If you save a PNG as 24-bit, even though it has 8-bit or fewer colours, even pngcrush (or the better such program, pngout) can't help much.
Why would you want to save an image with less than 256 colors as PNG-24 when this is precisely what PNG-8 is for? Of course PNG-24 yields a larger file--it uses a non-indexed 24-bit palette.
It's _exceedingly_ rare that you'd have a smaller GIF - usually only when you're using a 1 pixel transparent GIF for a web site spacer graphic
It's not nearly that extreme. My tests show that GIF/89a tends to produce smaller files for images up to about 103px square, except when dithering is involved. I never use spacer images, and file size determines whether I use GIF or PNG-8 for non-dithered 8-bit images. At least 30% of the website icons I create are smaller as GIFs.
It seems to me that a tablet PC is really aimed at a market that is small-to-non-existant.... Tablet PCs, instead of becoming the indispensable laptop-and-PDA killers they were touted to be, instead combine the worst features of both laptops and PDAs. What results? Low-performance, too much weight (ie less-portable), short battery life, and high price.
It's new consumer technology, what do you expect? You want to bury it before it's hardly begun to mature. The cost may be prohibitive, but aren't recent price breaks is what the article is mainly about? The market may be small at present, but to say that it's non-existent is just ignorant.
Features like integrated keyboards and swivel screens make some tablet PCs adaptable to a way of interfacing that's familiar to notebook users. It seems more likely that tablet PCs will supplant notebooks eventually.
WildBlue promises similar service (1.5Mbps down, 256Kbps up) for 2005, but it looks like Telesat/Viasat might beat them to the punch.
Don't confuse Ka-band (Kurtz-above band) with Ku-band (Kurtz-under band). Ku-band has already been in use for satellite Internet for some time now through (awful) services like StarBand and DIRECWAY, and is also widely used for digital TV broadcasts. Amazingly, even C-band Internet service is available. C-band service requires a much bigger dish, but in some areas this is the best (or only) broadband option. Ka-band service may change that for certain regions of Canada.
I wonder if owners of big dishes will be able to modify them to handle Ka-band Internet. It would probably be inconvenient to share if you want TV as well, but merely adding the decoding module would be trivial if they released a kit. It's already relatively simple to add support for new kinds of services, such as 4DTV.
In "One Law To Rule Them All" Michael Ames writes: Asimov's phrase, "allow a human being to come to harm," if implemented fully, would turn humanity into a clutch of coddled infants, perpetually protected from harm, both physical and mental.
In evaluating what constitutes "mental harm", it seems to me that one must apply a cultural standard. For example, many American conservatives regard images of nudity as damaging to children, rather than vital for well-adjustment. In other cultures there is a great variety of words and images regarded as harmful which are innocuous in other contexts. To apply the First Law consummately, we must allow for acculturation, but there are sure to be serious conflicts (what protects one will inadvertantly harm enough by a different standard).
Let's consider the mechanics of "protection from harm." Asimov seemed to indicate a direct reaction to an immediate situation, but surely a protective impulse is bound to be frequently disastrous if it lacks such critical skills as foresight, an ability to extrapolate based on extremely subtle information, and the need for non-action. In fact, this very principle of direct reaction is itself culturally situated: direct communicators tend to seek unambiguous solutions to immediate "problems"; contrast with the Taoist principle of wu wei.
I might agree with that being his definition, except he seems to denigrate the idea that we have "simulated" the pen and paper world with computers.
That's true, but what evoked the ire of some/.ers was that Kay seemed to deride what people are doing with computers in general. I don't think Kay is saying we should be "running simulations" (narrowly defined) instead of our usual mundane tasks; but rather that everyone is already engaging in simulation whenever they use computers, and that such tasks are inherently mundane because they're sub-optimal simulations. The hinted ideal (beyond the article now) is either perfect simulation or not simulation at all, but simulacre: a way of interaction that isn't modeled on corporeal phenomena.
That said, I also assume that buried in his evaluation is a degree of criticism for what people currently choose to do with computers regardless of the model or technology status quo. Don't fault Kay for such a judgment, though. We need people with his vision, which is fueled by dissatisfaction with the status quo. His criticisms are more discriminating than the automatic gainsayers would make them out to be.
For an enthusiastic and engrossing view of what Kay thinks computers *should* be (and I'm 100% with him!) should check it out.
I agree! I notice that nearly every post I've read glibly dismisses Kay's assertions (after mere seconds of processing). It may feel empowering to contradict so dully a person who's thoughts are highly regarded, but that doesn't really do anything to elevate pundits' opinions--just the opposite.
His specific complaints are understandable considering his long (and illustrious) career in computer science, but the underlying thesis is simply that we (including Alan Kay) haven't even begun to appreciate what computers can do. Kay yearns for a paradigm evolution, and considers our anchored situatedness to be detrimental.
Please don't color the word "simulate" too much when reading Kay's words. To simulate is to recreate (approximate) one system in another system. Mathematics is a mode of simulation. The sole purpose of computers is simulation.
Yes, unquestionably. Actually, the poor overall quality of low-bitrate lossy encoding is what deters me from iTunes et al.
It should be noted that the defects of inferior recordings become increasingly apparent with better playback hardware. Limitations of consumer-grade hardware is a key limiting factor to the widespread adoption of higher quality audio recording formats (both physical media and encoding schemes).
You *CAN'T* call it Dr. Who if he's not battling the Daleks. Daleks are like, undeniably part of Dr. Who.
I disagree. I think the series became way too preoccupied with the Daleks in the later years (after Colin Baker) to the detriment of the show. The Dalek's make easy plot fodder. For me, quintessential Doctor Who is about NEW encounters, NEW mysteries, and new reevaluations of spacetime in the Doctor Who universe.
When the Dalek's took center stage, the show became even more centered on Earth (boring), and every interaction with the Daleks was hopelessly melodramatic. Amidst all that melodrama, every time the Doctor even spoke to a Dalek, the self-righteous tone just rubbed me the wrong way.
Microsoft now supplies free (as in beer) compilers for C#, VB.NET C++, J++, etc. with the dot net framework, which is available here. Longhorn will come with the.NET framework, and thus all of the compilers, preinstalled.
Actually, not much of that is accurate. The.NET Framework includes runtime files only, not development tools. Windows 2003 Server already comes with the Framework (runtime files) preinstalled, but I suppose it's possible that the final release of Longhorn will include the SDK.
As of this writing, the SDK includes support for C++, C#, and VB.NET, but not J#. Even J# runtime files are a superset of.NET Framework v1.1 that one must download separately.
The regulations don't apply to political and charitable solicitors, but all other telemarketers who call numbers on the list face fines up to $11,000 per violation.
The article doesn't divulge how many of the complaints are actually valid, but I think it's reasonable to assume that a large percentage of the "429,000 complaints" figure were solicitations from organizations claiming to represent charities or political bodies (all of the phone solitations I've gotten since registering fall into this category).
While such calls are exempt, I'd like to see additional regulation of the groups who hide behind this loophole; not because I oppose legitimate charities seeking donations, but because of the high probability that money donated over the phone will actually reach the charity.
Here's the way it often works: a legitimate charity contracts a telemarking firm to collect a predetermined amount of money. After the firm reaches the quota, they may continue to make solicitations ostensibly on the charity's behalf, but--according to the terms of the contract)--they get to keep all the money beyond the stipulated quota.
If you want to support a charitable organization or political entity, consider donating directly.
FreeBSD isn't transitively "stealthy" (the onus is on the mainstream media), it just isn't widely regarded as having the potential to challenge Microsoft on the desktop, and there has never been a FreeBSD IPO announcement. From the mass media's perspective, what layperson wants to read about FreeBSD's growth in the server market (or overall greatness) unless they can take advantage of it?
The American PDA market is not indicative of the PDA market worldwide, but the article only sites a decline in US sales as evidence of the decay of the platform's popularity.
The definition of 'PDA' they offer is similarly limited, as it fails to acknowledge the growing trend in PDAs, which are becoming increasingly like sub-subnotebooks, except for these key differences: PDAs generally don't rely on mechanical discs, PDAs run exclusive operating systems, PDAs are instant-on devices, and typically PDA software is utilitarian and low-maintenance. Whether one characterizes these differences as advantages or disadvantages compared with the capabilities of a notebook or subnotebook differentiates the market.
Extrapolating the reasoning used in the article, one could also claim that personal media players are preemptively obsoleted by subnotebooks, but even from a price and usability standpoint alone we know this not to be the case.
Funny, I often use my Yahoo! Mail account as a backup resource for small pieces of non-sensitive information. You'd think Microsoft would be maintaining periodic backups of Hotmail data, but what the hey.
according to Mr. Schwartz, Solaris will be open source soon...
Actually, despite the headline's claim, Schwartz never actually said "soon"; in fact, he was very vague: 'I don't want to say when that will happen. But make no mistake, we will open source Solaris.' So, what does that mean? At the latest possible hour, when all other options are exhausted?
And before we get too excited about an open Solaris, consider this: "one problem that Schwartz wants to avoid is having Solaris splintered into different distributions like Linux" (Ong Boon Kiat). If that statement is true, then it doesn't portend well for modified versions of the operating system, does it? I'm hoping that the author merely extrapolated from Schwartz' dim view of Red Hat.
A variety of Solaris distributions would be excellent, but it's probably not going to happen. John Loiacono of Sun adds: "We have to consider what licensing model we use and what levels of free usage we want. Then we also need to consider if we want to [segment the licensing model to address] commercial, private and academic use."
These deliberations suggest that the community will not get anything close to ideal licensing terms.
It's a shame, because if they would truly open source Solaris and Java, the open source community would rally around both products and actually help Sun get out of the death spiral they seem to be in right now.
True, but it's probably a pipe dream. Call me cynical, but it almost seems like Sun just wants free labor to bolster a dying product. I would be surprised if the eventual licensing terms concur with the notion of being "truly open source"; more like, "just open source enough to extract some patches and drivers from the open source development community." How many video cards do they support now? Six?
Don't get me wrong, I would love for Sun to open Solaris, but consider the source (no pun intended).
Alton Brown may be the quintessential hacker-chef, but he's a newcomer to the world of Western cuisine, and definitely not the pioneer when it comes to applying practical chemistry and microbiology to the culinary arts.
For example, James Peterson (chef, author, and recipient of numerous James Beard awards) studied chemistry at Berkeley before engaging in culinary studies at Le Cordon Bleu, and that was more than thirty years ago. In his books and classes, he applies and encourages such topics as understanding of emulsification, the importance of pH balance, how to adjust yoghurt with microbes, the chemistry of caramelization, and so on. His cookbooks are a revelation for those serious about the culinary arts.
I'm a fan of Alton Brown's emphasis on kitchen science, but in its portrayal of his work Wired demonstrates its typically superficial take on science and technology as seen through the pop-culture lens, and fails to put Brown's contribution into a relevant context.
Mod parent up. This is probably the only truly insightful comment about the article author's dilemma (and, imho, one of the most apropos statements ever posted on slashdot).
Widespread adoption of X.org Server could also lead to the full integration of auxilliary X.org projects, such as Xinerama, into X11 as standard features.
X.org Server is the MIT/X license's flagship product (in an inverse sort of way), so I think it's also a good possibility that the systematic proliferation of X.org's server may magnify the popularity of its license among OSS developers in general (it's an interesting license!).
We don't really know what the author's mom is interested in specifically. Obviously she saw some potential in personal computing that she was missing out on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that programming is the only outlet for her creative potential, and certainly not the most appropriate one.
There are myriad possibilities depending on her interests: landscape/garden planning, digital painting, music composition, interactive learning, personal research, personal finance management, forum discussions, or even multi-player Yahoo! Games.
Some of these are creative outlets while others are means of personal enrichment or empowerment. Whichever category applies, the fact that she was keenly interested in exploring new possibilities in computing suggests that she has the potential to do something serious and exciting with her computer. I see no reason why that engagement has to involve high-level programming.
"not sure if i'm gonna upgrade the speakers right away" says the builder of the boombox.
It's difficult to tell from the photos how the hard drive is mounted and protected, but I assume the builder had the foresight to magnetically shield it in some way since he's still using the original speakers, which are most likely unshielded.
I have to wonder how much of the variability of user experience has to do with the performance differences between the ATA-186 and the VT1005 voice terminals....
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If you save a PNG as 24-bit, even though it has 8-bit or fewer colours, even pngcrush (or the better such program, pngout) can't help much.
Why would you want to save an image with less than 256 colors as PNG-24 when this is precisely what PNG-8 is for? Of course PNG-24 yields a larger file--it uses a non-indexed 24-bit palette.
It's _exceedingly_ rare that you'd have a smaller GIF - usually only when you're using a 1 pixel transparent GIF for a web site spacer graphic
It's not nearly that extreme. My tests show that GIF/89a tends to produce smaller files for images up to about 103px square, except when dithering is involved. I never use spacer images, and file size determines whether I use GIF or PNG-8 for non-dithered 8-bit images. At least 30% of the website icons I create are smaller as GIFs.
It seems to me that a tablet PC is really aimed at a market that is small-to-non-existant. ...
Tablet PCs, instead of becoming the indispensable laptop-and-PDA killers they were touted to be, instead combine the worst features of both laptops and PDAs. What results? Low-performance, too much weight (ie less-portable), short battery life, and high price.
It's new consumer technology, what do you expect? You want to bury it before it's hardly begun to mature. The cost may be prohibitive, but aren't recent price breaks is what the article is mainly about? The market may be small at present, but to say that it's non-existent is just ignorant.
Features like integrated keyboards and swivel screens make some tablet PCs adaptable to a way of interfacing that's familiar to notebook users. It seems more likely that tablet PCs will supplant notebooks eventually.
WildBlue promises similar service (1.5Mbps down, 256Kbps up) for 2005, but it looks like Telesat/Viasat might beat them to the punch.
Don't confuse Ka-band (Kurtz-above band) with Ku-band (Kurtz-under band). Ku-band has already been in use for satellite Internet for some time now through (awful) services like StarBand and DIRECWAY, and is also widely used for digital TV broadcasts. Amazingly, even C-band Internet service is available. C-band service requires a much bigger dish, but in some areas this is the best (or only) broadband option. Ka-band service may change that for certain regions of Canada.
I wonder if owners of big dishes will be able to modify them to handle Ka-band Internet. It would probably be inconvenient to share if you want TV as well, but merely adding the decoding module would be trivial if they released a kit. It's already relatively simple to add support for new kinds of services, such as 4DTV.
I think Asimov was doing all he could to make it clear that these three laws were not perfect.
But isn't the first mistake even attempting to reduce to three cross-referencing laws the relative value of action/inaction?
In "One Law To Rule Them All" Michael Ames writes:
Asimov's phrase, "allow a human being to come to harm," if implemented fully, would turn humanity into a clutch of coddled infants, perpetually protected from harm, both physical and mental.
In evaluating what constitutes "mental harm", it seems to me that one must apply a cultural standard. For example, many American conservatives regard images of nudity as damaging to children, rather than vital for well-adjustment. In other cultures there is a great variety of words and images regarded as harmful which are innocuous in other contexts. To apply the First Law consummately, we must allow for acculturation, but there are sure to be serious conflicts (what protects one will inadvertantly harm enough by a different standard).
Let's consider the mechanics of "protection from harm." Asimov seemed to indicate a direct reaction to an immediate situation, but surely a protective impulse is bound to be frequently disastrous if it lacks such critical skills as foresight, an ability to extrapolate based on extremely subtle information, and the need for non-action. In fact, this very principle of direct reaction is itself culturally situated: direct communicators tend to seek unambiguous solutions to immediate "problems"; contrast with the Taoist principle of wu wei .
why not just switch to Java? It's all that PHP5 has and more.
:)
Except for speed.
I might agree with that being his definition, except he seems to denigrate the idea that we have "simulated" the pen and paper world with computers.
/.ers was that Kay seemed to deride what people are doing with computers in general. I don't think Kay is saying we should be "running simulations" (narrowly defined) instead of our usual mundane tasks; but rather that everyone is already engaging in simulation whenever they use computers, and that such tasks are inherently mundane because they're sub-optimal simulations. The hinted ideal (beyond the article now) is either perfect simulation or not simulation at all, but simulacre:
That's true, but what evoked the ire of some
a way of interaction that isn't modeled on corporeal phenomena.
That said, I also assume that buried in his evaluation is a degree of criticism for what people currently choose to do with computers regardless of the model or technology status quo. Don't fault Kay for such a judgment, though. We need people with his vision, which is fueled by dissatisfaction with the status quo. His criticisms are more discriminating than the automatic gainsayers would make them out to be.
For an enthusiastic and engrossing view of what Kay thinks computers *should* be (and I'm 100% with him!) should check it out.
I agree! I notice that nearly every post I've read glibly dismisses Kay's assertions (after mere seconds of processing). It may feel empowering to contradict so dully a person who's thoughts are highly regarded, but that doesn't really do anything to elevate pundits' opinions--just the opposite.
His specific complaints are understandable considering his long (and illustrious) career in computer science, but the underlying thesis is simply that we (including Alan Kay) haven't even begun to appreciate what computers can do. Kay yearns for a paradigm evolution, and considers our anchored situatedness to be detrimental.
Please don't color the word "simulate" too much when reading Kay's words. To simulate is to recreate (approximate) one system in another system. Mathematics is a mode of simulation. The sole purpose of computers is simulation.
Yes, unquestionably. Actually, the poor overall quality of low-bitrate lossy encoding is what deters me from iTunes et al.
It should be noted that the defects of inferior recordings become increasingly apparent with better playback hardware. Limitations of consumer-grade hardware is a key limiting factor to the widespread adoption of higher quality audio recording formats (both physical media and encoding schemes).
You *CAN'T* call it Dr. Who if he's not battling the Daleks. Daleks are like, undeniably part of Dr. Who.
I disagree. I think the series became way too preoccupied with the Daleks in the later years (after Colin Baker) to the detriment of the show. The Dalek's make easy plot fodder. For me, quintessential Doctor Who is about NEW encounters, NEW mysteries, and new reevaluations of spacetime in the Doctor Who universe.
When the Dalek's took center stage, the show became even more centered on Earth (boring), and every interaction with the Daleks was hopelessly melodramatic. Amidst all that melodrama, every time the Doctor even spoke to a Dalek, the self-righteous tone just rubbed me the wrong way.
Good riddance, Dalek franchise.
Microsoft now supplies free (as in beer) compilers for C#, VB.NET C++, J++, etc. with the dot net framework, which is available here. Longhorn will come with the .NET framework, and thus all of the compilers, preinstalled.
.NET Framework includes runtime files only, not development tools. Windows 2003 Server already comes with the Framework (runtime files) preinstalled, but I suppose it's possible that the final release of Longhorn will include the SDK.
.NET Framework v1.1 that one must download separately.
Actually, not much of that is accurate. The
As of this writing, the SDK includes support for C++, C#, and VB.NET, but not J#. Even J# runtime files are a superset of
Oops, of course that should read:
"...because of the high probability that money donated over the phone won't actually reach the charity."
The regulations don't apply to political and charitable solicitors, but all other telemarketers who call numbers on the list face fines up to $11,000 per violation.
The article doesn't divulge how many of the complaints are actually valid, but I think it's reasonable to assume that a large percentage of the "429,000 complaints" figure were solicitations from organizations claiming to represent charities or political bodies (all of the phone solitations I've gotten since registering fall into this category).
While such calls are exempt, I'd like to see additional regulation of the groups who hide behind this loophole; not because I oppose legitimate charities seeking donations, but because of the high probability that money donated over the phone will actually reach the charity.
Here's the way it often works: a legitimate charity contracts a telemarking firm to collect a predetermined amount of money. After the firm reaches the quota, they may continue to make solicitations ostensibly on the charity's behalf, but--according to the terms of the contract)--they get to keep all the money beyond the stipulated quota.
If you want to support a charitable organization or political entity, consider donating directly.
First anti-aliased fonts, now this!
FreeBSD isn't transitively "stealthy" (the onus is on the mainstream media), it just isn't widely regarded as having the potential to challenge Microsoft on the desktop, and there has never been a FreeBSD IPO announcement. From the mass media's perspective, what layperson wants to read about FreeBSD's growth in the server market (or overall greatness) unless they can take advantage of it?
The American PDA market is not indicative of the PDA market worldwide, but the article only sites a decline in US sales as evidence of the decay of the platform's popularity.
The definition of 'PDA' they offer is similarly limited, as it fails to acknowledge the growing trend in PDAs, which are becoming increasingly like sub-subnotebooks, except for these key differences: PDAs generally don't rely on mechanical discs, PDAs run exclusive operating systems, PDAs are instant-on devices, and typically PDA software is utilitarian and low-maintenance. Whether one characterizes these differences as advantages or disadvantages compared with the capabilities of a notebook or subnotebook differentiates the market.
Extrapolating the reasoning used in the article, one could also claim that personal media players are preemptively obsoleted by subnotebooks, but even from a price and usability standpoint alone we know this not to be the case.
Back it up yourself.
Funny, I often use my Yahoo! Mail account as a backup resource for small pieces of non-sensitive information. You'd think Microsoft would be maintaining periodic backups of Hotmail data, but what the hey.
according to Mr. Schwartz, Solaris will be open source soon...
Actually, despite the headline's claim, Schwartz never actually said "soon"; in fact, he was very vague: 'I don't want to say when that will happen. But make no mistake, we will open source Solaris.'
So, what does that mean? At the latest possible hour, when all other options are exhausted?
And before we get too excited about an open Solaris, consider this: "one problem that Schwartz wants to avoid is having Solaris splintered into different distributions like Linux" (Ong Boon Kiat). If that statement is true, then it doesn't portend well for modified versions of the operating system, does it? I'm hoping that the author merely extrapolated from Schwartz' dim view of Red Hat.
A variety of Solaris distributions would be excellent, but it's probably not going to happen. John Loiacono of Sun adds: "We have to consider what licensing model we use and what levels of free usage we want. Then we also need to consider if we want to [segment the licensing model to address] commercial, private and academic use."
These deliberations suggest that the community will not get anything close to ideal licensing terms.
It's a shame, because if they would truly open source Solaris and Java, the open source community would rally around both products and actually help Sun get out of the death spiral they seem to be in right now.
True, but it's probably a pipe dream. Call me cynical, but it almost seems like Sun just wants free labor to bolster a dying product. I would be surprised if the eventual licensing terms concur with the notion of being "truly open source"; more like, "just open source enough to extract some patches and drivers from the open source development community." How many video cards do they support now? Six?
Don't get me wrong, I would love for Sun to open Solaris, but consider the source (no pun intended).
Alton Brown may be the quintessential hacker-chef, but he's a newcomer to the world of Western cuisine, and definitely not the pioneer when it comes to applying practical chemistry and microbiology to the culinary arts.
For example, James Peterson (chef, author, and recipient of numerous James Beard awards) studied chemistry at Berkeley before engaging in culinary studies at Le Cordon Bleu, and that was more than thirty years ago. In his books and classes, he applies and encourages such topics as understanding of emulsification, the importance of pH balance, how to adjust yoghurt with microbes, the chemistry of caramelization, and so on. His cookbooks are a revelation for those serious about the culinary arts.
I'm a fan of Alton Brown's emphasis on kitchen science, but in its portrayal of his work Wired demonstrates its typically superficial take on science and technology as seen through the pop-culture lens, and fails to put Brown's contribution into a relevant context.
Mod parent up. This is probably the only truly insightful comment about the article author's dilemma (and, imho, one of the most apropos statements ever posted on slashdot).
Widespread adoption of X.org Server could also lead to the full integration of auxilliary X.org projects, such as Xinerama, into X11 as standard features.
X.org Server is the MIT/X license's flagship product (in an inverse sort of way), so I think it's also a good possibility that the systematic proliferation of X.org's server may magnify the popularity of its license among OSS developers in general (it's an interesting license!).
We don't really know what the author's mom is interested in specifically. Obviously she saw some potential in personal computing that she was missing out on, but that doesn't necessarily mean that programming is the only outlet for her creative potential, and certainly not the most appropriate one.
There are myriad possibilities depending on her interests: landscape/garden planning, digital painting, music composition, interactive learning, personal research, personal finance management, forum discussions, or even multi-player Yahoo! Games.
Some of these are creative outlets while others are means of personal enrichment or empowerment. Whichever category applies, the fact that she was keenly interested in exploring new possibilities in computing suggests that she has the potential to do something serious and exciting with her computer. I see no reason why that engagement has to involve high-level programming.
"not sure if i'm gonna upgrade the speakers right away" says the builder of the boombox.
It's difficult to tell from the photos how the hard drive is mounted and protected, but I assume the builder had the foresight to magnetically shield it in some way since he's still using the original speakers, which are most likely unshielded.
I have to wonder how much of the variability of user experience has to do with the performance differences between the ATA-186 and the VT1005 voice terminals....