I have yet to actually purchase anything from Baen, but I love their free library. I've been grabbing stuff off there for years. They offer their books in.EPUB format, which works great on my nook, so I'm thrilled.
As far as DRM goes... I really haven't purchased a whole lot of ebooks. Most of mine have been free. Either from the Baen Free Library, or Manybooks, or Project Gutenberg, or Google Books... And Barnes & Noble has a selection of free ebooks on their site.
That can be done in X3 as well (a frequent request implemented in TC was to let the game run in the background) but you have the option to let it run in 10x speed than normal. Which means that you reach your goals faster.
Yeah... I played X3:TC for a while. I tried to get my EVE fix that way, instead of re-subscribing. It didn't work.
X3 is fun, but ultimately you're just playing with yourself.
Once you've run through the storylines a few times, built up a few complexes, bought a dozen carriers, obliterated a star system or two... It just loses its appeal. There isn't a whole lot of challenge.
In EVE, there is always someone bigger than you. There's always someone to best. There's always a challenge.
I have a second hand experience from a friend who is a dedicated EVE player; we gathered in his home to watch a movie a few months ago. It took him half an hour to finalize what he was doing before making himself available...
Yup. And if you were in the middle of a large-scale fleet battle in X3, but didn't have any way to pause the game, it would take you a while to finalize what you were doing.
EVE is very forgiving for a MMOG. Like I said, you can make progress without even logging in. But, like any MMOG, there is no pause button. If you're in the middle of something... Interacting with other human beings around the world... You can't always bail out at the last second.
Poor form on his part, maybe, to get involved in EVE when he knew you were coming over to watch a movie... Or maybe he didn't realize what he was getting in to...
But the only reason you could have shut everything down any quicker in X3 is because the game doesn't keep running when you close it down.
Why not let PDFs only display documents, and rely on web forms for submitting information? No? Too simple?
Yeah, that was my thought as well.
The reason I use a PDF is because I want somebody on the other end to see my document the way it is supposed to look. I don't want to worry about what font they have installed or which version of Word they're running or whatever. It's the digital equivalent of a printed page.
I like that you can specify editable areas on a PDF... So that you can send somebody a form, that they can type on, and then print out or send back to you. That's nice.
But that's about the extent of it.
If I really need to collect live data from a form, I'm not going to use a PDF - I'll just use a web page.
Cd-rom encyclopedias were replaced by fast enough internet.
I didn't say anything about CD-ROM encyclopedias... I specifically said multimedia encyclopedias. I'm referring to the ones that were chock-full of gratuitous multimedia that did absolutely nothing of use - not encyclopedias that just happened to be distributed on CD-ROM.
And while Wikipedia may very well have replaced CD-ROM encyclopedias... It did not replace the multimedia encyclopedia as most of the articles on Wikipedia are simple text with a few images thrown in. Not the piles of gratuitous multimedia that I'm referring to.
One of the reasons it's so easy on the eyes is specifically because it doesn't have a backlight. Our eyes get tired less if there's not much brightness differences in the environment.
I understand this... But it is very hard to read in the dark. Which is why there are so many book lights available out there.
I'm not suggesting that the entire display should be back-lit 24/7... But it would be nice if it had some kind of integrated book light so I didn't have to turn on a bedside lamp in order to read at night.
The idea is that everything in the solar system is being steadily bombarded by random bits of debris. More craters means that something has been exposed to the elements for a longer amount of time.
In this case... If you have a once-lakebed that's now covered with craters, it must have been a while since there was water in it.
No, it isn't perfect. But it isn't too horrible either.
And, of course, the numbers will be refined as more/better data and measurements become available.
Anyone remember when CD-ROMs were just going mainstream? Remember all the multimedia encyclopedias that were available? Remember how cool it was to look up an article on something and be able to watch a video or hear a speech or something? Yeah... Notice how those have pretty much stopped being popular?
Yeah, funny thing, the Internet came along and wiped out the market for these.
I really don't think it was simply the Internet that killed those multimedia encyclopedias.
That would imply that what had died was specifically the multimedia encyclopedia on CD-ROM... But I'm not aware of a whole lot of multimedia encyclopedia websites out there. The obvious one is Wikipedia... But most of those articles are just text with a few images - nothing printed page couldn't deliver.
Or you could suggest that the Internet as a whole has become the multimedia encyclopedia... Type your search into Google and you get tons of answers from all over the place - often with videos available if you want them. But most of the useful information is again text with some simple images.
If you recall those old multimedia encyclopedias, they were chock-full of completely gratuitous multimedia. Stuff that did absolutely nothing to facilitate learning. The whole point was simply show off the fact that you could have video and everything embedded in your encyclopedia.
Michael Chertoff, the former homeland security secretary, told the New York Times, that if these scanners had been in place, they would have caught the would-be bomber. Ben Wallace, the Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, disagrees, saying that the technologies can't detect the kind of low-density explosive that the would-be terrorist tried to use on December 25th.
Whether or not these scanners can actually detect such explosives is largely irrelevant.
This specific bomber was on watch lists, bought a one-way ticket with cash, and had worried his father enough for him to contact authorities. There are plenty of things already in-place that could have caught the would-be bomber, but didn't.
These new gadgets might very well help catch terrorists... But they aren't going to magically eliminate all terrorism.
They'll find an explosive that isn't detected. Or they'll carry it on in some way that isn't detected. Or they'll bribe the right people to get past security un-screened. Or they'll get people hired in the right places to bypass security entirely. Or maybe they'll blow up something instead of a plane - another building, or a train, or a boat.
We're still looking at treating the symptoms, rather than the disease itself. We're addressing specific actions - he tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear - rather than the root cause of these actions - religious extremism that's willing to sacrifice plenty of lives to make a statement.
As long as that extremism exists... And especially when we're willing to give their statements so much attention... Terrorism will persist, regardless of what technological gadgetry we put in place.
By focusing on the software, and not trying to maintain a hardware device, Kurzweil hopes to provide the most versatile, life-like electronic version of print books and enhance them with multimedia.
The first problem with this approach is that there's no physical device. Books are physical, portable objects. This software may be wonderful and all, but it still lives in a computer. I've read ebooks for literally years, and I was never happy with the computer-based ereader software. I always preferred reading on something small and portable like a PDA than on my PC. Laptops are better than a desktop PC, but still not as good as a book. Netbooks are closer still, but not quite there.
So you've got a beautiful, life-like electronic version of a print book... And it is stuck on your computer. I'm not impressed.
The next problem is that he's trying to enhance the books with multimedia.
Anyone remember when CD-ROMs were just going mainstream? Remember all the multimedia encyclopedias that were available? Remember how cool it was to look up an article on something and be able to watch a video or hear a speech or something? Yeah... Notice how those have pretty much stopped being popular?
Sure, it might be handy to have good text-to-speech in an ereader... And there are certainly some books that would benefit from a good dose of multimedia content... But, for the most part, I don't think many books are going to benefit from any of this.
There is a reason why classes - even highly visual/interactive ones like science labs - require textbooks. They can spell things out clearly and concisely, complete with diagrams and formula - which words and video can't accomplish as neatly.
There is a reason why I read books instead of going to the movies - well-written text and a healthy imagination can produce better visuals than anything in Hollywood.
My Brother-in-Law has a Kindle. The main reason he uses it is it's a lot easier to read text on the Kindle's LCD than on a computer LCD as there is no refresh rate on the Kindle. The screen refreshes only when you turn a page, which makes it easier on the eyes than a 60Hz computer LCD display.
Also, Blio on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod touch, but no Linux? WTF?
I've been reading ebooks for years now...
Originally on a Handspring Visor, then on a Palm m505, then on my desktop and laptop using various ereader programs, then on a Dell mini 9... I've used LCDs and CRTs both.
I just recently picked up a nook and I have to say it is the easiest screen to read on so far. Much easier on the eyes.
I can read for hours and hours with no more eyestrain than if I was reading a paper book. The e-ink display is definitely superior to any CRT or LCD I've ever read for long periods of time. My only complaint is that there's no backlight or anything... It would have been nice if they'd embedded a little LED somewhere on the thing, so I could read in low-light conditions easier.
Gamers with a tighter schedule (work, studies, family etc) or a lagging connection to online servers should really consider an offline alternative that goes with their own pace and allows time speed adjustment. Without time speed adjustment (which is by definition incompatible to large online games) space games can be extremely time consuming.
X3 Reunion + Xtended mod (I didn't like TC very much) is a good alternative but I'd be willing to know more.
One of the things that new players in EVE always complain about is how much of a timesink EVE is. They complain that it takes literally weeks to train a single skill. They lament who unfriendly EVE is to players who have real-life obligations.
Frankly, I think that's just plain wrong.
Most games require you to be sitting in front of them, playing, in order to advance. WoW, for example, requires you to be logged in and killing monsters in order to gain XP and earn levels.
EVE, on the other hand, trains in real time. If a skill indicates it will take a week to train, that's a week of real time. Not in-game time. So while I'm asleep, it's training. While I'm at work, it's training. While I'm mowing the lawn, or going out to dinner with my wife, or spending time with the kids - it's training.
And when I finally do have time in the evening to play EVE, I don't need to go kill monsters to get XP. I can go mining instead, or run missions, or do some shopping, or PvP, or sit back and chat with people, or whatever... And I'm still training my skills.
EVE, more than any other game out there, lets me play the game according to my schedule and my desires. It never forces me to perform any specific in-game activities in order to progress... Nor does it require any specific number of hours of gameplay to progress.
I play EVE specifically because it is so friendly to my casual play schedule.
That really looks terribly boring. After decades of big budget sci-fi movies, not to mention epic space battle video games like Homeworld, this is the best space combat system that EVE can offer? There didn't seem to be any maneuvering involved at all... might as well be a text based game.
You need to understand what you're looking at.
This is a massive fleet battle involving capital ships. In order to fit everything on the screen the camera has been zoomed out quite a bit. Any smaller ships are simply not going to be visible.
With smaller ships, speed matters. You can move fast enough to make it hard for the enemy to hit you. Smaller ships like frigates and cruisers will do this - but they wouldn't be visible in this movie.
The bigger ships can't get that kind of speed going. They aren't going to dodge anyone's shots. There isn't much point in them moving around a whole lot.
EVE also uses a combat system that's more similar to an RPG like EverQuest or WoW than a space flight sim like Wing Commander. You don't use a flight stick... You can't physically dodge a laser... You click a button to fire at the enemy, and the game mechanics decide whether you hit or not.
Small-scale combat is a lot more interesting. Gangs of frigates and destroyers do, indeed, maneuver around. There'll be lots of motion as people try to control the distance between them and the enemy. But that just does not happen with capital ships.
One, why play a game that takes you at least a year to be able to do anything fun and useful? That's not a game at all, that's a job.
Most games out there have some kind of level cap. You kill monsters, gain experience, get loot, get levels... And eventually cap out. Maybe it's 50, or 60, or 99, or whatever. Eventually you can't go any further.
To keep players interested, this is often where developers put all the cool stuff. The big raids, the fancy gear. All the epic stuff.
What this does is it shifts the focus from the leveling grind to the endgame. It turns the game into a race to the finish line. All those levels from 1 to the cap are basically filler. Folks race to the endgame just as quick as they can so that they can get into the good stuff.
EVE has no level cap. You could play for literally years and never hit any artificial limit.
EVE isn't about the endgame, it's about what you can do now.
You do not need to wait for a year to be able to do fun and useful things. You need to get off your ass, stop waiting for something to finish training, and go do something with the skills that you have now.
Granted, a brand new character with just the starter skills is pretty useless... But with just a week of training you can have yourself in a tackle frigate and actually do something useful in a PvP battle.
If you're just sitting around waiting until you can fly a cruiser, or a battlecruiser, or a battleship, or a dreadnought, or whatever - you're doing it wrong.
Two, CCP has shown themselves in the past to be shady and unreliable, having developers specifically favor certain alliances and otherwise abuse their powers for their own in-game corporations.
This is true... But the important bit is "in the past"... Things have gotten much better. With the CSM and the internal affairs folks there's far less shady-ness going on.
Three, the amount of bugs and inability to cope for server stress for large battles (which is the meat and potatoes of this game--large space wars!) has apparently been evident for quite some time now.
Yes and no.
The game is very playable. There are certainly bugs, but they're no more game-crushing than those in WoW or any other MMOG.
There is a limit to what the hardware can handle. Folks work around that - by not going to Jita on the weekend, for example. Maybe it shouldn't be this way... But I don't think there's really a good way to fix it. When you've got that many people trying to travel to a single system you're going to have issues whether you want them or not.
This can be mitigated, to a certain degree, by letting CCP know about fleet battles ahead of time. They'll move the target system to beefier hardware to give you the best experience possible. It isn't perfect, but they're trying.
It's pretty poor form when CCP will claim that subscribers need to account for their own ineptitude when playing their game and not take responsibility for their own
One of the things that makes EVE what it is, is the largely hands-off approach that CCP takes to the game.
With the exception of a few explicitly stated exploits, everything is legal.
This means that if you aren't taking advantage of everything you can to give yourself the best chance of succeeding, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
If you know a remote system is heavily defended, and jump in a big fleet to try to recapture it, you know ahead of time that there's a good chance the hardware will not be able to handle the load. They knew this. They took the gamble, and lost.
Only in EVE would the players decide that network failures are a factor they should take into consideration.
EVE is a fairly intense game.
It can take you literally years to train enough skills to fly certain ships. It can take weeks to manufacture a piece of equipment. It can take months to recover from a loss.
Yes, of course, it's only pixels... But they're pixels that take a lot of time and effort to acquire. Because of this, people take things fairly seriously.
In this case - everyone knows that CCP has some issues. There are known problems that people just work around - like Jita on the weekends. You know it'll be packed, you know there'll be travel advisories, so you work around it.
In the case of this battle, and the network failures... Yes, it is something that they should have taken into consideration. One side could have camped a jumpgate with overwhelming numbers intending for the other side to lose players to lag when they jumped in. Or they could have flanked the system and come in through different jumpgates to avoid some of the lag. Or they could have attacked other assets in nearby systems to draw players away from that one overwhelmed system and even the playing field.
never. The broadcasters do NOT WANT you to do what you are doing. you will have to watch their crap on their website. They will never allow you to download it and watch it on your own device how you want it.
the only people that will be able to do that are criminals.
They may not want me to do what I'm doing... But I am doing it. Legally, I might add.
They'll certainly have to adjust. Maybe everything will be subscription-based, rather than ad-supported... Maybe there'll be more product-placement... Maybe the ads will be embedded right into the show (have a character turn around mid-scene and recommend some hair gel, instead of cutting to commercial)...
And I don't think it will be a seamless transition from what we have today to what we have in the future. There'll likely be plenty of screaming and kicking involved.
But the fact of the matter is that it is happening. Right now.
I can record shows with my DVR and watch them whenever I want. I can have my DVR gather up all episodes of some series... Even the re-runs that air in the middle of the night... And I can watch them on my schedule.
Or I can use my DVR to download episodes right from DirecTV using their "On Demand" service, and watch them when I want.
I can watch many of these shows on the web right now, according to my own schedule.
I can purchase many of these shows, episode by episode, on iTunes.
The genie is out... And if we've learned anything from the assorted RIAA lawsuits, it's that the genie is damnably hard to put back into its bottle.
I just got a roku for my parents, and at $100 it does what it needs to just fine. I can see Roku easily adding a USB port and "Media" channel to a future box without touching the pricepoint and doing the same thing all of these other boxes do.
Oh and it doesn't look like that stupid melted cube that D-link is trying to sell.
We were looking at a Roku over the holidays...
The laptop I was using to stream Netflix died on us, and I didn't have enough parts around to make a replacement Netflix box. The Roku looked like a decent device.
Then we noticed the Samsung BD-P1590... Costs more than a Roku, obviously, but it does more too. Plays DVDs, blu-ray discs, Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, YouTube...
We wound up buying the Samsung instead of the Roku. Replaced our old DVD player and the dead laptop.
D-Link, meanwhile, is rumored to be scrambling to add Netflix streaming support to its BoxeeBox device as well, prior to inaugural shipments of that device. All three run embedded Linux OSes,
If I read this right, it is believed that D-Link runs Linux on the BoxeeBox and is trying to get NetFlix working. If they can do it, shouldn't I be able to in Ubuntu as well?
Technically, yes. I doubt if there's any real technological reason why it would not work.
Legally, however, is another thing entirely.
Netflix may very well be willing to enter into an agreement with D-Link to support their box... While not releasing the code for use on Linux in general.
We picked up a Samsung BD-P1590 as a replacement for our aging DVD player over the holidays...
It plays DVDs, obviously... As well as blu-ray discs... And it can stream stuff from Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. We got ours for about $150 at WalMart, but I'm told they can be had for as little as $80 if you're willing to shop around a bit.
I guess I'm just wondering why you'd buy a Roku for $80 or one of these PopBoxes for $130 just to stream Netflix.
Yes, the PopBox can stream all sorts of other stuff... Plenty of stuff that my new Samsung can't... But what's being advertised as the "killer app" is Netflix support.
In fact, if you look around a bit, there's plenty of hardware out there that can stream Netflix. All sorts of Netflix-enabled televisions and boxes. So I'm having a hard time seeing Netflix support as the "killer app" they're making it out to be...
On a somewhat unrelated note: Has anyone else noticed that broadcast television seems to be rapidly disappearing? We've got boxes that let us stream what we want, when we want it, from various web pages... We've got televisions that are able to stream content right from sites like Netflix... And we've got DVRs to download, record, and time-shift everything else... How long do you suppose it'll be before there's no such thing as "broadcast" television and it's all downloaded/streamed from your local affiliate's website?
A great many computer systems used two digit dates, and would treat '00' as a date in the past. Changing this fundamental fact would take an awful lot of work; not changing it would mean that all these computer systems break on Jan 1st 2000.
Allot of work was done, and most all important computer systems didn't suffer from any serious problems.
What is being oversold?
I suppose there were 'cowboy' consultants exploiting the problem by offering to come in and look at your recently acquired IT infrastructure, charging huge amounts for a simple thumbs up. That doesn't undermine the severity of the problem though.
The problem wasn't with the IT folks... Not even the 'cowboy' consultants who tried to scare up some income. The problem was with the media coverage.
There were reports on how all your money would vanish overnight, trains would derail, nuclear power plants would melt down, missiles would launch themselves, planes would fall out of the air... The same kind of silliness and paranoia we're now seeing in relation to the 2012 thing... Except it was being reported as real, impending, and IT's fault.
If you talk to someone who was working in IT during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you stories about long hours and stress and frustration.
If you talk to someone who was working in management during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you similar stories about long hours and stress and frustration.
If you talk to some random person on the street about Y2k they're likely to mention how the world was supposed to end and it was all kinds of hyped up and nothing ever happened. They never saw anyone putting in long hours. They never saw the effort that went into making sure that nothing happened. All they saw were the crazy news stories and docu-dramas about the impending disaster.
The problem is that now, because nothing tragic happened, the IT industry in general has lost credibility with the general public. So when someone suggests that we're running out of IP addresses... Or that GPS may start failing soon... Or that there's some nasty bug on the way and you really ought to update your computer... The general public just rolls their eyes and ignores the warning.
And, of course, it doesn't help that the media continues to report on things they don't understand...
Remember the DST change a little while back? Our local news programs were reporting that you better run Windows Update and patch your computer or you'd lose data. They literally said you'd lose data. Because your computer didn't know that it should automatically change the time by an hour...
And then there was all the paranoia about Conficker. I believe I even saw reports about Conficker on CNN. We had clients who were afraid to turn on their computers, even after we'd assured them a dozen times that they weren't infected.
If you read TFA, it says "Now it appears that the patch is available on Microsoft's OEM Partner Center Website". If you go to the OEM Partner Center Website, you will find it is intended for system builders who preinstall the Office Ready image on new PCs and sell Office Ready PCs to customers.
Now why would I do that? I'm reading Slashdot, after all...
Would you like me to send you a DOCX document?;-) I think after the third time my dad phoned me and said other people were having trouble opening his documents he installed OO.o. (He's retired, but does some charity work -- which means people opening the documents have a huge range of old to new software, and often very little technical ability.)
There's the converter available from Microsoft, that allows older versions of Word to open.docx documents... And you can always save as the older formats in the first place... Most of my clients still use 97-2003.doc format documents... Very few are actually using.docx format documents.
My comment was less about random issues because you forgot to save as the right filetype, and more about how good of a job OO.o does (or doesn't) do in opening the filetypes it claims to support. It has been a while since I last used OO.o - so, to be honest, I don't know how big a problem this is anymore. But it used to be fairly common to see differences in the same document when it was opened in OO.o instead of Word. Sometimes truly minor differences that absolutely nobody cared about... Sometimes differences big enough that they had to be corrected... Which then looked weird when you opened it in Word again...
Existing copies of Word were expressly grandfathered in by the ruling -- only the sale of new copies was prohibited. Is the patch intended to be applied against shrink-wrapped copies bought after Jan. 11th?
I would assume that the patch is intended to be applied to every version of Word possible. If for no other reason than to have a unified codebase.
Since Open Office is there, why would anyone go for this?
Open Office, while good, just isn't an option for a lot of business users.
I've got business clients who can't handle the minuscule UI changes from Office 2000 to XP to 2003... They've actually avoided 2007 like the plague... There's no way in hell they'll go to a whole new program.
And then there's the issue of things opening and rendering correctly. I don't know how good OO.o is these days... It may be nearly perfect... But the first time someone opens a document that looks wrong, or the first time someone sends a document that nobody else can open, will be the last time they use OO.o
Plus, when things go really wrong you can always call Microsoft and complain... Pay for some technical support or something... Does OO.o offer support contracts?
this is why we need to let our children interact with other people and go out and play in the dirt. I did and let me tell you, I do still get sick but not as much as some of my friends who had lived sheltered lives with there parents who thought that every little cold they got they would need to go to the doctors to be treated for it. we now live in a world with Sissies who can't take life's discomforts like there parents.
Exactly.
People are too clean these days. It sounds stupid, but it's true. Folks need to go outside and play with some animals, socialize, fall in the dirt, scrape their knees, and get on with life. It's good for you! It helps build up your immune system.
Got to your local supermarket or WalMart or whatever... Take a look through their kitchen goods - absolutely everything has some kind of anti-microbial agent built-in. I'm not suggesting we all go lick some raw chicken... But a few germs are actually good for us. And sterilizing everything is not.
Look through the bath section... All the soaps are antimicrobial as well. All of them. Just getting yourself clean isn't enough... You have to nuke whatever critters might be around.
And, not only are we nuking anything and everything that we might be exposed to - thereby robbing ourselves of a chance to build up an immunity... But we're also flooding the environment with these antibiotic/antimicrobial substances - giving those very critters plenty of opportunities to develop their own immunities.
Slashdot Mirror
I have yet to actually purchase anything from Baen, but I love their free library. I've been grabbing stuff off there for years. They offer their books in .EPUB format, which works great on my nook, so I'm thrilled.
As far as DRM goes... I really haven't purchased a whole lot of ebooks. Most of mine have been free. Either from the Baen Free Library, or Manybooks, or Project Gutenberg, or Google Books... And Barnes & Noble has a selection of free ebooks on their site.
That can be done in X3 as well (a frequent request implemented in TC was to let the game run in the background) but you have the option to let it run in 10x speed than normal. Which means that you reach your goals faster.
Yeah... I played X3:TC for a while. I tried to get my EVE fix that way, instead of re-subscribing. It didn't work.
X3 is fun, but ultimately you're just playing with yourself.
Once you've run through the storylines a few times, built up a few complexes, bought a dozen carriers, obliterated a star system or two... It just loses its appeal. There isn't a whole lot of challenge.
In EVE, there is always someone bigger than you. There's always someone to best. There's always a challenge.
I have a second hand experience from a friend who is a dedicated EVE player; we gathered in his home to watch a movie a few months ago. It took him half an hour to finalize what he was doing before making himself available...
Yup. And if you were in the middle of a large-scale fleet battle in X3, but didn't have any way to pause the game, it would take you a while to finalize what you were doing.
EVE is very forgiving for a MMOG. Like I said, you can make progress without even logging in. But, like any MMOG, there is no pause button. If you're in the middle of something... Interacting with other human beings around the world... You can't always bail out at the last second.
Poor form on his part, maybe, to get involved in EVE when he knew you were coming over to watch a movie... Or maybe he didn't realize what he was getting in to...
But the only reason you could have shut everything down any quicker in X3 is because the game doesn't keep running when you close it down.
Bedside lamp is better though.
Tell that to my wife.
Why not let PDFs only display documents, and rely on web forms for submitting information? No? Too simple?
Yeah, that was my thought as well.
The reason I use a PDF is because I want somebody on the other end to see my document the way it is supposed to look. I don't want to worry about what font they have installed or which version of Word they're running or whatever. It's the digital equivalent of a printed page.
I like that you can specify editable areas on a PDF... So that you can send somebody a form, that they can type on, and then print out or send back to you. That's nice.
But that's about the extent of it.
If I really need to collect live data from a form, I'm not going to use a PDF - I'll just use a web page.
Cd-rom encyclopedias were replaced by fast enough internet.
I didn't say anything about CD-ROM encyclopedias... I specifically said multimedia encyclopedias. I'm referring to the ones that were chock-full of gratuitous multimedia that did absolutely nothing of use - not encyclopedias that just happened to be distributed on CD-ROM.
And while Wikipedia may very well have replaced CD-ROM encyclopedias... It did not replace the multimedia encyclopedia as most of the articles on Wikipedia are simple text with a few images thrown in. Not the piles of gratuitous multimedia that I'm referring to.
One of the reasons it's so easy on the eyes is specifically because it doesn't have a backlight. Our eyes get tired less if there's not much brightness differences in the environment.
I understand this... But it is very hard to read in the dark. Which is why there are so many book lights available out there.
I'm not suggesting that the entire display should be back-lit 24/7... But it would be nice if it had some kind of integrated book light so I didn't have to turn on a bedside lamp in order to read at night.
How are these dates determined?
Basically, they're counting craters.
The idea is that everything in the solar system is being steadily bombarded by random bits of debris. More craters means that something has been exposed to the elements for a longer amount of time.
In this case... If you have a once-lakebed that's now covered with craters, it must have been a while since there was water in it.
No, it isn't perfect. But it isn't too horrible either.
And, of course, the numbers will be refined as more/better data and measurements become available.
Anyone remember when CD-ROMs were just going mainstream? Remember all the multimedia encyclopedias that were available? Remember how cool it was to look up an article on something and be able to watch a video or hear a speech or something? Yeah... Notice how those have pretty much stopped being popular?
Yeah, funny thing, the Internet came along and wiped out the market for these.
I really don't think it was simply the Internet that killed those multimedia encyclopedias.
That would imply that what had died was specifically the multimedia encyclopedia on CD-ROM... But I'm not aware of a whole lot of multimedia encyclopedia websites out there. The obvious one is Wikipedia... But most of those articles are just text with a few images - nothing printed page couldn't deliver.
Or you could suggest that the Internet as a whole has become the multimedia encyclopedia... Type your search into Google and you get tons of answers from all over the place - often with videos available if you want them. But most of the useful information is again text with some simple images.
If you recall those old multimedia encyclopedias, they were chock-full of completely gratuitous multimedia. Stuff that did absolutely nothing to facilitate learning. The whole point was simply show off the fact that you could have video and everything embedded in your encyclopedia.
Short answer: No.
Whether or not these scanners can actually detect such explosives is largely irrelevant.
This specific bomber was on watch lists, bought a one-way ticket with cash, and had worried his father enough for him to contact authorities. There are plenty of things already in-place that could have caught the would-be bomber, but didn't.
These new gadgets might very well help catch terrorists... But they aren't going to magically eliminate all terrorism.
They'll find an explosive that isn't detected. Or they'll carry it on in some way that isn't detected. Or they'll bribe the right people to get past security un-screened. Or they'll get people hired in the right places to bypass security entirely. Or maybe they'll blow up something instead of a plane - another building, or a train, or a boat.
We're still looking at treating the symptoms, rather than the disease itself. We're addressing specific actions - he tried to blow up a plane with a bomb in his underwear - rather than the root cause of these actions - religious extremism that's willing to sacrifice plenty of lives to make a statement.
As long as that extremism exists... And especially when we're willing to give their statements so much attention... Terrorism will persist, regardless of what technological gadgetry we put in place.
From the fine article:
The first problem with this approach is that there's no physical device. Books are physical, portable objects. This software may be wonderful and all, but it still lives in a computer. I've read ebooks for literally years, and I was never happy with the computer-based ereader software. I always preferred reading on something small and portable like a PDA than on my PC. Laptops are better than a desktop PC, but still not as good as a book. Netbooks are closer still, but not quite there.
So you've got a beautiful, life-like electronic version of a print book... And it is stuck on your computer. I'm not impressed.
The next problem is that he's trying to enhance the books with multimedia.
Anyone remember when CD-ROMs were just going mainstream? Remember all the multimedia encyclopedias that were available? Remember how cool it was to look up an article on something and be able to watch a video or hear a speech or something? Yeah... Notice how those have pretty much stopped being popular?
Sure, it might be handy to have good text-to-speech in an ereader... And there are certainly some books that would benefit from a good dose of multimedia content... But, for the most part, I don't think many books are going to benefit from any of this.
There is a reason why classes - even highly visual/interactive ones like science labs - require textbooks. They can spell things out clearly and concisely, complete with diagrams and formula - which words and video can't accomplish as neatly.
There is a reason why I read books instead of going to the movies - well-written text and a healthy imagination can produce better visuals than anything in Hollywood.
My Brother-in-Law has a Kindle. The main reason he uses it is it's a lot easier to read text on the Kindle's LCD than on a computer LCD as there is no refresh rate on the Kindle. The screen refreshes only when you turn a page, which makes it easier on the eyes than a 60Hz computer LCD display.
Also, Blio on PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod touch, but no Linux? WTF?
I've been reading ebooks for years now...
Originally on a Handspring Visor, then on a Palm m505, then on my desktop and laptop using various ereader programs, then on a Dell mini 9... I've used LCDs and CRTs both.
I just recently picked up a nook and I have to say it is the easiest screen to read on so far. Much easier on the eyes.
I can read for hours and hours with no more eyestrain than if I was reading a paper book. The e-ink display is definitely superior to any CRT or LCD I've ever read for long periods of time. My only complaint is that there's no backlight or anything... It would have been nice if they'd embedded a little LED somewhere on the thing, so I could read in low-light conditions easier.
Gamers with a tighter schedule (work, studies, family etc) or a lagging connection to online servers should really consider an offline alternative that goes with their own pace and allows time speed adjustment. Without time speed adjustment (which is by definition incompatible to large online games) space games can be extremely time consuming.
X3 Reunion + Xtended mod (I didn't like TC very much) is a good alternative but I'd be willing to know more.
One of the things that new players in EVE always complain about is how much of a timesink EVE is. They complain that it takes literally weeks to train a single skill. They lament who unfriendly EVE is to players who have real-life obligations.
Frankly, I think that's just plain wrong.
Most games require you to be sitting in front of them, playing, in order to advance. WoW, for example, requires you to be logged in and killing monsters in order to gain XP and earn levels.
EVE, on the other hand, trains in real time. If a skill indicates it will take a week to train, that's a week of real time. Not in-game time. So while I'm asleep, it's training. While I'm at work, it's training. While I'm mowing the lawn, or going out to dinner with my wife, or spending time with the kids - it's training.
And when I finally do have time in the evening to play EVE, I don't need to go kill monsters to get XP. I can go mining instead, or run missions, or do some shopping, or PvP, or sit back and chat with people, or whatever... And I'm still training my skills.
EVE, more than any other game out there, lets me play the game according to my schedule and my desires. It never forces me to perform any specific in-game activities in order to progress... Nor does it require any specific number of hours of gameplay to progress.
I play EVE specifically because it is so friendly to my casual play schedule.
That really looks terribly boring. After decades of big budget sci-fi movies, not to mention epic space battle video games like Homeworld, this is the best space combat system that EVE can offer? There didn't seem to be any maneuvering involved at all... might as well be a text based game.
You need to understand what you're looking at.
This is a massive fleet battle involving capital ships. In order to fit everything on the screen the camera has been zoomed out quite a bit. Any smaller ships are simply not going to be visible.
With smaller ships, speed matters. You can move fast enough to make it hard for the enemy to hit you. Smaller ships like frigates and cruisers will do this - but they wouldn't be visible in this movie.
The bigger ships can't get that kind of speed going. They aren't going to dodge anyone's shots. There isn't much point in them moving around a whole lot.
EVE also uses a combat system that's more similar to an RPG like EverQuest or WoW than a space flight sim like Wing Commander. You don't use a flight stick... You can't physically dodge a laser... You click a button to fire at the enemy, and the game mechanics decide whether you hit or not.
Small-scale combat is a lot more interesting. Gangs of frigates and destroyers do, indeed, maneuver around. There'll be lots of motion as people try to control the distance between them and the enemy. But that just does not happen with capital ships.
One, why play a game that takes you at least a year to be able to do anything fun and useful? That's not a game at all, that's a job.
Most games out there have some kind of level cap. You kill monsters, gain experience, get loot, get levels... And eventually cap out. Maybe it's 50, or 60, or 99, or whatever. Eventually you can't go any further.
To keep players interested, this is often where developers put all the cool stuff. The big raids, the fancy gear. All the epic stuff.
What this does is it shifts the focus from the leveling grind to the endgame. It turns the game into a race to the finish line. All those levels from 1 to the cap are basically filler. Folks race to the endgame just as quick as they can so that they can get into the good stuff.
EVE has no level cap. You could play for literally years and never hit any artificial limit.
EVE isn't about the endgame, it's about what you can do now.
You do not need to wait for a year to be able to do fun and useful things. You need to get off your ass, stop waiting for something to finish training, and go do something with the skills that you have now.
Granted, a brand new character with just the starter skills is pretty useless... But with just a week of training you can have yourself in a tackle frigate and actually do something useful in a PvP battle.
If you're just sitting around waiting until you can fly a cruiser, or a battlecruiser, or a battleship, or a dreadnought, or whatever - you're doing it wrong.
Two, CCP has shown themselves in the past to be shady and unreliable, having developers specifically favor certain alliances and otherwise abuse their powers for their own in-game corporations.
This is true... But the important bit is "in the past"... Things have gotten much better. With the CSM and the internal affairs folks there's far less shady-ness going on.
Three, the amount of bugs and inability to cope for server stress for large battles (which is the meat and potatoes of this game--large space wars!) has apparently been evident for quite some time now.
Yes and no.
The game is very playable. There are certainly bugs, but they're no more game-crushing than those in WoW or any other MMOG.
There is a limit to what the hardware can handle. Folks work around that - by not going to Jita on the weekend, for example. Maybe it shouldn't be this way... But I don't think there's really a good way to fix it. When you've got that many people trying to travel to a single system you're going to have issues whether you want them or not.
This can be mitigated, to a certain degree, by letting CCP know about fleet battles ahead of time. They'll move the target system to beefier hardware to give you the best experience possible. It isn't perfect, but they're trying.
It's pretty poor form when CCP will claim that subscribers need to account for their own ineptitude when playing their game and not take responsibility for their own
One of the things that makes EVE what it is, is the largely hands-off approach that CCP takes to the game.
With the exception of a few explicitly stated exploits, everything is legal.
This means that if you aren't taking advantage of everything you can to give yourself the best chance of succeeding, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
If you know a remote system is heavily defended, and jump in a big fleet to try to recapture it, you know ahead of time that there's a good chance the hardware will not be able to handle the load. They knew this. They took the gamble, and lost.
Only in EVE would the players decide that network failures are a factor they should take into consideration.
EVE is a fairly intense game.
It can take you literally years to train enough skills to fly certain ships. It can take weeks to manufacture a piece of equipment. It can take months to recover from a loss.
Yes, of course, it's only pixels... But they're pixels that take a lot of time and effort to acquire. Because of this, people take things fairly seriously.
In this case - everyone knows that CCP has some issues. There are known problems that people just work around - like Jita on the weekends. You know it'll be packed, you know there'll be travel advisories, so you work around it.
In the case of this battle, and the network failures... Yes, it is something that they should have taken into consideration. One side could have camped a jumpgate with overwhelming numbers intending for the other side to lose players to lag when they jumped in. Or they could have flanked the system and come in through different jumpgates to avoid some of the lag. Or they could have attacked other assets in nearby systems to draw players away from that one overwhelmed system and even the playing field.
never. The broadcasters do NOT WANT you to do what you are doing. you will have to watch their crap on their website. They will never allow you to download it and watch it on your own device how you want it.
the only people that will be able to do that are criminals.
They may not want me to do what I'm doing... But I am doing it. Legally, I might add.
They'll certainly have to adjust. Maybe everything will be subscription-based, rather than ad-supported... Maybe there'll be more product-placement... Maybe the ads will be embedded right into the show (have a character turn around mid-scene and recommend some hair gel, instead of cutting to commercial)...
And I don't think it will be a seamless transition from what we have today to what we have in the future. There'll likely be plenty of screaming and kicking involved.
But the fact of the matter is that it is happening. Right now.
I can record shows with my DVR and watch them whenever I want. I can have my DVR gather up all episodes of some series... Even the re-runs that air in the middle of the night... And I can watch them on my schedule.
Or I can use my DVR to download episodes right from DirecTV using their "On Demand" service, and watch them when I want.
I can watch many of these shows on the web right now, according to my own schedule.
I can purchase many of these shows, episode by episode, on iTunes.
The genie is out... And if we've learned anything from the assorted RIAA lawsuits, it's that the genie is damnably hard to put back into its bottle.
I just got a roku for my parents, and at $100 it does what it needs to just fine. I can see Roku easily adding a USB port and "Media" channel to a future box without touching the pricepoint and doing the same thing all of these other boxes do.
Oh and it doesn't look like that stupid melted cube that D-link is trying to sell.
We were looking at a Roku over the holidays...
The laptop I was using to stream Netflix died on us, and I didn't have enough parts around to make a replacement Netflix box. The Roku looked like a decent device.
Then we noticed the Samsung BD-P1590... Costs more than a Roku, obviously, but it does more too. Plays DVDs, blu-ray discs, Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, YouTube...
We wound up buying the Samsung instead of the Roku. Replaced our old DVD player and the dead laptop.
D-Link, meanwhile, is rumored to be scrambling to add Netflix streaming support to its BoxeeBox device as well, prior to inaugural shipments of that device. All three run embedded Linux OSes,
If I read this right, it is believed that D-Link runs Linux on the BoxeeBox and is trying to get NetFlix working. If they can do it, shouldn't I be able to in Ubuntu as well?
Technically, yes. I doubt if there's any real technological reason why it would not work.
Legally, however, is another thing entirely.
Netflix may very well be willing to enter into an agreement with D-Link to support their box... While not releasing the code for use on Linux in general.
We picked up a Samsung BD-P1590 as a replacement for our aging DVD player over the holidays...
It plays DVDs, obviously... As well as blu-ray discs... And it can stream stuff from Blockbuster, Netflix, Pandora, and YouTube. We got ours for about $150 at WalMart, but I'm told they can be had for as little as $80 if you're willing to shop around a bit.
I guess I'm just wondering why you'd buy a Roku for $80 or one of these PopBoxes for $130 just to stream Netflix.
Yes, the PopBox can stream all sorts of other stuff... Plenty of stuff that my new Samsung can't... But what's being advertised as the "killer app" is Netflix support.
In fact, if you look around a bit, there's plenty of hardware out there that can stream Netflix. All sorts of Netflix-enabled televisions and boxes. So I'm having a hard time seeing Netflix support as the "killer app" they're making it out to be...
On a somewhat unrelated note: Has anyone else noticed that broadcast television seems to be rapidly disappearing? We've got boxes that let us stream what we want, when we want it, from various web pages... We've got televisions that are able to stream content right from sites like Netflix... And we've got DVRs to download, record, and time-shift everything else... How long do you suppose it'll be before there's no such thing as "broadcast" television and it's all downloaded/streamed from your local affiliate's website?
A great many computer systems used two digit dates, and would treat '00' as a date in the past. Changing this fundamental fact would take an awful lot of work; not changing it would mean that all these computer systems break on Jan 1st 2000.
Allot of work was done, and most all important computer systems didn't suffer from any serious problems.
What is being oversold?
I suppose there were 'cowboy' consultants exploiting the problem by offering to come in and look at your recently acquired IT infrastructure, charging huge amounts for a simple thumbs up. That doesn't undermine the severity of the problem though.
The problem wasn't with the IT folks... Not even the 'cowboy' consultants who tried to scare up some income. The problem was with the media coverage.
There were reports on how all your money would vanish overnight, trains would derail, nuclear power plants would melt down, missiles would launch themselves, planes would fall out of the air... The same kind of silliness and paranoia we're now seeing in relation to the 2012 thing... Except it was being reported as real, impending, and IT's fault.
If you talk to someone who was working in IT during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you stories about long hours and stress and frustration.
If you talk to someone who was working in management during the whole Y2k thing, they'll probably tell you similar stories about long hours and stress and frustration.
If you talk to some random person on the street about Y2k they're likely to mention how the world was supposed to end and it was all kinds of hyped up and nothing ever happened. They never saw anyone putting in long hours. They never saw the effort that went into making sure that nothing happened. All they saw were the crazy news stories and docu-dramas about the impending disaster.
The problem is that now, because nothing tragic happened, the IT industry in general has lost credibility with the general public. So when someone suggests that we're running out of IP addresses... Or that GPS may start failing soon... Or that there's some nasty bug on the way and you really ought to update your computer... The general public just rolls their eyes and ignores the warning.
And, of course, it doesn't help that the media continues to report on things they don't understand...
Remember the DST change a little while back? Our local news programs were reporting that you better run Windows Update and patch your computer or you'd lose data. They literally said you'd lose data. Because your computer didn't know that it should automatically change the time by an hour...
And then there was all the paranoia about Conficker. I believe I even saw reports about Conficker on CNN. We had clients who were afraid to turn on their computers, even after we'd assured them a dozen times that they weren't infected.
If you read TFA, it says "Now it appears that the patch is available on Microsoft's OEM Partner Center Website". If you go to the OEM Partner Center Website, you will find it is intended for system builders who preinstall the Office Ready image on new PCs and sell Office Ready PCs to customers.
Now why would I do that? I'm reading Slashdot, after all...
Would you like me to send you a DOCX document? ;-)
I think after the third time my dad phoned me and said other people were having trouble opening his documents he installed OO.o. (He's retired, but does some charity work -- which means people opening the documents have a huge range of old to new software, and often very little technical ability.)
There's the converter available from Microsoft, that allows older versions of Word to open .docx documents... And you can always save as the older formats in the first place... Most of my clients still use 97-2003 .doc format documents... Very few are actually using .docx format documents.
My comment was less about random issues because you forgot to save as the right filetype, and more about how good of a job OO.o does (or doesn't) do in opening the filetypes it claims to support. It has been a while since I last used OO.o - so, to be honest, I don't know how big a problem this is anymore. But it used to be fairly common to see differences in the same document when it was opened in OO.o instead of Word. Sometimes truly minor differences that absolutely nobody cared about... Sometimes differences big enough that they had to be corrected... Which then looked weird when you opened it in Word again...
Existing copies of Word were expressly grandfathered in by the ruling -- only the sale of new copies was prohibited. Is the patch intended to be applied against shrink-wrapped copies bought after Jan. 11th?
I would assume that the patch is intended to be applied to every version of Word possible. If for no other reason than to have a unified codebase.
Since Open Office is there, why would anyone go for this?
Open Office, while good, just isn't an option for a lot of business users.
I've got business clients who can't handle the minuscule UI changes from Office 2000 to XP to 2003... They've actually avoided 2007 like the plague... There's no way in hell they'll go to a whole new program.
And then there's the issue of things opening and rendering correctly. I don't know how good OO.o is these days... It may be nearly perfect... But the first time someone opens a document that looks wrong, or the first time someone sends a document that nobody else can open, will be the last time they use OO.o
Plus, when things go really wrong you can always call Microsoft and complain... Pay for some technical support or something... Does OO.o offer support contracts?
this is why we need to let our children interact with other people and go out and play in the dirt. I did and let me tell you, I do still get sick but not as much as some of my friends who had lived sheltered lives with there parents who thought that every little cold they got they would need to go to the doctors to be treated for it. we now live in a world with Sissies who can't take life's discomforts like there parents.
Exactly.
People are too clean these days. It sounds stupid, but it's true. Folks need to go outside and play with some animals, socialize, fall in the dirt, scrape their knees, and get on with life. It's good for you! It helps build up your immune system.
Got to your local supermarket or WalMart or whatever... Take a look through their kitchen goods - absolutely everything has some kind of anti-microbial agent built-in. I'm not suggesting we all go lick some raw chicken... But a few germs are actually good for us. And sterilizing everything is not.
Look through the bath section... All the soaps are antimicrobial as well. All of them. Just getting yourself clean isn't enough... You have to nuke whatever critters might be around.
And, not only are we nuking anything and everything that we might be exposed to - thereby robbing ourselves of a chance to build up an immunity... But we're also flooding the environment with these antibiotic/antimicrobial substances - giving those very critters plenty of opportunities to develop their own immunities.