Exactly how does making the browser part of the operating system make Windows more usable? Faster performance.
Eh... no. Generally the two biggest bottlenecks for browsing are network time and HTML parsing. Network time is (currently) waiting for responses. Execution of the software network interface is a very tiny part. HTML parsing can't be improved with OS integration. Either your processor runs through the parsing code fast or slow. The only affect the OS really would have is in holding up processing, but a kernel can be made to make the browser a higher priority.
Better support (you know they at least have a browser no matter what they installed).
What's the difference? A system can determine which patches need to be installed without user input. Browser integration guarantees that browser patches would need to be installed even if the browser's not used by the user. How's that better? Considering how different each system can be (with or without browser integration) I fail to see how this matters.
Now would you rather have that or some number (that has no meaning to the users) someone can put in a report?
Some number? If the number has any real meaning behind it corporate and government procurement would be directly affected, even if the end users don't care. If I can really show that Linux has less bugs then I'm more likely to choose it for mass distribution. I'm also more likely to hire people who have developed the linux kernel since I know they either code very well, fix most of their bugs, or are humble enough to accept patches from others.
Considering IE integration provides no benefits but significant detriments I would easily choose any random number over integration.
I'm certainly not saying networks should be funded by local municipalities. But it definitely should not be illegal for them to do it. I don't eat potatoe chips, but I'd be really annoyed if someone told me I'm not allowed.
So the government is barred from providing a public service? If a municipality can build their own water system for public use why can't it build its own computer network for public use? I would imagine this new law conflicts with some local charters or even the state constitution. I'm sure they mention the obligation of the government to provide its citizens with public utilities.
But of course I'm not a lawyer. Apparently all citizens need to be one in order to really understand how all these laws affect them. Sad, really.
So one election less proportionately corporate-funded and our representatives are now paying less attention to corporations than citizens? Pretty naiive. It still costs $15,000+ to have a cup of coffee with the president. That's any time in the next four years. If you pay enough you can sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. The rich still have by far the most visibility and direct say with representatives. Corporate spending on lobbying is higher than ever. Are you saying citizens have stronger lobbying? Hardly.
You're ignoring everything but one election's donations. Taken as a whole corporations still have a far bigger say in US government than individuals.
IIRC czar was the Russian word for Ceasar. The ceasar of Rome ruled a republic (most of the time). Although the balance of power continually shifted, ceasar was not "the ultimate rule in a non-free society." Elected senators wrote laws.
As mentioned repeatedly on slashdot, IP law is now critical to nerds. No one can write software and put it out there for the public to use without having to consider IP law (even deciding to put it in the public domain is a decision in IP law). Back in the day, when nerds were all in the basements and few people had a computer no one cared about IP. But with more than half of the US licensing software IP law is more and more a part of everyday lives. And if you're a nerd who programs or even just tinkers it's an important part of your hobby.
You can personally choose to ignore it, but it's at your own expense. If you don't fight to keep IP laws fair you'll one day find it's illegal or too expensive to be a nerd.
Depends on who's president as this falls under the executive branch. Republicans will be the most corporate biased. Democrats slightly less. Ralph Nader would be the most individual-focused.
If Lawrence Lessig ever gets appointed to the position then we'd have nothing to worry about.
Wow, YAAL (You Are A Lawyer), ALOS (A Lawyer On Slashdot)!
The WTO is already bending some of its rule to let in China. It seems they're ignoring their rules on human rights because opening new avenues for trade and profit are far more important. So they may bend IP rules as well. However, IP rules are directly related to profit for the companies of WTO members. The WTO will pick the path which brings them the most money.
I was thinking that while a compiler needs to be completely predictable, it might be flexible enough to understand a limited set of our natural languages. I realize they weren't strictly speaking about NLP, but it might relate.
Personally, I don't see how creating a language that encourages this behaviour can be a good thing.
I think what they're trying to say with natural language programming is the inverse. The computer should better understand what the person is trying to say if the person tells it in a more natural way. With the many nuances of language this is very difficult, so they question why we're not applying some of the techniques already learned to make programming languages more natural.
You're right, it may encourage more wasteful and misleading behavior. But if one day the computer can completely understand almost anything we tell it then it'll be able to interpret it in a smart way.
"Real" natural language processing means the computer can interpret what you're trying to say no matter how you say it. As long as grammer is correct, there can be a variety of ways of saying things. NLP tries to be smart at figuring out sentances it's never seen before by learning from past conversations. Of course with the complexity of natural language this is difficult and doesn't always work, but we've learned enough about how to do it that we should already have ways for computers to "understand" more natural instructions.
Whatever happened to checking a user's authenticity by analyzing typing style and rate? There were studies which proved it was almost always correct. I'm sure in a practical situation they could be made 99.999999% correct. So how come we don't see it anywhere? At least not publicly.
As for the card, just like everyone else I'm not impressed. Bill really needs to get out more. He's really out of touch.
It wasn't typical at all. At the time software was hardware-specific and was provided at the time of hardware purchase by the manufacturer. IBM was the biggest example. But Microsoft specifically wanted to retain ownership of the software. This was one of the first times a hardware vendor did not own the software matching their hardware. By not taking ownership and licensing it out themselves, IBM missed one of the largest opportunities in technology history, as exemplified by Microsoft's tremendous growth.
I agree. The execs at Time Warner and AOL really missed a golden opportunity to stand out and gain a huge fan base. There could have been some real innovation in media. It might be the biggest blunder in the technology industry since IBM's original contract with Microsoft.
There's a small review at The Register. His impression is better query features, bad results.
But much more interesting is his commentary on what all search engines are missing. Most of the "data" people want to find isn't on any computer network. It's in our social network, our minds. So how do we get the technology to adapt to society? Or do we force society to adapt to the technology.
The "search engine wars" might be a little interesting. But are they missing the big picture? From a non-technical person's perspective they might be.
Isn't XMMS's original code based on the code from Winamp? For a while even the skins were interchangable. Of course this was long before AOL got involved.
How about arresting Bill Gates for giving the source code to the Chinese government?
One person's arrested by the US government for selling source code which isn't his. Another is given approval by the US government go give his code (the same code) to the Chinese government, who severely violates basic human rights and will likely become a rival superpower. The only thing keeping the Chinese animosity for the US and Japan at bay is the huge economical benefit they get from trade.
I'm not saying the guy shouldn't be arrested for selling Windows code. But things need to be put in perspective.
I use my Yahoo email account. Their spam filtering has gotten pretty good, so I just ignore the bulk folder and it's contents are automatically deleted. Any valid e-mails get through. I've actually gotten e-mails I wanted so I prefer this to a fake email address.
Comcast, who I also dislike, is the biggest cable service provider in the US. Just like Microsoft they have a bad reputation, and just like Microsoft they're dominant in the market.
I think TimeWarner + AOL turned out to be a bigger joke. But that's because they didn't capitalize on their partnership at all. They had a huge opportunity and they blew it.
A trim desktop for the corporate drone is exactly what the market needs. Sun is sort of trying to do it with JDS, but they're selling it as one desktop for every kind of corporate user. The lean desktop with only necessary packages that's easily maintainable is what a lot of companies need if they're going to slowly switch away from Microsoft. It eases headaches and drastically cuts administrative costs. I hope Novell is very smart in the way they market it.
- Administration - One simple screen for e-mail accounts and another simple screen for other configuration options. I find the Outlook barrage of configuration windows and tabs VERY annoying. It's also difficult to see exactly how POP/IMAP e-mail accounts are configured in Outlook. If you see the options in Thunderbird you'll see what I mean.
- These new Virtual Folders (mail's not really moved into them, but it's a view over all your mail based on criteria you specify). I use Outlook 2002 (XP) at work and I don't see any way to do the same without creating rules to copy mail to folders.
- Message threads. I see no way to do this in Outlook 2002.
- Less features. Outlook has more features, but I don't have any use for most of them. So Thunderbird is less cluttered for me.
Most techie book these days are quickie grab-bags, and you end up paying for a lot of dead trees that you aren't interested in.
And so I suggest a service like O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf. It includes the full text of over 2,000 technical books, many not published by them. No killing trees, far less money than buying books, plus full text search.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly how does making the browser part of the operating system make Windows more usable?
Faster performance.
Eh... no. Generally the two biggest bottlenecks for browsing are network time and HTML parsing. Network time is (currently) waiting for responses. Execution of the software network interface is a very tiny part. HTML parsing can't be improved with OS integration. Either your processor runs through the parsing code fast or slow. The only affect the OS really would have is in holding up processing, but a kernel can be made to make the browser a higher priority.
Better support (you know they at least have a browser no matter what they installed).
What's the difference? A system can determine which patches need to be installed without user input. Browser integration guarantees that browser patches would need to be installed even if the browser's not used by the user. How's that better? Considering how different each system can be (with or without browser integration) I fail to see how this matters.
Now would you rather have that or some number (that has no meaning to the users) someone can put in a report?
Some number? If the number has any real meaning behind it corporate and government procurement would be directly affected, even if the end users don't care. If I can really show that Linux has less bugs then I'm more likely to choose it for mass distribution. I'm also more likely to hire people who have developed the linux kernel since I know they either code very well, fix most of their bugs, or are humble enough to accept patches from others.
Considering IE integration provides no benefits but significant detriments I would easily choose any random number over integration.
I'm certainly not saying networks should be funded by local municipalities. But it definitely should not be illegal for them to do it. I don't eat potatoe chips, but I'd be really annoyed if someone told me I'm not allowed.
"Can" and "should" are two very different things.
So the government is barred from providing a public service? If a municipality can build their own water system for public use why can't it build its own computer network for public use? I would imagine this new law conflicts with some local charters or even the state constitution. I'm sure they mention the obligation of the government to provide its citizens with public utilities.
But of course I'm not a lawyer. Apparently all citizens need to be one in order to really understand how all these laws affect them. Sad, really.
So one election less proportionately corporate-funded and our representatives are now paying less attention to corporations than citizens? Pretty naiive. It still costs $15,000+ to have a cup of coffee with the president. That's any time in the next four years. If you pay enough you can sleep in the Lincoln bedroom. The rich still have by far the most visibility and direct say with representatives. Corporate spending on lobbying is higher than ever. Are you saying citizens have stronger lobbying? Hardly.
You're ignoring everything but one election's donations. Taken as a whole corporations still have a far bigger say in US government than individuals.
IIRC czar was the Russian word for Ceasar. The ceasar of Rome ruled a republic (most of the time). Although the balance of power continually shifted, ceasar was not "the ultimate rule in a non-free society." Elected senators wrote laws.
As mentioned repeatedly on slashdot, IP law is now critical to nerds. No one can write software and put it out there for the public to use without having to consider IP law (even deciding to put it in the public domain is a decision in IP law). Back in the day, when nerds were all in the basements and few people had a computer no one cared about IP. But with more than half of the US licensing software IP law is more and more a part of everyday lives. And if you're a nerd who programs or even just tinkers it's an important part of your hobby.
You can personally choose to ignore it, but it's at your own expense. If you don't fight to keep IP laws fair you'll one day find it's illegal or too expensive to be a nerd.
Depends on who's president as this falls under the executive branch. Republicans will be the most corporate biased. Democrats slightly less. Ralph Nader would be the most individual-focused.
If Lawrence Lessig ever gets appointed to the position then we'd have nothing to worry about.
Wow, YAAL (You Are A Lawyer), ALOS (A Lawyer On Slashdot)!
The WTO is already bending some of its rule to let in China. It seems they're ignoring their rules on human rights because opening new avenues for trade and profit are far more important. So they may bend IP rules as well. However, IP rules are directly related to profit for the companies of WTO members. The WTO will pick the path which brings them the most money.
I was thinking that while a compiler needs to be completely predictable, it might be flexible enough to understand a limited set of our natural languages. I realize they weren't strictly speaking about NLP, but it might relate.
Personally, I don't see how creating a language that encourages this behaviour can be a good thing.
I think what they're trying to say with natural language programming is the inverse. The computer should better understand what the person is trying to say if the person tells it in a more natural way. With the many nuances of language this is very difficult, so they question why we're not applying some of the techniques already learned to make programming languages more natural.
You're right, it may encourage more wasteful and misleading behavior. But if one day the computer can completely understand almost anything we tell it then it'll be able to interpret it in a smart way.
"Real" natural language processing means the computer can interpret what you're trying to say no matter how you say it. As long as grammer is correct, there can be a variety of ways of saying things. NLP tries to be smart at figuring out sentances it's never seen before by learning from past conversations. Of course with the complexity of natural language this is difficult and doesn't always work, but we've learned enough about how to do it that we should already have ways for computers to "understand" more natural instructions.
Whatever happened to checking a user's authenticity by analyzing typing style and rate? There were studies which proved it was almost always correct. I'm sure in a practical situation they could be made 99.999999% correct. So how come we don't see it anywhere? At least not publicly.
As for the card, just like everyone else I'm not impressed. Bill really needs to get out more. He's really out of touch.
It wasn't typical at all. At the time software was hardware-specific and was provided at the time of hardware purchase by the manufacturer. IBM was the biggest example. But Microsoft specifically wanted to retain ownership of the software. This was one of the first times a hardware vendor did not own the software matching their hardware. By not taking ownership and licensing it out themselves, IBM missed one of the largest opportunities in technology history, as exemplified by Microsoft's tremendous growth.
I agree. The execs at Time Warner and AOL really missed a golden opportunity to stand out and gain a huge fan base. There could have been some real innovation in media. It might be the biggest blunder in the technology industry since IBM's original contract with Microsoft.
There's a small review at The Register. His impression is better query features, bad results.
But much more interesting is his commentary on what all search engines are missing. Most of the "data" people want to find isn't on any computer network. It's in our social network, our minds. So how do we get the technology to adapt to society? Or do we force society to adapt to the technology.
The "search engine wars" might be a little interesting. But are they missing the big picture? From a non-technical person's perspective they might be.
girls on the right
;)
Are you calling the Republicans a bunch of sissies?
Isn't XMMS's original code based on the code from Winamp? For a while even the skins were interchangable. Of course this was long before AOL got involved.
How about arresting Bill Gates for giving the source code to the Chinese government?
One person's arrested by the US government for selling source code which isn't his. Another is given approval by the US government go give his code (the same code) to the Chinese government, who severely violates basic human rights and will likely become a rival superpower. The only thing keeping the Chinese animosity for the US and Japan at bay is the huge economical benefit they get from trade.
I'm not saying the guy shouldn't be arrested for selling Windows code. But things need to be put in perspective.
I use my Yahoo email account. Their spam filtering has gotten pretty good, so I just ignore the bulk folder and it's contents are automatically deleted. Any valid e-mails get through. I've actually gotten e-mails I wanted so I prefer this to a fake email address.
I can't, but the guy(s) at Microsoft Monitor comment on it regularly. It's the blog for Joe Wilcox at Jupiter Research. Google search of their site.
Comcast, who I also dislike, is the biggest cable service provider in the US. Just like Microsoft they have a bad reputation, and just like Microsoft they're dominant in the market.
I think TimeWarner + AOL turned out to be a bigger joke. But that's because they didn't capitalize on their partnership at all. They had a huge opportunity and they blew it.
"We are pleased that we have been able to resolve a portion of our pending legal issues with Microsoft"
Well, duh! You're going to get a check for over half a billion dollars. I'd be more than "pleased."
A trim desktop for the corporate drone is exactly what the market needs. Sun is sort of trying to do it with JDS, but they're selling it as one desktop for every kind of corporate user. The lean desktop with only necessary packages that's easily maintainable is what a lot of companies need if they're going to slowly switch away from Microsoft. It eases headaches and drastically cuts administrative costs. I hope Novell is very smart in the way they market it.
In addition to what other posters have listed,
- Administration - One simple screen for e-mail accounts and another simple screen for other configuration options. I find the Outlook barrage of configuration windows and tabs VERY annoying. It's also difficult to see exactly how POP/IMAP e-mail accounts are configured in Outlook. If you see the options in Thunderbird you'll see what I mean.
- These new Virtual Folders (mail's not really moved into them, but it's a view over all your mail based on criteria you specify). I use Outlook 2002 (XP) at work and I don't see any way to do the same without creating rules to copy mail to folders.
- Message threads. I see no way to do this in Outlook 2002.
- Less features. Outlook has more features, but I don't have any use for most of them. So Thunderbird is less cluttered for me.
Most techie book these days are quickie grab-bags, and you end up paying for a lot of dead trees that you aren't interested in.
And so I suggest a service like O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf. It includes the full text of over 2,000 technical books, many not published by them. No killing trees, far less money than buying books, plus full text search.