To say that we haven't made huge strides in the past 100 years is ridiculous. 100 years ago, a trip from New York to Japan would take months and be considerd a culmination of a life's work. Today it can be undertaken for a month's salary and a half-day in a plane
A ticket from JFK to Tokyo is a month of your salary? In that case, we are hiring!
I guess prior art doesn't apply to patents anymore?
If you would bother to read the patents, you would see that the techniques that Microsoft is patenting here have ZERO to do with the color-clock splitting that we had on the old Atari and Apple machines back in the day.
And as far as your app - boy, what we can say here. You read an article about something, implement a bad version of it, and then claim that counts as an "independent invention"?
The XBOX 360 makes a great Apple TV replacement for people who use PCs intead of Macs. It costs a little more, but it will play DVDs and cool games in addition to streaming your music, photos, downloaded shows, and TV (including live TV). Works properly with HDTV and all the DRM crap as well for those with digital cable. And it even comes in white!
If you are trying to save cash, you can also use your classic XBOX or third-party dedicated device. We call them "Media Center Extenders" here at the 'Soft.
Does anyone else remember "Major Damage" from Capcom USA? For the Saturn and PS1. This sounds like a 3D version of that. Of course, I guess that "kill everything that moves and get powerups to do it better and faster" describes 95% of the games out there...
When they open the vault, all they will get is a notice saying that the usage rights of these seeds has expired and to please contact patent-holder Monsanto for a renewal.
It seems clear which OS is preferred by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I feel safe knowing that my web server is doing homage to His Noodly Goodness every time I refresh a page. After all, what is really going to help secure your site: a bunch of fancy-smancy kernel programmers or the divine protection of His noodly appendage?
I am just waiting for someone to correlate the quotes of the congresspeople expressing the "incredible invasion of privacy" and "no possible justifaction" over the first case with the "absolutely necessary" in the NSA case. It is amazing.
Every news report I have heard on this subject seriously misrepresents it. They always describe it in terms of "let's say you have a terrorist and you want to find out who they are working with..." They conveniently omit that this is not targeted at anyone who is suspected of anything, but is a drag net of the whole population and really gives no additional safety over the targeted tapping. I tried to discuss this with some non-tech people but I guess it is beyond their comprehension. I guess the lack of science education funding is paying off for the government at last.
I can't wait for Bush & co. to use this to find out who is calling news agencies, congresspeople, etc., to make an enemies list. They can even correlate it with news reports, etc. Go Big Brother!
I just hope we remember to celebrate QWest for standing up to these bastards. I already wrote them a letter thanking them. I also hope the class-action lawsuits are HUGE!
According to our data, the built-in games (freecell, solitaire, etc.) are the second-most common frontmost window on people's machines. The most common is the web browser, and I'm sure all that isn't all work-related either. Productity applications are way down the list... I think 48% of knowledge workers would be out of job if they enforced the "no computer play" policy...:-)
First off, Blizzard should just recognize that the reason farmers exist is due to their game design. If I am paying $15/month to play some game and I find parts of it to be boring, why should Blizzard care if I want to pay someone else to play that part? It is no different from real life, where I pay someone else to grow (and sometimes cook) my food, kill cows for me, etc. If someone is hacking their system, they should crack down on that, but most farmers have real paid accounts. You can say it causes inflation, but I would counter that this is just normal economics - market forces bringing down an artificial economy.
Second - no chinese farmers want to group with non-farmers. I actually know some farmers in China. They have about 40 people working there, each playing several characters at a time in different windows. The pay is OK and the work is easy, but the hours are long (10 hours per day, seven days a week, plus the next day off if you work the night shift). They employ a few english speakers who handle the case where someone tries to talk to them, so the idea that asking a few English questions will identify a farmer is just wrong. They are very polite and don't use bots, etc., because they don't want to be caught. Most of the problem farmers are not the chinese companies but the western college students trying to make beer money on eBay.
I think a larger part of this is racism. Look at the ads for gold on eBay. People actually say "not chinese gold" in their ads - as if the fact that a chinese person farmed it instead of a Westerner makes a difference!
The real mystery for me is why someone would pay someone else to play their character for them... THAT seems really strange... but I can imagine that it would be easier to pay $5 for an item that makes the game more fun for me than playing the same instance 100 times in a row hoping for a drop.
First off - I wish you great success in publishing such a book. It is sorely needed. Sadly, our experience echoes the suspicion of several posters who feel that no one would read it.
Most users have no desire to read any sort of printed documentation. Consider that when we introduced the Macintosh in 1984, a major aspect of the advertising campaign was that Mac is so easy you could operate it after reading a 65 page manual. A modern computer user interface is significantly more complicated than that of the '84 Mac, and yet the majority of users are unwilling to read even a single page of instruction before operating their product. Many large companies will not upgrade to a new OS unless the training cost is essentially zero. That is one of the reasons why in Windows we invest in integrated help and just-in-time assistance rather than printed documentation.
There already is a design model for Windows - the entire set of concepts that Windows exposes to the user. It is actually a graph of concepts, as some concepts are specializations of other concepts (for instance, you need to know about hard drives and RAM to understand Virtual Memory). We try to use this model when designing features to make sure that the subset of the model exposed by the feature is reasonable. For instance, if someone is transferring photos from their camera to their computer, they might have to know about folders but they shouldn't have to know about virtual memory.
Of course, most users do not know the design model. Instead users have what we call a "user model" - their own independently formed conception of the computer. For many novice users, the user model is just a route memorization: "plug in the camera, wait for the little box to show up, click the third button, now click the second button, now click the OK button." This is too bad because in general the closer the user model is to the design model, the more successful the user will be in their computer experience. If your book can help them do it, it is great. However, it is worth nothing that as long as the user model works, it does not have to match the design model in order for the user to be successful.
I am sure many readers of Slashdot have had the experience in which someone - maybe a parent or grandparent - who appears competent on Windows cannot perform even simple similar tasks in Linux. This is because while the design models are somewhat similar between Windows and, say, KDE (both have files, folders, etc.) the user's model breaks down due to the route changes (the button is in the top left instead of bottom right, etc.)
We see this even between versions of Windows. We actually weigh the cost of seemingly minor things like icon changes, knowing that there are X million people who are invoking that feature solely by looking for that little picture. For instance, many people only recognize the regional settings control panel because it is a globe. If you don't have the globe, 10 million people won't be able to change their language settings.
Someone pointed out that no one reads their car instruction manual and yet people can someone drive. This is true, and while a car is conceptually much simpler than a computer, we do strive to keep the design model as simple as possible. However, I would point out that you are required to pass a licensing exam (both a written test of rules and theory and an operating test) before you can legally drive. It is interesting to think about what such an exam would look like for computers and if we would ever get to the point where we require such a license (for example, running an email attachment called "MERRY XMAS - FUNNY.exe" could be an instant fail..)
All true, except for the miscategorizations of my post.
Its weight is what qualifies it as a truck vs. a passenger vehicle, so that is the same point.
I didn't say it had side air bags, but it does have driver and passenger airbags. I didn't say it has stability control, but it does have traction control as I stated.
Note that I am not arguing that the H2 is super safe. I would rather be in a car with crumple zones any day! Of course, I also wouldn't want to be in the other car when the H2 drives over it in a collision.
The Hummer H2 is not listed on the site because it is technically a truck, not a passenger vehicle, just like the Chevy Suburban. Not being listed has nothing to do with safety.
If you look at the other similar vehicles that are listed (such as the Land Rover or the Jeep Grand Cherokee) they score very well. The H2 is also equipped with standard safety features such as airbags and traction control.
The main reason to avoid and H2 is that it has bad gas mileage and is difficult to park. The visibility is also not so great, which may increase your chances of getting in an accident.
Did you hear this on daytime talk radio or something? This is stupid for several reasons:
First, contrary to popular belief, the sig on the back of the card is not there for identification purposes, but rather to indicate that you accept the terms of your cardholder agreement. If you do not sign the card, you cannot legally use it. Period.
Second, if you want to protect yourself, you are much better using a credit card than a debit card. A typical credit card has a much better fraud protection policy than a debit card (might want to read the terms of service). Also, if your account is accessed illegally, with a credit card they have the credit card company's money (or actually, the store's money) while for a debit card they have drained real money from your personal checking account.
Third, the merchant is not required to obey your stupid writing on the back. In fact, if they are doing their job they would require you to sign the card for real to make sure you have agreed to the terms of service. That is why it is perfectly reasonable for a clerk to ask you to sign a card that you present to them unsigned - because your signature is not for ID purposes.
Lastly - most identity theft happens WITHOUT STEALING YOUR PHYSICAL CARD. Geez.
Your cop and lawyer friends either don't like you, or perhaps have merely assumed the identity of lawyers and cops in order to get personal information out of you. You didn't show them your card, did you?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, this is all obvious in retrospect, but you are forgetting that Star Wars took place A LONG TIME AGO!! (in a galaxy far away, no less)
- davevr
If you would bother to read the patents, you would see that the techniques that Microsoft is patenting here have ZERO to do with the color-clock splitting that we had on the old Atari and Apple machines back in the day.
And as far as your app - boy, what we can say here. You read an article about something, implement a bad version of it, and then claim that counts as an "independent invention"?
Wow...
openSUSE hobbled by patents??
yeah, right, and my access to your wallet is hobbled by those pesky anti-mugging laws.. geez.
The XBOX 360 makes a great Apple TV replacement for people who use PCs intead of Macs. It costs a little more, but it will play DVDs and cool games in addition to streaming your music, photos, downloaded shows, and TV (including live TV). Works properly with HDTV and all the DRM crap as well for those with digital cable. And it even comes in white!
If you are trying to save cash, you can also use your classic XBOX or third-party dedicated device. We call them "Media Center Extenders" here at the 'Soft.
Does anyone else remember "Major Damage" from Capcom USA? For the Saturn and PS1. This sounds like a 3D version of that. Of course, I guess that "kill everything that moves and get powerups to do it better and faster" describes 95% of the games out there...
I just finished creating a few dozen gmail accounts to prop up my Wikipedia entry and now this!!
When they open the vault, all they will get is a notice saying that the usage rights of these seeds has expired and to please contact patent-holder Monsanto for a renewal.
It seems clear which OS is preferred by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I feel safe knowing that my web server is doing homage to His Noodly Goodness every time I refresh a page. After all, what is really going to help secure your site: a bunch of fancy-smancy kernel programmers or the divine protection of His noodly appendage?
...the pope is suspected of having religious ties.
The incredible thing to me is the HUGE outrage just a few weeks ago over private investigators selling phone records.
8 0246
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/04/1
I am just waiting for someone to correlate the quotes of the congresspeople expressing the "incredible invasion of privacy" and "no possible justifaction" over the first case with the "absolutely necessary" in the NSA case. It is amazing.
Every news report I have heard on this subject seriously misrepresents it. They always describe it in terms of "let's say you have a terrorist and you want to find out who they are working with..." They conveniently omit that this is not targeted at anyone who is suspected of anything, but is a drag net of the whole population and really gives no additional safety over the targeted tapping. I tried to discuss this with some non-tech people but I guess it is beyond their comprehension. I guess the lack of science education funding is paying off for the government at last.
I can't wait for Bush & co. to use this to find out who is calling news agencies, congresspeople, etc., to make an enemies list. They can even correlate it with news reports, etc. Go Big Brother!
I just hope we remember to celebrate QWest for standing up to these bastards. I already wrote them a letter thanking them. I also hope the class-action lawsuits are HUGE!
According to our data, the built-in games (freecell, solitaire, etc.) are the second-most common frontmost window on people's machines. The most common is the web browser, and I'm sure all that isn't all work-related either. Productity applications are way down the list... I think 48% of knowledge workers would be out of job if they enforced the "no computer play" policy... :-)
I'm sure I will be safe in my Hummer.
Given that WDEF started in 1989 and you still caught it in 1992, I would agree that yes, you are too smug. ;-)
First off, Blizzard should just recognize that the reason farmers exist is due to their game design. If I am paying $15/month to play some game and I find parts of it to be boring, why should Blizzard care if I want to pay someone else to play that part? It is no different from real life, where I pay someone else to grow (and sometimes cook) my food, kill cows for me, etc. If someone is hacking their system, they should crack down on that, but most farmers have real paid accounts. You can say it causes inflation, but I would counter that this is just normal economics - market forces bringing down an artificial economy.
Second - no chinese farmers want to group with non-farmers. I actually know some farmers in China. They have about 40 people working there, each playing several characters at a time in different windows. The pay is OK and the work is easy, but the hours are long (10 hours per day, seven days a week, plus the next day off if you work the night shift). They employ a few english speakers who handle the case where someone tries to talk to them, so the idea that asking a few English questions will identify a farmer is just wrong. They are very polite and don't use bots, etc., because they don't want to be caught. Most of the problem farmers are not the chinese companies but the western college students trying to make beer money on eBay.
I think a larger part of this is racism. Look at the ads for gold on eBay. People actually say "not chinese gold" in their ads - as if the fact that a chinese person farmed it instead of a Westerner makes a difference!
The real mystery for me is why someone would pay someone else to play their character for them... THAT seems really strange... but I can imagine that it would be easier to pay $5 for an item that makes the game more fun for me than playing the same instance 100 times in a row hoping for a drop.
First off - I wish you great success in publishing such a book. It is sorely needed. Sadly, our experience echoes the suspicion of several posters who feel that no one would read it.
Most users have no desire to read any sort of printed documentation. Consider that when we introduced the Macintosh in 1984, a major aspect of the advertising campaign was that Mac is so easy you could operate it after reading a 65 page manual. A modern computer user interface is significantly more complicated than that of the '84 Mac, and yet the majority of users are unwilling to read even a single page of instruction before operating their product. Many large companies will not upgrade to a new OS unless the training cost is essentially zero. That is one of the reasons why in Windows we invest in integrated help and just-in-time assistance rather than printed documentation.
There already is a design model for Windows - the entire set of concepts that Windows exposes to the user. It is actually a graph of concepts, as some concepts are specializations of other concepts (for instance, you need to know about hard drives and RAM to understand Virtual Memory). We try to use this model when designing features to make sure that the subset of the model exposed by the feature is reasonable. For instance, if someone is transferring photos from their camera to their computer, they might have to know about folders but they shouldn't have to know about virtual memory.
Of course, most users do not know the design model. Instead users have what we call a "user model" - their own independently formed conception of the computer. For many novice users, the user model is just a route memorization: "plug in the camera, wait for the little box to show up, click the third button, now click the second button, now click the OK button." This is too bad because in general the closer the user model is to the design model, the more successful the user will be in their computer experience. If your book can help them do it, it is great. However, it is worth nothing that as long as the user model works, it does not have to match the design model in order for the user to be successful.
I am sure many readers of Slashdot have had the experience in which someone - maybe a parent or grandparent - who appears competent on Windows cannot perform even simple similar tasks in Linux. This is because while the design models are somewhat similar between Windows and, say, KDE (both have files, folders, etc.) the user's model breaks down due to the route changes (the button is in the top left instead of bottom right, etc.)
We see this even between versions of Windows. We actually weigh the cost of seemingly minor things like icon changes, knowing that there are X million people who are invoking that feature solely by looking for that little picture. For instance, many people only recognize the regional settings control panel because it is a globe. If you don't have the globe, 10 million people won't be able to change their language settings.
Someone pointed out that no one reads their car instruction manual and yet people can someone drive. This is true, and while a car is conceptually much simpler than a computer, we do strive to keep the design model as simple as possible. However, I would point out that you are required to pass a licensing exam (both a written test of rules and theory and an operating test) before you can legally drive. It is interesting to think about what such an exam would look like for computers and if we would ever get to the point where we require such a license (for example, running an email attachment called "MERRY XMAS - FUNNY.exe" could be an instant fail..)
- davevr
All true, except for the miscategorizations of my post.
Its weight is what qualifies it as a truck vs. a passenger vehicle, so that is the same point.
I didn't say it had side air bags, but it does have driver and passenger airbags. I didn't say it has stability control, but it does have traction control as I stated.
Note that I am not arguing that the H2 is super safe. I would rather be in a car with crumple zones any day! Of course, I also wouldn't want to be in the other car when the H2 drives over it in a collision.
You are kidding, right? What do you base this on?
The Hummer H2 is not listed on the site because it is technically a truck, not a passenger vehicle, just like the Chevy Suburban. Not being listed has nothing to do with safety.
If you look at the other similar vehicles that are listed (such as the Land Rover or the Jeep Grand Cherokee) they score very well. The H2 is also equipped with standard safety features such as airbags and traction control.
The main reason to avoid and H2 is that it has bad gas mileage and is difficult to park. The visibility is also not so great, which may increase your chances of getting in an accident.
Did you hear this on daytime talk radio or something? This is stupid for several reasons:
First, contrary to popular belief, the sig on the back of the card is not there for identification purposes, but rather to indicate that you accept the terms of your cardholder agreement. If you do not sign the card, you cannot legally use it. Period.
Second, if you want to protect yourself, you are much better using a credit card than a debit card. A typical credit card has a much better fraud protection policy than a debit card (might want to read the terms of service). Also, if your account is accessed illegally, with a credit card they have the credit card company's money (or actually, the store's money) while for a debit card they have drained real money from your personal checking account.
Third, the merchant is not required to obey your stupid writing on the back. In fact, if they are doing their job they would require you to sign the card for real to make sure you have agreed to the terms of service. That is why it is perfectly reasonable for a clerk to ask you to sign a card that you present to them unsigned - because your signature is not for ID purposes.
Lastly - most identity theft happens WITHOUT STEALING YOUR PHYSICAL CARD. Geez.
Your cop and lawyer friends either don't like you, or perhaps have merely assumed the identity of lawyers and cops in order to get personal information out of you. You didn't show them your card, did you?
You must mean:
? (great-news-p 'this)
> T
geez, kids these days.. somewhere, David Moon is weeping...
That's easy - use Python! /ducks!
That quote is from Alan Kay, computer visionary, not "Alan Keys".
Who the heck is Alan Keys? Maybe you are thinking of Alan Keyes, the politician?
Only the crack editors at Slashdot could misspell "NLRB". Geez... What next? Misspell "PhD"? Misspell "C++"? Mispell "Misspell"?