You think the bomb icon that comes up on a mac with the words "system error" is any better than a blue screen? And besides, the blue screen of death was funny in win95 when it would happen often. It doesn't anymore. I haven't had "windows.ini" problems since windows 3.1...and I have plenty of hardware and no IRQ conflicts to speak of -- nor have I seen one since win 95. You obviously haven't used a PC in a while.
As for the software, try using IE 5 on a PC and then using IE 4.5 for the mac and note the difference. SPEED. Microsoft software ported to the mac is extremely slow, and generally makes more sense in the windows version.
How is a back door going to be used by the government only? If there is enough information in a signal alone for the government to decode a message, then someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to decode it too. Congress is simply asking for the impossible.
There's a huge wealth of singularity-related material here on Ray Kurzweil's site, including Vinge's "The Technological Singularity". Also on the site is Ray's precis to his next book, called "The singularity is near." It expands on his earlier views of "the law of accelerating returns" from his last book "the age of spiritual machines".
There's another review here by Ray Kurzweil, a guy who has been around real-world AI for a while. Possibly a few plot-spoilers, but mostly about the feasability of stuff done in the movie.
There are 5 categories, and osx won in 3 out of 5. But the categories are far from equal in importance -- How can the ease of installation process be likened to software issues? Installation is a one-time deal, and software is what you deal with every day thereafter. These categories need to be weighted.
I hate to be a win2k promoter...but I don't think this "death match" gave it justice.
A 'Web Bug' does not mean using an image to do tracking. That is perfectly fine by me, as there are a plethera of other ways to do tracking (log files, to name one). A web bug is when images are used to do tracking *across sites*. SO like when cnn has an image that sets a cookie from doubleclick, and then doubleclick reads that cookie on msn.
Slashdot uses an image to do tracking, but from the osdn.com domain. They are part of that network of sites. Therefore, slashdot uses a pretty nifty way of doing tracking, but isn't guilty of "web bugging"
Web bugs = bad name, not so bad tactic
on
Web Bug Detector
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· Score: 3
What's the big deal with web bugs, anyway? As long as the tracking that's being done is for use by the site I am visiting, I see no problem with them...it's just a tactic for getting usage statistics about your site. And what's wrong with that? When you go to a store, there are video cameras watching you, and records of your sales, etc...why shouldn't a website know which pages were visited? As long as the information being collected can't be used to uniquely identify me, I see no problem with it. A web bug can't collect any more information than your standard log file, and maybe get access to your cookies. But it can only access cookies *that were set by it in the first place*.
Web sites don't have the luxury of talking face to face to everyone who comes to the site, like a retail store does. Somehow, they need to monitor what's going on, and a web bug is one way to do a good job of it. One could easily add the same code the web bug executes to the top of every page...and I don't think there would be any problem with that. Web bugs are just a more elegant solution -- you can abstract out all those tracking functions, and use it as a module.
What is this "art world," and where can I join? Which world do I live in?
To say that something can only be art when it is appreciated by a community of self-proclaimed "artists," thats just self-serving. Is the definition of art within this art world always defined in terms of emotions? Or is that just a definition you made up so as to exclude computer generated art?
And what are emotions anyway? Defining art as something that ellicits an emotional response is defining one fuzzy word in terms of another.
AARON's artworks have been hung in large museums and have sold for thousands of dollars. I am skeptical that this "art world" is as concrete a concept as you suggest.
Consider the picture displayed with the story; it shows three women apparently getting ready to play tennis. What is the emotional hook here? What are the women thinking? What is the higher reality behind their situation? The image looks "artsy" but elicits no emotional involvement. It is what some hoity-toity art types would pass off as an illustration, and a pretty murky one at that.
The only reason you can assume that there is "no emotional hook" is that you know it is created by a computer. Had these been created by a human being, you would have no such argument. Does a piece of art have to have an emotional creator to be considered art? Why confuse the issue and include the author in the defenition of art?
Anyway, even if the argument can be made that the pantings elicit "no emotional involvement", that just makes it bad art, but art nonetheless.
If they can willy-nilly sick an asteroid at a *specific town* on earth, why can't they use the same technology to thwart any asteroid threat? Does this mean the end of "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" style movies?
It most definately is an HTTP header. HTTP can transmit any MIME type, but whether or not the type is text/html has nothing to do with the fact that HTTP is still the protocol being used.
JDBC is an API for using databases...it is not actually a RDBMS. If you use JDBC, there still has to be some "real" database behind it -- its not the Java equivalent of MySQL or MSSQL.
At IBM Almaden, for example, the core of Chuang's quantum computer is small and inexpensive: qubit-containing molecules dissolved in a few drops of colorless solvent, encased in a glass tube smaller than his little finger. But the NMR spectrometer that makes the computer go is a silvery, 10-foot-tall cylinder surrounded by great thickets of wires and plumbing--most of it required to service the liquid helium that chills the spectrometer's superconducting magnets. If future quantum coprocessors follow this pattern, they will be huge, multimillion-dollar behemoths that fill up whole rooms, and that only governments can afford.
So, it's going to take a while to get to that point.
Having Linux and X run on a PDA is certainly quite a feat, but I think it will remain impractical until a better input mechanism comes along. Having to actually write out each letter of a command is too much of a PIA to do anything useful with it.
I think speech recognition is where this is taking us, but the software for that is too bulky and requires too many resources to run on a PDA, for now.
And, I don't think linux is much of an improvement over other PDA OSs unless some of the networking features are involved. Can this thing run tcp/ip? PPP? WAP?
So, web bugs are certainly not any more evil than other methods of tracking, and in fact they make things load quicker for the user. Whats the big uproar? Web bugs don't gather any more information than the company already knew about you anyway. I think it's a pretty ingenious way of doing things.
I'm not sure how web bugs are any different than conventional methods of gathering information...Isn't most of the same kind of information about users kept in such mundane tracking systems as the apache access logs? Why do you need a gif image to get the same information you can get at the time of a page request, like IP address and info about cookies? Granted, the 1x1 pixel gif is deceiveing, but can't they get that information without it?
In order to personalise such medicines drug companies are going to require your DNA profile
Isn't this a different type of information? When I go to the doctor, I have to tell him things like whether or not I smoke, and what my diet is in order for him to treat me more efficiently. Similarly, I would have to give up my DNA profile if I wanted a drug that depended on it.
But that doesn't mean there should be robots going around taking DNA samples and storing it in a secret place so that, on the slim possibility that I do need such a drug, the information is available. Information is important in our technologically advanced world, but we should know when information about us is being collected.
Or you could allow your browser to randomly alter the cookies it sends back to doubleclick. At least then you woun't be hogging bandwidth when you're idle.
Slashdot Mirror
As for the software, try using IE 5 on a PC and then using IE 4.5 for the mac and note the difference. SPEED. Microsoft software ported to the mac is extremely slow, and generally makes more sense in the windows version.
How long before these things can power my handheld?"
You'd have to have one mother of a fever...
How is a back door going to be used by the government only? If there is enough information in a signal alone for the government to decode a message, then someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to decode it too. Congress is simply asking for the impossible.
There's a huge wealth of singularity-related material here on Ray Kurzweil's site, including Vinge's "The Technological Singularity". Also on the site is Ray's precis to his next book, called "The singularity is near." It expands on his earlier views of "the law of accelerating returns" from his last book "the age of spiritual machines".
There's another review here by Ray Kurzweil, a guy who has been around real-world AI for a while. Possibly a few plot-spoilers, but mostly about the feasability of stuff done in the movie.
There are 5 categories, and osx won in 3 out of 5. But the categories are far from equal in importance -- How can the ease of installation process be likened to software issues? Installation is a one-time deal, and software is what you deal with every day thereafter. These categories need to be weighted. I hate to be a win2k promoter...but I don't think this "death match" gave it justice.
Slashdot uses an image to do tracking, but from the osdn.com domain. They are part of that network of sites. Therefore, slashdot uses a pretty nifty way of doing tracking, but isn't guilty of "web bugging"
What's the big deal with web bugs, anyway? As long as the tracking that's being done is for use by the site I am visiting, I see no problem with them...it's just a tactic for getting usage statistics about your site. And what's wrong with that? When you go to a store, there are video cameras watching you, and records of your sales, etc...why shouldn't a website know which pages were visited? As long as the information being collected can't be used to uniquely identify me, I see no problem with it. A web bug can't collect any more information than your standard log file, and maybe get access to your cookies. But it can only access cookies *that were set by it in the first place*. Web sites don't have the luxury of talking face to face to everyone who comes to the site, like a retail store does. Somehow, they need to monitor what's going on, and a web bug is one way to do a good job of it. One could easily add the same code the web bug executes to the top of every page...and I don't think there would be any problem with that. Web bugs are just a more elegant solution -- you can abstract out all those tracking functions, and use it as a module.
What is this "art world," and where can I join? Which world do I live in?
To say that something can only be art when it is appreciated by a community of self-proclaimed "artists," thats just self-serving. Is the definition of art within this art world always defined in terms of emotions? Or is that just a definition you made up so as to exclude computer generated art?
And what are emotions anyway? Defining art as something that ellicits an emotional response is defining one fuzzy word in terms of another.
AARON's artworks have been hung in large museums and have sold for thousands of dollars. I am skeptical that this "art world" is as concrete a concept as you suggest.
Consider the picture displayed with the story; it shows three women apparently getting ready to play tennis. What is the emotional hook here? What are the women thinking? What is the higher reality behind their situation? The image looks "artsy" but elicits no emotional involvement. It is what some hoity-toity art types would pass off as an illustration, and a pretty murky one at that. The only reason you can assume that there is "no emotional hook" is that you know it is created by a computer. Had these been created by a human being, you would have no such argument. Does a piece of art have to have an emotional creator to be considered art? Why confuse the issue and include the author in the defenition of art? Anyway, even if the argument can be made that the pantings elicit "no emotional involvement", that just makes it bad art, but art nonetheless.
If they can willy-nilly sick an asteroid at a *specific town* on earth, why can't they use the same technology to thwart any asteroid threat? Does this mean the end of "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact" style movies?
It most definately is an HTTP header. HTTP can transmit any MIME type, but whether or not the type is text/html has nothing to do with the fact that HTTP is still the protocol being used.
JDBC is an API for using databases...it is not actually a RDBMS. If you use JDBC, there still has to be some "real" database behind it -- its not the Java equivalent of MySQL or MSSQL.
that was at http://www.techreview.com/arti cles/may00/waldrop.htm
I found this little tidbit:
At IBM Almaden, for example, the core of Chuang's quantum computer is small and inexpensive: qubit-containing molecules dissolved in a few drops of colorless solvent, encased in a glass tube smaller than his little finger. But the NMR spectrometer that makes the computer go is a silvery, 10-foot-tall cylinder surrounded by great thickets of wires and plumbing--most of it required to service the liquid helium that chills the spectrometer's superconducting magnets. If future quantum coprocessors follow this pattern, they will be huge, multimillion-dollar behemoths that fill up whole rooms, and that only governments can afford. So, it's going to take a while to get to that point.
Having Linux and X run on a PDA is certainly quite a feat, but I think it will remain impractical until a better input mechanism comes along. Having to actually write out each letter of a command is too much of a PIA to do anything useful with it.
I think speech recognition is where this is taking us, but the software for that is too bulky and requires too many resources to run on a PDA, for now.
And, I don't think linux is much of an improvement over other PDA OSs unless some of the networking features are involved. Can this thing run tcp/ip? PPP? WAP?
I was able to hear all of it and look at the slides, You just have to wait a sec after the "sorry, you missed it" screen.
So, web bugs are certainly not any more evil than other methods of tracking, and in fact they make things load quicker for the user. Whats the big uproar? Web bugs don't gather any more information than the company already knew about you anyway. I think it's a pretty ingenious way of doing things.
One thing that always helped me was knowing that they need you more than you need them, especially in todays' technical job market.
I'm not sure how web bugs are any different than conventional methods of gathering information...Isn't most of the same kind of information about users kept in such mundane tracking systems as the apache access logs? Why do you need a gif image to get the same information you can get at the time of a page request, like IP address and info about cookies? Granted, the 1x1 pixel gif is deceiveing, but can't they get that information without it?
Netscape under linux sucks. Thats not saying much.
But hey, its got...what do the kids call them these days...oh yeah, skins!!!
This this article (also by cringley)
New game in town
In order to personalise such medicines drug companies are going to require your DNA profile
Isn't this a different type of information? When I go to the doctor, I have to tell him things like whether or not I smoke, and what my diet is in order for him to treat me more efficiently. Similarly, I would have to give up my DNA profile if I wanted a drug that depended on it.
But that doesn't mean there should be robots going around taking DNA samples and storing it in a secret place so that, on the slim possibility that I do need such a drug, the information is available. Information is important in our technologically advanced world, but we should know when information about us is being collected.
Or you could allow your browser to randomly alter the cookies it sends back to doubleclick. At least then you woun't be hogging bandwidth when you're idle.
What do they mean by: Compensates the artists. Is this going to be a paying service?