kurzweil's premise that 'exponential increases in processing power' will lead to AI are unfounded, because a quantitative change does not presume a qualitative change.
storm's nest
heh - they started out as software only.
palm's first product (before their own handheld)
was 'Grafitt' for the Newton - provding an
alternate input method for the newton's
poor built-in (1.0) recognition (which improved
drastically with Newton OS 2.0). thier grafitti
worked so well, they thought they'd make their
own whole widget, and the PALM hardware was born.
the more things change,
the more they stay the same.
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with
design an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior
decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me,
nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the
fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in
successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just
the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the
iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element
plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it
is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the
time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it
required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power
better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That
is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the
day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really
good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's
hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything
remotely like it.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/2000/01/24/app6.h tm l
Re:Hmmm.... that's a nice quote... but....
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 2
i have to say i'm in agreement with most of your post, and that you have made the effort to respond thoughtfully.
one thing i would have to respond to though:
> Ask the Taliban to stop parking military vehicles
> and HQ inside of civilian neighbourhoods if they
> value their people.
if this were true - that a terrorist holds a baby
in front of themselves as a 'shield' -- then just
WHO is the person who would continue to shoot their
bombs there anyways? babies and children have died
from these 'accidents'.
a dead child is a tragedy both here and there.
but because we live here, we only see our dead,
and they only see theirs.:-(
bombing the afghans is like
bombing sicily to get rid of the mafia.
j.
Re: Bombing Sicily to get rid of the Mafia
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 2
bombing the afghans is like bombing sicily
to get rid of the mafia...
> > Give me a break! You can't be softer than
> > the people you're trying to defeat.
>
> Being "hard" or "soft" is not what war is about.
war is a no-win game.
the only 'good end' to a war, is to find
a solution such that both parties will stop
their fighting and killing of each other.
bombing and retaliation will not bring that about.
that will only escalate the violence such that more
people will die on both sides.
i agree with the general gist of the original post.
that in order to 'stop the fighting', we have to
come to undersand the underlying causes that
brought about the fighting in the first place.
we wouldn't want to get terrorised on christmas.
so why does donald rumsfeld insist that the bombing will not stop for the muslim holy days of 'ramadan'?
bin laden is a terrorist without the support of the general muslim population. he is doing his darndest to get more people on his side by trying to convince the muslims that 'this is a war on muslims' instead of just a war on terrorism.
just to put things in perspective - as horrible as the anthrax scare has been, MORE INNOCENT MUSLIM CIVILIANS HAVE DIED FROM US BOMBING 'ACCIDENTS' THAN PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM ANTHRAX (check out the BBC or canadian news). this makes a lot of the afghani people VERY VERY nervous.
if the US continues their bombings during the 'holy month' of ramadan - then it will only give bin laden amunition to dupe the rest of the muslims into thinking this is a war on muslims, and not just on him - do we really want to do that?
(and i cannot emphasize enough how much my heart goes out to all the many victims of this war so far. no killing is right as far as i'm concerned). lets stop the violence now. violence begets more violence - he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
check out the 'AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE'.
rushing in to help those who are hurt or needy is the true call of the pacifist - killing or violence is not.
best regards,
john penner (canada).
social threefolding
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
when the stewardesses come and give you your in-flight meal -- IT COMES WITH A FORK AND A METAL KNIFE to eat your dinner with!
i.e. all this 'heightened airport security' is bogus - you can kill people with a metal fork or knife that they give you WITH you in-flight meal just as surely as you can with any that you carry on board.
so what is the difference between good people and bad people? they all have the same instruments at their disposal -- only, some will eat their dinner with it, and other will use it to hijack planes. no amount of pre-boarding search will stop that.
if they don't have a knife - a trained ninja could use his hands
to 'down-and-out' the crew - are we going to require that people
remove their hands and feet before they're allowed on a flight?
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
revolutionary disturbances
on
More WTC News
·
· Score: 2
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur...
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/ St einer-Social.html
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. . .
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/ St einer-Social.html
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. . .
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/ St einer-Social.html
because with humans, after you get past
the first tier of needs (money, security,
place to eat and sleep), you get higher
level needs kicking in, and those include
needs to contribute and be part of a community.
if the goal for the form-factor of robots is defined as 'survival of the fittest' - then you will have machines progressively better suited to destroying each other - i.e. battlebots.
but it is the superior machine that can go beyond mere brute force, and is able to improve along the axis of SUBTLETY. i.e. it is the harder task to create a robot with REFINEMENT.
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
memory=double; themes suck
on
Netscape 6.1
·
· Score: 1
1) INSTALLATION - GOOD
i downloaded 6.1, and loaded it onto my machine
(a G4 with 128Mb RAM, running OS-9.1). the install
went pretty smooth, and it auto-updated all the right
things without screwing-up my netscape-4.5 install,
so good marks on the install experience.
3) THEMES - WHAT A WASTE - WHY DIDN'T THEY SAVE THE
EFFORT, AND MAKE IT USE STANDARD APPEARANCE MANAGER?
The new netscape themes suck - standard mac themes are better.
The departure from system themes makes me not want to use it.
I have several thousand system-wide themes using kaleidoscope.
Microsoft internet explorer-5 uses these - there are only
about five netscape themes - therefore, the effort they put
into this is a waste. explorer wins here.
4) the only new feature i COULD use is to DELETE eMAIL
ATTACHMENTS > this does not exist in 6.1, so there is
no real useful improvement for me - there is no point
in upgrading to a netscape that uses more than double
the RAM without that new feature. the new features that
are actually useful (the multi-mailbox) is not implemented
nicely (you have to go through TWO level of the MAIL menu
to file an eMail, so its now double the steps of before,
and since i lose my ability to have a seperate window to
drag-and-drop my emails into, and it uses double the RAM - it equals a down-grade.
i bought one of the new iBook-2 machines and used it for a couple months. having owned and used three other laptops since 1992, i have to say that this is the best laptop i've ever used. why?
- quiet: you can't hear it while its running
- the screen size (1024 x 768) is really clear
- processor (G3-500Mhz) is faster than i need
for most of my tasks*
- USB & Firewire from the ground up.
- runs lots of good software (incl. adobe & macromedia stuff)
- good USB midi-audio support for making music.
- 1.3" thick
- 4.5 hour battery life (really!)
- price <= IBM ThinkPad, VIAO, etc.
couldn't be happier with this laptop.
i can whole-heartedly recommend it.
regards,
johnRpenner.
* i use the machine for: writing, web page design, MP3 playing, CD ripping/burning, scripting, framemaker, quark, illustrator, minor photoshop work - the speed is more than adequate.
1) The reason for IP & Copyright is to ensure that Content Producers
GET PAID for their work.
2) Once they are paid (by whatever means - i propose 'ASSOCIATIONS'),
then it is in the Public Interest that the BEST TOOLS are spread.
i.e. If a piece of Software X will make a user 10x more productive
than software Y -- THEN IT WOULD INCREASE NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY
FOR ALL USERS TO HAVE SOFTWARE X.
3) after the producers of the software have been compensated for their
work (enough to make a living), it is essentially a DECREASE in
national productivity of all the users use the software Y. yet,
the additional tech support and consulting fees are measured as an
INCREASE in GNP, when in actual truth, using the less productive
software Y in real terms results in a DECREASE in national productivity.
under the current system, people will buy software Y instead of the
better software X simply because it costs less -- EVEN THOUGH THE COST
TO DISTRIBUTE THE TWO SOFTWARES (AFTER THE PRODUCERS ARE PAID) IS THE
SAME!
4) thus, we can see that two equally valid interests contend here:
i) the good of the one (the producer)
ii) the good of the many (consumers)
and the problem is How to compensate producers fairly, while at
the same time bringing the benefit to the public of unlimited
freed digital distribution.
5) a solution, involving software ASSOCIATIONS is described here:
Rudolf Steiner & Social Threefolding:
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/St einer-Social.html
And this is the law of the wild,
As old and as true as the sky.
And the wolf who keeps it will prosper,
But the wolf who breaks it will die!
Like the wind that circles the tree trunk,
this law runneth forward and back.
The strength of the pack is the wolf,
and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
personally - i find a little sensor-feedback to the skin very valuable
in being able to type without having to look at where the keys are - a
zero-force keyboard would be a disadvantage because you'd always have
to LOOK in order to do your touch-typing.
if you want to avoid RSI, the biggest difference is between keyboards
that have SPRINGS in each key vs the RUBBER keyboards. when i use a
spring keyboard, i can type all day without wrist pain. when i switch
to a rubber-keyboard, i get pain in my wrists (waking up at night with
pain shooting through your wrists is no fun!).
it used to be that all manufacturers would supply spring keyboards --
IBM, Apple, SGI, etc. but unhealthy competition in the clone business
has ensured that all of these manufacturers now ship rubber-keyboards
in order to remain 'price competitive' with how much their systems
cost. why?
because when people look at keyboards, they just see two keyboards in
front of them - one for $19.95, and another for $79.95 - and say 'who
cares - they both work' - but one is a rubber keyboard, and the other
costs more, because they took the trouble to put actual springs in
each of the keyswitches...
that's more work, and its a hidden cost, so when people evaluate their
buying decision based on 'lowest price is the law' -> it is
short-sighted, and they will pay for it later - because the el-cheapo
rubber-keyboard is going to cost them money when they've got to get
surgergy done on their wrists...
a paragraph that may be relevant to
all the articles about quantum consciousness:
Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the world.
For every attempt at an explanation must begin with the formation of
thoughts about the phenomena of the world.
Materialism thus begins with the thought of matter or material
processes. But, in doing so, it is already confronted by two different
sets of facts: the material world, and the thoughts about it.
The materialist seeks to make these latter intelligible by regarding
them as purely material processes. He believes that thinking takes
place in the brain, much in the same way that digestion takes place
in the animal organs.
Just as he attributes mechanical and organic effects to matter, so he
credits matter in certain circumstances with the capacity to think.
He overlooks that, in doing so, he is merely shifting the problem from
one place to another. He ascribes the power of thinking to matter
instead of to himself.
And thus he is back again at his starting point. How does matter come
to think about its own nature? Why is it not simply satisfied with
itself and content just to exist? The materialist has turned his
attention away from the definite subject, his own I, and has arrived
at an image of something quite vague and indefinite. Here the old
riddle meets him again. The materialistic conception cannot solve the
problem; it can only shift it from one place to another.
(Rudolf Steiner, *The Philosophy of Freedom*, Chapter 2).
http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/pofc2.html
Slashdot Mirror
of course, if you're going to talk about AI,
you might want to ask a cognitive scientist:
Searle > Is the Brain a Computer? and Searle > Minds Brains, and the Chineese Room
regards,
storm's nest
kurzweil's premise that 'exponential increases in processing power' will lead to AI are unfounded, because a quantitative change does not presume a qualitative change. storm's nest
heh - they started out as software only.
palm's first product (before their own handheld)
was 'Grafitt' for the Newton - provding an
alternate input method for the newton's
poor built-in (1.0) recognition (which improved
drastically with Newton OS 2.0). thier grafitti
worked so well, they thought they'd make their
own whole widget, and the PALM hardware was born.
the more things change,
the more they stay the same.
j.
STEVE JOBS ON DESIGN
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with
design an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior
decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me,
nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the
fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in
successive outer layers of the product or service. The iMac is not just
the colour or translucence or the shape of the shell. The essence of the
iMac is to be the finest possible consumer computer in which each element
plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it
is much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the
time. That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it
required an enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power
better and do a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That
is the furthest thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the
day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really
good at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's
hard for them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything
remotely like it.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/2000/01/24/app6.
--
vote with your $$$ -- don't buy crippled CDs.
i have to say i'm in agreement with most of your post, and that you have made the effort to respond thoughtfully.
one thing i would have to respond to though:
> Ask the Taliban to stop parking military vehicles
> and HQ inside of civilian neighbourhoods if they
> value their people.
if this were true - that a terrorist holds a baby
in front of themselves as a 'shield' -- then just
WHO is the person who would continue to shoot their
bombs there anyways? babies and children have died
from these 'accidents'.
a dead child is a tragedy both here and there.
but because we live here, we only see our dead,
and they only see theirs.
bombing the afghans is like
bombing sicily to get rid of the mafia.
j.
bombing the afghans is like bombing sicily
to get rid of the mafia...
> > Give me a break! You can't be softer than
> > the people you're trying to defeat.
>
> Being "hard" or "soft" is not what war is about.
war is a no-win game.
the only 'good end' to a war, is to find
a solution such that both parties will stop
their fighting and killing of each other.
bombing and retaliation will not bring that about.
that will only escalate the violence such that more
people will die on both sides.
i agree with the general gist of the original post.
that in order to 'stop the fighting', we have to
come to undersand the underlying causes that
brought about the fighting in the first place.
lets not add fuel to the fire
best regards,
john penner.
we wouldn't want to get terrorised on christmas.
so why does donald rumsfeld insist that the bombing will not stop for the muslim holy days of 'ramadan'?
bin laden is a terrorist without the support of the general muslim population. he is doing his darndest to get more people on his side by trying to convince the muslims that 'this is a war on muslims' instead of just a war on terrorism.
just to put things in perspective - as horrible as the anthrax scare has been, MORE INNOCENT MUSLIM CIVILIANS HAVE DIED FROM US BOMBING 'ACCIDENTS' THAN PEOPLE HAVE DIED FROM ANTHRAX (check out the BBC or canadian news). this makes a lot of the afghani people VERY VERY nervous.
if the US continues their bombings during the 'holy month' of ramadan - then it will only give bin laden amunition to dupe the rest of the muslims into thinking this is a war on muslims, and not just on him - do we really want to do that?
(and i cannot emphasize enough how much my heart goes out to all the many victims of this war so far. no killing is right as far as i'm concerned). lets stop the violence now. violence begets more violence - he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
check out the 'AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE'.
rushing in to help those who are hurt or needy is the true call of the pacifist - killing or violence is not.
best regards,
john penner (canada).
globalism can be a boon or bane. social threefolding provides a framework for sustaining rights within a global economy: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/St einer-Social.html
before US robotics / palm ever made a palm-pilot,
they made grafitti FOR the newton. that's where
it started.
in academic circles, the turing test
was refuted almost a decade ago by
john searle, in the CHINESE ROOM:
- http://members.aol.com/wutsamada/chapter1.html
- http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/c/chineser.htm
do your homework!
j.
checking for weapons won't help.
when the stewardesses come and give you your in-flight meal -- IT COMES WITH A FORK AND A METAL KNIFE to eat your dinner with!
i.e. all this 'heightened airport security' is bogus - you can kill people with a metal fork or knife that they give you WITH you in-flight meal just as surely as you can with any that you carry on board.
so what is the difference between good people and bad people? they all have the same instruments at their disposal -- only, some will eat their dinner with it, and other will use it to hijack planes. no amount of pre-boarding search will stop that.
if they don't have a knife - a trained ninja could use his hands
to 'down-and-out' the crew - are we going to require that people
remove their hands and feet before they're allowed on a flight?
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur...
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
regards,
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
--
"Have you noticed the way people's intelligence
capabilities decline sharply the minute they
start waving guns around?" (Dr. Who)
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. . .
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
'Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue,
/ St einer-Social.html
a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence, trust
and justice.' (Spinoza)
'Peace is a habit of mind, a way of seeing, that will make
harmony suceed. We have made mistrust and coercion our habit
of mind, and built our civilisation on the balance of power,
therefore we will reap war after war, and there will be violence
in our streets and even in our schools and homes.'
(Eknath Easwaran, Three Harmonies, Parabola Magazine,
November 1991, p. 50)
When those who are economically powerful are in a position to use
their power to wrest privileged rights for themselves, then among the
economically weak there will grow up a corresponding opposition to
these privileges; and this opposition must as soon as it has grown
strong enough lead to revolutionary disturbances. If the existence of
a special province of rights makes it impossible for such privileged
rights to arise, then disturbances of this sort cannot occur. . .
(Rudolf Steiner - Social Threefolding, 1920)
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles
because with humans, after you get past
the first tier of needs (money, security,
place to eat and sleep), you get higher
level needs kicking in, and those include
needs to contribute and be part of a community.
Social Threefolding
if the goal for the form-factor of robots is defined as 'survival of the fittest' - then you will have machines progressively better suited to destroying each other - i.e. battlebots.
but it is the superior machine that can go beyond mere brute force, and is able to improve along the axis of SUBTLETY. i.e. it is the harder task to create a robot with REFINEMENT.
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
1) INSTALLATION - GOOD
i downloaded 6.1, and loaded it onto my machine
(a G4 with 128Mb RAM, running OS-9.1). the install
went pretty smooth, and it auto-updated all the right
things without screwing-up my netscape-4.5 install,
so good marks on the install experience.
2) MEMORY USAGE SUCKS - DOUBLE WHAT 4.5 USES:
- Netscape 4.5 = 19.8Mb RAM Usage
- Nesscape 6.1 = 39.8Mb RAM Usage
3) THEMES - WHAT A WASTE - WHY DIDN'T THEY SAVE THE
EFFORT, AND MAKE IT USE STANDARD APPEARANCE MANAGER?
The new netscape themes suck - standard mac themes are better.
The departure from system themes makes me not want to use it.
I have several thousand system-wide themes using kaleidoscope.
Microsoft internet explorer-5 uses these - there are only
about five netscape themes - therefore, the effort they put
into this is a waste. explorer wins here.
4) the only new feature i COULD use is to DELETE eMAIL
ATTACHMENTS > this does not exist in 6.1, so there is
no real useful improvement for me - there is no point
in upgrading to a netscape that uses more than double
the RAM without that new feature. the new features that
are actually useful (the multi-mailbox) is not implemented
nicely (you have to go through TWO level of the MAIL menu
to file an eMail, so its now double the steps of before,
and since i lose my ability to have a seperate window to
drag-and-drop my emails into, and it uses double the RAM - it equals a down-grade.
regards,
johnRpenner.
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
--
i bought one of the new iBook-2 machines and used it for a couple months. having owned and used three other laptops since 1992, i have to say that this is the best laptop i've ever used. why?
- quiet: you can't hear it while its running
- the screen size (1024 x 768) is really clear
- processor (G3-500Mhz) is faster than i need
for most of my tasks*
- USB & Firewire from the ground up.
- runs lots of good software (incl. adobe & macromedia stuff)
- good USB midi-audio support for making music.
- 1.3" thick
- 4.5 hour battery life (really!)
- price <= IBM ThinkPad, VIAO, etc.
couldn't be happier with this laptop.
i can whole-heartedly recommend it.
regards,
johnRpenner.
* i use the machine for: writing, web page design, MP3 playing, CD ripping/burning, scripting, framemaker, quark, illustrator, minor photoshop work - the speed is more than adequate.
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
several things:
1) The reason for IP & Copyright is to ensure that Content Producers
GET PAID for their work.
2) Once they are paid (by whatever means - i propose 'ASSOCIATIONS'),
then it is in the Public Interest that the BEST TOOLS are spread.
i.e. If a piece of Software X will make a user 10x more productive
than software Y -- THEN IT WOULD INCREASE NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY
FOR ALL USERS TO HAVE SOFTWARE X.
3) after the producers of the software have been compensated for their
work (enough to make a living), it is essentially a DECREASE in
national productivity of all the users use the software Y. yet,
the additional tech support and consulting fees are measured as an
INCREASE in GNP, when in actual truth, using the less productive
software Y in real terms results in a DECREASE in national productivity.
under the current system, people will buy software Y instead of the
better software X simply because it costs less -- EVEN THOUGH THE COST
TO DISTRIBUTE THE TWO SOFTWARES (AFTER THE PRODUCERS ARE PAID) IS THE
SAME!
4) thus, we can see that two equally valid interests contend here:
i) the good of the one (the producer)
ii) the good of the many (consumers)
and the problem is How to compensate producers fairly, while at
the same time bringing the benefit to the public of unlimited
freed digital distribution.
5) a solution, involving software ASSOCIATIONS is described here:
Rudolf Steiner & Social Threefolding:
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/S
And this is the law of the wild,
As old and as true as the sky.
And the wolf who keeps it will prosper,
But the wolf who breaks it will die!
Like the wind that circles the tree trunk,
this law runneth forward and back.
The strength of the pack is the wolf,
and the strength of the wolf is the pack.
(Rudyard Kipling)
regards,
johnpenner@-NOSPAM-mac.com
http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner
personally - i find a little sensor-feedback to the skin very valuable
in being able to type without having to look at where the keys are - a
zero-force keyboard would be a disadvantage because you'd always have
to LOOK in order to do your touch-typing.
if you want to avoid RSI, the biggest difference is between keyboards
that have SPRINGS in each key vs the RUBBER keyboards. when i use a
spring keyboard, i can type all day without wrist pain. when i switch
to a rubber-keyboard, i get pain in my wrists (waking up at night with
pain shooting through your wrists is no fun!).
it used to be that all manufacturers would supply spring keyboards --
IBM, Apple, SGI, etc. but unhealthy competition in the clone business
has ensured that all of these manufacturers now ship rubber-keyboards
in order to remain 'price competitive' with how much their systems
cost. why?
because when people look at keyboards, they just see two keyboards in
front of them - one for $19.95, and another for $79.95 - and say 'who
cares - they both work' - but one is a rubber keyboard, and the other
costs more, because they took the trouble to put actual springs in
each of the keyswitches...
that's more work, and its a hidden cost, so when people evaluate their
buying decision based on 'lowest price is the law' -> it is
short-sighted, and they will pay for it later - because the el-cheapo
rubber-keyboard is going to cost them money when they've got to get
surgergy done on their wrists...
regards,
johnrpenner.
a paragraph that may be relevant to
2 .html
all the articles about quantum consciousness:
Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the world.
For every attempt at an explanation must begin with the formation of
thoughts about the phenomena of the world.
Materialism thus begins with the thought of matter or material
processes. But, in doing so, it is already confronted by two different
sets of facts: the material world, and the thoughts about it.
The materialist seeks to make these latter intelligible by regarding
them as purely material processes. He believes that thinking takes
place in the brain, much in the same way that digestion takes place
in the animal organs.
Just as he attributes mechanical and organic effects to matter, so he
credits matter in certain circumstances with the capacity to think.
He overlooks that, in doing so, he is merely shifting the problem from
one place to another. He ascribes the power of thinking to matter
instead of to himself.
And thus he is back again at his starting point. How does matter come
to think about its own nature? Why is it not simply satisfied with
itself and content just to exist? The materialist has turned his
attention away from the definite subject, his own I, and has arrived
at an image of something quite vague and indefinite. Here the old
riddle meets him again. The materialistic conception cannot solve the
problem; it can only shift it from one place to another.
(Rudolf Steiner, *The Philosophy of Freedom*, Chapter 2).
http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/pofc
regards,
johnRpenner.
uhm - just HOW will you remove the observer from the picture? if you do, how will you know anything?