the ethical track record of record companies for the last 50 years, suggesting they would start to employ subtrifuge and trickery to hurt comptition--especially when that compitition threatens their triditional marketing and distribution channels--is not an unreasonable idea.
File sharing of mp3s may technically be illegal, but the companies who are combating it are immoral and unethical. A research project such as this might make it easier to perform illegal acts, but its ultimate utility lies in dismanteling dishonest and unethical practices by the RIAA et. al.
And that is a very worthwhile thing.
Odd. The very first thing I thought of when I saw the page is "Microsoft finally gets it" too.
I can't speak for the rest of the Internet users out there, but for me if I'm going to have a start page I want it to be as simple and minimal as possible. No fancy graphics, no distracting ads or animations, just a few key headlines from my preferred news source, a quick check of my email, and the weather.
Until I discovered Google's start page, my home page was about:blank. That Microsoft's latest start page/portal seems to follow the "less is more" philosophy, I'm quite pleased. I hope that with time, more companies will understand that complexity in webpage design, unless it is somehow needed, is usually more of a hindrance then a help.