For a long time, I've felt that they should just make it SIMPLE by requiring any sex related web site to have.adult as a DNS suffix. Forget.com,.org or whatever,.adult. Simple. NetNanny (or whatever programs censor) then have no problems. Heck, you could even code the browser to do it.
I guess the only argument that could then come up is that some sites under.edu or whatever may have objectionable content. Well, unless you can get everyone to conform to some type of META tag to describe their content (I know it has been attempted), you'll never be 100%.
A few months ago, we already read about a similar situation with SPARC processors. Granted Sun released an older version of the SPARC processor and they also released it under their SCSL license, but nonetheless..
I think it's cool that they release this kind of information. Unfortunately, who the heck has the resources to punch out one of these things besides the major chip manufacturers anyway? Maybe if someone was really bored and had a very large bread board (and a lot of spare time and cash on their hands) they could brew one up out of ICs and other solid state components. Probably run hotter than a docker's arm pit and use more energy than you can shake a stick at. Interesting, regardless.
I think I briefly played with Gnucash once before, but I can't get myself to use these money management programs. I think the only reason why I would bother using Quicken or something like that is because they do a lot of work for preparing your US tax returns when it comes time. I'm sure it does numbers nicely for you, but it is a feature in the commercial products which is enticing...
This is a bit annoying; I want to see Microsoft on this, but (who's surprised at this) they're not. I own a Palm III and a Philips Velo 1 (one of the early CE machines) and I REALLY dislike the synchronization software that comes with the CE device.
For those who don't know how CE synchronizes, it essentially establishes a PPP connection between your desktop and your palm sized device through some semi-special software on your Windows machine. On Windows NT, it forces you to install RAS if you don't alreay have it installed (read: must reapply service packs afterwards) and then whenever the machines are hooked together, I've found the networking of the boxen stumbles for the 30 seconds or so that they chat with each other. I guess there is enough bitching to do about the CE synchronization method, but I can state that it does work though I don't care for it. The Palm pilot, on the other hand, works very nicely and transparently from the rest of the computing world.
So how does this apply to the proposed synchronization method/standard? On my machine, I have five pieces of software installed for the purpose of keeping my personal organizers in sync:
HotSync (palm low-level software for the serial port)
ActiveSync (CE low-level software)
RAS (for ActiveSync to work)
Outlook (CE doesn't come with its own lightweight software like the Palm does [read: Palm Desktop])
Desktop to Go (for syncing the Palm with Outlook)
Now with this new software, I could get rid of ActiveSync, RAS, Desktop to Go and HotSync and POSSIBLY Outlook if they provide a lightweight storage and manipulation program. Now granted, I would have to install a new piece of software for the new synchronization program, but hopefully the one piece of software would be able to differentiate between the CE device and the Palm device and I wouldn't have to have additional programs installed.
So it would be nice to have less software on my machine to keep my machines in sync. Now if only this thing (read: whatever software comes about based on this standard) could also work with Bluetooth, I'd be set:)
So if the Brainball program is being run under Windows, does a Blue Screen of Death cause an epileptic seizure or just a brain fart? Maybe this is the way for all you kids who want Attention Deficit Disorder to get on Ritalin. Cool.
I wonder how the player reacts when nude photos of (ok, ok) a naked petrified Natalie Portman appear in their peripheral vision? Someone want to control an experiement here? I mean, it IS for science..
I agree that the show seems to be on it's last leg. Actually, it's looked like it has been that way for a few years now.
I recall looking at the show about 3 or 4 years ago and thinking that they were running out of ideas. The reason I thought this was because I was watching an episode where the writing had certainly gone "insane". Rather, instead of the typical humorous Simpsons writing, it had gone to something completely "out there". I liked it, but it was a style of writing they had not touched before, so some proverbial can was pulled off the shelf that had never been considered before.
This last season has been funny, but I think the last truely great season was about two years ago. I love the Simpsons, but I think its time to put it to rest and let it live on in syndication heaven.
How about a stamp that says "Parental Advisory, Explicit Lyrics" (read: PMRC sticker that is on every CD these days).. Could be over an image of Prince singing "Darling Nikki".
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the PMRC (Parent's Music Resource Center) was an attempt at censorship of the music industry by bored Washington housewives (Tipper Gore was one of the leaders) which was sparked off by Tipper hearing her child listening to Prince and the Revolution's song Darling Nikki (song about a woman masturbating for these purposes).
I guess one thing that can be said with this is that Microsoft is always one step beyond their latest development tools. What I mean is that (a few years ago) you go out and buy Office 97 and think the floating toolbars are neat. At the same time, you go out and buy the latest version of Visual C++. You find out once you start to develop a GUI that the best toolbar you can do is comparable to Office 95.
Go forward two years. You go out and buy Office 2000 and think that the new interface is neat. Once again, you go out and buy the latest MSVC++ and find that the toolbar ability has been updated, but now the best application you can write (with their supplied abilities) looks ancient compared to what Microsoft is publishing.
Jeez, I played with RC2 for a short while and noticed the new 'flashy features' in W2k (which, BTW, don't appear to be optional). In particular I'm referring to the fading menus and mouse shadow.
Why does Microsoft insist on taking every last CPU cycle we have? I guess if we didn't get the hint from Office 97 (read: paperclip animation P.O.S.) or Win98 (sliding menus, etc), then we better not complain when it requires a 1.1GHz Athlon to run an application.
Recently I read that even the fastest processors out (at the time of the writing) aren't quick enough for Quake III when you turn on all of the graphics features.
I'm waiting for the processor which will do this smoothly; my P6-200 with Voodoo2 gets a little slow in 'Fast' mode when there are more than a few people on.
Actually, I think the idea of rendering them as tooltips isn't such a bad idea. I mean, what do you usually put in the alt tag anyway? Usually you don't want to describe what the picture is in an alt tag, you want to tell them what would happen if they clicked on that picture. If it is a non-hyperlinked image, then a description is fine, and the tooltip is quite handy.
I'm not sure why JWZ is so against the concept, I'd really like to hear why this is a bad thing. I personally think it was a natural progression in browser technology.
No, no, no.. You're missing the point of how this program is evolving.
The first cut was a monstrosity because it was simply the snapshot (more or less) of the current Communicator code with some minor changes. We all know Communicator is enormous.
The second cut was a total rewrite; basically what you see today. The key improvement here, besides the fact that it was a total rewrite, is that the HTML rendering engine is FAR more efficient and handles all the standards properly as per specifications (you can't say that about Communicator, IE or Opera!)
The rendering engine (Gecko) is more or less completed; they are still tweaking and adding minor features to it, but without a program to wrap around the engine, what's the point? Now what you're seeing is the addition of a mailer, news reader, preferences, history, etc. etc, eg. all the other crap that makes a modern web browser. Yes, this stuff is going to add to the code size, but the most important part of Mozilla is that the HTML rendering engine is quite good and very efficient.
Now only if I can get this release to build on Solaris...;-)
The 586 compilation crap that Mandrake spouts is such bullshit. It gets you about 10% improvement in speed at most. Talk about hype.
Hmm.. so you would rather NOT have that 10% increase? What, you're too proud to take better advantage of your processor? Come on... haven't you ever felt that you were getting slightly cheated by installing RPMs built and optimized for the 80386 rather than your 80686?
While I always enjoy any news related to the Amiga (even with the sad state that it is in), I did find the mention a little bit interesting.
Basically, the Amiga technology has been getting pawned off over the years as "technology which is great, might not be quite what you want for a computer anymore, but would do wonders for set top boxes". I've thought that the set top box is perfect for it. If AOL does have some sort of deal that dribbles down to Amiga Corporation, then this could be a significant opportunity to at least keep the Amiga technology alive.
I've used the digital cable system of Comcast in the northern New Jersey area. It consists of a large pizza box for a tuner with a large (and poorly designed) remote control to drive this thing. There are up to 999 channels (and about 400-500 are actually used), and it has built in television listings and primitive programming capabilities (timers, reminders, etc). Essentially, you're getting some sort of MPEG stream from the cable company, and this box is the decoder (you can see the digital artifacts in the signal; similar to what you see on DVDs). While the idea of the technology is great, I think that the actual "computer" behind the box is rather poor; it seems that most of the computing power is dedicated to the MPEG stream rather than to the controls. This would be an excellent job for the Amiga. I won't say that it couldn't be handled by another technology, but the architecture behind the Amiga is quite well suited for this, and if the "Digital Content Behemoth" (AOL/TW) has some sort of relation to the Amiga technology, then why not use it.
They do state in the legal papers that you are not allowed to run a server on the network, but they only really have that there when they need to shut down an illegal (or bandwidth hogging) customer. Sure, you could run a web server, and FTP server or (quite common) a Quake server. They just don't want you destroying everyone's bandwidth with a $40 consumer connection when your business should really be paying for a several hundred dollar connection.
Remember, the cable modem technology works off of a 'network neighborhood' configuration; if all the people within 1000 ft of your home are downloading pr0n at the same time, your pr0n download may come down at about 3k/sec. It's really to ensure quality in the service.
One thing that was mentioned to me by one of the techs for Comcast@Home is that they monitor upstream for abuse; downstream they don't care about.
Well, seeing how Apple got mad about people cloning the iMac in the past (read: the blueberry color scheme), how about the fact that they're entering a market where Handspring has already released 'flavored cases' or the Visor? It would be funny if they got a taste of their own medicine, but it would only be funny as a joke I think..
Well, at least one thing could come out of this: we could finally get a PalmOS device with "eeep!", "bwoink!", "beuuuunngh!" and "eeeek!" sounds. Maybe when you hit the hard reset button you'll get a sample of a go-cart skidding and crashing into a wall of tires. Hmm...
Theory #1 comes from my housemate who claims that Lucasfilm hasn't released any DVDs because they own a particular movie production company that isn't licensed to produce DVDs. Sorry for the ambiguous statement, but the general idea is that they won't produce DVDs because of some corporate license or dreamworks had no hand in the DVD technology. Very speculative statement, but I'd like to hear otherwise if you get what I am trying to convey.
Theory #2 was thought up by myself during one of these discussions with my housemate, and it's a bit more 'conspiracy theory'. Basically, I think it is possible that Lucasfilm is going to sell everything on VHS until the market is saturated. Take for example the fact that they released all sorts of versions of the original Star Wars episodes in the older unmodified versions. After they made a pretty penny there, they re-released the whole shebang with the new computer enhanced versions. So, everyone who is a big Star Wars fan goes out and buys all these newer copies on VHS since it is the only format available and they really want it. Once the sales drop off, then they release it on DVD since the people who really wanted it on DVD in the first place but couldn't get it will now go out and buy it. The only reason for not doing it YET is that they still have time to cash in on Episodes 2 and 3 on VHS before doing DVD; if they did a partial release of the 6 episodes on DVD, then it would be a noticable scam that they only release (say) episode 2 on VHS but not DVD. Once they release DVD, then they will always have to.
I like my theory (#2), but then again I probably watch X-files too much. Interesting thought if anything, though...
Slashdot Mirror
I guess the only argument that could then come up is that some sites under .edu or whatever may have objectionable content. Well, unless you can get everyone to conform to some type of META tag to describe their content (I know it has been attempted), you'll never be 100%.
Ahh well. rant, rant, rant.
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I think it's cool that they release this kind of information. Unfortunately, who the heck has the resources to punch out one of these things besides the major chip manufacturers anyway? Maybe if someone was really bored and had a very large bread board (and a lot of spare time and cash on their hands) they could brew one up out of ICs and other solid state components. Probably run hotter than a docker's arm pit and use more energy than you can shake a stick at. Interesting, regardless.
--
I think I briefly played with Gnucash once before, but I can't get myself to use these money management programs. I think the only reason why I would bother using Quicken or something like that is because they do a lot of work for preparing your US tax returns when it comes time. I'm sure it does numbers nicely for you, but it is a feature in the commercial products which is enticing...
--
For those who don't know how CE synchronizes, it essentially establishes a PPP connection between your desktop and your palm sized device through some semi-special software on your Windows machine. On Windows NT, it forces you to install RAS if you don't alreay have it installed (read: must reapply service packs afterwards) and then whenever the machines are hooked together, I've found the networking of the boxen stumbles for the 30 seconds or so that they chat with each other. I guess there is enough bitching to do about the CE synchronization method, but I can state that it does work though I don't care for it. The Palm pilot, on the other hand, works very nicely and transparently from the rest of the computing world.
So how does this apply to the proposed synchronization method/standard? On my machine, I have five pieces of software installed for the purpose of keeping my personal organizers in sync:
- HotSync (palm low-level software for the serial port)
- ActiveSync (CE low-level software)
- RAS (for ActiveSync to work)
- Outlook (CE doesn't come with its own lightweight software like the Palm does [read: Palm Desktop])
- Desktop to Go (for syncing the Palm with Outlook)
Now with this new software, I could get rid of ActiveSync, RAS, Desktop to Go and HotSync and POSSIBLY Outlook if they provide a lightweight storage and manipulation program. Now granted, I would have to install a new piece of software for the new synchronization program, but hopefully the one piece of software would be able to differentiate between the CE device and the Palm device and I wouldn't have to have additional programs installed.So it would be nice to have less software on my machine to keep my machines in sync. Now if only this thing (read: whatever software comes about based on this standard) could also work with Bluetooth, I'd be set :)
My two cents; no refunds.
--
I wonder how the player reacts when nude photos of (ok, ok) a naked petrified Natalie Portman appear in their peripheral vision? Someone want to control an experiement here? I mean, it IS for science..
--
I recall looking at the show about 3 or 4 years ago and thinking that they were running out of ideas. The reason I thought this was because I was watching an episode where the writing had certainly gone "insane". Rather, instead of the typical humorous Simpsons writing, it had gone to something completely "out there". I liked it, but it was a style of writing they had not touched before, so some proverbial can was pulled off the shelf that had never been considered before.
This last season has been funny, but I think the last truely great season was about two years ago. I love the Simpsons, but I think its time to put it to rest and let it live on in syndication heaven.
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Bah... I still liked the rainbow apple better anyway :)
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For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, the PMRC (Parent's Music Resource Center) was an attempt at censorship of the music industry by bored Washington housewives (Tipper Gore was one of the leaders) which was sparked off by Tipper hearing her child listening to Prince and the Revolution's song Darling Nikki (song about a woman masturbating for these purposes).
--
Go forward two years. You go out and buy Office 2000 and think that the new interface is neat. Once again, you go out and buy the latest MSVC++ and find that the toolbar ability has been updated, but now the best application you can write (with their supplied abilities) looks ancient compared to what Microsoft is publishing.
Just an observation from writing some Win32 code.
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Why does Microsoft insist on taking every last CPU cycle we have? I guess if we didn't get the hint from Office 97 (read: paperclip animation P.O.S.) or Win98 (sliding menus, etc), then we better not complain when it requires a 1.1GHz Athlon to run an application.
--
(Folks, this is a Frank Zappa reference for those scratching their heads)
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I'm waiting for the processor which will do this smoothly; my P6-200 with Voodoo2 gets a little slow in 'Fast' mode when there are more than a few people on.
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I'm not sure why JWZ is so against the concept, I'd really like to hear why this is a bad thing. I personally think it was a natural progression in browser technology.
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And if you watch Space Ghost on comedy central, remember, don't let this monkey take notes for you or you'll pass in book reports that read:
You'll get an F.
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Actually, a better SLASHBOT would be one which could, through Artificial Intelligence (of course), know when to 'first post' and win.
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The first cut was a monstrosity because it was simply the snapshot (more or less) of the current Communicator code with some minor changes. We all know Communicator is enormous.
The second cut was a total rewrite; basically what you see today. The key improvement here, besides the fact that it was a total rewrite, is that the HTML rendering engine is FAR more efficient and handles all the standards properly as per specifications (you can't say that about Communicator, IE or Opera!)
The rendering engine (Gecko) is more or less completed; they are still tweaking and adding minor features to it, but without a program to wrap around the engine, what's the point? Now what you're seeing is the addition of a mailer, news reader, preferences, history, etc. etc, eg. all the other crap that makes a modern web browser. Yes, this stuff is going to add to the code size, but the most important part of Mozilla is that the HTML rendering engine is quite good and very efficient.
Now only if I can get this release to build on Solaris... ;-)
--
(it's meant to be funny, not flamebait)
--
(another shameless quote from Blazing Saddles)
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Hmm.. so you would rather NOT have that 10% increase? What, you're too proud to take better advantage of your processor? Come on... haven't you ever felt that you were getting slightly cheated by installing RPMs built and optimized for the 80386 rather than your 80686?
--
While I always enjoy any news related to the Amiga (even with the sad state that it is in), I did find the mention a little bit interesting.
Basically, the Amiga technology has been getting pawned off over the years as "technology which is great, might not be quite what you want for a computer anymore, but would do wonders for set top boxes". I've thought that the set top box is perfect for it. If AOL does have some sort of deal that dribbles down to Amiga Corporation, then this could be a significant opportunity to at least keep the Amiga technology alive.
I've used the digital cable system of Comcast in the northern New Jersey area. It consists of a large pizza box for a tuner with a large (and poorly designed) remote control to drive this thing. There are up to 999 channels (and about 400-500 are actually used), and it has built in television listings and primitive programming capabilities (timers, reminders, etc). Essentially, you're getting some sort of MPEG stream from the cable company, and this box is the decoder (you can see the digital artifacts in the signal; similar to what you see on DVDs). While the idea of the technology is great, I think that the actual "computer" behind the box is rather poor; it seems that most of the computing power is dedicated to the MPEG stream rather than to the controls. This would be an excellent job for the Amiga. I won't say that it couldn't be handled by another technology, but the architecture behind the Amiga is quite well suited for this, and if the "Digital Content Behemoth" (AOL/TW) has some sort of relation to the Amiga technology, then why not use it.
My two cents; no refunds.
--
Remember, the cable modem technology works off of a 'network neighborhood' configuration; if all the people within 1000 ft of your home are downloading pr0n at the same time, your pr0n download may come down at about 3k/sec. It's really to ensure quality in the service.
One thing that was mentioned to me by one of the techs for Comcast@Home is that they monitor upstream for abuse; downstream they don't care about.
--
I travelled to Ireland. I went to Dublin. I went to the Guinness factory and had a beer. I was in heaven.
I travelled around the rest of Ireland. Drank only Guinness. Love love love.
I came back to the states. I drank a Guinness....
PTOOOOIIEEEE!!!
Guinness in the USA sucks.
Actually, I have to say that the bubbles are 'harder' and the taste is more bitter in non-IRL Guinness. How about a study on that?
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Actually, Don Martin wasn't responsible for the Spy VS Spy cartoons. I can't remember off hand right now, but it certainly wasn't Martin.
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Well, at least one thing could come out of this: we could finally get a PalmOS device with "eeep!", "bwoink!", "beuuuunngh!" and "eeeek!" sounds. Maybe when you hit the hard reset button you'll get a sample of a go-cart skidding and crashing into a wall of tires. Hmm...
--
Theory #1 comes from my housemate who claims that Lucasfilm hasn't released any DVDs because they own a particular movie production company that isn't licensed to produce DVDs. Sorry for the ambiguous statement, but the general idea is that they won't produce DVDs because of some corporate license or dreamworks had no hand in the DVD technology. Very speculative statement, but I'd like to hear otherwise if you get what I am trying to convey.
Theory #2 was thought up by myself during one of these discussions with my housemate, and it's a bit more 'conspiracy theory'. Basically, I think it is possible that Lucasfilm is going to sell everything on VHS until the market is saturated. Take for example the fact that they released all sorts of versions of the original Star Wars episodes in the older unmodified versions. After they made a pretty penny there, they re-released the whole shebang with the new computer enhanced versions. So, everyone who is a big Star Wars fan goes out and buys all these newer copies on VHS since it is the only format available and they really want it. Once the sales drop off, then they release it on DVD since the people who really wanted it on DVD in the first place but couldn't get it will now go out and buy it. The only reason for not doing it YET is that they still have time to cash in on Episodes 2 and 3 on VHS before doing DVD; if they did a partial release of the 6 episodes on DVD, then it would be a noticable scam that they only release (say) episode 2 on VHS but not DVD. Once they release DVD, then they will always have to.
I like my theory (#2), but then again I probably watch X-files too much. Interesting thought if anything, though...
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