Hey, some people really do like to wander around graveyards...;) Seriously, it can be pretty interesting. I enjoy it myself, though I haven't been to one in a while. However, it's only really interesting with older graveyards, so I doubt this marketing tactic would work on me very well.
I suppose in fifty years or so, I might spy an ad for Quake IV buried behind some weeds in a spooky old boneyard...;)
...This last group [those who simply buy a new produt when theirs breaks] may be rich, but it's also smart; its members are most likely tech veterans who've spend years struggling with customer service, poring through complex warranties, waiting on hold for support and assistance, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
Well, now, this depends on exactly what that "something" is, doesn't it? I wonder how this question was worded.
First of all, are there really people out there who will simply buy a new product at the first sign of trouble, without even attempting to discern what went wrong? That doesn't sound too smart to me; it sounds rather stupid, actually. Do they toss their boom boxes in the trash when the batteries die? Do they discard their remote controls if they don't work because they aren't pointing them at the TV? There are users who call tech support without trying even the simplest troubleshooting on their own, though, so I suppose there are probably people who bypass that step altogether and just buy a new one. I'd hardly call them "tech vets," however, unless you're referring to the sheer number of gadgets and gizmos that probably pass through their hands and into a landfill somewhere in the course of a year...;-)
Now, as for something that really *is* broken...whether I try to fix it or just replace it depends on what the item is, how complicated it would be to repair, and how much a replacement would cost (in terms of price and effort). If my TV remote really does stop working, or my cheap Walkman knockoff breaks, I'm not going to waste the time and effort to try and fix them (well, maybe out of *curiosity*, I might take 'em apart...but I'd do so knowing full well I'd never get 'em back together again;) ). I'll just by a universal remote, or a new cassette player for $5-$10 at Wal-Mart. On the other hand, if my computer stops working, or my car breaks down, you can bet I'm going to make every attempt to fix it, or get it fixed, before I throw in the towel and start hunting for a replacement.
The survey of nearly 3000 adults...
Now, I might not be an expert on surveys, but three *thousand* people? There were more people than that in my high school, for goodness sake! That seems pretty darn small to get a real representative example, especially with the broad range of criteria they covered (race, age, geographic location, etc.)
Though fewer than half of Americans with computers say they fully understand how to operate them and all their features...
This statement illustrates an important distinction between *perceived* functionality and *actual* functionality. I know of no human being who "fully understands" every use and feature of a desktop computer system. I seriously doubt that any exist. I don't think there is even anyone who can claim to fully understand how to use all the features of a single *operating system*, much less a computer system.
This statement makes me think that the respondants who did claim to "fully understand how to operate them and all their features" are actually the least knowledgeable when it comes to operating a computer. Most likely, they use the computer for a few simple tasks (read email, write letters, look at porn;) ) and don't consider, or even realize, all of the other functions a PC is capable of. Those who said that they don't fully understand how to use their PCs are probably either experienced users who better understand how much a PC can do, or less knowledgeable folks who have seen a technical guru do things with a PC that they don't understand or don't know how to do.
Northeasterners are the most confused, Midwesterners the most computer-confident. When attempting to learn their way around a new purchase, 89 percent consult instruction manuals, poor saps.
First of all...89 percent of *who*? Midwesterners? Northerners? People surveyed? Dogs?;)
Secondly, when "learning their way around a new technology," is it any wonder that most (sensible) people consult instructions manuals, at least to some degree? I always at least skim instruction manuals for most products I buy. I could probably figure out how to use most of them without assistance, but by checking the instructions, I usually learn about cool features or abilities that I never would have found, or would have taken a long time to find, otherwise. And if you're unfamiliar with a new product, the instruction manual is the best place to start (though, sadly, it's rarely the best place to finish...;) ).
The scary group is the 11% who *don't* RTFM when they're trying to use a new product. A few of these are probably just folks who are good at figuring it out on their own. The rest are the ones who call tech support to ask why their new toy doesn't work, only to be told that it needs to be plugged in first, or that they need to press that button marked "ON" to make it work...;-D
Television, meanwhile, continues its long reign as Americans' most beloved and comprehensible technology. In fact, for years TV has not gotten its due as one of the monumentally successful technologies of all time -- cheap, reliable, easy to use. More than 80 percent of respondents across the country understood how to work a TV better than a computer, something for the computer industry to ponder long and hard.
Bwahahahahahaha...*ahem*...excuse me...;)
How many functions are required to use a television? Well, let's see...there's one manual task to learn: pushing a button. Pretty simple. Doesn't take long. Even mice can do that. Ahd how many functions do you need to learn to work a TV? Technically, two...turn the thing on and change the channel. In practicality, about five. On/Off, Channel Up, Channel Down, Volume Up, Volume Down. Voila...you're watching TV! Wheee!
Now, let's take a computer. First, manual tasks. Well, we gotta learn how to move the mouse (and associate those movements with a cursor on the screen). We gotta left-click, right-click, double-click. Got that? Good...now learn to type. Figure out the QWERTY keyboard layout. Now figure out how to press two keys at once. Now, press three at once. (Hint: Practice with CTRL+ALT+DEL, you'll use these quite a bit;) ).
OK, now that you've got all that down, it's time to learn Windows! To start, click the Start button. To turn it off, click the Start button. Yeah, same button... (and so on, and so forth...;) )
Comparing a TV to a computer is like saying if you know how to watch Top Gun on your VCR, you oughta be able to fly an F-16. A TV and a PC are worlds apart. Television is essentially passive entertainment. It requires an absolute minimum of interaction and input from the user. All you gotta do is pick a channel and sit back. A monkey could do it. Some probably have...;) A computer, on the other hand, is about as interactive as technology gets. They also differ in terms of function. A TV essentially has one function; to display moving pictures and sound to the viewer. A computer has far too many functions to even begin listing them.
The media companies would like nothing more than to turn all of our computers into passive devices that do nothing but force-feed us whatever "content" they feel like pushing that day, and take our money in return. But if we reach that point, our computers aren't computers anymore; they're just TVs.
Bottom line: If you want a TV, buy a TV. Don't buy a computer and then complain because it isn't as easy to use as a TV.;)
A side note...did almost 20% of those surveyed really say they know how to use a computer better than a TV? Now, that's frightening. Wonder how many of those have an @aol.com on the tail end of their email addresses?;-)
On the other hand, 65 percent of African-Americans say they know and understand the features of their mobile phones, compared with only 42 percent of whites and 56 percent of Hispanics.
I will refrain from commenting on a particular commonly held (and certainly incorrect) stereotype about a common career path of those of a particular race mentioned above and the neccesity of cell phones to this particular career...;-D (And for those who are offended, if you're smart enough to figure out what I'm talking about, you oughta be smart enough to know that I'm just joking...;-D )
The real bottom line to all of this: Technology is complicated. Let's face it...it's simply a fact that the more functions a particular device is capable of, the more complicated it is to operate that device, and the harder it is to learn to use it to it's fullest. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for easier, more user-friendly interfaces and devices, but we cannot expect a fully functional computer to be as easy to use as a television.
The real problem is, the only way to truly make a device easier to use, when you come right down to it, is to remove functionality. More than 80% of the population knows how to use a TV fairly well. But only 54-77% understand their VCRs. Why? Because a VCR is more complicated than a television. Why? Because it has more functions. The ease of using a device is, and always will be, inversely proportional to the device's functionality. We may be able to change the slope of this function slightly, but we will never be able to reverse it. A computer is not a toaster, and never will be.
My company uses a pretty simple, yet effective, naming convention for our current servers. It works like this:
x1234
where x is a letter and 1, 2, 3, and 4 are digits.
x represents the server's primary function (i.e. w = web server, m = mail server, d = database server). The first digit represents the geographic location of the server. The second digit represents the operating system. The third and fourth digits are just a unique number. For instance, w1312 at our company is a web server in California running Linux.
The advantage of this scheme is that it fits easily into your eight-character limit (even if you have to add a digit or two to expand a category - you'll probably want at least a three-digit unique number if you have thousands of servers) and it allows you to tell at a glance what a server is running, what it does, and where it's located. The disadvantage, of course, is having to learn what the numbers mean...but that's not too hard; a list of the numbers and a Xerox machine (or a mailing list) should take care of that hurdle...;)
However you divide your machines (client, location, etc.), numbers are probably easier to keep track of in the long run than more descriptive abbreviations. Just make sure to have some sort of central database keeping track of who or what belongs to each number...;)
Using descriptive names in certain categories is more "fun," but it's no easier to say "Gundam names belong to Joe's Deli" than it is to say "All wx6xx servers belong to Joe's Deli". It's also very confusing if a tech or manager isn't extensively familiar with whatever "categories" you are using. Knowing that Category A belongs to Client B doesn't do much good if your employees don't know what terms fit in that category. And, of course, if you have hundreds of clients, that just adds to the confusion...;) On the other hand, even a third-grader can grasp that if the second digit in a server's name is X, the server belongs to Client B...;)
Whatever naming scheme you choose, just remember to *document* it...and make backups of the documentation...;-)
..."The customer is always right" become "The customer is the enemy"?
...the right to try to make a profit become the right to a profit?
..."The business exists to serve the customer" become "The customer exists to serve the business"?
..."Our business model must evolve to fit the environment" become "We must change the environment to suit our business model"?
..."Build a better mousetrap..." become "Buy out, destroy, or outlaw all the other existing mousetraps..."?
..."When profits are down, reevaluate our business plan" become "When profits are down, sue someone"?
All socio-economic systems have their good and bad points. I fear we are doing a superb job of demonstrating the dark side of capitalism today in this country...
That is a good point. The "Big Things" that we deem it most important (or, more likely, most profitable) to save will be kept alive, transferred from one medium to another.
But these "Big Things" are only one piece of our culture. Historians can often learn as much, if not more, about the past from the leavings of ordinary folk as they can from humanity's greater works. A page from a common citizen's diary, or a letter between friends, can reveal far more about a people's culture than some crumbled monument. It's these little bits, that are so small yet give so much insight into our everyday lives, that will be in the most danger from our rapidly changing storage mediums.
Think about this...since the advent of writing, the only substantial thing that has changed about the storage medium, until the last twenty years or so, has been the language used to encode the information. Language changes over time, but it does so very slowly, and it's a very gradual change. In the digital world, the method of encoding and even the physical mediums change very quickly, in years, or sometimes even months, and when they do change, the new forms are almost always completely different and incompatible with the old. A reasonably intelligent person could probably read, or at least puzzle out, a document written centuries ago, but this digital copy of the Domesday Book, created just 15 years ago, cannot be read by 99.9% of the population in its present form. And if no one could, or would, take its present form and convert it to a current medium, in another fifteen years, it would probably be lost for all time. Of course, in this particular case, we have the original 1086 edition to fall back on, but think of all the work done *today* that exists only on some transitory digital medium or another...
With more and more of our culture being created and stored exclusively on digital media, there is a real danger that future generations may have little, or even nothing, to tell them what our lives were like, because everything we've left behind is inaccessible.
(BTW, this particular work is not the "Doomsday" book, it's the "Domesday Book," a comprehensive survey and ledger of the lands and holdings of King William in the 11th century.)
"...on that same note, my mom called to cancel it b/c (obviously) she didnt need it anymore, and the guy gave her a free 3 months...makes sense, huh?"
All the big ISPs do this. My grandfather has had Internet access for five years and has paid for about ten months of that. He just moves from one free trial to another, and whenever he calls to cancel after the freebie is up, they usually offer him more free time. Of course, the downside is that the service comes from the worst in the industry (AOL, Prodigy, MSN), but it's still pretty amusing...;)
Not all C&D letters are neccesarily evil or unwarranted. I am sure that there are many companies and individuals out there who have perfectly legal and valid reasons to send C&D letters to someone. Although I haven't seen the sender's form on ChillingEffects myself (darn Slashdot DOS...;-D ), I would think it would be a great resource for someone with a legitimate complaint to post a draft of their C&D and ask for comments and advice. ChillingEffects doesn't just have to teach people about BS threats; they can also educate visitors on what really are legal and valid reasons for C&D letters, and how to word these valid letters appropriately. Of course, if some company is stupid enough to post something like "Hey, Person X gave my product a bad review, what do you think of this C&D letter?", then they deserve the flailing they are sure to receive...;)
As for the legality of publishing the letters...IANAL, but as others have said here, and as far as I've ever heard, unless you have entered into a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement with the party sending you a C&D letter, you are free to show that letter to anyone you please. It doesn't matter if the letter says "This letter is confidential and cannot be shared with third parties." You have made no such agreement with the sender, so you cannot be bound by any "terms" in that letter. Until you do enter into such an agreement or are ordered by a court of law to keep such correspondence confidential, AFAIK, you are free to share it with whomever you wish.
I've actually seen C&D letters with similar phrasing before. It's just more BS to try and scare people into capitulating without a fight.
I am sure that people WILL know how much they are going to pay. The tiers will be based on bandwidth, not data transfer. Those are two different things entirely. The pricing structure will probably be similar to DSL pricing...you pay $x for 512kbps, $y for 1024kbps, etc. Of course, that doesn't mean they won't follow Videotron's lead and also start putting a cap on data transfer, but from the sound of the article, it seems like they are just capping bandwidth for right now.
Many cable companies in the U.S. are moving to tiered pricing structures. Most of them keep prices reasonable, comparable to similar DSL rates, but I have to wonder if they will guarantee those transfer rates like most DSL companies do. I am sure if customers are paying premium prices for 1.5mbps, and only getting 500kbps or so during half the day, they are going to become rather unhappy rather quickly.
Hmm...when I type a word without the.com or www., Moz tries to resolve word, and then automatically tries www.word.com if word doesn't resolve. And you don't even have to hold down a key...;-D
What do you see under "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer.""The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer."? An ad, of course!;)
(At least I presume it's an ad. I don't actually see anything myself except an eDexter placeholder, since I have Yahoo's image server blocked in my hosts file...;) The only advertising information Yahoo has been able to impart to me in the last six months or so is "I am a [Man|Woman] seeking a...";-D)
Your desktop PC in 2004: Two years from now, your desktop system will be slimmer and trimmer. Flat-panel screens will replace bulky CRTs, and rewritable-DVD drives and fast graphics subsystems will turn your PC into a movie lover's dream.
CPU and RAM: 4- to 5-GHz microprocessor with 512MB of DDR memory and a 600-MHz system bus
Only 512MB? DDR is cheap enough now. Why not a couple of gigs? The processor sounds about right, though.
Hard disk: From 300GB to 400GB on a Serial ATA bus
Sounds good to me. I'll definatly be at the high end. My 20GB drive has been full since the first month I bought my current PC...;)
Removable storage: Rewritable DVD and -- yes -- the unsinkable 1.44MB floppy
Honestly, the PC floppy drive just might die eventually. I haven't used mine in quite a while, except to create an extra emergency backup copy of my essays to take to school just in case their network is broken. Still, the floppy is the easiest way to transport small files at the moment...
Internet connection: Cable or DSL broadband if you're lucky; 56-kbps modem if not
I wonder how much bigger broadband will be in 2004? I'd think the number of people with broadband connections will grow, if the companies providing it can weather the current recession. I do expect all broadband connections (even cable) to have tiered pricing plans based on speed caps, and to be coming down hard on customers who actually dare to use their promised "unlimited" access, though...;)
Video: 3D graphics card with 128MB of video RAM
I predict we'll see more than 128MB cards by 2004. 256MB wouldn't suprise me one bit. Also, I am sure all of the decent cards will have nice, speedy GPUs. Yummm...
Display: 18- to 21-inch flat-panel LCD screen capable of 1600 by 1200 resolution
You can have my CRT when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. I won't touch LCD for my desktop until it looks as good (read: bright, crisp, clear, and perfect) as my CRT. It's nowhere close yet. And until I get laser surgery, I won't be running at anything more that 1024x768, and that only on a 19" screen, thank you.
Ports: USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394
This will be nice. No more multiple serial and parallel ports using up IRQs, and lots of speedy connections for video and other high-speed applications.
Input devices: Wireless (Bluetooth) mouse and keyboard
Not for me, thanks. I'd prefer a wired system. I don't need my neighbor or the FBI tapping my keystrokes.
Also, I expect that most, if not all, mice will be optical by this time, and scroll wheels and extra buttons will probably be even more commonplace than they are now.
Operating system: Some version of Windows (you expected Linux, perhaps?)
Windows for the masses, but some flavor of *nix (probably Linux) for me. With regards to Microsoft OSes, I doubt I will ever go beyond Windows 98 for my primary PC, though I may set up a dual-boot 98/2K box sometime in the future. I am not touching XP and it's descendants will probably be worse...;)
The article fails to mention other things that will affect PCs and other such devices, like content control, government intrusion and restrictions, nastier spyware than ever, etc. But I guess we don't want to alarm the masses, do we?;)
It's not the most beautiful or the most visually stunning, but when you sit and think that every one of those little blobs is (or was) an entire *galaxy* similar to ours, and this is just a tiny, tiny sliver of the universe around us, it's absolutely mind-boggling. If that doesn't make you feel very small and insignificant on a cosmic scale, I don't know what will...;)
Just curious...what plugins are you having trouble with? Mozilla adopted all of my Netscape plugins without a hitch; just copy over the files from one Plugins dir to the other. It's fine with Java, Shockwave/Flash (before I deleted it anyway), Quicktime, Crescendo, and a handful of others that I don't remember off the top of my head. Never had any problems with plugins before (or at least, not that didn't show up in N4.7 also...)
Is Mr. Loebl really thinking about what he is suggesting here?
He says that the directory system is confusing because it is limitless, and suggests some vaguely defined notion of unlimited space. So he advocates using "desktops", which have fixed "physical" limits. But then to get around the obvious problems with having such limits, he suggests using many virtual desktops accessed by some sort of menu or taskbar. Um...hello? The only difference between a hierarchial directory structure (a collection of folders inside one single "root" directory, each of which can contain files or more folders) and a system of multiple virtual desktops (a collection of "desktop" areas inside a single logical collection, each of which can contain files or folders) is that the desktops have artificial and arbitraty limits on how much stuff they can hold. How exactly does limiting the number of items you can place in a unit make it less confusing to use? Is it worse to have to search through 100 files in one directory to find what you're looking for than to navigate through ten different desktops with ten files each? And if it is, why can the user not simply create ten NEW directories, if that is how they wish to organize their stuff?
Basically, the desktop system Loebel is proposing is a hierarchial directory structure where the directories don't have scroll bars. Where is the logic in that?
As for making computers easier to use...that's a very hard task. As a rule, the more a particular tool can accomplish, the more complex it is to use. A computer is a tool that has virtually limitless applications, and as a result, it is a complicated tool to use. The problem is, end users want computers to be as simple as a toaster to operate, but they also want all of the functionality of a full-fledged computer system. Sorry, folks, but such a thing simply isn't possible. You can have ease of use or you can have a broad range of functionality...but you can't have both. That's not to say that it's not possible to make current systems *easier* to use while preserving functionality, but a computer will never be a toaster, nor should it be.
A hierarchial file system is not that hard to learn to use. Yes, it does require some time and effort to learn, but it is far from impossible. A complete novice can't turn their computer on for the first time and instantly know how the Windows file system works, but it is certainly possible to learn. Anyone who wants to use a computer should devote some time to learning the basics. It's no different than driving a car or using any other complicated device. You don't sit behind the wheel of a car and instantly know all of the traffic laws, or all of the functions of your vehicle. You had to study them first, and learn about them. The same goes for using a computer. And you don't have to know how compile your own kernel or write shell scripts to use a computer to write e-mail, any more than you need to know the inner workings of your car's engine to drive it. These more complicated things can be learned later, if you have the interest and the time, but there are still some basics that you should know when you start using a computer.
...is it bad if I've eaten half those "odd" canned foods before?
...is it bad if I actually *liked* them?
...is it bad if I actually eat some of them regularly?
...oh my...is my life not sad or what? You know you're in bad shape when the company that makes the stuff you eat can't even afford a product name, so they have to call it exactly what it is, even though nobody, not even them, is really sure of exactly what it is...;-D
Just like any other activity, hobby, etc., gaming can be addictive, if you have the right personality for it. It's not like a drug, which anyone can get physiologically addicted to, but if you are they type of person who enjoys spending time on your computer, it's certainly possible to become addicted to a game.
Take me, for instance...I'm obsessive-compulsive. When I "get into" a new game, it ain't pretty...I will spend all my free time, and a lot of time that really isn't free, playing it. For a while. Then, one day, I'll just wake up and won't feel like playing it anymore, or something new will come along and I'll become obsessed with that instead. Once that happens, I can go back and play the old game like *normal* people do, once in a while and for reasonable stretches of time, not obsessively for hours on end every day. Fortunatly (or unfortunatly, depending on how you look at it), I don't have a girlfriend or a social life (yeah, I'm introverted too...;-D ), so my obsessive tendancies don't hurt others' feelings. I can happily while away the hours playing my game of the month without feeling guilty for avoiding anyone. There ARE advantages to being a loner, ya know...;)
Yeah, I could probably get treatment for my various mental disorders, but why? All they'll want to do is load me up with happy pills, and there's no way in heck I'm taking mood-altering drugs. I'd rather be an obsessive-compulsive introvert than a Prozac giggle-zombie, thank you very much.;)
This article is pretty much off base. It's long been known that the Internet connection is still "that email thing" to a lot of people, so of course the expensive broadband connection that is being underused anyway will be among the first things to go when money gets tight.
Personally, I'd eat ramen standing up for a year to keep my broadband connection, but I basically live on the Internet, so I'm hardly normal. (Or am I? A scary thought, that...;-D ) Most people don't spend 95% of their waking free time on their computers doing all sorts of bandwidth-demanding things. To them, the super-fast Internet connection is just a luxury, and so it will be traded in for a slower but cheaper alternative if the budget gets smaller.
The one thing in the article that is basically correct is that the outflux of people dropping their high-speed connections could have a bad effect on the DSL and cable providers who are already walking a thin line. This probably means even more rate hikes and poorer service for those of us who stick with the speedy Net connections...or, at worst, a loss of service entirely. In the apartment I'm moving to, Sprint is the only broadband provider available. If they ever drop their DSL services or eliminate their local office across the street, I can say "so long" to my 'Net connection (and "Hello" to U-Haul and Apartment Hunters;-) ).
I don't mind the stations that have small, unobtrusive transparent logos in the corner. These blend right in and you usually don't notice them after a few seconds unless you look for them. Sometimes they're almost TOO hard to see when channel surfing or trying to guess what number my cable company decided to put The Foobar Channel on *this* week...;-D
What do annoy me are:
- Big, colorful logos that don't go away. (i.e. Discovery Channel...ick!)
- Moving, blinking, hopping, skipping logos. SciFi is bad about this...I keep thinking their logo is a part of the show and wondering when it's going to eat one of the extras for breakfast...;)
- Bars and borders. Come on, it's a station logo...it doesn't need the entire width or height of the screen. (This also applies to squishing the ending credits to show your damn ads for shows that suck...sometimes I want to read the credits for a movie for one reason or another, but good luck without a microscope or a 60" screen... Oh well, just more hits for the IMDB;) I hate bottom bars on sports channels, too. If I'm watching NASCAR and I for some inexplicable reason really cared how the AAA-League Arkansas Mud Puddles are doing today, I will change channels and watch the damn game.;) )
- ADS that show up on the screen during broadcasts. NBC and TNT do this crap all the time with their NASCAR broadcasts. I swear, if I'd seen the flaming Witchblade logo cover Rusty's car one more time during a race, I would have chucked something through my TV. (It's even worse when it's those lame TNT series, because then you get an ad for them every commercial break, and a dozen or two in the broadcast itself. "And we'll be right back!" "Tonight on TNT: Watch Witchblade, it's the awesomest awesome show ever!" "Welcome back! Today's broadcast is brought to you by Witchblade. Here's our leader, Jeff Gordon. Hey, Jeff can't wait to watch Witchblade tonight at 9/8 Central! You should too! Here's a great battle for third which you can't see because our kewl Witchblade logo is blocking the view. Did I mention Witchblade is on at 9/8 Central? Hey, here comes a challenge for the lead, but it's time for another commercial break. We'll be right back, and don't forget about Witchblade!" "Tonight on TNT: Watch Witchblade, it's the awesomest awesome show ever!...")
Not really tech related, but oh well, here goes...
When I was a kid, for a while, we had a ghost or spirit of some sort hanging around our house. Fortunatly, it wasn't a malevolent spirit or anything, and was actually pretty friendly on occasion. We never saw it or heard it directly, but it seemed to enjoy doing the usual poltergeist stuff...opening doors, banging, knocking, etc.
One time, when my mom was alone in the back of the house during the day, someone opened the door to the garage, came inside, and shut the door. My mom thought it was my dad coming by for lunch to suprise her, so she went out to say hello to him. Of course, Dad was nowhere to be seen, and neither was anyone else. The garage door was shut and locked, just like always. That really creeped her out...
We had this piano-shaped music box that my dad had given my mom for their anniversary some years ago. It hadn't been played and had been unwound for a long time. One evening, when my dad came home from work, the instant he stepped in the door, this funny music starts up, coming from the kitchen. We looked in there, and there was the music box, in it's usual spot on the shelf, playing away. No one in the family had wound it up for a long time. Very weird...
The incident I remember best was one day when I was in second grade. My mom homeschooled me for 2nd and 3rd. My little brother (four years younger) was still getting the hang of using the toilet. He had the No. 1 part down pat, but still needed assistance, err, "cleaning up" after No. 2. Anyway, my mom and I were in the classroom/den at the back of the house, with the door closed. Unbeknowenst to us, my brother decided to give ol' Number Two a try in my parent's bathroom...on the other side of the house. Unfortunatly for him, he was too far away for my mom and I to hear him calling when he was "done" and needed help, well, you know...;) We don't know how long he sat there on the pot yelling "I'm done! I'm done!" but if things hadn't happened as they did, it would have ended up being well over an hour, as we had just started our current lesson. Suddenly, something knocked three times, very loudly and clearly, on the door of the den. We opened it up, expecting to see my brother, but no one was there. While we were looking around the hallway to see where he was hiding, we heard him calling "I'm done!" from my mom's bathroom. There was, of course, no one else in the house at the time. That one creeped both of us out a little, but we were also quite grateful. Whoever or whatever knocked on that door saved my brother from a loooong time on the pot (or my mom an hour or so of cleaning up, if he got bored sitting there and decided to find something more entertaining to do...;-D ).
It's been many years now since our ghost has been heard from. Since it never spoke or appeared to anyone, we really don't have a clue who or what it might have been. It wasn't a prior occupant of *our* house, because my parents had the house built themselves, and we moved in when it was brand spanking new in 1980. We were (and still are) the only ones to have lived there. However, the house was built on land that used to be a large plantation down here (Orlando, FL) in the 1800s. In fact, there is a cellar-hole of some sort in the backyard of our neighbor a few doors down. We think it's the cellar of the plantation house itself, but we don't know for sure...sadly, the neighbors aren't the adventuresome type, and had the opening sealed so their kids wouldn't fall in it without doing any exploration or excavation. )Also, since the owner of the property is a cop, trespassing to dig it up isn't such a great idea. Darn...;) ) In any case, it's possible our visitor may have been from that plantation.
We haven't heard from that particular ghost again, but we did have another "haunting" not too long ago. My mom is a career garage saler...she buys stuff at yard sales and resells it for some pretty nice profits on eBay and her online antique shop. One day, she and I found this rather ugly, but pretty interesting, statue at a sale. It was made in Brazil, if I recall, and was made from wrought iron. It was about three feet tall, and was a figure of some sort. No idea what it might have been or represented, but it wasn't much to look at. We brought it home and stowed it in a corner of our back hallway, and that's when we discovered that the darn thing was either haunted or cursed. Something back there knocked on the doors and walls occasionally at night, sometimes just with hollow thumps, sometimes with the sound of wrought iron on wood and plaster. The thing moved by itself, too...it never stayed where we put it. It didn't wander far, and it never moved while we were watching it, but we'd pass by it, and come back a few minutes later to find it three inches from where it used to be, or facing in another direction. I wasn't displeased when my mom finally sold it to some poor unsuspecting fellow over eBay. (The shipping costs were about three times what the guy paid for it, too...;) ). Once it was out of the house, the nighttime thumping and banging stopped. I think our first ghost was pretty friendly, but I never had good feelings about that ugly iron thing. Brrr.....
...is not just what might be lost to deletion. In terms of raw storage space, a 650MB CD-R has a bookshelf full of books, boxes, negatives, etc. beat hands-down. The real problems that I see with digital storage have nothing to do with the longevity of the data itself. There are several issues that have great bearing on the preservation of history when it comes to digital media, however.
One of the biggest issues is the *accessibility* of the data. Anyone who can see is capable of looking at a hundred year old photograph. Most fairly literate adults would be capable of reading (or at least puzzling out) a written document that dates back dozens or even hundreds of years. You have to go back many centuries before you require more than a good knowledge of the current language and a strong light source in order to read someone's old letters, and even then, all it takes is an education in the proper language of the period. No special tools required; just the proper knowledge.
With digital media, this is no longer the case. No human I know of is capable of reading a CD-R by eye. To access data stored in this fashion, you need a computer with the proper hardware and software. At this time, this presents no problem; few computers today come without CD-ROM drives, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with absolutely no access to one. But that may not be the case tomorrow. Ten years from now, CDs may be obsolete (sooner, if the RIAA has it's way...), and then it will be hard to find a machine that can read one, except in the workshop of some computer hobbyists. In twenty years, the number of people with access to an obsolete medium will be very small. In fifty years, it would be virtually impossible to find someone with equipment that can access the data. In a hundred years, few, if any, ordinary people will even know what the hell a CD is, much less know what to do with it. Think about it...how many of you out there could access data on an 8" disk? How many of you know someone who might be able to? I'd guess the numbers are relatively few, and this is a technology that, relatively speaking, is not all that old. And that was a common format. What about people who are storing data on less common media, like LS-120 disks or JAZ drives? Anyone around here have a drive that can read a flopticle? An optical disc? I was using those myself to store data just six or seven years ago in high school, but I'd be hard pressed now to find the hardware and software to read them.
Another problem that occurs, and is related to what Ms. West wrote, is the transitory nature of everyday electronic communication. Personal communications like letters are perhaps one of the best windows into the everyday life of people who lived long ago. Today, though, email and voicemail have replaced letters as the predominant form of communication. While this is great in terms of speed and efficiency, it also lacks the longevity of a handwritten letter. Many people saved old letters for years, and kept them in the family. Most people I know don't even save their emails for a week before they're consigned to the void. I'm an obsessive-compulsive pack rat who doesn't throw anything away, so I have email that dates back six years and three computer systems, but I am far from normal in that regard...and in ten or fifteen years, chances are very good that I'll lose all of that mail somewhere along the way. And when email is lost, it isn't buried in a long-forgotten box in a dusty attic somewhere, waiting for someone to stumble on it one day in the future. When email is "lost," it's gone for good. The chances of any personal email communication (barring spam, famous chain letters, etc.) lasting more than ten years are slim to none. Use of "snail mail" for personal communication has declined sharply in recent years, as people move to email and other forms of electronic communication. Stuff like the current anthrax scares will only make more and more people turn to electronic communication as a safer, cheaper, faster alternative. But as they do, the trail of personal information they leave for future generations becomes smaller and smaller. A hundred years from now, our descendants will know far less about us than we know about those who celebrated the dawn of the 1900s. The effective lifetime of the records we leave behind has shrunk significantly, from centuries to decades, or even mere years. It's kind of scary when you realize that in fifty years, such an enourmous chunk of what defines this time period will likely be gone without a trace. The more we move to electronic communication as a way of life, the larger that chunk will be. One day, we may have no history except that which is passed down directly from generation to generation...much like the days before written language was invented. Strange thought, isn't it?
Nope, not the same at all. If you run out of film, you cannot reuse the same film that you've already used, so you pull it out, put it aside, and slap in a new roll. With a digital camera, however, photographers may simply delete unwanted shots to free up space for new ones. In the first instance, all the photos are kept indefinatly. In the second, the deleted ones are lost forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, some people really do like to wander around graveyards... ;) Seriously, it can be pretty interesting. I enjoy it myself, though I haven't been to one in a while. However, it's only really interesting with older graveyards, so I doubt this marketing tactic would work on me very well.
;)
I suppose in fifty years or so, I might spy an ad for Quake IV buried behind some weeds in a spooky old boneyard...
DennyK
...This last group [those who simply buy a new produt when theirs breaks] may be rich, but it's also smart; its members are most likely tech veterans who've spend years struggling with customer service, poring through complex warranties, waiting on hold for support and assistance, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
;-)
;) ). I'll just by a universal remote, or a new cassette player for $5-$10 at Wal-Mart. On the other hand, if my computer stops working, or my car breaks down, you can bet I'm going to make every attempt to fix it, or get it fixed, before I throw in the towel and start hunting for a replacement.
;) ) and don't consider, or even realize, all of the other functions a PC is capable of. Those who said that they don't fully understand how to use their PCs are probably either experienced users who better understand how much a PC can do, or less knowledgeable folks who have seen a technical guru do things with a PC that they don't understand or don't know how to do.
;)
;) ).
;-D
;)
;) ).
;) )
;) A computer, on the other hand, is about as interactive as technology gets. They also differ in terms of function. A TV essentially has one function; to display moving pictures and sound to the viewer. A computer has far too many functions to even begin listing them.
;)
;-)
;-D ;-D )
Well, now, this depends on exactly what that "something" is, doesn't it? I wonder how this question was worded.
First of all, are there really people out there who will simply buy a new product at the first sign of trouble, without even attempting to discern what went wrong? That doesn't sound too smart to me; it sounds rather stupid, actually. Do they toss their boom boxes in the trash when the batteries die? Do they discard their remote controls if they don't work because they aren't pointing them at the TV? There are users who call tech support without trying even the simplest troubleshooting on their own, though, so I suppose there are probably people who bypass that step altogether and just buy a new one. I'd hardly call them "tech vets," however, unless you're referring to the sheer number of gadgets and gizmos that probably pass through their hands and into a landfill somewhere in the course of a year...
Now, as for something that really *is* broken...whether I try to fix it or just replace it depends on what the item is, how complicated it would be to repair, and how much a replacement would cost (in terms of price and effort). If my TV remote really does stop working, or my cheap Walkman knockoff breaks, I'm not going to waste the time and effort to try and fix them (well, maybe out of *curiosity*, I might take 'em apart...but I'd do so knowing full well I'd never get 'em back together again
The survey of nearly 3000 adults...
Now, I might not be an expert on surveys, but three *thousand* people? There were more people than that in my high school, for goodness sake! That seems pretty darn small to get a real representative example, especially with the broad range of criteria they covered (race, age, geographic location, etc.)
Though fewer than half of Americans with computers say they fully understand how to operate them and all their features...
This statement illustrates an important distinction between *perceived* functionality and *actual* functionality. I know of no human being who "fully understands" every use and feature of a desktop computer system. I seriously doubt that any exist. I don't think there is even anyone who can claim to fully understand how to use all the features of a single *operating system*, much less a computer system.
This statement makes me think that the respondants who did claim to "fully understand how to operate them and all their features" are actually the least knowledgeable when it comes to operating a computer. Most likely, they use the computer for a few simple tasks (read email, write letters, look at porn
Northeasterners are the most confused, Midwesterners the most computer-confident. When attempting to learn their way around a new purchase, 89 percent consult instruction manuals, poor saps.
First of all...89 percent of *who*? Midwesterners? Northerners? People surveyed? Dogs?
Secondly, when "learning their way around a new technology," is it any wonder that most (sensible) people consult instructions manuals, at least to some degree? I always at least skim instruction manuals for most products I buy. I could probably figure out how to use most of them without assistance, but by checking the instructions, I usually learn about cool features or abilities that I never would have found, or would have taken a long time to find, otherwise. And if you're unfamiliar with a new product, the instruction manual is the best place to start (though, sadly, it's rarely the best place to finish...
The scary group is the 11% who *don't* RTFM when they're trying to use a new product. A few of these are probably just folks who are good at figuring it out on their own. The rest are the ones who call tech support to ask why their new toy doesn't work, only to be told that it needs to be plugged in first, or that they need to press that button marked "ON" to make it work...
Television, meanwhile, continues its long reign as Americans' most beloved and comprehensible technology. In fact, for years TV has not gotten its due as one of the monumentally successful technologies of all time -- cheap, reliable, easy to use. More than 80 percent of respondents across the country understood how to work a TV better than a computer, something for the computer industry to ponder long and hard.
Bwahahahahahaha...*ahem*...excuse me...
How many functions are required to use a television? Well, let's see...there's one manual task to learn: pushing a button. Pretty simple. Doesn't take long. Even mice can do that. Ahd how many functions do you need to learn to work a TV? Technically, two...turn the thing on and change the channel. In practicality, about five. On/Off, Channel Up, Channel Down, Volume Up, Volume Down. Voila...you're watching TV! Wheee!
Now, let's take a computer. First, manual tasks. Well, we gotta learn how to move the mouse (and associate those movements with a cursor on the screen). We gotta left-click, right-click, double-click. Got that? Good...now learn to type. Figure out the QWERTY keyboard layout. Now figure out how to press two keys at once. Now, press three at once. (Hint: Practice with CTRL+ALT+DEL, you'll use these quite a bit
OK, now that you've got all that down, it's time to learn Windows! To start, click the Start button. To turn it off, click the Start button. Yeah, same button... (and so on, and so forth...
Comparing a TV to a computer is like saying if you know how to watch Top Gun on your VCR, you oughta be able to fly an F-16. A TV and a PC are worlds apart. Television is essentially passive entertainment. It requires an absolute minimum of interaction and input from the user. All you gotta do is pick a channel and sit back. A monkey could do it. Some probably have...
The media companies would like nothing more than to turn all of our computers into passive devices that do nothing but force-feed us whatever "content" they feel like pushing that day, and take our money in return. But if we reach that point, our computers aren't computers anymore; they're just TVs.
Bottom line: If you want a TV, buy a TV. Don't buy a computer and then complain because it isn't as easy to use as a TV.
A side note...did almost 20% of those surveyed really say they know how to use a computer better than a TV? Now, that's frightening. Wonder how many of those have an @aol.com on the tail end of their email addresses?
On the other hand, 65 percent of African-Americans say they know and understand the features of their mobile phones, compared with only 42 percent of whites and 56 percent of Hispanics.
I will refrain from commenting on a particular commonly held (and certainly incorrect) stereotype about a common career path of those of a particular race mentioned above and the neccesity of cell phones to this particular career...
(And for those who are offended, if you're smart enough to figure out what I'm talking about, you oughta be smart enough to know that I'm just joking...
The real bottom line to all of this: Technology is complicated. Let's face it...it's simply a fact that the more functions a particular device is capable of, the more complicated it is to operate that device, and the harder it is to learn to use it to it's fullest. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for easier, more user-friendly interfaces and devices, but we cannot expect a fully functional computer to be as easy to use as a television.
The real problem is, the only way to truly make a device easier to use, when you come right down to it, is to remove functionality. More than 80% of the population knows how to use a TV fairly well. But only 54-77% understand their VCRs. Why? Because a VCR is more complicated than a television. Why? Because it has more functions. The ease of using a device is, and always will be, inversely proportional to the device's functionality. We may be able to change the slope of this function slightly, but we will never be able to reverse it. A computer is not a toaster, and never will be.
DennyK
My company uses a pretty simple, yet effective, naming convention for our current servers. It works like this:
;)
;)
;) On the other hand, even a third-grader can grasp that if the second digit in a server's name is X, the server belongs to Client B... ;)
;-)
x1234
where x is a letter and 1, 2, 3, and 4 are digits.
x represents the server's primary function (i.e. w = web server, m = mail server, d = database server). The first digit represents the geographic location of the server. The second digit represents the operating system. The third and fourth digits are just a unique number. For instance, w1312 at our company is a web server in California running Linux.
The advantage of this scheme is that it fits easily into your eight-character limit (even if you have to add a digit or two to expand a category - you'll probably want at least a three-digit unique number if you have thousands of servers) and it allows you to tell at a glance what a server is running, what it does, and where it's located. The disadvantage, of course, is having to learn what the numbers mean...but that's not too hard; a list of the numbers and a Xerox machine (or a mailing list) should take care of that hurdle...
However you divide your machines (client, location, etc.), numbers are probably easier to keep track of in the long run than more descriptive abbreviations. Just make sure to have some sort of central database keeping track of who or what belongs to each number...
Using descriptive names in certain categories is more "fun," but it's no easier to say "Gundam names belong to Joe's Deli" than it is to say "All wx6xx servers belong to Joe's Deli". It's also very confusing if a tech or manager isn't extensively familiar with whatever "categories" you are using. Knowing that Category A belongs to Client B doesn't do much good if your employees don't know what terms fit in that category. And, of course, if you have hundreds of clients, that just adds to the confusion...
Whatever naming scheme you choose, just remember to *document* it...and make backups of the documentation...
DennyK
..."The customer is always right" become "The customer is the enemy"?
...the right to try to make a profit become the right to a profit?
..."The business exists to serve the customer" become "The customer exists to serve the business"?
..."Our business model must evolve to fit the environment" become "We must change the environment to suit our business model"?
..."Build a better mousetrap..." become "Buy out, destroy, or outlaw all the other existing mousetraps..."?
..."When profits are down, reevaluate our business plan" become "When profits are down, sue someone"?
All socio-economic systems have their good and bad points. I fear we are doing a superb job of demonstrating the dark side of capitalism today in this country...
DennyK
That is a good point. The "Big Things" that we deem it most important (or, more likely, most profitable) to save will be kept alive, transferred from one medium to another.
But these "Big Things" are only one piece of our culture. Historians can often learn as much, if not more, about the past from the leavings of ordinary folk as they can from humanity's greater works. A page from a common citizen's diary, or a letter between friends, can reveal far more about a people's culture than some crumbled monument. It's these little bits, that are so small yet give so much insight into our everyday lives, that will be in the most danger from our rapidly changing storage mediums.
Think about this...since the advent of writing, the only substantial thing that has changed about the storage medium, until the last twenty years or so, has been the language used to encode the information. Language changes over time, but it does so very slowly, and it's a very gradual change.
In the digital world, the method of encoding and even the physical mediums change very quickly, in years, or sometimes even months, and when they do change, the new forms are almost always completely different and incompatible with the old. A reasonably intelligent person could probably read, or at least puzzle out, a document written centuries ago, but this digital copy of the Domesday Book, created just 15 years ago, cannot be read by 99.9% of the population in its present form. And if no one could, or would, take its present form and convert it to a current medium, in another fifteen years, it would probably be lost for all time. Of course, in this particular case, we have the original 1086 edition to fall back on, but think of all the work done *today* that exists only on some transitory digital medium or another...
DennyK
...in this comment.
With more and more of our culture being created and stored exclusively on digital media, there is a real danger that future generations may have little, or even nothing, to tell them what our lives were like, because everything we've left behind is inaccessible.
(BTW, this particular work is not the "Doomsday" book, it's the "Domesday Book," a comprehensive survey and ledger of the lands and holdings of King William in the 11th century.)
DennyK
"...on that same note, my mom called to cancel it b/c (obviously) she didnt need it anymore, and the guy gave her a free 3 months...makes sense, huh?"
;)
All the big ISPs do this. My grandfather has had Internet access for five years and has paid for about ten months of that. He just moves from one free trial to another, and whenever he calls to cancel after the freebie is up, they usually offer him more free time. Of course, the downside is that the service comes from the worst in the industry (AOL, Prodigy, MSN), but it's still pretty amusing...
DennyK
Not all C&D letters are neccesarily evil or unwarranted. I am sure that there are many companies and individuals out there who have perfectly legal and valid reasons to send C&D letters to someone. Although I haven't seen the sender's form on ChillingEffects myself (darn Slashdot DOS... ;-D ), I would think it would be a great resource for someone with a legitimate complaint to post a draft of their C&D and ask for comments and advice. ChillingEffects doesn't just have to teach people about BS threats; they can also educate visitors on what really are legal and valid reasons for C&D letters, and how to word these valid letters appropriately. Of course, if some company is stupid enough to post something like "Hey, Person X gave my product a bad review, what do you think of this C&D letter?", then they deserve the flailing they are sure to receive... ;)
As for the legality of publishing the letters...IANAL, but as others have said here, and as far as I've ever heard, unless you have entered into a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement with the party sending you a C&D letter, you are free to show that letter to anyone you please. It doesn't matter if the letter says "This letter is confidential and cannot be shared with third parties." You have made no such agreement with the sender, so you cannot be bound by any "terms" in that letter. Until you do enter into such an agreement or are ordered by a court of law to keep such correspondence confidential, AFAIK, you are free to share it with whomever you wish.
I've actually seen C&D letters with similar phrasing before. It's just more BS to try and scare people into capitulating without a fight.
DennyK
I am sure that people WILL know how much they are going to pay. The tiers will be based on bandwidth, not data transfer. Those are two different things entirely. The pricing structure will probably be similar to DSL pricing...you pay $x for 512kbps, $y for 1024kbps, etc. Of course, that doesn't mean they won't follow Videotron's lead and also start putting a cap on data transfer, but from the sound of the article, it seems like they are just capping bandwidth for right now.
Many cable companies in the U.S. are moving to tiered pricing structures. Most of them keep prices reasonable, comparable to similar DSL rates, but I have to wonder if they will guarantee those transfer rates like most DSL companies do. I am sure if customers are paying premium prices for 1.5mbps, and only getting 500kbps or so during half the day, they are going to become rather unhappy rather quickly.
DennyK
Hmm...when I type a word without the .com or www., Moz tries to resolve word, and then automatically tries www.word.com if word doesn't resolve. And you don't even have to hold down a key... ;-D
DennyK
Go to that page again.
;)
;) The only advertising information Yahoo has been able to impart to me in the last six months or so is "I am a [Man|Woman] seeking a..." ;-D)
What do you see under "The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer.""The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer."? An ad, of course!
(At least I presume it's an ad. I don't actually see anything myself except an eDexter placeholder, since I have Yahoo's image server blocked in my hosts file...
DennyK
America searches for "ellis island" and its roots as the archive of immigration records goes online.
;)
Awesome...my company hosts that site...
DennyK
Your desktop PC specs in 2004
;)
;)
;)
;)
Your desktop PC in 2004: Two years from now, your desktop system will be slimmer and trimmer. Flat-panel screens will replace bulky CRTs, and rewritable-DVD drives and fast graphics subsystems will turn your PC into a movie lover's dream.
CPU and RAM: 4- to 5-GHz microprocessor with 512MB of DDR memory and a 600-MHz system bus
Only 512MB? DDR is cheap enough now. Why not a couple of gigs? The processor sounds about right, though.
Hard disk: From 300GB to 400GB on a Serial ATA bus
Sounds good to me. I'll definatly be at the high end. My 20GB drive has been full since the first month I bought my current PC...
Removable storage: Rewritable DVD and -- yes -- the unsinkable 1.44MB floppy
Honestly, the PC floppy drive just might die eventually. I haven't used mine in quite a while, except to create an extra emergency backup copy of my essays to take to school just in case their network is broken. Still, the floppy is the easiest way to transport small files at the moment...
Internet connection: Cable or DSL broadband if you're lucky; 56-kbps modem if not
I wonder how much bigger broadband will be in 2004? I'd think the number of people with broadband connections will grow, if the companies providing it can weather the current recession. I do expect all broadband connections (even cable) to have tiered pricing plans based on speed caps, and to be coming down hard on customers who actually dare to use their promised "unlimited" access, though...
Video: 3D graphics card with 128MB of video RAM
I predict we'll see more than 128MB cards by 2004. 256MB wouldn't suprise me one bit. Also, I am sure all of the decent cards will have nice, speedy GPUs. Yummm...
Display: 18- to 21-inch flat-panel LCD screen capable of 1600 by 1200 resolution
You can have my CRT when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. I won't touch LCD for my desktop until it looks as good (read: bright, crisp, clear, and perfect) as my CRT. It's nowhere close yet. And until I get laser surgery, I won't be running at anything more that 1024x768, and that only on a 19" screen, thank you.
Ports: USB 2.0 and IEEE 1394
This will be nice. No more multiple serial and parallel ports using up IRQs, and lots of speedy connections for video and other high-speed applications.
Input devices: Wireless (Bluetooth) mouse and keyboard
Not for me, thanks. I'd prefer a wired system. I don't need my neighbor or the FBI tapping my keystrokes.
Also, I expect that most, if not all, mice will be optical by this time, and scroll wheels and extra buttons will probably be even more commonplace than they are now.
Operating system: Some version of Windows (you expected Linux, perhaps?)
Windows for the masses, but some flavor of *nix (probably Linux) for me. With regards to Microsoft OSes, I doubt I will ever go beyond Windows 98 for my primary PC, though I may set up a dual-boot 98/2K box sometime in the future. I am not touching XP and it's descendants will probably be worse...
The article fails to mention other things that will affect PCs and other such devices, like content control, government intrusion and restrictions, nastier spyware than ever, etc. But I guess we don't want to alarm the masses, do we?
DennyK
In terms of "insignifigance," this has always been one of the most awe-inspiring photos I've seen:
o p10_images_010925-10.html
;)
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/t
It's not the most beautiful or the most visually stunning, but when you sit and think that every one of those little blobs is (or was) an entire *galaxy* similar to ours, and this is just a tiny, tiny sliver of the universe around us, it's absolutely mind-boggling. If that doesn't make you feel very small and insignificant on a cosmic scale, I don't know what will...
DennyK
Just curious...what plugins are you having trouble with? Mozilla adopted all of my Netscape plugins without a hitch; just copy over the files from one Plugins dir to the other. It's fine with Java, Shockwave/Flash (before I deleted it anyway), Quicktime, Crescendo, and a handful of others that I don't remember off the top of my head. Never had any problems with plugins before (or at least, not that didn't show up in N4.7 also...)
DennyK
You mean like this?
;)
DennyK
Is Mr. Loebl really thinking about what he is suggesting here?
He says that the directory system is confusing because it is limitless, and suggests some vaguely defined notion of unlimited space. So he advocates using "desktops", which have fixed "physical" limits. But then to get around the obvious problems with having such limits, he suggests using many virtual desktops accessed by some sort of menu or taskbar. Um...hello? The only difference between a hierarchial directory structure (a collection of folders inside one single "root" directory, each of which can contain files or more folders) and a system of multiple virtual desktops (a collection of "desktop" areas inside a single logical collection, each of which can contain files or folders) is that the desktops have artificial and arbitraty limits on how much stuff they can hold. How exactly does limiting the number of items you can place in a unit make it less confusing to use? Is it worse to have to search through 100 files in one directory to find what you're looking for than to navigate through ten different desktops with ten files each? And if it is, why can the user not simply create ten NEW directories, if that is how they wish to organize their stuff?
Basically, the desktop system Loebel is proposing is a hierarchial directory structure where the directories don't have scroll bars. Where is the logic in that?
As for making computers easier to use...that's a very hard task. As a rule, the more a particular tool can accomplish, the more complex it is to use. A computer is a tool that has virtually limitless applications, and as a result, it is a complicated tool to use. The problem is, end users want computers to be as simple as a toaster to operate, but they also want all of the functionality of a full-fledged computer system. Sorry, folks, but such a thing simply isn't possible. You can have ease of use or you can have a broad range of functionality...but you can't have both. That's not to say that it's not possible to make current systems *easier* to use while preserving functionality, but a computer will never be a toaster, nor should it be.
A hierarchial file system is not that hard to learn to use. Yes, it does require some time and effort to learn, but it is far from impossible. A complete novice can't turn their computer on for the first time and instantly know how the Windows file system works, but it is certainly possible to learn. Anyone who wants to use a computer should devote some time to learning the basics. It's no different than driving a car or using any other complicated device. You don't sit behind the wheel of a car and instantly know all of the traffic laws, or all of the functions of your vehicle. You had to study them first, and learn about them. The same goes for using a computer. And you don't have to know how compile your own kernel or write shell scripts to use a computer to write e-mail, any more than you need to know the inner workings of your car's engine to drive it. These more complicated things can be learned later, if you have the interest and the time, but there are still some basics that you should know when you start using a computer.
DennyK
...is it bad if I've eaten half those "odd" canned foods before?
;-D
...is it bad if I actually *liked* them?
...is it bad if I actually eat some of them regularly?
...oh my...is my life not sad or what? You know you're in bad shape when the company that makes the stuff you eat can't even afford a product name, so they have to call it exactly what it is, even though nobody, not even them, is really sure of exactly what it is...
DennyK
...or just remove the Flash plugin from Mozilla, same way you do from Netscape 4.x. I haven't had Flash in any browser but IE for a long time... ;)
DennyK
Just like any other activity, hobby, etc., gaming can be addictive, if you have the right personality for it. It's not like a drug, which anyone can get physiologically addicted to, but if you are they type of person who enjoys spending time on your computer, it's certainly possible to become addicted to a game.
;-D ), so my obsessive tendancies don't hurt others' feelings. I can happily while away the hours playing my game of the month without feeling guilty for avoiding anyone. There ARE advantages to being a loner, ya know... ;)
;)
Take me, for instance...I'm obsessive-compulsive. When I "get into" a new game, it ain't pretty...I will spend all my free time, and a lot of time that really isn't free, playing it. For a while. Then, one day, I'll just wake up and won't feel like playing it anymore, or something new will come along and I'll become obsessed with that instead. Once that happens, I can go back and play the old game like *normal* people do, once in a while and for reasonable stretches of time, not obsessively for hours on end every day. Fortunatly (or unfortunatly, depending on how you look at it), I don't have a girlfriend or a social life (yeah, I'm introverted too...
Yeah, I could probably get treatment for my various mental disorders, but why? All they'll want to do is load me up with happy pills, and there's no way in heck I'm taking mood-altering drugs. I'd rather be an obsessive-compulsive introvert than a Prozac giggle-zombie, thank you very much.
DennyK
This article is pretty much off base. It's long been known that the Internet connection is still "that email thing" to a lot of people, so of course the expensive broadband connection that is being underused anyway will be among the first things to go when money gets tight.
;-D ) Most people don't spend 95% of their waking free time on their computers doing all sorts of bandwidth-demanding things. To them, the super-fast Internet connection is just a luxury, and so it will be traded in for a slower but cheaper alternative if the budget gets smaller.
;-) ).
Personally, I'd eat ramen standing up for a year to keep my broadband connection, but I basically live on the Internet, so I'm hardly normal. (Or am I? A scary thought, that...
The one thing in the article that is basically correct is that the outflux of people dropping their high-speed connections could have a bad effect on the DSL and cable providers who are already walking a thin line. This probably means even more rate hikes and poorer service for those of us who stick with the speedy Net connections...or, at worst, a loss of service entirely. In the apartment I'm moving to, Sprint is the only broadband provider available. If they ever drop their DSL services or eliminate their local office across the street, I can say "so long" to my 'Net connection (and "Hello" to U-Haul and Apartment Hunters
DennyK
I don't mind the stations that have small, unobtrusive transparent logos in the corner. These blend right in and you usually don't notice them after a few seconds unless you look for them. Sometimes they're almost TOO hard to see when channel surfing or trying to guess what number my cable company decided to put The Foobar Channel on *this* week... ;-D
;)
;) I hate bottom bars on sports channels, too. If I'm watching NASCAR and I for some inexplicable reason really cared how the AAA-League Arkansas Mud Puddles are doing today, I will change channels and watch the damn game. ;) )
What do annoy me are:
- Big, colorful logos that don't go away. (i.e. Discovery Channel...ick!)
- Moving, blinking, hopping, skipping logos. SciFi is bad about this...I keep thinking their logo is a part of the show and wondering when it's going to eat one of the extras for breakfast...
- Bars and borders. Come on, it's a station logo...it doesn't need the entire width or height of the screen. (This also applies to squishing the ending credits to show your damn ads for shows that suck...sometimes I want to read the credits for a movie for one reason or another, but good luck without a microscope or a 60" screen... Oh well, just more hits for the IMDB
- ADS that show up on the screen during broadcasts. NBC and TNT do this crap all the time with their NASCAR broadcasts. I swear, if I'd seen the flaming Witchblade logo cover Rusty's car one more time during a race, I would have chucked something through my TV. (It's even worse when it's those lame TNT series, because then you get an ad for them every commercial break, and a dozen or two in the broadcast itself. "And we'll be right back!" "Tonight on TNT: Watch Witchblade, it's the awesomest awesome show ever!" "Welcome back! Today's broadcast is brought to you by Witchblade. Here's our leader, Jeff Gordon. Hey, Jeff can't wait to watch Witchblade tonight at 9/8 Central! You should too! Here's a great battle for third which you can't see because our kewl Witchblade logo is blocking the view. Did I mention Witchblade is on at 9/8 Central? Hey, here comes a challenge for the lead, but it's time for another commercial break. We'll be right back, and don't forget about Witchblade!" "Tonight on TNT: Watch Witchblade, it's the awesomest awesome show ever!...")
;-D
DennyK
Not really tech related, but oh well, here goes...
;) We don't know how long he sat there on the pot yelling "I'm done! I'm done!" but if things hadn't happened as they did, it would have ended up being well over an hour, as we had just started our current lesson. Suddenly, something knocked three times, very loudly and clearly, on the door of the den. We opened it up, expecting to see my brother, but no one was there. While we were looking around the hallway to see where he was hiding, we heard him calling "I'm done!" from my mom's bathroom. There was, of course, no one else in the house at the time. That one creeped both of us out a little, but we were also quite grateful. Whoever or whatever knocked on that door saved my brother from a loooong time on the pot (or my mom an hour or so of cleaning up, if he got bored sitting there and decided to find something more entertaining to do... ;-D ).
;) ) In any case, it's possible our visitor may have been from that plantation.
;) ). Once it was out of the house, the nighttime thumping and banging stopped. I think our first ghost was pretty friendly, but I never had good feelings about that ugly iron thing. Brrr.....
When I was a kid, for a while, we had a ghost or spirit of some sort hanging around our house. Fortunatly, it wasn't a malevolent spirit or anything, and was actually pretty friendly on occasion. We never saw it or heard it directly, but it seemed to enjoy doing the usual poltergeist stuff...opening doors, banging, knocking, etc.
One time, when my mom was alone in the back of the house during the day, someone opened the door to the garage, came inside, and shut the door. My mom thought it was my dad coming by for lunch to suprise her, so she went out to say hello to him. Of course, Dad was nowhere to be seen, and neither was anyone else. The garage door was shut and locked, just like always. That really creeped her out...
We had this piano-shaped music box that my dad had given my mom for their anniversary some years ago. It hadn't been played and had been unwound for a long time. One evening, when my dad came home from work, the instant he stepped in the door, this funny music starts up, coming from the kitchen. We looked in there, and there was the music box, in it's usual spot on the shelf, playing away. No one in the family had wound it up for a long time. Very weird...
The incident I remember best was one day when I was in second grade. My mom homeschooled me for 2nd and 3rd. My little brother (four years younger) was still getting the hang of using the toilet. He had the No. 1 part down pat, but still needed assistance, err, "cleaning up" after No. 2. Anyway, my mom and I were in the classroom/den at the back of the house, with the door closed. Unbeknowenst to us, my brother decided to give ol' Number Two a try in my parent's bathroom...on the other side of the house. Unfortunatly for him, he was too far away for my mom and I to hear him calling when he was "done" and needed help, well, you know...
It's been many years now since our ghost has been heard from. Since it never spoke or appeared to anyone, we really don't have a clue who or what it might have been. It wasn't a prior occupant of *our* house, because my parents had the house built themselves, and we moved in when it was brand spanking new in 1980. We were (and still are) the only ones to have lived there. However, the house was built on land that used to be a large plantation down here (Orlando, FL) in the 1800s. In fact, there is a cellar-hole of some sort in the backyard of our neighbor a few doors down. We think it's the cellar of the plantation house itself, but we don't know for sure...sadly, the neighbors aren't the adventuresome type, and had the opening sealed so their kids wouldn't fall in it without doing any exploration or excavation. )Also, since the owner of the property is a cop, trespassing to dig it up isn't such a great idea. Darn...
We haven't heard from that particular ghost again, but we did have another "haunting" not too long ago. My mom is a career garage saler...she buys stuff at yard sales and resells it for some pretty nice profits on eBay and her online antique shop. One day, she and I found this rather ugly, but pretty interesting, statue at a sale. It was made in Brazil, if I recall, and was made from wrought iron. It was about three feet tall, and was a figure of some sort. No idea what it might have been or represented, but it wasn't much to look at. We brought it home and stowed it in a corner of our back hallway, and that's when we discovered that the darn thing was either haunted or cursed. Something back there knocked on the doors and walls occasionally at night, sometimes just with hollow thumps, sometimes with the sound of wrought iron on wood and plaster. The thing moved by itself, too...it never stayed where we put it. It didn't wander far, and it never moved while we were watching it, but we'd pass by it, and come back a few minutes later to find it three inches from where it used to be, or facing in another direction. I wasn't displeased when my mom finally sold it to some poor unsuspecting fellow over eBay. (The shipping costs were about three times what the guy paid for it, too...
DennyK
...is not just what might be lost to deletion. In terms of raw storage space, a 650MB CD-R has a bookshelf full of books, boxes, negatives, etc. beat hands-down. The real problems that I see with digital storage have nothing to do with the longevity of the data itself. There are several issues that have great bearing on the preservation of history when it comes to digital media, however.
One of the biggest issues is the *accessibility* of the data. Anyone who can see is capable of looking at a hundred year old photograph. Most fairly literate adults would be capable of reading (or at least puzzling out) a written document that dates back dozens or even hundreds of years. You have to go back many centuries before you require more than a good knowledge of the current language and a strong light source in order to read someone's old letters, and even then, all it takes is an education in the proper language of the period. No special tools required; just the proper knowledge.
With digital media, this is no longer the case. No human I know of is capable of reading a CD-R by eye. To access data stored in this fashion, you need a computer with the proper hardware and software. At this time, this presents no problem; few computers today come without CD-ROM drives, and you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with absolutely no access to one. But that may not be the case tomorrow. Ten years from now, CDs may be obsolete (sooner, if the RIAA has it's way...), and then it will be hard to find a machine that can read one, except in the workshop of some computer hobbyists. In twenty years, the number of people with access to an obsolete medium will be very small. In fifty years, it would be virtually impossible to find someone with equipment that can access the data. In a hundred years, few, if any, ordinary people will even know what the hell a CD is, much less know what to do with it. Think about it...how many of you out there could access data on an 8" disk? How many of you know someone who might be able to? I'd guess the numbers are relatively few, and this is a technology that, relatively speaking, is not all that old. And that was a common format. What about people who are storing data on less common media, like LS-120 disks or JAZ drives? Anyone around here have a drive that can read a flopticle? An optical disc? I was using those myself to store data just six or seven years ago in high school, but I'd be hard pressed now to find the hardware and software to read them.
Another problem that occurs, and is related to what Ms. West wrote, is the transitory nature of everyday electronic communication. Personal communications like letters are perhaps one of the best windows into the everyday life of people who lived long ago. Today, though, email and voicemail have replaced letters as the predominant form of communication. While this is great in terms of speed and efficiency, it also lacks the longevity of a handwritten letter. Many people saved old letters for years, and kept them in the family. Most people I know don't even save their emails for a week before they're consigned to the void. I'm an obsessive-compulsive pack rat who doesn't throw anything away, so I have email that dates back six years and three computer systems, but I am far from normal in that regard...and in ten or fifteen years, chances are very good that I'll lose all of that mail somewhere along the way. And when email is lost, it isn't buried in a long-forgotten box in a dusty attic somewhere, waiting for someone to stumble on it one day in the future. When email is "lost," it's gone for good. The chances of any personal email communication (barring spam, famous chain letters, etc.) lasting more than ten years are slim to none. Use of "snail mail" for personal communication has declined sharply in recent years, as people move to email and other forms of electronic communication. Stuff like the current anthrax scares will only make more and more people turn to electronic communication as a safer, cheaper, faster alternative. But as they do, the trail of personal information they leave for future generations becomes smaller and smaller. A hundred years from now, our descendants will know far less about us than we know about those who celebrated the dawn of the 1900s. The effective lifetime of the records we leave behind has shrunk significantly, from centuries to decades, or even mere years. It's kind of scary when you realize that in fifty years, such an enourmous chunk of what defines this time period will likely be gone without a trace. The more we move to electronic communication as a way of life, the larger that chunk will be. One day, we may have no history except that which is passed down directly from generation to generation...much like the days before written language was invented. Strange thought, isn't it?
DennyK
Nope, not the same at all. If you run out of film, you cannot reuse the same film that you've already used, so you pull it out, put it aside, and slap in a new roll. With a digital camera, however, photographers may simply delete unwanted shots to free up space for new ones. In the first instance, all the photos are kept indefinatly. In the second, the deleted ones are lost forever.
DennyK