No, genius... Solar powered flying monkeys are used to produce the source for the latest and greatest version of Windows. It's inovation and technological supremecy all wrapped up in one furry little package.
Pretty sure Microsoft wasn't viewed as a weakest link by anyone who is considering their performance in the wireless market thusfar. It's probably simply about profit margins. Wireless is becoming a commodity and MS is ditching it while the getting out is good.
When is this supposed to be available for the average joe to use?
Are you *kidding* me!! Um, yeah, any day now. Does the average joe need this kind of speed? Does the average joe even *want* this kind of speed? In fact, does the average joe even care? I'll let you in on a little secret. The average joe is happy enough with DSL/cable speeds currently. If they weren't, we'd see a lot more DS3 lines. Heck, they might as well just put in something like an OC48 (2.45 GB/s)...
Also, what measures (if any) have they taken to combat the current internet's limitations and vulnerabilities?
None. This isn't a TCP/IP stack demonstration... This is a throughput demo and as such they don't care if it's vulnerable or not.
Wake up. Shower. Engage brain. Post. See how that's done?
Here is a <a href="http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/shownotes/story/0,24330,3526645,00.html">link</a> to the story. See the url in the quotes? Just change that for your next link...
Sorry, but no. Very little "computing" would be taking place as the basic function of the zombies is to send large amounts of data to unrelated hosts. It's not as if the controlling computer is asking for computed results...
Given 100 users surveyed, we might assume that the 40% who were interested made the switch between the survey in 2003 and 2004. That leaves 60 users for the survey in 2004
60% of 60 users is 36 users so in reality, only 36% of the original population has not switched and is still not interested.
Perhaps I should have said "hardcore coders generally don't possess good UI design skills." Keep in mind that the gap between a good UI designer and a guy who can hack a UI together is *huge*.
I'm in the hardcore coder category and while I don't fancy myself as a UI expert yet, I've spent many hours reading, tweaking, and researching so I'm more capable in that field. With that said, I don't think it's even possible for me to be a great UI designer because I don't have the time to put into both coding and UI design.
But done right the products of usability research appear to be pure common sense (I guess this is analagous to film scoring; if its done properly it just seems to be a natural fit, so you don't pay much attention to it).
And that's one reason we have such a hard time attracting these people into our world; our current societal model doesn't reward the people good at these things.
btw, thanks for the name.. Any others I should look into?
Dead on and the main problem we have in the F/OSS world is attracting qualified people like yourself because our community and even the commercial world (as you noted) respond in a negative or unrewarding fashion.
I'd point you to a couple of my projects, but I probably don't have the time necessary to implement your suggestions and you'd get to add a #4
(iv) Suggestions are accepted but never implemented
I guess we really need to alter our attitude and social structure to suck the "insightful management" into the F/OSS world. We need them to help drive our projects and keep people like you around. Too bad we can't offer lots of money.
UI design is something I excel at. In addition, I know how to code
If I could verify that and I was able to hire people right now, you'd have an interview tomorrow. It's easy to delude yourself into thinking you're good at both, but if it's actually true, you'll be in high demand.
Also, remember that we are talking about UI design, not UI coding or graphics design. Those are completely separate skills.
the "project managers" have expressed a disinterest in enhancing the UI for any of their software since they felt that the user base wasn't the kind that would benefit from it
Ack!! Even advanced users benefit from well designed UIs. I can understand it as a time vs. benefit argument, but all I can say is wow. Sorry you didn't run into some better "project managers."
for it to truly succeed on that level, they need to get some of design's heavy-hitters to bear their expertise on it
Yes, yes, yes. We need a very large GUI designer candy bar to offer as incentive.
It's not even that Microsoft's UI is particularly good, its that people know how to use it
Agreed again. Once the power users get used to the poorly designed interfaces present in many open source programs, it's generally not noticable because they know how to use the program. Creating a UI that is intrinsically intuitive is the real goal.
Thanks for pointing that out. Weak references are not an *incorrect* way of dealing with circular references as their behavior is exactly what one wants for circular references, but I was unaware that the garbage collector handled that automatically. Too bad I can't give you a few those mod points;o)
Good UI design is hard. A good UI designer might not even be able to code and hardcore coders generally don't make very good UI designers. It's simply not what they're interested in and so it gets only as much time and effort as is absolutely necessary. We, as a community have built some wonderful code, but not many in the community are actually UI designers. We need to find and motivate more of these people.
2) Documentation
Documentation is time consuming and not very rewarding for coders. As with UI designers, we need a large group of people who get kicks out of writing documentation and there are just too few of those special people. We need more of these people too. Trusting these tasks to the coders isn't enough.
3) Feature-centric development
Features are rewarding for developers and guess where they put their time.. Project managers are meant to drive the scope and direction of a project. Most of time, the project manager is the lead coder by default. Got to entice a few of these management types over too..
4) Programming for the self
This has an almost identical effect to #1 and the solution is the same. People who are good at usability issues must be found and enticed to contribute. Unfortuantely, we don't have much to offer in reward. Recognition? Nope... The coders/project managers get the credit for the released program. Money? Nope.. We're not talking about commercial software. Beer and Pizza? That's probably our best shot, but I'm not convinced.
5) Religious blindness
Blatently wrong, at least for a significant population of the community. Quite of few recent articles soundly debunk this.
So, it's not going to "fix" itself and there is not much we can do to alter the situation. People are doing this for fun. If it's fun to work on features rather than write documentation, that's what they'll do. Commercial software will always have an advantage in this respect because people are paid to do the work they don't enjoy.
Despite all of Guido Van Sustren's claims to the contrary, Python's garbage collector just doesn't work correctly, allowing the programmer to create a circular reference which never gets resolved. This is a critical impediment to writing mission critical applications in Python, as they will eventually run out of memory and fail.
Neither of those references point out he weakref module that allows you to work nicely with circular references.
Python's memory issues need to be fixed before the language can break out of its niche.
Yep, it's a nichelanguage. Crawl back under your bridge.
Is it really so much to ask that people learn how to use the tool they choose to use properly? Is it so much to ask that people know how to read?
When they shouldn't have to read or choose, it's lacking for an app to make them choose. In ESR's case, he shouldn't have had to make the decision as the system had all the info it needed to answer the question itself.
Yes, this takes more effort on the part of the programmer and that's probably why it's not done yet, but it's near-sighted to argue against a change that only improves the user experience. Not only does Aunt Tilly now have a good chance of getting her printer setup, I don't have to work nearly as hard reading manuals and experimenting with settings to get mine working. Why read the manual if you don't have to?
Slashdot Mirror
And it doesn't matter how early you guess if someone else guesses the same value...
"Ties will be settled by a random drawing."
On the other hand, guess now and then guess again later if you think you were wrong.
"You can enter multiple times, but only your last estimate will be considered. Previous entries will be discarded if you re-submit your picks."
No, genius... Solar powered flying monkeys are used to produce the source for the latest and greatest version of Windows. It's inovation and technological supremecy all wrapped up in one furry little package.
Yeah, I hate my MS Intellimouse Explorer Optical mouse too...
And the answer is in...
drum roll
the article!!! Yay for reading the article.
2 years of warranty service and nothing more...
Pretty sure Microsoft wasn't viewed as a weakest link by anyone who is considering their performance in the wireless market thusfar. It's probably simply about profit margins. Wireless is becoming a commodity and MS is ditching it while the getting out is good.
When is this supposed to be available for the average joe to use?
Are you *kidding* me!! Um, yeah, any day now. Does the average joe need this kind of speed? Does the average joe even *want* this kind of speed? In fact, does the average joe even care? I'll let you in on a little secret. The average joe is happy enough with DSL/cable speeds currently. If they weren't, we'd see a lot more DS3 lines. Heck, they might as well just put in something like an OC48 (2.45 GB/s)...
Also, what measures (if any) have they taken to combat the current internet's limitations and vulnerabilities?
None. This isn't a TCP/IP stack demonstration... This is a throughput demo and as such they don't care if it's vulnerable or not.
Wake up. Shower. Engage brain. Post. See how that's done?
This is a third party sale through Ebay... Google is not involved with the sale of these addresses. At least take time to understand the post...
Direct Link
s /story/0,24330,3526645,00.html">link</a> to the story. See the url in the quotes? Just change that for your next link...
So, next time, type this in instead...
Here is a <a href="http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/shownote
Sorry, but no. Very little "computing" would be taking place as the basic function of the zombies is to send large amounts of data to unrelated hosts. It's not as if the controlling computer is asking for computed results...
Exactly..
Given 100 users surveyed, we might assume that the 40% who were interested made the switch between the survey in 2003 and 2004. That leaves 60 users for the survey in 2004
60% of 60 users is 36 users so in reality, only 36% of the original population has not switched and is still not interested.
Perhaps I should have said "hardcore coders generally don't possess good UI design skills." Keep in mind that the gap between a good UI designer and a guy who can hack a UI together is *huge*.
I'm in the hardcore coder category and while I don't fancy myself as a UI expert yet, I've spent many hours reading, tweaking, and researching so I'm more capable in that field. With that said, I don't think it's even possible for me to be a great UI designer because I don't have the time to put into both coding and UI design.
Remember, good UI design is *hard*.
But done right the products of usability research appear to be pure common sense (I guess this is analagous to film scoring; if its done properly it just seems to be a natural fit, so you don't pay much attention to it).
And that's one reason we have such a hard time attracting these people into our world; our current societal model doesn't reward the people good at these things.
btw, thanks for the name.. Any others I should look into?
Dead on and the main problem we have in the F/OSS world is attracting qualified people like yourself because our community and even the commercial world (as you noted) respond in a negative or unrewarding fashion.
I'd point you to a couple of my projects, but I probably don't have the time necessary to implement your suggestions and you'd get to add a #4
(iv) Suggestions are accepted but never implemented
I guess we really need to alter our attitude and social structure to suck the "insightful management" into the F/OSS world. We need them to help drive our projects and keep people like you around. Too bad we can't offer lots of money.
Not graphic design, User Interface Design... Completely different fields...
UI design is something I excel at. In addition, I know how to code
If I could verify that and I was able to hire people right now, you'd have an interview tomorrow. It's easy to delude yourself into thinking you're good at both, but if it's actually true, you'll be in high demand.
Also, remember that we are talking about UI design, not UI coding or graphics design. Those are completely separate skills.
the "project managers" have expressed a disinterest in enhancing the UI for any of their software since they felt that the user base wasn't the kind that would benefit from it
Ack!! Even advanced users benefit from well designed UIs. I can understand it as a time vs. benefit argument, but all I can say is wow. Sorry you didn't run into some better "project managers."
for it to truly succeed on that level, they need to get some of design's heavy-hitters to bear their expertise on it
Yes, yes, yes. We need a very large GUI designer candy bar to offer as incentive.
It's not even that Microsoft's UI is particularly good, its that people know how to use it
Agreed again. Once the power users get used to the poorly designed interfaces present in many open source programs, it's generally not noticable because they know how to use the program. Creating a UI that is intrinsically intuitive is the real goal.
Thanks for pointing that out. Weak references are not an *incorrect* way of dealing with circular references as their behavior is exactly what one wants for circular references, but I was unaware that the garbage collector handled that automatically. Too bad I can't give you a few those mod points ;o)
1) User interface design
Good UI design is hard. A good UI designer might not even be able to code and hardcore coders generally don't make very good UI designers. It's simply not what they're interested in and so it gets only as much time and effort as is absolutely necessary. We, as a community have built some wonderful code, but not many in the community are actually UI designers. We need to find and motivate more of these people.
2) Documentation
Documentation is time consuming and not very rewarding for coders. As with UI designers, we need a large group of people who get kicks out of writing documentation and there are just too few of those special people. We need more of these people too. Trusting these tasks to the coders isn't enough.
3) Feature-centric development
Features are rewarding for developers and guess where they put their time.. Project managers are meant to drive the scope and direction of a project. Most of time, the project manager is the lead coder by default. Got to entice a few of these management types over too..
4) Programming for the self
This has an almost identical effect to #1 and the solution is the same. People who are good at usability issues must be found and enticed to contribute. Unfortuantely, we don't have much to offer in reward. Recognition? Nope... The coders/project managers get the credit for the released program. Money? Nope.. We're not talking about commercial software. Beer and Pizza? That's probably our best shot, but I'm not convinced.
5) Religious blindness
Blatently wrong, at least for a significant population of the community. Quite of few recent articles soundly debunk this.
So, it's not going to "fix" itself and there is not much we can do to alter the situation. People are doing this for fun. If it's fun to work on features rather than write documentation, that's what they'll do. Commercial software will always have an advantage in this respect because people are paid to do the work they don't enjoy.
Dude, it's on the list... *sigh*
Despite all of Guido Van Sustren's claims to the contrary, Python's garbage collector just doesn't work correctly, allowing the programmer to create a circular reference which never gets resolved. This is a critical impediment to writing mission critical applications in Python, as they will eventually run out of memory and fail.
Neither of those references point out he weakref module that allows you to work nicely with circular references.
Python's memory issues need to be fixed before the language can break out of its niche.
Yep, it's a niche language. Crawl back under your bridge.
Unless we figure out how to punch a vacuum out through mid air... Or maybe cushion photons in really fast balls of air. 64K was enough RAM, right?
Then find a company that supports plone as a business... Several have been posted already.
They didn't cancel the line... Read the article. Development will continue on the UltraSparc IV core.
They didn't cancel the UltraSPARC line, just an attempt at a new core. They will continue development on the IV core...
And it's gotta beat telecommuting... Can I be Neo?
Is it really so much to ask that people learn how to use the tool they choose to use properly? Is it so much to ask that people know how to read?
When they shouldn't have to read or choose, it's lacking for an app to make them choose. In ESR's case, he shouldn't have had to make the decision as the system had all the info it needed to answer the question itself.
Yes, this takes more effort on the part of the programmer and that's probably why it's not done yet, but it's near-sighted to argue against a change that only improves the user experience. Not only does Aunt Tilly now have a good chance of getting her printer setup, I don't have to work nearly as hard reading manuals and experimenting with settings to get mine working. Why read the manual if you don't have to?