Totally agree. Did you know the Evernote web clipper plugin for Chrome still has a "Simplified article" view? It's meant to help you simplify the page content before you clip to Evernote, but often I just use it to read the article without clipping.
One caveat: that plugin displays an overlay that you can collapse but not entirely hide, because it's the UI for clipping the article to Evernote. It makes sense in the context of what the plugin is trying to help you do, and it's still better than nothing.
Intel never had the right product focus for these IoT devices. Overall cost was too high for hobbyists, and the main product differentiation was basically "we're Intel instruction set compatible" in an age where others are offering JavaScript compatibility. I'm afraid as long as Intel makes their architecture out to be their main selling point they're going to be out of tune with these emerging markets. Same reason they missed the phone and tablet market, in my opinion.
No, I don't think so. More likely they already own outrageous capacity to handle the December retail crunch but don't use anything close to that capacity in any other month of the year. So I doubt there's any additional investment in capacity for EC2. EC2 utilizes what Amazon already owns.
If you read Werner's blog entry on this new feature you'll see they reserve the right to interrupt a Spot Instance and essentially restart it later on. You need to make sure whatever you're doing with that instance you can checkpoint and resume. I think that means Amazon is not trying to "fire sale" underutilized resource. More like they're filling in the cracks between larger "full price" instances in order to maximize utilization.
According to the OLPC wiki the concept is more than simply giving computers to children "to somehow make them learn more." Instead they write: "While the technical aspects create a platform for change, the real benefits will come from improved educational practice enabled by immersive access to connected laptops." So, no claim that simply giving children laptops lets schools off the hook.
The OLPC advances an idea (to me somewhat orthogonal to basic educational practice) that connecting laptops connects the students together in ways that gives rise to other beneficial effects. Since we're all sitting here reading Slashdot it's an easy analogy -- Slashdot creates a community with a shared common interest, but with diverse opinions on those interests, and at the end of the day it's that diversity that is of interest. We read to learn what others think. So OLPC (ought to) create a means for children to interact with other children with the same effect, but on many other topics besides "news for nerds." And that sounds like a fine idea to me.
Someone in the media recently gave another explanation for the bias (was it Cringeley? Mossberg? another?) The theory goes: It's because the writers and reporters themselves use Macs. So Apple announcements are exciting news for reporters, and it shows in their work.
Get out your calculators. The website says $0.01/meg/month for the first 1 GB. 70% off ($.003) for anything above 1 GB.
So if you want to back up 50GB of data you'll pay $160 per month. All things considered a few external firewire drives and a safety deposit box looks like a pretty good deal.
It took me a while to remember my old AIM login and password, but once I was logged in I found no evidence of the Mailblocks challenge/response system. Looks like they adopted only the Mailblocks webmail interface.
I recently stopped by Hear Music and saw all this stuff in person.
The listening kiosks are HP Tablet PCs running (presumably) Windows XP. They are placed throughout the store and default to a selection of albums pulled from that section, i.e. in the blues section you get a handful of blues albums to preview. In the jazz section it's a handful of jazz albums, etc. Just as you would expect.
However, at any listening station you can scan the barcode on just about any CD in the store, and get a playlist of the complete contents of that album. The delay is noticeably longer than waiting for a CD changer, but obviously you have *way* more material to choose from. (Changing from song to song within a given album seems slower than hitting "next" on a CD player, which is a bit annoying, but surely they can fix that.)
There's a sit-down counter where you can build your mix. I was in a hurry and didn't ask the obvious questions, e.g. how much for a custom mix disc, do you get uncompressed or lossy compressed, is there any copy protection. I did notice two Rimage CD sitting in plain view behind the counter.
I've always liked the "smallness" of Hear Music compared to a behemoth like Tower Records. The feel is more like Newbury Comics in Boston (or how they used to be, anyways). The use of technology is a little raw and immature, but in general it seems to work without ruining the small store feel. Just my opinion, of course.
of course Disney wants open access to broadband... they've already failed to dominate the net, so the next best thing is to prevent everyone else from succeeding.
This article reminds me of a question I've had for a long while now. What does the GPL take as the definition of "distributing" source code?
The extreme cases are obvious: I assume if I package and sell a product based on GPL code, that would be construed as "distribution." But if I make mods to a GPL project and use it personally, that's *not* distribution.
So here come the gray areas: what if my company makes experimental mods to a GPL program and puts the result on an NFS server for others in the office to use? Is that considered "distribution"? What if that same fileserver is also available to remote offices in my company? What if the code is made available to subcontractors?
Does anyone really think a major film studio wants to sue a software company for damages, drive the software company out of business, and ultimately force themselves to buy another alternative editing software and retrain?
It's like defaulting on your mortgage -- the Note explains in excruciating detail how the bank can take the house away, but in practice your bank would really rather not deal with the hassle if they didn't have to. And so naturally they consider your credit record carefully before they agree to loan you the money.
Similarly, a film studio would want to consider really carefully before depending on something like B2K on a major project. Because they really don't want to go through the hassle if something should go wrong.
None of the rendering and animation software we use was released and supported on OS X at the time we made the decision. Even today, I think, we're still waiting for packages like Maya and Shake on OS X.
On the renderfarm, the batch management software we use isn't supported on Mac so we'd have to manage our jobs some other way. We can't get anywhere near the rackspace density -- we're using 1U enclosures with dual 1 Ghz Pentium 3's and 2 GB RAM.
On the desktop, we use Macintoshes for Photoshop and virtually nothing else.
On the business side, we realize we're limited to just one supplier for Macintosh hardware. We had that with SGI, it's tough to imagine going with a sole source for computing equipment.
PDI/DreamWorks is trying to release some code under OpenSource. I just released my frame buffer library under GPL. It is a small, but important, gesture, as it represents the first source code that we have ever released. We hope to have more soon.
Hi Dan, other DreamWorks gestures include the driver I contributed to the Argyll Color Management System to support the Gretag Spectrolino. I belive we may have developed some raster-to-vector code for an open source project as well.
Granted they're offering individuals a free trial subscription, but RedHat Network is charging a subscription feefor their Software Manager service. Pricing starts at $19.95/month for individual systems, with volume discounts of $990/year for 10 systems. That's the sort of money Microsoft is asking, is it not?
However, if you watch the MLS listings for a few weeks or months it becomes clear that realtors freely abuse the MLS for marketing purposes.
Attractive properties remain listed on the MLS long after they actually close, because it works like an advertisement to those who read the MLS. Or like the signpost in the front yard with the little tag that says "sold", it serves no purpose but to advertise the agent's name and number for another potential buyer.
There's no perfect information source, not even MLS, and realtors are perfectly satisfied with that.
Linux may not be ready for my retired mom and dad, but guess what folks? Neither is Windows. Just because Windows is overwhelmingly popular -- and thus the de facto platform for desktop software -- doesn't mean it's actually good.
I've watched my folks struggle with the concepts of todays desktop. They ask questions about fundamental things: the difference between megabytes and megehertz; the difference between RAM and disk space; what's on the internet vs. what's on their computer; why they can't open an email attachment I sent them. And I realize that none of these concepts are actually relevant to them. They're adjusting their behavior to the needs of the machine.
It needs to be the other way around. And I'm not talking about "intuitive" desktops or "smart" browsers. That's a snazzy veneer on the same flawed paradigm.
Right, but in talking to folks at Rhythm & Hues and RFX, it sounds like the current work is with GEGL and Gimp 2.0. So "Hollywood Gimp" is probably pretty stale by now.
Re:You won't see the linux boxen on the artist's d
on
Linux and Shrek
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps not for Shrek. But you will see Linux desktops at Dreamworks and PDI if you visit us today. Both studios are moving almost exclusively to Linux on the desktop. I say almost, because there's Photoshop which is one stubborn app that refuses to go to Linux. (Yes, we know about gimp, but where the heck is the support for 16 bits per channel?)
autostereoscopic displays
on
3D w/o Goggles
·
· Score: 3
Cute idea. But here's a much more interesting autostereoscopic display from 4D-Vision. Available in either 15" LCD or 50" plasma. What you get is 8 different viewpoints displayed through a special grille that reveals only one view to each eye. The result is a stereo image, wihout glasses, and you're free to walk around the room. The thing actually works. They were on display at NAB in Las Vegas, they look not perfect but definitely promising...
Is it a coincidence that RIAA profits have gone up since Napster took off?
Well, but just barely. Check out this RIAA market report and see in 2000 the full-length CD market was up just 0.4% over 1999 in units shipped. That's very small growth compared to previous years (In 1999 the growth was 10.8%, see link for details). So in fact last year was the second worst in the past decade.
Full length CD's make up the bulk of the market, of course singles and cassettes and LP's are all in sharp decline.
Would you want to be in a business with 0.4% growth?
Slashdot Mirror
Totally agree. Did you know the Evernote web clipper plugin for Chrome still has a "Simplified article" view? It's meant to help you simplify the page content before you clip to Evernote, but often I just use it to read the article without clipping.
One caveat: that plugin displays an overlay that you can collapse but not entirely hide, because it's the UI for clipping the article to Evernote. It makes sense in the context of what the plugin is trying to help you do, and it's still better than nothing.
Intel never had the right product focus for these IoT devices. Overall cost was too high for hobbyists, and the main product differentiation was basically "we're Intel instruction set compatible" in an age where others are offering JavaScript compatibility. I'm afraid as long as Intel makes their architecture out to be their main selling point they're going to be out of tune with these emerging markets. Same reason they missed the phone and tablet market, in my opinion.
So then, develop a "repair" tool to fix it for Firefox users.
In fact, just deliver it directly from mozilla's website. That way, you can post the URL on big billboards up and down the peninsula.
Because, you know, Windows users can then point their brand new Edge browser at that URL, load the ActiveX component and ... Oh wait.
Imagine what they could have done with a million dollars in books, art supplies, lab equipment, musical instruments, ...
No, I don't think so. More likely they already own outrageous capacity to handle the December retail crunch but don't use anything close to that capacity in any other month of the year. So I doubt there's any additional investment in capacity for EC2. EC2 utilizes what Amazon already owns.
If you read Werner's blog entry on this new feature you'll see they reserve the right to interrupt a Spot Instance and essentially restart it later on. You need to make sure whatever you're doing with that instance you can checkpoint and resume. I think that means Amazon is not trying to "fire sale" underutilized resource. More like they're filling in the cracks between larger "full price" instances in order to maximize utilization.
According to the OLPC wiki the concept is more than simply giving computers to children "to somehow make them learn more." Instead they write: "While the technical aspects create a platform for change, the real benefits will come from improved educational practice enabled by immersive access to connected laptops." So, no claim that simply giving children laptops lets schools off the hook.
The OLPC advances an idea (to me somewhat orthogonal to basic educational practice) that connecting laptops connects the students together in ways that gives rise to other beneficial effects. Since we're all sitting here reading Slashdot it's an easy analogy -- Slashdot creates a community with a shared common interest, but with diverse opinions on those interests, and at the end of the day it's that diversity that is of interest. We read to learn what others think. So OLPC (ought to) create a means for children to interact with other children with the same effect, but on many other topics besides "news for nerds." And that sounds like a fine idea to me.
Someone in the media recently gave another explanation for the bias (was it Cringeley? Mossberg? another?) The theory goes: It's because the writers and reporters themselves use Macs. So Apple announcements are exciting news for reporters, and it shows in their work.
Get out your calculators. The website says $0.01/meg/month for the first 1 GB. 70% off ($.003) for anything above 1 GB.
So if you want to back up 50GB of data you'll pay $160 per month. All things considered a few external firewire drives and a safety deposit box looks like a pretty good deal.
No, reread the article. What it says is the NEC display is not OLED -- rather it's a TFT LCD panel with a RGB color diodes for backlighting.
It took me a while to remember my old AIM login and password, but once I was logged in I found no evidence of the Mailblocks challenge/response system. Looks like they adopted only the Mailblocks webmail interface.
I suppose this is the end of the KDE on Cygwin project, and good news in general for Qt/KDE applications on Windows?
I recently stopped by Hear Music and saw all this stuff in person.
The listening kiosks are HP Tablet PCs running (presumably) Windows XP. They are placed throughout the store and default to a selection of albums pulled from that section, i.e. in the blues section you get a handful of blues albums to preview. In the jazz section it's a handful of jazz albums, etc. Just as you would expect.
However, at any listening station you can scan the barcode on just about any CD in the store, and get a playlist of the complete contents of that album. The delay is noticeably longer than waiting for a CD changer, but obviously you have *way* more material to choose from. (Changing from song to song within a given album seems slower than hitting "next" on a CD player, which is a bit annoying, but surely they can fix that.)
There's a sit-down counter where you can build your mix. I was in a hurry and didn't ask the obvious questions, e.g. how much for a custom mix disc, do you get uncompressed or lossy compressed, is there any copy protection. I did notice two Rimage CD sitting in plain view behind the counter.
I've always liked the "smallness" of Hear Music compared to a behemoth like Tower Records. The feel is more like Newbury Comics in Boston (or how they used to be, anyways). The use of technology is a little raw and immature, but in general it seems to work without ruining the small store feel. Just my opinion, of course.
of course Disney wants open access to broadband... they've already failed to dominate the net, so the next best thing is to prevent everyone else from succeeding.
This article reminds me of a question I've had for a long while now. What does the GPL take as the definition of "distributing" source code?
The extreme cases are obvious: I assume if I package and sell a product based on GPL code, that would be construed as "distribution." But if I make mods to a GPL project and use it personally, that's *not* distribution.
So here come the gray areas: what if my company makes experimental mods to a GPL program and puts the result on an NFS server for others in the office to use? Is that considered "distribution"? What if that same fileserver is also available to remote offices in my company? What if the code is made available to subcontractors?
Does anyone really think a major film studio wants to sue a software company for damages, drive the software company out of business, and ultimately force themselves to buy another alternative editing software and retrain?
It's like defaulting on your mortgage -- the Note explains in excruciating detail how the bank can take the house away, but in practice your bank would really rather not deal with the hassle if they didn't have to. And so naturally they consider your credit record carefully before they agree to loan you the money.
Similarly, a film studio would want to consider really carefully before depending on something like B2K on a major project. Because they really don't want to go through the hassle if something should go wrong.
None of the rendering and animation software we use was released and supported on OS X at the time we made the decision. Even today, I think, we're still waiting for packages like Maya and Shake on OS X.
On the renderfarm, the batch management software we use isn't supported on Mac so we'd have to manage our jobs some other way. We can't get anywhere near the rackspace density -- we're using 1U enclosures with dual 1 Ghz Pentium 3's and 2 GB RAM.
On the desktop, we use Macintoshes for Photoshop and virtually nothing else.
On the business side, we realize we're limited to just one supplier for Macintosh hardware. We had that with SGI, it's tough to imagine going with a sole source for computing equipment.
Hi Dan, other DreamWorks gestures include the driver I contributed to the Argyll Color Management System to support the Gretag Spectrolino. I belive we may have developed some raster-to-vector code for an open source project as well.
Granted they're offering individuals a free trial subscription, but RedHat Network is charging a subscription feefor their Software Manager service. Pricing starts at $19.95/month for individual systems, with volume discounts of $990/year for 10 systems. That's the sort of money Microsoft is asking, is it not?
The only way someone could still believe it's for sale is if it's still listed in the MLS. Which, as I said before, is part of the realtor's game. n
Attractive properties remain listed on the MLS long after they actually close, because it works like an advertisement to those who read the MLS. Or like the signpost in the front yard with the little tag that says "sold", it serves no purpose but to advertise the agent's name and number for another potential buyer.
There's no perfect information source, not even MLS, and realtors are perfectly satisfied with that.
I've watched my folks struggle with the concepts of todays desktop. They ask questions about fundamental things: the difference between megabytes and megehertz; the difference between RAM and disk space; what's on the internet vs. what's on their computer; why they can't open an email attachment I sent them. And I realize that none of these concepts are actually relevant to them. They're adjusting their behavior to the needs of the machine.
It needs to be the other way around. And I'm not talking about "intuitive" desktops or "smart" browsers. That's a snazzy veneer on the same flawed paradigm.
Right, but in talking to folks at Rhythm & Hues and RFX, it sounds like the current work is with GEGL and Gimp 2.0. So "Hollywood Gimp" is probably pretty stale by now.
Perhaps not for Shrek. But you will see Linux desktops at Dreamworks and PDI if you visit us today. Both studios are moving almost exclusively to Linux on the desktop. I say almost, because there's Photoshop which is one stubborn app that refuses to go to Linux. (Yes, we know about gimp, but where the heck is the support for 16 bits per channel?)
Cute idea. But here's a much more interesting autostereoscopic display from 4D-Vision. Available in either 15" LCD or 50" plasma. What you get is 8 different viewpoints displayed through a special grille that reveals only one view to each eye. The result is a stereo image, wihout glasses, and you're free to walk around the room. The thing actually works. They were on display at NAB in Las Vegas, they look not perfect but definitely promising...
Well, but just barely. Check out this RIAA market report and see in 2000 the full-length CD market was up just 0.4% over 1999 in units shipped. That's very small growth compared to previous years (In 1999 the growth was 10.8%, see link for details). So in fact last year was the second worst in the past decade.
Full length CD's make up the bulk of the market, of course singles and cassettes and LP's are all in sharp decline.
Would you want to be in a business with 0.4% growth?