Wouldn't the truly communist/socialist thing to do be to find a less commercial dist of Linux, put some government progs to work at it, remove any silly Westernizations, and then distribute it freely across the country? Call it "Chinux", perhaps?
Ah well. They want to look good by making use of this new US-China trade thing, I guess. Kind of a lame attempt at looking like budding Russia-esque capitalists. I'm sure they can shell out for a few thousand RH6 CDs, and then they'll be able to say "look, we're even helping your bourgeois economy."
If there was ever a TIME Man of the Year in my adult life that I was personally upset about it, it was Newt Gingrich in 1995.
And the CEO of Amazon, regardless of who he is, has quite a way to go before he sinks that low in my mind.
OTOH, if I was going to choose the Man of the Year based on their pioneering in electronic commerce, and effectively defining the future of shopping, I would have chosen Jason Olim of CDNOW, which I had heard of long before Amazon.
The partition types used by the Linux and Windows operating systems are incompatible.
That doesn't explain how some of my mounts can exist.
Start your computer with the Linux setup floppy disk, type fdisk at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
Hmm. DOS doesnt come with fdisk? I beg to differ. ('See, Linux is so inflexible that you even have to use Linux tools to remove it!')
For help using the Fdisk tool, type m at the command prompt... Type p at the command prompt... Type d at the command prompt... Type w, and then press ENTER... Type q at the command prompt...
Look at all those complicated commands. And no buttons. Microsoft would never release such a complicated program as fdisk!
Also, Linux recognizes more than forty different partition types, such as: FAT 12 (Type 01) FAT 16 > 32 M Primary (Type 06) FAT 16 Extended (Type 05) FAT 32 w/o LBA Primary (Type 0b)
Uh, didn't you just say they were incompatible?
...[V]erify that you have a bootable disk... for [Linux] because this process completely removes [Linux from] your computer. If you intend to restore the Linux operating system at a later date...
If so, why not tell the customers how to dual boot instead? Is Windows so inflexible that it cant live on your machine with other OSes? Huh? Huh?
Everyone in the computer elite is telling these end-users that if they want to be cool, they need to run Linux. Linux does this better and does that better and is better for this reason and that reason.
Of course, these people aren't prepared for the CLI-orientation of Linux. They aren't prepared for all the gobbeldygook that appears on their screen at bootup in lieu of a nice splash screen with an animated blue stripe at the bottom. And if these are the same people that find the Mac GUI "too complicated", they definitely aren't prepared for X. No, not even the cute attempt at replication of fvwm95.
Don't forget that the previous generation of this class of users were the ones that chose Windows over DOS not because DOS doesn't have as many features, but because its too complicated. Dump the average user to a C:/> prompt and watch them wig out.
Not to mention that not nearly as many people offer Linux introductory training the way most tech training people offer intro to Windows courses. The reason is of course that Linux can't be learned the same way.
These people probably should be encouraged to dual boot, because its going to take them some time to play around with Linux to the point where they have learned enough to really use it.
I'm sure it's been said before, and probably won't rate any points, but Linux is not a cure-all for the ills of the mainstreamed computer world. Failing to realize that will only cause the Linux-for-end-users crusdaders more headaches.
It's a shame that supposedly intelligent people will dismiss RMS for his few eccentricities -- because its easier to write him off as a red commie bastard (or something) -- because his history of good ideas, starting with FSF/GNU, have had such high quality.
Tech-intellecutals of today who wrap themselves in the trendy blanket of Libertarianism (the only value system where you can both help your fellow man and get filthy rich) scoff at the idea of boycotts, crying foul for the poor entrepreneurs whose imaginary right to make as much money as possible is being infringed upon by the radicals who aren't giving them money for whatever principle and meanwhile punishing the workers who are just caught in the crossfire.
Nowadays, it seems an intelligent and mature mind is defined as one which really doesnt care about anything (except, often, itself) and which refuses to even attempt to do anything which would have any sort of effect on its wider environment. Personally, I resist this notion.
If Slashdotters are going to grumble and complain about the nonsense that is floating in the water lately, from reverse domain hijacking to software patents, they ought to realize that grumbling and complaining on/. is only making themselves feel better, and not really helping anything. A few less dollars for Amazon might not cause the company to shut down tomorrow, but it's a rare company that says "we dont mind making less money".
As for me and Amazon, I was about to go there to look for a hard-to-find CD. After reading this, I won't bother. After all, me not having a CD I havent had for the past few years isnt something I really worry about. But a wave of stupid lawsuits over inappropriately awarded software patents is something I do worry about.
RMS is a brother that I think you oughtta listen to.
With mouseless movement via keyboard mouse emulation you don't have fine-grained pointer control. It's extremely awkward to move around. It's like using arrow keys instead of a mouse to play a fast-action game like xbill.
Omelet, eggs, break.
Either you want a pointing tool or you dont. If you're trying to do anything graphics or requiring fine cursor control, without a mouse, rotsa ruck.
You can actually get by pretty well doing graphics manipulation with key-mousing, but you have to be careful and slower with the movement. It also depends on the speed and acceleration of the key-mousing function. (This is based on my experience using Win32 MouseKeys in Photoshop.)
Usually you want a medium-fast acceleration with a slow speed, so that you can still make fine movements when needed, but can also move the cursor around the screen. As you get more used to it, you can up the speed.
Look, if you want to be able to make rapid and accurate pointer movements, a la XBill, you're not in Ask Slashdot asking how to be mouse-free. It don't work that way. Otherwise, you keep the mouse tucked under the keyboard drawer and only pull it out for just such an occasion.
Beyond key-mousing, there are also features in Gnome/E and FVWM2 also I believe, where you can use M-TAB to iterate through the list of open windows, much like MSWin. Some are current-screen aware and some aren't, so thats a caveat if you are using virtdesks.
Furthermore, I'd estimate that only half of the problem lies in WMs being too mousey; the other half lies in X-heavy apps (like Netscape) and X itself being too mousey. Such is the world of GUI.
When Bank of Boston and BayBank merged, the initial word from the companies was that the merged name would be Bay Bank of Boston, which you would think to be perfect and appeal to customers of both previous banks.
Then they shelled out the cash to hire one of these wacky image firms to choose a new name, and that company took the Boston part, and the Bank part, ignored the part from the bank with wider coverage, and dropped the "of". Then they smacked them together unnaturally like one might sauter an floppy drive to an iMac.
They came up with this awkward consonant combination that doesn't roll off the tongue too well, and if you know New Englanders, you know we tend to drop letter in annoying places (yeah yeah r's too), so the result is a name that no one in the target market says properly.
I guess this is a moot point, since after only about 6 years of life, BankBoston is being merged again, and its name wont live on.
Make it illegal for a new computer to be shipped with an operating system AND non-essential software.
The major hangups that the DOJ brought up were mostly issues where, firstly, that Microsoft was pre-empting the natural market for certain software by pre-including their own applications in those markets with their OS, and secondly, that MS was punishing OEMs for not shipping a certain pct of computers with an MS OS, and certain practices which encouraged the notion of competition in the OS market.
How do we clear up these problems, encourage competitive markets, AND increase the ability of the consumer to choose?
Not by an MS breakup, first off. MS is already adept at making beneficial agreements between themselves and other companies. The fact that lately they have been buying large (or full) stakes in companies in certain niche markets distracts public opinion from this. There's this primal instinct that says "break thing up -> will give thing pain", which is often valid, but ONLY in the short term.
A breakup will annoy MS the same way a bee sting is annoying. They'll have to swim through paperwork, probably do lots of (nearby) relocating, and mostly just reshuffle deparments and positions. Once that mess is done, you make ten or so VPs and directors presidents of these spinoff companies, erase any explicit executive ties, give the little companies new names (and if the AT&T breakup is any indication, probably tacky names like "Micro Opsys", "Microbrowse", and "Pacfic Micro").
Then after that mess is done, instead of having lots of departments all stuck under one roof, you have a gaggle of new allies trying to convince everyone of their independence while still being reliant on the former parent company and/or each other. Think Eastern Europe in the 80's and yuo get a good picture.
Really, how much do you think that these Microsoft Bloc companies are going to be willing, or even practically able, to retask their product model such that they will NOT still be reliant on MS? It's not like AT&T where they are simply a holder of phone lines, where any other company could have their own as well, and be perfectly compatible with AT&T's. MS's carrier technology is proprietary, unlike common phone lines, and due to the wonders of modern communcations and sales distribution, is very easy for them to apply changes to en masse, in very short time.
These software companies will not be willing to suddenly redevelop their products for OSes that theoretically will be competing with Win32 after the breakup. Most of their code is, as we've seen and heard, well entrenched in the innards of Win32 APIs. Do we expect them to yank it all out and retool it for other OSes, especially if they DON'T have an "in" with MS to include their software with Win32, and now that they no longer have MS funds available to inject into their development? I don't think so.
The answer for them will be to solve one or both of those limitations: either 1, make deal with parent / OS company which continues the inclusion of their software with Win32, ensuring a stream of revenue, or 2, the parent / OS company will be solicited to make a large investment in this breakup company, giving them the revenue needed to expand development to other platforms. (Which we already know is counterproductive.) If MS's deal making is as good then as it is now, the result will probably be to include BOTH solutions as part of one deal (we'll invest heavily in you if you agree to let us include your SW on our OS release), because the OS company will naturally want to add value to its own product by packaging productive apps with it.
The result is the same story we have now, except the primal urges that say "snip snip, slice slice" will be satisfied. And that's it -- no resolution of problem, just politics and whitewashing.
How to resolve the problem? Prevent it from occuring. Sure, in the breakup scenario, MS will be annoyed, stung, and have cream pie on its face, but even if the MS problem goes away after the breakup, what happens if MS goes away entirely, and is replaced with another firm which does the same or similar thing, in the future? Another DOJ antitrust lawsuit? I don't think so. Public opinion is already pretty low towards the MS lawsuit. DOJ antitrust lawsuits will go the way of independent counsels and not reappear on the scene until MANY years later.
Now, the reason I said you all wont like my solution -- to make this sort of machine + OS + apps packaging illegal -- is because it will also hurt our beloved friends in the commercial Linux field. Redhat might not be able to pre-package things like Netscape, or Gnome, or any such value-adding software. (Although, given the optional-package-install nature of RH installer, they probably could.)
I'm not saying this bill could be defined by a simple one-liner, as I have put it, and no laws written are ever so simple. It would need to apply to packaging by OS (and/or system) manufacturers, not by resellers or private individuals e.g. selling their used computer. It doesn't need to apply to software included on external distribution media, like the collection of RPMS on the RH CD or even the games and junk on the Win95 CD. It doesnt need to prevent OS makers from including non-essential software with their OS or prevent OEMS from shipping machines with an OS installed. It only really needs to prevent the combined case, where consumers (and OEMs) are forced into an OS and a crop of apps with their new machine.
In short, the chant for "tear 'em limb from limb" is just a knee-jerk reaction, and will in practice work just as bad as all knee-jerk reactions do. I think we "smarter people" of Slashdot can think of some more original ideas than that.
This site (gwbush.com) has been around for some time -- covered on/. before, iirc.
Without the history of this site, looking at it now only presents an "After" snapshot, upon which substantive judegements shouldn't really be passed by thoughtful viewers.
Originally gwbush.com was primarily a parody, albeit a critical one, and perhaps not a very good one, since it still revolves around the same one or two GWB jabs which are issues that are in media hibernation, waiting to creep in again when campaign season officially starts.
If we remember back to the summer, we'll remember that GWB's campaign staff had attempted to register every possible combination of "George" "Walker" "Bush" "President" "Sucks" "Anti" "No" "2000" etc, and any common abbreviations thereof. I believe the total permutations registered came to about 200 domains. (A good day for NSI!) But to their chagrin, the fascist campaigners either missed or were too late to register gwbush.com, because this guy got it.
This sparked the ire of the GWB4P team, since this was like a fly in the ointment of their efforts at totalitarian Internet media saturation. (ok ok, flame off.) It came out in the media that this domain, gwbush.com, somehow fell through their clutches.
What made it worse of course, was that gwbush was (and still is) a parody of an early version of the georgewbush.com campaign site, with references to then-touchy issues about Bush's guilt in the standard fare of Republican faux pases -- corporate welfare, private bailouts, draft dogding (I think), etc. -- sprinkled with the GWB coke-sniffing rumor.
The media attention attained by gwbush.com sparked angry and off-the-cuff remarks by Bush, including the almost-forgotten about "garbageman" remark, and the mostly-ignored "freedom should have limits" proclamation. It was slightly before this time also that Gwbush.com received the first threats of legal action from the GWB4P people -- before it became an active promotional outlet for anti-GWB sentiment.
As a result, gwbush.com took amused offense at the gaffes, and proudly displayed the attacks by Bush and turned them into a T-shirt business and an informal petition.
For the most part, the site has sat there unchanged since then, with a few Onion-like stories about things like GWB arresting himself for white-collar crimes, etc. Since GWB's real site changed their layout shortly after they discovered the parody site, the sites really dont look alike at all any more, and gwbush.com doesn't seem to be concerned about keeping up.
Gwbush.com started out as a mostly innocent parody. But after lots of prodding from the over-defensive GWB campaign, it was pushed and encouraged into the political playing field. Just because a parody is run by a person with an opposed viewpoint doesnt necessarily make it a political campaign.
Don't use bloated software with obfuscated, arcane, behind-the-curtain scripting languages built in. This includes almost anything from MS.
If, after tons of Word viruses adding dirty words to your term papers or calling you a big stupid jerk, you haven't learned not to use that junk, you might as well also book a trip on a third world airline for midnight, New Year's Eve. (I hear Cuba will be having great fireworks.)
One might safely presume they are only targeting EFNet, or perhaps the Big 3, or maybe just whatever mIRC connects to by default.
Maybe they will stumble across blatantly advertised nets like, say, "WarezNet" or "0DayNet". Big maybe there.
Do FBI CCD wannabes troll alt.irc looking for new nets? Do they use ircII or BitchX? Doubtful. They get mIRC, go to #warez4free on EFNet, and its a turkey shoot. They make a bag or two, publicize it, and get good press showing everyone how well they're keeping software prices ridiculously high.
Meanwhile, every cheezball courier group (full of people who cant make the script kiddy cut) will probably s1T b4Ck 4Nd L4fF h0h0h0!!!!1111
If the State of New York was to declare Linux as the Official State Operating System of New York, not only would it be front page news [1] on Slashdot, but the story would generate an endless stream of comments a la "This is great! Let's hope other states follow suit!"
It wouldn't matter (much) if, after that declaration, the New York government website was run on NT. The recognition would be enough.
So whats the big deal when China announces that it declares Linux its official OS? Isn't the same? Why the apprehensive reaction?
I put forward three possibilities:
1. Asians are liars and are not to be trusted.
2. We're afraid someday they will create Hongkong Linux, which will be just like RH 6 except the root password will be the same on all installs and only known by the PRC.
3. It's 1953, and if we don't watch out, the Commies will invade the US and make us all eat rice and work making nukes.
4. Slashdotters are snobs.
The right-leaning among us (i.e. 'libertarians', the new, hip political affiliation), as would most people I guess, are spending a lot of breath denying that there is any semblance between the goal of everyone using free software, and the goal of everyone owning an equal share of their aggregate possessions. For one thing, both are ideals, illustrated by both movement's failures to meet them.
The real problem with this stream of denials though, is that if the valid differences aren't being pointed out by the vocal reacters. There is only a sense of "no, there's no such thing" without any illustrative arguments.
Now, my choice of what government I'd want to live under aside, I dare say that open or free software has better potential to thrive in a moneyless, mostly egalitarian (and yeah, authoritarian) environment, than it does in the uber-free markets endorsed by the libertarians. If every programmer in China were ordered to work on Mozilla, it would have a better chance of success than it does in a world where one dominant and unchecked software company makes piles by not only leveraging the barriers to entry of its main market, but using that to capture other markets and construct barriers to enter those as well. FWIW, I bet RMS would agree.
It seems as if Slashdotters would rather have all AOLers and their ilk running swiss-cheese Linux installs, than have the government of the most populous country in the world take up our flag.
It's prejudice, and if you've been on the receiving end of any prejudice, you know it.
RomulusNR
[1] That is, if Slashdot had a news page other than the front.
ESR was right to distance us from the Chinese government, just in case someone in the press tries to skew the story. (Call me a liberal, but they're still pretty odious, someone had to say something.)
Nice try. I dunno what rock you find your news under, but in the grander media scale, (1) bringing attention to that sort of thing, and then (2) refuting it by flatly shrugging it off, will make it even more fodder for the easily titillated media mind.
If GWB kept telling everyone that he didn't do coke, would the media believe him? Of course not. They don't now. He stops talking about it, they -- for the larger part -- stop covering it.
(Good job, Slashdotters.)
Remember, There is no liberal or conservative bias in the news. There is only ignorance bias. (And honestly,/. isn't helping much, either.)
I was going to post something Informative about how ALT tages might not be enough for a site to be accessible, but... well, I will first, but there's more to be said.
1.
ALT tags might not be enough. The accessibility guidelines used by Bobby, a web page accessibility and HTML compliance analyzer, includes a number of things like "don't use tables for layout purposes", "don't put two links next to each other", and "don't use color to convey information". They also request that any page using non-standard tags, effects, and any plugins have a "text only" version, and any charts or table images have text description links.
After my page was panned by Bobby, I had a chat with the admins there, arguing that the guidelines placed too many limits on web page designers, and that blind users should be using Lynx to view the Web (makes sense??).
But apparently, the problem is that blind people with computers get the same crappy software by default that non-bline people get, namely Wintel with either NS or MSIE browser, and using a screen reader on top of the graphical browser to read the page. These things also expect browsers to do things like underline links (and not underline non-links), so that it can tell the blind user that the text is a link.
The admins at Bobby argued something about not forcing blind people to use a certain piece of software, but I still dont think that position is the most utilitarian solution for anyone.
That having been said,
2.
I'm shocked, frankly, at the depths to which the allegedly upper-crust and in-all-ways-superior readership of Slashdot has fallen in the comments on this story. Of the 12 comments rated above 2 when I started writing this one, only about two or three were in any way objective or respective.
To illustrate this, my favorite(?) quote here today is "What are blind people doing on the net anyway?"
Great. Definitely not the words of an intelligent, respectable human being. And definitely not what I am supposed to expect from Slashdot readers.
I don't normally say this, because I know it's obvious fl*m*b**t, but I think most of today's posters, as well as those who up-moderated them, could stand a few hot pokers in the eyes.
You're also ignoring a number of successful IT professionals who are blind. I wonder if there are any blind, probably Lynx-using readers of Slashdot, and where they are now.
It's okay to vilify Bill Gates or Steve Case. But blind people did not make concious decisions to be blind, and most don't even really know what "seeing" is. Bill and Steve know what not being a self-interested bastard means, and even how not to do it. Therein lies the difference.
(I mean, other than/. To the chagrin of some, Slashdot is not a reliable source for international, non-tech news.)
In fact, the USG has been haplessly trying to re-negotiate that treaty. We even offered them a significant reconstruction development plan in exchange for an amendment to that treaty. But Russia has stood fast and said no fscking way, so far. This has been here and there in the world news for about a month now.
Of course, despitemuch talk about post-perestroika advancement, Russia is probably quite some time away from developing/implementing any sort of comparable defense system, so a US ABMDS obviously upsets the traditional balance of M.A.D. between Washington and (in its various auspices) Moscow.
IYAM, Yeltsin is trying to rekindle the Cold War's US-Russia animosity in order to reinforce his weak political support, the same way a more totalitarian government might persecute Jews to rally national government support. I dont think anyone is nearly as afraid of Russia attacking the US as we were in the 60s-80s; we're much more worried about India, Pakistan, Iraq, China, and certain other less-than-second world countries. See also http://www.bullatomsci.org/ .
ob.supersition: Hmm. Didn't Nostradamus predict that the antiX would spring up out of the East?
Leave it to C|Net, the geekiest anti-geek site in existence:
"Real-world hackers--despite their posturing, bluster, talents, and occasional good intentions--couldn't hope to get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan."
Unless you're Roblimo, I guess.
[IMO, the people who put a vertical pipe in their name should be considered just as geeky as those who put slashes and dots in their name. (shrug)]
As much as I think this sort of thing is a load of horseradish (and boy am I glad I was out of school before any of it really started), I'm not worried for our young budding geeks and outcasts.
It will only be a matter of time before the "secrets" of this program, and/or any number of workarounds will be discovered. I'd be surprised if there already aren't geeks young and old currently prodding at pirated and other copies of this program, looking for just those holes.
Pretty soon they'll have results and they'll be widely available to those who know to look for them. You can't tell me that even the wealthiest of schools will spend the money or resources to stay ahead of the defeat/re-release curve by re-purchasing, upgrading, and re-installing this stuff as the curve progresses.
If kids at one school can decipher the barcodes on their name tags, and if software crackers can develop keygens as fast as software companies can release new versions of their crippleware, I'm sure we'll have _no_ problem getting around some hastily-developed Electronic Behaviour Control System.
Surviving as a young geek has always included a little well-aimed civil dis'.
In my mostly unsuccessful quests to enter into relationships and find romantic satisfaction, I have, as have most of you I imagine, encountered all manner of Love Advice, in all cases targeted, naturally, to those who haven't been able to find what the author has clearly already found -- namely, Love.
And in all cases, all such Love Advice has the following characteristics: - It attempts to allay fears that there is something wrong with the reader, while trying to appeal to their nagging fear that they are doing something wrong, or looking in the wrong place. - It suggests that the solution to the reader's problem is quite simple, even if it suggests that some sort of "hard work" is involved (adding to the reader's likely sense of social ineptitude). - It brags about the author's ability to succeed where the reader has failed (adding to the reader's likely sense of futility and bad luck).
More importantly, - It is written by someone who did not need any Love Advice of this sort in order to so succeed,
and above all, - It either isn't applicable to the reader's situation, or it plain doesn't work at all.
The further implications of the second to last point is that although the author thinks, through his own experience, that he has found The Answer which eludes all others. The reality is that the Love Advice written is an introspection of the author's own desires, and is a well-meant but misleading attempt to take that which worked for the author, in his situation and environment, and generalize it so that it can apply to others. This is never successful, in that what worked for the author, is quite unlikely to ever work for anyone else.
ob.antithesis: No one ever writes "Advice for the Lovelorn _Girl._"
Standing in Boston, and looking around, if I had the power to make sweeping changes and I wanted to attract high tech talent (or any other sort of young talent), first I would:
1. Repeal all Blue Laws 2. Expand permits for entertainment venues, including public concerts, and liquor licenses 3. Double the mass transit system (on some variable) 4. Promote sensible housing costs
As for high tech talent, increasing network connectivity would be #5. Somewhere around #6 or #7 would be where I start worrying about advertising.
But then again, I'm not a rabbit-footed Republican second-rate governor named Paul Cellucci, so there you go.
Someone should tell this so-called expert on geeks that, like, pocket protectors went out with thick black plastic-rimmed glasses back in '88.
Rob: Please keep WWN (and Enquirer, or whatever other well-known cruft some of your editors like to read) on the checkout line shelf and away from moderately intelligent people. TIA.
Circa 1994 there was a small Mac application floating around called Net Game, basically a cute text reader for a screenplay of the same name. (It had cute little popcorn pieces that you could click on.) Aside from a few spots where the reality of the computing / (cr/h)acking involved was sort of 'greyed out', it seemed to me like a decent computer / 'hacker' story, near to the leagues of Wargames.
Keep in mind that the golden calf of WarGames wasn't the most accurate or even believable movie in all places, either.
Romulus
Cinematic applications?!
on
The Cat Cam
·
· Score: 1
Are/.ers so stereotypically enamored with Borg and cybermen and such that the best we can think of is espionage and prosthetic eyes?
Everything technological that has any 'neato' status -- from the radio to the television to computer graphics to the Web ends up becoming an entertainment (and/or marketing) tool.
Forget speculation about how far we are from Tek chips (btw, see last weeks news) or SQUID drives for your coolness predictions. Movie writers would probably enjoy the idea of being able to rig an actor up for vision-recording.
Imagine a real-life Truman Show done from Truman's own eyes.
This would also be a benefit for research done on what people look at, what attracts their attention based on their eye focus and its duration on any object. Xref the research done last month on banner ads or the research done on a good driver's attention patterns.
(Which ultimately would lead to advanced marketing research, of course -- how effective an ad is based on the attention it gets.)
Now, for maximum coolness potential, what I want to know is, does this technology pick up the aberrations in vision in a person on drugs? That sort of thing could cut drug use in half or more.:)
(On a more serious note, if they can also tap and reconstruct audio reception, I'd also like to be able to record my dreams. Wouldn't you?)
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need.
True, but only because there are a remarkable number of people who are constant suckers for flashy electronics (tamagotchi, anyone?) and catchphrases like "Electronic Pulses of Light" (p/k/a LCD).
We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful.
If you eat that stuff, then you're a sheep. I can't help you.
The fact that people constantly buy things that they dont need is a tragedy. But the bigger tragedy is the sheer amount of money the mainstream consumer spends on things he fails to use to its potential.
'Course, I know better, and refuse to pay more than $600 for a new computer. Some will pay $2000 or more. I refuse to buy a new computer simply because its two years behind the newest technology. But to some, obsolescence takes only a year. So compare my $600 every two or three years with the $2000 the under- or mal-informed (incl. the aforementioned sheep) spend every year.
Which means of course that people's understanding of the electronics they buy is always going to be way behind. And with lack of understanding comes fear.
You wonder why FUD exists? This is exactly why.
With all this in mind, Luddism isn't at all new, and it doesn't concern me now any more than it ever did. There's no such thing as Things Man Were Not Meant To Know.
Those who _refuse_ to know, should go along their blissful way, and should be (necessarily) ignored by those who want to know.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess some of us learned more from the Cold War than did others.
Wouldn't the truly communist/socialist thing to do be to find a less commercial dist of Linux, put some government progs to work at it, remove any silly Westernizations, and then distribute it freely across the country? Call it "Chinux", perhaps?
Ah well. They want to look good by making use of this new US-China trade thing, I guess. Kind of a lame attempt at looking like budding Russia-esque capitalists. I'm sure they can shell out for a few thousand RH6 CDs, and then they'll be able to say "look, we're even helping your bourgeois economy."
If there was ever a TIME Man of the Year in my adult life that I was personally upset about it, it was Newt Gingrich in 1995.
And the CEO of Amazon, regardless of who he is, has quite a way to go before he sinks that low in my mind.
OTOH, if I was going to choose the Man of the Year based on their pioneering in electronic commerce, and effectively defining the future of shopping, I would have chosen Jason Olim of CDNOW, which I had heard of long before Amazon.
Among my favorites:
...[V]erify that you have a bootable disk... for [Linux] because this process completely removes [Linux from] your computer. If you intend to restore the Linux operating system at a later date...
The partition types used by the Linux and Windows operating systems are incompatible.
That doesn't explain how some of my mounts can exist.
Start your computer with the Linux setup floppy disk, type fdisk at the command prompt, and
then press ENTER.
Hmm. DOS doesnt come with fdisk? I beg to differ.
('See, Linux is so inflexible that you even have to use Linux tools to remove it!')
For help using the Fdisk tool, type m at the command prompt... Type p at the command prompt... Type d at the command prompt... Type w, and then press ENTER... Type q at the command prompt...
Look at all those complicated commands. And no buttons. Microsoft would never release such a complicated program as fdisk!
Also, Linux recognizes more than forty different partition types, such as:
FAT 12 (Type 01)
FAT 16 > 32 M Primary (Type 06)
FAT 16 Extended (Type 05)
FAT 32 w/o LBA Primary (Type 0b)
Uh, didn't you just say they were incompatible?
If so, why not tell the customers how to dual boot instead? Is Windows so inflexible that it cant live on your machine with other OSes? Huh? Huh?
Everyone in the computer elite is telling these end-users that if they want to be cool, they need to run Linux. Linux does this better and does that better and is better for this reason and that reason.
Of course, these people aren't prepared for the CLI-orientation of Linux. They aren't prepared for all the gobbeldygook that appears on their screen at bootup in lieu of a nice splash screen with an animated blue stripe at the bottom. And if these are the same people that find the Mac GUI "too complicated", they definitely aren't prepared for X. No, not even the cute attempt at replication of fvwm95.
Don't forget that the previous generation of this class of users were the ones that chose Windows over DOS not because DOS doesn't have as many features, but because its too complicated. Dump the average user to a C:/> prompt and watch them wig out.
Not to mention that not nearly as many people offer Linux introductory training the way most tech training people offer intro to Windows courses. The reason is of course that Linux can't be learned the same way.
These people probably should be encouraged to dual boot, because its going to take them some time to play around with Linux to the point where they have learned enough to really use it.
I'm sure it's been said before, and probably won't rate any points, but Linux is not a cure-all for the ills of the mainstreamed computer world. Failing to realize that will only cause the Linux-for-end-users crusdaders more headaches.
It's a shame that supposedly intelligent people will dismiss RMS for his few eccentricities -- because its easier to write him off as a red commie bastard (or something) -- because his history of good ideas, starting with FSF/GNU, have had such high quality.
/. is only making themselves feel better, and not really helping anything. A few less dollars for Amazon might not cause the company to shut down tomorrow, but it's a rare company that says "we dont mind making less money".
Tech-intellecutals of today who wrap themselves in the trendy blanket of Libertarianism (the only value system where you can both help your fellow man and get filthy rich) scoff at the idea of boycotts, crying foul for the poor entrepreneurs whose imaginary right to make as much money as possible is being infringed upon by the radicals who aren't giving them money for whatever principle and meanwhile punishing the workers who are just caught in the crossfire.
Nowadays, it seems an intelligent and mature mind is defined as one which really doesnt care about anything (except, often, itself) and which refuses to even attempt to do anything which would have any sort of effect on its wider environment. Personally, I resist this notion.
If Slashdotters are going to grumble and complain about the nonsense that is floating in the water lately, from reverse domain hijacking to software patents, they ought to realize that grumbling and complaining on
As for me and Amazon, I was about to go there to look for a hard-to-find CD. After reading this, I won't bother. After all, me not having a CD I havent had for the past few years isnt something I really worry about. But a wave of stupid lawsuits over inappropriately awarded software patents is something I do worry about.
RMS is a brother that I think you oughtta listen to.
Romulus
With mouseless movement via keyboard mouse emulation you don't have fine-grained pointer control. It's extremely awkward to move around. It's like using arrow keys instead of a mouse to play a fast-action game like xbill.
Omelet, eggs, break.
Either you want a pointing tool or you dont. If you're trying to do anything graphics or requiring fine cursor control, without a mouse, rotsa ruck.
You can actually get by pretty well doing graphics manipulation with key-mousing, but you have to be careful and slower with the movement. It also depends on the speed and acceleration of the key-mousing function. (This is based on my experience using Win32 MouseKeys in Photoshop.)
Usually you want a medium-fast acceleration with a slow speed, so that you can still make fine movements when needed, but can also move the cursor around the screen. As you get more used to it, you can up the speed.
Look, if you want to be able to make rapid and accurate pointer movements, a la XBill, you're not in Ask Slashdot asking how to be mouse-free. It don't work that way. Otherwise, you keep the mouse tucked under the keyboard drawer and only pull it out for just such an occasion.
Beyond key-mousing, there are also features in Gnome/E and FVWM2 also I believe, where you can use M-TAB to iterate through the list of open windows, much like MSWin. Some are current-screen aware and some aren't, so thats a caveat if you are using virtdesks.
Furthermore, I'd estimate that only half of the problem lies in WMs being too mousey; the other half lies in X-heavy apps (like Netscape) and X itself being too mousey. Such is the world of GUI.
Romulus
My choice for worst name chosed by an image firm.
When Bank of Boston and BayBank merged, the initial word from the companies was that the merged name would be Bay Bank of Boston, which you would think to be perfect and appeal to customers of both previous banks.
Then they shelled out the cash to hire one of these wacky image firms to choose a new name, and that company took the Boston part, and the Bank part, ignored the part from the bank with wider coverage, and dropped the "of". Then they smacked them together unnaturally like one might sauter an floppy drive to an iMac.
They came up with this awkward consonant combination that doesn't roll off the tongue too well, and if you know New Englanders, you know we tend to drop letter in annoying places (yeah yeah r's too), so the result is a name that no one in the target market says properly.
I guess this is a moot point, since after only about 6 years of life, BankBoston is being merged again, and its name wont live on.
R.
Make it illegal for a new computer to be shipped with an operating system AND non-essential software.
The major hangups that the DOJ brought up were mostly issues where, firstly, that Microsoft was pre-empting the natural market for certain software by pre-including their own applications in those markets with their OS, and secondly, that MS was punishing OEMs for not shipping a certain pct of computers with an MS OS, and certain practices which encouraged the notion of competition in the OS market.
How do we clear up these problems, encourage competitive markets, AND increase the ability of the consumer to choose?
Not by an MS breakup, first off. MS is already adept at making beneficial agreements between themselves and other companies. The fact that lately they have been buying large (or full) stakes in companies in certain niche markets distracts public opinion from this. There's this primal instinct that says "break thing up -> will give thing pain", which is often valid, but ONLY in the short term.
A breakup will annoy MS the same way a bee sting is annoying. They'll have to swim through paperwork, probably do lots of (nearby) relocating, and mostly just reshuffle deparments and positions. Once that mess is done, you make ten or so VPs and directors presidents of these spinoff companies, erase any explicit executive ties, give the little companies new names (and if the AT&T breakup is any indication, probably tacky names like "Micro Opsys", "Microbrowse", and "Pacfic Micro").
Then after that mess is done, instead of having lots of departments all stuck under one roof, you have a gaggle of new allies trying to convince everyone of their independence while still being reliant on the former parent company and/or each other. Think Eastern Europe in the 80's and yuo get a good picture.
Really, how much do you think that these Microsoft Bloc companies are going to be willing, or even practically able, to retask their product model such that they will NOT still be reliant on MS? It's not like AT&T where they are simply a holder of phone lines, where any other company could have their own as well, and be perfectly compatible with AT&T's. MS's carrier technology is proprietary, unlike common phone lines, and due to the wonders of modern communcations and sales distribution, is very easy for them to apply changes to en masse, in very short time.
These software companies will not be willing to suddenly redevelop their products for OSes that theoretically will be competing with Win32 after the breakup. Most of their code is, as we've seen and heard, well entrenched in the innards of Win32 APIs. Do we expect them to yank it all out and retool it for other OSes, especially if they DON'T have an "in" with MS to include their software with Win32, and now that they no longer have MS funds available to inject into their development? I don't think so.
The answer for them will be to solve one or both of those limitations: either 1, make deal with parent / OS company which continues the inclusion of their software with Win32, ensuring a stream of revenue, or 2, the parent / OS company will be solicited to make a large investment in this breakup company, giving them the revenue needed to expand development to other platforms. (Which we already know is counterproductive.) If MS's deal making is as good then as it is now, the result will probably be to include BOTH solutions as part of one deal (we'll invest heavily in you if you agree to let us include your SW on our OS release), because the OS company will naturally want to add value to its own product by packaging productive apps with it.
The result is the same story we have now, except the primal urges that say "snip snip, slice slice" will be satisfied. And that's it -- no resolution of problem, just politics and whitewashing.
How to resolve the problem? Prevent it from occuring. Sure, in the breakup scenario, MS will be annoyed, stung, and have cream pie on its face, but even if the MS problem goes away after the breakup, what happens if MS goes away entirely, and is replaced with another firm which does the same or similar thing, in the future? Another DOJ antitrust lawsuit? I don't think so. Public opinion is already pretty low towards the MS lawsuit. DOJ antitrust lawsuits will go the way of independent counsels and not reappear on the scene until MANY years later.
Now, the reason I said you all wont like my solution -- to make this sort of machine + OS + apps packaging illegal -- is because it will also hurt our beloved friends in the commercial Linux field. Redhat might not be able to pre-package things like Netscape, or Gnome, or any such value-adding software. (Although, given the optional-package-install nature of RH installer, they probably could.)
I'm not saying this bill could be defined by a simple one-liner, as I have put it, and no laws written are ever so simple. It would need to apply to packaging by OS (and/or system) manufacturers, not by resellers or private individuals e.g. selling their used computer. It doesn't need to apply to software included on external distribution media, like the collection of RPMS on the RH CD or even the games and junk on the Win95 CD. It doesnt need to prevent OS makers from including non-essential software with their OS or prevent OEMS from shipping machines with an OS installed. It only really needs to prevent the combined case, where consumers (and OEMs) are forced into an OS and a crop of apps with their new machine.
In short, the chant for "tear 'em limb from limb" is just a knee-jerk reaction, and will in practice work just as bad as all knee-jerk reactions do. I think we "smarter people" of Slashdot can think of some more original ideas than that.
Regards,
Romulus
This site (gwbush.com) has been around for some time -- covered on /. before, iirc.
Without the history of this site, looking at it now only presents an "After" snapshot, upon which substantive judegements shouldn't really be passed by thoughtful viewers.
Originally gwbush.com was primarily a parody, albeit a critical one, and perhaps not a very good one, since it still revolves around the same one or two GWB jabs which are issues that are in media hibernation, waiting to creep in again when campaign season officially starts.
If we remember back to the summer, we'll remember that GWB's campaign staff had attempted to register every possible combination of "George" "Walker" "Bush" "President" "Sucks" "Anti" "No" "2000" etc, and any common abbreviations thereof. I believe the total permutations registered came to about 200 domains. (A good day for NSI!) But to their chagrin, the fascist campaigners either missed or were too late to register gwbush.com, because this guy got it.
This sparked the ire of the GWB4P team, since this was like a fly in the ointment of their efforts at totalitarian Internet media saturation. (ok ok, flame off.) It came out in the media that this domain, gwbush.com, somehow fell through their clutches.
What made it worse of course, was that gwbush was (and still is) a parody of an early version of the georgewbush.com campaign site, with references to then-touchy issues about Bush's guilt in the standard fare of Republican faux pases -- corporate welfare, private bailouts, draft dogding (I think), etc. -- sprinkled with the GWB coke-sniffing rumor.
The media attention attained by gwbush.com sparked angry and off-the-cuff remarks by Bush, including the almost-forgotten about "garbageman" remark, and the mostly-ignored "freedom should have limits" proclamation. It was slightly before this time also that Gwbush.com received the first threats of legal action from the GWB4P people -- before it became an active promotional outlet for anti-GWB sentiment.
As a result, gwbush.com took amused offense at the gaffes, and proudly displayed the attacks by Bush and turned them into a T-shirt business and an informal petition.
For the most part, the site has sat there unchanged since then, with a few Onion-like stories about things like GWB arresting himself for white-collar crimes, etc. Since GWB's real site changed their layout shortly after they discovered the parody site, the sites really dont look alike at all any more, and gwbush.com doesn't seem to be concerned about keeping up.
Gwbush.com started out as a mostly innocent parody. But after lots of prodding from the over-defensive GWB campaign, it was pushed and encouraged into the political playing field. Just because a parody is run by a person with an opposed viewpoint doesnt necessarily make it a political campaign.
Kdt
(Chthulhu for president, anyone?)
I think by now you should have learned.
Don't use bloated software with obfuscated, arcane, behind-the-curtain scripting languages built in. This includes almost anything from MS.
If, after tons of Word viruses adding dirty words to your term papers or calling you a big stupid jerk, you haven't learned not to use that junk, you might as well also book a trip on a third world airline for midnight, New Year's Eve. (I hear Cuba will be having great fireworks.)
One might safely presume they are only targeting EFNet, or perhaps the Big 3, or maybe just whatever mIRC connects to by default.
Maybe they will stumble across blatantly advertised nets like, say, "WarezNet" or "0DayNet". Big maybe there.
Do FBI CCD wannabes troll alt.irc looking for new nets? Do they use ircII or BitchX? Doubtful. They get mIRC, go to #warez4free on EFNet, and its a turkey shoot. They make a bag or two, publicize it, and get good press showing everyone how well they're keeping software prices ridiculously high.
Meanwhile, every cheezball courier group (full of people who cant make the script kiddy cut) will probably s1T b4Ck 4Nd L4fF h0h0h0!!!!1111
Two words: alt.binaries.
If the State of New York was to declare Linux as the Official State Operating System of New York, not only would it be front page news [1] on Slashdot, but the story would generate an endless stream of comments a la "This is great! Let's hope other states follow suit!"
It wouldn't matter (much) if, after that declaration, the New York government website was run on NT. The recognition would be enough.
So whats the big deal when China announces that it declares Linux its official OS? Isn't the same? Why the apprehensive reaction?
I put forward three possibilities:
1. Asians are liars and are not to be trusted.
2. We're afraid someday they will create Hongkong Linux, which will be just like RH 6 except the root password will be the same on all installs and only known by the PRC.
3. It's 1953, and if we don't watch out, the Commies will invade the US and make us all eat rice and work making nukes.
4. Slashdotters are snobs.
The right-leaning among us (i.e. 'libertarians', the new, hip political affiliation), as would most people I guess, are spending a lot of breath denying that there is any semblance between the goal of everyone using free software, and the goal of everyone owning an equal share of their aggregate possessions. For one thing, both are ideals, illustrated by both movement's failures to meet them.
The real problem with this stream of denials though, is that if the valid differences aren't being pointed out by the vocal reacters. There is only a sense of "no, there's no such thing" without any illustrative arguments.
Now, my choice of what government I'd want to live under aside, I dare say that open or free software has better potential to thrive in a moneyless, mostly egalitarian (and yeah, authoritarian) environment, than it does in the uber-free markets endorsed by the libertarians. If every programmer in China were ordered to work on Mozilla, it would have a better chance of success than it does in a world where one dominant and unchecked software company makes piles by not only leveraging the barriers to entry of its main market, but using that to capture other markets and construct barriers to enter those as well. FWIW, I bet RMS would agree.
I dont underestimate the ability of China to get things done. Did you hear how China intends to eliminate the Y2K problem from its airlines? Dilbertians can only wish that sort of thing were possible here.
It seems as if Slashdotters would rather have all AOLers and their ilk running swiss-cheese Linux installs, than have the government of the most populous country in the world take up our flag.
It's prejudice, and if you've been on the receiving end of any prejudice, you know it.
RomulusNR
[1] That is, if Slashdot had a news page other than the front.
[I agree with most of that, but:]
/. isn't helping much, either.)
ESR was right to distance us from the Chinese government, just in case someone in the press tries to skew the story. (Call me a liberal, but they're still pretty odious, someone had to say something.)
Nice try. I dunno what rock you find your news under, but in the grander media scale, (1) bringing attention to that sort of thing, and then (2) refuting it by flatly shrugging it off, will make it even more fodder for the easily titillated media mind.
If GWB kept telling everyone that he didn't do coke, would the media believe him? Of course not. They don't now. He stops talking about it, they -- for the larger part -- stop covering it.
(Good job, Slashdotters.)
Remember, There is no liberal or conservative bias in the news. There is only ignorance bias.
(And honestly,
I was going to post something Informative about how ALT tages might not be enough for a site to be accessible, but... well, I will first, but there's more to be said.
1.
ALT tags might not be enough. The accessibility guidelines used by Bobby, a web page accessibility and HTML compliance analyzer, includes a number of things like "don't use tables for layout purposes", "don't put two links next to each other", and "don't use color to convey information". They also request that any page using non-standard tags, effects, and any plugins have a "text only" version, and any charts or table images have text description links.
After my page was panned by Bobby, I had a chat with the admins there, arguing that the guidelines placed too many limits on web page designers, and that blind users should be using Lynx to view the Web (makes sense??).
But apparently, the problem is that blind people with computers get the same crappy software by default that non-bline people get, namely Wintel with either NS or MSIE browser, and using a screen reader on top of the graphical browser to read the page. These things also expect browsers to do things like underline links (and not underline non-links), so that it can tell the blind user that the text is a link.
The admins at Bobby argued something about not forcing blind people to use a certain piece of software, but I still dont think that position is the most utilitarian solution for anyone.
That having been said,
2.
I'm shocked, frankly, at the depths to which the allegedly upper-crust and in-all-ways-superior readership of Slashdot has fallen in the comments on this story. Of the 12 comments rated above 2 when I started writing this one, only about two or three were in any way objective or respective.
To illustrate this, my favorite(?) quote here today is "What are blind people doing on the net anyway?"
Great. Definitely not the words of an intelligent, respectable human being. And definitely not what I am supposed to expect from Slashdot readers.
I don't normally say this, because I know it's obvious fl*m*b**t, but I think most of today's posters, as well as those who up-moderated them, could stand a few hot pokers in the eyes.
You're also ignoring a number of successful IT professionals who are blind. I wonder if there are any blind, probably Lynx-using readers of Slashdot, and where they are now.
It's okay to vilify Bill Gates or Steve Case. But
blind people did not make concious decisions to be blind, and most don't even really know what "seeing" is. Bill and Steve know what not being a self-interested bastard means, and even how not to do it. Therein lies the difference.
(I mean, other than /. To the chagrin of some, Slashdot is not a reliable source for international, non-tech news.)
In fact, the USG has been haplessly trying to re-negotiate that treaty. We even offered them a significant reconstruction development plan in exchange for an amendment to that treaty. But Russia has stood fast and said no fscking way, so far. This has been here and there in the world news for about a month now.
Of course, despitemuch talk about post-perestroika advancement, Russia is probably quite some time away from developing/implementing any sort of comparable defense system, so a US ABMDS obviously upsets the traditional balance of M.A.D. between Washington and (in its various auspices) Moscow.
IYAM, Yeltsin is trying to rekindle the Cold War's US-Russia animosity in order to reinforce his weak political support, the same way a more totalitarian government might persecute Jews to rally national government support. I dont think anyone is nearly as afraid of Russia attacking the US as we were in the 60s-80s; we're much more worried about India, Pakistan, Iraq, China, and certain other less-than-second world countries.
See also http://www.bullatomsci.org/ .
ob.supersition:
Hmm. Didn't Nostradamus predict that the antiX would spring up out of the East?
Leave it to C|Net, the geekiest anti-geek site in existence:
"Real-world hackers--despite their posturing, bluster, talents, and occasional good intentions--couldn't hope to get within a thousand yards of Meg Ryan."
Unless you're Roblimo, I guess.
[IMO, the people who put a vertical pipe in their name should be considered just as geeky as those who put slashes and dots in their name. (shrug)]
As much as I think this sort of thing is a load of horseradish (and boy am I glad I was out of school before any of it really started), I'm not worried for our young budding geeks and outcasts.
It will only be a matter of time before the "secrets" of this program, and/or any number of workarounds will be discovered. I'd be surprised if there already aren't geeks young and old currently prodding at pirated and other copies of this program, looking for just those holes.
Pretty soon they'll have results and they'll be widely available to those who know to look for them. You can't tell me that even the wealthiest of schools will spend the money or resources to stay ahead of the defeat/re-release curve by re-purchasing, upgrading, and re-installing this stuff as the curve progresses.
If kids at one school can decipher the barcodes on their name tags, and if software crackers can develop keygens as fast as software companies can release new versions of their crippleware, I'm sure we'll have _no_ problem getting around some hastily-developed Electronic Behaviour Control System.
Surviving as a young geek has always included a little well-aimed civil dis'.
Romulus
Oh, and you're wrong about the lovelorn girl angle: http://www.chickmagnet.org
I dont see any words there, but the titles I see are:
"Your Friend is Welcome at Our Party" and
"I Will Never Be as Romantic As He Is"
...sounds like advice for girls who are un-single. Not what I was talking about...
Rom
In my mostly unsuccessful quests to enter into relationships and find romantic satisfaction, I have, as have most of you I imagine, encountered all manner of Love Advice, in all cases targeted, naturally, to those who haven't been able to find what the author has clearly already found -- namely, Love.
And in all cases, all such Love Advice has the following characteristics:
- It attempts to allay fears that there is something wrong with the reader, while trying to appeal to their nagging fear that they are doing something wrong, or looking in the wrong place.
- It suggests that the solution to the reader's problem is quite simple, even if it suggests that some sort of "hard work" is involved (adding to the reader's likely sense of social ineptitude).
- It brags about the author's ability to succeed where the reader has failed (adding to the reader's likely sense of futility and bad luck).
More importantly,
- It is written by someone who did not need any Love Advice of this sort in order to so succeed,
and above all,
- It either isn't applicable to the reader's situation, or it plain doesn't work at all.
The further implications of the second to last point is that although the author thinks, through his own experience, that he has found The Answer which eludes all others. The reality is that the Love Advice written is an introspection of the author's own desires, and is a well-meant but misleading attempt to take that which worked for the author, in his situation and environment, and generalize it so that it can apply to others. This is never successful, in that what worked for the author, is quite unlikely to ever work for anyone else.
ob.antithesis:
No one ever writes "Advice for the Lovelorn _Girl._"
Irked once again,
Romulus
Standing in Boston, and looking around, if I had the power to make sweeping changes and I wanted to attract high tech talent (or any other sort of young talent), first I would:
1. Repeal all Blue Laws
2. Expand permits for entertainment venues, including public concerts, and liquor licenses
3. Double the mass transit system (on some variable)
4. Promote sensible housing costs
As for high tech talent, increasing network connectivity would be #5. Somewhere around #6 or #7 would be where I start worrying about advertising.
But then again, I'm not a rabbit-footed Republican second-rate governor named Paul Cellucci, so there you go.
Romulus
Someone should tell this so-called expert on geeks that, like, pocket protectors went out with thick black plastic-rimmed glasses back in '88.
Rob: Please keep WWN (and Enquirer, or whatever other well-known cruft some of your editors like to read) on the checkout line shelf and away from moderately intelligent people. TIA.
Circa 1994 there was a small Mac application floating around called Net Game, basically a cute text reader for a screenplay of the same name. (It had cute little popcorn pieces that you could click on.) Aside from a few spots where the reality of the computing / (cr/h)acking involved was sort of 'greyed out', it seemed to me like a decent computer / 'hacker' story, near to the leagues of Wargames.
Keep in mind that the golden calf of WarGames wasn't the most accurate or even believable movie in all places, either.
Romulus
Are /.ers so stereotypically enamored with Borg and cybermen and such that the best we can think of is espionage and prosthetic eyes?
:)
Everything technological that has any 'neato' status -- from the radio to the television to computer graphics to the Web ends up becoming an entertainment (and/or marketing) tool.
Forget speculation about how far we are from Tek chips (btw, see last weeks news) or SQUID drives for your coolness predictions. Movie writers would probably enjoy the idea of being able to rig an actor up for vision-recording.
Imagine a real-life Truman Show done from Truman's own eyes.
This would also be a benefit for research done on what people look at, what attracts their attention based on their eye focus and its duration on any object. Xref the research done last month on banner ads or the research done on a good driver's attention patterns.
(Which ultimately would lead to advanced marketing research, of course -- how effective an ad is based on the attention it gets.)
Now, for maximum coolness potential, what I want to know is, does this technology pick up the aberrations in vision in a person on drugs? That sort of thing could cut drug use in half or more.
(On a more serious note, if they can also tap and reconstruct audio reception, I'd also like to be able to record my dreams. Wouldn't you?)
But Winner, one of the sharpest thinkers about technology in American society, does have a point. We are making a lot more things than we demonstrably need.
True, but only because there are a remarkable number of people who are constant suckers for flashy electronics (tamagotchi, anyone?) and catchphrases like "Electronic Pulses of Light" (p/k/a LCD).
We give far more thought to making and marketing them than we do to whether they are truly useful.
If you eat that stuff, then you're a sheep. I can't help you.
The fact that people constantly buy things that they dont need is a tragedy. But the bigger tragedy is the sheer amount of money the mainstream consumer spends on things he fails to use to its potential.
'Course, I know better, and refuse to pay more than $600 for a new computer. Some will pay $2000 or more. I refuse to buy a new computer simply because its two years behind the newest technology. But to some, obsolescence takes only a year. So compare my $600 every two or three years with the $2000 the under- or mal-informed (incl. the aforementioned sheep) spend every year.
Which means of course that people's understanding of the electronics they buy is always going to be way behind. And with lack of understanding comes fear.
You wonder why FUD exists? This is exactly why.
With all this in mind, Luddism isn't at all new, and it doesn't concern me now any more than it ever did. There's no such thing as Things Man Were Not Meant To Know.
Those who _refuse_ to know, should go along their blissful way, and should be (necessarily) ignored by those who want to know.