Gee, it seems like the homeless in California are really having bad time - they started with teachers and cops, and now its dot-coms...
"Hey Freddy, look at the new guy"
"Oh no! It's another dotcommer!"
"I tell ya, Freddy - since those damn dotcommers started flocking, the shelter isn't like it used to be"
"Yah, it's time we do something about it"
"I already wrote my senator. You think they give a damn?"
"I liked the coppers. At least they shared their daughnuts with us"
"You think he'll give us a ride in his SUV?"
"Not in your lifetime..."
I find it hard to believe someone that used to earn around 100k is now homeless.
Don't you have any savings?
And what are they doing in the sillicon-valley anyway? Move to somewhere else, find a decent job, if you where good enough to earn 100k, you're good enough to do lot of other jobs - c'mmon, 4.2% unemployment is not that bad. In my country, unemployment is around 10%.
So don't work in what you used to do - find some other job... I belive the problem with this people is more of a mental fixation than anything to do about the market condition.
We are sorry to inform you, that the post above is a threat to our client, a slashdot member, and an evidence of teroristic intentions.
Not only you threatened to use armed force against our client, you also threatened to disturb our client from practicing peacefully in his slashdot religion.
We contacted some military representatives to inquire how you required an access to top-secret military equipment. Those representative took our inquiry quite seriously but refused to press charge against you. The representative said he contacted the CIA regarding this matter, and they will take care of it using their own methods.
We decided to press charges on you. We filled a class action in the name of all slashdot members. Please stay where you are, and wait for the police representatives to make contact with you and read your rights.
Regards,
Sela & Sela, IANLs attorneys LTD.
PS: We will be more than happy to represent you in court. We advise you to claim for insanity. Such claim is very likely to be accepted, since, as a slashdot member you have threatened to kill yourself as well.
Well, it's quite obvious. Expression is not necessarily art. It in nothing about aesthetics. Code is all about expression of ideas.
Suppose I developed some algorithm, and I want to communicate this algorithm to other people. In that case I could try to describe this algorithm in english, but it wouldn't be the most appropriate way - english in not precise enough to describe an algorithm. Just like mathematician express his idea using mathematical formulas, a programmer needs to express his ideas using computer code - no other way is appropriate.
Since computer code conveys ideas - it is expressive speech.
Microsoft's profits are shrinking. There are few reasons for this: First is the recession in high-tech. Companies have less money so they buy less computers and software. The other is internal for microsoft: Office2k is not a very good product, and existing users have little reason if any to upgrade from older versions of office. Win2k is also being accepted in a slower pace than anticipated, and in the meanwhile the stock holders are unhappy.
And when the stock holders are unhappy, a public company is usually looking for ways to increase short term profits by cost-reduction and by looking at ways to maximize revenues from existing products. And this is just what microsoft is doing.
The problem is: such short term strategies are often not very wise for the long term: Bad relationship with customers is very damaging for the long term - unless you are a monopoly and the customers have no other choice. Clearly - microsoft still sees itself as a monopoly and acts like a monopoly.
Lets hope those tactics would make microsoft's customers realize there is alternative.
Burney's standpoint regarding open source is quite simple: Corel is in deep trouble, mostly because of the former CEO's business adventures. What Corel needs now is to focus on its core business to survive, and to be able to do this they cannot afford to distract themselves with open-source.
From business perspective, he may be right. Open source has proven itself as a better way for creating software, but there is no bussiness model yet that had proven itself as a good way to generate money from open source. The companies that do generate income like Redhat may get enough money to survive but no more than this.
A company like Corel can't afford that risk. They have too much to loose and not enough financial backup.
It is a pitty Burney have so little technical understanding, however. The "great" things about.Net are nothing new - it can be achieved through all the various component technologies we have for a long time. Well defined standard interface is a good thing, though.
I'm just curious - how does the KDE project is managed? They have no one head figure, no "dictator", yet it seem very organized with planning ahead of dates, feature-freezes, code freeze etc...
Is it a true bazaar? Or maybe the management is taken by "volunteers" for each task? Someone from KDE could answer?
Unfortunately, I do not think the fool.com column means the financial community share those views. Fool.com was always the "geekiest" part of the financial community - as a financial site that really does have a clue about technology, it is not surprising to read this point of view at fool.com.
I know this kind of programmer block personally. It happens once in a while - when trying to delve into a new problem.
Sometimes its the need to understand lots of existing code. Sometimes its the feeling I need to find good enough architecture. I find myself staring at the screen for a long time. It may take days, even a week - I try to do anything else to distract myself from what I'm supposed to do.
The problem is when there is an illusion of something "big" I need to handle, without a clue of how to cope with it. The best solution is to start with something small, even not directly related, and then do delve into the task ahead. Suppose I need new architecture. I start writing few small objects, start to play with them using code that does lots of printing to see how they work. Once you have some code that does something, even remotely related to what you need, the rest is easy. The most difficult question is "where do I begin", and the answer is "begin with something stupid and useless - run it, and then continue".
Note that most fonts at Fontasti come in a zip that includes a readme file.
Check the readme files - many of the fonts are free. Others include unclear license but have author address - you can send a query to the author.
The problem with free truetype fonts, the way I see it, is not lack of fonts, but lack of good high-quality fonts for normal use.
The vast majority of free fonts are fancy fonts that are not suitable as default fonts. Is there a possibility to create "Times New Roman", Helvetica etc? Are the fonts themselves copywrited, or only their manifestation as computer vector fonts?
About three years ago I used to work at a local Israeli ISP, doing customer support. Being a shift supervisor, I had to deal with all the complaints from the customers.
Ones I got a really furious lady. Before I got to say a single word, she started shouting at me: "you should all be ashame of yourself! This is unexceptable! I got little kids here... you are supposed to be a responsible company! I'm going to write a letter about this to your CEO... I can sue your company for this...".
I tried to calm her down and find out what was the problem, but she kept saying something about email account and mentioning she have little kids there.
After a lot time (working at customer support requires lots of patience, after all...) I realized what was the problem. She was asking about an extra-email account, and one of the support guys gave her hotmail address. The problem was, she was typing www.hotmale.com... which is, well... you know...
It is true recent versions of linux are quite easy to install (unless you want to configure non-standard hardware, for example), but many old-time Linux users still see it as their private domain, and afraid of the latest trend where Linux becomes easier to install and use, and thus it is no longer a status symbol.
As for fighting microsoft - an office suite is certainly one of the important weapons we need. Beating MS means a true, free altenative that would provide the computing needs of the mass, and whats more important than an office suite than this? Even as a software engineer, I quite often need to write documents and make presentations, to communicate my ideas (for example, a new algorithm that I'm proposing to implement) to other people. As long as I don't have a Linux solution, I'll have to get back to MSwin. And then, yes - Linux have to provide solutions to PHBs, secretaries, game players, grandmas etc, to become a viable alternative, or else it would become a small, sectorial operating system living in MS's shadow.
There two questions to ask. One is, do we need a word-processor? Speaking for myself, I do.
But leaving this question out, the other question is the one coming from the almost-religious debate: Is Linux an operating system written by us, the computer "elite", for us, and should stay that way, or should we promote Linux for the desktop, for everybody to use.
I can understand the first approach, but I don't quite like it. You see Linux as a "status symbol", something that distinguish between you and the common people. It gives you power - the power of knowladge: "You don't know how to use linux, but I do!", and to keep yourself in power you woldn't like Linux to become easy enough for that stupid PHB to use. This kind of approach where one elite is trying to keep others away from the source of power is known in sociology as the "conflict theory" and you can see its doing everywhere.
The thing is there other people that see a different future for Linux. The power that Microsoft have over the software market is frightening and dangerous, and any commercial company that may take its place with a monopolized closed-source code would be equally dangerous. Linux is best positioned to be the answer. A free, uncontrolled operation system, that would help fighting monopoly if we promote it for general use by the public (and yes, even by your PHB or his secretary).
The question is, do you want to allow microsoft to keep controlling the software world just because of your elitist "for us only" world view?
Why don't we see a article on how KOffice is coming? hrmm??
KDE 2.0 is already in feature freeze, and in 6 weeks they plan the official release of 2.0, including Koffice.
Some time ago I downloaded the 1.91 release, and was quite impressed. On the negative side it still had several annoying bugs (which are quite expected at this phaze of the development), is not as feature reach as Star Office, and what hurts the most is the lack of filters. On the positive side, it has most features users would probably need, is nicely integrated (I was quite impressed with the KOshell), and has original design that does not try to be MS-office clone.
So this is how this awful Pizza the Hut got to space...
Sure, go on, deliver pizza to space... why not? Let those cosmic rays mutate the pizza into a disguasting Mafia guy that would terrorize the galaxy. Why should I care?
Ehm, excuse me but doesn't the phrase "comparing apples to oranges" come to mind here? I mean how the hell can you compare two forces with completely causes? It is just as absurd as saying that 1 gram is more than 1 coulomb. Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things
Not quite: you can compare the gravitational force of an electron or proton to the electric force effecting it. If you compare the repulsive force between two electrons to the gravitational force between them, you'll get around 10^40 ratio.
The notion sounds deceptively simple: besides the familiar three dimensions of space there may be other dimensions, too small to see yet perhaps as large as a millimeter.
Dimensions do not have a size. Objects have sizes in a set of dimensions.
It is true by your perception of a dimention it doesn't have size, since you're used to think about infinite dimentions. However, imagine a dimention is wrapped around another dimention, and thus creates a loop - this loop have a limited size - after one milimeter of movement along this dimention you return to your initial point. So this is how dimentions may have size.
Gravity IS the weakest of all known forces of nature. If you compare the force of gravity to the other forces: weak&strong nuclear force and electro-magnetic force, than gravity is far far behind. The fact gravity is felt strong to us is just because any other force is balanced on large scale, and thus we feel only "residual" force. There are positive and negative electric charges, whereas the strong nuclear force is created by three-color quarks that balance each other.
There were several posts before raising the question: "Do we need a new GUI?" thats a good question anyone trying to develop new GUI should ask.
I personally don't accept the claim we reached perfection. Even without introducing new input/output devices (which is also part of GUI research), there is always room for improvement. The question is: what do we need to improve. But one preliminary question is: why do we need a GUI?
GUI gives us a standard way to communicate with the computer. In a way, it is kind of a language. As such it needs to achieve two goals: One: it should provide a standard way to communicate with our applications. We need to learn one language to use the GUI, and not a different language for each application (kind of like learning new language in order to chat with each new person you meet). Second: be as efficient as possible. A GUI should not stand in the way of the user.
So, how do current GUI scores in those two areas? It does seem as current GUI does provide a coherent way to communicate with all applications, which is fairly easy to learn, but it can improve in several aspects here: 1. Cover more aspects of the UI - some aspects are currently not covered by the GUI, that may be included. 2. Simpler/easier to learn GUI. You may wonder if it can get any easier than it is, yet for some people that never touched a computer it still looks rather complicated. I'm not sure simpler/minimalist=easier, though. What can be simpler than a VCR interface? Yet how many people would never learn how to program a VCR. Maybe easier means make it closer to the way we communicate with other people... 3. Make it customizable - in other words, let the GUI adapt itself to you, instead of letting you adapt yourself to the GUI.
As for making the GUI efficient, there is a lot to achieve as well. We all know using keyboard shortcuts is a lot easier than using the GUI features. Can we improve here? Can we combine intuitiveness with efficientcy?
I don't think 3D GUI really address any of those questions. It looks neat, but thats it. Any other ideas? There could be. If you want to invent something new, just: 1. Be creative. 2. Forget anything you know about current GUIs 3. Think about easier communication, not about neat look.
This is an obvious blamebait, but I cannot resist but reply:
My point was: A game where its creator invested in storyline and graphics can be more enjoyable than any other game. Proof is based on subjective opinion: to me, DOTT is more enjoyable than any other game _because_ it have a good combination of clever and funny story line and good graphics. Every game where there was no investment in storyline and/or graphics is less enjoyable (to me) than this one. So, the question was "Does art make a game". Answer: yes, here is an example where art makes a game. Conclusion: Art=good.
Q.E.D.
Ofcorse, this proof is based on subjective opinion. If you happen to think the best ever game was space invaders, than you wouldn't accept my argument. This is why I said "ulimate proof for me"...
I used to be an adventure-game fan, and one of my all-time favorite is Day of the Tentacle. This is one of the best example that prove art does make the game - both visual art and the story.
For all this time since DOTT came till now, with all the neat 3D engines and all, I never saw any game (yet alone, adventure game) that reached the same level of enjoyability.
This is the ultimate proof for me that art does make the game.
Study of the evolutionary process showed a new species is most likely to evolve at the presence of two basic conditions:
1. The presence of a harsh external environment or a significant change in the environment.
2. A relatively small, isolated population.
The theory of evolution is easy to understand when you compare it to math - especially to the evolving of a non-linear system. Our mathematic world is the gene space. The enviroment represents the boundary conditions. The genes of each living creature represents a local minima in the gene space. Random mutations are not very likely to take it out of the sink, and new species is not likey to evolve. Once there is a change in the boundery conditions (environment), a species is likely to find itself out of the local minimum, or at a shallower sink, which gives an opportunity to a new species to evolve.
Mutations are totally random. However, the first changes in a population are usually not due to new mutations, but to an increasing frequency of certain genes that where previously scarce in the gene pool of the population. While a larger population have a bigger gene pool, two things are less likely to accur at a large population: the revealing of recessive genes, and the chances to single out winning combinations.
The reason why the human species is not very likely to evolve into a new one is none of those conditions is likely to occure. First, we are at a very stable local minimum. No reasonable change in the environment is likely to pull us out of the local minimum, because of our ability to adapt ourselves. Second, we do not have small, isolated populations. We live in a global world. Each mutation, even a possitive one, will be assimilated in our gene pool, and may lead to more variability, but not to a new species.
An interesting (and worrisome) question is: can we go backward? If there is no active selection - everyone is "fitting", even the dumber, uglier, weaker persons, are we facing a risk of deteriorating? The reasonable answer is, yes, but only partially. Since we are all around a local minimum, any change make take us out of the local minimum, up to a limit where we do not fit even as humans. The result is: we will still be around the local minimum. Some individuals will be closer, but variability will increase, and the average will be further away from the local minimum. So, if we fill the valley (local minimum) of genes, doesn't it mean we may slip out of it, and create new species? Not realy. The reason is "bad" mutations are much more likely than "good" mutations. Each "good" mutation will be assimilated in the general gene pool, and is not likely to create a new species.
The only change is scattering. If for some reason we will be scattered into small groups, living in harsh environment, the high variability in our gene pool would create differentiations between the different groups, and several new species may evolve rather quickly. Could this scattering be also sociological? I don't know. All we can do is wait and see:-)
While system reseach, in which I am not really involved, may (or may not) be in stagnation, this is only small part of CS.
<I>research in both software and hardware at universities and much of industry is becoming insular, ossified, and irrelevant.</I>
Pike make a very dangarous, and mostly incorrect statement, when he projected his beliefs about system research to the whole academic research in CS.
Research, irrelevant? Does Rob Pike aware of the research done in AI and information theory, Database theory, Formal verification, encryption and the list can go on and on. The impact of contribution done by the academy is not imidiately recognized or understood. Much of it is theoretic framework that may not have any significance today, but may become the key to future technology.
I, personally, work at the industry (at one of the largest semiconductor companies), but academic reseach people are constantly involved in my groups' project. It may be due to the nature of my field: Formal verification, but I see academic researchers involved in other areas at my company, and usually such involvement brings lots of benefits to both sides. Academic CS people may not give us the specific tricks needed to achieve our goals, but the scientific framework, we would not get anywhere.
Computer science branched from mathematics, or more specificly, logic. Theory and practice goes hand in hand together. "Field reseach" by the academy, on the other hand, as Pike observed, may have questionable significance.
Spam is more than just a slight annoyance - it makes more damage than you think. The way spam affects us is not only by filling our mailbox. The problem is there are so many things we could do on the net we cannot do now because of spam. Take usenet for one example. Every kids knows posting in a newsgroup, and putting your true email address, is going to put you in every possible spam-list. Does putting user@yahoo.nospam.com really works? Maybe, yet maybe not... Spam is probably one of the things that makes usenet much less than it could be.
Then, take email search engines. Suppose there is an old friend of yours from highschool days you wish to write. Wouldn't it be great to go to one of the email search engines and find his email so that you could write him. Well, you probably couldn't find him there. Why? He's not listed, because of spam, ofcorse. If spam was not such a big story, most email addresses would be registered on whowhere and the like.
I had a hotmail account I opened a long time ago, when it wasn't part of m$ft yet. Spam was not as big problem as it is today, and I carelessly put my email address where I shouldn't. Recently, this email address got so many spams (20 a day or more) I had to abandon it, which is probably a good thing (hotmail sucks, you know), but I also had to inform everyone I knew about my new email address...
This is not to say the suggested low is a good solution. I don't think making citizens into police is the way to go, but I think making a clear stand against unsolicited email in the law is quite important.
Slashdot Mirror
Gee, it seems like the homeless in California are really having bad time - they started with teachers and cops, and now its dot-coms...
"Hey Freddy, look at the new guy"
"Oh no! It's another dotcommer!"
"I tell ya, Freddy - since those damn dotcommers started flocking, the shelter isn't like it used to be"
"Yah, it's time we do something about it"
"I already wrote my senator. You think they give a damn?"
"I liked the coppers. At least they shared their daughnuts with us"
"You think he'll give us a ride in his SUV?"
"Not in your lifetime
I find it hard to believe someone that used to earn around 100k is now homeless.
Don't you have any savings?
And what are they doing in the sillicon-valley anyway? Move to somewhere else, find a decent job, if you where good enough to earn 100k, you're good enough to do lot of other jobs - c'mmon, 4.2% unemployment is not that bad. In my country, unemployment is around 10%.
So don't work in what you used to do - find some other job
Dear Mr. Vermifax,
We are sorry to inform you, that the post above is a threat to our client, a slashdot member, and an evidence of teroristic intentions.
Not only you threatened to use armed force against our client, you also threatened to disturb our client from practicing peacefully in his slashdot religion.
We contacted some military representatives to inquire how you required an access to top-secret military equipment. Those representative took our inquiry quite seriously but refused to press charge against you. The representative said he contacted the CIA regarding this matter, and they will take care of it using their own methods.
We decided to press charges on you. We filled a class action in the name of all slashdot members. Please stay where you are, and wait for the police representatives to make contact with you and read your rights.
Regards,
Sela & Sela, IANLs attorneys LTD.
PS: We will be more than happy to represent you in court. We advise you to claim for insanity. Such claim is very likely to be accepted, since, as a slashdot member you have threatened to kill yourself as well.
Why code a form of expression?
Well, it's quite obvious. Expression is not necessarily art. It in nothing about aesthetics. Code is all about expression of ideas.
Suppose I developed some algorithm, and I want to communicate this algorithm to other people. In that case I could try to describe this algorithm in english, but it wouldn't be the most appropriate way - english in not precise enough to describe an algorithm. Just like mathematician express his idea using mathematical formulas, a programmer needs to express his ideas using computer code - no other way is appropriate.
Since computer code conveys ideas - it is expressive speech.
Sela
What happened here is quite clear:
Microsoft's profits are shrinking. There are few reasons for this: First is the recession in high-tech. Companies have less money so they buy less computers and software. The other is internal for microsoft: Office2k is not a very good product, and existing users have little reason if any to upgrade from older versions of office. Win2k is also being accepted in a slower pace than anticipated, and in the meanwhile the stock holders are unhappy.
And when the stock holders are unhappy, a public company is usually looking for ways to increase short term profits by cost-reduction and by looking at ways to maximize revenues from existing products. And this is just what microsoft is doing.
The problem is: such short term strategies are often not very wise for the long term: Bad relationship with customers is very damaging for the long term - unless you are a monopoly and the customers have no other choice. Clearly - microsoft still sees itself as a monopoly and acts like a monopoly.
Lets hope those tactics would make microsoft's customers realize there is alternative.
Burney's standpoint regarding open source is quite simple: Corel is in deep trouble, mostly because of the former CEO's business adventures. What Corel needs now is to focus on its core business to survive, and to be able to do this they cannot afford to distract themselves with open-source.
From business perspective, he may be right. Open source has proven itself as a better way for creating software, but there is no bussiness model yet that had proven itself as a good way to generate money from open source. The companies that do generate income like Redhat may get enough money to survive but no more than this.
A company like Corel can't afford that risk. They have too much to loose and not enough financial backup.
It is a pitty Burney have so little technical understanding, however. The "great" things about
I'm just curious - how does the KDE project is managed? They have no one head figure, no "dictator", yet it seem very organized with planning ahead of dates, feature-freezes, code freeze etc
Is it a true bazaar? Or maybe the management is taken by "volunteers" for each task? Someone from KDE could answer?
Unfortunately, I do not think the fool.com column means the financial community share those views. Fool.com was always the "geekiest" part of the financial community - as a financial site that really does have a clue about technology, it is not surprising to read this point of view at fool.com.
I know this kind of programmer block personally. It happens once in a while - when trying to delve into a new problem.
Sometimes its the need to understand lots of existing code. Sometimes its the feeling I need to find good enough architecture. I find myself staring at the screen for a long time. It may take days, even a week - I try to do anything else to distract myself from what I'm supposed to do.
The problem is when there is an illusion of something "big" I need to handle, without a clue of how to cope with it.
The best solution is to start with something small, even not directly related, and then do delve into the task ahead.
Suppose I need new architecture. I start writing few small objects, start to play with them using code that does lots of printing to see how they work.
Once you have some code that does something, even remotely related to what you need, the rest is easy. The most difficult question is "where do I begin", and the answer is "begin with something stupid and useless - run it, and then continue".
It works for me.
Note that most fonts at Fontasti come in a zip that includes a readme file.
Check the readme files - many of the fonts are free. Others include unclear license but have author address - you can send a query to the author.
The problem with free truetype fonts, the way I see it, is not lack of fonts, but lack of good high-quality fonts for normal use.
The vast majority of free fonts are fancy fonts that are not suitable as default fonts. Is there a possibility to create "Times New Roman", Helvetica etc? Are the fonts themselves copywrited, or only their manifestation as computer vector fonts?
About three years ago I used to work at a local Israeli ISP, doing customer support. Being a shift supervisor, I had to deal with all the complaints from the customers.
Ones I got a really furious lady. Before I got to say a single word, she started shouting at me: "you should all be ashame of yourself! This is unexceptable! I got little kids here
I tried to calm her down and find out what was the problem, but she kept saying something about email account and mentioning she have little kids there.
After a lot time (working at customer support requires lots of patience, after all
After all, english wasn't her native language
It is true recent versions of linux are quite easy to install (unless you want to configure non-standard hardware, for example), but many old-time Linux users still see it as their private domain, and afraid of the latest trend where Linux becomes easier to install and use, and thus it is no longer a status symbol.
As for fighting microsoft - an office suite is certainly one of the important weapons we need. Beating MS means a true, free altenative that would provide the computing needs of the mass, and whats more important than an office suite than this?
Even as a software engineer, I quite often need to write documents and make presentations, to communicate my ideas (for example, a new algorithm that I'm proposing to implement) to other people. As long as I don't have a Linux solution, I'll have to get back to MSwin.
And then, yes - Linux have to provide solutions to PHBs, secretaries, game players, grandmas etc, to become a viable alternative, or else it would become a small, sectorial operating system living in MS's shadow.
The step up from PHB to power user isn't that big, as I think I've pointed out.
So, you believe a PHB can become a PHPU (Pointed-Hair Power User)?
There two questions to ask. One is, do we need a word-processor? Speaking for myself, I do.
But leaving this question out, the other question is the one coming from the almost-religious debate: Is Linux an operating system written by us, the computer "elite", for us, and should stay that way, or should we promote Linux for the desktop, for everybody to use.
I can understand the first approach, but I don't quite like it. You see Linux as a "status symbol", something that distinguish between you and the common people. It gives you power - the power of knowladge: "You don't know how to use linux, but I do!", and to keep yourself in power you woldn't like Linux to become easy enough for that stupid PHB to use.
This kind of approach where one elite is trying to keep others away from the source of power is known in sociology as the "conflict theory" and you can see its doing everywhere.
The thing is there other people that see a different future for Linux. The power that Microsoft have over the software market is frightening and dangerous, and any commercial company that may take its place with a monopolized closed-source code would be equally dangerous. Linux is best positioned to be the answer. A free, uncontrolled operation system, that would help fighting monopoly if we promote it for general use by the public (and yes, even by your PHB or his secretary).
The question is, do you want to allow microsoft to keep controlling the software world just because of your elitist "for us only" world view?
KDE 2.0 is already in feature freeze, and in 6 weeks they plan the official release of 2.0, including Koffice.
Some time ago I downloaded the 1.91 release, and was quite impressed.
On the negative side it still had several annoying bugs (which are quite expected at this phaze of the development), is not as feature reach as Star Office, and what hurts the most is the lack of filters.
On the positive side, it has most features users would probably need, is nicely integrated (I was quite impressed with the KOshell), and has original design that does not try to be MS-office clone.
Sela
So this is how this awful Pizza the Hut got to space ...
Sure, go on, deliver pizza to space ... why not? Let those cosmic rays mutate the pizza into a disguasting Mafia guy that would terrorize the galaxy. Why should I care?
Beware, Lone Starr!
Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things
Not quite: you can compare the gravitational force of an electron or proton to the electric force effecting it. If you compare the repulsive force between two electrons to the gravitational force between them, you'll get around 10^40 ratio.
The notion sounds deceptively simple: besides the familiar three dimensions of space there may be other dimensions, too small to see yet perhaps as large as a millimeter.
Dimensions do not have a size. Objects have sizes in a set of dimensions.
It is true by your perception of a dimention it doesn't have size, since you're used to think about infinite dimentions. However, imagine a dimention is wrapped around another dimention, and thus creates a loop - this loop have a limited size - after one milimeter of movement along this dimention you return to your initial point. So this is how dimentions may have size.
Sela
Gravity IS the weakest of all known forces of nature. If you compare the force of gravity to the other forces: weak&strong nuclear force and electro-magnetic force, than gravity is far far behind.
The fact gravity is felt strong to us is just because any other force is balanced on large scale, and thus we feel only "residual" force. There are positive and negative electric charges, whereas the strong nuclear force is created by three-color quarks that balance each other.
There were several posts before raising the question: "Do we need a new GUI?" thats a good question anyone trying to develop new GUI should ask.
I personally don't accept the claim we reached perfection. Even without introducing new input/output devices (which is also part of GUI research), there is always room for improvement. The question is: what do we need to improve. But one preliminary question is: why do we need a GUI?
GUI gives us a standard way to communicate with the computer. In a way, it is kind of a language. As such it needs to achieve two goals: One: it should provide a standard way to communicate with our applications. We need to learn one language to use the GUI, and not a different language for each application (kind of like learning new language in order to chat with each new person you meet). Second: be as efficient as possible. A GUI should not stand in the way of the user.
So, how do current GUI scores in those two areas?
It does seem as current GUI does provide a coherent way to communicate with all applications, which is fairly easy to learn, but it can improve in several aspects here:
1. Cover more aspects of the UI - some aspects are currently not covered by the GUI, that may be included.
2. Simpler/easier to learn GUI. You may wonder if it can get any easier than it is, yet for some people that never touched a computer it still looks rather complicated. I'm not sure simpler/minimalist=easier, though. What can be simpler than a VCR interface? Yet how many people would never learn how to program a VCR. Maybe easier means make it closer to the way we communicate with other people
3. Make it customizable - in other words, let the GUI adapt itself to you, instead of letting you adapt yourself to the GUI.
As for making the GUI efficient, there is a lot to achieve as well. We all know using keyboard shortcuts is a lot easier than using the GUI features. Can we improve here? Can we combine intuitiveness with efficientcy?
I don't think 3D GUI really address any of those questions. It looks neat, but thats it. Any other ideas? There could be. If you want to invent something new, just:
1. Be creative.
2. Forget anything you know about current GUIs
3. Think about easier communication, not about neat look.
This is an obvious blamebait, but I cannot resist but reply:
My point was: A game where its creator invested in storyline and graphics can be more enjoyable than any other game.
Proof is based on subjective opinion: to me, DOTT is more enjoyable than any other game _because_ it have a good combination of clever and funny story line and good graphics.
Every game where there was no investment in storyline and/or graphics is less enjoyable (to me) than this one.
So, the question was "Does art make a game". Answer: yes, here is an example where art makes a game. Conclusion: Art=good.
Q.E.D.
Ofcorse, this proof is based on subjective opinion. If you happen to think the best ever game was space invaders, than you wouldn't accept my argument. This is why I said "ulimate proof for me"
I used to be an adventure-game fan, and one of my all-time favorite is Day of the Tentacle. This is one of the best example that prove art does make the game - both visual art and the story.
For all this time since DOTT came till now, with all the neat 3D engines and all, I never saw any game (yet alone, adventure game) that reached the same level of enjoyability.
This is the ultimate proof for me that art does make the game.
Study of the evolutionary process showed a new species is most likely to evolve at the presence of two basic conditions:
1. The presence of a harsh external environment or a significant change in the environment.
2. A relatively small, isolated population.
The theory of evolution is easy to understand when you compare it to math - especially to the evolving of a non-linear system.
Our mathematic world is the gene space. The enviroment represents the boundary conditions. The genes of each living creature represents a local minima in the gene space. Random mutations are not very likely to take it out of the sink, and new species is not likey to evolve.
Once there is a change in the boundery conditions (environment), a species is likely to find itself out of the local minimum, or at a shallower sink, which gives an opportunity to a new species to evolve.
Mutations are totally random. However, the first changes in a population are usually not due to new mutations, but to an increasing frequency of certain genes that where previously scarce in the gene pool of the population. While a larger population have a bigger gene pool, two things are less likely to accur at a large population: the revealing of recessive genes, and the chances to single out winning combinations.
The reason why the human species is not very likely to evolve into a new one is none of those conditions is likely to occure. First, we are at a very stable local minimum. No reasonable change in the environment is likely to pull us out of the local minimum, because of our ability to adapt ourselves.
Second, we do not have small, isolated populations. We live in a global world. Each mutation, even a possitive one, will be assimilated in our gene pool, and may lead to more variability, but not to a new species.
An interesting (and worrisome) question is: can we go backward? If there is no active selection - everyone is "fitting", even the dumber, uglier, weaker persons, are we facing a risk of deteriorating? The reasonable answer is, yes, but only partially. Since we are all around a local minimum, any change make take us out of the local minimum, up to a limit where we do not fit even as humans. The result is: we will still be around the local minimum. Some individuals will be closer, but variability will increase, and the average will be further away from the local minimum.
So, if we fill the valley (local minimum) of genes, doesn't it mean we may slip out of it, and create new species? Not realy. The reason is "bad" mutations are much more likely than "good" mutations. Each "good" mutation will be assimilated in the general gene pool, and is not likely to create a new species.
The only change is scattering. If for some reason we will be scattered into small groups, living in harsh environment, the high variability in our gene pool would create differentiations between the different groups, and several new species may evolve rather quickly.
Could this scattering be also sociological? I don't know. All we can do is wait and see
While system reseach, in which I am not really involved, may (or may not) be in stagnation, this is only small part of CS.
<I>research in both software and hardware at universities and much of industry is becoming insular, ossified, and irrelevant.</I>
Pike make a very dangarous, and mostly incorrect statement, when he projected his beliefs about system research to the whole academic research in CS.
Research, irrelevant? Does Rob Pike aware of the research done in AI and information theory, Database theory, Formal verification, encryption and the list can go on and on.
The impact of contribution done by the academy is not imidiately recognized or understood. Much of it is theoretic framework that may not have any significance today, but may become the key to future technology.
I, personally, work at the industry (at one of the largest semiconductor companies), but academic reseach people are constantly involved in my groups' project. It may be due to the nature of my field: Formal verification, but I see academic researchers involved in other areas at my company, and usually such involvement brings lots of benefits to both sides.
Academic CS people may not give us the specific tricks needed to achieve our goals, but the scientific framework, we would not get anywhere.
Computer science branched from mathematics, or more specificly, logic. Theory and practice goes hand in hand together. "Field reseach" by the academy, on the other hand, as Pike observed, may have questionable significance.
Sela
I was already tired of the low-lever frequency-modulation sound used in today's cell phones ring tunes.
..."
I already got sick of Nokia's fur-elise melody. About time I could put some real music when my phone rings.
"Wait a minute, I have a phone call - oops, sorry, it was just the radio
Spam is more than just a slight annoyance - it makes more damage than you think.
The way spam affects us is not only by filling our mailbox. The problem is there are so many things we could do on the net we cannot do now because of spam.
Take usenet for one example. Every kids knows posting in a newsgroup, and putting your true email address, is going to put you in every possible spam-list. Does putting user@yahoo.nospam.com really works? Maybe, yet maybe not
Spam is probably one of the things that makes usenet much less than it could be.
Then, take email search engines. Suppose there is an old friend of yours from highschool days you wish to write. Wouldn't it be great to go to one of the email search engines and find his email so that you could write him. Well, you probably couldn't find him there. Why? He's not listed, because of spam, ofcorse. If spam was not such a big story, most email addresses would be registered on whowhere and the like.
I had a hotmail account I opened a long time ago, when it wasn't part of m$ft yet. Spam was not as big problem as it is today, and I carelessly put my email address where I shouldn't.
Recently, this email address got so many spams (20 a day or more) I had to abandon it, which is probably a good thing (hotmail sucks, you know), but I also had to inform everyone I knew about my new email address
This is not to say the suggested low is a good solution. I don't think making citizens into police is the way to go, but I think making a clear stand against unsolicited email in the law is quite important.