There is some work done on Zooming User Interfaces. A bunch of links, along with Java demos and toolkits, can be found on this site: http://nooface.net/.
A number of other possibilities are discussed in Jef Raskin's book The Humane Interface.
I make mix CDs for my 9 year old daugther. Fortunately she is not into N'Sync (I'm trying to get her into Ani DiFranco and she has some songs by Debbie Davies on her mix CDs).
After listening to several songs off Napster/Gnutella she made me buy the CD of "A-Teens", as she liked a lot of the songs.
She may not do the burning herself, but she understand the concept...
Your lucky that you could even get COBRA. If your company goes belly up like mine did, you don't even get the option to buy
it,since there is no company there is no group policy.
As I found out, when my company went belly up, individually purchased insurance is only slightly more expensive than COBRA. Either one is not cheap - about $1000 for a family plan.
RSA and public key encryption are all very nice, but there is a very old and completely unbreakable encryption algorithm: one time pad.
Any group that wants it's messages really secrect can generate the pad and then trivially write software to code and decode messages. Then each member of the group keeps the pad on a floppy along with a VB encryption/decryption program.
Unless you get hold of the floppy with the one time pad, you can't break the messages.
...richie
P.S. BTW public key encryption was first invented by a British mathematician who worked for the British Secret Service, but they made him keep it secret (see "The Code Book").
Both these projects I would refer to as rather marginal efforts (interesting though). Squeak is essentially a smalltalk
clone. I haven't heard of jazz yet (will check it out soon).
Squeak is an implementation of Smalltalk by the guys who invented Smalltalk in the first place.
It's not the fact that it is Smalltalk that's important, but the kinds of projects they are doing.
They maybe mariginal efforts because they are trying new things. When web was first implemented it was a "mariginal effort" as well. It's not easy to predict what innovations will take off.
The point is that innovative open source software is being developed. You just have to look for it.
Gosh, do you think maybe a computer can scan millions of faces a lot quicker than a $6.00/hour bored rent-a-cop?
So what? In this particular case the hijackers did not do anything illegal until they hi-jacked the airplanes.
Can the computer also predict who will commit a crime? Perhaps all people should be arrested and questioned when they show up at the airport, and then only be allowed to fly if they can prove they are innocent...
[...] It is very rare to see an
open source project that does not just duplicate features but instead introduces radically new features and paradigms. There
are some research projects that use open source to distribute their stuff but these generally play only a marginal role in the
open source community. The big open source projects are all about duplicating and imitating the bigger/better (in most cases)
propietary counterparts
This is true in general. It is rare to see a project open source or proprietary that is really innovative and different. That's because it's easy to copy existing ideas than to think up and implement new ones.
But remember that the Web (http, server, browser) were started as open source projects and today Apache is still one of the best web servers there is.
If you look around there are number really cool open source projects that are way ahead of anything the propriatary world is doing. Here are two I like:
Jazz - a Zooming user interface, as discussed in Jef Raskin's book The Humane Interface.
Squeak - a ground up implementation of Smalltalk-80 which is being used in all kinds of explorations. One of the leaders of this project is Alan Kay (you've heard of him, haven't you?).
Innovation can come from unexpected places. If more people get to play with the code, then it's more likely that someone will think of something really cool...
Aie! Never take the elevator when evacuating a building! What if the power had quit?
You are right. But the mind adjusts little to slw to circumstances and we really wanted to get out of there. Our building is right on the East River - an easy target for another airplane...
It took about 10 to fifteen minutes to get down from the 48th floor.
I work in a building on Water St, probaby less than a mile from WTC. I was complaining to a coworker about the corporate proxy server being down, when someone said "A plane crashed into the World Trade Center".
I also thought, what a horrible accident, but I assumed that it was a private airplane. Today was a beautiful day to fly after all(I'm a private pilot).
From one corner of our floor on 48th floor, we get a clear view of the towers. We all went there. The north tower was on fire and there were papers floating in the air. I was trying to find out what kind of airplane caused the fire.
While standing there, I caught a sight of another airplane, a twin engine jet, it was banking to right. It came, what seemed like slightly below where we were and smashed straight into the other tower. A huge fire ball went up covering almost the entire upper third of the tower. Then it was gone and the second tower was on fire.
A second or so later, we heard the explosion and felt out building shake. At this point we all realized that this was no accident and we all ran to get out of the building.
As the elevators were full we ran down the staircase and then got out on the street.
Since clearly there would be no further work today, I decided to walk to Brooklyn to my mother-in-laws house. When I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge we saw F-15s circling high over New York.
Just as I reached the middle of the bridge we heard a crash. I turned around and saw the huge tower of World Trade Center collapse....
The moment it becomes an engineering science I'll quit. Engineering to me means no vision, no skill and no insight. Just
following the orders, sir.
But it is engineering already. Engineering is making of useful things by applying science, if appropriate science exists, or hacking (trial and error) until we build the thing we need.
You should read some books on engineering (for example To Engineer is Human by Petroski).
Someone described the difference between science and engineering by saying: "A scientists discovers what is, an engineer builds what never was".
Am I a parent? No. That said, I have known several people who were raised by adoptive parents.
I am a parent. One of my best friends has two children - one adapted and one his own. His own child is finishing medical school, his adapted child is in jail (after numerous drug arrests etc). Parenting is a very unpredictable adventure.
Excuse me?
[...]
Perhaps you assume that, because I feel the destruction of "leftover" embryos for the purpose of getting stem cells is
wrong, I also am a reactionary, anti-science, get rid of all reproductive research kind of person? If so, you couldn't be
farther from the truth.
Sorry! I didn't mean "you" specifically, but the "generic you". As in people who always want to tell others exactly what to do.
If someone wants one child, then fertilize one egg, implant it and go from there. So it may take a little longer, so
what?
In the current procedure many fertilized eggs are placed inside the uterus and often none implant. If more than two implant they are usually removed to prevent multiple-births (like sven-tuplets).
That said, I do agree that those who insist on being biological parents rather than adopting display an astounding lack of
understanding about what being a parent is all about: raising a child in a physically, mentally and emotionally caring
environment. Parental love is not soley the realm of biology.
Are you a parent? It's easy to criticise others, without understanding their particular situations.
Finally, who the hell are you to tell me, whether I should or should not use a particular medical procedure?
If in the future it is possible to clone a human from just any cell, will that mean that shaving will be mass murder, since you are killing thousands of cells that could potentially become humans?
He's right. Many fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus and are washed out during the period. It's a very early form of miscarriage, except in many cases the woman is not even aware that it has occured.
Is it just me, or were the authors observations really shallow.
I don't think that Internet is as revolutionary as the steam engine. The steam engine provided a new source of power, which until then has been provided by animals, wind and water. This was a huge transformation.
The Internet is just an incremental improvement on the telegraph. It was the invention of telegraph (in lat 18th century) that revolutionized communications. Until then a message could travel as fast as a horseman.
The electric telegraph network of mid 19th century is the obvious precursor of today's Internet.
Actually, I don't know how many Brazilian scientists contributed to the research. But in any case, since the basic research was done with my tax dollars, I'm happy if other people (even if they haven't paid) benefit from it.
I don't see anything wrong with helping people when we can. Perhaps one of those people whose live we save today, will save your life in the future. You never know.
I'm not sure what 6 year olds need computers for. Crayons and paper make a much better "game":-)
Certainly a 6 year old can use a computer to write (my daughter did when she was in first grade - she just used a word processor to write and print stories) and a paint program to draw pictures.
But imagine getting older kids (7th, 8th grade or high school) to develop games for the 1st graders.
Of course there is always LOGO, but other than StarLogo, there is no nice LOGO for Linux (AFAIK).
Heck, take something as simple as printing. We have a Sun Ray server at work with our users spread across two buildings. Out of the
box Windows can deal with networked print queues easily enough that users can even stumble through it. Why is it so difficult for
UNIX?
As I recall Solaris has a nice GUI tool to add remote printers to a machine. However, root access is required to use it. Is that bad?
And if a user is missing a printer, the admin can always login (even remotely) and add it.
I also remember looking into using LDAP for user acounts, authentication, etc. for Solaris. Except *maybe* for Solaris 8 the whole
process is undocumented and unsuported. Meanwhile, it is now part of the Windows 2000 architecture.
Where was Microsoft when few years ago we were trying to integerate Windows machines into a SUN network. They did not support NIS, NIS+ or NFS. AFAIK they still don't.
Slashdot Mirror
A number of other possibilities are discussed in Jef Raskin's book The Humane Interface.
Then there is the whole Lifestream concept.
After listening to several songs off Napster/Gnutella she made me buy the CD of "A-Teens", as she liked a lot of the songs.
She may not do the burning herself, but she understand the concept...
As I found out, when my company went belly up, individually purchased insurance is only slightly more expensive than COBRA. Either one is not cheap - about $1000 for a family plan.
Any group that wants it's messages really secrect can generate the pad and then trivially write software to code and decode messages. Then each member of the group keeps the pad on a floppy along with a VB encryption/decryption program.
Unless you get hold of the floppy with the one time pad, you can't break the messages.
P.S. BTW public key encryption was first invented by a British mathematician who worked for the British Secret Service, but they made him keep it secret (see "The Code Book").
...richie
Squeak is an implementation of Smalltalk by the guys who invented Smalltalk in the first place. It's not the fact that it is Smalltalk that's important, but the kinds of projects they are doing.
They maybe mariginal efforts because they are trying new things. When web was first implemented it was a "mariginal effort" as well. It's not easy to predict what innovations will take off.
The point is that innovative open source software is being developed. You just have to look for it.
So what? In this particular case the hijackers did not do anything illegal until they hi-jacked the airplanes.
Can the computer also predict who will commit a crime? Perhaps all people should be arrested and questioned when they show up at the airport, and then only be allowed to fly if they can prove they are innocent...
This is true in general. It is rare to see a project open source or proprietary that is really innovative and different. That's because it's easy to copy existing ideas than to think up and implement new ones.
But remember that the Web (http, server, browser) were started as open source projects and today Apache is still one of the best web servers there is.
If you look around there are number really cool open source projects that are way ahead of anything the propriatary world is doing. Here are two I like:
Jazz - a Zooming user interface, as discussed in Jef Raskin's book The Humane Interface.
Squeak - a ground up implementation of Smalltalk-80 which is being used in all kinds of explorations. One of the leaders of this project is Alan Kay (you've heard of him, haven't you?).
Innovation can come from unexpected places. If more people get to play with the code, then it's more likely that someone will think of something really cool...
Also, I'm sure the Chinese goverment would be happy to agree to such a scheme.
You are right. But the mind adjusts little to slw to circumstances and we really wanted to get out of there. Our building is right on the East River - an easy target for another airplane...
It took about 10 to fifteen minutes to get down from the 48th floor.
I also thought, what a horrible accident, but I assumed that it was a private airplane. Today was a beautiful day to fly after all(I'm a private pilot).
From one corner of our floor on 48th floor, we get a clear view of the towers. We all went there. The north tower was on fire and there were papers floating in the air. I was trying to find out what kind of airplane caused the fire.
While standing there, I caught a sight of another airplane, a twin engine jet, it was banking to right. It came, what seemed like slightly below where we were and smashed straight into the other tower. A huge fire ball went up covering almost the entire upper third of the tower. Then it was gone and the second tower was on fire.
A second or so later, we heard the explosion and felt out building shake. At this point we all realized that this was no accident and we all ran to get out of the building.
As the elevators were full we ran down the staircase and then got out on the street.
Since clearly there would be no further work today, I decided to walk to Brooklyn to my mother-in-laws house. When I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge we saw F-15s circling high over New York.
Just as I reached the middle of the bridge we heard a crash. I turned around and saw the huge tower of World Trade Center collapse....
I feel horrible...
But it is engineering already. Engineering is making of useful things by applying science, if appropriate science exists, or hacking (trial and error) until we build the thing we need.
You should read some books on engineering (for example To Engineer is Human by Petroski).
Someone described the difference between science and engineering by saying: "A scientists discovers what is, an engineer builds what never was".
I am a parent. One of my best friends has two children - one adapted and one his own. His own child is finishing medical school, his adapted child is in jail (after numerous drug arrests etc). Parenting is a very unpredictable adventure.
Excuse me? [...]
Perhaps you assume that, because I feel the destruction of "leftover" embryos for the purpose of getting stem cells is wrong, I also am a reactionary, anti-science, get rid of all reproductive research kind of person? If so, you couldn't be farther from the truth.
Sorry! I didn't mean "you" specifically, but the "generic you". As in people who always want to tell others exactly what to do.
In the current procedure many fertilized eggs are placed inside the uterus and often none implant. If more than two implant they are usually removed to prevent multiple-births (like sven-tuplets).
That said, I do agree that those who insist on being biological parents rather than adopting display an astounding lack of understanding about what being a parent is all about: raising a child in a physically, mentally and emotionally caring environment. Parental love is not soley the realm of biology.
Are you a parent? It's easy to criticise others, without understanding their particular situations.
Finally, who the hell are you to tell me, whether I should or should not use a particular medical procedure?
If in the future it is possible to clone a human from just any cell, will that mean that shaving will be mass murder, since you are killing thousands of cells that could potentially become humans?
...richie
The cells were not from aborted fetuses but from discarted fertilized eggs and embroys. An embryo is a cluster several dozen of undiffrenciated cells.
These were fertilized in a test tube (in fertility clinics) and never placed inside a uterus, but just tossed in the garbage.
For humans a fetus is usually defined as postembriotic offspring, seven to eight weeks after fertilization.
The moral issue is whether a cluster of cells has the same rights as a human being.
I don't think that Internet is as revolutionary as the steam engine. The steam engine provided a new source of power, which until then has been provided by animals, wind and water. This was a huge transformation.
The Internet is just an incremental improvement on the telegraph. It was the invention of telegraph (in lat 18th century) that revolutionized communications. Until then a message could travel as fast as a horseman.
The electric telegraph network of mid 19th century is the obvious precursor of today's Internet.
I don't see anything wrong with helping people when we can. Perhaps one of those people whose live we save today, will save your life in the future. You never know.
Even though it's an AC posting it should be modded up....
Actually yes. For example see this article in Salon.
Certainly a 6 year old can use a computer to write (my daughter did when she was in first grade - she just used a word processor to write and print stories) and a paint program to draw pictures.
But imagine getting older kids (7th, 8th grade or high school) to develop games for the 1st graders.
Of course there is always LOGO, but other than StarLogo, there is no nice LOGO for Linux (AFAIK).
What is educational software? What grade are we talking about?
Wouldn't you think that a kid would learn more from writing a silly typing game, rather than just using one?
Maybe if we got a well known consumer advocate (like Ralph Nader) to lead the cause of consumers.
How could we go about declaring September 2001 the "Buy-no-DVDs-month"? If you need entertainment go to the library and borrow a book.
As I recall Solaris has a nice GUI tool to add remote printers to a machine. However, root access is required to use it. Is that bad?
And if a user is missing a printer, the admin can always login (even remotely) and add it.
I also remember looking into using LDAP for user acounts, authentication, etc. for Solaris. Except *maybe* for Solaris 8 the whole process is undocumented and unsuported. Meanwhile, it is now part of the Windows 2000 architecture.
Where was Microsoft when few years ago we were trying to integerate Windows machines into a SUN network. They did not support NIS, NIS+ or NFS. AFAIK they still don't.