Do you know how big Amazon's smallest warehouse is? It makes Wal-Mart look like an outhouse. Many, many e-businesses still sell real things and real things require actual space, and actual space consumes the same resources as the same space occupied by a bricks-and-mortar business.
I don't think you get it. Democracy isn't about individual people. It's about masses of people; the proverbial People. The People have the right to govern themselves, not the individuals. What we have, though, isn't a true democracy. It's democratic, but we have representation. If I think that a law needs to be made, I can't submit that law for a vote by all of my fellow peers. I have to get my lawmaker to do it, and if he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. Of course, I can try and vote him out, but that may not work either.
Tyranny vs. Democracy is like a parent vs. a child. Parents take away all the rights a child thinks it should have for the child's (and often the parent's) own benefit. Left to his own vices, the child can govern himself. He makes a lot more mistakes when he first tries something than he does when he works with it for a while, but eventually, everything usually works out for the best (unless the kid is especially dumb and tries to stop a fast-moving semi truck).
Our government is like a child. We're faced with the new issue of what we're going to do with this whole e-commerce thing, but guess what, we'll make a few mistakes and we'll learn a few things and in the end, we'll end up on the right side of things, cause we're not dumb enough to try to stop a fast-moving semi truck and we've got enough people recognizing our mistakes that eventually we correct them. But you can't help guide unless you make your guidance heard.
Ignorance isn't the answer; participation is. Anarchists are people who are too lazy to recognize the difference they can make.
Yeah, well, it does, because there is no Federal sales tax. When you buy something, the tax from a sales tax goes to the state. Therefore, if the economy moves to e-business, that's a lot of money that people are shelling out to pay for something that will never affect them.
I actually wrote a pretty long Slashdot post about Internet taxes only to delete it because I wasn't satisfied with that one issue. Yes, I think there should be an Internet tax, but I really think it needs to be a Federal tax and it should be even dispersed to the country as a whole. We could use that money for a lot of necessary social improvements.
Internet taxes are not an issue for just the 'geeks'. It's an issue for all Americans, like any tax. What will taxes do for us? They'll give us more money for things like road improvements, educational purchases (computers anyone?), and law enforcement support. What will they do against us? They'll slow down this explosive economy that has really carried this country to the front of the world's pack. When Asia's economy fell apart, it was America's economy that survived relatively unscathed.
So what are geek issues? Computers in the schools for one. We talk a lot about kids need to be educated in the ways of the binary. Clinton made a pretty good announcement today, but let's go back a big further and get kids started with computers now so that maybe that won't need to take CS to really get to know the most important tool of the next millenium. Also, how about things real OSHA telecommuter guidelines that are fair to both businesses and employees? How about government seriously considering open-source software? How about patent reform so that people who come up with genuinely real ideas get some control over them and people who don't don't? How about some sort of final word on whether consumers will ever quit getting raped for advanced services like DSL?
I like privacy and Internet taxes and all, but those aren't geek issues, those are real American issues. Politicians are once again just paying lip service to a group of people who they think they need rather than taking a look at their real issues and addressing them. They did it with the 'soccer moms' in 1996 and they're doing it with us now.
I don't expect anything more out of this election than I've received out of any of the past: a bunch of lies and a lame-duck President.
I think it's important before questioning mainstream qualities of an OS that you remember how it became mainstream. One of the reasons that Microsoft was so successful is that it didn't have to worry about hardware. It just made software and let other people worry about selling the actual computers. It just made sure that its software would run on anything sold. Microsoft didn't become mainstream because of anything that it did. It became mainstream because of the way in which PCs were sold.
Apple, on the other hand, maintained vigorous control of everything and so you didn't have fifteen companies selling and touting something that was essentially the same, flooding the market with a very similar product. While this led to tighter integration of the OS and the hardware and more controlled innovation, it didn't actually do a good job at selling a product, which is what one needs to become 'mainstream'.
I think that if Apple had become mainstream, we either would've needed to have an industry in which clones weren't sold (highly unlikely) or Apples themselves would've been cloned, and then I think you would've seen a degradation in product similar to what we have with Windows. Then, I think our empathy would've been just as great to Apple.
And remember, the Macintosh for years wasn't exactly an open system (and it still isn't for that matter, despite recent changes like Darwin). I think a lot of the fascination with Apple in the past five years is for the same reason that we currently obsess over Linux: it's a challenge to Microsoft. If you look at the MacOS before version 8, it was total and utter crap, despite it's GUI. I can honestly say that I would receive at least two calls a week from my father about his Macintosh crashing or locking up or getting a weird error. I never had those sorts of problems with my Win95 machine.
But then again, I think that Apple's strength has always been innovating, and with innovation comes trials and tribulations as you 'feel' solutions out. Certainly, the makes Apple a bit more gallant than Microsoft, which has the same trials implementing what aren't exactly new features.
But, replying to the original post, yes, I think we would've disliked Apple as much as we dislike Microsoft, but then again, Apple most certainly would've become a far different company from what it is now.
I don't really agree with the idea of Linux in embedded systems. I think it makes much more sense to develop an OS for embedded systems that starts small and stays small rather than trying to adapt a much larger system for a smaller one.
Where I think Linux will really shine is in educational systems. Computers are just now becoming what can truly be considered necessary for childhood education. Schools, I think, will find that Linux boxes serve as much better educational tools because they are very cheap, they last a long time, they allow for scalability of education (GUI environment for kiddies, good development environment for upper-age CS students), and it gives a much better understanding of how the technologies work which is what kids will need to know to compete in the marketplace. One of the downsides to Windows' efforts to simplify the desktop environment is that you can't learn as much as easily (not to mention the price skyrockets). Apple's already way to expensive for what it's worth (which is really the easy-to-use environment for the kiddies of which there are already several for Linux).
I see Linux making a much bigger impact where financial considerations are key. Open-source software is about providing software so people don't have to pay for it, and that's exactly what schools need. If this happens, I think their desktop 'sliver' will become much bigger and Linux will gain a stronger foothold in the home (I've already had one CS class in college that required you to setup a Debian system).
I think if Linux concentrates too much on developing for too many different types of platforms, they'll end up bloating themselves. It's doing several things good right now, but other packages do embedded systems better and embedded systems should be developed as such.
Do most geeks truly spend most of their time in the dark, only coming out for sunlight when they either a) need more caffeine or b) when they go through the wrong door, or are we truly a diurnal (that means daytime-lovin', kiddos) species?
I know that I, for one, do not like working on my computer with large amounts of light on. In fact, I prefer the dark as I can see better (no glare, tunnel vision, etc.). Where I work, everyone who codes does so in dark rooms. If they're in an office with windows, they pull the shades. It has nothing to do with introversion or anything like that; it's purely a lighting mechanism.
Is this an anomaly, or is the stereotype an anomaly? Are you reading Slashdot in the dark right now? Do you normally read it in the dark?
Oh, and I'm not a 'stereotypical' geek. I have a life. I didn't major in CS or EECS. I have social graces. I tend to keep my dietary intake at a reasonable lev -- did someone say 'Twinkie'?
I don't find UF all that funny either. And I think the point that he's trying to make isn't that experiences in tech support can't be funny. Strips like UF don't make fun of the tech support occupation. They make fun of the people that tech support is supposed to be helping. He mentions Scott Adams, and I think he maybe criticizes him too harshly, because Scott Adams finds the humor in the actual jobs he's representing without making too much fun of any one group of people.
The thing that most tech support employees don't recognize is that without people less knowledgeable than you, you'd be out of a job. When you insult the person who thinks their password is 'asterisk asterisk asterisk', you're insulting the people putting money in your pockets. At the company I work for, customers aren't referred to as 'users' because many don't understand that as anything but a negative term. We don't make fun of the customer who doesn't understand why he needs a new init string in his modem. We don't call them names behind their back because you never know when that information may be subpoenad and you get caught red-faced.
Tech support is about helping people. It's not about solving their problems, but getting them to solve their problems. Tech support employees are educators, because the more education they do, the better they serve their company.
So if you think User Friendly is funny, why don't you sit back and think how much you knew about computers when you first sat down at one, and then try to think of how that feels when you can see everyone else around you doing what you should be able to do. Guess what. Your poop stinks, too.
It's not the gadgets that are cool, but the gadgets for the gadgets that really are cool. So, here's my top ten list corollary (roughly following the original list):
Cruise Control
Face it, we're lazy, and what better way to be lazy then to let some computer control exactly how fast our wheels spin. Not only that, but it's fun to watch people freak out when you pass them with your legs crossed on the dash.
The Fire Extinguisher
Portable fire was great.. until it landed in the hands of the stupid person, at which point it became a weapon. At this point, luckily, someone invented the fire extinguisher, leading the most common source of damage on a freshman hall, the broken fire bubble.
The Walkie-talkie
How did I learn Morse Code? I had one of those cheap walkie-talkies with Morse Code on it. It was so much fun pressing that little red button that made the annoying beep, so annoying in fact, that my parents will never let me near anything that makes noise again!
The Modem
If it wasn't for this little device, Doom and deathmatch would never have become as popular they are, and id Software would never be as close as they are to world domination (move over Redhat)!
The Bug
All right, technically, this isn't a gadget, but who would've known that an actual moth would've climbed inside one of those mothers and caused so many problems? And now, us IT professionals have yet another excuse to pull the systems offline for, what else, playing deathmatch.
The Walkman
Leave it to the tiny transistor to allow us to have portable music. Where would America's youth be today without those headphones covering their ears and allowing them to completely drown out the wise words of their elder statesmen? They certainly wouldn't be leading the computing world, now would they?
Cell Phones
They may not technically be radios, but certainly the idea of wireless communication culminates in those annoying little devices that give some people a reason to drive poorly and others a reason to say that everyone is going to die of brain cancer. Plus, you can play games on some of them now! Can anyone say 'deathmatch'?
The Nintendo
Whoa Nelly! The Nintendo made console gaming fun again and gave us yet another mindless, brainless activity to do with our televisions.
The Palm Pilot
Computers are great, but small computers are better, because they can become as portable as cell phones while becoming ten times more useful. The idea that the computer could become as important a tool for everyday life as the pen started with the idea of taking it all with you, and the Palm Pilot embodies that spirit.
Pants
Again, technically, not a gadget, but really, when you're done with that hand-dryer thingie (which honestly, really never does work), where do you wipe your hands?
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired.
Many good authors have done that. It's not just a symptom of Card. It isn't completely about making money, either. Most of the time, short stories become longer stories as the original idea becomes fleshed out and takes on several subplots that make it a true story, and not just a tale.
Essentially, you are criticizing Card for being a good author, one who recognizes how works can change, improve, and develop. I would rather have Card take a short story and rework it three times in different ways to show the different interpretations of a common idea than to have someone like John Grisham or Danielle Steele give me a book they just 'whipped out' solely to sell paperback.
And as per this movie, I see Card taking on a formidable challenge, adapting the story to show another view of the idea. This time, we get a real third-person view, rather than an interior shot. I'm kind of disappointed that we won't get to see the adult viewpoint, because with Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, that's what we're really kind of missing, but I'm certainly not unhappy with the snippet of the script that I've read.
Quit complaining. Development, especially in writing, is a sorely needed (pardon the pun) development.
In my Netscape, it's under 'Communicator | Tools | Java Console'. Under my IE4, it's under 'Internet Options | Advanced'. Setting that setting there will enable it in the 'Tools' menu.
I live in the same apartment as this webcam and actually built the camera-holding assembly. Being the humble dood that Fastolfe is, he fails to go on about some of the actual features in this webcam.
The assembly is built solely from the parts that I received in my Mindstorms kit a year ago (no add-ons, no extra sets). One motor runs the manages the rotation in the horizontal direction (spin) and the other manages rotation in the vertical direction (tilt). The whole thing sits about 8 inches high and the RCX unit does not form part of the base (we have it slightly separated since the IR signal comes from another computer across the room).
The program keeps track of spin and tilt so that users can't spin it all the way around (tangling up the cord in the process) nor can they tilt more than 90 degrees in any one direction. The program also allows a certain point to 'marked' as the initial starting point for the tracking, and there's a handy reset feature (not available outside the internal network). He also wrote the telecam daemon that resides on my Linux box that handles the actual control of the webcam (the web stuff is on a different server).
Streaming is handled by (*gasp*) a Windows program, Webcam32, that actually came with the Java code necessary to the streaming. It was a nice little package. Fastolfe is currently in the process of writing his own program for Linux that will use bttv or something similar to do the same thing, but for right now, it's working pretty dandy.
Setting this thing up isn't very difficult. Of course, with the post to Slashdot, it's getting hit pretty hard, but the great thing is, that we've gotten more feedback about potential problems (as Fastolfe said, "Finally, someone who knows how to open their Java console") in the past five minutes than we've received since we put the thing up.
The XFree86 Project has been working very hard to get the 4.0 release out the door. It is taking a little longer than expected so we will be releasing the next pre-4.0 snapshot (3.9.17) before the end of the year. We expect to release 4.0 about two months later in mid-Q1/2000.
XFree86 3.3.6 will be released in parallel with 3.9.17 as well.
That means we should be getting a new version of the stable server shortly as well. Hopefully, many of the development features that can be integrated will be integrated.
And to the naysayers, the X people do a fine job with a very old piece of software. E-mail your suggestions to them, not your complaints.
Think about it. Why has Linux been so successful this year? I think it probably boils down to other OSes not being successful. Microsoft's much-hyped Windows 2000 won't be out until February. Macintosh released OS9 to little fanfare knowing that their next biggie is going to be OS X. There haven't been any major operating system developments this year and when there's a vacuum, something will fill it. That something, in this case, is Linux, as for most people, it is a relatively new thing and it did come out with a major kernel release during the past year.
If Microsoft could've released Windows 2000 this year, I think the hype for Linux would've been drowned out by the hype for Windows 2000 which, face it, has a much bigger hype generating engine.
This says nothing about Linux's capabilities, only about its marketing. Linux didn't need much this year because in terms of news, it didn't have much competition. While this may benefit Linux's acceptance into the marketplace, I think the larger overall effect will be that Linux will be seen as a bright supernova that fades once again into the background when the sun that is Windows rises again in 2000 (and I'm not making quality judgments here, I'm just making statements about perceptions of visibility).
Just because a system uses an open kernel doesn't mean it's an 'open-sourced' system. Not all the software that runs on my Linux box is open-source.
John Carmack had an interesting take on that in his.plan today, about people starting in with, "Now that the Quake source is GPL'd, that means that Quake mods have to be GPL'd as well!" It's not true, and I don't think companies will start selling 'open-source PDAs'. People might start developing them on their own, but selling a phone requires a certain amount of propriatarianism.
The subject basically says it. The company is suing, it feels rightfully, over trademark infringement, and as evidence of this it is using the search engine results to say, basically, "Look, this company is diluting our trademark!" It's an interesting excuse, that a search engine result could be used as evidence.
With that in mind, the search warrant seems odd, and what seems even odder is that it could be served. Does anyone know of any previous case history where the police needed to search a premises for trademark infringement? The only thing I could think of looking for is some sort of knowledge of the infringement which might incriminate. Normally, this information can be requested through a subpoena.
In any case, I thoroughly hope this actually goes to court. Slashdot is quick to jump on the case of anyone even bringing up a case like this, but I think the actual problem is that none of this has gone through the legal system yet. Once a few precedents get established (based on already established precedents, I might add, which will probably make it very easy for the Journal to win), less and less of these cases will come to trial, I bet.
Tell the coalition of plaintiffs to go through with the case. Then end the message with, "Ha ha. We need the precedent and you can look funny when you set it."
"Ah," I hear you say, "but this free-energy theory could be true! Who are you, Tackhead, to say what's worthy or not?". Well, yes, it could be true. And the earth could be carried on the back of a giant turtle, but is it worth investigating when there are better theories to work with? The relativist notion that "all ideas are equally worthy of debate" is great for politics and art, (issues on which Village Voice reporters spend a lot of time writing, and writing well), but a complete flop when you try to extend them to science. The evidence we have makes it pretty bloody clear that world is not sitting on the back of a giant turtle, and any attempt to claim that this "theory" is "just as valid as the big bang theory" is hogwash.
I completely disagree. The way the scientific process works is that everything is equally worthy of debate, but some items tend to be more easily disproven than others. I could say that water has the property of being able to carry my spirit to the star Vega in less than two minutes, but it wouldn't be worthy to research that since an offhand glance shows that it could be readily disproven (we know water can't do this). This guy's claims probably fall marginally into that realm, which is why they haven't been deemed worthy of research. But this guy said, "Hold on a second, let me look at this closer," and what would happen if he found something? Too many scientists have already dismissed this guy because of what they know about current theories but his claim is certainly worthy of being researched. The great thing about theories is that they are often wrong and despite the theory of relativity's incredible experimental strength it is still a theory (and lest I remind you of Newton's laws).
The claims are certainly worthy of being researched, if only to be disproven. I, for one, would be very happy to see the results of the research, positive or negative, because it means one more possible answer has been researched (and frankly, his work seems a helluva lot more plausible than the idea of superstrings and eleven dimensions and all other sorts of perfectly imaginary but mathematically possible 'ideas').
Did anybody actually go and check out his stuff on Deja? The people aren't saying he's a fruitcake. I searched using 'Randall Mills Blacklight', 'Mills Black light' and 'Randall Mills' and came up with four (4) articles having to do anything with this whole debacle (although threads did have other information on related experiments by others, which apparently started discussion about Mr. Mills). In any case, the four articles basically state that
a) Mills has posted a couple of articles to ANs for peer review, although they haven't been given much attention.
b) On the surface, it passes pseudoscience but people aren't holding their breath.
This doesn't read as crackpot. Personally, yes, I think the experiments will fail to pan out, mostly because this guy is an capitalist, not a scientist or mathematician and he's probably overlooking something himself that's giving him these strange new results. Stranger things have happened. This may turn out to be the 2000 version of the patent clerk coming out of nowhere with a brand new theory that explains far more than we knew before.
Of course, this time he's going to the patent clerk. How ironic.
This is the first I've heard of supermount. Does anyone have more information on it other than the patch? It sounds like this may be one of the first truly enticing reasons for me to update my kernel (other than the desire to have the latest and greatest, of course).
We're going to have to vote with our dollars, and make sure that the...persons... at etoys.com don't get a red cent of our money.
No offense, but this isn't going to jack poo-poo to eToys. The majority of the shoppers of eToys are not the same people who care that eToys is suing Etoy. Whining, complaining, protesting, even attacking draws attention and while some methods are better than others (Stallman's boycott of Amazon vs. RTMark's [or whoever's] DoS'ing of eToys), attention to the issue is what is needed, not "Oh, I'm going to boycott." If you were RMS, that might carry some weight, but what is really needed is this discussion to be taken to someone like CNN so that rather than doing a report on DoS attacks, they do a report on what exactly the entire fiasco is all about and what it could possibly mean for 'Net law, 'Net activities, and the 'Net community.
I think the Slashdot Effect sometimes goes to people's heads. Slashdot is not as big and mighty as people claim it to be. It has the potential to influence far many more people than it actually does, though. As it is now (and I'm guilty of this, too, I might add), we're just debating amongst ourselves.
See, I saw the e-mail and thought, 'Wow, what a funky hoax!' But then I realized that the e-mail is partially true. What's really the fact here is that this is indeed (at least in the northern hemisphere) going to be the darkest night. Why? Well, the night will be the longest of the year and thus, darkness will have a chance to soak in and penetrate everything. Couple this with a new moon and the moon becomes even brighter, because as everyone knows, light objects on a dark field are lighter than the same shade object on a lighter field (it's a perception thing). Thus, it's really about the darkest night of the year.
As for the Indians, I thought the US's Thanksgiving was last month.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know how big Amazon's smallest warehouse is? It makes Wal-Mart look like an outhouse. Many, many e-businesses still sell real things and real things require actual space, and actual space consumes the same resources as the same space occupied by a bricks-and-mortar business.
I don't think you get it. Democracy isn't about individual people. It's about masses of people; the proverbial People. The People have the right to govern themselves, not the individuals. What we have, though, isn't a true democracy. It's democratic, but we have representation. If I think that a law needs to be made, I can't submit that law for a vote by all of my fellow peers. I have to get my lawmaker to do it, and if he doesn't want to, he doesn't have to. Of course, I can try and vote him out, but that may not work either.
Tyranny vs. Democracy is like a parent vs. a child. Parents take away all the rights a child thinks it should have for the child's (and often the parent's) own benefit. Left to his own vices, the child can govern himself. He makes a lot more mistakes when he first tries something than he does when he works with it for a while, but eventually, everything usually works out for the best (unless the kid is especially dumb and tries to stop a fast-moving semi truck).
Our government is like a child. We're faced with the new issue of what we're going to do with this whole e-commerce thing, but guess what, we'll make a few mistakes and we'll learn a few things and in the end, we'll end up on the right side of things, cause we're not dumb enough to try to stop a fast-moving semi truck and we've got enough people recognizing our mistakes that eventually we correct them. But you can't help guide unless you make your guidance heard.
Ignorance isn't the answer; participation is. Anarchists are people who are too lazy to recognize the difference they can make.
Yeah, well, it does, because there is no Federal sales tax. When you buy something, the tax from a sales tax goes to the state. Therefore, if the economy moves to e-business, that's a lot of money that people are shelling out to pay for something that will never affect them.
I actually wrote a pretty long Slashdot post about Internet taxes only to delete it because I wasn't satisfied with that one issue. Yes, I think there should be an Internet tax, but I really think it needs to be a Federal tax and it should be even dispersed to the country as a whole. We could use that money for a lot of necessary social improvements.
Internet taxes are not an issue for just the 'geeks'. It's an issue for all Americans, like any tax. What will taxes do for us? They'll give us more money for things like road improvements, educational purchases (computers anyone?), and law enforcement support. What will they do against us? They'll slow down this explosive economy that has really carried this country to the front of the world's pack. When Asia's economy fell apart, it was America's economy that survived relatively unscathed.
So what are geek issues? Computers in the schools for one. We talk a lot about kids need to be educated in the ways of the binary. Clinton made a pretty good announcement today, but let's go back a big further and get kids started with computers now so that maybe that won't need to take CS to really get to know the most important tool of the next millenium. Also, how about things real OSHA telecommuter guidelines that are fair to both businesses and employees? How about government seriously considering open-source software? How about patent reform so that people who come up with genuinely real ideas get some control over them and people who don't don't? How about some sort of final word on whether consumers will ever quit getting raped for advanced services like DSL?
I like privacy and Internet taxes and all, but those aren't geek issues, those are real American issues. Politicians are once again just paying lip service to a group of people who they think they need rather than taking a look at their real issues and addressing them. They did it with the 'soccer moms' in 1996 and they're doing it with us now.
I don't expect anything more out of this election than I've received out of any of the past: a bunch of lies and a lame-duck President.
Actually, I apologize. This was meant to be a reply to the post "Just some thoughts ..."
I think it's important before questioning mainstream qualities of an OS that you remember how it became mainstream. One of the reasons that Microsoft was so successful is that it didn't have to worry about hardware. It just made software and let other people worry about selling the actual computers. It just made sure that its software would run on anything sold. Microsoft didn't become mainstream because of anything that it did. It became mainstream because of the way in which PCs were sold.
Apple, on the other hand, maintained vigorous control of everything and so you didn't have fifteen companies selling and touting something that was essentially the same, flooding the market with a very similar product. While this led to tighter integration of the OS and the hardware and more controlled innovation, it didn't actually do a good job at selling a product, which is what one needs to become 'mainstream'.
I think that if Apple had become mainstream, we either would've needed to have an industry in which clones weren't sold (highly unlikely) or Apples themselves would've been cloned, and then I think you would've seen a degradation in product similar to what we have with Windows. Then, I think our empathy would've been just as great to Apple.
And remember, the Macintosh for years wasn't exactly an open system (and it still isn't for that matter, despite recent changes like Darwin). I think a lot of the fascination with Apple in the past five years is for the same reason that we currently obsess over Linux: it's a challenge to Microsoft. If you look at the MacOS before version 8, it was total and utter crap, despite it's GUI. I can honestly say that I would receive at least two calls a week from my father about his Macintosh crashing or locking up or getting a weird error. I never had those sorts of problems with my Win95 machine.
But then again, I think that Apple's strength has always been innovating, and with innovation comes trials and tribulations as you 'feel' solutions out. Certainly, the makes Apple a bit more gallant than Microsoft, which has the same trials implementing what aren't exactly new features.
But, replying to the original post, yes, I think we would've disliked Apple as much as we dislike Microsoft, but then again, Apple most certainly would've become a far different company from what it is now.
I don't really agree with the idea of Linux in embedded systems. I think it makes much more sense to develop an OS for embedded systems that starts small and stays small rather than trying to adapt a much larger system for a smaller one.
Where I think Linux will really shine is in educational systems. Computers are just now becoming what can truly be considered necessary for childhood education. Schools, I think, will find that Linux boxes serve as much better educational tools because they are very cheap, they last a long time, they allow for scalability of education (GUI environment for kiddies, good development environment for upper-age CS students), and it gives a much better understanding of how the technologies work which is what kids will need to know to compete in the marketplace. One of the downsides to Windows' efforts to simplify the desktop environment is that you can't learn as much as easily (not to mention the price skyrockets). Apple's already way to expensive for what it's worth (which is really the easy-to-use environment for the kiddies of which there are already several for Linux).
I see Linux making a much bigger impact where financial considerations are key. Open-source software is about providing software so people don't have to pay for it, and that's exactly what schools need. If this happens, I think their desktop 'sliver' will become much bigger and Linux will gain a stronger foothold in the home (I've already had one CS class in college that required you to setup a Debian system).
I think if Linux concentrates too much on developing for too many different types of platforms, they'll end up bloating themselves. It's doing several things good right now, but other packages do embedded systems better and embedded systems should be developed as such.
Just US$0.02. Feel free to disagree.
How the HELL am I supposed to piss standing up? I might get piss all over my computer, not to mention it doesn't look like you can flip the seat up!
Do most geeks truly spend most of their time in the dark, only coming out for sunlight when they either a) need more caffeine or b) when they go through the wrong door, or are we truly a diurnal (that means daytime-lovin', kiddos) species?
I know that I, for one, do not like working on my computer with large amounts of light on. In fact, I prefer the dark as I can see better (no glare, tunnel vision, etc.). Where I work, everyone who codes does so in dark rooms. If they're in an office with windows, they pull the shades. It has nothing to do with introversion or anything like that; it's purely a lighting mechanism.
Is this an anomaly, or is the stereotype an anomaly? Are you reading Slashdot in the dark right now? Do you normally read it in the dark?
Oh, and I'm not a 'stereotypical' geek. I have a life. I didn't major in CS or EECS. I have social graces. I tend to keep my dietary intake at a reasonable lev -- did someone say 'Twinkie'?
*gurgle*
I don't find UF all that funny either. And I think the point that he's trying to make isn't that experiences in tech support can't be funny. Strips like UF don't make fun of the tech support occupation. They make fun of the people that tech support is supposed to be helping. He mentions Scott Adams, and I think he maybe criticizes him too harshly, because Scott Adams finds the humor in the actual jobs he's representing without making too much fun of any one group of people.
The thing that most tech support employees don't recognize is that without people less knowledgeable than you, you'd be out of a job. When you insult the person who thinks their password is 'asterisk asterisk asterisk', you're insulting the people putting money in your pockets. At the company I work for, customers aren't referred to as 'users' because many don't understand that as anything but a negative term. We don't make fun of the customer who doesn't understand why he needs a new init string in his modem. We don't call them names behind their back because you never know when that information may be subpoenad and you get caught red-faced.
Tech support is about helping people. It's not about solving their problems, but getting them to solve their problems. Tech support employees are educators, because the more education they do, the better they serve their company.
So if you think User Friendly is funny, why don't you sit back and think how much you knew about computers when you first sat down at one, and then try to think of how that feels when you can see everyone else around you doing what you should be able to do. Guess what. Your poop stinks, too.
Face it, we're lazy, and what better way to be lazy then to let some computer control exactly how fast our wheels spin. Not only that, but it's fun to watch people freak out when you pass them with your legs crossed on the dash.
Portable fire was great
How did I learn Morse Code? I had one of those cheap walkie-talkies with Morse Code on it. It was so much fun pressing that little red button that made the annoying beep, so annoying in fact, that my parents will never let me near anything that makes noise again!
If it wasn't for this little device, Doom and deathmatch would never have become as popular they are, and id Software would never be as close as they are to world domination (move over Redhat)!
All right, technically, this isn't a gadget, but who would've known that an actual moth would've climbed inside one of those mothers and caused so many problems? And now, us IT professionals have yet another excuse to pull the systems offline for, what else, playing deathmatch.
Leave it to the tiny transistor to allow us to have portable music. Where would America's youth be today without those headphones covering their ears and allowing them to completely drown out the wise words of their elder statesmen? They certainly wouldn't be leading the computing world, now would they?
They may not technically be radios, but certainly the idea of wireless communication culminates in those annoying little devices that give some people a reason to drive poorly and others a reason to say that everyone is going to die of brain cancer. Plus, you can play games on some of them now! Can anyone say 'deathmatch'?
Whoa Nelly! The Nintendo made console gaming fun again and gave us yet another mindless, brainless activity to do with our televisions.
Computers are great, but small computers are better, because they can become as portable as cell phones while becoming ten times more useful. The idea that the computer could become as important a tool for everyday life as the pen started with the idea of taking it all with you, and the Palm Pilot embodies that spirit.
Again, technically, not a gadget, but really, when you're done with that hand-dryer thingie (which honestly, really never does work), where do you wipe your hands?
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired.
Many good authors have done that. It's not just a symptom of Card. It isn't completely about making money, either. Most of the time, short stories become longer stories as the original idea becomes fleshed out and takes on several subplots that make it a true story, and not just a tale.
Essentially, you are criticizing Card for being a good author, one who recognizes how works can change, improve, and develop. I would rather have Card take a short story and rework it three times in different ways to show the different interpretations of a common idea than to have someone like John Grisham or Danielle Steele give me a book they just 'whipped out' solely to sell paperback.
And as per this movie, I see Card taking on a formidable challenge, adapting the story to show another view of the idea. This time, we get a real third-person view, rather than an interior shot. I'm kind of disappointed that we won't get to see the adult viewpoint, because with Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, that's what we're really kind of missing, but I'm certainly not unhappy with the snippet of the script that I've read.
Quit complaining. Development, especially in writing, is a sorely needed (pardon the pun) development.
In my Netscape, it's under 'Communicator | Tools | Java Console'. Under my IE4, it's under 'Internet Options | Advanced'. Setting that setting there will enable it in the 'Tools' menu.
I live in the same apartment as this webcam and actually built the camera-holding assembly. Being the humble dood that Fastolfe is, he fails to go on about some of the actual features in this webcam.
The assembly is built solely from the parts that I received in my Mindstorms kit a year ago (no add-ons, no extra sets). One motor runs the manages the rotation in the horizontal direction (spin) and the other manages rotation in the vertical direction (tilt). The whole thing sits about 8 inches high and the RCX unit does not form part of the base (we have it slightly separated since the IR signal comes from another computer across the room).
The program keeps track of spin and tilt so that users can't spin it all the way around (tangling up the cord in the process) nor can they tilt more than 90 degrees in any one direction. The program also allows a certain point to 'marked' as the initial starting point for the tracking, and there's a handy reset feature (not available outside the internal network). He also wrote the telecam daemon that resides on my Linux box that handles the actual control of the webcam (the web stuff is on a different server).
Streaming is handled by (*gasp*) a Windows program, Webcam32, that actually came with the Java code necessary to the streaming. It was a nice little package. Fastolfe is currently in the process of writing his own program for Linux that will use bttv or something similar to do the same thing, but for right now, it's working pretty dandy.
Setting this thing up isn't very difficult. Of course, with the post to Slashdot, it's getting hit pretty hard, but the great thing is, that we've gotten more feedback about potential problems (as Fastolfe said, "Finally, someone who knows how to open their Java console") in the past five minutes than we've received since we put the thing up.
The XFree86 Project has been working very hard to get the 4.0 release out the door. It is taking a little longer than expected so we will be releasing the next pre-4.0 snapshot (3.9.17) before the end of the year. We expect to release 4.0 about two months later in mid-Q1/2000.
XFree86 3.3.6 will be released in parallel with 3.9.17 as well.
That means we should be getting a new version of the stable server shortly as well. Hopefully, many of the development features that can be integrated will be integrated.
And to the naysayers, the X people do a fine job with a very old piece of software. E-mail your suggestions to them, not your complaints.
Bah! All you people admitting your fallacies. To paraphrase Calvin:
I don't need to make any New Year's resolutions. I'm perfect. It's everyone else that needs to change.
Good luck meeting yours. I've already met mine.
Think about it. Why has Linux been so successful this year? I think it probably boils down to other OSes not being successful. Microsoft's much-hyped Windows 2000 won't be out until February. Macintosh released OS9 to little fanfare knowing that their next biggie is going to be OS X. There haven't been any major operating system developments this year and when there's a vacuum, something will fill it. That something, in this case, is Linux, as for most people, it is a relatively new thing and it did come out with a major kernel release during the past year.
If Microsoft could've released Windows 2000 this year, I think the hype for Linux would've been drowned out by the hype for Windows 2000 which, face it, has a much bigger hype generating engine.
This says nothing about Linux's capabilities, only about its marketing. Linux didn't need much this year because in terms of news, it didn't have much competition. While this may benefit Linux's acceptance into the marketplace, I think the larger overall effect will be that Linux will be seen as a bright supernova that fades once again into the background when the sun that is Windows rises again in 2000 (and I'm not making quality judgments here, I'm just making statements about perceptions of visibility).
Just because a system uses an open kernel doesn't mean it's an 'open-sourced' system. Not all the software that runs on my Linux box is open-source.
.plan today, about people starting in with, "Now that the Quake source is GPL'd, that means that Quake mods have to be GPL'd as well!" It's not true, and I don't think companies will start selling 'open-source PDAs'. People might start developing them on their own, but selling a phone requires a certain amount of propriatarianism.
John Carmack had an interesting take on that in his
The subject basically says it. The company is suing, it feels rightfully, over trademark infringement, and as evidence of this it is using the search engine results to say, basically, "Look, this company is diluting our trademark!" It's an interesting excuse, that a search engine result could be used as evidence.
With that in mind, the search warrant seems odd, and what seems even odder is that it could be served. Does anyone know of any previous case history where the police needed to search a premises for trademark infringement? The only thing I could think of looking for is some sort of knowledge of the infringement which might incriminate. Normally, this information can be requested through a subpoena.
In any case, I thoroughly hope this actually goes to court. Slashdot is quick to jump on the case of anyone even bringing up a case like this, but I think the actual problem is that none of this has gone through the legal system yet. Once a few precedents get established (based on already established precedents, I might add, which will probably make it very easy for the Journal to win), less and less of these cases will come to trial, I bet.
Tell the coalition of plaintiffs to go through with the case. Then end the message with, "Ha ha. We need the precedent and you can look funny when you set it."
"Ah," I hear you say, "but this free-energy theory could be true! Who are you, Tackhead, to say what's worthy or not?". Well, yes, it could be true. And the earth could be carried on the back of a giant turtle, but is it worth investigating when there are better theories to work with? The relativist notion that "all ideas are equally worthy of debate" is great for politics and art, (issues on which Village Voice reporters spend a lot of time writing, and writing well), but a complete flop when you try to extend them to science. The evidence we have makes it pretty bloody clear that world is not sitting on the back of a giant turtle, and any attempt to claim that this "theory" is "just as valid as the big bang theory" is hogwash.
I completely disagree. The way the scientific process works is that everything is equally worthy of debate, but some items tend to be more easily disproven than others. I could say that water has the property of being able to carry my spirit to the star Vega in less than two minutes, but it wouldn't be worthy to research that since an offhand glance shows that it could be readily disproven (we know water can't do this). This guy's claims probably fall marginally into that realm, which is why they haven't been deemed worthy of research. But this guy said, "Hold on a second, let me look at this closer," and what would happen if he found something? Too many scientists have already dismissed this guy because of what they know about current theories but his claim is certainly worthy of being researched. The great thing about theories is that they are often wrong and despite the theory of relativity's incredible experimental strength it is still a theory (and lest I remind you of Newton's laws).
The claims are certainly worthy of being researched, if only to be disproven. I, for one, would be very happy to see the results of the research, positive or negative, because it means one more possible answer has been researched (and frankly, his work seems a helluva lot more plausible than the idea of superstrings and eleven dimensions and all other sorts of perfectly imaginary but mathematically possible 'ideas').
Did anybody actually go and check out his stuff on Deja? The people aren't saying he's a fruitcake. I searched using 'Randall Mills Blacklight', 'Mills Black light' and 'Randall Mills' and came up with four (4) articles having to do anything with this whole debacle (although threads did have other information on related experiments by others, which apparently started discussion about Mr. Mills). In any case, the four articles basically state that
& QRY=Randall+Mills+Blacklight
a) Mills has posted a couple of articles to ANs for peer review, although they haven't been given much attention.
b) On the surface, it passes pseudoscience but people aren't holding their breath.
This doesn't read as crackpot. Personally, yes, I think the experiments will fail to pan out, mostly because this guy is an capitalist, not a scientist or mathematician and he's probably overlooking something himself that's giving him these strange new results. Stranger things have happened. This may turn out to be the 2000 version of the patent clerk coming out of nowhere with a brand new theory that explains far more than we knew before.
Of course, this time he's going to the patent clerk. How ironic.
Deja search link (turns up those four articles):
ht tp://www.deja.com/qs.xp?OP=dnquery.xp&ST=MS&DBS=2
This is the first I've heard of supermount. Does anyone have more information on it other than the patch? It sounds like this may be one of the first truly enticing reasons for me to update my kernel (other than the desire to have the latest and greatest, of course).
We're going to have to vote with our dollars, and make sure that the ...persons... at etoys.com don't get a red cent of our money.
No offense, but this isn't going to jack poo-poo to eToys. The majority of the shoppers of eToys are not the same people who care that eToys is suing Etoy. Whining, complaining, protesting, even attacking draws attention and while some methods are better than others (Stallman's boycott of Amazon vs. RTMark's [or whoever's] DoS'ing of eToys), attention to the issue is what is needed, not "Oh, I'm going to boycott." If you were RMS, that might carry some weight, but what is really needed is this discussion to be taken to someone like CNN so that rather than doing a report on DoS attacks, they do a report on what exactly the entire fiasco is all about and what it could possibly mean for 'Net law, 'Net activities, and the 'Net community.
I think the Slashdot Effect sometimes goes to people's heads. Slashdot is not as big and mighty as people claim it to be. It has the potential to influence far many more people than it actually does, though. As it is now (and I'm guilty of this, too, I might add), we're just debating amongst ourselves.
I guess I need to continuing putting my disclaimer on my posts ...
...
.. he said 'moon'."
NOTE: This post not for the humor (or humour) impaired
And now, to bring this slightly back on topic
"Hehe
See, I saw the e-mail and thought, 'Wow, what a funky hoax!' But then I realized that the e-mail is partially true. What's really the fact here is that this is indeed (at least in the northern hemisphere) going to be the darkest night. Why? Well, the night will be the longest of the year and thus, darkness will have a chance to soak in and penetrate everything. Couple this with a new moon and the moon becomes even brighter, because as everyone knows, light objects on a dark field are lighter than the same shade object on a lighter field (it's a perception thing). Thus, it's really about the darkest night of the year.
As for the Indians, I thought the US's Thanksgiving was last month.