Dolls are a classic example, where the child will use various dolls (and stuffed toys etc.) and play act them interacting in a social manner.
Perhaps it has something to do with visualization. I also recall when I was younger, I used to play out all sorts of social sequences and situations with action figures, lego characters, etc. Now that I'm older, I still play out similar situations but they all happen in my head.
Maybe it's just that when we're younger, we have more trouble visualizing things in our mind so we need the help of dolls (or Sims). Later on, when our brains are more developed (and we gathered more experience), we can handle running such simulations in our heads.
You can sell yourself with the same degree of freedom that he shops for employees.
Offer to curtail your freedom, if he curtails his. Bet he'll not bite.
Difference is most people can only handle one full time job. While employers can handle many full time employees. They're studs like that.:P
What I'd probably do is keep my resume and such on my own portfolio-style website, which will be around regardless whether I'm employed or unemployed. It's more passive that way.
You're right, the article does mention it. It mentions how unlikely that most hardware will work on both operating systems:
But I predict that legacy hardware--and even some existing boards--will be difficult to run in both environments. Will the high-end video-digitizing Kona card work under Windows? What about M-Audio's multichannel audio input cards? I'll believe it when I see it. Got more faith? Go ahead, buy a dual-core Mac. And have fun upgrading it.
Also it mentions how it's difficult to customize your own hardware:
... If you like building your own computers, you are out of luck again. Apple's not interested in a DIY Mac./i>
There is no such thing as an "add-on" processor upgrade. Until recently, you'd be stuck with an IBM PPC CPU. Now you can use a special Intel CPU, but good luck trying to upgrading to a different one, or an AMD.
And lastly, I never in my life watched Nascar, nor do I gaybash, and my mom says I'm not ugly. Stop being a troll and trying to make Apple users look bad.
I'm not a Mac user, as you may have guessed. So I may be wrong, but this is my understanding: The big success of Apple's operating systems lies in the fact that they only support a very narrow range of hardware. The operating system is literally tailored for the specific configuration that Apple releases.
Therein lies the problem. If you want to run OSX, and want to upgrade your Mac's hardware (say CPU, Videocard, Soundcard, Motherboard), you'll run into problems. The kind where you have very limited choice if you want a working system.
That is what I meant.
- shazow
Apple isn't out to steal Windows users
on
Boot Camp For Suckers?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
My understanding is that BootCamp allows current Mac users to run Windows on their Mac. The article seems to argue that this will encourage Windows users to get Macs and stick with OSX instead of BootCamping in Windows. That may apply to a few people, but for the most part I disagree.
As others have pointed out, it seems that the primary strategy behind BootCamp is: Give people the option to use whatever operating system they like. Apple has allowed their consumers to install Linux on their machines since forever, and now they're allowing Windows, too.
What does Apple have to gain? Profits from hardware sales, of course. Plus, whenever you're buying a Mac, you're also buying OSX, so they're not losing much software profits either. Who else has to gain? Possibly Microsoft in the short run (all those Mac kiddies giving Windows a shot without having to buy a PC).
And then there is the whole other market of people who aren't concerned about software expandability so much as hardware. Macs aren't great for upgrading their hardware. Windows or no windows.
I don't see why the price would be more expensive when released early versus when it would have been released normally. Usually prices start off at some point, and decrease proportionally to the time since release (by which I actually mean proportionally to the number of sales).
It's not like they're giving a limited amount of people a "special preview". They shifted the release date earlier.
If anything, now you wont have to wait as long for prices to drop. Since it'll be out earlier, the prices will drop earlier, by the above logic.
A question or two may not, but the more you answer, the more the person starts relying on you and the stupider the questions get.
I'm all for helping people, but you have to set a limit. Eventually people start asking you "so, do I left click or right click?" or something equivalent, which would have been much much much easier and faster to simply TRY IT! Seriously, two choices, about half a second to try each. Why would you send a message to someone, wait for a reply, and then take their word on it, when you could have much easier just tried it yourself.
If it's a complicated problem, I'll get them started and make sure they get through it ok. But if it's something trivial, which I _know_ they'd be able to solve if I just wasn't around, I avoid answering. Not because I'm a snob (which I may be), but it's really better for everyone involved.
By the way, this applies to both, Windows and Linux users. Friends or otherwise.
Say what you will about the odd Gentoo user, but in my experience Gentoo has one of the most welcoming and informative communities I've witnessed. Almost any problem encountered can be found on the huuuuge forum, and any post that you've put in at least a little effort into will get an almost instant, polite reply.
Naturally, if you write a post entitled "lol!" with the body "omg help!" you're not going to get a great response. But if you're clear about what your problem is, people will pour in with suggestions and directions to fix it.
Similarly on their IRC channel. Stop by, ask for help, and odds are someone will be around willing to help. I make it a point to pop by once a week or so and just help a few people.
Yes, Gentoo is harder to get started with than some other distros (Ubuntu, Mandrake, etc). But I must say, I've known people who have used Ubuntu or Mandrake or what have you for as long as I have used Gentoo, and they learned nothing about Linux during that time.
Clearly Gentoo isn't for the "average" user. But if you want to learn something and have a solid and flexible distro with a reliable community behind it, I highly recommend Gentoo.
It's quiet, but not the heat measurements are deceiving.
I also have a Sonata II case, with a very quiet Vantec PSU, a relatively quiet Radeon 9600XT, and the same heatsink. Difference: Athlon XP 2800+ cpu, Maxtor SATA drives, no sound-absorbing foam etc. When I turn all my fans on minimum, I quite literally can't hear my computer, and this is without the sound-absorbing foam.
Yes, my computer also idles somewhere around ~50C.
But on high load? The temperature can go as high as +70C when watching a movie, and even up to 80C when compiling (yes, I run Gentoo) under "aggressive" bios settings.
This is not very satisfactory. I'm convinced that the foam would only make matters worse (since sound isn't a problem as it is). Normally, I run it on medium fan settings -- you can hear it humm quietly, but it's not distracting.
I highly recommend the Sonata II case and Vantec power supplies, but don't expect low temperatures with low sound.
A virus is like the "cold" you catch because you didn't wear enough layers and the low body temperature made your immune system weak.
Or the random virus circulating the Interweb that infiltrated an exploit in your program/OS because you didn't get the latest patches.
On the other hand, this is more like...
Someone giving you a handgun and telling you it's a can of whipped cream. You put it to your mouth, pull the trigger, and blow a chunk of your cheek off.
Or someone giving you a file, telling you it's a program illustrating Lindsey Lohan clad in whipped cream. You put it in your computer, type in your root password, install it, and blow a chunk of your OS off.
My fellow group members and I are using a Wiki to organize out project. This includes documenting each members' ideas, collaborating for report writing, and general discussion.
Also, we're unofficially using it as a collaborative note-taking tool for class. Someone takes notes on their laptop during class, then posts them, and the other members go through them with corrections/additions.
Not exactly on topic of finding a mentor, but this request reminded me of my early Computer Science studies when my friends and I took turns coming up with encrypted strings, posted them on a newsgroup we frequented, and made it into a competition as to who could decrypt it first.
We started with simple stuff like letter substitution, ROT13, etcetera. And then moved on to masking and all sorts of fun/complicated algorithms. This was very educational, in the sense of learning about cryptography. We learned interesting concepts, and rapidly developed tools/scripts/methods for attempt to decrypt arbitrary strings.
Actually, now that you mention it, that would be kind of neat.
At first, I thought: "Passive game? That's just like a movie without the flesh -- boooooring"
But then I thought: What if you have a little world which you can explore, where multiple stories unfold simultaneously. And you're like a ghost, flying around, following people, eavesdropping on them, seeing what they're doing, watching the stories of your choice unfold. Night-time comes, your character of choice goes to sleep, what do you do for 7 hours? Fly over to the bank where there's a robbery in-progress. You could easily have several weeks' worth of scripted storytelling.
Plus, there's very decent replayability value, since you could explore each story separately and their intricate interactions (similar to movies like Go, where the story is told completely differenly from 3 different characters' persectievs).
Then, once this medium of storytelling is mastered (should be rather tricky, intertwining and synchronizing the world like that), they could start adding minute possibilities for interaction. Later on, you could become part of the story by playing a character (think racting, like in Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson).
Just to set the record straight, there already exists something like this for Linux (and, more specifically, KDE). In fact, there are two major branches in development for such widgets:
1. The fancy branch (since sometime in 2003): SuperKaramba, which spawned from the plain Karamba.
2. The non-fancy minimalistic branch (since god knows when - probably early 2004): Conky, which spawned from the even less fancy Torsmo.
1. A dozen of new web-based RSS feed readers will be announced, all featuring tags and various intricate social features. Eventually one or two will be considered the "norm" (as Blogger, Livejournal, etc are considered the norm for blogging, despite all the imitators). My bookmarks folder rejoices.
2. AMD motherboards with DDR2 will finally show up. I finally upgrade from an obsolete 32-bit system. My applications rejoice.
3. Sony PlayStation 3 will be released. It will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then more will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then the price will drop a little. Then I'll buy one. Then it will be hacked by various groups for various purposes. Sony pouts. I rejoice.
4. A new flavour of Cola: Chocolate! (Eww) Oops, not technological, sorry.
5. Opera finally releases a stable, good, browser for PocketPCs. I rejoice.
6. Enlightenment 17 is finally released. I try it, don't like it, go back to XFCE.
7. XFCE 4.4 is finally released. I upgrade. I rejoice.
8. Microsoft releases Vista. Only thing new from XP: Aero and 9 versions of the same thing with 9 different price tags. (The cheaper version users are stuck with an inferior plastic paperclip.)
9. Apple releases their new line of Intel PowerBook laptops. No one notices -- attention diverted by the release of 4 and 8 gig iPod Nanos with FM radio. I consider buying one until I realize, again, that it's a waste of money. iPod lovers' collection of iPods grows to 9 units per person. Apple rejoices.
Actually... he is maintaining the primary 2.6 tree, as well as his own -mm tree. At least as as I can tell from his bio and this ancient slashdot article:
"Linus Torvalds has released his final 2.6.0-test kernel, calling it the 'Beaver In Detox'. Following this release, Linus says that 2.6 development will be led by Andrew Morton."
"Linux 2.6 is maintained by Andrew Morton, who works closely with Linus Torvalds to deliver a fast, powerful, and feature-packed Linux kernel. Development is happening at incredible pace and this kernel tree is now very mature."
[...] from that pool, make up a list of services and subtract out 90% of the money for things like "fiscal management" "trademark research" "artist contact costs" or anything else [...]
I swear I read that as "subtract out 90% of the money for things like "fecal management",..." which, actually, I thought was a good idea. The RIAA does produce a lot of feces for other companies to manage.:D
I disagree. Once you get used to the lifestyle, it becomes second-nature. Just as much as it is for Ozzy Osborne to utter fucking shit n^2 times per sentence, "being cute" can become your natural method of speech -- slamming your fingers or otherwise.
Firstly, I don't agree with some of what is said. For one:
"Golly" is a compaction of "God's body" and, thus, was once a profanity.
I have no idea where they got that (and many others of their facts) from, but wiktionary says otherwise. It seems to be pseudo-researched with a couple of reputable quotes here and there... Oh well.
To the point, in reference to their Stroop test (on page 2), where people were startled by obscene words moreso than neutral words, I find it to be the reverse in "comfortable" environments (as they vaguely mentioned). That is to say, so many people swear habitually that it's not even a big deal in casual situations. To find someone that says "poop" instead of "shit" or something unique and unsensical like "fatty arbuckle!" instead of "fuck!" tends to startle people in surprize. At first, at least.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT!:D
Works wonderfully. Plus, makes swearing that/i much more fun.
I am aware of these techniques. I've been doing digital art for several years, though most of that time was spent on Gimp. I just feel that the current methodology in Gimp requires you to jump through several hoops while Photoshop allows you make all the relevant adjustments in one convenient window.
Yes, you can outline things using a Path, you can create shadows by duplicating the layer, solid colouring it, and putting it behind the original layer, you can create a glow with the same method and some blur, but the problem is: To make minor adjustments, such as opacity, colour, position, etc., you're essencially required to start from scratch.
Yes, most effects can be made "manually", but this is awfully inconvenient, which is why filters and various features were created.
In my opinion, it's at least a little unreasonable to be forced to do those, very common things, "manually".
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps it has something to do with visualization. I also recall when I was younger, I used to play out all sorts of social sequences and situations with action figures, lego characters, etc. Now that I'm older, I still play out similar situations but they all happen in my head.
Maybe it's just that when we're younger, we have more trouble visualizing things in our mind so we need the help of dolls (or Sims). Later on, when our brains are more developed (and we gathered more experience), we can handle running such simulations in our heads.
Too bad none of my psych classes covered this.
- shazow
Difference is most people can only handle one full time job. While employers can handle many full time employees. They're studs like that.
What I'd probably do is keep my resume and such on my own portfolio-style website, which will be around regardless whether I'm employed or unemployed. It's more passive that way.
- shazow
Also it mentions how it's difficult to customize your own hardware:
There is no such thing as an "add-on" processor upgrade. Until recently, you'd be stuck with an IBM PPC CPU. Now you can use a special Intel CPU, but good luck trying to upgrading to a different one, or an AMD.
And lastly, I never in my life watched Nascar, nor do I gaybash, and my mom says I'm not ugly. Stop being a troll and trying to make Apple users look bad.
- shazow
I'm not a Mac user, as you may have guessed. So I may be wrong, but this is my understanding: The big success of Apple's operating systems lies in the fact that they only support a very narrow range of hardware. The operating system is literally tailored for the specific configuration that Apple releases.
Therein lies the problem. If you want to run OSX, and want to upgrade your Mac's hardware (say CPU, Videocard, Soundcard, Motherboard), you'll run into problems. The kind where you have very limited choice if you want a working system.
That is what I meant.
- shazow
My understanding is that BootCamp allows current Mac users to run Windows on their Mac. The article seems to argue that this will encourage Windows users to get Macs and stick with OSX instead of BootCamping in Windows. That may apply to a few people, but for the most part I disagree.
As others have pointed out, it seems that the primary strategy behind BootCamp is: Give people the option to use whatever operating system they like. Apple has allowed their consumers to install Linux on their machines since forever, and now they're allowing Windows, too.
What does Apple have to gain? Profits from hardware sales, of course. Plus, whenever you're buying a Mac, you're also buying OSX, so they're not losing much software profits either. Who else has to gain? Possibly Microsoft in the short run (all those Mac kiddies giving Windows a shot without having to buy a PC).
And then there is the whole other market of people who aren't concerned about software expandability so much as hardware. Macs aren't great for upgrading their hardware. Windows or no windows.
- shazow
I don't see why the price would be more expensive when released early versus when it would have been released normally. Usually prices start off at some point, and decrease proportionally to the time since release (by which I actually mean proportionally to the number of sales).
It's not like they're giving a limited amount of people a "special preview". They shifted the release date earlier.
If anything, now you wont have to wait as long for prices to drop. Since it'll be out earlier, the prices will drop earlier, by the above logic.
- shazow
A question or two may not, but the more you answer, the more the person starts relying on you and the stupider the questions get.
I'm all for helping people, but you have to set a limit. Eventually people start asking you "so, do I left click or right click?" or something equivalent, which would have been much much much easier and faster to simply TRY IT! Seriously, two choices, about half a second to try each. Why would you send a message to someone, wait for a reply, and then take their word on it, when you could have much easier just tried it yourself.
If it's a complicated problem, I'll get them started and make sure they get through it ok. But if it's something trivial, which I _know_ they'd be able to solve if I just wasn't around, I avoid answering. Not because I'm a snob (which I may be), but it's really better for everyone involved.
By the way, this applies to both, Windows and Linux users. Friends or otherwise.
- shazow
Say what you will about the odd Gentoo user, but in my experience Gentoo has one of the most welcoming and informative communities I've witnessed. Almost any problem encountered can be found on the huuuuge forum, and any post that you've put in at least a little effort into will get an almost instant, polite reply.
Naturally, if you write a post entitled "lol!" with the body "omg help!" you're not going to get a great response. But if you're clear about what your problem is, people will pour in with suggestions and directions to fix it.
Similarly on their IRC channel. Stop by, ask for help, and odds are someone will be around willing to help. I make it a point to pop by once a week or so and just help a few people.
Yes, Gentoo is harder to get started with than some other distros (Ubuntu, Mandrake, etc). But I must say, I've known people who have used Ubuntu or Mandrake or what have you for as long as I have used Gentoo, and they learned nothing about Linux during that time.
Clearly Gentoo isn't for the "average" user. But if you want to learn something and have a solid and flexible distro with a reliable community behind it, I highly recommend Gentoo.
- shazow
It's quiet, but not the heat measurements are deceiving.
I also have a Sonata II case, with a very quiet Vantec PSU, a relatively quiet Radeon 9600XT, and the same heatsink. Difference: Athlon XP 2800+ cpu, Maxtor SATA drives, no sound-absorbing foam etc. When I turn all my fans on minimum, I quite literally can't hear my computer, and this is without the sound-absorbing foam.
Yes, my computer also idles somewhere around ~50C.
But on high load? The temperature can go as high as +70C when watching a movie, and even up to 80C when compiling (yes, I run Gentoo) under "aggressive" bios settings.
This is not very satisfactory. I'm convinced that the foam would only make matters worse (since sound isn't a problem as it is). Normally, I run it on medium fan settings -- you can hear it humm quietly, but it's not distracting.
I highly recommend the Sonata II case and Vantec power supplies, but don't expect low temperatures with low sound.
- shazow
No kidding.
A virus is like the "cold" you catch because you didn't wear enough layers and the low body temperature made your immune system weak.
Or the random virus circulating the Interweb that infiltrated an exploit in your program/OS because you didn't get the latest patches.
On the other hand, this is more like...
Someone giving you a handgun and telling you it's a can of whipped cream. You put it to your mouth, pull the trigger, and blow a chunk of your cheek off.
Or someone giving you a file, telling you it's a program illustrating Lindsey Lohan clad in whipped cream. You put it in your computer, type in your root password, install it, and blow a chunk of your OS off.
- shazow
Better yet, stand it upright, embed the camera into the bottle cap and allow 360 degree rotation. :D
- shazow
My fellow group members and I are using a Wiki to organize out project. This includes documenting each members' ideas, collaborating for report writing, and general discussion.
Also, we're unofficially using it as a collaborative note-taking tool for class. Someone takes notes on their laptop during class, then posts them, and the other members go through them with corrections/additions.
So far it's working out rather well.
- shazow
Not exactly on topic of finding a mentor, but this request reminded me of my early Computer Science studies when my friends and I took turns coming up with encrypted strings, posted them on a newsgroup we frequented, and made it into a competition as to who could decrypt it first.
We started with simple stuff like letter substitution, ROT13, etcetera. And then moved on to masking and all sorts of fun/complicated algorithms. This was very educational, in the sense of learning about cryptography. We learned interesting concepts, and rapidly developed tools/scripts/methods for attempt to decrypt arbitrary strings.
Much fun.
- shazow
Actually, now that you mention it, that would be kind of neat.
At first, I thought: "Passive game? That's just like a movie without the flesh -- boooooring"
But then I thought: What if you have a little world which you can explore, where multiple stories unfold simultaneously. And you're like a ghost, flying around, following people, eavesdropping on them, seeing what they're doing, watching the stories of your choice unfold. Night-time comes, your character of choice goes to sleep, what do you do for 7 hours? Fly over to the bank where there's a robbery in-progress. You could easily have several weeks' worth of scripted storytelling.
Plus, there's very decent replayability value, since you could explore each story separately and their intricate interactions (similar to movies like Go, where the story is told completely differenly from 3 different characters' persectievs).
Then, once this medium of storytelling is mastered (should be rather tricky, intertwining and synchronizing the world like that), they could start adding minute possibilities for interaction. Later on, you could become part of the story by playing a character (think racting, like in Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson).
Lots of potential, indeed.
- shazow
Just to set the record straight, there already exists something like this for Linux (and, more specifically, KDE). In fact, there are two major branches in development for such widgets:
1. The fancy branch (since sometime in 2003):
SuperKaramba, which spawned from the plain Karamba.
2. The non-fancy minimalistic branch (since god knows when - probably early 2004):
Conky, which spawned from the even less fancy Torsmo.
- shazow
1. A dozen of new web-based RSS feed readers will be announced, all featuring tags and various intricate social features. Eventually one or two will be considered the "norm" (as Blogger, Livejournal, etc are considered the norm for blogging, despite all the imitators). My bookmarks folder rejoices.
2. AMD motherboards with DDR2 will finally show up. I finally upgrade from an obsolete 32-bit system. My applications rejoice.
3. Sony PlayStation 3 will be released. It will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then more will be sold out. Then more will be released. Then the price will drop a little. Then I'll buy one. Then it will be hacked by various groups for various purposes. Sony pouts. I rejoice.
4. A new flavour of Cola: Chocolate! (Eww) Oops, not technological, sorry.
5. Opera finally releases a stable, good, browser for PocketPCs. I rejoice.
6. Enlightenment 17 is finally released. I try it, don't like it, go back to XFCE.
7. XFCE 4.4 is finally released. I upgrade. I rejoice.
8. Microsoft releases Vista. Only thing new from XP: Aero and 9 versions of the same thing with 9 different price tags. (The cheaper version users are stuck with an inferior plastic paperclip.)
9. Apple releases their new line of Intel PowerBook laptops. No one notices -- attention diverted by the release of 4 and 8 gig iPod Nanos with FM radio. I consider buying one until I realize, again, that it's a waste of money. iPod lovers' collection of iPods grows to 9 units per person. Apple rejoices.
10. I go to sleep. You rejoice.
- shazow
Oh shit, you mean to tell me that there was an alternative to Unix this whole time?!
:D
Omg omg, where do I go about getting this Windows thing of yours?
[/joke]
- shazow
More sources:
Gentoo Kernel Doc:
And, of course, THE GOOGLE QUERY (of doom).
At the least, they're both maintaining it. Or something...
- shazow
- shazow
I liked it more when the map was aligned to the left. ._O
- shazow
Either that or we'll reveal a subset of posers who claim to be profanity-free, but aren't. :D
- shazow
I disagree. Once you get used to the lifestyle, it becomes second-nature. Just as much as it is for Ozzy Osborne to utter fucking shit n^2 times per sentence, "being cute" can become your natural method of speech -- slamming your fingers or otherwise.
- shazow
I have no idea where they got that (and many others of their facts) from, but wiktionary says otherwise. It seems to be pseudo-researched with a couple of reputable quotes here and there... Oh well.
To the point, in reference to their Stroop test (on page 2), where people were startled by obscene words moreso than neutral words, I find it to be the reverse in "comfortable" environments (as they vaguely mentioned). That is to say, so many people swear habitually that it's not even a big deal in casual situations. To find someone that says "poop" instead of "shit" or something unique and unsensical like "fatty arbuckle!" instead of "fuck!" tends to startle people in surprize. At first, at least.
The novelty of profanity has been worn out to the point where it doesn't have the desired effect anymore. Therefore, I subscribe to the alternative: Using unique and creative utterings to describe my feelings.
This way, after people get to know me, and get used to me being profanity-free, and then one day I get REALLY pissed off and say FUCK, they know I MEAN IT!
Works wonderfully. Plus, makes swearing that/i much more fun.
- shazow
Correction: Most of my experience was spent on Photoshop. (Didn't catch it in the preview :()
I am aware of these techniques. I've been doing digital art for several years, though most of that time was spent on Gimp. I just feel that the current methodology in Gimp requires you to jump through several hoops while Photoshop allows you make all the relevant adjustments in one convenient window.
Yes, you can outline things using a Path, you can create shadows by duplicating the layer, solid colouring it, and putting it behind the original layer, you can create a glow with the same method and some blur, but the problem is: To make minor adjustments, such as opacity, colour, position, etc., you're essencially required to start from scratch.
Yes, most effects can be made "manually", but this is awfully inconvenient, which is why filters and various features were created.
In my opinion, it's at least a little unreasonable to be forced to do those, very common things, "manually".
- shazow