In the open source world, programming ability is king. If you're a hot coder, you're desired and you can be seen as a philanthropist by developing free software.
However, when it comes to interface design, usability, documentation, and any of the 101 other skills related to developing applications, there just isn't the same level of acceptance.
How many open source apps have good documentation, easy to use interfaces, and professional Web sites? One or two.
There's some darn fine software out there (Apache comes to mind) but where is the demand for good documentation, design, art, QA people in the open source world?
I think that those few writers, artists, and interface people working on open source projects are extremely underrated and aren't getting the credit they deserve.. while someone who comes up with a clever hack in C++ gets their name in lights.
The market frowns on Sun's 'monopoly potential'
on
Sun vs. OpenBSD?
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· Score: 2, Troll
We all have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft (okay, mostly a 'hate' one for Slashdotters) but at least they don't control the architecture, OS, and CPU for the Windows platform.
Sun even go beyond Apple's level of control, since IBM/Motorola develop the CPUs there, so that documentation is somewhat easier to get.
Sun has the potential to be the biggest monopoly of all the big technology companies, yet their products are rapidly losing market share. Why? I think companies these days don't like buying into closed architectures. So I think open source supporters should stop calling for companies blood, and instead let the market decide who's best.
Remember, Microsoft were popular in the 80s exactly for their open architecture.
In 1991's "Challenges and Strategy" memo, Bill Gates said, Our applications have always succeeded based on their own merit rather than on some benefit of unfair knowledge of system software. We need to explain our hardware neutral approach and the benefits that has generated for end users. We need to have visible events on a regular basis where we solicit the input of anyone who wants to influence our future direction. If we can institutionalize a process that the world feels comfortable with, we will strengthen our position incredibly. This is going to require a lot more creativity than even the "Open Forums" we are discussing. UNIX has OSF and X/Open -- we also need clear ways for organizations of all types (hardware, ISV, IHV, corporation, universities) to feel like they have something invested in our approach and can affect our course.
Do you see Sun being open? No. So, again I say, let the market decide. It's no wonder that open source is becoming the next big thing in corporate land.
Re:Comparing Gas Prices
on
239 MPG Car
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· Score: 2
You list 0,87/L as you price. Not sure where you are, but in the UK petrol is approx. 74p per litre, which is 1,18 .
RFIDs on clothing? Wouldnt that make it easier for the people to steal stuff if the cashier element was eliminated? So cashiers will logically have to be turned into security guards in order to watch you. So stores become more intrusive in spying on you.
No. You'd have a regular register set up for people who want to pay cash, and for those with an approved credit card, they can walk through a lane with a barrier, and as soon as it validates you, it lets you out.
Back in the 80s you could buy a cellphone and then by using a scanner, could tune into the frequency used by the phone to intercept calls. If you were really clever, and had the right *cough* 'dodgy' software you could send control messages to the phone to activate the mouthpiece, so you can literally tap people.
Cellphones were new, and people just wanted them for the coolness/convenience factor and didn't realize the security ramifications.
In the corporate world there's a certain apathy to hackers. Many execs think.. 'No hacker would be interested in our data, it's just boring business stuff'. That may be so, but when the cops are sniffing your CEO downloading kiddy porn and some script kiddie has just deleted all of your mail, you will think again.
Wireless networks are similar to cellphones in this regard. Companies think they're cool and convenient, so they're hopping on the bandwagon.
So, we need to do what they did with cellphones. Digitally modulate the data over the wireless network and encrypt it within the hardware. Waiting for people to install their own security systems is futile. The manufacturers should make wireless devices encrypt on the fly, just like cellphones do.
This will benefit most companies, since they can dabble in inside trading, downloading warez, etc, and the Feds won't be able to track it, so it benefits everyone really.
Did anyone else notice that if you look in the 'Related Links' box above that the first link 'Find programmers blah blah' is actually an ad? Banner ads are one thing, text ads are another thing, but text ads masquerading as useful content? Slashdot, you have overstepped the line!!
This reminds me of the case of MS against numerous local double-glazing companies (formerly known as 'Colorado Windows', 'Joe's Windows' and 'Windows Windows Windows').
The outcome of that case actually resulted in a proposal to Merriam-Webster to introduce a new alternative spelling of 'window' to 'whindow'. The M-W took up the offer as they like to change any words possible from British English for superiority reasons.. so now if you look it up, you'll see 'whindow' listed there.
I took one of those pictures of Natalie Portman topless on the beach, enlarged it to 50,000 by 50,000 pixels, and I spend my days nestled about 3,000 pixels into her left nipple. It's a really nice place.
$1000 and $50 a month is NOT cheap. I couldn't afford that to keep track of my car.
The thing is, most people don't need to keep track of their cars. Even fleet managers don't NEED to keep track of their cars. You can get remote immobilisers that use pagers so you can call them up and the car is immobilised.
If someone steals you car, call the immobiliser and stop them in their tracks rather than chase them across the state on your map.
I survived a whole 4 months on my 56k beating LPBs in Return to Castle Wolfenstein after it came out. This is mainly because RTCW is a game of knowledge and strategy, and not 'guns ablazing'.. and some people really suck at remembering the maps or coming up with strategies.
After a few months, unfortunately, playing on 56k became extremely slow.. especially since many of the servers started getting into 32 and 64 player matches. So I had to quit.. but those were fun times. Fun times.
Okay, fair enough, I didn't see the bit about it keeping the data on there using an external power supply.. but..
Most Slashdotters are the type who leave their PCs on 24/7 anyway, and run relatively stable operating systems. And if the power cuts out, you're going to lose the RAM drive anyway.
I can see the use of this RAM drive in video setups or on DVD encoding/production desks, but for regular Joe (or even a Slashdot user)? No.
What's the point of this? You can already create RAM drives using the memory you have in your machine. You don't need a dedicated unit to do it. Heck, I could create meagre RAM drives on my 640KB Amstrad PC1640 (8086).
Why not just fit your PC out with 4GB of fast DDR RAM and do it that way? That memory would be far cheaper than this card.
Since Quake 1 I've always used the right mouse button as 'forward' since it was the most popular method at the time.. but nowadays people tend to use W as forwards, and right mouse as secondary weapon.
I'm guessing Doom 3 won't have secondary weapons, so the right mouse forward thing can come back.
Good, cuz I tried playing Quake 3 using W as forwards and I couldn't get it.
lbs (pounds) are a measure of weight. kgs are a measure of mass, although we use them as a measure of weight for convenience.
Mass is a measurement of the amount of matter something contains, while Weight is the measurement of the pull of gravity on an object.
Therefore, you cannot measure the weight of the ISS in pounds, since the force of gravity exerted upon it is miniscule.. so it doesn't really weigh 200,000 lbs.. it just has a mass of the kilogram equivalent of 200,000 lbs!
The ISS would only weight 200,000 lbs if it were on Earth... but it can be 90,909 kgs in space or on Earth since kgs is a measurement of mass not weight!
TheTechReport are talking total arse
on
LCD Round-up
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· Score: 2
Viewing angle - When viewed from the side, above, or below, images on LCD monitors become noticeably darker, and colors start to get washed out.
Bullshit. The colors on my 16" Sharp LT-1620 do not look any different from even a 80 degree angle looking onto it. If you buy a cheap TFT with no anti-glare and giant bevels (as all these seem to have) then you get what you pay for.
My Sharp was about $700 for 16", and I got what I paid for. Quality.
Stretching requires interpolation, which inevitably degrades image quality, especially noticeable when displaying text. (CRTs, by contrast, are capable of syncing to multiple scan modes and showing multiple resolutions natively.)
Again, I call bullshit. CRTs are made up of many round phosphors just like TFTs are made up of many square pixels. A CRT has a native resolution just like a TFT, except it's a bit higher, and because the pixels are softer and more rounded, you don't notice the effects of scaling so much.
That said, my Sharp scales superbly, and even has a feature to adjust the amount of scaling, and how 'fuzzy' it is. I can get non-native resolutions looking excellent. Again.. this is not something you can do on cheap TFTs.
Their thoughts on 'color resolution' are also mostly BS too.
And why did they pick a whole bunch of TFTs that suck? Not a single screen there has a 25ms response time, VGA *AND* DVI input, and a resolution of 1280x1024. It's either one or the other it seems.
My Sharp has all of those features, as well as anti-glare.
Don't blame the theaters for ticket prices. They break even on admission. They make virtually all of their profits on food
Damn, well they make nothing out of me anymore then.
Cinema admission is about $8 here. Small popcorn is $4.50, a drink is another $2.50 easy. $15 to go see a movie is a pain in the ass, IMHO. But I enjoy it too much.. so..
I now bottle my own cola at home and hide it in my jacket pocket, and go buy a McDonald's hamburger before getting to the cinema so I feel full, and the candy stand doesn't interest me.
I save $7 per trip and I get better cola while I'm at it.
Does ne1 have the right to expect average living?
on
Generation Wrecked
·
· Score: 2
I think a lot of the people responding to this article are missing the main point in that there are less jobs available today than even twenty years ago.
The majority of the jobs available now are $6/hour working at McDonald's. You might say.. you gotta take whatever job you can get.. but $6/hour at McDonald's is not even enough to live on what we'd now call a 'bare minimum' of living quality.
Okay, you could move back in with your parents, ditch the girlfriend, and the $6/hour paycheck would be fine.. but don't the skilled members of the generation have the right to be able to get a job (even if it was just $25k per year) so they could live in their own apartment, own a modest car, and be able to live the life of an average 30 year old?
That's the main question, and I'm not arguing it either way.
My opinion is that a lot of this is blown out of proportion, and that most of the whiners are those who want to live in a $1500/month apartment in San Francisco while having two gay lovers on the side.
Forget that shit. You can rent an apartment in somewhere nice, but cheap, for like $300/month sometimes. If you can find a job in Wisconsin, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Missouri, or the Deep South, that pays at least $20k, you can live like a king.
As a long-time webblogger myself, I'd have to say that most of these weblogging books are total bullshit. There should be only one of these books.. 'Weblogging for Dummies' and that's it.
They're mostly dull simplistic guides to posting your thoughts and feelings on the Web. Big deal. They're as useful as the classics, 'How to write a diary' or 'How to read a book'.
The only book worth its salt, IMHO, is We:Blog, since it covers the commercial and emerging angle of weblogs in being used with commercial situations. But books for personal bloggers? A waste of time. Really.
Whoa, what a coincidence. I read this story and then I heard an interview with the people actually producing this hardware on the radio. I have digital radio so I recorded it and put it on my site as a 16kbps MP3. It's only 160k. Here you go:
Slashdot Mirror
In the open source world, programming ability is king. If you're a hot coder, you're desired and you can be seen as a philanthropist by developing free software.
However, when it comes to interface design, usability, documentation, and any of the 101 other skills related to developing applications, there just isn't the same level of acceptance.
How many open source apps have good documentation, easy to use interfaces, and professional Web sites? One or two.
There's some darn fine software out there (Apache comes to mind) but where is the demand for good documentation, design, art, QA people in the open source world?
I think that those few writers, artists, and interface people working on open source projects are extremely underrated and aren't getting the credit they deserve.. while someone who comes up with a clever hack in C++ gets their name in lights.
We all have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft (okay, mostly a 'hate' one for Slashdotters) but at least they don't control the architecture, OS, and CPU for the Windows platform.
Sun even go beyond Apple's level of control, since IBM/Motorola develop the CPUs there, so that documentation is somewhat easier to get.
Sun has the potential to be the biggest monopoly of all the big technology companies, yet their products are rapidly losing market share. Why? I think companies these days don't like buying into closed architectures. So I think open source supporters should stop calling for companies blood, and instead let the market decide who's best.
Remember, Microsoft were popular in the 80s exactly for their open architecture.
In 1991's "Challenges and Strategy" memo, Bill Gates said, Our applications have always succeeded based on their own merit rather than on some benefit of unfair knowledge of system software. We need to explain our hardware neutral approach and the benefits that has generated for end users. We need to have visible events on a regular basis where we solicit the input of anyone who wants to influence our future direction. If we can institutionalize a process that the world feels comfortable with, we will strengthen our position incredibly. This is going to require a lot more creativity than even the "Open Forums" we are discussing. UNIX has OSF and X/Open -- we also need clear ways for organizations of all types (hardware, ISV, IHV, corporation, universities) to feel like they have something invested in our approach and can affect our course.
Do you see Sun being open? No. So, again I say, let the market decide. It's no wonder that open source is becoming the next big thing in corporate land.
You list 0,87 /L as you price. Not sure where you are, but in the UK petrol is approx. 74p per litre, which is 1,18 .
Where this in-joke about Russia of Soviet I'm really intrigued where came from it did.
Other than sounding like the ever-annoying Yoda.. where this came from did it?
RFIDs on clothing? Wouldnt that make it easier for the people to steal stuff if the cashier element was eliminated? So cashiers will logically have to be turned into security guards in order to watch you. So stores become more intrusive in spying on you.
No. You'd have a regular register set up for people who want to pay cash, and for those with an approved credit card, they can walk through a lane with a barrier, and as soon as it validates you, it lets you out.
Back in the 80s you could buy a cellphone and then by using a scanner, could tune into the frequency used by the phone to intercept calls. If you were really clever, and had the right *cough* 'dodgy' software you could send control messages to the phone to activate the mouthpiece, so you can literally tap people.
Cellphones were new, and people just wanted them for the coolness/convenience factor and didn't realize the security ramifications.
In the corporate world there's a certain apathy to hackers. Many execs think.. 'No hacker would be interested in our data, it's just boring business stuff'. That may be so, but when the cops are sniffing your CEO downloading kiddy porn and some script kiddie has just deleted all of your mail, you will think again.
Wireless networks are similar to cellphones in this regard. Companies think they're cool and convenient, so they're hopping on the bandwagon.
So, we need to do what they did with cellphones. Digitally modulate the data over the wireless network and encrypt it within the hardware. Waiting for people to install their own security systems is futile. The manufacturers should make wireless devices encrypt on the fly, just like cellphones do.
This will benefit most companies, since they can dabble in inside trading, downloading warez, etc, and the Feds won't be able to track it, so it benefits everyone really.
Did anyone else notice that if you look in the 'Related Links' box above that the first link 'Find programmers blah blah' is actually an ad? Banner ads are one thing, text ads are another thing, but text ads masquerading as useful content? Slashdot, you have overstepped the line!!
Yours Angrily,
Some Idiot
.. we are very happy to see you Dallas-producing Westerners are coming around to the benefits of the communist way of distributing software!
So I guess Slashdot was the first thing you ever read then?
This reminds me of the case of MS against numerous local double-glazing companies (formerly known as 'Colorado Windows', 'Joe's Windows' and 'Windows Windows Windows').
The outcome of that case actually resulted in a proposal to Merriam-Webster to introduce a new alternative spelling of 'window' to 'whindow'. The M-W took up the offer as they like to change any words possible from British English for superiority reasons.. so now if you look it up, you'll see 'whindow' listed there.
I took one of those pictures of Natalie Portman topless on the beach, enlarged it to 50,000 by 50,000 pixels, and I spend my days nestled about 3,000 pixels into her left nipple. It's a really nice place.
$1000 and $50 a month is NOT cheap. I couldn't afford that to keep track of my car.
The thing is, most people don't need to keep track of their cars. Even fleet managers don't NEED to keep track of their cars. You can get remote immobilisers that use pagers so you can call them up and the car is immobilised.
If someone steals you car, call the immobiliser and stop them in their tracks rather than chase them across the state on your map.
I survived a whole 4 months on my 56k beating LPBs in Return to Castle Wolfenstein after it came out. This is mainly because RTCW is a game of knowledge and strategy, and not 'guns ablazing'.. and some people really suck at remembering the maps or coming up with strategies.
After a few months, unfortunately, playing on 56k became extremely slow.. especially since many of the servers started getting into 32 and 64 player matches. So I had to quit.. but those were fun times. Fun times.
Okay, fair enough, I didn't see the bit about it keeping the data on there using an external power supply.. but..
Most Slashdotters are the type who leave their PCs on 24/7 anyway, and run relatively stable operating systems. And if the power cuts out, you're going to lose the RAM drive anyway.
I can see the use of this RAM drive in video setups or on DVD encoding/production desks, but for regular Joe (or even a Slashdot user)? No.
What's the point of this? You can already create RAM drives using the memory you have in your machine. You don't need a dedicated unit to do it. Heck, I could create meagre RAM drives on my 640KB Amstrad PC1640 (8086).
Why not just fit your PC out with 4GB of fast DDR RAM and do it that way? That memory would be far cheaper than this card.
Wow. That's pretty kickass.
Since Quake 1 I've always used the right mouse button as 'forward' since it was the most popular method at the time.. but nowadays people tend to use W as forwards, and right mouse as secondary weapon.
I'm guessing Doom 3 won't have secondary weapons, so the right mouse forward thing can come back.
Good, cuz I tried playing Quake 3 using W as forwards and I couldn't get it.
lbs (pounds) are a measure of weight. kgs are a measure of mass, although we use them as a measure of weight for convenience.
Mass is a measurement of the amount of matter something contains, while Weight is the measurement of the pull of gravity on an object.
Therefore, you cannot measure the weight of the ISS in pounds, since the force of gravity exerted upon it is miniscule.. so it doesn't really weigh 200,000 lbs.. it just has a mass of the kilogram equivalent of 200,000 lbs!
The ISS would only weight 200,000 lbs if it were on Earth... but it can be 90,909 kgs in space or on Earth since kgs is a measurement of mass not weight!
Viewing angle - When viewed from the side, above, or below, images on LCD monitors become noticeably darker, and colors start to get washed out.
Bullshit. The colors on my 16" Sharp LT-1620 do not look any different from even a 80 degree angle looking onto it. If you buy a cheap TFT with no anti-glare and giant bevels (as all these seem to have) then you get what you pay for.
My Sharp was about $700 for 16", and I got what I paid for. Quality.
Stretching requires interpolation, which inevitably degrades image quality, especially noticeable when displaying text. (CRTs, by contrast, are capable of syncing to multiple scan modes and showing multiple resolutions natively.)
Again, I call bullshit. CRTs are made up of many round phosphors just like TFTs are made up of many square pixels. A CRT has a native resolution just like a TFT, except it's a bit higher, and because the pixels are softer and more rounded, you don't notice the effects of scaling so much.
That said, my Sharp scales superbly, and even has a feature to adjust the amount of scaling, and how 'fuzzy' it is. I can get non-native resolutions looking excellent. Again.. this is not something you can do on cheap TFTs.
Their thoughts on 'color resolution' are also mostly BS too.
And why did they pick a whole bunch of TFTs that suck? Not a single screen there has a 25ms response time, VGA *AND* DVI input, and a resolution of 1280x1024. It's either one or the other it seems.
My Sharp has all of those features, as well as anti-glare.
Get out of the review business.
Don't blame the theaters for ticket prices. They break even on admission. They make virtually all of their profits on food
Damn, well they make nothing out of me anymore then.
Cinema admission is about $8 here. Small popcorn is $4.50, a drink is another $2.50 easy. $15 to go see a movie is a pain in the ass, IMHO. But I enjoy it too much.. so..
I now bottle my own cola at home and hide it in my jacket pocket, and go buy a McDonald's hamburger before getting to the cinema so I feel full, and the candy stand doesn't interest me.
I save $7 per trip and I get better cola while I'm at it.
I think a lot of the people responding to this article are missing the main point in that there are less jobs available today than even twenty years ago.
The majority of the jobs available now are $6/hour working at McDonald's. You might say.. you gotta take whatever job you can get.. but $6/hour at McDonald's is not even enough to live on what we'd now call a 'bare minimum' of living quality.
Okay, you could move back in with your parents, ditch the girlfriend, and the $6/hour paycheck would be fine.. but don't the skilled members of the generation have the right to be able to get a job (even if it was just $25k per year) so they could live in their own apartment, own a modest car, and be able to live the life of an average 30 year old?
That's the main question, and I'm not arguing it either way.
My opinion is that a lot of this is blown out of proportion, and that most of the whiners are those who want to live in a $1500/month apartment in San Francisco while having two gay lovers on the side.
Forget that shit. You can rent an apartment in somewhere nice, but cheap, for like $300/month sometimes. If you can find a job in Wisconsin, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Missouri, or the Deep South, that pays at least $20k, you can live like a king.
I stayed 9 months in that job, hated it, and quit.
I now live on a reasonably small percentage of that same wage and have a higher quality of life.
It's not always about the money.
As a long-time webblogger myself, I'd have to say that most of these weblogging books are total bullshit. There should be only one of these books.. 'Weblogging for Dummies' and that's it.
They're mostly dull simplistic guides to posting your thoughts and feelings on the Web. Big deal. They're as useful as the classics, 'How to write a diary' or 'How to read a book'.
The only book worth its salt, IMHO, is We:Blog, since it covers the commercial and emerging angle of weblogs in being used with commercial situations. But books for personal bloggers? A waste of time. Really.
By your definition, John Lennon would have been a jackass.
I recorded a bit of it. Enjoy. It's about 200k mp3.
http://www.boog.co.uk/media/barabasiinterview.mp3
Whoa, what a coincidence. I read this story and then I heard an interview with the people actually producing this hardware on the radio. I have digital radio so I recorded it and put it on my site as a 16kbps MP3. It's only 160k. Here you go:
http://www.boog.co.uk/media/wireless-oil.mp3