The first third of Stephen Levy's excellent book "Hackers" centered on the Tech Model Railroad Club. According to Levy, they were the first group allowed free, unlimited to a computer to essentially play with. The book is a great read, even though it ends at a point where Richard Stallman was pretty much in the wilderness hacking on GNU. I'd love to read a "Hackers II".
I've had PC HD cards for several years. Currently, I'm using a Telemann HiPix with the user modified software from a dedicated group of hackers from the AVS Forums. But processor speeds have reached the point where one can playback HD transport streams solely in software using a tool like DVHSTool and the MPEG2 decoder from a software DVD player.
I'm in a top 15 media market and all the ass clowns at Disney do is put it in a couple art houses.
Not true in Chicago! It played at arguably the best theater in town, the McClurg Court - DTS, THX, DLP. The english dub was on the big screen downstairs, while the subtitled Japanese version was in one of the smaller theaters upstairs. It got a fair shake in Chicago at least.
I saw it and enjoed it greatly, even though I cannot abide most anime (see the topic icon for a perfect example of what I find annoying about the style). "Spirited Away" suffered from poor box office, not on it's own merits, but because most moviegoers have seen other anime, and thought "oh, there's that anime film" and rejected it out of hand.
P.S. What is the name of the annoying blue-haired character/anime topic icon? Just so I can avoid it. "Bambi eyes" to the max.
The word here is "cited". Not "sighted" not "sited" either.
cite tr.v.cited, citing, cites
1: To quote as an authority or example.
2: To mention or bring forward as support, illustration, or proof: cited several instances of insubordinate behavior.
3:
a: To commend officially for meritorious action in military service.
b: To honor formally.
4: To summon before a court of law.
I know spelling flames are considered rude in Slashdot culture, but this is not just misspelled, it is the wrong word.
I go to a lot of trade shows. Trying to cover the entire floor and see everything at a huge show like Comdex is exhusting. At the end of the day, my feet resemble hamburger.
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the first Segway purchaser was there, on his Segway. I wanted one so badly, if they had been renting for $100 a day, I would have done it.
Yeah, it's a niche market, but so are those little sit-down scooters - and I did rent one of those on the 4th day of a previous CES.
I was on Chinet when I first moved to Chicago, and attended a few RL get-togethers - possibly the single geekiest bunch of people I've ever known (and I mean that in the best way possible).
The story I got was that Randy had tossed it into the dumpster, and whoever has it now fished it out. It was at the second get-together at some pizza place on Touhy. Ward said that the Smithsonian wanted something that was impossible to give them - the "original" system. Roughly comparable to trying to drink from the same river twice. They had a whole pile of 1k memory cards - who could say which one was "original".
My old e-mail address was katefans@chinet.chi.il.us and before that, katefans@world.std.com - two contenders for the title "First ISP".
Most of my T-shirts are from trade shows. Now I just need the booth weasles to start throwing pants out to the crowd. Some socks and underware would be nice too.
Recently, I attended the Consumer Electronics Show and Janis was on a panel with Dan Gillmor from the Mecury News, Steve Wozniac, Scott Dinsdale (a weasle from the MPAA), a mega-weasle from the RIAA (the "little pischer" from Courtney Love's rant), and someone from the HRRC. Janis daid a lot of interesting things, including talking about a blind kid who had his computer wiped out by a copy-protected Celiene Dion CD.
Anyway, Dinsdale was asked about Jon Johansen and the right to watch legally purchased DVDs on the computer system of one's choice. He replied (I wish I had this on tape) that just because someone was stupid enough to use the wrong operating system, they didn't have the right to watch anything they wanted. Yes, I'm serious...he called Linux users "stupid". This should be on the recording of the CES "Supersession on Digital Downloading" of the 2003 CES.
To repeat, a legally authorized representative of the MPAA called Linux users stupid. This is true. This is NOT a troll. There were several hundred people in the room.
You chose the worst possible example, as the "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" 2 disc and 4 disc sets are a model for other DVD producers. It's release was the most ethical example - nothing on the two sets is duplicated. None of the extras are, and the film on the 4 disc set is substantially different and half an hour longer. And all these facts were known before the DVDs were released.
True enough. The AVN convention used to be the adult video portion of the Consumer Electronics Show. A couple of years ago, they spun off as their own show, but it's still held at the same time as CES. I went there to find out if any of the various porn producers are planning to release product in high definition.
Don't you see: this should be called the pr0n-camera.
No, that camera was over at the Mandalay Bay at JVC's private show. It's a camera that uses DV tape and MPEG2 to record an hour of 720P HD.
I took images and specs of this camera over to the Adult Video News convention over at the Sands, and the porn guys wanted to buy it right then.
Give me HD porn. Maybe it will have the effect of shaking up the business and getting rid of the skanky girls infesting US porn. I understand implant scars show up beautifully in HD.
About the HiPix card:It's software is top notch because its written and supported by card owners on the forums at that site.
Seconded! I have a HiPix and I use the AVS version of the software. The current version is solid and I use it every day. I can hardly wait for the next version, as I know that they'll add even more useful, user requested features (as opposed to the usual practice of piling on crap). The DVHS playback feature alone saved me a couple of hundred dollars on a component to RGB converter. Another tool developed by a Forum member is DVHSTool, which lets me archive HiPix (or other DTV card files) to and from tape.
Right, it was silly to call it a law. It's not a law, it was Intel's marketing plan - i.e. "We plan to double chip density every 18 months". By stating it the way he did instead, the Intel CEO provided a goal for the troops, and a very quotable phrase for the pundits. Possibly the most successful memitic infection ever.
How will we make anonymous calls without a payphone?
Absolutely. Everyone needs anonymity once in a while...calling about a job that might be your current employer...psycho ex-girlfriends...harassing spammers at home...all sorts of things.
Personally, I've avoided getting a cell phone and have managed just fine so far. They are expensive, especially now that no providers are offering truly unlimited minutes any more (my brother is "grandfathered" into an unlimited plan and averages 3000+ minutes a month). I'm a consultant and I'd never get a moments peace if I had a cell. I just explain that I don't have one, they can call my pager.
TechTV keeps getting further and further away from it's roots. "Thunderbirds" and now anime? What's next? A TV movie? What's wrong with being the TV network about computers and technology?
When you figure out how to draw a picture with the command line, or edit a video, or make a 3D model, or even play checkers, let me know.
All of the things you mentioned have been done with command line, or at least ASCII-only interfaces.
Draw a picture? I guess they don't teach LOGO to kids anymore.
Edit a video? Have you ever seen the interface in most on-line editing suites? It's called "CMX style" and it's a keyboard and an 80 column ASCII screen. They have monitors to see the output of the machines, but the interface in text.
Make a 3D model? Been there, and done that. My first bicubic patch model was created in a text editor. Jim Blinn did the entire "Mathmatica" series in a text editor.
Play checkers? Plenty of people playing chess via postcard using notation would disagree.
It's not as if it is easy, but all your examples are definitely possible.
I wish I had some mod points to mod you up, but of course folks avoid modding in threads where they wish to reply, so I used them before I read this thread. Damn, because you make some very valid points.
I agree that KDE and Gnome are not pushing the envelope in interface design. I think most of the programmers working today have grown up in an world so saturated with Windows that they honestly haven't been able to imagine better ways of doing things.
Dvorak may be a whore, but like a very old whore he's seen everything. He started writing about PCs in the Altair era, and has witnessed nearly the entire evolution of the personal computer. He's written about Amigas, PenPoint, Deskview, NeXT, BeOS...whatever. And he gets demos of things before they come to market, including things that never came to market.
So, before people dismiss him as a buffoon, take a step back and consider what he is saying.
This is just another sneaky government plot, this one to get geeks to bathe!
Go's PenPoint was one of the great OS innovations
on
Bricklin on Tablet PCs
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Bricklin is concentrating on application development for PenPoint, and winds up giving short shrift to the OS it's self. It really was an innovative operating system, possibly the most unique one in the last 20 years. (OK, I realize that is a bold claim, and will produce a lot of argument, but bear with me...)
PenPoint was the first commercial OS where the user didn't interface with "applications" and "files". The primary interface element was the page. The user started with a blank page, and if she started writing, it would start translating the handwriting into test, like a word processing application. But if she drew a box, it would start graphing. The user could move through pages with a "flicking" gesture; use proof-reading typographical marks to edit. Very clever.
Microsoft borrowed some of the embedding for OLE, but they didn't actually get it. Or maybe they got it too clearly. They saw that an OS that didn't follow the application-launcher paradigm meant smaller sales for their Applications division.
Anyway, I didn't own one of these, so I may have gotten some details wrong. I just remember being impressed by the ideas behind it and was pained to see Microsoft's sorry-ass "Pen Windows" appear, kill PenPoint, then disappear like a serial killer.
Yeah, maybe Peter Jackson....he shure goes a long way to get something right. I think that's what's needed.
Peter Jackson is not going to do the next Harry Potter book. Alfonso Cuarón is going to direct "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". If you're not familiar with his work, his most recent film is "Y tu mamá también" (hardly a children's film, I know). But he did one of the best children's films of recent years "A Little Princess". Check it out and see if you don't agree.
Dude, just a suggestion, raise your rates. It should cost more for you to perform that task than to buy a new printer, especially an Epson.
Yeah, I know. I'm too cheap. But I got caught in that old trap, working cheap for someone early on. We all know how hard it is to raise rates once people get used to one rate. Easier to find new clients and charge them a fairer rate. But this was one of the most expensive, 6 ink Epsons, if that's any defense.
Most disgusting tech support job I've ever done was cleaning ants out of an Epson ink-jet printer. This lady ate a lot of meals at her computer. Some food crumbs, like bits of jelly from her PB&J sandwiches, had fallen under the printer. The ants found this nice, warm place with a ready food source and moved in. And I had to get them out. Bleagh!
Slashdot Mirror
The first third of Stephen Levy's excellent book "Hackers" centered on the Tech Model Railroad Club. According to Levy, they were the first group allowed free, unlimited to a computer to essentially play with. The book is a great read, even though it ends at a point where Richard Stallman was pretty much in the wilderness hacking on GNU. I'd love to read a "Hackers II".
I've had PC HD cards for several years. Currently, I'm using a Telemann HiPix with the user modified software from a dedicated group of hackers from the AVS Forums. But processor speeds have reached the point where one can playback HD transport streams solely in software using a tool like DVHSTool and the MPEG2 decoder from a software DVD player.
Not true in Chicago! It played at arguably the best theater in town, the McClurg Court - DTS, THX, DLP. The english dub was on the big screen downstairs, while the subtitled Japanese version was in one of the smaller theaters upstairs. It got a fair shake in Chicago at least.
I saw it and enjoed it greatly, even though I cannot abide most anime (see the topic icon for a perfect example of what I find annoying about the style). "Spirited Away" suffered from poor box office, not on it's own merits, but because most moviegoers have seen other anime, and thought "oh, there's that anime film" and rejected it out of hand.
P.S. What is the name of the annoying blue-haired character/anime topic icon? Just so I can avoid it. "Bambi eyes" to the max.
"Sighted"?!?
The word here is "cited". Not "sighted" not "sited" either.
cite
tr.v. cited, citing, cites
1: To quote as an authority or example.
2: To mention or bring forward as support, illustration, or proof: cited several instances of insubordinate behavior.
3:
a: To commend officially for meritorious action in military service.
b: To honor formally.
4: To summon before a court of law.
I know spelling flames are considered rude in Slashdot culture, but this is not just misspelled, it is the wrong word.
I go to a lot of trade shows. Trying to cover the entire floor and see everything at a huge show like Comdex is exhusting. At the end of the day, my feet resemble hamburger.
At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, the first Segway purchaser was there, on his Segway. I wanted one so badly, if they had been renting for $100 a day, I would have done it.
Yeah, it's a niche market, but so are those little sit-down scooters - and I did rent one of those on the 4th day of a previous CES.
I was on Chinet when I first moved to Chicago, and attended a few RL get-togethers - possibly the single geekiest bunch of people I've ever known (and I mean that in the best way possible).
The story I got was that Randy had tossed it into the dumpster, and whoever has it now fished it out. It was at the second get-together at some pizza place on Touhy. Ward said that the Smithsonian wanted something that was impossible to give them - the "original" system. Roughly comparable to trying to drink from the same river twice. They had a whole pile of 1k memory cards - who could say which one was "original".
My old e-mail address was katefans@chinet.chi.il.us and before that, katefans@world.std.com - two contenders for the title "First ISP".
Most of my T-shirts are from trade shows. Now I just need the booth weasles to start throwing pants out to the crowd. Some socks and underware would be nice too.
Not to nit-pick, but Janis is a woman.
Recently, I attended the Consumer Electronics Show and Janis was on a panel with Dan Gillmor from the Mecury News, Steve Wozniac, Scott Dinsdale (a weasle from the MPAA), a mega-weasle from the RIAA (the "little pischer" from Courtney Love's rant), and someone from the HRRC. Janis daid a lot of interesting things, including talking about a blind kid who had his computer wiped out by a copy-protected Celiene Dion CD.
Anyway, Dinsdale was asked about Jon Johansen and the right to watch legally purchased DVDs on the computer system of one's choice. He replied (I wish I had this on tape) that just because someone was stupid enough to use the wrong operating system, they didn't have the right to watch anything they wanted. Yes, I'm serious...he called Linux users "stupid". This should be on the recording of the CES "Supersession on Digital Downloading" of the 2003 CES.
To repeat, a legally authorized representative of the MPAA called Linux users stupid. This is true. This is NOT a troll. There were several hundred people in the room.
You chose the worst possible example, as the "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" 2 disc and 4 disc sets are a model for other DVD producers. It's release was the most ethical example - nothing on the two sets is duplicated. None of the extras are, and the film on the 4 disc set is substantially different and half an hour longer. And all these facts were known before the DVDs were released.
Of course, you could just be a troll. Whatever.
Hah! I'm married...to a woman who loves "The Martix". She's seen it 20 times in the theater. She'll probably buy this sucker before I get a chance to.
True enough. The AVN convention used to be the adult video portion of the Consumer Electronics Show. A couple of years ago, they spun off as their own show, but it's still held at the same time as CES. I went there to find out if any of the various porn producers are planning to release product in high definition.
No, that camera was over at the Mandalay Bay at JVC's private show. It's a camera that uses DV tape and MPEG2 to record an hour of 720P HD. I took images and specs of this camera over to the Adult Video News convention over at the Sands, and the porn guys wanted to buy it right then.
Give me HD porn. Maybe it will have the effect of shaking up the business and getting rid of the skanky girls infesting US porn. I understand implant scars show up beautifully in HD.
Seconded! I have a HiPix and I use the AVS version of the software. The current version is solid and I use it every day. I can hardly wait for the next version, as I know that they'll add even more useful, user requested features (as opposed to the usual practice of piling on crap). The DVHS playback feature alone saved me a couple of hundred dollars on a component to RGB converter. Another tool developed by a Forum member is DVHSTool, which lets me archive HiPix (or other DTV card files) to and from tape.
Right, it was silly to call it a law. It's not a law, it was Intel's marketing plan - i.e. "We plan to double chip density every 18 months". By stating it the way he did instead, the Intel CEO provided a goal for the troops, and a very quotable phrase for the pundits. Possibly the most successful memitic infection ever.
Absolutely. Everyone needs anonymity once in a while...calling about a job that might be your current employer...psycho ex-girlfriends...harassing spammers at home...all sorts of things.
Personally, I've avoided getting a cell phone and have managed just fine so far. They are expensive, especially now that no providers are offering truly unlimited minutes any more (my brother is "grandfathered" into an unlimited plan and averages 3000+ minutes a month). I'm a consultant and I'd never get a moments peace if I had a cell. I just explain that I don't have one, they can call my pager.
TechTV keeps getting further and further away from it's roots. "Thunderbirds" and now anime? What's next? A TV movie? What's wrong with being the TV network about computers and technology?
All this needs is a pair of arms and legs and googly eyes.
All of the things you mentioned have been done with command line, or at least ASCII-only interfaces.
Draw a picture? I guess they don't teach LOGO to kids anymore.
Edit a video? Have you ever seen the interface in most on-line editing suites? It's called "CMX style" and it's a keyboard and an 80 column ASCII screen. They have monitors to see the output of the machines, but the interface in text.
Make a 3D model? Been there, and done that. My first bicubic patch model was created in a text editor. Jim Blinn did the entire "Mathmatica" series in a text editor.
Play checkers? Plenty of people playing chess via postcard using notation would disagree.
It's not as if it is easy, but all your examples are definitely possible.
I wish I had some mod points to mod you up, but of course folks avoid modding in threads where they wish to reply, so I used them before I read this thread. Damn, because you make some very valid points.
I agree that KDE and Gnome are not pushing the envelope in interface design. I think most of the programmers working today have grown up in an world so saturated with Windows that they honestly haven't been able to imagine better ways of doing things.
Dvorak may be a whore, but like a very old whore he's seen everything. He started writing about PCs in the Altair era, and has witnessed nearly the entire evolution of the personal computer. He's written about Amigas, PenPoint, Deskview, NeXT, BeOS...whatever. And he gets demos of things before they come to market, including things that never came to market.
So, before people dismiss him as a buffoon, take a step back and consider what he is saying.
The reason Metallica was so gung-ho on the industry's side? They have the best record contract of any band - $4 per CD. Nobody else gets near that.
This is just another sneaky government plot, this one to get geeks to bathe!
Bricklin is concentrating on application development for PenPoint, and winds up giving short shrift to the OS it's self. It really was an innovative operating system, possibly the most unique one in the last 20 years. (OK, I realize that is a bold claim, and will produce a lot of argument, but bear with me...)
PenPoint was the first commercial OS where the user didn't interface with "applications" and "files". The primary interface element was the page. The user started with a blank page, and if she started writing, it would start translating the handwriting into test, like a word processing application. But if she drew a box, it would start graphing. The user could move through pages with a "flicking" gesture; use proof-reading typographical marks to edit. Very clever.
Microsoft borrowed some of the embedding for OLE, but they didn't actually get it. Or maybe they got it too clearly. They saw that an OS that didn't follow the application-launcher paradigm meant smaller sales for their Applications division.
Anyway, I didn't own one of these, so I may have gotten some details wrong. I just remember being impressed by the ideas behind it and was pained to see Microsoft's sorry-ass "Pen Windows" appear, kill PenPoint, then disappear like a serial killer.
Peter Jackson is not going to do the next Harry Potter book. Alfonso Cuarón is going to direct "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". If you're not familiar with his work, his most recent film is "Y tu mamá también" (hardly a children's film, I know). But he did one of the best children's films of recent years "A Little Princess". Check it out and see if you don't agree.
Yeah, I know. I'm too cheap. But I got caught in that old trap, working cheap for someone early on. We all know how hard it is to raise rates once people get used to one rate. Easier to find new clients and charge them a fairer rate. But this was one of the most expensive, 6 ink Epsons, if that's any defense.
Most disgusting tech support job I've ever done was cleaning ants out of an Epson ink-jet printer. This lady ate a lot of meals at her computer. Some food crumbs, like bits of jelly from her PB&J sandwiches, had fallen under the printer. The ants found this nice, warm place with a ready food source and moved in. And I had to get them out. Bleagh!