That gay paper clip is irritatingly stupid, but...
I didn't realize that paper-clip had a sexual orientation. Your 'gaydar' must be much more refined than is normal to pick up information like that from an animated digital image in a word processor.
If you mean it's LAME, or STUPID, or ANNONING, you should probably just say that instead of something stupidly and insultingly homophobic. Talk about being 'irritatingly stupid'... that's what I think of people who use 'gay' in the way you just did.
Um, okay, but only if you don't amortize the cost of building the damn thing over the expected lifetime of moving things up and down. I mean, where do you think the 'break even' point would be on something like this? You spend bazzilions of dollars in R&D, construction, materials, insurance, permits, etc.,... and once you're done, do you even HAVE enough cargo to haul up and down to start getting ANY return on that investment?
2061 has to be one of the worst books in all creation. Ugh.
For some unknown reason I eventually read 3001 anyway. It was actually sorta cool until Clarke realized 2/3rds the way through that he should put a plot in... and it was just so *lame* from that point on. Ugh. Crappy crappy crappy.
But you're right, when I saw this article, the first thing I thought of was 3001. However, to make it work in the book, he not only had to use diamond and nannotubes, but also come up with an 'inertial damper' that can utterly remove the sensations of accelleration and decelleration within a confined space.
And frankly, I just don't see that *ever* happening.
In the 'big bang', the universe didn't explode along three spacial dimensions... the three spacial dimensions THEMSELVES expanded outward. It wasn't a 'universe' expanding into already created 3-d space that was 'empty' until the big bang... prior to the 'big bang', 3-d space simply didn't exist.
So if you were within that rapidly expanding universe, moments after the expansion began, *everywhere* within the universe would have been perceived as being the 'center', because of the aforementioned fact that every point was racing 'away' from every other point.
Again, you sorta need to think in higher dimensions (which is why the baloon example works... it's a 2-d analog which allows our brains to more readily grasp the concepts). To a person on the baloon surface ('within space'), the universe seems infinite yet bounded (you can travel as long as you want in any direction, x or y, and never come to an 'end'... yet the whole universe exists in a finite 3-d space). There is no point *on the surface of the baloon* which you can point to as the origin of the big bang, and the absolute 'reference' for exansion. Ditto, here in our 3-d universe, there is no single point you can identify as 'the source' of the expansion.
I too use 'truth' and 'Truth'. I find the capitalization very important.
I use 'truth' when I'm just talking about truth, as in this sentence. I use 'Truth' when it is part of a proper noun ("Truth or Consequences", an old TV game show title) or when the word appears at the beginning of a sentence.
I've heard it argued that there can be no dead stop due to there being no exact framework for the universe, but I disagree, if the big bang was a point, matter must be traveling in opposite directions at exactly opposite velocities on either side of this single point, every velocity in one direction is matched exactly by a velocity on the other side of this single point. This thought being how I believe the big bang occurred.
Sorry, no.
Think of it this way. You have a small baloon. There are poka-dots all over this baloon. Someone is slowly blowing it up. Every point on this baloon is getting farther and farther away from every other point. There is no real 'single point' at which some polka dots are moving one way, and some are moving equally the other way. The entire sphere is expanding. This is the 2-d analog of a 3-d big bang. In essence, every point is the 'center' of the big-bang, because at every point, it appears that all remote objects are rushing away from you in every direction.
So there is indeed no absolute velocity. Velocity and motion are realtive terms, and only apply between two (or more) arbitrary bodies. I am not moving relative to my desk right now, but I am moving very quickly relative to the planet Mars...or Mars is moving very quickly relative to me.
No one is saying that a unix command line is easier to learn than a GUI, but I for one find it immensely more powerful.
Actually, that's exactly what someone was saying, and I was refuting it. And I agree the command line *can* be immensely more powerful (at the cost of learning curve), but I won't say it's *necessarily* more powerful in *all* cases.
A GUI makes simple/trivial things (copy a file, move a file, rename a file, run a program, very simple options and configurations) very easy. The more difficult stuff (rename 1000 files from a*.gif to b*.gif) are certainly possible if you dig deeper, spend time to learn more, and augment your GUI tool-set, but it's still possible. However, it's frustrating to a command line user for the same reason that command lines are frustrating to a GUI user -- lack of familiarity and experience.
And as for the flying files animation... one of the key tennants of a GUI is to always give constant (and consistant) feedback to the user about what is going on during lengthy operations. Windows hardly excels at this, but it at least makes good attempts most of time time. What may seem like CPU wasting crap to you is very reassuring to a lot of end-users that they didn't screw up or that something is actually happening. Nothing is more unsettling to a standard end-user than pressing return after typing in a command only to have it just sit there for several seconds (or potentially minutes).
The problem with the command line is that it requires the user to learn and to think - is this really so hard?
As much as want to agree with you, this view really is elitist and unrealistic. Tons of people use computers solely as TOOLS. Most drivers don't know how their carburrators work, or how their distributors work, or even that they have these components. Computer *USERS* shouldn't have to know all the ins and outs of NFS mounted file systems and all the utilities and parameters for every last thing in/usr/bin (or even that/usr/bin exists). I really WISH users could learn and think more, but most don't care, and frankly, many don't have the capacity even if they did care or did have the time.
It's for this reason that Linux will never catch on in any general way, given its present form. Apple is doing some interesting things to hide all the unix 'crap' from users (making installs and uninstalls as simple as drag and drop, which is very cool) while not making all the guts inaccessable to the more knowledgable user, developer, or sysadmin. And trust me, I'm not generally an Apple proponent by any means (I wouldn't own a current Apple machine if you paid me... well, maybe if you paid me, I could use a new door stop), but still. They definitely understand the general populace and how to tailor computers to meet their needs.
Exactly. In fact, one of the most intellectually annoying problems I have with developing for NT is that my nice object-oriented C++ code had to break down and call flat C-style Win32 APIs, where under the covers things were converted BACK to objects (or objects took over again) in the kernal.
It just struck me as inefficient:-)
Of course, if C++ had a nice universal binary linking/name-mangling standard, having a true C++ OO OS interface would be more feasable. Ah well.
Yes, but NT takes the granularity and flexibility much much further than Unix's rather primitive user/group protection. You can add any number of users or groups -- or deny any number of users or groups -- access to any specific OS object. Administrators can also easily take ownership of objects or entire hierarchies. There are many more levels than just 'read/write/execute', and several special privileges that can be applied.
Now if only the APIs and UIs for dealing with all this cool power weren't so gawd-awful. The Win32 Security APIs are a freakin' nightmare to use, and the UIs (User Manager for Domains, as an example) are frequently obsecure or counter-intuitive. It's a great underlying security system. The design of the interfaces sucks.
Universities: the user's files are stored in a central location, so no matter which workstation they log into their files (and hence their app settings) are there. In addition, The IT people only need to worry about installing software on one machine, instead of 50-100 (with the exception of the OS of course).
Win2K can do all this. Admins can load software on to the server once. When users log into any given workstation, their desktop appears, and as they use applications they are transparently installed (and then they run with that specific user's preferences). However, this is done in a MUCH different way than Unix. The registry and settings for every user are stored on the server, and the local workstation has to have a lot of disk space as each users settings are copied down for that user's session on that workstation. But the 'roaming desktop' feature does work if it's set up properly, and you use the cheap CPU power at each station rather than clogging the network with lots of GUI interactions (though if you're running 100Mb ethernet, that's not THAT much of an issue).
And Win2K finally added support for per-user disk quotas, so that using this system in academic environments is finally feasable.
Where I work, when I go into the lab, it bothers me that they use windows machines there. I can't check my email, my files appear as the F:, H:, G: or I: drive (why can't my "mydocuments" be mounted as the local "mydocuments"?).
Again, Win2k alleviates this. You still have to deal with at least one drive letter, but you can mount any other server's hierarchy to any directory you wish. So you can have your local disk be C:, yet C:\public can point to your public directory over on the main server, and c:\myarchive can be yet another directory on yet another server's drive. You can have three physical drives in your local system, and have them all mapped to the logical C: drive (different drives being different directory hierarchies). Read up on the implementation of 'mount points'... they look to be pretty powerful, actually. And if you want to have multiple drives, as stated above, all those settings would migrate with you. Just log on to any Win2k desktop as your domain account, and voila!
The obvious fly in the ointment is that the sysadmin has to be up to date on all the latest stuff to ensure that desktop roaming and install-on-demand is all properly active. I've met few NT admins who are currently up to that task...
Well, I'd certainly argue that pretty GUIs make an environmnet easier. It's much more "discoverable", with much more visible at one time across many actions.
With a console UNIX system, whatever you did last is constantly scrolling up and off the screen. I swear, watching some Unix developers work in the file system, every other command is 'ls' as they have to manually refresh information... with a GUI, refresh is free, automatic, and fast. It frees you to think about the problem itself, and not makeing sure you've got the latest info. And that's just a very tiny example.
Nobody can tell me that very long command lines with half a dozen switches and arguments (especially taking into account one simple typo either renders the command invalid or worse can do serious damage) is easier than pointing and clicking. It may be more POWERFUL, but it aint' EASIER.
I mean, consider the amount of background knowledge you need just to work in a command line window on a unix environment... you need to know which shell you're in (and if you want to do command editing, you need to know a subset of emacs or vi commands too -- gee, THOSE are obvious and discoverable, NOT), about nfs volumes and file systems, the unix io system, dozens of commands and utilities... there's a LOT of learning curve there.
Sure you have to know SOMETHING with a GUI, but the knowledge is much simpler, easier, and you don't need to commit it to absolute memory, as you can remember the generic stuff and then discover the rest.
Besides, the MS Help system (which will even walk you through some steps) is a hell of a lot easier to use (and more powerful by lightyears) than man pages.
You realize that 'sodomy' includes oral sex when practiced by heterosexuals, right? That makes most straight people I know 'sodomites'. Hell, many of 'em even do anal sex.
So, just from the ignorant and bigoted tone of your note, I'm pretty sure you don't know many gay people at all. And you're mostly probably slamming yourself with your own statement (ever given or received oral sex? You're a sodomite!)
A very fast PowerPC chip doesn't even need a fan (see the Apple G4 Cube), but a P4 needs a ONE POUND heat-sink and all new cases, power supplies, and dear gawd, (likely) at LEAST *two* fans?
I'm a thoroughly WinTel person, computer-wise (at home and at work), and even *I* think this is getting ridiculous. Time to switch to better technology, anyone? COOLer technology? QUIETER technology?
I have to agree with you completely on one point: That stupid two-headed pod-race announcer. More than Jar-Jar, that single character pained me more than anything else in the movie.
Additionally, the pod racer who's 'pod' broke down and wouldn't start (along with Aniken's). He was way too cartoony too... not at ALL realistic. My suspension of disbelief (already taxed mightily, what with that whole 'traveling through the core' thing back on Naboo) napped and broke. Thankfully the REST of the scene was done very well (and Subulba was great)...
Please, no CGI just for the sake of CGI. And no more cartoony crap. And no more 'exqueeze me', or accents that are stolen off this world. Either make them speak with a seriously new accent (see Yoda), or make them speak a new alien tongue (see any OTHER alien from any of the first three movies, dammit).
Well, I heard about the midicholorians at least six months before Episode One premiered... so at least SOME of the rumors and leaks are generally true.
I still maintain that hodge-podging together a bunch of publicly written babble in hundreds of different languages and encoding it on a CDROM using an arbitrary digital format might not be the best way of doing this.
If you really read my post, you'd get that not only was I saying it was highly unlikely this project would end up serving any purpose, but that the way they're going about it seems to minimize it's success. I didn't attack the concept, but just the implementation.
Using a more 'universal' language, like mathematics and pictures... and using something more concrege like engravings in titanium plates, would make MUCH more sense, and be MUCH more valuable to any eventually finders of this time capsuel. Wouldn't you think?
What I'm interested in is exactly how the meta-data they're including in this project (for how to build a CDROM player and decoder) is being presented, and just how much of this meta-data there is. Is there enough? Is there enough meta-meta-data for them to be able to recognize and decode the meta-data, so that they can recognize and decode the data itself? Wouldn't it be easier to skip all the digital media nonsense, and just jump right into a tutorial on our society and ourselves?
And I am discouraged that you think there are better things to do with our time and money than hope, dream, and experiment...
Dont' be, 'cause that's not what I said at all.
What I said is, I think there are better things to hope, dream, and experiment with using this money.
You didn't address the issue of it most probably landing in the ocean and sinking to the bottom (how would people know that it should be something retrieved?). And as to your other points, we've had GREAT difficulty deciphering things that are 5000 years old (and have no real way of judging our accuracy... at best, they are educated guesses that seem to 'fit' all available, if scant, data). 50,000 is HUGE. How much do we know about cave-man language? Nothing. And with the ever increasing pace of change, I think 50,000 years looking back to now will be EVERY bit as difficult, if not more so. After all, their references will be totally alien to us, and ours to them.
As I stated, "Godel, Escher, and Bach" has an interesting section on decoding messages (done in the context of aliens trying to decode messages we leave for them... which is very appropro simply because a human being 50k years from now will be truely an alien to us).
Another poster posted a very excellent description of why digital media is totally the wrong way to go with this (too many layers of wrappers and encodings and 'frames of reference'). As I stated elsewhere, I think the only *correct* way to go with this would be titanium tablets with deep engravings, or something similar. The CDROM media and all the various encodings used are way too transient within the relm of human existance (only barely arrived here, and will be obsolete in our lifetimes). Better stick with something that has more staying power, don't you think?
Now who or whatever finds the object has to not only figure out how to decode the CDROM itself to find its content... but now has to decode different alphabets and grammars and languages and syntaxes -- which means they first have to recognize that there ARE multiple laguages and grammars and such represented in the data! It just adds to the increasingly improbability of this thing ever meaning anything to anyone in any way.
Well, if it is indeed an experiement in hope, trust, and optimism, it has to be one of the most misguided and braindead and useless ones I can possibly fathom.
Let's take this by parts, shall we?
Let's assume that the CD media actually do survive 50k years in the harshness of space, and then survive re-entry. Where exactly do you think it's going to plop down? Probably in the Indian or Pacific Oceans... what if it lands in one of the deep trenches? Do actually think anyone in 50k years will NOTICE its re-entry, and be around to retrieve it? Even assuming there ARE human beings and a reasonably advanced civilization, are they going to care to spend whatever will be necessary to track, locate, and retrieve this thing?
Let's assume they do, or by some miracle, it lands on land, near a population center (without killing anyone), and all the contents are recovered intact. Fine. Not bloody likely, but fine. THEN what? They have to figure out from hieroglyphics how to build a 20th century-based CDROM player from whatever materials and technologies they have on hand, learn how to decode all the contents, rediscover ASCII and "English", and THEN figure out what to make of all the obsolete ancient babble stored on it?
Yeah right. I don't believe any of the above would be likely to happen, but that huge long string of required events? I can't think of much that is less likely...
Isn't there something better we can do with our time and energy and money that would help us NOW, or our immediate progeny? Gawd, I hope so...
I was predominantly addressing your comment Why WarCraft II? Its almost the same dang thing! Just use the controller to move the cursor.
And yes, I did read your whole post just fine, but you never addressed MY point. SimCity is NOT the 'same thing' as WarCraft II or StarCraft. There is no real time-pressure in the Sim games. In the xCraft games, you're playing against faster computer opponents or (if you're lucky) good on-line opponents. Trying to target individual units and direct them accurately at high speed with a joystick or joypad would be difficult and annoying at best. So it's NOT the same thing.
You need to be fast (with a mouse you can be, with a joystick? No way, man) in order to compete sometimes. I can't *imagine* trying to play StarCraft with a joystick or joypad control instead of a mouse. Hell, I'd prefer a touch-tablet even to a mouse (but a mouse works at least).
And that "Press 1 2x folloed by #" crap is VERY prevalent on console games! Or hadn't you noticed? Ever play a fighting game? (press AABABC to duck and roll!) So that's not exactly an argument in your favor...
Slashdot Mirror
That gay paper clip is irritatingly stupid, but ...
I didn't realize that paper-clip had a sexual orientation. Your 'gaydar' must be much more refined than is normal to pick up information like that from an animated digital image in a word processor.
If you mean it's LAME, or STUPID, or ANNONING, you should probably just say that instead of something stupidly and insultingly homophobic. Talk about being 'irritatingly stupid'... that's what I think of people who use 'gay' in the way you just did.
- Spryguy
Cheaper?
... and once you're done, do you even HAVE enough cargo to haul up and down to start getting ANY return on that investment?
Um, okay, but only if you don't amortize the cost of building the damn thing over the expected lifetime of moving things up and down. I mean, where do you think the 'break even' point would be on something like this? You spend bazzilions of dollars in R&D, construction, materials, insurance, permits, etc.,
- Spryguy
2061 has to be one of the worst books in all creation. Ugh.
For some unknown reason I eventually read 3001 anyway. It was actually sorta cool until Clarke realized 2/3rds the way through that he should put a plot in... and it was just so *lame* from that point on. Ugh. Crappy crappy crappy.
But you're right, when I saw this article, the first thing I thought of was 3001. However, to make it work in the book, he not only had to use diamond and nannotubes, but also come up with an 'inertial damper' that can utterly remove the sensations of accelleration and decelleration within a confined space.
And frankly, I just don't see that *ever* happening.
- Spryguy
No, it doesn't mean that at all.
... yet the whole universe exists in a finite 3-d space). There is no point *on the surface of the baloon* which you can point to as the origin of the big bang, and the absolute 'reference' for exansion. Ditto, here in our 3-d universe, there is no single point you can identify as 'the source' of the expansion.
In the 'big bang', the universe didn't explode along three spacial dimensions... the three spacial dimensions THEMSELVES expanded outward. It wasn't a 'universe' expanding into already created 3-d space that was 'empty' until the big bang... prior to the 'big bang', 3-d space simply didn't exist.
So if you were within that rapidly expanding universe, moments after the expansion began, *everywhere* within the universe would have been perceived as being the 'center', because of the aforementioned fact that every point was racing 'away' from every other point.
Again, you sorta need to think in higher dimensions (which is why the baloon example works... it's a 2-d analog which allows our brains to more readily grasp the concepts). To a person on the baloon surface ('within space'), the universe seems infinite yet bounded (you can travel as long as you want in any direction, x or y, and never come to an 'end'
Clearer?
- Spryguy
I too use 'truth' and 'Truth'. I find the capitalization very important.
:-)
I use 'truth' when I'm just talking about truth, as in this sentence. I use 'Truth' when it is part of a proper noun ("Truth or Consequences", an old TV game show title) or when the word appears at the beginning of a sentence.
- Spryguy
There IS no human soul. There is just the mind. Read Godel, Escher, and Bach for details.
:-)
- Spryguy
I've heard it argued that there can be no dead stop due to there being no exact framework for the universe, but I disagree, if the big bang was a point, matter must be traveling in opposite directions at exactly opposite velocities on either side of this single point, every velocity in one direction is matched exactly by a velocity on the other side of this single point. This thought being how I believe the big bang occurred.
Sorry, no. Think of it this way. You have a small baloon. There are poka-dots all over this baloon. Someone is slowly blowing it up. Every point on this baloon is getting farther and farther away from every other point. There is no real 'single point' at which some polka dots are moving one way, and some are moving equally the other way. The entire sphere is expanding. This is the 2-d analog of a 3-d big bang. In essence, every point is the 'center' of the big-bang, because at every point, it appears that all remote objects are rushing away from you in every direction.
So there is indeed no absolute velocity. Velocity and motion are realtive terms, and only apply between two (or more) arbitrary bodies. I am not moving relative to my desk right now, but I am moving very quickly relative to the planet Mars...or Mars is moving very quickly relative to me.
- Spryguy
No one is saying that a unix command line is easier to learn than a GUI, but I for one find it immensely more powerful.
/usr/bin (or even that /usr/bin exists). I really WISH users could learn and think more, but most don't care, and frankly, many don't have the capacity even if they did care or did have the time.
Actually, that's exactly what someone was saying, and I was refuting it. And I agree the command line *can* be immensely more powerful (at the cost of learning curve), but I won't say it's *necessarily* more powerful in *all* cases.
A GUI makes simple/trivial things (copy a file, move a file, rename a file, run a program, very simple options and configurations) very easy. The more difficult stuff (rename 1000 files from a*.gif to b*.gif) are certainly possible if you dig deeper, spend time to learn more, and augment your GUI tool-set, but it's still possible. However, it's frustrating to a command line user for the same reason that command lines are frustrating to a GUI user -- lack of familiarity and experience.
And as for the flying files animation... one of the key tennants of a GUI is to always give constant (and consistant) feedback to the user about what is going on during lengthy operations. Windows hardly excels at this, but it at least makes good attempts most of time time. What may seem like CPU wasting crap to you is very reassuring to a lot of end-users that they didn't screw up or that something is actually happening. Nothing is more unsettling to a standard end-user than pressing return after typing in a command only to have it just sit there for several seconds (or potentially minutes).
The problem with the command line is that it requires the user to learn and to think - is this really so hard?
As much as want to agree with you, this view really is elitist and unrealistic. Tons of people use computers solely as TOOLS. Most drivers don't know how their carburrators work, or how their distributors work, or even that they have these components. Computer *USERS* shouldn't have to know all the ins and outs of NFS mounted file systems and all the utilities and parameters for every last thing in
It's for this reason that Linux will never catch on in any general way, given its present form. Apple is doing some interesting things to hide all the unix 'crap' from users (making installs and uninstalls as simple as drag and drop, which is very cool) while not making all the guts inaccessable to the more knowledgable user, developer, or sysadmin. And trust me, I'm not generally an Apple proponent by any means (I wouldn't own a current Apple machine if you paid me... well, maybe if you paid me, I could use a new door stop), but still. They definitely understand the general populace and how to tailor computers to meet their needs.
- Spryguy
Sorry to disappoint - it is written in C++
:-)
Exactly. In fact, one of the most intellectually annoying problems I have with developing for NT is that my nice object-oriented C++ code had to break down and call flat C-style Win32 APIs, where under the covers things were converted BACK to objects (or objects took over again) in the kernal.
It just struck me as inefficient
Of course, if C++ had a nice universal binary linking/name-mangling standard, having a true C++ OO OS interface would be more feasable. Ah well.
- Spryguy
] NT's security pervades the whole OS
Yes, but NT takes the granularity and flexibility much much further than Unix's rather primitive user/group protection. You can add any number of users or groups -- or deny any number of users or groups -- access to any specific OS object. Administrators can also easily take ownership of objects or entire hierarchies. There are many more levels than just 'read/write/execute', and several special privileges that can be applied.
Now if only the APIs and UIs for dealing with all this cool power weren't so gawd-awful. The Win32 Security APIs are a freakin' nightmare to use, and the UIs (User Manager for Domains, as an example) are frequently obsecure or counter-intuitive. It's a great underlying security system. The design of the interfaces sucks.
Universities: the user's files are stored in a central location, so no matter which workstation they log into their files (and hence their app settings) are there. In addition, The IT people only need to worry about installing software on one machine, instead of 50-100 (with the exception of the OS of course).
Win2K can do all this. Admins can load software on to the server once. When users log into any given workstation, their desktop appears, and as they use applications they are transparently installed (and then they run with that specific user's preferences). However, this is done in a MUCH different way than Unix. The registry and settings for every user are stored on the server, and the local workstation has to have a lot of disk space as each users settings are copied down for that user's session on that workstation. But the 'roaming desktop' feature does work if it's set up properly, and you use the cheap CPU power at each station rather than clogging the network with lots of GUI interactions (though if you're running 100Mb ethernet, that's not THAT much of an issue).
And Win2K finally added support for per-user disk quotas, so that using this system in academic environments is finally feasable.
Where I work, when I go into the lab, it bothers me that they use windows machines there. I can't check my email, my files appear as the F:, H:, G: or I: drive (why can't my "mydocuments" be mounted as the local "mydocuments"?).
Again, Win2k alleviates this. You still have to deal with at least one drive letter, but you can mount any other server's hierarchy to any directory you wish. So you can have your local disk be C:, yet C:\public can point to your public directory over on the main server, and c:\myarchive can be yet another directory on yet another server's drive. You can have three physical drives in your local system, and have them all mapped to the logical C: drive (different drives being different directory hierarchies). Read up on the implementation of 'mount points'... they look to be pretty powerful, actually. And if you want to have multiple drives, as stated above, all those settings would migrate with you. Just log on to any Win2k desktop as your domain account, and voila!
The obvious fly in the ointment is that the sysadmin has to be up to date on all the latest stuff to ensure that desktop roaming and install-on-demand is all properly active. I've met few NT admins who are currently up to that task...
- Spryguy
Well, I'd certainly argue that pretty GUIs make an environmnet easier. It's much more "discoverable", with much more visible at one time across many actions.
With a console UNIX system, whatever you did last is constantly scrolling up and off the screen. I swear, watching some Unix developers work in the file system, every other command is 'ls' as they have to manually refresh information... with a GUI, refresh is free, automatic, and fast. It frees you to think about the problem itself, and not makeing sure you've got the latest info. And that's just a very tiny example.
Nobody can tell me that very long command lines with half a dozen switches and arguments (especially taking into account one simple typo either renders the command invalid or worse can do serious damage) is easier than pointing and clicking. It may be more POWERFUL, but it aint' EASIER.
I mean, consider the amount of background knowledge you need just to work in a command line window on a unix environment... you need to know which shell you're in (and if you want to do command editing, you need to know a subset of emacs or vi commands too -- gee, THOSE are obvious and discoverable, NOT), about nfs volumes and file systems, the unix io system, dozens of commands and utilities... there's a LOT of learning curve there.
Sure you have to know SOMETHING with a GUI, but the knowledge is much simpler, easier, and you don't need to commit it to absolute memory, as you can remember the generic stuff and then discover the rest.
Besides, the MS Help system (which will even walk you through some steps) is a hell of a lot easier to use (and more powerful by lightyears) than man pages.
- Spryguy
You realize that 'sodomy' includes oral sex when practiced by heterosexuals, right? That makes most straight people I know 'sodomites'. Hell, many of 'em even do anal sex.
So, just from the ignorant and bigoted tone of your note, I'm pretty sure you don't know many gay people at all. And you're mostly probably slamming yourself with your own statement (ever given or received oral sex? You're a sodomite!)
- Spryguy
Actually, *I'm* just thinking down the road to what the first P4 laptops are going to be like... :-)
- Spryguy
I know a lot of gay people, and NONE of them would ever stoop to copying tcd004's styles.
- Spryguy
A very fast PowerPC chip doesn't even need a fan (see the Apple G4 Cube), but a P4 needs a ONE POUND heat-sink and all new cases, power supplies, and dear gawd, (likely) at LEAST *two* fans?
I'm a thoroughly WinTel person, computer-wise (at home and at work), and even *I* think this is getting ridiculous. Time to switch to better technology, anyone? COOLer technology? QUIETER technology?
- Spryguy
I have to agree with you completely on one point: That stupid two-headed pod-race announcer. More than Jar-Jar, that single character pained me more than anything else in the movie.
Additionally, the pod racer who's 'pod' broke down and wouldn't start (along with Aniken's). He was way too cartoony too... not at ALL realistic. My suspension of disbelief (already taxed mightily, what with that whole 'traveling through the core' thing back on Naboo) napped and broke. Thankfully the REST of the scene was done very well (and Subulba was great)...
Please, no CGI just for the sake of CGI. And no more cartoony crap. And no more 'exqueeze me', or accents that are stolen off this world. Either make them speak with a seriously new accent (see Yoda), or make them speak a new alien tongue (see any OTHER alien from any of the first three movies, dammit).
- Spryguy
He doesn't have to read /.
I actually heard the same "he's not going to be in Ep II" story from several sources, including on the morning radio news.
This is a rumor that a lot of people bit into...
- Spryguy
Well, I heard about the midicholorians at least six months before Episode One premiered... so at least SOME of the rumors and leaks are generally true.
I'm VERY glad THIS one isn't, however.
- Spryguy
I still maintain that hodge-podging together a bunch of publicly written babble in hundreds of different languages and encoding it on a CDROM using an arbitrary digital format might not be the best way of doing this.
If you really read my post, you'd get that not only was I saying it was highly unlikely this project would end up serving any purpose, but that the way they're going about it seems to minimize it's success. I didn't attack the concept, but just the implementation.
Using a more 'universal' language, like mathematics and pictures... and using something more concrege like engravings in titanium plates, would make MUCH more sense, and be MUCH more valuable to any eventually finders of this time capsuel. Wouldn't you think?
What I'm interested in is exactly how the meta-data they're including in this project (for how to build a CDROM player and decoder) is being presented, and just how much of this meta-data there is. Is there enough? Is there enough meta-meta-data for them to be able to recognize and decode the meta-data, so that they can recognize and decode the data itself? Wouldn't it be easier to skip all the digital media nonsense, and just jump right into a tutorial on our society and ourselves?
- Spryguy
And I am discouraged that you think there are better things to do with our time and money than hope, dream, and experiment...
... which is very appropro simply because a human being 50k years from now will be truely an alien to us).
Dont' be, 'cause that's not what I said at all.
What I said is, I think there are better things to hope, dream, and experiment with using this money.
You didn't address the issue of it most probably landing in the ocean and sinking to the bottom (how would people know that it should be something retrieved?). And as to your other points, we've had GREAT difficulty deciphering things that are 5000 years old (and have no real way of judging our accuracy... at best, they are educated guesses that seem to 'fit' all available, if scant, data). 50,000 is HUGE. How much do we know about cave-man language? Nothing. And with the ever increasing pace of change, I think 50,000 years looking back to now will be EVERY bit as difficult, if not more so. After all, their references will be totally alien to us, and ours to them.
As I stated, "Godel, Escher, and Bach" has an interesting section on decoding messages (done in the context of aliens trying to decode messages we leave for them
Another poster posted a very excellent description of why digital media is totally the wrong way to go with this (too many layers of wrappers and encodings and 'frames of reference'). As I stated elsewhere, I think the only *correct* way to go with this would be titanium tablets with deep engravings, or something similar. The CDROM media and all the various encodings used are way too transient within the relm of human existance (only barely arrived here, and will be obsolete in our lifetimes). Better stick with something that has more staying power, don't you think?
- Spryguy
That just makes things worse, doesn't it?
Now who or whatever finds the object has to not only figure out how to decode the CDROM itself to find its content... but now has to decode different alphabets and grammars and languages and syntaxes -- which means they first have to recognize that there ARE multiple laguages and grammars and such represented in the data! It just adds to the increasingly improbability of this thing ever meaning anything to anyone in any way.
- Spryguy
Well, if it is indeed an experiement in hope, trust, and optimism, it has to be one of the most misguided and braindead and useless ones I can possibly fathom.
Let's take this by parts, shall we?
Let's assume that the CD media actually do survive 50k years in the harshness of space, and then survive re-entry. Where exactly do you think it's going to plop down? Probably in the Indian or Pacific Oceans... what if it lands in one of the deep trenches? Do actually think anyone in 50k years will NOTICE its re-entry, and be around to retrieve it? Even assuming there ARE human beings and a reasonably advanced civilization, are they going to care to spend whatever will be necessary to track, locate, and retrieve this thing?
Let's assume they do, or by some miracle, it lands on land, near a population center (without killing anyone), and all the contents are recovered intact. Fine. Not bloody likely, but fine. THEN what? They have to figure out from hieroglyphics how to build a 20th century-based CDROM player from whatever materials and technologies they have on hand, learn how to decode all the contents, rediscover ASCII and "English", and THEN figure out what to make of all the obsolete ancient babble stored on it?
Yeah right. I don't believe any of the above would be likely to happen, but that huge long string of required events? I can't think of much that is less likely...
Isn't there something better we can do with our time and energy and money that would help us NOW, or our immediate progeny? Gawd, I hope so...
- Spryguy
I was predominantly addressing your comment Why WarCraft II? Its almost the same dang thing! Just use the controller to move the cursor.
And yes, I did read your whole post just fine, but you never addressed MY point. SimCity is NOT the 'same thing' as WarCraft II or StarCraft. There is no real time-pressure in the Sim games. In the xCraft games, you're playing against faster computer opponents or (if you're lucky) good on-line opponents. Trying to target individual units and direct them accurately at high speed with a joystick or joypad would be difficult and annoying at best. So it's NOT the same thing.
- Spryguy
Have you *ever* played Warcraft II or StarCraft??
You need to be fast (with a mouse you can be, with a joystick? No way, man) in order to compete sometimes. I can't *imagine* trying to play StarCraft with a joystick or joypad control instead of a mouse. Hell, I'd prefer a touch-tablet even to a mouse (but a mouse works at least).
And that "Press 1 2x folloed by #" crap is VERY prevalent on console games! Or hadn't you noticed? Ever play a fighting game? (press AABABC to duck and roll!) So that's not exactly an argument in your favor...
- Spryguy
Okay, that's Sim City...
But think about WarCraft II or StarCraft... that'd totally suck with a 'joystick' interface. You couldn't be fast enough...
- Spryguy