I hate to say it, but I'm a little tired of things that pawn themselves off as "of the future," when they're just showcases for the most expensive, newest stuff that's already floating around.
Maybe it's because the real "hotels of the future" won't be any more exciting than they are now. If they're motels, they'll be cheap - if they're five star hotels, they'll simply emulate what's in the best houses, plus a feature or two (whooo, biometric safe).
I was thinking the same thing (if I had mod points I'd give 'em to you).
The next frontier could be mass/energy conversion that could retain consciousness. For that matter, at least as far as we humans are concerned, *consciousness* itself will always be the most complicated, difficult frontier...
y'know, I don't need to flame, because I feel much the same, and I hate that I have to run windows. But the fact is that if I want to run a *huge* set of software and if I still want to be able to build and tweak my own system (which rules out a mac), I have to use windows.
I'm not talking about games here - haven't played one for years anyway - I'm talking about video, sound and music editing. There is *no way* I could run a decent such toolset in linux (god, how I wish there was).
I know it's a point that gets made often, but it's something people like *you* need to get through your head. The problem *is* the monopoly on software development. Some of us need to use our computers for something other than making stuff for other computers...
I can't believe that no one has mentioned Dave Seigel's nine act structure or Joseph Vogler's adaptation of Joseph Cambell's work, the Hero's Journey
Filmmakers and producers have been using these for years (the more you know about them, the more depressing it is to watch stuff like the Matrix), and this isn't much that's new (look at MGM's formula films in the 30's).
One thing that is worth noting is that it's still *difficult* to write a movie that perfectly utilizes these ratios, while making it "different" enough to fool the audiences.
Also worth noting is the fact that, while the best-selling cars are a rather generic ratio of certain features - power, luxury, price, safety, etc., the cars that people often really like are the ones that go out on some extreme (WCM Ultralite anyone?).
Exactly. I'm sure that someone has brought up www.fairtunes.com on here already (/. is how I found out about it in the first place), but it really is the best system to kill two birds with one stone.
I DO spend far less money on music than I did before I started file sharing, but I give the artists more money than I ever did. I figure that divying up $100 every few months to go to artists whose music I've enjoyed is the equivelent of buying AT LEAST $1000 worth of music from the labels (something I NEVER had the money to do).
I just wish that more people knew about it, because even though I know that a lot of people wouldn't pay for something that they weren't obligated to pay for, there are bunches of people (like me) who would, if they knew a way to give a small amount of money (like $5.00) to the artists that would result in them making far more money than they would have gotten from the purchase of all of their cds.
If we could just convince the makers of morpheus and kazaa to put an occasional link in their ad sections, with a label like, "want to give back to the artists? Click here." I think that there would be a viable way to take out the RIAA, and do it morally.
That may be true - but look how fast it's changed (and I'm not necessarily changing for the better).
I've introduced any number of people to something like Mapquest, from my mom to my girlfriend, and now they use it all the time. Likewise with online yellow pages, and other online references of all sorts. I'm sure we all know people who HATED cel phones when they first came out, or who thought they were silly, people who now own one.
I realize that I'm saying some simple things, like "change doesn't happen quickly," but really, your point itself is kind of a silly one. It seems to me that most people just need to see the benefit to a technology before they'll use it. There are plenty of geeks who will get it because it's cool, but the rest of the people will jump on the bandwagon when they can do things like:
Seeing something interesting, and, when it's automatically recorded in their glasses, they can just email it to a friend.
Check up on their kids at home while they're in traffic (webcam style, could be scary).
look at mapquest while walking
look up references in the middle of a conversation with someone, or check a quote, without having to jump on the computer or go to a library - in this sense, wearable computing could completely change conversation
the list goes on...
Sure, many of these things could be done from the computer at home, but people, americans especially, are all about saving time, and if they can accomplish one task while in the midst of another, they will embrace that ability rapidly, for better or worse.
If you want facts, RTFM, read the books or the online information available to you. Personally, the reason I paid all the money was to have teachers with some passion for what they did.
Presumably teachers are in the field because they care about it, and in that case, they probably have some valid opinions that are worth at least listening to, even if you disagree with them (or because you disagree with them - there's plenty to learn from that too).
The teachers I hated most were the ones who's idea of teaching was spouting endless facts that I could just read in the book. I didn't "purchase an education" to have facts served up on a silver platter, as you seem to want, but to gain something from people with experience.
Silly me, what I should've asked for was teachers who didn't give a shit about what they did, but just read the material to me.
um, that irony is mentioned in the first page of the article. check out my other post for the REAL irony of the article... (hint, it's the post after yours)
Did anyone else think that it was ironic that the article starts out by callin the human body an "inefficient, energy-wasting machine"?
The energy we waste is orders of magnitude below any machine that humans have built; if we were to create a machine that did half of what the human body did with current technology, I guarantee you that it would lose a helluva lot more in heat than we do.
Besides which, the heat that we generate makes possible our ability to keep chemical reactions going that are WORTH the heat expenditure. Sure, it may be wasteful to eat a thousand calorie meal to power us for six hours, but show me an mp3 player that can power itself off something so readily available as plant material or a loaf of bread before starting to argue that our ability to convert energy from diverse sources results in a wasteful process. In other words, I'd rather be able to be omnivorous and waste a lot of that energy than to need to be powered off electricity that can only come from sources like burned fossil fuel (and we waste a HUGE amount of energy when we harness that power).
If you ask me, the human body is remarkably EFFICIENT, because of the elements it can use for power, and because the wasted energy that is derived from those elements is minimal in comparison to the waste from, say, and Athlon processor.
What they're ACTUALLY doing in this article is trying to harness the efficiency of the human body, not its inefficiency. It's easier to feel a soldier an extra couple of peanuts a day and let them power all their devices than it is to try to use lousy, lossy batteries to do the same work.
...is the asus version of the nforce chipset (though I can't find out when the damned thing will come out; the only info I can find is from the same nvidia press release that says "Q3").
But I agree - screw intel - and REALLY screw intel if the nforce chipset is all that it's cracked up to be... it'll make better use of the processer, ram, and the north/southbridge interface (not to mention the rockin' onboard sound and graphics)
Slashdot Mirror
I hate to say it, but I'm a little tired of things that pawn themselves off as "of the future," when they're just showcases for the most expensive, newest stuff that's already floating around.
Maybe it's because the real "hotels of the future" won't be any more exciting than they are now. If they're motels, they'll be cheap - if they're five star hotels, they'll simply emulate what's in the best houses, plus a feature or two (whooo, biometric safe).
I agree, and to call it an "adaptation" seems a little over the top from what I saw. It IS very impressive, but what did they adapt it to? Video?
He just gave a *huge* list of the reasons why he is opposed to SUV's, and not one of them had to do with being a hippy treehugger.
Or is that just what you say when you've been outdebated?
I was thinking the same thing (if I had mod points I'd give 'em to you).
...until whatever's next, of course.
The next frontier could be mass/energy conversion that could retain consciousness. For that matter, at least as far as we humans are concerned, *consciousness* itself will always be the most complicated, difficult frontier...
y'know, I don't need to flame, because I feel much the same, and I hate that I have to run windows. But the fact is that if I want to run a *huge* set of software and if I still want to be able to build and tweak my own system (which rules out a mac), I have to use windows.
I'm not talking about games here - haven't played one for years anyway - I'm talking about video, sound and music editing. There is *no way* I could run a decent such toolset in linux (god, how I wish there was).
I know it's a point that gets made often, but it's something people like *you* need to get through your head. The problem *is* the monopoly on software development. Some of us need to use our computers for something other than making stuff for other computers...
Sounds pretty much like Bush's idea of what today should be like.
Flamebait, I know...
Well said. Thanks, all...
I can't believe that no one has mentioned Dave Seigel's nine act structure or Joseph Vogler's adaptation of Joseph Cambell's work, the Hero's Journey
Filmmakers and producers have been using these for years (the more you know about them, the more depressing it is to watch stuff like the Matrix), and this isn't much that's new (look at MGM's formula films in the 30's).
One thing that is worth noting is that it's still *difficult* to write a movie that perfectly utilizes these ratios, while making it "different" enough to fool the audiences.
Also worth noting is the fact that, while the best-selling cars are a rather generic ratio of certain features - power, luxury, price, safety, etc., the cars that people often really like are the ones that go out on some extreme (WCM Ultralite anyone?).
prepare to be happy
Exactly. I'm sure that someone has brought up www.fairtunes.com on here already (/. is how I found out about it in the first place), but it really is the best system to kill two birds with one stone.
I DO spend far less money on music than I did before I started file sharing, but I give the artists more money than I ever did. I figure that divying up $100 every few months to go to artists whose music I've enjoyed is the equivelent of buying AT LEAST $1000 worth of music from the labels (something I NEVER had the money to do).
I just wish that more people knew about it, because even though I know that a lot of people wouldn't pay for something that they weren't obligated to pay for, there are bunches of people (like me) who would, if they knew a way to give a small amount of money (like $5.00) to the artists that would result in them making far more money than they would have gotten from the purchase of all of their cds.
If we could just convince the makers of morpheus and kazaa to put an occasional link in their ad sections, with a label like, "want to give back to the artists? Click here." I think that there would be a viable way to take out the RIAA, and do it morally.
besides which, the original post was, I thought, a pretty obvious joke (humorous or not).
heheh - I may NOT be changing for the better, but what I meant to say was.... well I think it's obvious
shoulda previewed...
That may be true - but look how fast it's changed (and I'm not necessarily changing for the better).
I've introduced any number of people to something like Mapquest, from my mom to my girlfriend, and now they use it all the time. Likewise with online yellow pages, and other online references of all sorts. I'm sure we all know people who HATED cel phones when they first came out, or who thought they were silly, people who now own one.
I realize that I'm saying some simple things, like "change doesn't happen quickly," but really, your point itself is kind of a silly one. It seems to me that most people just need to see the benefit to a technology before they'll use it. There are plenty of geeks who will get it because it's cool, but the rest of the people will jump on the bandwagon when they can do things like:
Seeing something interesting, and, when it's automatically recorded in their glasses, they can just email it to a friend.
Check up on their kids at home while they're in traffic (webcam style, could be scary).
look at mapquest while walking
look up references in the middle of a conversation with someone, or check a quote, without having to jump on the computer or go to a library - in this sense, wearable computing could completely change conversation
the list goes on...
Sure, many of these things could be done from the computer at home, but people, americans especially, are all about saving time, and if they can accomplish one task while in the midst of another, they will embrace that ability rapidly, for better or worse.
If you want facts, RTFM, read the books or the online information available to you. Personally, the reason I paid all the money was to have teachers with some passion for what they did.
Presumably teachers are in the field because they care about it, and in that case, they probably have some valid opinions that are worth at least listening to, even if you disagree with them (or because you disagree with them - there's plenty to learn from that too).
The teachers I hated most were the ones who's idea of teaching was spouting endless facts that I could just read in the book. I didn't "purchase an education" to have facts served up on a silver platter, as you seem to want, but to gain something from people with experience.
Silly me, what I should've asked for was teachers who didn't give a shit about what they did, but just read the material to me.
um, that irony is mentioned in the first page of the article. check out my other post for the REAL irony of the article... (hint, it's the post after yours)
Did anyone else think that it was ironic that the article starts out by callin the human body an "inefficient, energy-wasting machine"?
The energy we waste is orders of magnitude below any machine that humans have built; if we were to create a machine that did half of what the human body did with current technology, I guarantee you that it would lose a helluva lot more in heat than we do.
Besides which, the heat that we generate makes possible our ability to keep chemical reactions going that are WORTH the heat expenditure. Sure, it may be wasteful to eat a thousand calorie meal to power us for six hours, but show me an mp3 player that can power itself off something so readily available as plant material or a loaf of bread before starting to argue that our ability to convert energy from diverse sources results in a wasteful process. In other words, I'd rather be able to be omnivorous and waste a lot of that energy than to need to be powered off electricity that can only come from sources like burned fossil fuel (and we waste a HUGE amount of energy when we harness that power).
If you ask me, the human body is remarkably EFFICIENT, because of the elements it can use for power, and because the wasted energy that is derived from those elements is minimal in comparison to the waste from, say, and Athlon processor.
What they're ACTUALLY doing in this article is trying to harness the efficiency of the human body, not its inefficiency. It's easier to feel a soldier an extra couple of peanuts a day and let them power all their devices than it is to try to use lousy, lossy batteries to do the same work.
check out Arthur Clarke, of course... he came up with the idea of geosyncronous satellites, among other things.......
little flyers don't work after you've cluster-bombed someone's family.
...is the asus version of the nforce chipset (though I can't find out when the damned thing will come out; the only info I can find is from the same nvidia press release that says "Q3").
But I agree - screw intel - and REALLY screw intel if the nforce chipset is all that it's cracked up to be... it'll make better use of the processer, ram, and the north/southbridge interface (not to mention the rockin' onboard sound and graphics)
the "young gamers of today," the ones I see anyway, would need an auto-spell checker to interpret their commands...
that is all.
it DOES look like a penguin ;)
...and they'll probably give him a 20 year-old "love interest"... bah
That's probably the reason why they don't show the actual top ten searches, just the top ten declining and increasing.
My guess is that the porn searches stay pretty steady, so they wouldn't show up on either list...
most painters are just manipulating an existing image, or a set of them - they're the ones that are registered on their retinas...