I was referring more to just things that input real and quantitative data into one's brain. The Matrix is just a video game on the movie screen. It's junk food.
Look, I live in LA. And there is a distinct possibility that I work for a Major Entertainment Company and am very much involved (as everyone is here in LA) in "the scene". The Matrix is just as much formulaic high-budget high-touch mass-marketed Hollywood crap whitebread junk food as anything else out there. What made it cool was that there was some particuarly good talent behind the special effects, direction, and choreography(sp?).. For those of us actually involved in the "scene" over here, and consider ourselves intelligent;-), we must by religious doctrine chastise and hate anything that the major studios churn out (with rare exceptions).
When I see a movie, I really want to be taken to another world.. I want to walk of out the theater in a reflective and somber state. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an action flick, but it also was a dreamy wonderful escapistic experience that really left you with "something".
Okay, so now that I've done my ritualistic Hollywood rant against the movie industry, let me please elaborate on my rant against the philosophy, or rather lack of, in The Matrix.
"What if it is true? What if we really ARE programs running inside some big ingenious artificial reality? Hey, what if that artificial reality is controlled by programs that are in ANOTHER artificial reality? What if C-A-T spelled DOG???"
We still have printed and physical works and we always will. The Internet has many books written about it and historians will undoubtedly be writing nostalgic recounts of the Internet age in another 50 years or so..
Even if it is all digital vapor that will vanish from existance someday, let's remember that many ancient civilizations left very little behind but their ruins and a few clues as to who they are yet we always seek to understand and put the pieces of the puzzle together to try and picture the life and times of our ancient ancestors.
Besides, in 100 years, everyone alive today will be dead so who cares if The First Web Page(tm) is preserved and enshrined for eternity.
As long as you are using the same password each and every time, there really is no guarantee that something somewhere between your fingers and the server you're talking to will not intercept and record your password.
The answer to this for security conscious organizations is SecureID. See http://www.rsasecurity.com/ for more info.
Yes, I'm living way in the past. I abandoned Mac and pretty much stopped paying attention to Apple back in '95. Only recently with OS X have I begun to take a serious interest in Apple again.
It's good to hear that they are indeed open sourcing some of their projects.
But I'm not a troll and you hurt my feelings and I demand you apologize you meanie.
Apple is downplaying the release of OS X as they work in things like you mention (the DVD and CD burning issues) and wait for the vendors to catch up with OS X versions of their software. I've heard tell that the real market push will start later this summer or fall.
In fact, if you buy a Mac today, it will still come with OS 9 installed.
IMHO, Apple, to the very core of their consciousness, will never open-source anything. Microsoft will open source stuff before Apple does.
You DO remember what happened when they tried to crack the door open for Mac clones, right? They freaked and slammed it shut, is what. OHCP?? Dead. Apple can't handle it. They need 100% control of their software as well as their hardware.
Does Apple still even OWN Hypercard or has it been spun off?
Hypercard is truly a legacy application. Filemaker Pro is a much better solution, imho.
Apple has made their position on this clear. OS X is a very necessary evolutionary step for the company to take and the Mac advocates have been waiting this for YEARS. I bailed after Apple flaked out on Copeland and then Rapsody some years back, and I'm very happy to hear that they've finally gotten their shit together and done so in spades.
I digress... Anyway, Apple has made their position clear on legacy apps, of which Hypercard is definitely one regardless of its fan base. Dual-boot with System 9.
And won't there be some System 9 emulation built into OS X ala WINE, WinVM, et al? And if there isn't, won't it be coming out real soon?
I started my career in Filemaker.. Left it behind years ago as I evolved into the land of Oracle and three tier web app development.
However, I'm starting my own business and needed to put together a database system quickly for handling basic business needs. I didn't have the time to do use the tools I use for my day job, so I turned to MS Access thinking that this would be somewhat as easy to use as Filemaker was. Boy was I dead wrong and it didn't take me long to figure it out! Actually, Access is more complicated than Oracle and Developer/2000 (imho). What a bloated (and extremely buggy) piece of shit that was! I ran screaming.
So, once again, I am now using Filemaker. I left it back when version 3 came out and it got that 'relational' featureset. Version 5 is whats available now and I'm surprised how LITTLE the ol' cutie has changed. They added some web support and a very light ODBC connectivity features, (neither of which I will ever use) but everything else is pretty much exactly the same. How strange, in these days and times, that a commercial product continues to exist in a relatively unchanged form for over 5 years.
Same story with Hypercard. I used that back in the days of the Mac Plus. I can't believe it's still around, but I am pleased to hear that it is.
I went to high school in the 80's in a small town outside of Austin, Texas.
I was your typical nerdy sensitive kid and of course went through that whole "I want to kill myself" phase. I remember one day that somehow my suicidal fantasies got out and I was in class and the teacher asked me some question and one of the bullies piped up and said "don't ask him, he'll kill himself!" and everybody, including the teacher, had a great laugh at my expense.
Life in public schools was vicious and cruel back then and its gotten worse now. The administrators operate the schools almost like prisons now. My teenage step-daughter -- she tells me how they basically lock all the doors except for one which is guarded during lunch time. They literally draw those metal curtains across areas outside of the cafeteria to herd the kids together.
It's getting so weird. No, video games are certainly not to blame and we all know that. I find these acts of random violence completely staggering and incomprehensible, yet at the same time, remembering how I felt back in those troubled days of teenage youth, I think I can identify and understand where these kids that do these things are at mentally and emotionally.
Google has a really neato ad model that anyone can afford. You basically set up a small 2-3 line ad that is linked to certain keywords or phrases. You are billed around $15 per thousand impressions of your ad. You set up the limit that you're willing to pay for a bing! it's all done.
Very cool and clever idea. Now small businesses can promote their sites without having to invest mega-$$$$ for the traditional "banner ad".
Face it: Eventually the RIAA will lock down MP3 file trading. There's simply too much money riding on this for them to let up until victory has been achieved. Yes, big bad evil corporate America will pervail.
But I believe there's a silver lining to this cloud:
The basic problem set that they're trying to solve (and everyone else is) is how to tie a digital chunk of data without question to an owner so as to reserve intellectual property rights.
Once this is solved, much like CDDB, there will be a uniform technology for linking most MP3's (lets just talk about MP3s here.. but this will be pervasive) to an artist and the label. Put a business model behind this like along the lines of ASCAP and hopefully the end results will be that if Joe Smith downloads stupid_song.mp3 from whereever, some sort of micropayment will occur to the label much like what happens when a song is played on the radio.
But see, whats great is that the who rationale that the labels are using to argue their case breaks apart at this point and truly their whole reason for existance comes into serious question. If an artist can publish his or her music out on the 'Net and be guaranteed an income from the listeners, why sell out to a label where if you're lucky you get 1% of royalties, locked into contracts, and all the other bullshit that pisses off musicians royally (I come from Austin.. I know this story well).
Really, after the RIAA succeeds, they've only just really lit the fuse to their own demise.
What fascinating times we live in!
As long as it is completely disconnected with any personal info, the compilation of viewing data is definitely worth something and should be sold to the networks so that they can stop making crappy shows that everybody hates.
You're losing your touch, Taco.. Better get some rest.
Re:Will there be any salvagable remains?
on
Mir Deathwatch
·
· Score: 1
Well, maybe the engineers will screw up and the Mir will land smack dab in the middle of LA. That would be cool. We could like build a little park around the blast crater and it could be a tourist attraction.
Will there be any salvagable remains?
on
Mir Deathwatch
·
· Score: 1
After the atmosphere is finished with Mir, it's going to be in pretty bad shape. Once it slams into the ocean, it's obviously game over. But surely there will be some remnants that are salvagable? How cool it would be to have a twisted and charred scrap of metal on display at the Smithsonian. Or maybe the pieces will be tiny enough that they could be sold off on Ebay.
Anyway, the Mir is pretty historically significant and I hope that some attempt will be made to salvage what we can of the remains of her.
They're 20% of what a "real" computer is, at 80% the price. There just is no value in these and they're just an extension of the bullshit Larry Ellison spouted out a few years back about the "network being the OS". Maybe in 10 years when everybody is wired up to the net via fiber to their houses but as the situation stands right now, forget it.
I happened to have just worked for a company oriented around selling an "Internet appliance" to the consumer market and there just wasn't a business model that could support it.
This concept is only relevant would the company get some $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to make it happen (and judging by the look of their website, they're far from that). There is a snowflake's chance in hell of funding coming to this company right now and in the near and far future. I'm surprised Taco didn't post this. Perhaps because the airplanes don't run Liinux?
As fond as I am of the Internet, I do miss BBS'ing.. There was much more possibility in forming a real social circle around the BBS. There were several in Austin that were quite popular, one in particular being After Hours BBS, a MBBS chat system. Once a week, we'd always have "Happy Hour" and everyone would get together at a local pizza place or something and we'd all drink beer, shoot pool, and compete for the attention of the 2 or 3 females that would show up (BBS'ing was pretty male dominated!!)..
If you don't think good programming = good engineering then I'd advise you to please remove yourself from our industry because its hard enough getting good work done in the first place, without having to deal with attitudes like that. Either that, or perhaps you'll be promoted to management sometime real soon.
There's an almost infinite supply of stupid ideas out there and wasted money and it drives us serious engineers and scientists completely crazy. Here we are giving ourselves brain damage in the name of computer science while at the same time battling the political forces of Bullshit MegaCorp so as to keep drawing that necessary evil, the paycheck, all while at the same time across the hallway a group of complete morons have succeeded in drawing out tens of millions of dollars for a project of which the quality is somewhere along the same level as a bowl of runny shit.
Welp, party's over folks. Those were a nice few years, when just about any hack who knew how to type could get a job as a computer-whatever-engineer with billions in stock options and everybody would get rich and we'd all party till dawn etc etc...
Reality sucks, don't it? What will we do with all the junior VB developers, now? I guess they'll have to go back to working at Wal-Mart. Or maybe take state jobs.:-/
Now *this* is an internet appliance as it should be. I was at first skeptical, expecting that there would be a >$1.5k price tag attached to this 'rather small' TV. But I am quite pleased to see a $899 price on it.
I'd like to see what sort of price for similar features but on a 60" model.
BTW... ain't Linux just *cuuuuuuuuuuute* all dolled up like that?:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Look, I live in LA. And there is a distinct possibility that I work for a Major Entertainment Company and am very much involved (as everyone is here in LA) in "the scene". The Matrix is just as much formulaic high-budget high-touch mass-marketed Hollywood crap whitebread junk food as anything else out there. What made it cool was that there was some particuarly good talent behind the special effects, direction, and choreography(sp?).. For those of us actually involved in the "scene" over here, and consider ourselves intelligent ;-), we must by religious doctrine chastise and hate anything that the major studios churn out (with rare exceptions).
When I see a movie, I really want to be taken to another world.. I want to walk of out the theater in a reflective and somber state. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was an action flick, but it also was a dreamy wonderful escapistic experience that really left you with "something".
Okay, so now that I've done my ritualistic Hollywood rant against the movie industry, let me please elaborate on my rant against the philosophy, or rather lack of, in The Matrix.
"What if it is true? What if we really ARE programs running inside some big ingenious artificial reality? Hey, what if that artificial reality is controlled by programs that are in ANOTHER artificial reality? What if C-A-T spelled DOG???"
This is not thinking. This is ignorant crap.
Thank you for your time. -Azzy
We still have printed and physical works and we always will. The Internet has many books written about it and historians will undoubtedly be writing nostalgic recounts of the Internet age in another 50 years or so..
Even if it is all digital vapor that will vanish from existance someday, let's remember that many ancient civilizations left very little behind but their ruins and a few clues as to who they are yet we always seek to understand and put the pieces of the puzzle together to try and picture the life and times of our ancient ancestors.
Besides, in 100 years, everyone alive today will be dead so who cares if The First Web Page(tm) is preserved and enshrined for eternity.
The answer to this for security conscious organizations is SecureID. See http://www.rsasecurity.com/ for more info.
It's good to hear that they are indeed open sourcing some of their projects.
But I'm not a troll and you hurt my feelings and I demand you apologize you meanie.
Apple is downplaying the release of OS X as they work in things like you mention (the DVD and CD burning issues) and wait for the vendors to catch up with OS X versions of their software. I've heard tell that the real market push will start later this summer or fall.
In fact, if you buy a Mac today, it will still come with OS 9 installed.
IMHO, Apple, to the very core of their consciousness, will never open-source anything. Microsoft will open source stuff before Apple does.
You DO remember what happened when they tried to crack the door open for Mac clones, right? They freaked and slammed it shut, is what. OHCP?? Dead. Apple can't handle it. They need 100% control of their software as well as their hardware.
Does Apple still even OWN Hypercard or has it been spun off?
Hypercard is truly a legacy application. Filemaker Pro is a much better solution, imho.
Apple has made their position on this clear. OS X is a very necessary evolutionary step for the company to take and the Mac advocates have been waiting this for YEARS. I bailed after Apple flaked out on Copeland and then Rapsody some years back, and I'm very happy to hear that they've finally gotten their shit together and done so in spades.
I digress... Anyway, Apple has made their position clear on legacy apps, of which Hypercard is definitely one regardless of its fan base. Dual-boot with System 9.
And won't there be some System 9 emulation built into OS X ala WINE, WinVM, et al? And if there isn't, won't it be coming out real soon?
(Pretty ignorant on all the details on OS X.. )
I started my career in Filemaker.. Left it behind years ago as I evolved into the land of Oracle and three tier web app development.
However, I'm starting my own business and needed to put together a database system quickly for handling basic business needs. I didn't have the time to do use the tools I use for my day job, so I turned to MS Access thinking that this would be somewhat as easy to use as Filemaker was. Boy was I dead wrong and it didn't take me long to figure it out! Actually, Access is more complicated than Oracle and Developer/2000 (imho). What a bloated (and extremely buggy) piece of shit that was! I ran screaming.
So, once again, I am now using Filemaker. I left it back when version 3 came out and it got that 'relational' featureset. Version 5 is whats available now and I'm surprised how LITTLE the ol' cutie has changed. They added some web support and a very light ODBC connectivity features, (neither of which I will ever use) but everything else is pretty much exactly the same. How strange, in these days and times, that a commercial product continues to exist in a relatively unchanged form for over 5 years.
Same story with Hypercard. I used that back in the days of the Mac Plus. I can't believe it's still around, but I am pleased to hear that it is.
I was your typical nerdy sensitive kid and of course went through that whole "I want to kill myself" phase. I remember one day that somehow my suicidal fantasies got out and I was in class and the teacher asked me some question and one of the bullies piped up and said "don't ask him, he'll kill himself!" and everybody, including the teacher, had a great laugh at my expense.
Life in public schools was vicious and cruel back then and its gotten worse now. The administrators operate the schools almost like prisons now. My teenage step-daughter -- she tells me how they basically lock all the doors except for one which is guarded during lunch time. They literally draw those metal curtains across areas outside of the cafeteria to herd the kids together.
It's getting so weird. No, video games are certainly not to blame and we all know that. I find these acts of random violence completely staggering and incomprehensible, yet at the same time, remembering how I felt back in those troubled days of teenage youth, I think I can identify and understand where these kids that do these things are at mentally and emotionally.
How ridiculous.
Very cool and clever idea. Now small businesses can promote their sites without having to invest mega-$$$$ for the traditional "banner ad".
Face it: Eventually the RIAA will lock down MP3 file trading. There's simply too much money riding on this for them to let up until victory has been achieved. Yes, big bad evil corporate America will pervail. But I believe there's a silver lining to this cloud: The basic problem set that they're trying to solve (and everyone else is) is how to tie a digital chunk of data without question to an owner so as to reserve intellectual property rights. Once this is solved, much like CDDB, there will be a uniform technology for linking most MP3's (lets just talk about MP3s here.. but this will be pervasive) to an artist and the label. Put a business model behind this like along the lines of ASCAP and hopefully the end results will be that if Joe Smith downloads stupid_song.mp3 from whereever, some sort of micropayment will occur to the label much like what happens when a song is played on the radio. But see, whats great is that the who rationale that the labels are using to argue their case breaks apart at this point and truly their whole reason for existance comes into serious question. If an artist can publish his or her music out on the 'Net and be guaranteed an income from the listeners, why sell out to a label where if you're lucky you get 1% of royalties, locked into contracts, and all the other bullshit that pisses off musicians royally (I come from Austin.. I know this story well). Really, after the RIAA succeeds, they've only just really lit the fuse to their own demise. What fascinating times we live in!
HTH HAND
Since when is The Simpsons a Warner Bros 'toon? It's Fox.
You're losing your touch, Taco.. Better get some rest.
Well, maybe the engineers will screw up and the Mir will land smack dab in the middle of LA. That would be cool. We could like build a little park around the blast crater and it could be a tourist attraction.
Anyway, the Mir is pretty historically significant and I hope that some attempt will be made to salvage what we can of the remains of her.
I happened to have just worked for a company oriented around selling an "Internet appliance" to the consumer market and there just wasn't a business model that could support it.
This concept is only relevant would the company get some $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to make it happen (and judging by the look of their website, they're far from that). There is a snowflake's chance in hell of funding coming to this company right now and in the near and far future. I'm surprised Taco didn't post this. Perhaps because the airplanes don't run Liinux?
As fond as I am of the Internet, I do miss BBS'ing.. There was much more possibility in forming a real social circle around the BBS. There were several in Austin that were quite popular, one in particular being After Hours BBS, a MBBS chat system. Once a week, we'd always have "Happy Hour" and everyone would get together at a local pizza place or something and we'd all drink beer, shoot pool, and compete for the attention of the 2 or 3 females that would show up (BBS'ing was pretty male dominated!!)..
:-)
Ah, those were the good ol' days..
They had this functionality in WWIV from very early on (~85??) IIRC
If you don't think good programming = good engineering then I'd advise you to please remove yourself from our industry because its hard enough getting good work done in the first place, without having to deal with attitudes like that. Either that, or perhaps you'll be promoted to management sometime real soon.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Reality sucks, don't it? What will we do with all the junior VB developers, now? I guess they'll have to go back to working at Wal-Mart. Or maybe take state jobs. :-/
I'd like to see what sort of price for similar features but on a 60" model.
BTW... ain't Linux just *cuuuuuuuuuuute* all dolled up like that? :-)