While i realise that it wasn't a tacticle UI per se, I was inpressed with the computer interface in "Minority Report". The way he shuffled documents etc seemed very intuitive.
My one concern with these types of services is the possibility of abuse. Let's say, for example, that you're running away from an abusive spouse/parent/stalker etc. Chances are good you don't want them to find you. Yet these services, while wholly useful for looking up innocently forgotten phone numbers, make it that much easier for you to be located.
I love these services, but there is a big potential for abuse.
Let's face a few things here: 1) We all have a thousand pieces of ID registered to us anyway. Licences, Health Cards, Credit Cards, Bank Cards, Video Rental cards, and everything are. Consolodation would be convenient in terms of reducing the clutter in our wallets
2) If the government really wants to track you, they will. Your ownership of a specific card won't make it that much easier.
3) Much of the argument here is slippery slope "they could store excessive personal info on here and use this to spy on us!". Don't argue what they *might* do, argue about what they *are* doing!
It's not enough that every DVD now comes in the regular, extended, driector's, special, collectors and ultimate editions (each released two weeks after you bought the last version), now they are going to create a new format with another 6 versions (inevitably)?
Taken from the article, the number of users, in millions, of each service is: AOL: 34+24 =58 MSN: 29 Yahoo: 20 ICQ: 8
My experience, just with my friends and peers would indicate quite different numbers. I have found MSN and ICQ dominate by far, wth AOL far behind, and I don't even know anyone who uses Yahoo Messenger. What have other Slashdotters found? Do I just have friends who don't know the coolest IM, or are the article's numbers for AOL/Yahoo really inflated?
If you rip your MP3s with either iTunes or SoundJam (no longer exists as it was bought out and made into iTunes), it stores the CD info in some way such that you can fill it in from CDDB later. Works great for mobile people who rip on the plane, say, then fill in the info later on.
I would agree with this assessment if Apple would offer portions of.Mac at lower costs (or free). I, like the author of the original parent to this, only use the mac.com email. While $100/yr may not be too much for 15MB email, 100MB storage, anti-virus software, backup software, web page hosting, syncing calendars, phones etc, $100/yr is too expensive for those of us who just want a 5MB (I don't even need this much email space since I use POP) POP/IMAP account. That's ALL I use from iTools now, and I would pay something to maintain this, but not $100/yr.
Additionally, he was disputing Apple's initial claims of "free for life" and then the quick switcheroo to "expensive for life".
I want an email address that stays the same regardless of my ISP or location, and can be checked from the we, but I don't want to pay for all those other feaures which I will not use.
I realise nobody at Apple with the power to change policy will ever read this (and in fact teve Jobs may the ONLY person with power to change policy, anyway, I have an alternate suggestion:
Offer multiple levels of.mac. For example, I only use my mac.com email. I have Norton AntiVirus, and don't need Virex. I have Retrospect and don't need their backup software. I realistically don't nede 100MB of online space. But I liked having an email address that (I thought) would remain constant despite any switches in ISPs/location etc. That being said, it's not worth $100US per year (with a 50% discount the first year) to have just an email account (and I don't need 15MB of email store either BTW).
So, I say Apple should offer "lite" versions of these services for free or reduced fees. ie: 5MB POP3 email for free, or upgrade to 15MB for $20/year. If you want the iDisk as well, add another $20/year. Or whatever. Point being, I think.Mac should be tiered so if you don't need all its features you can get a subset without forking over $150 Canadian each year.
The reason elevators/car gauges work that way is to allow a safety "buffer" zone. If your tests indicate the elevator can hold 30 people, you say 20, because you *KNOW* you'll be fine. Because i the elevator just happens to fall on the 21st person, guess who the lawyers come after? Te elevator designer. Same thing for people who burn their engine out at 6501 RPM.
It's standard engineering practice to leave a margin of error for safety reasons for things like cars, bridges, elevators etc.
Most of that debris came from copyrighted technologies, yet pretty much anyone could go up and use the debris. Clearly, this is a violation of the RIAA's and MPAA's rights. Let's just get them to sue the debris into submission. Hell, this is practically a P2P sharing system (one person buys the technologies, everyone has access to it without extra cost).
Well, but just wait until the cell-hone-enabled stock trading games emerge. Just think, all the excitement of losing everything you're worth, without all that icky having to line up for soup kitchens thing!
Wonderful! Now, not only do we have people yakking all day walking down the street on their phones, they're alsso playing Pokemon! Just when you thought big-city life couldn't get more annoying, comes the daily squeek of "Pikachu!" from a hundred thousand cell phones!!
There have been a bunch of posts about how it would be inconvenient to have the phone ring at certain times.
Why does everyone assume you couldn't turn t off. Perhaps a remote switch, or some small button in an unobtrusive place in your mouth could act as an on/off switch. Why assume such a thing wouldn't be included?
If a user buys, reads and immediately resells a book online, and spends a few dollars doing so, I don't understand why that user wouldn't simply go to a library and borrow the book for free.
Well, Apple remember long ago invented a more-robust method of ID'ing files. Every Mac file has a hidden type and creator code-each four characters long, using any ASCII character. The advantage of this (other than having more combinations that a 3-character extension) is that you can have, for example, 5 different JPG files, each opened by a different app. So, if you don't need to open Photoshop (which takes longer to load), you can just load Preview. Easy-peasy.
Of course, with OS X's UNIX underpinnings, extensions are gaining much more importance and dominance. Sigh.
Not positive, but I would guess not. IIRC, there was no real upgrade path from version 3/4 Pro which used the same serial numbers to v 5 Pro, whivh used new ones. So my guess is that other than *possibly* a time-of-purchase rebate (which, if you bought recently, you might well qualify for), there will be no upgrade path.
I thought AOTC was by far a better movie than Spider-man, for all the reasons Jonkatz mentioned as negatives. AOTC gave us story, it gave us insight into history and genealogy and developed what is one of the most multi-faceted stories to grace the silver screen.
I am a huge Spider-man fan, and thoroughly enjoyed the movie; but make no mistake: it was a fun summer movie. AOTC was a revelation of a deep story.
Fun summer movies are fun, but simplicity doesn't necessarily make the best movie. I thought AOTC was well-acted, well-directed and very appropriate. It had a story to tell, filling in the details between the 2-hour video game that was Episode 1 and the two-hour masterpiece that was Episode 4. And I thought it did so admirably.
Spider-man, while a fantastic movie in its own right, seems to me more of a promise of masterpieces to come.
Slashdot Mirror
While i realise that it wasn't a tacticle UI per se, I was inpressed with the computer interface in "Minority Report". The way he shuffled documents etc seemed very intuitive.
My one concern with these types of services is the possibility of abuse. Let's say, for example, that you're running away from an abusive spouse/parent/stalker etc. Chances are good you don't want them to find you. Yet these services, while wholly useful for looking up innocently forgotten phone numbers, make it that much easier for you to be located.
I love these services, but there is a big potential for abuse.
It also has a reverse lookup, so if you have someone's phone number, it gives your their name and address.
www.infospace.com provides the same service for the States. In fact, I believe InfoSpace is the enginer behind 411.ca
Let's face a few things here:
1) We all have a thousand pieces of ID registered to us anyway. Licences, Health Cards, Credit Cards, Bank Cards, Video Rental cards, and everything are. Consolodation would be convenient in terms of reducing the clutter in our wallets
2) If the government really wants to track you, they will. Your ownership of a specific card won't make it that much easier.
3) Much of the argument here is slippery slope "they could store excessive personal info on here and use this to spy on us!". Don't argue what they *might* do, argue about what they *are* doing!
It's not enough that every DVD now comes in the regular, extended, driector's, special, collectors and ultimate editions (each released two weeks after you bought the last version), now they are going to create a new format with another 6 versions (inevitably)?
How many copies of The Matrix do I really need?
Taken from the article, the number of users, in millions, of each service is:
AOL: 34+24 =58
MSN: 29
Yahoo: 20
ICQ: 8
My experience, just with my friends and peers would indicate quite different numbers. I have found MSN and ICQ dominate by far, wth AOL far behind, and I don't even know anyone who uses Yahoo Messenger. What have other Slashdotters found? Do I just have friends who don't know the coolest IM, or are the article's numbers for AOL/Yahoo really inflated?
Hear that sound? That's the sound of Steve Jobs calling his lawyers!
If you rip your MP3s with either iTunes or SoundJam (no longer exists as it was bought out and made into iTunes), it stores the CD info in some way such that you can fill it in from CDDB later. Works great for mobile people who rip on the plane, say, then fill in the info later on.
I would agree with this assessment if Apple would offer portions of .Mac at lower costs (or free). I, like the author of the original parent to this, only use the mac.com email. While $100/yr may not be too much for 15MB email, 100MB storage, anti-virus software, backup software, web page hosting, syncing calendars, phones etc, $100/yr is too expensive for those of us who just want a 5MB (I don't even need this much email space since I use POP) POP/IMAP account. That's ALL I use from iTools now, and I would pay something to maintain this, but not $100/yr.
Additionally, he was disputing Apple's initial claims of "free for life" and then the quick switcheroo to "expensive for life".
I want an email address that stays the same regardless of my ISP or location, and can be checked from the we, but I don't want to pay for all those other feaures which I will not use.
I realise nobody at Apple with the power to change policy will ever read this (and in fact teve Jobs may the ONLY person with power to change policy, anyway, I have an alternate suggestion:
.mac. For example, I only use my mac.com email. I have Norton AntiVirus, and don't need Virex. I have Retrospect and don't need their backup software. I realistically don't nede 100MB of online space. But I liked having an email address that (I thought) would remain constant despite any switches in ISPs/location etc. That being said, it's not worth $100US per year (with a 50% discount the first year) to have just an email account (and I don't need 15MB of email store either BTW).
.Mac should be tiered so if you don't need all its features you can get a subset without forking over $150 Canadian each year.
Offer multiple levels of
So, I say Apple should offer "lite" versions of these services for free or reduced fees. ie: 5MB POP3 email for free, or upgrade to 15MB for $20/year. If you want the iDisk as well, add another $20/year. Or whatever. Point being, I think
The reason elevators/car gauges work that way is to allow a safety "buffer" zone. If your tests indicate the elevator can hold 30 people, you say 20, because you *KNOW* you'll be fine. Because i the elevator just happens to fall on the 21st person, guess who the lawyers come after? Te elevator designer. Same thing for people who burn their engine out at 6501 RPM.
It's standard engineering practice to leave a margin of error for safety reasons for things like cars, bridges, elevators etc.
Most of that debris came from copyrighted technologies, yet pretty much anyone could go up and use the debris. Clearly, this is a violation of the RIAA's and MPAA's rights. Let's just get them to sue the debris into submission. Hell, this is practically a P2P sharing system (one person buys the technologies, everyone has access to it without extra cost).
Let's have the DMCA do some good for a change!
"Accch! That's my retirement grease!"
-Groundskeeper Willy
Please, those never had any chicken in the anyway!
Well, but just wait until the cell-hone-enabled stock trading games emerge. Just think, all the excitement of losing everything you're worth, without all that icky having to line up for soup kitchens thing!
Wonderful! Now, not only do we have people yakking all day walking down the street on their phones, they're alsso playing Pokemon! Just when you thought big-city life couldn't get more annoying, comes the daily squeek of "Pikachu!" from a hundred thousand cell phones!!
FP BTW
>I was just thinking about that!
>
>(Real Genius, not playing with myself)
Weird. I was just thinking of playing with myself....
There have been a bunch of posts about how it would be inconvenient to have the phone ring at certain times.
Why does everyone assume you couldn't turn t off. Perhaps a remote switch, or some small button in an unobtrusive place in your mouth could act as an on/off switch. Why assume such a thing wouldn't be included?
> ...having spent, in effect, only a few dollars
If a user buys, reads and immediately resells a book online, and spends a few dollars doing so, I don't understand why that user wouldn't simply go to a library and borrow the book for free.
I want Newton-era handwriting recognition. It's been far too long since my PDA interpreted my scrawl as "egg freckles":
Well, Apple remember long ago invented a more-robust method of ID'ing files. Every Mac file has a hidden type and creator code-each four characters long, using any ASCII character. The advantage of this (other than having more combinations that a 3-character extension) is that you can have, for example, 5 different JPG files, each opened by a different app. So, if you don't need to open Photoshop (which takes longer to load), you can just load Preview. Easy-peasy.
Of course, with OS X's UNIX underpinnings, extensions are gaining much more importance and dominance. Sigh.
Not positive, but I would guess not. IIRC, there was no real upgrade path from version 3/4 Pro which used the same serial numbers to v 5 Pro, whivh used new ones. So my guess is that other than *possibly* a time-of-purchase rebate (which, if you bought recently, you might well qualify for), there will be no upgrade path.
Long Live Legend Of The Red Dragon, the best ASCII-RPG ever made!
I guess it's nice that someone's now offering a silent computer, especially given Apple now has a fan in th iMac, and no Cube anymore
I thought AOTC was by far a better movie than Spider-man, for all the reasons Jonkatz mentioned as negatives. AOTC gave us story, it gave us insight into history and genealogy and developed what is one of the most multi-faceted stories to grace the silver screen.
I am a huge Spider-man fan, and thoroughly enjoyed the movie; but make no mistake: it was a fun summer movie. AOTC was a revelation of a deep story.
Fun summer movies are fun, but simplicity doesn't necessarily make the best movie. I thought AOTC was well-acted, well-directed and very appropriate. It had a story to tell, filling in the details between the 2-hour video game that was Episode 1 and the two-hour masterpiece that was Episode 4. And I thought it did so admirably.
Spider-man, while a fantastic movie in its own right, seems to me more of a promise of masterpieces to come.