After seeing the pictures and reading the article, I'm a little dissapointed. I was hoping that these "bouncing probes" would be more like the Rover from "The Prisoner," which was of course just a weather balloon that roared.
It seems that the conservatives on/. are complaining, rather loudly, that Taco, Hemos, and the gang are running stories that are pro-Gore.
Interestingly, the "pro-Gore" article run today is more "anti-anti-Gore," but that's beside the point.
The point is that Taco tells us I just personally wanted to note that the submissions are extremely lopsided; virtually nil for any 3rd party candidates (except a few Nader) and only a little more for Bush. We're trying to give the major candidates linkage, so if you find good sources on the net (or want to write one!) submit it!, and the reaction has been to complain about how sneaky Taco is for not posting Bush articles.
It's a frigging BBS, fellas. He can't post articles that you don't submit. Furthermore -- just as a disclaimer before you start submitting -- he can't post articles that aren't interesting and don't have some smidgen of integrity.
Taco makes mistakes a lot. Like when he tells us that an article questions the functionality of the Electoral College, when it's really question the functionality of a plurality-wins popular vote system in the primary and November elections. But by God, man, his heart's in the right place, and he's trying to pull for you.
Well, there goes my karma. I'll see you on the other side, where my user name will be T. Nivek.
Steve Jobs would undoubtedly earn a spot in the top 5 in a list covering the 1970s or the 1980s. But in the 1990s?
Jobs turned Apple around, but Apple isn't really important to computing as a whole anymore, not with an 8% market share. They make nice, leading-edge machines, they have a nice UI, and they're swell at industrial design again, but with the exception of case design, Apple -- and Steve Jobs -- don't shape computing anymore.
Where's Jeff Hawkins? He's arguably the inventor of the first practical PDA. Just as Apple deserves enormous credit for making existing "outsider" technologies palatable in the '70s and '80s, Palm should get props for making the handheld computer into something for the masses back in '97.
Some things no one seems to have pointed out in this fervent comments on Steve Jobs's inclusion on the list are his non-Apple pursuits, which of course were all brought back into the Apple umbrella when he became iCEO.
Webobjects. Ever used it? Especially on a list of networking heavies, I think it deserves some mention.
Webobjects and NeXTstep were both born out of Jobs's personal vision of the late 80s, and brought into the Apple fold circa '95 or '96.
Pixar has brought feature-length digital animation to near-perfection. It's not networking-related, but it certainly is techinical achievement. That's one of Steve's companies, too.
Finally, I'd like to put in a word of caution: market share numbers are meaningless in a world of cash registers running off 486s, entire developing economies running pirated copies of windows, and idiots buying a new machine every 6 months so they can run Diablo II. Does market share equal innovation? Performance? Stability?
It would be nice to see PDAs mentioned on the list, though, you're right about that. I'm consistently amazed at the new uses these things are being put to. They're like high-tech duct tape.
Nothing bugs me more than carrying on a conversation with foo@bar.com, and having him "reply" to the wrong address because "John Doe"'s work address is above his home address in foo@bar.com's "address book". Not only do I not necessarily want personal correspondance at work, but now I have to forward that mail *back to my home address* if I want to keep a record of it in one place.
Why not just raise the standard to "anyone who can't use an e-mail address book properly shouldn't be using e-mail"? If they have your home e-mail address, you're probably their friend and could include helpful hints like "I'm at work, but please reply to home address b/c...."
Really. I have no sympathy for 'ya. Even my mom knows not to e-mail me at my work address, and she uses AOL on a Mac.
For a number of years, the base configuration of every Apple machine has been very obviously deficient in RAM. The original iMac shipped with 32MB with an OS that was easily capable of hogging up to 25 of that. The reason often suggested is that this is one of Apple's few concessions to its dealers: value-added resellers can make extra money by pre-installing extra RAM, as well as flogging other goodies such as printers and scanners with the package.
To be fair, the original iMac shipped with OS 8.1, a fine operating system that ran in 11-15 MB (+ maybe another 2-4 MB for MS library extensions if you had to run Office or IE), and OS 8.5/6 usually runs in less than 20 MB (16 on my iMac with peripheral and modem extensions loaded)-- I'm not sure where you get 25 MB from.
But you're right, the Mac has not shipped with enough RAM since the first model in 1984. Supposedly Steve Jobs, back then, thought developers should be able to write very good, tight code that would run on a 128k machine (they wanted 512k, and eventually got it). I wonder if Jobs doesn't realize that, in the current port-from-PC developement environment, he's not going to get many programs optimized for a 32 MB iMac/iBook, or if he's just being sleazy with the RAM vendors, as you suggest?
If you want a larger screen, get a Powerbook, or a Dell Latitude, ya know?
The iBook is sold as the consumer model, with a particular aim toward students in education. It was originally marketed as a "take it to school and use it all day without needing a battery recharge" machine. The majority of tasks students would perform on their iBooks would be things like word processing, HTML markup, or very simple web graphics creation. For the most part, a 12-inch screen at 800x600 should do fine, b/c you don't usually need two windows open next to each other to do these things. With iMovie and Quicktime Pro being pushed on iBook users, I'm not so sure, but I'd still say that most iBook users will be fine using keyboard shortcuts to get between layered windows, without impairing their ability to work.
For my money, the 12 inch screen is the reason NOT to get an iBook, but I can see why the designers would prefer a lesser cost, longer battery life, and lighter weight over an additional inch or two of screen width.
But did [von Braun's rockets] hit any of the stars in London? They've always had good theater there. (Or would that be theatre?)
Well, I've been told that the best way to analyze the distribution of rocket-bomb hits is to take a map of London and put a sticky star on the site of each hit, color coded for how you're feeling that day....
Actually I thought it was kind of clever, making a reference to the hit TV show Third Rock from the Sun within my third post within an article about one or more Sun(s).
It would have been far more clever if you had known that you were actually referring to the song "Three Stones from the Sun," sonny. Never explain your own jokes, especially if you're imitating what you saw on television.
I think something similar was done with the episode "Eegah!" which was recently released on DVD. Using the wonders of modern technology, you can now have the joy of watching not only the MST version, but the original, uncut, unriffed film. Although why you would want to is completely beyond me.
Well, without the silhouettes of the seats at the bottom of the screen, an Eegah! viewer would be able to watch out for snakes.
> About all I could think about while
> watching "Independence Day" was how it was
> crying out for MST3King
If you go to a lousy movie, be it ID4 or a DePalma flick, don't rely on Crow and Servo to save you. Sometimes you have to take measures into your own hands. Just because you're in the theater, surrounded by others who paid for their tickets, do not assume that they like the movie any more than you do. So riff. Your fellow movie-goers will thank you for it.
I'm sure they'll provide a helpful animated Penguin (or maybe a gnome, heh-heh) to make your linux box look so much more cute...just shows how friendly they are to Linux users, you know.
Yes, I agree. I find it interesting that Microsoft's spokeswoman could make a legal policy judgement based on info given to her by, apparently, CNet's interviewer, and then of course CNet could quote her on it...it reminds me of the advice in _Glengarry Glen Ross_: "Never open your mouth unless you know the shot."
CNet could have done a lot better by talking to people at Infocom, people who still run Amigas, NeXT, NuBus Macintoshes, and other discontinued-but-old platforms. They probably knew that MS would give them a simple answer, and MS is easy to get in touch with, so that's what they went with.
You're right: it is a stupid observation. It's a poorly thought-out troll, in fact.
Even accepting your postulate that geeks=men, it's not at all "like having a guy write a review on different brands of tampons." It's an observer with a particular perspective commenting on an aspect of society.
It's OK for Slashdot to run a second review by a non-JK author. That way, those of us who have killfiled Mr. Katz's writings still get to read at least one review of every cyberbook to hit the cybershelves.
It's not so "dead simple, load's of money saved." What you describe is, to a certain extent, the way the space shuttle works now. To carry even larger, more complex payloads at one time would require a lot more fuel. A-and to carry that extra fuel, you'd need more fuel to achieve escape velocity. And the extra fuel for the rocket boosters would require....
The space shuttle is one of the worst-engineered pieces of junk flying today, and it was created to do what you propose. It's a money sink.
It's really no more a breach of privacy than linking you phone number and your address in a big white book published by the phone company, not to mention reverse directories (now freely available to the public at www.411.com). I'm sure that, when you sign up for an account, the post office would have a check box that allows you to "hide" your physical address information from public view, sort of like a limited-interface for setting up the info that appears when people finger your unix account. (And unlike certain commercial site fine-print check boxes, they would probably make it more clear to the user what this box is for, no "best for company but worst for customer is default" setup).
Once the info is on the usps.gov servers, their customers who have selected the "don't give out any info about me without a court order" option have the advantage of being in a database on a.gov server, which would, in theory, be more secure than a Microsoft.com server, at least in terms of minimum sentences for cracking, if not the actual security of the software.
In short, the specific privacy issue that you bring up is trivial. I know that I may be giving the.Gov a little more credit than they are due (they probably will run NT, for starters), but they've probably thought about it enough to set the free e-mail up so that no one else online can violate your privacy, unless They have a.gov address. You should be more worried about Carnivore than a stalker finding people's physical addresses based on their e-mails.
I suspect that the launch window for a mission to Pluto would be considerable.Consider that the information we learn from a mission to Pluto now may teach us things that will help us set up this proposed "space infrastucture." Consider that the cost of a mission to Pluto now is probably less than the combined salaries of 10 lobbyists whose job it is to convince Congress that cheap missions to Pluto are worthless to the American consumer, but a prolonged "space logistics" programe would be good for the aerospace industry, and thus, America's domination of world technology markets.
Why aren't the materials in the NSA museum in the Smithsonian, where they will be more publically available, cared for by professional curators, and not drain valuable NSA resources? What impact does the NSA Public Relations Office intend for the museum to have on public opinion and employee morale?
I know this is now very off-topic (go ahead, waste your moderation points on a fifth-level post...I've got the karma to spare, guys), but I'd like to say this once:
Everyone always complains about _Dune_. Some say Lynch is at fault. Some say Dino DeLaurentis is at fault. Everyone agrees that it sucks.
What no one seems to care about, or maybe know about, is that Lynch's deal with DeLaurentis was this: "I'll do _Dune_," (which DeLautentis had been wanting to do ever since the late 60s, I believe) "if you give me adequate funding for a movie of my own."
That movie was _Blue Velvet_.
The suffering of _Dune_ fans who demand a cinematic product is a fair trade for _Blue Velvet_, I think.
So, every time you see a piece of crap like _M2M_ or _Dune_, cross your fingers and hope that _someone_ involved with this movie will profit enough to make something cool, be it a movie, game, clock, whatever.
What I've always wanted to know is: why didn't Stephenson go ahead, after the book was published and became a hit, and make a graphic novel and/or CD-ROM game to go with the book? I seem to recall an author's note at the back explaining that he originally wanted to do this as a comic book, but couldn't....
The writing style and action in _Snow Crash_ seem perfect for storyboards/ comic panels, but I don't think I actually want to see those images moving on a screen.
What's more, as someone else pointed out, they've kinda been beaten to the punch by _The Matrix_. Anyone who hasn't read _Snowcrash_ and sees a movie of it will think: "ah, here's a computer-based sci-fi movie with some badass guys in leather who are constantly making references to Babylonian gods."
"Sumerian."
"Whatever."
The point being that they'll either end up with a movie executive who _has_ read the book and thinks its the best -- someone with a lot of power and enthusiasm to make it happen -- or a cheap-ass studio that just wants to get a piece of Warner's pie. The latter will not do _Snow Crash_ justice, and the former will probably end up being some power-crazy hack like Lucas or DePalma.
Diamond Slicer said: "I think that preserving types of "Dead Media" is crucial to science - the ideas that they represent my one day be useful again."
Most of the "dead" media that I looked at on the site were just earlier implementations of ideas that are still in use: Magic lantern-->24 fps cinema, for example. Typewriters are still in production/ use.
I think scientists -- and businessmen -- can learn a lot from looking at the way things were done in the past. But I'm racking my brains trying to think of a dead medium that is not represented in some current, living incarnation. I suppose chemical film and analog audio media are on the way out in the next 20 years, but can anyone think of a "missing link" medium, or media technology, that at one time contributed much to communications, and now is not represented?
Slashdot Mirror
After seeing the pictures and reading the article, I'm a little dissapointed. I was hoping that these "bouncing probes" would be more like the Rover from "The Prisoner," which was of course just a weather balloon that roared.
Ahem.
/. are complaining, rather loudly, that Taco, Hemos, and the gang are running stories that are pro-Gore.
It seems that the conservatives on
Interestingly, the "pro-Gore" article run today is more "anti-anti-Gore," but that's beside the point.
The point is that Taco tells us I just personally wanted to note that the submissions are extremely lopsided; virtually nil for any 3rd party candidates (except a few Nader) and only a little more for Bush. We're trying to give the major candidates linkage, so if you find good sources on the net (or want to write one!) submit it!, and the reaction has been to complain about how sneaky Taco is for not posting Bush articles.
It's a frigging BBS, fellas. He can't post articles that you don't submit. Furthermore -- just as a disclaimer before you start submitting -- he can't post articles that aren't interesting and don't have some smidgen of integrity.
Taco makes mistakes a lot. Like when he tells us that an article questions the functionality of the Electoral College, when it's really question the functionality of a plurality-wins popular vote system in the primary and November elections. But by God, man, his heart's in the right place, and he's trying to pull for you.
Well, there goes my karma. I'll see you on the other side, where my user name will be T. Nivek.
--Kevin
Steve Jobs would undoubtedly earn a spot in the top 5 in a list covering the 1970s or the 1980s. But in the 1990s?
Jobs turned Apple around, but Apple isn't really important to computing as a whole anymore, not with an 8% market share. They make nice, leading-edge machines, they have a nice UI, and they're swell at industrial design again, but with the exception of case design, Apple -- and Steve Jobs -- don't shape computing anymore.
Where's Jeff Hawkins? He's arguably the inventor of the first practical PDA. Just as Apple deserves enormous credit for making existing "outsider" technologies palatable in the '70s and '80s, Palm should get props for making the handheld computer into something for the masses back in '97.
Some things no one seems to have pointed out in this fervent comments on Steve Jobs's inclusion on the list are his non-Apple pursuits, which of course were all brought back into the Apple umbrella when he became iCEO.
Webobjects. Ever used it? Especially on a list of networking heavies, I think it deserves some mention.
Webobjects and NeXTstep were both born out of Jobs's personal vision of the late 80s, and brought into the Apple fold circa '95 or '96.
Pixar has brought feature-length digital animation to near-perfection. It's not networking-related, but it certainly is techinical achievement. That's one of Steve's companies, too.
Finally, I'd like to put in a word of caution: market share numbers are meaningless in a world of cash registers running off 486s, entire developing economies running pirated copies of windows, and idiots buying a new machine every 6 months so they can run Diablo II. Does market share equal innovation? Performance? Stability?
It would be nice to see PDAs mentioned on the list, though, you're right about that. I'm consistently amazed at the new uses these things are being put to. They're like high-tech duct tape.
Nothing bugs me more than carrying on a conversation with foo@bar.com, and having him "reply" to the wrong address because "John Doe"'s work address is above his home address in foo@bar.com's "address book". Not only do I not necessarily want personal correspondance at work, but now I have to forward that mail *back to my home address* if I want to keep a record of it in one place.
Why not just raise the standard to "anyone who can't use an e-mail address book properly shouldn't be using e-mail"? If they have your home e-mail address, you're probably their friend and could include helpful hints like "I'm at work, but please reply to home address b/c...."
Really. I have no sympathy for 'ya. Even my mom knows not to e-mail me at my work address, and she uses AOL on a Mac.
Star Trek Four, the Voyage Home.
Actually a good movie, for the Trek series.
For a number of years, the base configuration of every Apple machine has been very obviously deficient in RAM. The original iMac shipped with 32MB with an OS that was easily capable of hogging up to 25 of that. The reason often suggested is that this is one of Apple's few concessions to its dealers: value-added resellers can make extra money by pre-installing extra RAM, as well as flogging other goodies such as printers and scanners with the package.
To be fair, the original iMac shipped with OS 8.1, a fine operating system that ran in 11-15 MB (+ maybe another 2-4 MB for MS library extensions if you had to run Office or IE), and OS 8.5/6 usually runs in less than 20 MB (16 on my iMac with peripheral and modem extensions loaded)-- I'm not sure where you get 25 MB from.
But you're right, the Mac has not shipped with enough RAM since the first model in 1984. Supposedly Steve Jobs, back then, thought developers should be able to write very good, tight code that would run on a 128k machine (they wanted 512k, and eventually got it). I wonder if Jobs doesn't realize that, in the current port-from-PC developement environment, he's not going to get many programs optimized for a 32 MB iMac/iBook, or if he's just being sleazy with the RAM vendors, as you suggest?
If you want a larger screen, get a Powerbook, or a Dell Latitude, ya know?
The iBook is sold as the consumer model, with a particular aim toward students in education. It was originally marketed as a "take it to school and use it all day without needing a battery recharge" machine. The majority of tasks students would perform on their iBooks would be things like word processing, HTML markup, or very simple web graphics creation. For the most part, a 12-inch screen at 800x600 should do fine, b/c you don't usually need two windows open next to each other to do these things. With iMovie and Quicktime Pro being pushed on iBook users, I'm not so sure, but I'd still say that most iBook users will be fine using keyboard shortcuts to get between layered windows, without impairing their ability to work.
For my money, the 12 inch screen is the reason NOT to get an iBook, but I can see why the designers would prefer a lesser cost, longer battery life, and lighter weight over an additional inch or two of screen width.
But did [von Braun's rockets] hit any of the stars in London? They've always had good theater there. (Or would that be theatre?)
Well, I've been told that the best way to analyze the distribution of rocket-bomb hits is to take a map of London and put a sticky star on the site of each hit, color coded for how you're feeling that day....
Actually I thought it was kind of clever, making a reference to the hit TV show Third Rock from the Sun within my third post within an article about one or more Sun(s).
It would have been far more clever if you had known that you were actually referring to the song "Three Stones from the Sun," sonny. Never explain your own jokes, especially if you're imitating what you saw on television.
I think something similar was done with the episode "Eegah!" which was recently released on DVD. Using the wonders of modern technology, you can now have the joy of watching not only the MST version, but the original, uncut, unriffed film. Although why you would want to is completely beyond me. Well, without the silhouettes of the seats at the bottom of the screen, an Eegah! viewer would be able to watch out for snakes.
> About all I could think about while
> watching "Independence Day" was how it was
> crying out for MST3King
If you go to a lousy movie, be it ID4 or a DePalma flick, don't rely on Crow and Servo to save you. Sometimes you have to take measures into your own hands. Just because you're in the theater, surrounded by others who paid for their tickets, do not assume that they like the movie any more than you do. So riff. Your fellow movie-goers will thank you for it.
I'm sure they'll provide a helpful animated Penguin (or maybe a gnome, heh-heh) to make your linux box look so much more cute...just shows how friendly they are to Linux users, you know.
Yes, I agree. I find it interesting that Microsoft's spokeswoman could make a legal policy judgement based on info given to her by, apparently, CNet's interviewer, and then of course CNet could quote her on it...it reminds me of the advice in _Glengarry Glen Ross_: "Never open your mouth unless you know the shot."
CNet could have done a lot better by talking to people at Infocom, people who still run Amigas, NeXT, NuBus Macintoshes, and other discontinued-but-old platforms. They probably knew that MS would give them a simple answer, and MS is easy to get in touch with, so that's what they went with.
An essay describing the history of CD manufacturing and price-gouging can be found at:
http://www.negativland.com/minidis.html
Lots of other information on the record industry, copyright, and intellectual property issues is available on their site.
You're right: it is a stupid observation. It's a poorly thought-out troll, in fact.
Even accepting your postulate that geeks=men, it's not at all "like having a guy write a review on different brands of tampons." It's an observer with a particular perspective commenting on an aspect of society.
It's OK for Slashdot to run a second review by a non-JK author. That way, those of us who have killfiled Mr. Katz's writings still get to read at least one review of every cyberbook to hit the cybershelves.
It's not so "dead simple, load's of money saved." What you describe is, to a certain extent, the way the space shuttle works now. To carry even larger, more complex payloads at one time would require a lot more fuel. A-and to carry that extra fuel, you'd need more fuel to achieve escape velocity. And the extra fuel for the rocket boosters would require....
The space shuttle is one of the worst-engineered pieces of junk flying today, and it was created to do what you propose. It's a money sink.
One rocket, one payload.
Now, everybody--
It's really no more a breach of privacy than linking you phone number and your address in a big white book published by the phone company, not to mention reverse directories (now freely available to the public at www.411.com). I'm sure that, when you sign up for an account, the post office would have a check box that allows you to "hide" your physical address information from public view, sort of like a limited-interface for setting up the info that appears when people finger your unix account. (And unlike certain commercial site fine-print check boxes, they would probably make it more clear to the user what this box is for, no "best for company but worst for customer is default" setup).
.gov server, which would, in theory, be more secure than a Microsoft.com server, at least in terms of minimum sentences for cracking, if not the actual security of the software.
.Gov a little more credit than they are due (they probably will run NT, for starters), but they've probably thought about it enough to set the free e-mail up so that no one else online can violate your privacy, unless They have a .gov address. You should be more worried about Carnivore than a stalker finding people's physical addresses based on their e-mails.
Once the info is on the usps.gov servers, their customers who have selected the "don't give out any info about me without a court order" option have the advantage of being in a database on a
In short, the specific privacy issue that you bring up is trivial. I know that I may be giving the
The article seemed to indicate that the Europa mission would, possibly, get priority for resources like Pu-238.
All these worlds are your worlds....
I suspect that the launch window for a mission to Pluto would be considerable.Consider that the information we learn from a mission to Pluto now may teach us things that will help us set up this proposed "space infrastucture." Consider that the cost of a mission to Pluto now is probably less than the combined salaries of 10 lobbyists whose job it is to convince Congress that cheap missions to Pluto are worthless to the American consumer, but a prolonged "space logistics" programe would be good for the aerospace industry, and thus, America's domination of world technology markets.
Why aren't the materials in the NSA museum in the Smithsonian, where they will be more publically available, cared for by professional curators, and not drain valuable NSA resources? What impact does the NSA Public Relations Office intend for the museum to have on public opinion and employee morale?
I know this is now very off-topic (go ahead, waste your moderation points on a fifth-level post...I've got the karma to spare, guys), but I'd like to say this once:
Everyone always complains about _Dune_. Some say Lynch is at fault. Some say Dino DeLaurentis is at fault. Everyone agrees that it sucks.
What no one seems to care about, or maybe know about, is that Lynch's deal with DeLaurentis was this: "I'll do _Dune_," (which DeLautentis had been wanting to do ever since the late 60s, I believe) "if you give me adequate funding for a movie of my own."
That movie was _Blue Velvet_.
The suffering of _Dune_ fans who demand a cinematic product is a fair trade for _Blue Velvet_, I think.
So, every time you see a piece of crap like _M2M_ or _Dune_, cross your fingers and hope that _someone_ involved with this movie will profit enough to make something cool, be it a movie, game, clock, whatever.
What I've always wanted to know is: why didn't Stephenson go ahead, after the book was published and became a hit, and make a graphic novel and/or CD-ROM game to go with the book? I seem to recall an author's note at the back explaining that he originally wanted to do this as a comic book, but couldn't....
The writing style and action in _Snow Crash_ seem perfect for storyboards/ comic panels, but I don't think I actually want to see those images moving on a screen.
What's more, as someone else pointed out, they've kinda been beaten to the punch by _The Matrix_. Anyone who hasn't read _Snowcrash_ and sees a movie of it will think: "ah, here's a computer-based sci-fi movie with some badass guys in leather who are constantly making references to Babylonian gods."
"Sumerian."
"Whatever."
The point being that they'll either end up with a movie executive who _has_ read the book and thinks its the best -- someone with a lot of power and enthusiasm to make it happen -- or a cheap-ass studio that just wants to get a piece of Warner's pie. The latter will not do _Snow Crash_ justice, and the former will probably end up being some power-crazy hack like Lucas or DePalma.
Diamond Slicer said:
"I think that preserving types of "Dead Media" is crucial to science - the ideas that they represent my one day be useful again."
Most of the "dead" media that I looked at on the site were just earlier implementations of ideas that are still in use: Magic lantern-->24 fps cinema, for example. Typewriters are still in production/ use.
I think scientists -- and businessmen -- can learn a lot from looking at the way things were done in the past. But I'm racking my brains trying to think of a dead medium that is not represented in some current, living incarnation. I suppose chemical film and analog audio media are on the way out in the next 20 years, but can anyone think of a "missing link" medium, or media technology, that at one time contributed much to communications, and now is not represented?
They do have a "working note" on the St. Louis radio news-paper.
http://www.wps.com/dead-media/notes/37/378.html