What's the opposite of "insightful"? More than half the posters here are complaining about nonexistent forms of DRM even though the article is about the absence of DRM.
Unfortunately this sort of uninformed, thoughtless reaction is common in other parts of life too. Like when the governor of Louisiana complained about taxpayer money going to volcano research. As in trying to understand and prepare for major natural disasters. That's a bad idea, Mr. Governor? Really?!?
A pioneer gets an idea out a little sooner than somebody else would have. Or, in fact, the famous pioneer often isn't the first to develop the idea but is the one with the timing or connections to make it popular. As the Adam or Eve of the idea, the pioneer gets to define the flavor that will propagate along with the idea.
For technology, HTML came along with its own set of quirks. If it hadn't then something else like Super Gopher would fill the technological niche with its quirks. And those quirks could have a big effect on the later evolution of technology.
If the population of soft fishes grows and a shark is not around as the big predator then some form of turtle or otter will fill the niche. If Tesla and Einstein don't become famous then Edison and Bohr dominate.
If you think that's easy, try Mac OS X. Find a program, download the disk image, double click to mount it, and double click to run. If you want you can drag the icon to Applications or wherever to "install". Only operating system extensions and big legacy software like Adobe Illustrator use an installation program.
I just spent the last two weeks trying to get some Linux/Unix software to work via apt-get and tarball modes of distribution. Oh let me tell you the joys of hours spent figuring out why a package doesn't want to build, install, or run.
I don't know what you call the Moore's Law of storage capacity, but that's what really makes modern computing better than the 90's. These Mac packages include whatever libraries they need to run -- no shared libraries to mess with where every application wants a different version.
My high school was located in a smallish town that was also home to the state's teaching college and a major medical school. So our teachers were quite good and prepared us for college by giving college-style homework loads (two hours homework per hour lecture). Unfortunately, high school keeps you incarcerated eight hours a day whereas in college you have lecture only two or three hours a day. As a result I was up past midnight most nights and back up around 5:00 AM to finish my work for the next day.
What this all taught me was how to sleep in class and catch just enough to get started on the next homework assignment. I kept this habit through college, and it wasn't until grad school that I had to adjust to staying awake in class (since the content of the lecture was more advanced than the textbook or there was no textbook).
Also, when I was awake I doodled, brainstormed for my projects, or did crosswords.
That's what I thought when I saw the photo on the press release -- a team of nerds pointing at text on a computer screen. When you fire a 192-beam laser capable of igniting a nuclear fusion reaction there ought to be a nice fireball! Or at least a shot of the impressive hardware required to generate that bang. It makes me a little sad that the sign that a big experiment like this or the Hadron Collider is working is a few bits on a remote computer screen.
I agree that blogging about one's own business attempt must have been in part motivated by the chance to drum up more business. And I agree that getting that blog linked on Slashdot is a big boost to the effort. But the story and the data really are interesting (especially the timeline and speed of piracy). So I'll chalk this one up as news and complain about the next such article as a slashvertisement.
Also, I'd like to see this guy's app mentioned on The Colbert Report, the Today Show, and in the New York Times. Then we can compare the Slashdot Effect to the Colbert Bump and traditional media.
There are different kinds of questions to be answered:
1) Where is the nearest restaurant that sells pizza by the slice? 2) How do you make rhubarb crisp? 3) What foods will reduce the risk of cancer?
A question like (1) could be answered by a guy on the street. A question like (2) could be answered by Google. Google could try to answer (1), but it still needs some human processing. A smarter computer should be able to give more a more human-like answer someday: "There's a Domino's down the block, but you should go to a place called Vace another street over if you like authentic Italian pizza."
For question (3), Google can help you find the fraction of existing knowledge that is published on the Web. But actually generating that knowledge still takes human research and reasoning. I wouldn't mind computers getting better at (1) and (2) if it lets humans focus on (3) and higher.
I'll agree that focusing on the big picture can lead to stupid mistakes in the small picture. Community banks have made good traditional decisions and survived while megabanks made enormous mistakes that someone closer to the ground should have realized immediately. But that's probably more a symptom of humans being unprepared for the power of their tools. Our kids who are born with these tools will probably adapt easily to knowing the strengths and weaknesses of them. Or they'll do at least as well as 20th century-ers did with 20th century tools.
To combine the thoughts of posters above, Dune was an incredible movie on it's own. No "oh please" about what's missing or added relative to the book. Consider them two separate works of art. It is campy maybe, but that makes it more lovable.
King Kong was actually surprisingly good, delivering both action and emotion. When I heard it was in the works I thought that was one movie that did not need to be remade, but it turned out worthwhile.
I'll agree somewhat on Lord of the Rings. The first film is the best (as long as you don't demand complete page to scene faithfulness). The others lack feeling in part because they have to jump through so much story so quickly. I personally really like the ending of the final movie, though.
You seem to be a picky book nerd who can't appreciate movies as a separate form of art. Are there any book to movie translations you do approve of?
This resolution will never kick in, will it? The text says:
RESOLVED [...] that as Pluto passes overhead through Illinois' night skies, that it be reestablished with full planetary status....
But Pluto will never be directly overhead in Illinois. The state is too far from the equator to ever get pointed straight at the ecliptic. Or does the tilt of Earth's axis and the inclination of Pluto's orbit really put it overhead of Illinois once in a while? Any astronomy nerds care to calculate when that will happen?
Professional level Starcraft might favor players at the high end of the actions per minute scale. But I find that among casual players clicking is much less important than you think. I know because I'm successful in Starcraft but have very unimpressive twitch reflexes.
The more important abilities are knowing how to grow an economy, scouting an opponent, knowing when to be defensive and when to be offensive, and choosing the right unit for the job. Click speed is crucial only when you're fighting an evenly matched battle and a few extra spells can turn the tide. But a smart player chooses his battles and never engages on even terms unless clicking is his forte.
I believe the most critical resource in Starcraft is attention -- attention to your units, attention to your strategy, attention to your opponent, and attention to your teammates. The ability the absorb and process that information quickly will win you games. Depleting and evading your opponent's attention through distraction and surprise will win you more.
Why does no one care about ISS or a permanent moon base? Are they inherently dullsville, or has the space science community done a lousy job selling itself to the public?
I can't speak for the rest of the public but I can speak for myself. I don't see much space science value in ISS or a manned Moon base. There's some space medicine and space logistics value if you plan to later proceed on to other planets. But I think that's a slow and expensive route to go if the most valuable scientific question to answer is: Does life exist somewhere other than Earth?
You want public excitement for space exploration? Find microbes on Mars. Or find fish swimming around the oceans of Europa. Or find intelligent radio signals from Sagittarius. Or find a habitable planet within a hundred light years of Earth. If I were allocating the budget at NASA I'd rather pour the money into robotic missions for those discoveries rather than putting more footprints and golf balls on the Moon.
Jeff Bezos also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a couple days ago. Jon gave him a hard time about how you have to pay $359 just for the device and another $10 per book (some of which are DRM'ed). Mr. Bezos didn't have a good response.
What I think he should have pointed out is that The Daily Show interviews many authors and it would really be nice to hear about a new book, download it, and start reading it in minutes rather than wait a few days for it to arrive in the mail.
I might have believed your history if you didn't use terms such as "M$" and "sheep^HIT managers". But those childish jabs destroyed your credibility, so I'll take anything you say with a big bag of rock salt.
Wow, that's painful (or hilarious). With a production as big as the Superbowl, I wonder if the autotune was Billy Joel's idea or some producer's. The fact that he was trying to sing with vibrato and smooth transitions makes me think he wasn't prepared for it. I can imagine how distracting it would be to start singing and hear a weird mechanized version blasting from the speakers.
The best or worst autotune I've yet heard was on Colbert Christmas. It was used blatantly throughout all the musical segments and to me it was very distracting. The guests like Willie Nelson can definitely sing without it, so I hope it was just being used ironically.
I loved Racing Destruction Set too - so many hours spent playing. I was reminiscing about trying to play it in a C-64 emulator, but looking at the screenshots I realize that memory and imagination are probably more powerful than the actual bits.
I vaguely remember driving some really weird tracks with terrain types that didn't officially exist in the game. I think that was my first experience with sharing tracks and hacked editors (on Q-Link), many years ago.
I was about to say that your first paragraph is incomprehensible, but then I realized that the second and third paragraphs are too. Are you a Markov chain generator?
Yes, Mac OS X is at 10.5 right now and will next proceed to 10.6. These are major revisions equivalent XP/Vista/7. If you don't like numbers then you can use the cat names: Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard. But if you don't like numbers then I don't know what you'll call the new Windows.
Other than these things... why would anybody upgrade?
You're comparing Windows 7 to Windows Vista, but I don't think that's the upgrade that Microsoft is trying to sell. They're looking to get all the Windows XP (or older) people to accept something new and pay for it. They can't do that with a big service pack for Vista - they need to offer an alternative to Vista. And since that target market doesn't have Vista already, yes they have to pay for a new version rather than just patching XP.
By the way, I'm a happy Mac OS X 10.5 and Linux user. I've never touched Vista or Windows 7. I'm just here for the drama.
If you had four buddies colluding in a 3v3 then you weren't really playing the game, you were just being jerks. If you had three in a 3v3 (all on one team) then it is a valid strategy. But it should never work against non-newbies since the other team should outnumber your SCVs by the time you reach their bases. Or at least the third target should have real defenses and a strong economy by the time you reach him and be able to counter you easily.
Previous economic discussions on Slashdot have included several posts with the sentiment: "I'm choosing to ignore this recession. I still have a job so I'm going to continue as before. The only economic problem we have is psychological."
Are you still so certain that your job will remain when another 5% of your customers are about to become unemployed? Are you still so optimistic that you could easily find a new job with a million other educated and experienced workers back on the job hunt too?
Even if this recession were purely psychological, it has set a wave in motion that will splash around for a while causing layoffs and bankruptcies. If there is a rational basis for the economic shrinkage then it could be even worse. I wonder how long it will take to return to growth and optimism.
The outgoing President loses power at noon. The presidency passes to the eligible successor. Since Obama had not yet taken the oath, he could not begin his presidential term. So for a few minutes we had President Biden, who had already taken the oath before noon and was therefore eligible.
The availability if digital cameras is not news. But the use of a digital camera for a demanding, high-profile portrait does give us a good excuse to reminisce about how far technology has advanced during just one president's time in office.
Before this story, I had forgotten that I didn't buy my first digital camera until 2001 (although I had used a CCD camera for scientific work in 1995). What else is common today that was rare or unimagined in January 2000?
I'll start the discussion with a list: intrusive screening at airports, hybrid cars, iPods, streaming Internet radio, streaming Internet video, HDTV.
I wish him well. As someone who had to retire at age 33 to fight cancer, I know how discouraging it is to have your body spoil what your brain wants to do. But I also found that giving up the full-time job really did improve my health and led to greater productivity in my remaining activities.
Actually, I find this article to be an interesting statement on the culture of Slashdot. Now that we have a place where humor belongs (Idle) and since that place is so dreadful, apparently humor is intolerable on the main page.
I thought it was funny. Perfect material for inconsequential comments on a lazy Sunday in a time of crisis.
Slashdot Mirror
Never.
What's the opposite of "insightful"? More than half the posters here are complaining about nonexistent forms of DRM even though the article is about the absence of DRM.
Unfortunately this sort of uninformed, thoughtless reaction is common in other parts of life too. Like when the governor of Louisiana complained about taxpayer money going to volcano research. As in trying to understand and prepare for major natural disasters. That's a bad idea, Mr. Governor? Really?!?
A pioneer gets an idea out a little sooner than somebody else would have. Or, in fact, the famous pioneer often isn't the first to develop the idea but is the one with the timing or connections to make it popular. As the Adam or Eve of the idea, the pioneer gets to define the flavor that will propagate along with the idea.
For technology, HTML came along with its own set of quirks. If it hadn't then something else like Super Gopher would fill the technological niche with its quirks. And those quirks could have a big effect on the later evolution of technology.
If the population of soft fishes grows and a shark is not around as the big predator then some form of turtle or otter will fill the niche. If Tesla and Einstein don't become famous then Edison and Bohr dominate.
If you think that's easy, try Mac OS X. Find a program, download the disk image, double click to mount it, and double click to run. If you want you can drag the icon to Applications or wherever to "install". Only operating system extensions and big legacy software like Adobe Illustrator use an installation program.
I just spent the last two weeks trying to get some Linux/Unix software to work via apt-get and tarball modes of distribution. Oh let me tell you the joys of hours spent figuring out why a package doesn't want to build, install, or run.
I don't know what you call the Moore's Law of storage capacity, but that's what really makes modern computing better than the 90's. These Mac packages include whatever libraries they need to run -- no shared libraries to mess with where every application wants a different version.
My high school was located in a smallish town that was also home to the state's teaching college and a major medical school. So our teachers were quite good and prepared us for college by giving college-style homework loads (two hours homework per hour lecture). Unfortunately, high school keeps you incarcerated eight hours a day whereas in college you have lecture only two or three hours a day. As a result I was up past midnight most nights and back up around 5:00 AM to finish my work for the next day.
What this all taught me was how to sleep in class and catch just enough to get started on the next homework assignment. I kept this habit through college, and it wasn't until grad school that I had to adjust to staying awake in class (since the content of the lecture was more advanced than the textbook or there was no textbook).
Also, when I was awake I doodled, brainstormed for my projects, or did crosswords.
That's what I thought when I saw the photo on the press release -- a team of nerds pointing at text on a computer screen. When you fire a 192-beam laser capable of igniting a nuclear fusion reaction there ought to be a nice fireball! Or at least a shot of the impressive hardware required to generate that bang. It makes me a little sad that the sign that a big experiment like this or the Hadron Collider is working is a few bits on a remote computer screen.
I agree that blogging about one's own business attempt must have been in part motivated by the chance to drum up more business. And I agree that getting that blog linked on Slashdot is a big boost to the effort. But the story and the data really are interesting (especially the timeline and speed of piracy). So I'll chalk this one up as news and complain about the next such article as a slashvertisement.
Also, I'd like to see this guy's app mentioned on The Colbert Report, the Today Show, and in the New York Times. Then we can compare the Slashdot Effect to the Colbert Bump and traditional media.
There are different kinds of questions to be answered:
1) Where is the nearest restaurant that sells pizza by the slice?
2) How do you make rhubarb crisp?
3) What foods will reduce the risk of cancer?
A question like (1) could be answered by a guy on the street. A question like (2) could be answered by Google. Google could try to answer (1), but it still needs some human processing. A smarter computer should be able to give more a more human-like answer someday: "There's a Domino's down the block, but you should go to a place called Vace another street over if you like authentic Italian pizza."
For question (3), Google can help you find the fraction of existing knowledge that is published on the Web. But actually generating that knowledge still takes human research and reasoning. I wouldn't mind computers getting better at (1) and (2) if it lets humans focus on (3) and higher.
I'll agree that focusing on the big picture can lead to stupid mistakes in the small picture. Community banks have made good traditional decisions and survived while megabanks made enormous mistakes that someone closer to the ground should have realized immediately. But that's probably more a symptom of humans being unprepared for the power of their tools. Our kids who are born with these tools will probably adapt easily to knowing the strengths and weaknesses of them. Or they'll do at least as well as 20th century-ers did with 20th century tools.
To combine the thoughts of posters above, Dune was an incredible movie on it's own. No "oh please" about what's missing or added relative to the book. Consider them two separate works of art. It is campy maybe, but that makes it more lovable.
King Kong was actually surprisingly good, delivering both action and emotion. When I heard it was in the works I thought that was one movie that did not need to be remade, but it turned out worthwhile.
I'll agree somewhat on Lord of the Rings. The first film is the best (as long as you don't demand complete page to scene faithfulness). The others lack feeling in part because they have to jump through so much story so quickly. I personally really like the ending of the final movie, though.
You seem to be a picky book nerd who can't appreciate movies as a separate form of art. Are there any book to movie translations you do approve of?
This resolution will never kick in, will it? The text says:
But Pluto will never be directly overhead in Illinois. The state is too far from the equator to ever get pointed straight at the ecliptic. Or does the tilt of Earth's axis and the inclination of Pluto's orbit really put it overhead of Illinois once in a while? Any astronomy nerds care to calculate when that will happen?
Professional level Starcraft might favor players at the high end of the actions per minute scale. But I find that among casual players clicking is much less important than you think. I know because I'm successful in Starcraft but have very unimpressive twitch reflexes.
The more important abilities are knowing how to grow an economy, scouting an opponent, knowing when to be defensive and when to be offensive, and choosing the right unit for the job. Click speed is crucial only when you're fighting an evenly matched battle and a few extra spells can turn the tide. But a smart player chooses his battles and never engages on even terms unless clicking is his forte.
I believe the most critical resource in Starcraft is attention -- attention to your units, attention to your strategy, attention to your opponent, and attention to your teammates. The ability the absorb and process that information quickly will win you games. Depleting and evading your opponent's attention through distraction and surprise will win you more.
I can't speak for the rest of the public but I can speak for myself. I don't see much space science value in ISS or a manned Moon base. There's some space medicine and space logistics value if you plan to later proceed on to other planets. But I think that's a slow and expensive route to go if the most valuable scientific question to answer is: Does life exist somewhere other than Earth?
You want public excitement for space exploration? Find microbes on Mars. Or find fish swimming around the oceans of Europa. Or find intelligent radio signals from Sagittarius. Or find a habitable planet within a hundred light years of Earth. If I were allocating the budget at NASA I'd rather pour the money into robotic missions for those discoveries rather than putting more footprints and golf balls on the Moon.
Jeff Bezos also appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a couple days ago. Jon gave him a hard time about how you have to pay $359 just for the device and another $10 per book (some of which are DRM'ed). Mr. Bezos didn't have a good response.
What I think he should have pointed out is that The Daily Show interviews many authors and it would really be nice to hear about a new book, download it, and start reading it in minutes rather than wait a few days for it to arrive in the mail.
I might have believed your history if you didn't use terms such as "M$" and "sheep^HIT managers". But those childish jabs destroyed your credibility, so I'll take anything you say with a big bag of rock salt.
Link for Willie Nelson on Colbert Christmas.
Wow, that's painful (or hilarious). With a production as big as the Superbowl, I wonder if the autotune was Billy Joel's idea or some producer's. The fact that he was trying to sing with vibrato and smooth transitions makes me think he wasn't prepared for it. I can imagine how distracting it would be to start singing and hear a weird mechanized version blasting from the speakers.
The best or worst autotune I've yet heard was on Colbert Christmas. It was used blatantly throughout all the musical segments and to me it was very distracting. The guests like Willie Nelson can definitely sing without it, so I hope it was just being used ironically.
I loved Racing Destruction Set too - so many hours spent playing. I was reminiscing about trying to play it in a C-64 emulator, but looking at the screenshots I realize that memory and imagination are probably more powerful than the actual bits.
I vaguely remember driving some really weird tracks with terrain types that didn't officially exist in the game. I think that was my first experience with sharing tracks and hacked editors (on Q-Link), many years ago.
I was about to say that your first paragraph is incomprehensible, but then I realized that the second and third paragraphs are too. Are you a Markov chain generator?
Yes, Mac OS X is at 10.5 right now and will next proceed to 10.6. These are major revisions equivalent XP/Vista/7. If you don't like numbers then you can use the cat names: Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard. But if you don't like numbers then I don't know what you'll call the new Windows.
You're comparing Windows 7 to Windows Vista, but I don't think that's the upgrade that Microsoft is trying to sell. They're looking to get all the Windows XP (or older) people to accept something new and pay for it. They can't do that with a big service pack for Vista - they need to offer an alternative to Vista. And since that target market doesn't have Vista already, yes they have to pay for a new version rather than just patching XP.
By the way, I'm a happy Mac OS X 10.5 and Linux user. I've never touched Vista or Windows 7. I'm just here for the drama.
If you had four buddies colluding in a 3v3 then you weren't really playing the game, you were just being jerks. If you had three in a 3v3 (all on one team) then it is a valid strategy. But it should never work against non-newbies since the other team should outnumber your SCVs by the time you reach their bases. Or at least the third target should have real defenses and a strong economy by the time you reach him and be able to counter you easily.
Previous economic discussions on Slashdot have included several posts with the sentiment: "I'm choosing to ignore this recession. I still have a job so I'm going to continue as before. The only economic problem we have is psychological."
Are you still so certain that your job will remain when another 5% of your customers are about to become unemployed? Are you still so optimistic that you could easily find a new job with a million other educated and experienced workers back on the job hunt too?
Even if this recession were purely psychological, it has set a wave in motion that will splash around for a while causing layoffs and bankruptcies. If there is a rational basis for the economic shrinkage then it could be even worse. I wonder how long it will take to return to growth and optimism.
Was Dick Cheney ever President? What do you call the person who held Presidential power while the elected President was sedated for a colonoscopy?
My interpretation based on what little I've read:
The outgoing President loses power at noon. The presidency passes to the eligible successor. Since Obama had not yet taken the oath, he could not begin his presidential term. So for a few minutes we had President Biden, who had already taken the oath before noon and was therefore eligible.
The availability if digital cameras is not news. But the use of a digital camera for a demanding, high-profile portrait does give us a good excuse to reminisce about how far technology has advanced during just one president's time in office.
Before this story, I had forgotten that I didn't buy my first digital camera until 2001 (although I had used a CCD camera for scientific work in 1995). What else is common today that was rare or unimagined in January 2000?
I'll start the discussion with a list: intrusive screening at airports, hybrid cars, iPods, streaming Internet radio, streaming Internet video, HDTV.
I wish him well. As someone who had to retire at age 33 to fight cancer, I know how discouraging it is to have your body spoil what your brain wants to do. But I also found that giving up the full-time job really did improve my health and led to greater productivity in my remaining activities.
Actually, I find this article to be an interesting statement on the culture of Slashdot. Now that we have a place where humor belongs (Idle) and since that place is so dreadful, apparently humor is intolerable on the main page.
I thought it was funny. Perfect material for inconsequential comments on a lazy Sunday in a time of crisis.