I know someone who wanted an 'old style' (clamshell) iBook, but she refused because the only two colors available were blueberry and tangerine. She waited until the graphite iBook came out. Macs have a reputation of being the 'pretty' computer. Once you make that a selling point, people get personal about aesthetics.
If there was a way to (easily and safely) change the lid on your 'snow' iBook to your own design, I'm guessing it would sell nicely.
I remember the story that if all one billion Chinese people jumped at the same instance, something terrible would happen (like a tidal wave would be created that would destroy Los Angeles).
Of course, this is the same logic used to 'flush all the toilets on campus'.
Now that there are smart mobs, maybe we can test these theories...
Which is why Apple is selling iLife on CD. Plus, you get iDVD, which I'm told is not unsubstantial either.
Those poor saps using dialup are the ones I feel for. What is 120 MB at 56K? Two days or sumthin'?
I remember my first modem: 1200 baud. I recall being able to read BBS messages faster than the modem could transmit. Uphill... Both ways... and WE LIKED IT!
> spell-checking in text fields alone is worth the price of admission
Aw, I only post to Slashdot, so if I mispell anything I make Grammar-Nazi's day.
>features that really belong in the proxy anyway.
>Get thee over to the Privoxy home page and give it a download. Problems solved.
Except that I don't want a separate proxy. Why should I download, install and worry about yet another piece of software? Software which, by your own admission, has big-ass caveats.
All I want is a browser that displays HTML in a reasonably attractive manner, manage bookmarks, allow the cookies I want to allow, and block unwanted popups. Heck Twirlip, I don't even want tabs anymore!
Both browsers are very good. But there's no sense arguing about personal preferences.
If Safari's 1.0 release doesn't have better cookie management, a popup whitelist, and image blocker, then you will find some people going back to Chimera. I know I will.
I have a comfort in using open-source software that isn't quite satisfied by 'free as in beer' apps. It comes down to "if I really wanted to, I could fix it" (or with my paltry code-fu, hire someone to fix it). Scratching that personal itch is the reason anybody changes from a default browser anyway. It's probably the reason why 'the rest of us' are on the Mac in the first place.
Of course, once Apple releases a usable WebCore, I expect all sorts of browser projects to start. Hmm... Mozilla begat Phoenix and Chimera, Perhaps Safari will give birth to "Tarzan". Tarzan must be in the public domain, Disney made a movie about it...
If you're teaching a student how to use a spreadsheet, it really doesn't make a difference whether they learn gnumeric or excel. The _principles_ are what you want to teach, not the specific application.
The same thing with word processors. It should take more than 15 minutes for the average highschooler to adjust from Word to WordPerfect to Abiword. It's not like they're learning how to automatically generate table of contents or advanced table formatting; they're kids who are learning computers so they can write term papers...
Especially since school computers don't get updated as frequently, it makes sense to use free software. What's the difference:
teaching a kid how to use Word 97 on Windows 95, or
teaching a kid how to use OpenOffice on Linux
I assert that both of them will equally prepare the average kid for the 'real' business world (Word 2002 on Windows XP).
Re:What are dittos?
on
Kiln People
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Ditto's are androids, copied from the original human. They have the original's memories up to the time of imprinting. The 'dits' have a limited lifespan (usually about a day). Then they tend to fall apart.
Dits come in different styles, some are cheap and made for errands. Some are optimized for sensation (you send the dit on an adventure and 'upload' the resulting memories). The obsidian dits are optimized for thinking and concentration. They're like hackers all juiced up on jolt.
Having disposable labor results in mass unemployment. For instance, the best janitor in the city can make 50 dittos every morning, and send them out to work. After their work day, they turn themselves in to the 'reprocessing center'. He gets the money and the other 49 janitors who used to have jobs end up on the dole.
Of course, that makes the lynch-pin of the economy, makers of the 'dittos' and the 'ditto-ing' process, incredibly rich AND incredibly vulnerable.
Albert Morris has a real job. He's a detective. His dittos are 'ditectives' and they make him some nice coin. When he (they) gets involved in a complicated plot involving the 'dittotech masters'.
David Brin is known for novels that shift the POV. With Kiln People, he gets to shift the POV to realAlbert and all his 'dits'. This results in one of Brin's better developed characters. You even start to like his 'dits' as they change over time.
IMHO, Brin tends to get messy at the end of his novels. He usually throws everything and the kitchen sink in the last 100 pages. Heaven's Reach was one of the worst examples, the entire book departs from Gigo and goes to a black hole, distant galaxys, a dyson sphere, and extra dimensions... Kiln People gets a little convoluted in the end, but it's a good story.
Re:Sounds like a modern Rex Stout / Nero Wolfe boo
on
Kiln People
·
· Score: 1
Never leaves his house??
I believe he leaves the house in his very first book ("Fer De Lance") and he and Archie end up going to Montenegro (that's in Yugoslavia, don'cha know) in "The Black Mountain".
Paracelsus said "The Dose Makes the Poison". When you're talking Toxicology, there's all different kinds of reasons.
The toxin may be excreted before it can be effective
The toxin may be competing with a 'good' material (for instance, giving Carbon Monoxide victims Oxygen in large quantities helps reduce the effects of CO).
Natural flora. Our gut is infested with a broad spectrum of bacteria and microscopic critters. The homeostatic mixture of these 'bugs' keeps us healthy. When we get stomach virus or eat some bad meat, our natural flora gets disrupted and we get a 'bad poo day'.
The cells that make up our body vary in different types of proteins in the cell membrane. Our genes express different proteins in different cells (that's what essentially makes the difference between a brain cell and a muscle cell). When a strange protein enters the body, some won't have the right combination of defending proteins. The cells which do have the proper 'antibodies' will succeed and reproduce.
That's the real reason that getting rid of cancer is so hard. In radiation or chemotherapy, you are trying to hit on the right combination of poison that will kill the cancer cells and leave the 'normal' cells alone. Some of the normal cells (like hair cells) do get wiped out.
The Human Genome and the Folding At Home projects both very exciting because we're learning which genes make which proteins and which proteins work where. The more we understand the 'machine', the more likely we can turn it off, rather than smash it with a hammer...
Sheesh, another biology lecture... Sorry, but you asked...
IIRC, the first popular FPS was "Pathways Into Darkness" which debuted on the Macintosh.
Also, your claim that he was responsible for the innovating a cheap simple OS is a little off the mark as well... The Mac OS started in 1984, and Windows 95 (the first serious competitor to the Mac OS) didn't come out until, um... 95? (Or was it 96?).
O'Reilly does release out-of-print books (and selected other books), like the DocBook definitive guide, under their Open Books Project.
Some of the books are a little dated, but some of them are quite useful.
Some other great books I've found on-line are:
Grokking The Gimp
Vi IMproved - Vim
Karl Vogel's Open Source Development with CVS
Thinking In Java
The book I think is really needed in the series is a new "Intro to Python" book. "Learning Python" covers Python 1.5 and is so, like, 1990s. Guido's tutorial doesn't cover it either. The "Python: Visual QuickStart Guide" by Chris Fehily is a good replacement for now, but an open book would be better.
I was somewhere up this thread... I may have to submit this hint to Mac OS X Hints. The QT debacle was the primary reason I wasn't entirely satisfied with Jaguar upgrade.
Apple doesn't intentionally break software with new OS versions.
You, my friend, have never bought a copy of QuickTime. I bought QT5 and when I upgraded to 10.2, surprise! QT6 Lite was installed and my full version of QT5 was no more...
The military already has combination 'locator + vitals transmitter' for troops.
But can you imagine (no, not a Beowulf Cluster) a fire department with these? The fire chief would know exactly where inside the burning building his firemen are, and more importantly, he would know how they are doing.
100 firemen die (on average) a year, over 80% of the firemen in the US are volunteers. Wouldn't it be a good use of 'homeland security money' to get this technology out of the pentagon (and the land of chocolate, numbered bank accounts, and red pocket knives) and into one of the most hazardous work environments?
Ok, I'm getting off my soapbox.:-) Merry Christmas to those celebrating, Happy Wednesday to everyone else!
Slashdot Mirror
According to his biography here. From his bio, it doesn't sound like he's a dyed in the wool microsoftie.
Instead of making jokes or clamoring about how this is a bad (or good) thing, let's try to figure out what this guy is about.
Any signal out there?
That's because they were both ugly.
I know someone who wanted an 'old style' (clamshell) iBook, but she refused because the only two colors available were blueberry and tangerine. She waited until the graphite iBook came out. Macs have a reputation of being the 'pretty' computer. Once you make that a selling point, people get personal about aesthetics.
If there was a way to (easily and safely) change the lid on your 'snow' iBook to your own design, I'm guessing it would sell nicely.
I remember the story that if all one billion Chinese people jumped at the same instance, something terrible would happen (like a tidal wave would be created that would destroy Los Angeles).
Of course, this is the same logic used to 'flush all the toilets on campus'.
Now that there are smart mobs, maybe we can test these theories...
Ready, set, JUMP!
My wife does a killer Morgan Freeman imitation: "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
Talk about a useless skill... funny tho.
Now that somebody figured out how to paint the lid of an iBook, we're going to be assulted with Slashdot stories on all types of Lidart:
Including Pinup/Nose Art, Graffiti-inspired Art, and even 70s Van Airbrush-inspired art.
Here's a thought... Somebody draw the daVinci of the naked guy and put the apple over the naughty bits.
Ulp. I guess the same thing could be done with Mr. Goatse.
Idea withdrawn...
Which is why Apple is selling iLife on CD. Plus, you get iDVD, which I'm told is not unsubstantial either.
Those poor saps using dialup are the ones I feel for. What is 120 MB at 56K? Two days or sumthin'?
I remember my first modem: 1200 baud. I recall being able to read BBS messages faster than the modem could transmit. Uphill... Both ways... and WE LIKED IT!
If you can't harass the Anonymous Coward, harass the editor... Didn't Michael click-through?
Of course, everyone knows where Qbert is... He's scratching wax down at the hiphop party...
> spell-checking in text fields alone is worth the price of admission
Aw, I only post to Slashdot, so if I mispell anything I make Grammar-Nazi's day.
>features that really belong in the proxy anyway.
>Get thee over to the Privoxy home page and give it a download. Problems solved.
Except that I don't want a separate proxy. Why should I download, install and worry about yet another piece of software? Software which, by your own admission, has big-ass caveats.
All I want is a browser that displays HTML in a reasonably attractive manner, manage bookmarks, allow the cookies I want to allow, and block unwanted popups. Heck Twirlip, I don't even want tabs anymore!
Both browsers are very good. But there's no sense arguing about personal preferences.
If Safari's 1.0 release doesn't have better cookie management, a popup whitelist, and image blocker, then you will find some people going back to Chimera. I know I will.
I have a comfort in using open-source software that isn't quite satisfied by 'free as in beer' apps. It comes down to "if I really wanted to, I could fix it" (or with my paltry code-fu, hire someone to fix it). Scratching that personal itch is the reason anybody changes from a default browser anyway. It's probably the reason why 'the rest of us' are on the Mac in the first place.
Of course, once Apple releases a usable WebCore, I expect all sorts of browser projects to start. Hmm... Mozilla begat Phoenix and Chimera, Perhaps Safari will give birth to "Tarzan". Tarzan must be in the public domain, Disney made a movie about it...
That's right...
In 1996 my company ran a news server the entire firm (with over 50 offices nationwide).
Sheesh, has it been over six years already!
Anyhow, it worked like a champ.
If you're teaching a student how to use a spreadsheet, it really doesn't make a difference whether they learn gnumeric or excel. The _principles_ are what you want to teach, not the specific application.
The same thing with word processors. It should take more than 15 minutes for the average highschooler to adjust from Word to WordPerfect to Abiword. It's not like they're learning how to automatically generate table of contents or advanced table formatting; they're kids who are learning computers so they can write term papers...
Especially since school computers don't get updated as frequently, it makes sense to use free software. What's the difference:
I assert that both of them will equally prepare the average kid for the 'real' business world (Word 2002 on Windows XP).
Ditto's are androids, copied from the original human. They have the original's memories up to the time of imprinting. The 'dits' have a limited lifespan (usually about a day). Then they tend to fall apart.
Dits come in different styles, some are cheap and made for errands. Some are optimized for sensation (you send the dit on an adventure and 'upload' the resulting memories). The obsidian dits are optimized for thinking and concentration. They're like hackers all juiced up on jolt.
Having disposable labor results in mass unemployment. For instance, the best janitor in the city can make 50 dittos every morning, and send them out to work. After their work day, they turn themselves in to the 'reprocessing center'. He gets the money and the other 49 janitors who used to have jobs end up on the dole.
Of course, that makes the lynch-pin of the economy, makers of the 'dittos' and the 'ditto-ing' process, incredibly rich AND incredibly vulnerable.
Albert Morris has a real job. He's a detective. His dittos are 'ditectives' and they make him some nice coin. When he (they) gets involved in a complicated plot involving the 'dittotech masters'.
David Brin is known for novels that shift the POV. With Kiln People, he gets to shift the POV to realAlbert and all his 'dits'. This results in one of Brin's better developed characters. You even start to like his 'dits' as they change over time.
IMHO, Brin tends to get messy at the end of his novels. He usually throws everything and the kitchen sink in the last 100 pages. Heaven's Reach was one of the worst examples, the entire book departs from Gigo and goes to a black hole, distant galaxys, a dyson sphere, and extra dimensions... Kiln People gets a little convoluted in the end, but it's a good story.
Never leaves his house??
I believe he leaves the house in his very first book ("Fer De Lance") and he and Archie end up going to Montenegro (that's in Yugoslavia, don'cha know) in "The Black Mountain".
That's the real reason that getting rid of cancer is so hard. In radiation or chemotherapy, you are trying to hit on the right combination of poison that will kill the cancer cells and leave the 'normal' cells alone. Some of the normal cells (like hair cells) do get wiped out.
The Human Genome and the Folding At Home projects both very exciting because we're learning which genes make which proteins and which proteins work where. The more we understand the 'machine', the more likely we can turn it off, rather than smash it with a hammer...
Sheesh, another biology lecture... Sorry, but you asked...
Gee, I could have told you that large doses of anthrax would stop tumor growth.
Oh, you wanted the patient to live?
um... sorry... next comment...
IIRC, the first popular FPS was "Pathways Into Darkness" which debuted on the Macintosh.
Also, your claim that he was responsible for the innovating a cheap simple OS is a little off the mark as well... The Mac OS started in 1984, and Windows 95 (the first serious competitor to the Mac OS) didn't come out until, um... 95? (Or was it 96?).
A) One of the first computer professionals.
B) Documented the first hardware 'bug' (literally, a bug).
C) Among those responsible for one of the first extremely popular programming languages: COBOL.
D) Looks like a sweet old grandmother in a Navy Uniform.
E) The exception that proves the rule that all computer geeks are adolescent guys.
F) Participated in both the private and governmental sectors. Truly a public servant.
Some of the books are a little dated, but some of them are quite useful.
Some other great books I've found on-line are:
The book I think is really needed in the series is a new "Intro to Python" book. "Learning Python" covers Python 1.5 and is so, like, 1990s. Guido's tutorial doesn't cover it either. The "Python: Visual QuickStart Guide" by Chris Fehily is a good replacement for now, but an open book would be better.
Um... No...
:-)
Java and lisp wouldn't show up much in job descriptions. Scheme might. For example:
"Evil Dictator wanted to scheme against repressed citizenry. No experience required."
See? No one wants a Lisping Dictator. And Java? I'm told Starbucks does their own hiring...
I was somewhere up this thread... I may have to submit this hint to Mac OS X Hints. The QT debacle was the primary reason I wasn't entirely satisfied with Jaguar upgrade.
Well Thank you! I stand corrected and happily chastised.
And you sir, are on my friends list.
Um, if you can tell me how to find a 'QT5 Installer' that I can use to do what you suggest, I'll mod you up AND make you my friend... :-)
Mac Os X checklist:
Move Away From X-Windows.
Check.
The Adoption Of A Single, Standardized Interface Design.
Check.
Make Graphical Setup "Wizards" For Everything.
Done.
Binary Distributions For Everything.
Done.
Workstation Configurations With Dangerous Deamons (ftpd, httpd, etc...) Turned Off By Default.
Okay.
[...] Evangelists Stop Insulting MS And Its Users.
Well, 5 out of 6 isn't bad...
Apple doesn't intentionally break software with new OS versions.
You, my friend, have never bought a copy of QuickTime. I bought QT5 and when I upgraded to 10.2, surprise! QT6 Lite was installed and my full version of QT5 was no more...
The military already has combination 'locator + vitals transmitter' for troops.
:-) Merry Christmas to those celebrating, Happy Wednesday to everyone else!
But can you imagine (no, not a Beowulf Cluster) a fire department with these? The fire chief would know exactly where inside the burning building his firemen are, and more importantly, he would know how they are doing.
100 firemen die (on average) a year, over 80% of the firemen in the US are volunteers. Wouldn't it be a good use of 'homeland security money' to get this technology out of the pentagon (and the land of chocolate, numbered bank accounts, and red pocket knives) and into one of the most hazardous work environments?
Ok, I'm getting off my soapbox.