Works fine for me. The actual animatrix movies have some funky still image at the beginning that confuses mplayer, but xine seems to work better (and I hear there's a patch for mplayer). This trailer doesn't have that, and it works perfectly.
It's MS's fault if people often pick easy to guess passwords and they didn't plan for that when they built Windows. It's a user-interface sort of issue. If you don't anticipate what your users are going to do, you're partly to blame for the resulting problems. Windows should ship with a list of common passwords and a checker that makes sure the password isn't common, in the dictionary, or weak for various other reasons. Most UNIX systems have this built into the password changing mechanism. Also, Windows should NEVER EVER allow a blank admin password.
The end-user never sees SMTP. SMTP can be thrown out the window as long as we still use POP3 and/or IMAP to retrieve the mails. Any solution that replaces SMTP could still provide POP3/IMAP mail retrieval for backwards compatibility.
Even the holographic display isn't the Holy Grail, since everything on the screen is in the same plane in real life, so everything is in perfect focus, making the scene look weird and unreal. In the real world, whether or not an object is in focus is an important part of our depth perception. Is there any research going on into displays that would be able to simulate a depth of focus effect, where the eye could focus on different objects in the scene at different depths? Would it be possible to do this in the type of display that projects directly into the eye with fancy optics? Or would it have to be done by sensing the eye's depth of focus and having a computer change the scene to match, many times a second?
IMHO, the "video game" aspect of Karma is part of what makes Slashdot compelling. Maybe it wasn't intended to work that way, but it does, and I can't see the harm in it. If people try hard to get good karma just to have it, that means more quality posts for Slashdot. If people karma whore, then Slashdot readers get more of what they want. As a Slashdot reader, I am happy when I find that someone has mirrored a slashdotted site, and I chuckle occasionally at clever +5 funny posts. Both of these types of posts would probably not exist if it wasn't for the karma incentive. The only problem comes when people peversely try to get low karma, and the moderation system does an excellent job of filtering them out for the rest of us.
You talk about the karma video game like it is something to be avoided at all costs, but I think it is a major reason for Slashdot's success. Just because you didn't intend it doesn't make it bad.
No. Subscribers would not read ahead of time, formulate posts in their heads, and wait for the story to go live so they can post. They would read the stories, think "man I wish I could post this idea I just had" and then go about their business.
It would be better to allow posts on Mysterious Future stories. That way we might finally be able to eliminate FP trolls! If having terrible Karma caused your subscription pages to run out faster or something, then modding down trolls would actually *cost them money*. The career Slashdot trolls would have to fork over dough to continue FP-trolling. If they do, that's fine: more money for Slashdot! If they don't, then FP trolls are gone forever. Also, I imagine the number of dupes and errors would be drastically reduced if Slashdot's most dedicated readers got a chance to post before the stories were posted.
Actually, if the Karma ratings of your pre-posts were linked to your subscription (every + mod is 1 more page view, every - mod is 1 less, or something), that would both strongly discourage trolling and encourage things like mirroring sites before the Slashdot effect kicks in. Some might say it would encourage Karma whoring - but I say what's wrong with that? If karma whores get modded up, it's only because they're giving us what we want! There's nothing wrong with that.
Hey, that UI idea sounds pretty neato. I especially like the concept of using pie menus. Where is this flash demo you refer to? I'm interested in UI design myself, though I'd be lying if I said I had much experience or knowledge in it.
So, how does Google get it in their cache if the site requires registration? I think it may be time for my browser to start identifying itself as "Googlebot"...
You must be using Word 2000, the most annoying word processor known to man. Every time Word XP does one of its little autoformatting tricks, such as an automatic numbered list, it pops up an icon with a menu that has options like "Undo this numbered list" and "Never automatically make numbered lists". You can quickly turn off each of the stupid autoformatting features as you run into them. Microsoft does listen, at least sometimes.
That is the problem with configuration options. Once you've made one, you can never, ever take it out. People will complain "I'll never use your software ever again and I will hate you and your descendents for all eternity unless you put back the ability to make my mouse left-handed!" or whatever their favorite feature is. It gets to be pretty silly sometimes. The only solution I see is to start a new project combining the best features of the old one once the first project gets too bloated with configuration options. Of course if it really is better then people will switch to it, but they will complain loudly until their one pet feature is implemented. "It's just this one little checkbox, so simple," they say. Then the new project will eventually get to be as bloated as the old one unless steps are taken to constrain it.
I have had no problems with it at all. Kernel 2.4.18 on the desktop, 2.4.19-rmk4 on the iPAQ. It's much nicer than ppp through the serial port (ugh - now if only the ipaq bootloader would support usb I could forget about serial altogether). I have seen a rumor that some redhat release has a broken usbnet driver, are you using redhat?
Actually, I'm sure it would be possible to write a program similar to x2x for Qt-embedded. The only difference would be the requirement to run the program on both sides of the connection (and the fact that it's not already written for you;-). And truth be told, the network transparency features of X aren't all that useful on an iPAQ in a practical sense. Yes, running xmatrix remotely from my desktop is cool; I've also tried emacs and netscape. But they're not designed for the tiny screen and stylus-only input, and the wireless connection is unreliable and battery-hogging. It's better to just install the programs I want and run them locally.
Out of curiosity, what are you using usbnet and qt-embedded for?
X is plenty small. I recently installed GPE and Familiar Linux on my iPAQ, which uses GTK on X for the display. It is plenty fast (as fast as WinCE) and plenty small (16 MB Flash ROM is all it has, and that has to contain Linux itself, a GNU base system (a shell, cmdline utilities, etc), X, GTK, and finally the applications that make it useful). The included TinyX server really lives up to its name, taking less than 2 MB of Flash! With X and wireless ethernet, I can run programs remotely from my desktop (like XMatrix;-). Actually the setup I have now is: when I plug the ipaq into its usb cradle, my linux box starts up a usb-eth network connection with the iPAQ and then runs x2x. Then I can move my mouse off the left side of the desktop's screen and onto the iPAQ! Fun stuff.
What I have read before is that it runs a stripped down version of the W2K kernel. I'm not sure how accurate that information is, but I'm sure the low-level code in the XBox has a very close relation to a lot of Windows code. Whether you want to call that "running windows" or not is simply a pedantic semantic distinction.
Here's why it's not going to happen: Microsoft is adamant that the XBox is NOT a PC. All of their PR so far has tried to distance the XBox as far away as possible from PCs. It runs Windows, but you never see the traditional Windows look or any reference to Windows or DirectX anywhere. Microsoft keeps their logo small and unobtrusive so people don't associate the XBox primarily with Microsoft and Windows. They even changed the shape of the USB ports on the front so that you can't plug in PC peripherals (including mice and keyboards), and they're not selling adapters. Microsoft wants everyone to think of the XBox only as a gaming device, never as a general-purpose computer. Signing Linux would run contrary to all their insisting that the XBox is not a PC. If you somehow ported Windows XP to the XBox, they wouldn't sign that either. The fact that Linux is GPL just makes that much less likely.
How on earth do they know that none of 2.2 million credit cards has been used fradulently in the last 24 hours? Seems pretty impossible to me. I'll bet some of them have for reasons completely unrelated to this hacker anyway. How can you verify something like that on such a huge scale?
GIJ, the GNU interpreter for Java, is also included in the GCJ package. GCJ isn't a finished product yet, but when it is, it will be a complete JDK and JRE (compiler, VM, and libraries) with the added ability to compile to native code if you want to, and all open source under the GPL.
*Everything* is more fodder for anti-NASA conspiracists. If NASA says something, it's part of a conspiracy. If NASA doesn't say anything, it's a cover-up of a conspiracy. NASA can't win.
OK, I tried it myself. Running a "hello, world" class that prints and then does while(true); takes ~13MB on my system. *4MB* of that is shared memory. Oh oops, I guess you're wrong.
Besides, it's stupid to load the whole JRE to run a "hello, world" program. A Python "Hello, World" takes 2MB, with 1.5MB shared. Is it any wonder Java programs take forever and a day to start? Ginormous is right.
Slashdot Mirror
Works fine for me. The actual animatrix movies have some funky still image at the beginning that confuses mplayer, but xine seems to work better (and I hear there's a patch for mplayer). This trailer doesn't have that, and it works perfectly.
At least it's not as bad as Progress Quest.
It's MS's fault if people often pick easy to guess passwords and they didn't plan for that when they built Windows. It's a user-interface sort of issue. If you don't anticipate what your users are going to do, you're partly to blame for the resulting problems. Windows should ship with a list of common passwords and a checker that makes sure the password isn't common, in the dictionary, or weak for various other reasons. Most UNIX systems have this built into the password changing mechanism. Also, Windows should NEVER EVER allow a blank admin password.
The end-user never sees SMTP. SMTP can be thrown out the window as long as we still use POP3 and/or IMAP to retrieve the mails. Any solution that replaces SMTP could still provide POP3/IMAP mail retrieval for backwards compatibility.
What do you mean by "no occlusion in the scene"? Do you mean that objects in the foreground don't appear over objects in the background? Why not?
Oh wow, I didn't realize that. That's pretty cool. I guess it makes sense though when you think about how holograms work.
Even the holographic display isn't the Holy Grail, since everything on the screen is in the same plane in real life, so everything is in perfect focus, making the scene look weird and unreal. In the real world, whether or not an object is in focus is an important part of our depth perception. Is there any research going on into displays that would be able to simulate a depth of focus effect, where the eye could focus on different objects in the scene at different depths? Would it be possible to do this in the type of display that projects directly into the eye with fancy optics? Or would it have to be done by sensing the eye's depth of focus and having a computer change the scene to match, many times a second?
You talk about the karma video game like it is something to be avoided at all costs, but I think it is a major reason for Slashdot's success. Just because you didn't intend it doesn't make it bad.
It would be better to allow posts on Mysterious Future stories. That way we might finally be able to eliminate FP trolls! If having terrible Karma caused your subscription pages to run out faster or something, then modding down trolls would actually *cost them money*. The career Slashdot trolls would have to fork over dough to continue FP-trolling. If they do, that's fine: more money for Slashdot! If they don't, then FP trolls are gone forever. Also, I imagine the number of dupes and errors would be drastically reduced if Slashdot's most dedicated readers got a chance to post before the stories were posted.
Actually, if the Karma ratings of your pre-posts were linked to your subscription (every + mod is 1 more page view, every - mod is 1 less, or something), that would both strongly discourage trolling and encourage things like mirroring sites before the Slashdot effect kicks in. Some might say it would encourage Karma whoring - but I say what's wrong with that? If karma whores get modded up, it's only because they're giving us what we want! There's nothing wrong with that.
Hey, that UI idea sounds pretty neato. I especially like the concept of using pie menus. Where is this flash demo you refer to? I'm interested in UI design myself, though I'd be lying if I said I had much experience or knowledge in it.
So, how does Google get it in their cache if the site requires registration? I think it may be time for my browser to start identifying itself as "Googlebot"...
You must be using Word 2000, the most annoying word processor known to man. Every time Word XP does one of its little autoformatting tricks, such as an automatic numbered list, it pops up an icon with a menu that has options like "Undo this numbered list" and "Never automatically make numbered lists". You can quickly turn off each of the stupid autoformatting features as you run into them. Microsoft does listen, at least sometimes.
Here's the gist: Linus Torvalds is married to the six-time women's karate champion of Finland! Bill Gates better not try to mess with Linus!
usability.kde.org
That is the problem with configuration options. Once you've made one, you can never, ever take it out. People will complain "I'll never use your software ever again and I will hate you and your descendents for all eternity unless you put back the ability to make my mouse left-handed!" or whatever their favorite feature is. It gets to be pretty silly sometimes. The only solution I see is to start a new project combining the best features of the old one once the first project gets too bloated with configuration options. Of course if it really is better then people will switch to it, but they will complain loudly until their one pet feature is implemented. "It's just this one little checkbox, so simple," they say. Then the new project will eventually get to be as bloated as the old one unless steps are taken to constrain it.
Actually, I'm sure it would be possible to write a program similar to x2x for Qt-embedded. The only difference would be the requirement to run the program on both sides of the connection (and the fact that it's not already written for you ;-). And truth be told, the network transparency features of X aren't all that useful on an iPAQ in a practical sense. Yes, running xmatrix remotely from my desktop is cool; I've also tried emacs and netscape. But they're not designed for the tiny screen and stylus-only input, and the wireless connection is unreliable and battery-hogging. It's better to just install the programs I want and run them locally.
Out of curiosity, what are you using usbnet and qt-embedded for?
X is plenty small. I recently installed GPE and Familiar Linux on my iPAQ, which uses GTK on X for the display. It is plenty fast (as fast as WinCE) and plenty small (16 MB Flash ROM is all it has, and that has to contain Linux itself, a GNU base system (a shell, cmdline utilities, etc), X, GTK, and finally the applications that make it useful). The included TinyX server really lives up to its name, taking less than 2 MB of Flash! With X and wireless ethernet, I can run programs remotely from my desktop (like XMatrix ;-). Actually the setup I have now is: when I plug the ipaq into its usb cradle, my linux box starts up a usb-eth network connection with the iPAQ and then runs x2x. Then I can move my mouse off the left side of the desktop's screen and onto the iPAQ! Fun stuff.
What I have read before is that it runs a stripped down version of the W2K kernel. I'm not sure how accurate that information is, but I'm sure the low-level code in the XBox has a very close relation to a lot of Windows code. Whether you want to call that "running windows" or not is simply a pedantic semantic distinction.
Here's why it's not going to happen: Microsoft is adamant that the XBox is NOT a PC. All of their PR so far has tried to distance the XBox as far away as possible from PCs. It runs Windows, but you never see the traditional Windows look or any reference to Windows or DirectX anywhere. Microsoft keeps their logo small and unobtrusive so people don't associate the XBox primarily with Microsoft and Windows. They even changed the shape of the USB ports on the front so that you can't plug in PC peripherals (including mice and keyboards), and they're not selling adapters. Microsoft wants everyone to think of the XBox only as a gaming device, never as a general-purpose computer. Signing Linux would run contrary to all their insisting that the XBox is not a PC. If you somehow ported Windows XP to the XBox, they wouldn't sign that either. The fact that Linux is GPL just makes that much less likely.
I think that this is a bit more on-topic. Robotic juicers for the home, indeed!
How on earth do they know that none of 2.2 million credit cards has been used fradulently in the last 24 hours? Seems pretty impossible to me. I'll bet some of them have for reasons completely unrelated to this hacker anyway. How can you verify something like that on such a huge scale?
GIJ, the GNU interpreter for Java, is also included in the GCJ package. GCJ isn't a finished product yet, but when it is, it will be a complete JDK and JRE (compiler, VM, and libraries) with the added ability to compile to native code if you want to, and all open source under the GPL.
*Everything* is more fodder for anti-NASA conspiracists. If NASA says something, it's part of a conspiracy. If NASA doesn't say anything, it's a cover-up of a conspiracy. NASA can't win.
Visual Studio .NET has a lot of features too, but it doesn't take 900MB to run. I'd say a fairly large chunk of the blame has to reside with Java.
Besides, it's stupid to load the whole JRE to run a "hello, world" program. A Python "Hello, World" takes 2MB, with 1.5MB shared. Is it any wonder Java programs take forever and a day to start? Ginormous is right.