The lack of force feedback doesn't bother me a lot, but I just wonder how intelligent their algorithms are for sensing button taps. The page makes it sound like you can rest your fingers without setting off a flurry of clicks, but I still wonder how error-prone this might be. The more broad idea of an input device covered in touch sensors that you can reprogram is kind of cool, and for some reason squeezing the mouse to trigger Expose seems really intuitive, but I'd definitely be suspicious of something like this until I get a chance to try it out.
On the other hand, there's probably a harried engineer in Steve Jobs' office right now, complaining, "I never said we should build a better mouse tap!"
OMG D00D you're totally right! Some lawyers argue for one thing, while others argue for another! I just heard about this case the other week where this lawyer made a case that some guy was guilty of murder, but another lawyer was arguing the EXACT SAME GUY was innocent! I cannot believe they tried to have it both ways! Unlike every other profession in the world, where everyone thinks exactly alike!
Are the tapes proportionately huge? I have this great mental image of three or four scientists staggering around trying to put a gigantic "Honey I Shrunk The Kids"-type cartridge into a slot.
Okay, this seems like a decent time to ask a slightly off-topic question. All my life, I've heard people blow up Smalltalk as the greatest language ever created, and the yardstick by which every other OOP language is measured. I've honestly never heard a single negative remark about it. So if that's the case, why is it still a niche language over Java, or C++? (Especially C++!) Is it proprietary? Too hard to optimize?
Even though the consumers would have 14 speakers in their livingroom, they'd still only have two ears.
I used to wonder about why you couldn't just do surround with 2 speakers, too. There are a few reasons, but I believe the primary one is how you pinpoint where sound is coming from - as your head moves around, your brain keeps track of what sounds get louder and softer and paints an aural picture based on that. Technologies have come out that create a surround stage with headphones or stereo speakers, but the illusion is destroyed as soon as you move your head.
That being said, I don't think this will catch on for a loooooong time. Even 7.1 sound, which came out a few years ago, isn't particularly widespead in home theater. The only people who will get this will be the easily suckered nutcases who blow their money on all kinds of HT gear for no reason. I absolutely cannot figure those people out. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go add three more neon lights to my case and immerse my CPU in liquid helium.
I've been meaning to try out some RoR development for a while now, it looks like an incredible language. That being said, I keep thinking of something I read on another forum - don't trust a language until someone can explain to you why it sucks. Right now RoR is in full hype mode, with 100% gushing and not a lot of discussion of its weaknesses, things like that. So that being said, can anyone tell me why RoR sucks?
The Mac Portable sucked, but at least you could look at it and know right away it was awful. I can't believe the PowerBook 5300 didn't make their "Worst laptops ever" list - other than being slow, unstable, and stylistically a step back from the previous PBs, they would actually burst into flames sometimes due to a defective battery - a friend of mine personally saw one start to melt on a woman's desk. I mean, bad performance and too much weight is one thing, but when your laptop starts trying to actively murder you, it seems like it deserves a special place in the annals of portable history.
Sony also pioneered Memory Stick media, which has found a range of uses - all the way from digital cameras manufactured by Sony, to digital camcorders manufactured by Sony! They hold a wide range of advantages over other, cheaper media - such as their stick shape!
Please tell me you did this at home. Were I at work, and I walked past a men's room and heard Steve Ballmer screaming wildly and another guy giggling uncontrollably, I'd quit that day.
If your Roomba wants to leave your house to pursue a career as a Segway (or to clean another person's home), are you ethically/morally obligated to let It?
Let it be a Segway? That's the robot equivalent of leaving to do hardcore porn! No robot of mine is going to end up a Segway!
So even when an author says "I didn't mean to represent X as Y", it doesn't make it any less true that X is represented as Y, or that it tells us something about the story, the author, or the characters. it just means the author didn't intend it consciously (or wants to disavow it after the fact).
And I think more importantly, I've always felt that it doesn't matter whether or not the author meant to put some meaning or another into a work, but whether or not you got meaning out of that work. It's not important whether or not the book you're reading or movie you're watching is trying to make a point about an issue or philosophy, it is important whether or not you were inspired, whether you took something away and see things in a different light. If you think Herman Melville was making a commentary on America's foriegn policy and its effects on the 2002 Olympic figure skating scandal, well, you probably aren't right, but the value comes from the fact that you've used a piece of art to gain another perspective on things.
My parents were very careful to get us mostly "classic" toys when we were kids - lots of construction sets. Legos, Robotix, Capsela, Construx, lots of stuff where you could let your imagination run wild and create whatever toy you wanted. This went hand-in-hand with Lionel trains, and pretty much anything with a German name that was made out of wood. (Brio, anyone?) They also strictly limited our TV time, didn't get cable, and encouraged us to pursue a myriad of interests to give us a wide range of hobbies and experience.
So what happened? Instead of going to college and studying Computer Science, I decided to try a liberal arts major in English and study a wide variety of subjects. Now I can't get a job and in all probability will die peniless and alone in the gutter. Want my advice? Buy them a McDonald's Play Restaurant Set and teach them to hang drywall. Trust me, they'll thank you in the long run.
I really hope somebody is able to put something together based on this. The only reason I don't still use my 2100 today is the size, a tiny Palm was just too good to pass up. But a lot of the reasons the Newton was so big back then don't apply today - we've got Secure Digital cards instead of PCMCIA, my Tungsten's screen is quarter-VGA like the Newt's, and it uses a similar but even more powerful ARM processor. On top of this, Palm completely dropped the ball with their insultingly lame Tungsten 5, and there's still a market for people who want a sleek, streamlined PDA instead of an "I can't decide if I'm a bloated PDA or a crappy computer" PocketPC.
But you know what would be enough for me? If somebody would port something like the Newton's notepad to PalmOS. I haven't used a notepad app that even comes close. I really liked the whole application suite on NewtonOS, but in particular the way you could switch between handwriting recognition, sketches, outlines, and checklists so easily really got me hooked on PDAs.
Why do you think it is that Slashdot ignores my preference setting to turn "Politics" off? Do you think Slashdot is the worst site in the entire universe for political dialogue, or should we wait until all the SETI@Home results are in?
Mostly I'm pissed the submitter pointed out it was a Star Wars ripoff, because I never caught on to that when I was a little kid, and now that he mentions it it's really blatant.:)
But I still think this is a fun movie to catch on TV. I mean, yeah, it's really cheesy, but does this deserve the Road House treatment? It probably has the best "lizard guy in human mask gives stirring speech to guy from trailer park that's secretly a great space pilot" scene I've seen, although the one in The Wedding Planner comes pretty close.
Oh, man. Now that I think about it... the second-in-command lizard guy whose eyepiece thing closes after every line he has? The scene with all the Gunstar pilots that's a direct, totally unapologetic ripoff of the Death Star briefing in Star Wars? That half-bald badguy leader that practically breaks a tooth chewing so much scenery? Aaaaugh! You're killing my childhood, Slashdot!
(As a sidenote, I always thought somebody should make a Last Starfighter videogame today, on the latest 3d hardware, that exactly mimcs the really stylized CGI from the movie. Say what you will, those scenes still look cool.)
Slashdot Mirror
Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?
The lack of force feedback doesn't bother me a lot, but I just wonder how intelligent their algorithms are for sensing button taps. The page makes it sound like you can rest your fingers without setting off a flurry of clicks, but I still wonder how error-prone this might be. The more broad idea of an input device covered in touch sensors that you can reprogram is kind of cool, and for some reason squeezing the mouse to trigger Expose seems really intuitive, but I'd definitely be suspicious of something like this until I get a chance to try it out.
On the other hand, there's probably a harried engineer in Steve Jobs' office right now, complaining, "I never said we should build a better mouse tap!"
OMG D00D you're totally right! Some lawyers argue for one thing, while others argue for another! I just heard about this case the other week where this lawyer made a case that some guy was guilty of murder, but another lawyer was arguing the EXACT SAME GUY was innocent! I cannot believe they tried to have it both ways! Unlike every other profession in the world, where everyone thinks exactly alike!
Seriously, how did this get modded "Interesting"?
And whether you think that cell phones can damage our eyes or not, feel free to post your comments below.
Yes, please, weigh in with your opinions. I'm dying to get medical advice from high school WoW players and unemployed PHP programmers.
Are the tapes proportionately huge? I have this great mental image of three or four scientists staggering around trying to put a gigantic "Honey I Shrunk The Kids"-type cartridge into a slot.
Okay, this seems like a decent time to ask a slightly off-topic question. All my life, I've heard people blow up Smalltalk as the greatest language ever created, and the yardstick by which every other OOP language is measured. I've honestly never heard a single negative remark about it. So if that's the case, why is it still a niche language over Java, or C++? (Especially C++!) Is it proprietary? Too hard to optimize?
Even though the consumers would have 14 speakers in their livingroom, they'd still only have two ears.
I used to wonder about why you couldn't just do surround with 2 speakers, too. There are a few reasons, but I believe the primary one is how you pinpoint where sound is coming from - as your head moves around, your brain keeps track of what sounds get louder and softer and paints an aural picture based on that. Technologies have come out that create a surround stage with headphones or stereo speakers, but the illusion is destroyed as soon as you move your head.
That being said, I don't think this will catch on for a loooooong time. Even 7.1 sound, which came out a few years ago, isn't particularly widespead in home theater. The only people who will get this will be the easily suckered nutcases who blow their money on all kinds of HT gear for no reason. I absolutely cannot figure those people out. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go add three more neon lights to my case and immerse my CPU in liquid helium.
In Soviet Russia, native English speaking editor corrected by you!
I've been meaning to try out some RoR development for a while now, it looks like an incredible language. That being said, I keep thinking of something I read on another forum - don't trust a language until someone can explain to you why it sucks. Right now RoR is in full hype mode, with 100% gushing and not a lot of discussion of its weaknesses, things like that. So that being said, can anyone tell me why RoR sucks?
Are you joking? You try browsing for porn with those tiny little arms!
Case closed.
The Mac Portable sucked, but at least you could look at it and know right away it was awful. I can't believe the PowerBook 5300 didn't make their "Worst laptops ever" list - other than being slow, unstable, and stylistically a step back from the previous PBs, they would actually burst into flames sometimes due to a defective battery - a friend of mine personally saw one start to melt on a woman's desk. I mean, bad performance and too much weight is one thing, but when your laptop starts trying to actively murder you, it seems like it deserves a special place in the annals of portable history.
News for jocks. Stuff that doesn't matter.
Like that mean old bully George Will! He took my lunch money!
Sony also pioneered Memory Stick media, which has found a range of uses - all the way from digital cameras manufactured by Sony, to digital camcorders manufactured by Sony! They hold a wide range of advantages over other, cheaper media - such as their stick shape!
Does anyone have a conversion rate for New York Public Libraries to Libraries of Congress?
Please tell me you did this at home. Were I at work, and I walked past a men's room and heard Steve Ballmer screaming wildly and another guy giggling uncontrollably, I'd quit that day.
If your Roomba wants to leave your house to pursue a career as a Segway (or to clean another person's home), are you ethically/morally obligated to let It?
Let it be a Segway? That's the robot equivalent of leaving to do hardcore porn! No robot of mine is going to end up a Segway!
What is news about Ken Jennings doing on a "News for Nerds" site?!?!?
So even when an author says "I didn't mean to represent X as Y", it doesn't make it any less true that X is represented as Y, or that it tells us something about the story, the author, or the characters. it just means the author didn't intend it consciously (or wants to disavow it after the fact).
And I think more importantly, I've always felt that it doesn't matter whether or not the author meant to put some meaning or another into a work, but whether or not you got meaning out of that work. It's not important whether or not the book you're reading or movie you're watching is trying to make a point about an issue or philosophy, it is important whether or not you were inspired, whether you took something away and see things in a different light. If you think Herman Melville was making a commentary on America's foriegn policy and its effects on the 2002 Olympic figure skating scandal, well, you probably aren't right, but the value comes from the fact that you've used a piece of art to gain another perspective on things.
My parents were very careful to get us mostly "classic" toys when we were kids - lots of construction sets. Legos, Robotix, Capsela, Construx, lots of stuff where you could let your imagination run wild and create whatever toy you wanted. This went hand-in-hand with Lionel trains, and pretty much anything with a German name that was made out of wood. (Brio, anyone?) They also strictly limited our TV time, didn't get cable, and encouraged us to pursue a myriad of interests to give us a wide range of hobbies and experience.
So what happened? Instead of going to college and studying Computer Science, I decided to try a liberal arts major in English and study a wide variety of subjects. Now I can't get a job and in all probability will die peniless and alone in the gutter. Want my advice? Buy them a McDonald's Play Restaurant Set and teach them to hang drywall. Trust me, they'll thank you in the long run.
Wait, we're having a hard time getting Slashdotters to not read the article? Did I miss something?
I really hope somebody is able to put something together based on this. The only reason I don't still use my 2100 today is the size, a tiny Palm was just too good to pass up. But a lot of the reasons the Newton was so big back then don't apply today - we've got Secure Digital cards instead of PCMCIA, my Tungsten's screen is quarter-VGA like the Newt's, and it uses a similar but even more powerful ARM processor. On top of this, Palm completely dropped the ball with their insultingly lame Tungsten 5, and there's still a market for people who want a sleek, streamlined PDA instead of an "I can't decide if I'm a bloated PDA or a crappy computer" PocketPC.
But you know what would be enough for me? If somebody would port something like the Newton's notepad to PalmOS. I haven't used a notepad app that even comes close. I really liked the whole application suite on NewtonOS, but in particular the way you could switch between handwriting recognition, sketches, outlines, and checklists so easily really got me hooked on PDAs.
Why do you think it is that Slashdot ignores my preference setting to turn "Politics" off? Do you think Slashdot is the worst site in the entire universe for political dialogue, or should we wait until all the SETI@Home results are in?
Mostly I'm pissed the submitter pointed out it was a Star Wars ripoff, because I never caught on to that when I was a little kid, and now that he mentions it it's really blatant. :)
But I still think this is a fun movie to catch on TV. I mean, yeah, it's really cheesy, but does this deserve the Road House treatment? It probably has the best "lizard guy in human mask gives stirring speech to guy from trailer park that's secretly a great space pilot" scene I've seen, although the one in The Wedding Planner comes pretty close.
Oh, man. Now that I think about it... the second-in-command lizard guy whose eyepiece thing closes after every line he has? The scene with all the Gunstar pilots that's a direct, totally unapologetic ripoff of the Death Star briefing in Star Wars? That half-bald badguy leader that practically breaks a tooth chewing so much scenery? Aaaaugh! You're killing my childhood, Slashdot!
(As a sidenote, I always thought somebody should make a Last Starfighter videogame today, on the latest 3d hardware, that exactly mimcs the really stylized CGI from the movie. Say what you will, those scenes still look cool.)
You should try my KDE-based music sharing service for hip hop, K-Rapper.
I'd be shocked if I found out someone was copying The Core, too.