Actually, it's a two-part thing. The way not to get moderated down is to restructure what you say to match the 90% norm of the community. The quickest way to get moderated up is to be provacative, which that comment was.
We've reached a level of a few comfortable paradigms. First of all, the web is a very powerful GUI idea for delivery of applications, and in its modern form has only been around for a few years. It's exploded faster than the original WIMP GUI concept did.
Secondly, there's much refining being done in the area of the GUI. Just look at some of the enlightenment screenshots to see what I'm talking about. Different, but very powerful. (Those screenshots have sucked more than a few new users into Linux!)
Everything else has been a "refinement" process in the area of GUI research. So, here's my idea for a new GUI:
One of the best features of the newest refined GUI's is customizeability - the ability to choose what the OS looks like. Let's take that to the maximum - a generic plugin-based system that lets skin authors completely change the feel of the OS. The User Interface would load plugin modules (swappable at will) that perform the following functions:
Task management - switching between windows on the screen.
File management - browsing the files on the hard disk
Program launching - starting up programs from some sort of menu
Menu management - if one is loaded, the active program's menus are displayed in this widget, ala MacOS X or NeXT.
Others I can't think of right now...
This would allow users to completely change the look and feel of their desktop interface. The UI could switch from a convincing Mac clone to a Windows clone to a BeOS clone to a Palm clone to something completely new and uncharted in a matter of seconds! Of course, it would still be based on the same ideas of dialog, widgets, etc. as current interfaces, but it would be a step towards complete user-control of man-machine interaction.
Just a fact: they teach kids to count, add, subtract, multiply, and divide with a calculator now.
Computers also are a poor forum for teaching reading and writing, much as they may try. After spending time reading on a computer screen, your eyes tend to hurt, don't they? It's not the same as a piece of paper. Now, I couldn't write a paper without a word processor, but kids learn how to write better when they can use paper to sketch out their ideas.
Oh, I'm sure there's enough 15-year-olds on this forum. Watch that second 15-year-old get sucked into wasting time on the internet instead of working....
The problem here is that teachers pay way to much attention to the computer. Way, way too much attention. If they had the kids in front of the TV as much as they do the computer, parents would be screaming and shouting. But nobody realizes that the computer is educationally equivalent to the TV, and should be treated as such. Stop paying so much attention to it, and get on with the education! Stop making big splashes about the computer in education, and just do what needs to be done.
On a general level, yes, but on the same token why doesn't IBM have it's employees use Apple computers? After all, they do manufacture PPC chips (now). On a more specific note, why do I have a Sun box and an WinNT box here on my desk at $other_ppc_manufacturer?
These opinions are not those of $other_ppc_manufacturer.
Re:Good News: An End To Morse Code Testing in Sigh
on
Is Ham Radio Dead??
·
· Score: 2
The new folks have moved on to HF, but that seems to leave >50 mhz operation dead! At Field Day, I couldn't make one single contact above 2 meters, or on 222! Now, maybe there's more people looking for contacts below 2 meters because of better propogation, but why weren't the local yokels on FM?
This isn't an IT thing. How the hell does Transmeta prove itself except to get manufacturers to make laptops based on it? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If IBM wanted Crusoe technology to prove itself, they'd make demo laptops, give them to the board of directors, executives, et. al., and then wait for the feedback to see whether they liked it. If they did, produce it! If they didn't, don't.
Where Crusoe would kick ass is in a low-price, low-power, high battery-life unit. Something with a small screen, smallish hard drive, ideal for just editing documents and downloading your email.
That's not by any stretch of the imagination the type of laptop IBM makes. What Crusoe is good for is an overgrown web-tablet that does desktop-computing functions. What IBM makes are mean, power-hungry desktop-in-a-laptop-formfatctor machines. Why use Crusoe? It doesn't make any sense for them.
Also - the leaflet is a copy of the information on the website. Don't waste your time trying to read a scanned image - it's all on the web site (and then some, just for more yuks!)
To quote the leafelet: As they consider anything that could severly impact Microsoft and the technology industry, it's important that you express your views.
Isn't this, then a network of people commited to helping Microsoft remain a monopolistic bully? Will they also go after Linux, as it could "severely impact Microsoft"? And what does "better products at lower prices" mean? Have they even been watching the price of the competition's products - from Linux to BeOS, most is free or $100. Gotta love that Microsoft - resorting to outright lies and misinformation.
Good moderators are often overshadowed by the bad ones. If you moderate up something that looks the slightest bit like flamebait, expect to lose your karma in M2, as well as accomplish nothing on the comment.
Also notice that moderation totals have dissapeared from slashdot. Perhaps they're trying to encourage people to moderate based upon the comment and it's score instead of picking the popular option - or maybe they don't want everyone to observe the sheep behavior of the moderators?
Sure - just give me stuff that looks like stuff I want, and then silently twist it until it looks different.
Slashdot was once like that. Once upon a time, there was good news here for people looking to stay on top of the software ball. Now, it's just "Linux rocks/Win(DOS|~1|.*) sucks" drivel, over and over and over (plus Katz). This isn't a good development at all. Instead, it makes people who are more closed-minded and narrow that they won't be able to see outside of their own perspective!
Still I think this kind of thing is going to come about - most people prefer convenience over issues like privacy, and one thing this kind of service will be, is convenient.
Sure, and having information stuffed down your throat by a TV is also convienient. That's what 2000 channels were supposed to be for. Does anybody want the internet to be like that?
Convience above all. That's indeed what our culture has come to, and that's why the Web is nothing but another TV, because people don't take the time to sort out the information and just let it fall in. People get trapped by the online equvalents of the Psychic Friends Network, and just believe anything that falls in their lap.
And we know exactly how much people like slashdot moderation.
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example of this Open Media - except the Open Media is so full of Closed Minds (as in a common slashdot slogan) that it's hardly open at all. Honest opinions get termed as "flamebait", and people restructure their views to the point where it no longer conflicts to the community.
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example. When people learn to play the community game of slashdot by adjusting to become a well-formed poster, they lose their original opinions (which may have been "flamebait" or just plain "overrated") and turn into a member of the community sheep. We are, as I said above, losing our ability to think individually by letting other people (the moderators) think for us.
Katz, have you been reading a comic strip in the Chicago Tribune lately by the name of Non Sequiter? Particuarly the Sunday strips, where he talks about how people are overloaded with information? It sounds a lot like what you're saying here, but much more coherent.
The people who can't make sense of the explosion of information are the people who need a good sense of what to pay attention to and what to ingore. What we don't need is people to sort it out for them - we need to give them the ability to sort it out themselves.
Sensemakers should be the people themselves. Carl Sagan already wrote about it in his excellent bookThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
What we end up with when other people make sense of the explosion for us is a nation of people with dependent brains - people who cannot think on their own. People can be their own sensemakers - already, the smartest and well-informed are. The people who cannot make sense will get trapped by pseudoscience, speculation, and oughtright lies (and flamebait *cough* *cough*). We have to make the sense of it ourselves, so that those who don't make sense - only feed us more misinformation - don't win.
What's going to happen to US/European relations when they find out the truth about Echelon?
Two words: Absolutely Nothing.
Why? First of all, the British were willing co-conspirators in all of this. There's a scapegoat inside the European community waiting for us.
Secondly, every other European nation that counts has just as barbaric national security measusers as Echelon. They may not actually be Echelon, but they're concerned about the almighty National Security as much as we are too. They understand why we need Echelon.
Thirdly, France is a muckracker. Nobody else in the community cares, and France can't do anything on its own without the support of the community.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's a two-part thing. The way not to get moderated down is to restructure what you say to match the 90% norm of the community. The quickest way to get moderated up is to be provacative, which that comment was.
Secondly, there's much refining being done in the area of the GUI. Just look at some of the enlightenment screenshots to see what I'm talking about. Different, but very powerful. (Those screenshots have sucked more than a few new users into Linux!)
Everything else has been a "refinement" process in the area of GUI research. So, here's my idea for a new GUI:
One of the best features of the newest refined GUI's is customizeability - the ability to choose what the OS looks like. Let's take that to the maximum - a generic plugin-based system that lets skin authors completely change the feel of the OS. The User Interface would load plugin modules (swappable at will) that perform the following functions:
- Task management - switching between windows on the screen.
- File management - browsing the files on the hard disk
- Program launching - starting up programs from some sort of menu
- Menu management - if one is loaded, the active program's menus are displayed in this widget, ala MacOS X or NeXT.
- Others I can't think of right now...
This would allow users to completely change the look and feel of their desktop interface. The UI could switch from a convincing Mac clone to a Windows clone to a BeOS clone to a Palm clone to something completely new and uncharted in a matter of seconds! Of course, it would still be based on the same ideas of dialog, widgets, etc. as current interfaces, but it would be a step towards complete user-control of man-machine interaction.Computers also are a poor forum for teaching reading and writing, much as they may try. After spending time reading on a computer screen, your eyes tend to hurt, don't they? It's not the same as a piece of paper. Now, I couldn't write a paper without a word processor, but kids learn how to write better when they can use paper to sketch out their ideas.
Oh, I'm sure there's enough 15-year-olds on this forum. Watch that second 15-year-old get sucked into wasting time on the internet instead of working....
Jeez.
These opinions are not those of $other_ppc_manufacturer.
The new folks have moved on to HF, but that seems to leave >50 mhz operation dead! At Field Day, I couldn't make one single contact above 2 meters, or on 222! Now, maybe there's more people looking for contacts below 2 meters because of better propogation, but why weren't the local yokels on FM?
Sing after me: The laptop division isn't connected to the chip division, the chip division isn't connected to the software division, ...
This isn't an IT thing. How the hell does Transmeta prove itself except to get manufacturers to make laptops based on it? It's a chicken-and-egg problem. If IBM wanted Crusoe technology to prove itself, they'd make demo laptops, give them to the board of directors, executives, et. al., and then wait for the feedback to see whether they liked it. If they did, produce it! If they didn't, don't.
That's not by any stretch of the imagination the type of laptop IBM makes. What Crusoe is good for is an overgrown web-tablet that does desktop-computing functions. What IBM makes are mean, power-hungry desktop-in-a-laptop-formfatctor machines. Why use Crusoe? It doesn't make any sense for them.
Also - the leaflet is a copy of the information on the website. Don't waste your time trying to read a scanned image - it's all on the web site (and then some, just for more yuks!)
Isn't this, then a network of people commited to helping Microsoft remain a monopolistic bully? Will they also go after Linux, as it could "severely impact Microsoft"? And what does "better products at lower prices" mean? Have they even been watching the price of the competition's products - from Linux to BeOS, most is free or $100. Gotta love that Microsoft - resorting to outright lies and misinformation.
Also notice that moderation totals have dissapeared from slashdot. Perhaps they're trying to encourage people to moderate based upon the comment and it's score instead of picking the popular option - or maybe they don't want everyone to observe the sheep behavior of the moderators?
Slashdot was once like that. Once upon a time, there was good news here for people looking to stay on top of the software ball. Now, it's just "Linux rocks/Win(DOS|~1|.*) sucks" drivel, over and over and over (plus Katz). This isn't a good development at all. Instead, it makes people who are more closed-minded and narrow that they won't be able to see outside of their own perspective!
Still I think this kind of thing is going to come about - most people prefer convenience over issues like privacy, and one thing this kind of service will be, is convenient.
Sure, and having information stuffed down your throat by a TV is also convienient. That's what 2000 channels were supposed to be for. Does anybody want the internet to be like that?
Convience above all. That's indeed what our culture has come to, and that's why the Web is nothing but another TV, because people don't take the time to sort out the information and just let it fall in. People get trapped by the online equvalents of the Psychic Friends Network, and just believe anything that falls in their lap.
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example of this Open Media - except the Open Media is so full of Closed Minds (as in a common slashdot slogan) that it's hardly open at all. Honest opinions get termed as "flamebait", and people restructure their views to the point where it no longer conflicts to the community.
Indeed, slashdot is the perfect example. When people learn to play the community game of slashdot by adjusting to become a well-formed poster, they lose their original opinions (which may have been "flamebait" or just plain "overrated") and turn into a member of the community sheep. We are, as I said above, losing our ability to think individually by letting other people (the moderators) think for us.
The people who can't make sense of the explosion of information are the people who need a good sense of what to pay attention to and what to ingore. What we don't need is people to sort it out for them - we need to give them the ability to sort it out themselves.
Sensemakers should be the people themselves. Carl Sagan already wrote about it in his excellent book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.
What we end up with when other people make sense of the explosion for us is a nation of people with dependent brains - people who cannot think on their own. People can be their own sensemakers - already, the smartest and well-informed are. The people who cannot make sense will get trapped by pseudoscience, speculation, and oughtright lies (and flamebait *cough* *cough*). We have to make the sense of it ourselves, so that those who don't make sense - only feed us more misinformation - don't win.
There's also a port of several window managers. Blackbox has been ported somewhere, and the Enlightenment port is here.
Two words: Absolutely Nothing.
Why? First of all, the British were willing co-conspirators in all of this. There's a scapegoat inside the European community waiting for us.
Secondly, every other European nation that counts has just as barbaric national security measusers as Echelon. They may not actually be Echelon, but they're concerned about the almighty National Security as much as we are too. They understand why we need Echelon.
Thirdly, France is a muckracker. Nobody else in the community cares, and France can't do anything on its own without the support of the community.