Saying that Apple bought fingerworks may not be enough for folks who don't know what that is. Fingerworks made a series of keyboards and other devices that allowed users to use 'gestures' for commands. The surface was flat, like a touchpad, so there were no keys, which threw many for a loop. A gesture would be, say, four fingers (all except the pinky) sliding together on the right surface of the keyboard to 'Save'. Gestures were programable, and many geeks loved the extensability. The keyboards were difficult to use, especially relearning typing without tactile feedback. But once you got it, these keyboards were *extremely* powerful. E.g., no mouse, since mousing is taken care of with gestures.
About a year ago, FingerWorks was bought out by some other company, that most now think is Apple. Many of the FingerWorks users are mad because they can no longer purchase new keyboards, or even get support for older keyboards that break. Apple had better think of something briliant to pacify this angry mob of **hundreds**.
**Disclamer -- typed with a FingerWorks TouchStream keyboard.
The 'Author pays' model is not actually so bad. Most research is done under Government grants, and publication charges are usually build into the budget. Thus, the science funding agencies, and ultimately the govornment, supply the majority of the funds. Most journals also charge access fees, modest for individuals, exorbatent for institutions (i.e., libraries).
Fortunatly, most journals I am aware of do not *require* author payment if the author cannot afford it -- that is if they do not have grant money. Thus, the system is fair.
Every time a discussion of a new mouse (cause mice suck) comes up, I point out how much I love my Fingerworks Keyboard. I don't ever have to use a mouse, and it has quite a few more (extensible) capabilities.
I never know. Is this the cups as measured on the side of my coffee pot (presumably some sort of cooking measurement), or... six cups as the normal mugs that I drink (typically two of the former sort of cups..)
Just because we use computers every day, all the time, doesn't mean that everybody does...
What agout an iTunes music store?
All you would need is a cubicle and an computer. You could burn CDs to order in just a few minutes with the whole on-line library to choose from. Think of those kiosks you see in the center hallway of all major shopping malls these days. That's all you would need...
You would just need for the online music store to give you a special account, so that people actually owned their own music, and hopefully so that the store owner could buy 'wholesale'
Journals have become *very* expensive. Even for those of us at universities, who have unlimited online access, we are paying gigantic prices for these journals indirectly through library fees. Many journals are over $1000 a pop, and more for online access. PLOS is one of many answers to this problem.
Because most people can already get to publication quality work even using such outmoded technology as MS word, it seems that these journals do not necessarily have to exist to typeset papers, as in the old days.
As far as I see it, the biggest impediment to a successfully open source journal is peer review. The quality of the journal has to be insured. This does not mean that people get paid to review papers (I wish...), but rather that there has to be a knowledgeable editor who knows who knows what in the field, and can put together different reviews to actually decide if the paper is publishable or not. Again, often this person can be underpaid, but there does need to be some sort of staff. It will be interesting to see how PLOS deals with this.
Once these problems have been overcome, the journal needs to be seen as a good place to publish. Reputation is critical to the success of a journal, and it depends mostly on the quality of papers that it publishes. There are many ways to rank journal influence, but most have to do with how often papers from that journal are cited in other scientific papers. Hopefully, with more access, PLOS will have an edge here, since you could send an electronic copy to all your colleagues completely legally.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how many other fields are added. Will they stick to the biggies, like genetics and medicine, or will they head off into the smaller disciplines.
I for one, am hoping for the this project to succeed.
I have been reading all the G5 benchmarks with mixed feelings lately. First of all I should clarify that I am a fan of Macs, and so I am glad to see that there is any interest in the platform at all.
However, I do most of my real computing on a home-grown linux cluster using Rocks. These intel machines are simply so cheap if you step slightly back from the bleeding edge, that I don't know if I could justify spending a significant amount on an equivilent Mac cluster (although I am watching V. Tech's apple cluster, just like everyone else apparently is...).
Is there really much need for so much desktop power? How many users will utilize the full potential of a dual G5? Keep in mind that if even slashdot users can't keep two procs going, the general public has little hope.
Of course, this will not stop me from buying one.. It's just so cool looking... I am just confessing that I realize it is wasteful...
What sort of computations will this be good at?
on
Grid Processing
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I use parallel computing on a cluster, in which I divide up my computational domain into a number of chunks, and each chunk is farmed out to a processor. Communication between the processes is required at the chunk boundaries.
For this case, I see how my code is partitioned, and I also understand (on a general level, at least) what the limitations on speed are: information based between the chunks.
Now, how will this processor do its 'instruction level' parallelization? Will it be great at do loops (one 'do' per processer)? Will it be like a mini vector processor? What will break down the efficiency of the parallelization?
I have found that efficiency in parallelization is very application dependent after about 8-32 procesors. Will this break that barrier?
Most importantly, will it kick butt for MY applications?
But the truth is that I don't use a mouse anymore. I use a touchstream keyboard from Fingerworks that lets me move the arrow and cursor and type on the same interface. This is very nice.
Anyone who has even a bit of RSI can identify with my hatred, or at least ambivilance toward mice. My tendons ache at the thought of so many mice in the world..
Another question (along with the many other desires for more information) is:
What is the relative security level per unit effort.
I imaine that most people using MS servers know that they need to be on the ball, or else. Linux server admins may be a bit less cautios, because they assume they are more secure. Old versions of any server software will bite you eventually...
I have a 17" powerbook. The firmware upgrade seemed to work just fine. I installed it, and am burning a test audio CD right now (at 16x, but that is just like before. Most important is that it still works.) The patch does make the drive seem like new hardware, which, of corse, apple immediately recognizes...
Has anyone tried to burn a DVD, esp. with one of the new formats? Please, we are all dying to know..
I have been using the touchstream LP for about a month now, and I am toatally hooked. I take it with me on trips now, because using a traditional keyboard is annoying.
This is how it works.. The touchpad can sense diferent numbers of fingers on the board: typing is one finger, mousing is two fingers (right hand), click-drag is three fingers. There are also 'gestures' that can be used to do common things (similar to the command-* keystrokes). You can do things like copy, cut, paste, open, save, close, etc. Look at the finger works website for more info.
My assesement after one month is this: typing is a bit slower, but it is made up for by the utter ease of the guestures. Also, my typing is only a bit slower than on a conventional keyboard. But the absolutely best thing is *never* having to reach for a mouse again.
It is a bit like investing in learning vi or emacs keystrokes. At first, picking things out of a menu would be faster, but once you get the hang of the key sequences, they are *much* faster. You don't even realize you are doing them, as they become built into your fingers. How many of you have 'emacsified' fingers? I know I do...
You can also reprogram the guesures with a fairly sophisticated program available on the fingerworks website. I have put in a few of my favorite emacs comands as simple gestures with essentially no work. The only trouble is in deciding how you will put it all in efficiently.
As soon as they get one of these for the PB17, I will get one...
I have been using my Ipod sporadically for a while. One very annoying thing is that when you havn't recharced it for a few days, and want to go for a run, the battary is dead.
I was never exactly able to figure out how long my standby time was, but it seemed short enough that I was considering contacting apple about it (3 days perhaps..).
What have other readers found as their standby time using the older firmware versions?
BTW - I entertained people in meeting for about 5 minutes yesterday with my "YaoBook"...taking requests to minimize and maximize windows, just so they could watch the gennie effect into and out of the dock. Wow. Apple really hit the marketing bullseye with that otherwise useless feature.
This may be a slight bit off the main topic, but you can slow down the genie effect by shift-clicking the yellow minimize button. This is very annoying for all-the-time use, but it impresses the hell out of non-mac people....
When you put your system together, remember that chip speed is not everything. I just bought a system with a 400 mhz bus (and two 1.2 ghz chips). Without the quick bus, I wouldn't be able to use the the quick chips. Be warned: the big name companies save there money here.
Also, the place I got my system from (ordered by my coworker, so I forget where it was) actually built the thing, even though we only ordered the components! Be sure to ask for a similar deal, if you use one company for everything...
decadal variability must also be considered..
on
Baked Alaska
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Recent numerical simulations of Arctic climate suggest that the recent Arctic ice melt (and generally warmer temperatures) may be caused by decadal variability, instead of (or, more likely, in addition to) a general warming trend. This cycle is about to switch, so that in the next ten years, the ice may reform and temperatures could drop. That is, until the cycle switches again, when ice melt and warming could come back with a vengance.
What does this mean for long term climate variability? It means it is much harder to detect permanent changes in climate when there is so much noise in the signal and so little data. It is important not to put too much stock on short term changes -- i.e., an unusually hot summer is not evidence of global warming, and global warming will not have stopped even if it gets cooler for ten years in a row.
Slashdot Mirror
Saying that Apple bought fingerworks may not be enough for folks who don't know what that is. Fingerworks made a series of keyboards and other devices that allowed users to use 'gestures' for commands. The surface was flat, like a touchpad, so there were no keys, which threw many for a loop. A gesture would be, say, four fingers (all except the pinky) sliding together on the right surface of the keyboard to 'Save'. Gestures were programable, and many geeks loved the extensability. The keyboards were difficult to use, especially relearning typing without tactile feedback. But once you got it, these keyboards were *extremely* powerful. E.g., no mouse, since mousing is taken care of with gestures.
About a year ago, FingerWorks was bought out by some other company, that most now think is Apple. Many of the FingerWorks users are mad because they can no longer purchase new keyboards, or even get support for older keyboards that break. Apple had better think of something briliant to pacify this angry mob of **hundreds**.
**Disclamer -- typed with a FingerWorks TouchStream keyboard.
Shouldn't it be exactly the other way around? More popular songs are cheaper, less popular are more expensive? This evens out profit.
The flaw in the 'stock market' model is that the songs are not limited in capacity -- my download does not prevent others from downloading as well.
I use *EMACS* to watch my TV, like god actually intended.
The 'Author pays' model is not actually so bad. Most research is done under Government grants, and publication charges are usually build into the budget. Thus, the science funding agencies, and ultimately the govornment, supply the majority of the funds. Most journals also charge access fees, modest for individuals, exorbatent for institutions (i.e., libraries).
Fortunatly, most journals I am aware of do not *require* author payment if the author cannot afford it -- that is if they do not have grant money. Thus, the system is fair.
Every time a discussion of a new mouse (cause mice suck) comes up, I point out how much I love my Fingerworks Keyboard. I don't ever have to use a mouse, and it has quite a few more (extensible) capabilities.
If you are really a geek, you need one.
I never know. Is this the cups as measured on the side of my coffee pot (presumably some sort of cooking measurement), or... six cups as the normal mugs that I drink (typically two of the former sort of cups..)
Anyone?
Just because we use computers every day, all the time, doesn't mean that everybody does...
What agout an iTunes music store?
All you would need is a cubicle and an computer. You could burn CDs to order in just a few minutes with the whole on-line library to choose from. Think of those kiosks you see in the center hallway of all major shopping malls these days. That's all you would need...
You would just need for the online music store to give you a special account, so that people actually owned their own music, and hopefully so that the store owner could buy 'wholesale'
Journals have become *very* expensive. Even for those of us at universities, who have unlimited online access, we are paying gigantic prices for these journals indirectly through library fees. Many journals are over $1000 a pop, and more for online access. PLOS is one of many answers to this problem.
Because most people can already get to publication quality work even using such outmoded technology as MS word, it seems that these journals do not necessarily have to exist to typeset papers, as in the old days.
As far as I see it, the biggest impediment to a successfully open source journal is peer review. The quality of the journal has to be insured. This does not mean that people get paid to review papers (I wish...), but rather that there has to be a knowledgeable editor who knows who knows what in the field, and can put together different reviews to actually decide if the paper is publishable or not. Again, often this person can be underpaid, but there does need to be some sort of staff. It will be interesting to see how PLOS deals with this.
Once these problems have been overcome, the journal needs to be seen as a good place to publish. Reputation is critical to the success of a journal, and it depends mostly on the quality of papers that it publishes. There are many ways to rank journal influence, but most have to do with how often papers from that journal are cited in other scientific papers. Hopefully, with more access, PLOS will have an edge here, since you could send an electronic copy to all your colleagues completely legally.
Finally, it will be interesting to see how many other fields are added. Will they stick to the biggies, like genetics and medicine, or will they head off into the smaller disciplines.
I for one, am hoping for the this project to succeed.
It seems to me that the big difference is that the chrome apple will replace the big blue X in everything.
I guess they are getting ready for when the go to version 11.
Does this mean we will all have gigantic, perpetually erect penises?
Well, that's fine, since I'll be able to buy a whole lot of love, once that $20 million arrives from that prince in Nirobi..
I remember the Dr. Who of old and the amazingly horrible special effects. I mean, they were bad..
However, even cheezy Fox series have pretty decent (by 1970s standard) special effects.
Will the new (gay?) Dr. Who take advantage of these?
Will we finally find out how the Daleks climb stairs?
I find it hard to believe nobody has linked to my favorite editor joke yet:
Ed, man!
I have been reading all the G5 benchmarks with mixed feelings lately. First of all I should clarify that I am a fan of Macs, and so I am glad to see that there is any interest in the platform at all.
However, I do most of my real computing on a home-grown linux cluster using Rocks. These intel machines are simply so cheap if you step slightly back from the bleeding edge, that I don't know if I could justify spending a significant amount on an equivilent Mac cluster (although I am watching V. Tech's apple cluster, just like everyone else apparently is...).
Is there really much need for so much desktop power? How many users will utilize the full potential of a dual G5? Keep in mind that if even slashdot users can't keep two procs going, the general public has little hope.
Of course, this will not stop me from buying one.. It's just so cool looking... I am just confessing that I realize it is wasteful...
I use parallel computing on a cluster, in which I divide up my computational domain into a number of chunks, and each chunk is farmed out to a processor. Communication between the processes is required at the chunk boundaries.
For this case, I see how my code is partitioned, and I also understand (on a general level, at least) what the limitations on speed are: information based between the chunks.
Now, how will this processor do its 'instruction level' parallelization? Will it be great at do loops (one 'do' per processer)? Will it be like a mini vector processor? What will break down the efficiency of the parallelization?
I have found that efficiency in parallelization is very application dependent after about 8-32 procesors. Will this break that barrier?
Most importantly, will it kick butt for MY applications?
Oh, wait, this isn't a poll.
But the truth is that I don't use a mouse anymore. I use a touchstream keyboard from Fingerworks that lets me move the arrow and cursor and type on the same interface. This is very nice.
Anyone who has even a bit of RSI can identify with my hatred, or at least ambivilance toward mice. My tendons ache at the thought of so many mice in the world..
Another question (along with the many other desires for more information) is:
What is the relative security level per unit effort.
I imaine that most people using MS servers know that they need to be on the ball, or else. Linux server admins may be a bit less cautios, because they assume they are more secure. Old versions of any server software will bite you eventually...
So are they really comparing the same thing?
I have a 17" powerbook. The firmware upgrade seemed to work just fine. I installed it, and am burning a test audio CD right now (at 16x, but that is just like before. Most important is that it still works.) The patch does make the drive seem like new hardware, which, of corse, apple immediately recognizes...
Has anyone tried to burn a DVD, esp. with one of the new formats? Please, we are all dying to know..
I have been using the touchstream LP for about a month now, and I am toatally hooked. I take it with me on trips now, because using a traditional keyboard is annoying.
This is how it works.. The touchpad can sense diferent numbers of fingers on the board: typing is one finger, mousing is two fingers (right hand), click-drag is three fingers. There are also 'gestures' that can be used to do common things (similar to the command-* keystrokes). You can do things like copy, cut, paste, open, save, close, etc. Look at the finger works website for more info.
My assesement after one month is this: typing is a bit slower, but it is made up for by the utter ease of the guestures. Also, my typing is only a bit slower than on a conventional keyboard. But the absolutely best thing is *never* having to reach for a mouse again.
It is a bit like investing in learning vi or emacs keystrokes. At first, picking things out of a menu would be faster, but once you get the hang of the key sequences, they are *much* faster. You don't even realize you are doing them, as they become built into your fingers. How many of you have 'emacsified' fingers? I know I do...
You can also reprogram the guesures with a fairly sophisticated program available on the fingerworks website. I have put in a few of my favorite emacs comands as simple gestures with essentially no work. The only trouble is in deciding how you will put it all in efficiently.
As soon as they get one of these for the PB17, I will get one...
I have been using my Ipod sporadically for a while. One very annoying thing is that when you havn't recharced it for a few days, and want to go for a run, the battary is dead.
I was never exactly able to figure out how long my standby time was, but it seemed short enough that I was considering contacting apple about it (3 days perhaps..).
What have other readers found as their standby time using the older firmware versions?
BTW - I entertained people in meeting for about 5 minutes yesterday with my "YaoBook"...taking requests to minimize and maximize windows, just so they could watch the gennie effect into and out of the dock. Wow. Apple really hit the marketing bullseye with that otherwise useless feature.
This may be a slight bit off the main topic, but you can slow down the genie effect by shift-clicking the yellow minimize button. This is very annoying for all-the-time use, but it impresses the hell out of non-mac people....
Please check all the boxes you don't not want to recieve no valuable consumer information about:
[all boxes are checked]
Now, what do I do? Uncheck them all? Keep them checked? I'm confused.... Help! This is illegal!
Absent from the review is a discussion of iMail. I have seen that there are quite a few improvements planned, like auto-detecting spam.
Does anyone know: is it really all that good?
It's just that I don't really like Eudora, and I want some alternatives...
When you put your system together, remember that chip speed is not everything. I just bought a system with a 400 mhz bus (and two 1.2 ghz chips). Without the quick bus, I wouldn't be able to use the the quick chips. Be warned: the big name companies save there money here.
Also, the place I got my system from (ordered by my coworker, so I forget where it was) actually built the thing, even though we only ordered the components! Be sure to ask for a similar deal, if you use one company for everything...
Recent numerical simulations of Arctic climate suggest that the recent Arctic ice melt (and generally warmer temperatures) may be caused by decadal variability, instead of (or, more likely, in addition to) a general warming trend. This cycle is about to switch, so that in the next ten years, the ice may reform and temperatures could drop. That is, until the cycle switches again, when ice melt and warming could come back with a vengance.
What does this mean for long term climate variability? It means it is much harder to detect permanent changes in climate when there is so much noise in the signal and so little data. It is important not to put too much stock on short term changes -- i.e., an unusually hot summer is not evidence of global warming, and global warming will not have stopped even if it gets cooler for ten years in a row.
Really, don't look directly at the sun....