Not to be picky -- I just find it interesting that Korean companies are finally starting to come into their own for consumer electronics, and this is one example I like to point to.
Korean industrial infrastructure is heavily influenced by Japanese (same kind of industrial combines, heavy government involvement, etc), but the cultures are very interesting. It'll be neat to see if a few of the Korean giants become Sony-beaters...
Datapoint 1:How many people do you know who currently own PocketPCs? How many own Palms / Visors?
People who own Palms or Visors I think you can think of as a realistic minimum market for beefier computers in nearly the same shape. A lot of those people don't *want* a "real PC" in their hand unless it will run for 6 weeks on 2 AA batteries (not going to happen soon;) but there's enough in common between "need an electronic appointment book" folks and those who are also carrying (you pick) [a laptop, a cell phone, a pager, a GPS, an MP3 or minidisk player] that a bet a good chunk of them would like to consolidate several of those into one thing.
Datapoint 2: Eyeglass / headbased displays are clearly not *mainstream* yet, but they're getting there. (I think Crutchfield now sells the TV ones that thinkgeek carries) When they're no longer a sight to rubberneck at, remember that Linux has been running wearable computers for a long time.
Datapoint 3: Linux is mainstream. Period. The day I can go into Best Buy or Barnes and Noble and buy 8 competing Black Mass Instructional Kits, or hear housewives discussing how cute that little baby Rosemary had is, then Satanism will also have become mainstream. The number of individuals who might install Linux on their iPaq after reading all the dire warnings isn't that big, maybe, but word spreads. Linux is already known as the OS to power scads of WebPads etc, and between hand size and thick-magazine size, the leap is not that great. Or, to put it another way, Linux is trendy the same way chanting the words "dot.com" is. You may find widespread interest annoying and as matching the underground, revolutionary feel that Linux had a few years ago, but it's more than a passing fancy. Considering what it means (GPL; computerational polyculture; renewed interest in UI), I think it's actually *more* of a revolutionary OS now than then!
Datapoint 4: As far as I know, there is no high-quality paint / drawing app for Windows CE or Windows Powered or Windows For Tiny Things (someone correct this, perhaps?). Programs like the GIMP and Sketch, on the other hand, ought to work on a small system running Linux and XFree 4.0. I'd like that on a plane ride, or for simple sketching, etc.
Datapoint 5: Public misapprehension of Microsoft as a monopoly operator. It's there, and it's not going away. I won't get into that part right now, but however much we like the reasons for it, right now non-MS operating systems have a much better chance to break out than they did a few years ago.
On the con side, well... there are feature 'wish lists' that we all have for certain devices... if MS-based devices have these first, it will be a stumbling block, but not insurmountable. For instance, I would really like and appreciate:
- being able to watch quicktime and other movies on my Linux-based palmtop, whether it's a YOPY, an iPaq, or whatever comes out next week. Portable entertainment.
- a built in GPS reciever
- bluetooth or similar for short-range communications
- a digital camera on a stalk
- lots of ports, on a deck-of-cards sized docking thingy. That way, it's small enough to take along, but the ports themselves aren't subject to abuse when they're not needed.
But these as as doable with a Linux-based tiny pc as with MS flavor of month...
My Langenscheidt's "Basic German Vocabulary" spells it with an umlaut, but I couldn't figure out how to make my computer say "umlaut"... the traditional answer is to follow the normally umlauted vowel with an e. (Spelling the German word for king, for instance, "Koenig.")
Most cameras come with a serial port for transfers as well as their storage media, whatever kind they use. In fact, at the very low end, there's often *only* a serial port. (Try the digicam area at your local Walmart to check out the most abused cameras you're likely to find in the First World; strange inventory from quite nice to ugly outdated pieces of junk.)
Quite a few cameras do come with a USB port; Kodak makes some models that do, for instance, and one of my new lust-objects (The Fuji FinePix 4700 aka Leica Digilux Zoom) does as well.
I'm unsure about what level of support these USB-port cameras have under Linux, though it appears from recent traffic on the gPhoto mailing list that there is support in the works for image transfer over USB, with the goal of user transparency as to whether the camera is connected via serial, USB or some other means.
mostly in high-end cameras (like the SLR-conversions in the $8-15,000 range). Which counts me out;)
On the other hand, an in-camera PCMCIA slot isn't *too* far from what many notebook users do use, which is a PCMCIA adaptor for smartmedia or compactflash, and I think even the idiot sony sticks. Since CF includes the IBM MicroDrive, a camera with a slot for it and a PCMCIA equipped notebook (or a desktop with a reader) would be a good approximation of the speed / capacity of full-on PCMCIA support in-camera. Besides, except for the larger cameras, PCMCIA is larger than you probably want / need in a camera. (Though this Sony is a bit of a space hog as well...)
Cool thing with the Sony here is, I have yet to see 500MB of camera-storage for around $7, as it would cost in mini CD-Rs. By the time I would have re-used enough storage to justify much more expensive flash solutions, I might be interested in upgrading;)
Go into Best Buy or CompUSA, or any Mom&Pop computer place, or online at Dell, Gateway, etc...
Zip and Jaz drives are not rare, but they're certainly not part of the default desktop machine except in certain fields. (Mac users in advertising, publishing, rendering etc tend to have them disproportionately... ) Also, I would trust a CD-R with my date slightly more than I would a Jaz or Zip disk, not to mention that for 77mm CD-Rs, the drive would be smaller than either of these drives...
On the other hand, there's the skipping problem that people have raised, and I don't know how / whether it's been addressed...
I sure would like to pay $1 / 100MB or so vs much much more for CF (including MicroDrive), SmartMedia, stupid ugly Sony chewing gum, PCMCIA cards, etc, and be able to examine the results in yer avg. consumer box, yet not be limited to the resolution and storage limits of the floppy-based ones.
For now I'm stuck with SmartMedia camera that I otherwise quite like, though.
O'Reilly is a rare bird -- a publisher whose technical books are usually literate and readable by those not already steeped in the topic. (They also have great introductions which tend to be great essays in themselves -- I wish O'Reilly would put all the introductions on their Web site!)
They tread the magic line between condescending and intimidating very well, and when a book has pressing prereqs, they're usually well-explained and justified in the introduction, so a 2-minute scan is enough to determine if it's worthwhile to you.
The happy medium between technical overload and hand-holding I think is why Running Linux is so popular -- the first few times I tried to install Linux ("what's a root disc, and how is it connected to a boot disc?"), it was with books which I now use to refer to in some cases, but which were much more intimidating. Running Linux I credit with getting me past the point of frustration and finally getting things to gel.
As at least one other poster has commented, 1/2 Price Books (they use php) sometimes has a good selection of O'reilly books; I got Linux in a Nutshell there about 2 months after it came out. The spine was a little unglued (maybe Oreilly sells 'seconds' to HPB?) but that was fine with me -- good trade:)
Dunno how different their stock is city to city; I frequented several of their Austin locations and preferred them to the various Big Full-Price Chains when it comes to having a more interesting (not always more complete) stock, but I have two gripes about HPB:
1) They ought to wake up and serve the coffee:) If anyone from HPB is listening, *please* at least establish a pilot program (who knows, maybe they already have) serving hot cocoa, tea, coffee, snacks... I know there is a *lot* of hassle to this (food regulations which make it tough) but it would be great to go to a bookstore like 1/2 price, where one can actually afford a few books in addition to coffee, rather than to Narnes and Boble, where both categories are pretty damn expensive. The books-n-foodstuffs combo is so tempting that I (and how many others?) use it as a library where you don't have to sneak in food. Some books I've come back to several days in a row to finish, justified in my cushy chair by a refill of cocoa or coffee.
2) Inventory control: I know that the stock changes constantly, that used books are sometimes tough to track down, etc, but the biggest problem I have with 1/2 price is the tantalizing feeling that the book you're looking for really is there, but no one can prove it. Heck, require people to tap in the info from their wanna-sell books to build up your inventory database!:) ('Sir, you'd like to sell that stack of novels? Certainly, if you could just enter the information at this terminal...") Or offer a bonus to anyone willing to accompany books-for-sale-or-trade with a typed, scannable list of author, title, category, ISBN, etc. I'm sure they're working on this, but that's another reason why my business sometimes strayed to stores which I actually liked less -- money (and time) talk, all that.
I hope like you say that it is an improvement; the particular proprieatary one I was thinking of is the Soresnson codec, which right now does require either an X86 running Windows or a Mac running Mac OS -- those are the proprietary combinations I was thinking about.
real, as you say, isn't giving much away. But if one could stream the same movies to a Linux box and actually watch them, I think that would be / could be an improvement.
AC (theo), after I taunted the world for someone who coded using Graffiti, wrote:
"I do. I haven't done anything HUGE yet, but I've written a checkers game using PocketC that's about 14K of source code, and a line-of-sight checker for BattleTech thats somewhat smaller.
I don't know that novels would be any shorter if the authors used Graffiti instead of a computer. After all, some of the longest books were written before the advent of the ball point pen, much less the typewriter or computer."
a) I'm impressed / suprised ("surpressed"?)!:) I'm also a little disturbed to think how your hands must feel after doing that!
b) If writing on my Visor felt like using a fountain pen or a quill pen, I might still consider it an archaic input device, but at least I woudn't scoff at it. I would even enjoy it more than I do, and in fact I do enjoy writing in Graffiti for short periods of time, only not for extended ones. Fountain pens of at least moderate quality are a pleasure to write with, even with my poor grip. Ball points, especially of the Bic and Papermate variety ubiquitous in offices, near cash registers, chained to hotel check-in desks, at the "Please sign in" board at the gates of Hell, etc, are a pain in the tookus. I consider them *worse* than graffiti, and you now know it's not my favorite, even though I live the devices it makes possible.
thanks for the reply, I withdraw the implication that *no one* codes in graffiti because obviously out there at least one guy does.
timothy
The problem with Webpads (the continuing rant)
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Crusoe WebPads By FIC
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is the (IMO, detrimental) way they change the relationship between user and content. Content has to be dumbed down to use a click-only interface, or in some cases perhaps extensive customization from another computer to make click-navigation possible (like setting up your stock portfolio for easy quote checks, lining up bookmarks, etc). Most sites (and it's not their fault) simply wont' allow complex navigation using only clicks.
Let me rephrase: If I can't enter text easily, it's only a toy!
Web TV may offer horrible resolution, slow speed, generally weak user interface, but you know what? It's possible to send email with the chintzy wireless keyboard. Not joyous, but possible.
But with all the processing power built into these various transmeta devices, they will be more like sort-of-interactive picture frames (the constant smirking references to their pornographic applications are really not far off, I think) than the superby useful and fun things they could be, unless there is adequate text-entry means.
Does anybody code using graffiti? Does anyone like drawing up proposals using any kind of handwriting recognition? Maybe a few do, but even those I can just betcha would prefer, given adequate space and barring extraordinary circumstances, to have a "real" keyboard (however defined)... I'm partial to clicky, some people like silent, and there are plenty of radical designs like the kinesis which I think I'd like as well. Or the twiddler, or the BAT, or anything other than scribbling on glass one letter at a time. Typing may tear the wrists, but it does free the thoughts...
(What if I want to search on google for the name of a friend, and that name has upwards of 20 letters?)
Again, so long as keyboards will work via USB or other ports, then OK, ok, I give, uncle, mercy, etc. I'll get a happy hacking keyboard or similar and be done with it, and if I ever overcome my Mr.T-like fear of airplanes and leave Iceland, my seatmates will just have to deal.
timothy
(In answer to the obvious, No, and no. Just kidding.)
But a touchscreen I could do without. I can see it for signatures or whatever, OK, fine -- and I can scribble Graffiti at a fair clip, so fine, little thumbnail sized area of handwriting recognition I'll go with. But most important is a provision for a keyboard! An actual external, moving-keys keyboard!, PS/2 best, but in the interest of not being a Luddite, I'll go with a USB port and buy an adaptor for my clicky beast.
Working with text is simply too ridiculous with handwriting recognition. You can bet novels would be a lot shorter if writers were confined to their Palms / Visors / Newtons...
For $1000 bucks, I'm nearly sold, for $750 you couldn't stop me. I want to use a computer in the living room...
CompactFlash? Cool. Microdrives are neat, reasonable amount of storage. CF is available at WalMart.
SmartMedia? Well, even though I like my Leica DigiLux, I admit SM has its flaws. It's sexy and slim, but... expensive per MB, not getting cheaper fast enough. At least it's around, though, and used in quite a few cameras, as well as Rio MP3 players.
But that Sony memory stick stuff? WHY? What advantages does it offer (to anyone but Sony) over PCMCIA or CF? (I admit, the SM slots aren't good for much else.)
Sheesh. Stupid chewing gum form factor will win cause it's cute... or something.
that CNET has actually covered a fair amount of Linux stuff in the past, so it was ironic that in the 10th Year Of Our Linus, with estimates placing it at more than 10 million installations, and driving huge sites, supporting hundreds of Web sites and several print magazines, they say it's "entering the mainstream." But that really is the perception of many suited Americans...
DgtlGhost wrote: "'We hope in the end to get bunks in the royal homestead and heritable titles, so any girlfriends can one day be genyooine princesses.' So, how much money does it take to get one of those, as a geek...."
What, girlfriends?
Who knows? I haven't even got a catalog yet. Damn Internet.
That's why we're gathering intelligence over here, in the guise of a so-called "Interview"... Rob and Jeff are in pretty good shape, and have extensive paramilitary / customer service training. They also have the VA "Chris DiBona signature model" Zodiac boat, only one ever made, using secret technology silent engines (the On-demand Automatic Response System propulsion apparatus, the patent to which will soon be open-sourced).
Roblimo's radio intelligence background, Emmett's phone-calling persistence and all 4 of my family's cats will come in handy as we complete this project.
Michael and Jamie will be running interference, along with CowboyNeal, who will be fanning pigeons off the beach in a subplot borrowed from some movie he saw once. We're not stopping him, and it does make for good press.
We hope in the end to get bunks in the royal homestead and heritable titles, so any girlfriends can one day be genyooine princesses. Also, all the swimming we want.
Sealand is also the name of a well-known shipping company. When I mentioned the Sealand datahaven to my brother (who kindly introduced me to Neal Stephenson's books a few years ago and himself works on ships part of each year), he wrinkled his brow and said "Sealand? You mean the shippers?"...
Thanks for the candor -- I hope mine didn't come off as dogmatic either;)
When you write "But, ultimately, I believe it is neccessary for government to keep a tight rein on private affairs. There needs to be clearly defined limits of what it can do, don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a police state mentality, but some form of governmental control is vital," though I can't help asking, What is a police state if not government with "a right rein on public affairs"? That's exactly what I'm opposed to.
And I agree with you (to an extent, and Yes, there's a catch that I'll get to in a second) when you say "government should, and can be far more representative of the masses at large than any private capitalistic concern could ever hope to be."
True as far as it goes, but that's not far (IMO), because corporations need to sell stuff and satisfy people much more than governments do. They can cause dissatisfaction only so many times, or so much in aggregate, before they give up the fight to their competition. In fact, if you take that sentence and add the word "single" in between "any" and "private," I would agree without particular reservation I can think of right now... but corporations can and do fail when they don't work; governments tend to declare holidays, or declare their own exemption from the rules they would have others follow, etc. Remember, for all their PR and dishonest actions, businesses do not have guns.
My ideal is a society that is (intellectually, socially, financially, etc) flexible. Who would have thought 15 years ago that Wang, Microsoft, or Red Hat would be in their various positions today? A trick question, since Red Hat is both beneficiary and promulgator of an entire free software world (that is, Linux specifically, not all Unices or free software) which didn't even exist 15 years ago. Government actions surrounding markets tend to do too much assuming that what is, will continue to exist pretty much as it has been.
That's why my favorite book recommendation on the subject is "The Future and Its Enemies" by Virginia Postrel.
Thanks for your points, hope you like reading mine.
timothy
Well, this describes me pretty well;)
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Natural Capitalism
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mbacker wrote:
"Many Libertarians and other free market zealots would like to see nothing more than agencies like the FCC dismantled, because it gives the Government some form control over their lives, that wasn't granted to it in the Constitution.
They would like the Government to do little more than to defend the nation from attack and enforce contracts."
Well, the word "zealots" indicates you don't consider this a complimentary description, but that aside this is a pretty good description of my thoughts.
In fact, it's one of the best compact descriptions of the libertarian point of view that I've seen.
Fend off invasion, enforce contracts (and by implication, preserve rights). Bingo.
Dump the FCC, the Department of Education, the BATF, the Department of Agriculture, the NEA, the NIH and the NEH, among others.
Let society experiment!:) (With as little State involvement as possible in most human endeavors.) Is the State evil? I don't think the State is evil; I think it tends toward evil. Eternal vigilance, best-laid plans of mice and men, road to hell paved with good intentions, all that.
Well, either way... you're right, it's a contradiction that will have to get faced one day. All I'm saying is that I'd rather EULAs be considered valid than OK usurpation of GPL'd source, since the GPL is really a sort of EULA. Tricky thing, I'm not sure which approach would be better. timothy
However, if that were sufficient, then so would be Microsoft's easily-gettaroundable kerberos spec protected by just such a click license, wouldn't it?
And MS could say "well, we got the code using an unarchiver which never showed us this so-called license thing," which is what a lot of people are saying about kerberos.
I'd prefer unambiguous plaintext, I think. ("These are the terms. Read 'em and weep only if you choose not to follow them.")
Watching these with friends in high school is a pleasant memory.
Riding Bean esp. I liked, for it's hard-boiled plot, funny dialogue (good voices, too, even in the dubbed version -- I must be burned at the stake), and real-life aspects. Not just a buncha mecha;) which I think is cool but I can only watch so many variations on...
Ranma 1/2 is also one of the funniest things I've ever seen! lol funny, esp. the grandfather character. And that little song gets in your head...
The fabulous invisible slashdot T-shirt is on its way to reward you for spotting the intentional error!:) I hope xl fits OK, but the cloth costs something unbelievable.
I bet Shakespeare would have spelled it the same way I did, some days.
My bad, now fixed.
timothy (Isn't it about time we kicked these amateur clowns out of office and installed some professional clowns instead?!")
Actually, since I carefully compose each edition of Slashback using those special letter-shaped pasta, what I meant to say was "check your *colander*"!
Slashdot Mirror
It's Korean (made by Samsung)
...
Not to be picky -- I just find it interesting that Korean companies are finally starting to come into their own for consumer electronics, and this is one example I like to point to.
Korean industrial infrastructure is heavily influenced by Japanese (same kind of industrial combines, heavy government involvement, etc), but the cultures are very interesting. It'll be neat to see if a few of the Korean giants become Sony-beaters
timothy
Sure. Why not?!
... there are feature 'wish lists' that we all have for certain devices ... if MS-based devices have these first, it will be a stumbling block, but not insurmountable.
...
Datapoint 1:How many people do you know who currently own PocketPCs? How many own Palms / Visors?
People who own Palms or Visors I think you can think of as a realistic minimum market for beefier computers in nearly the same shape. A lot of those people don't *want* a "real PC" in their hand unless it will run for 6 weeks on 2 AA batteries (not going to happen soon;) but there's enough in common between "need an electronic appointment book" folks and those who are also carrying (you pick) [a laptop, a cell phone, a pager, a GPS, an MP3 or minidisk player] that a bet a good chunk of them would like to consolidate several of those into one thing.
Datapoint 2: Eyeglass / headbased displays are clearly not *mainstream* yet, but they're getting there. (I think Crutchfield now sells the TV ones that thinkgeek carries) When they're no longer a sight to rubberneck at, remember that Linux has been running wearable computers for a long time.
Datapoint 3: Linux is mainstream. Period. The day I can go into Best Buy or Barnes and Noble and buy 8 competing Black Mass Instructional Kits, or hear housewives discussing how cute that little baby Rosemary had is, then Satanism will also have become mainstream. The number of individuals who might install Linux on their iPaq after reading all the dire warnings isn't that big, maybe, but word spreads. Linux is already known as the OS to power scads of WebPads etc, and between hand size and thick-magazine size, the leap is not that great. Or, to put it another way, Linux is trendy the same way chanting the words "dot.com" is. You may find widespread interest annoying and as matching the underground, revolutionary feel that Linux had a few years ago, but it's more than a passing fancy. Considering what it means (GPL; computerational polyculture; renewed interest in UI), I think it's actually *more* of a revolutionary OS now than then!
Datapoint 4: As far as I know, there is no high-quality paint / drawing app for Windows CE or Windows Powered or Windows For Tiny Things (someone correct this, perhaps?). Programs like the GIMP and Sketch, on the other hand, ought to work on a small system running Linux and XFree 4.0. I'd like that on a plane ride, or for simple sketching, etc.
Datapoint 5: Public misapprehension of Microsoft as a monopoly operator. It's there, and it's not going away. I won't get into that part right now, but however much we like the reasons for it, right now non-MS operating systems have a much better chance to break out than they did a few years ago.
On the con side, well
For instance, I would really like and appreciate:
- being able to watch quicktime and other movies on my Linux-based palmtop, whether it's a YOPY, an iPaq, or whatever comes out next week. Portable entertainment.
- a built in GPS reciever
- bluetooth or similar for short-range communications
- a digital camera on a stalk
- lots of ports, on a deck-of-cards sized docking thingy. That way, it's small enough to take along, but the ports themselves aren't subject to abuse when they're not needed.
But these as as doable with a Linux-based tiny pc as with MS flavor of month
timothy
My Langenscheidt's "Basic German Vocabulary" spells it with an umlaut, but I couldn't figure out how to make my computer say "umlaut" ... the traditional answer is to follow the normally umlauted vowel with an e. (Spelling the German word for king, for instance, "Koenig.")
timothy
Most cameras come with a serial port for transfers as well as their storage media, whatever kind they use. In fact, at the very low end, there's often *only* a serial port. (Try the digicam area at your local Walmart to check out the most abused cameras you're likely to find in the First World; strange inventory from quite nice to ugly outdated pieces of junk.)
Quite a few cameras do come with a USB port; Kodak makes some models that do, for instance, and one of my new lust-objects (The Fuji FinePix 4700 aka Leica Digilux Zoom) does as well.
I'm unsure about what level of support these USB-port cameras have under Linux, though it appears from recent traffic on the gPhoto mailing list that there is support in the works for image transfer over USB, with the goal of user transparency as to whether the camera is connected via serial, USB or some other means.
timothy
mostly in high-end cameras (like the SLR-conversions in the $8-15,000 range). Which counts me out;)
...)
On the other hand, an in-camera PCMCIA slot isn't *too* far from what many notebook users do use, which is a PCMCIA adaptor for smartmedia or compactflash, and I think even the idiot sony sticks. Since CF includes the IBM MicroDrive, a camera with a slot for it and a PCMCIA equipped notebook (or a desktop with a reader) would be a good approximation of the speed / capacity of full-on PCMCIA support in-camera. Besides, except for the larger cameras, PCMCIA is larger than you probably want / need in a camera. (Though this Sony is a bit of a space hog as well
Cool thing with the Sony here is, I have yet to see 500MB of camera-storage for around $7, as it would cost in mini CD-Rs. By the time I would have re-used enough storage to justify much more expensive flash solutions, I might be interested in upgrading;)
timothy
Go into Best Buy or CompUSA, or any Mom&Pop computer place, or online at Dell, Gateway, etc ...
... ) Also, I would trust a CD-R with my date slightly more than I would a Jaz or Zip disk, not to mention that for 77mm CD-Rs, the drive would be smaller than either of these drives ...
...
Zip and Jaz drives are not rare, but they're certainly not part of the default desktop machine except in certain fields. (Mac users in advertising, publishing, rendering etc tend to have them disproportionately
On the other hand, there's the skipping problem that people have raised, and I don't know how / whether it's been addressed
I sure would like to pay $1 / 100MB or so vs much much more for CF (including MicroDrive), SmartMedia, stupid ugly Sony chewing gum, PCMCIA cards, etc, and be able to examine the results in yer avg. consumer box, yet not be limited to the resolution and storage limits of the floppy-based ones.
For now I'm stuck with SmartMedia camera that I otherwise quite like, though.
timothy
O'Reilly is a rare bird -- a publisher whose technical books are usually literate and readable by those not already steeped in the topic. (They also have great introductions which tend to be great essays in themselves -- I wish O'Reilly would put all the introductions on their Web site!)
They tread the magic line between condescending and intimidating very well, and when a book has pressing prereqs, they're usually well-explained and justified in the introduction, so a 2-minute scan is enough to determine if it's worthwhile to you.
The happy medium between technical overload and hand-holding I think is why Running Linux is so popular -- the first few times I tried to install Linux ("what's a root disc, and how is it connected to a boot disc?"), it was with books which I now use to refer to in some cases, but which were much more intimidating. Running Linux I credit with getting me past the point of frustration and finally getting things to gel.
timothy
As at least one other poster has commented, 1/2 Price Books (they use php) sometimes has a good selection of O'reilly books; I got Linux in a Nutshell there about 2 months after it came out. The spine was a little unglued (maybe Oreilly sells 'seconds' to HPB?) but that was fine with me -- good trade :)
:) ... I know there is a *lot* of hassle to this (food regulations which make it tough) but it would be great to go to a bookstore like 1/2 price, where one can actually afford a few books in addition to coffee, rather than to Narnes and Boble, where both categories are pretty damn expensive. The books-n-foodstuffs combo is so tempting that I (and how many others?) use it as a library where you don't have to sneak in food. Some books I've come back to several days in a row to finish, justified in my cushy chair by a refill of cocoa or coffee.
:) ('Sir, you'd like to sell that stack of novels? Certainly, if you could just enter the information at this terminal ...") Or offer a bonus to anyone willing to accompany books-for-sale-or-trade with a typed, scannable list of author, title, category, ISBN, etc. I'm sure they're working on this, but that's another reason why my business sometimes strayed to stores which I actually liked less -- money (and time) talk, all that.
Dunno how different their stock is city to city; I frequented several of their Austin locations and preferred them to the various Big Full-Price Chains when it comes to having a more interesting (not always more complete) stock, but I have two gripes about HPB:
1) They ought to wake up and serve the coffee
If anyone from HPB is listening, *please* at least establish a pilot program (who knows, maybe they already have) serving hot cocoa, tea, coffee, snacks
2) Inventory control: I know that the stock changes constantly, that used books are sometimes tough to track down, etc, but the biggest problem I have with 1/2 price is the tantalizing feeling that the book you're looking for really is there, but no one can prove it. Heck, require people to tap in the info from their wanna-sell books to build up your inventory database!
timothy
that was poorly thought out.
I hope like you say that it is an improvement; the particular proprieatary one I was thinking of is the Soresnson codec, which right now does require either an X86 running Windows or a Mac running Mac OS -- those are the proprietary combinations I was thinking about.
real, as you say, isn't giving much away. But if one could stream the same movies to a Linux box and actually watch them, I think that would be / could be an improvement.
Tim
a) I'm impressed / suprised ("surpressed"?)!
b) If writing on my Visor felt like using a fountain pen or a quill pen, I might still consider it an archaic input device, but at least I woudn't scoff at it. I would even enjoy it more than I do, and in fact I do enjoy writing in Graffiti for short periods of time, only not for extended ones. Fountain pens of at least moderate quality are a pleasure to write with, even with my poor grip. Ball points, especially of the Bic and Papermate variety ubiquitous in offices, near cash registers, chained to hotel check-in desks, at the "Please sign in" board at the gates of Hell, etc, are a pain in the tookus. I consider them *worse* than graffiti, and you now know it's not my favorite, even though I live the devices it makes possible.
thanks for the reply, I withdraw the implication that *no one* codes in graffiti because obviously out there at least one guy does.
timothy
is the (IMO, detrimental) way they change the relationship between user and content. Content has to be dumbed down to use a click-only interface, or in some cases perhaps extensive customization from another computer to make click-navigation possible (like setting up your stock portfolio for easy quote checks, lining up bookmarks, etc). Most sites (and it's not their fault) simply wont' allow complex navigation using only clicks.
... I'm partial to clicky, some people like silent, and there are plenty of radical designs like the kinesis which I think I'd like as well. Or the twiddler, or the BAT, or anything other than scribbling on glass one letter at a time. Typing may tear the wrists, but it does free the thoughts ...
Let me rephrase: If I can't enter text easily, it's only a toy!
Web TV may offer horrible resolution, slow speed, generally weak user interface, but you know what? It's possible to send email with the chintzy wireless keyboard. Not joyous, but possible.
But with all the processing power built into these various transmeta devices, they will be more like sort-of-interactive picture frames (the constant smirking references to their pornographic applications are really not far off, I think) than the superby useful and fun things they could be, unless there is adequate text-entry means.
Does anybody code using graffiti? Does anyone like drawing up proposals using any kind of handwriting recognition? Maybe a few do, but even those I can just betcha would prefer, given adequate space and barring extraordinary circumstances, to have a "real" keyboard (however defined)
(What if I want to search on google for the name of a friend, and that name has upwards of 20 letters?)
Again, so long as keyboards will work via USB or other ports, then OK, ok, I give, uncle, mercy, etc. I'll get a happy hacking keyboard or similar and be done with it, and if I ever
overcome my Mr.T-like fear of airplanes and leave Iceland, my seatmates will just have to deal.
timothy
(In answer to the obvious, No, and no. Just kidding.)
but only almost. 1000x800? Fine, good enough.
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And wireless, yes, is important.
But a touchscreen I could do without. I can see it for signatures or whatever, OK, fine -- and I can scribble Graffiti at a fair clip, so fine, little thumbnail sized area of handwriting recognition I'll go with. But most important is a provision for a keyboard! An actual external, moving-keys keyboard!, PS/2 best, but in the interest of not being a Luddite, I'll go with a USB port and buy an adaptor for my clicky beast.
Working with text is simply too ridiculous with handwriting recognition. You can bet novels would be a lot shorter if writers were confined to their Palms / Visors / Newtons
For $1000 bucks, I'm nearly sold, for $750 you couldn't stop me. I want to use a computer in the living room
timothy
PC Card? Great.
... expensive per MB, not getting cheaper fast enough. At least it's around, though, and used in quite a few cameras, as well as Rio MP3 players.
... or something.
CompactFlash? Cool. Microdrives are neat, reasonable amount of storage. CF is available at WalMart.
SmartMedia? Well, even though I like my Leica DigiLux, I admit SM has its flaws. It's sexy and slim, but
But that Sony memory stick stuff? WHY? What advantages does it offer (to anyone but Sony) over PCMCIA or CF? (I admit, the SM slots aren't good for much else.)
Sheesh. Stupid chewing gum form factor will win cause it's cute
timothy
that CNET has actually covered a fair amount of Linux stuff in the past, so it was ironic that in the 10th Year Of Our Linus, with estimates placing it at more than 10 million installations, and driving huge sites, supporting hundreds of Web sites and several print magazines, they say it's "entering the mainstream." But that really is the perception of many suited Americans ...
timothy
DgtlGhost wrote: "'We hope in the end to get bunks in the royal homestead and heritable titles, so any girlfriends can one day be genyooine princesses.' So, how much money does it take to get one of those, as a geek...."
What, girlfriends?
Who knows? I haven't even got a catalog yet. Damn Internet.
timothy
That's why we're gathering intelligence over here, in the guise of a so-called "Interview" ... Rob and Jeff are in pretty good shape, and have extensive paramilitary / customer service training. They also have the VA "Chris DiBona signature model" Zodiac boat, only one ever made, using secret technology silent engines (the On-demand Automatic Response System propulsion apparatus, the patent to which will soon be open-sourced).
Roblimo's radio intelligence background, Emmett's phone-calling persistence and all 4 of my family's cats will come in handy as we complete this project.
Michael and Jamie will be running interference, along with CowboyNeal, who will be fanning pigeons off the beach in a subplot borrowed from some movie he saw once. We're not stopping him, and it does make for good press.
We hope in the end to get bunks in the royal homestead and heritable titles, so any girlfriends can one day be genyooine princesses. Also, all the swimming we want.
timothy
At least, probably.
...
Sealand is also the name of a well-known shipping company. When I mentioned the Sealand datahaven to my brother (who kindly introduced me to Neal Stephenson's books a few years ago and himself works on ships part of each year), he wrinkled his brow and said "Sealand? You mean the shippers?"
timothy
Thanks for the candor -- I hope mine didn't come off as dogmatic either;)
... but corporations can and do fail when they don't work; governments tend to declare holidays, or declare their own exemption from the rules they would have others follow, etc. Remember, for all their PR and dishonest actions, businesses do not have guns.
When you write "But, ultimately, I believe it is neccessary for government to keep a tight rein on private affairs. There needs to be clearly defined limits of what it can do, don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for a police state mentality, but some form of governmental control is vital," though I can't help asking, What is a police state if not government with "a right rein on public affairs"? That's exactly what I'm opposed to.
And I agree with you (to an extent, and Yes, there's a catch that I'll get to in a second) when you say "government should, and can be far more representative of the masses at large than any private capitalistic concern could ever hope to be."
True as far as it goes, but that's not far (IMO), because corporations need to sell stuff and satisfy people much more than governments do. They can cause dissatisfaction only so many times, or so much in aggregate, before they give up the fight to their competition. In fact, if you take that sentence and add the word "single" in between "any" and "private," I would agree without particular reservation I can think of right now
My ideal is a society that is (intellectually, socially, financially, etc) flexible. Who would have thought 15 years ago that Wang, Microsoft, or Red Hat would be in their various positions today? A trick question, since Red Hat is both beneficiary and promulgator of an entire free software world (that is, Linux specifically, not all Unices or free software) which didn't even exist 15 years ago. Government actions surrounding markets tend to do too much assuming that what is, will continue to exist pretty much as it has been.
That's why my favorite book recommendation on the subject is "The Future and Its Enemies" by Virginia Postrel.
Thanks for your points, hope you like reading mine.
timothy
Well, the word "zealots" indicates you don't consider this a complimentary description, but that aside this is a pretty good description of my thoughts.
In fact, it's one of the best compact descriptions of the libertarian point of view that I've seen.
Fend off invasion, enforce contracts (and by implication, preserve rights). Bingo.
Dump the FCC, the Department of Education, the BATF, the Department of Agriculture, the NEA, the NIH and the NEH, among others.
Let society experiment!
timothy
Well, either way ... you're right, it's a contradiction that will have to get faced one day. All I'm saying is that I'd rather EULAs be considered valid than OK usurpation of GPL'd source, since the GPL is really a sort of EULA. Tricky thing, I'm not sure which approach would be better. timothy
That sounds euphonic, too ;) ("jee-pee-yoolah")
However, if that were sufficient, then so would be Microsoft's easily-gettaroundable kerberos spec protected by just such a click license, wouldn't it?
And MS could say "well, we got the code using an unarchiver which never showed us this so-called license thing," which is what a lot of people are saying about kerberos.
I'd prefer unambiguous plaintext, I think. ("These are the terms. Read 'em and weep only if you choose not to follow them.")
timothy
Watching these with friends in high school is a pleasant memory.
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Riding Bean esp. I liked, for it's hard-boiled plot, funny dialogue (good voices, too, even in the dubbed version -- I must be burned at the stake), and real-life aspects. Not just a buncha mecha;) which I think is cool but I can only watch so many variations on
Ranma 1/2 is also one of the funniest things I've ever seen! lol funny, esp. the grandfather character. And that little song gets in your head
Tim
The fabulous invisible slashdot T-shirt is on its way to reward you for spotting the intentional error! :) I hope xl fits OK, but the cloth costs something unbelievable.
I bet Shakespeare would have spelled it the same way I did, some days.
My bad, now fixed.
timothy (Isn't it about time we kicked these amateur clowns out of office and installed some professional clowns instead?!")
touche.
Actually, since I carefully compose each edition of Slashback using those special letter-shaped pasta, what I meant to say was "check your *colander*"!
Heh. Fixing it now, thanks for the tip.
Tim