may just wander around aimlessly until their batteries wear out
I didn't see that exact wording in the articles. Was that a paraphrase? Just curious.
Anyway, I totally agree. Whenever I have been to a robot competition, I am very surprised at how primitive they are. Usually more than half of the robots are completely incapacitated for some reason or another. But people in the field get excited over the littlest successes. I think "experts" in the field of AI and robotics sometimes forget how far away from artificial intelligence they actually are. I couldn't tell you how many AI/robotics things I've read where they say - "We're just going to let them loose and see what happens. We think they will evolve intelligent behavior." My experience is that the opposite happens. Not only do the robots not evolve intelligent behavior, usually half the things you specifically programmed them to do don't work.
But back to the robot reproduction thing - I heard about this before at a talk on nanotechnology by Zyvex. Atomic size autonomous robot arms are supposed to be able to build more robot arms. I'm usually an optimist but does this sound even remotely realistic to anyone?
OK that sounds good on the surface. But we're talking about uses that are similar to Java. So anytime I go to a site that runs the equivalent of an applet, I have to call up the administrator to approve the code?
Sure, this only applies to "unsafe" code but what's the point of unsafe if no one is going to use it because of unweildy security restrictions. Imagine if they tried to do this with Word macros for example. So every time you want to run a Word macro you have to have admin authorization. Then either no one would use macros (not likely) or this security policy would be changed. And guess what the policy will probably change to... a user dialog box.
Your argument works OK if we're talking about the traditional software model - where software is installed once by an admin. But that is not the.NET model.
True, but this isn't necessarily a reasoned decision. If users see the same dialog box 20 times then they may start to click "OK" out of habit. There is plenty of empirical evidence to make this argument.
Its also inconvenient for most users if they have to understand what the macros do in every Word document they receive.
Or wait until Microsoft adds a dialog box that says "Allow unsafe code from Microsft? 'OK' 'CANCEL' 'ALWAYS TRUST MICROSOFT'"
Then the problem is transferred to the weakest link - the user. Just like a Word file that asks if you want to run macros. How many users always know when they should say yes?
I was just poking around on Apple's web site and found this link about a pictorial language. I don't know anything about stuff like this so I don't know if its totally ridiculous or just mostly ridiculous.
There's been some work in making programming environments for children. Of course there is LOGO. Some other examples are ToonTalk and KidSim (couldn't find a good KidSim link).
I went to talk on this at CHI 2001 (Here is the paper). The guy mentioned that there was a serious problem because the monsters/processes would attack and kill each other. So the system had a tendency towards anarchy and crashing:)
Last I heard, using nlp techniques on a general purpose search engine doesn't yield better searches than string matching.
Was that a human factors study? Seems like a pretty broad statement to rule out anything that uses nlp technology. Anyway, I'm not sure I like the idea myself, I was just trying to make the post I replied to more concrete.
I also agree that it would be annoying to have Google ask you something on every search. But it could be selective like it is with the spell checker (i.e. Did you mean orange). So maybe for searches that return millions of pages, it could offer narrower alternative searches based on wordnet data - using synonyms or specific definitions, etc.
You might be able to do something like this using WordNet.
So now when I search for "Ornage" it asks me "Did you mean orange." I guess Google could extend this if it was hooked up to WordNet - "Did you mean orange the fruit, orange the color, orange the tree, or orange the river"
Yeah, the problem you're talking about with VNC stems from the one person -> one computer paradigm. What we need is an OS that supports multiple mouse cursors. GUI programming would get significantly harder though since the GUI would now be multithreaded.
There is specific application software that supports multiple mouse cursors though - for example, KidPad. But this only works on Win98 varieties with USB mice.
Check out these pictures. This was published at the User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2001) conference last year. It's a way to combine two monitors without the border problem you're talking about. Not really practical at the moment but maybe if a company made custom hardware like this Panasonic dual head. Anyway, I think they've got unreal tournament in one set of pictures about halfway down the page.
I mean, is there anyone with the millions needed to go that would qualify:)
I know I'll be crying my eyes out over all the millionaires being deprived of the chance to go to space. Its clearly a case of America blind to justice.
But seriously (and yes offtopic), if you were watching the news after 9/11 you would know that Bin Laden actually trained his people at various playgrounds across Afghanistan. The channels I watched kept showing this clip of heavily-clad "terrorists" swinging on monkey bars.
Another of my 9/11 stock footage favorites showed some security folks testing a taser. They would shoot it at this big macho man and two guys would try to hold him up as he fell backwards.
Right on. Then Howard or Crowe has to stand up at the Golden Globes or whatever and pretend to raise awareness for schizophrenia. Its the equivalent of the classic sympathy generator - "aren't handicapped people the real heroes!"
A clear instance of real world karma whoring if I've ever seen one.
I think what you're describing is the "Winner-Take-All" idea. Here is an article that mentions it. I don't necessarily condone the remedy in the article but it's still somewhat interesting.
Actually we use CV in the US too. You just have to be a card carrying member of the wine and cheese crowd to get away with it. Seriously though, anything business related uses resume whereas the scientific community seems to use CV.
We had a couple of the early MA TC versions in our lab (i.e. the ones with a standard Intel processor) and a person wearing one of them looked absolutely ridiculous. There were cables everywhere. The headset had an eyepiece and earphones so it covered a good part of your head. The actual processor was mounted on a belt along with a sizable battery. Then there were the extensions - a huge wrist-mounted touchpad display, a head mounted camera, and a mini-keyboard. (Who needs eyes anyway? I just watch the world through a camera projecting onto a head mounted LCD:)
Needless to say, we never used them for anything except when two of us wore them as a halloween costume at the CS department party. Boot me up!
I used one of their older models - something like the MA TC - I didn't really have a problem with using only one eye. I'm not sure why but I don't remember needing to wink. However, the eyepiece was semitransparent so I did have problems if there was anything moving in the background. The version we had was running Win98 at 800x600 (I think) so buttons and normal size text were basically unreadable. Tracking the mouse cursor was also a lost cause. Switching to one of the accessibility themes (big fonts and high contrast colors) in Windows helped out but effectively reduced the size of the display.
This is one of those things where its hard to tell if a few details were wrong or if its an overall bad idea. My intuition is that its probably just the details.
We had a couple of their products in our lab - I think they were the MA TC type. These ran Windows 98 and they were huge hulking beasts that could hardly be called wearable. Anyway, my experience with the display was that it wasn't too bright. In fact, they projected on to a half silvered mirror so that you could supposedly see through it. The people in my lab found the half silvered mirror to be a bad idea because you couldn't really concentrate on the screen or the environment very well. It was especially difficult to try to keep track of a mouse cursor when it was half transparent and things were moving in the background. To get any use out of it at all you basically had to go stare at a blank wall. Don't know if this version also has a transparent display - hope they actually ran some user studies.
Woah, I must have had too much Dilbert. I was trying to figure out what the D might be that would follow "Pointy Haired." I'm sure I could turn this into a MS insult somehow...
My experience is the same. The people I personally know who use a (Palm) PDA work as investment bankers, real estate agents, consultants, management, and similar.
I am one of the few geeks among my family and friends and most of them had Palms well before I did. And mine is sitting on my desk collecting dust.
The people for whom Palms seem to be attractive are those who make extensive use of calendars and address books - ie. they're organized. I don't think that necessarily correlates to geeks.
That raises an interesting question. I'm wondering if Microsoft could cross the line on reducing the price of this thing with that many features. I remember learning in 9th grade ELPSA that it is illegal for a big company to reduce the price of a product to the point of losing money specifically to drive another company out of business (maybe my teacher was on crack but that is how I remember it.)
I'm sure there are a million loopholes in this law if it is even really a part of US law but I'm surprised it hasn't at least come up in an MS case.
Slashdot Mirror
For crying out loud, I suppose we have to hear all those worn out chad jokes all over again.
may just wander around aimlessly until their batteries wear out
I didn't see that exact wording in the articles. Was that a paraphrase? Just curious.
Anyway, I totally agree. Whenever I have been to a robot competition, I am very surprised at how primitive they are. Usually more than half of the robots are completely incapacitated for some reason or another. But people in the field get excited over the littlest successes. I think "experts" in the field of AI and robotics sometimes forget how far away from artificial intelligence they actually are. I couldn't tell you how many AI/robotics things I've read where they say - "We're just going to let them loose and see what happens. We think they will evolve intelligent behavior." My experience is that the opposite happens. Not only do the robots not evolve intelligent behavior, usually half the things you specifically programmed them to do don't work.
But back to the robot reproduction thing - I heard about this before at a talk on nanotechnology by Zyvex. Atomic size autonomous robot arms are supposed to be able to build more robot arms. I'm usually an optimist but does this sound even remotely realistic to anyone?
OK that sounds good on the surface. But we're talking about uses that are similar to Java. So anytime I go to a site that runs the equivalent of an applet, I have to call up the administrator to approve the code?
.NET model.
Sure, this only applies to "unsafe" code but what's the point of unsafe if no one is going to use it because of unweildy security restrictions. Imagine if they tried to do this with Word macros for example. So every time you want to run a Word macro you have to have admin authorization. Then either no one would use macros (not likely) or this security policy would be changed. And guess what the policy will probably change to... a user dialog box.
Your argument works OK if we're talking about the traditional software model - where software is installed once by an admin. But that is not the
True, but this isn't necessarily a reasoned decision. If users see the same dialog box 20 times then they may start to click "OK" out of habit. There is plenty of empirical evidence to make this argument.
Its also inconvenient for most users if they have to understand what the macros do in every Word document they receive.
Or wait until Microsoft adds a dialog box that says "Allow unsafe code from Microsft? 'OK' 'CANCEL' 'ALWAYS TRUST MICROSOFT'"
Then the problem is transferred to the weakest link - the user. Just like a Word file that asks if you want to run macros. How many users always know when they should say yes?
Here is an example of something like that I found surfing on Apple's site.
I was just poking around on Apple's web site and found this link about a pictorial language. I don't know anything about stuff like this so I don't know if its totally ridiculous or just mostly ridiculous.
There's been some work in making programming environments for children. Of course there is LOGO. Some other examples are ToonTalk and KidSim (couldn't find a good KidSim link).
Lord of the Flies?
I went to talk on this at CHI 2001 (Here is the paper). The guy mentioned that there was a serious problem because the monsters/processes would attack and kill each other. So the system had a tendency towards anarchy and crashing :)
Last I heard, using nlp techniques on a general purpose search engine doesn't yield better searches than string matching.
Was that a human factors study? Seems like a pretty broad statement to rule out anything that uses nlp technology. Anyway, I'm not sure I like the idea myself, I was just trying to make the post I replied to more concrete.
I also agree that it would be annoying to have Google ask you something on every search. But it could be selective like it is with the spell checker (i.e. Did you mean orange). So maybe for searches that return millions of pages, it could offer narrower alternative searches based on wordnet data - using synonyms or specific definitions, etc.
You might be able to do something like this using WordNet.
So now when I search for "Ornage" it asks me "Did you mean orange." I guess Google could extend this if it was hooked up to WordNet - "Did you mean orange the fruit, orange the color, orange the tree, or orange the river"
Yeah, the problem you're talking about with VNC stems from the one person -> one computer paradigm. What we need is an OS that supports multiple mouse cursors. GUI programming would get significantly harder though since the GUI would now be multithreaded.
There is specific application software that supports multiple mouse cursors though - for example, KidPad. But this only works on Win98 varieties with USB mice.
Check out these pictures. This was published at the User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2001) conference last year. It's a way to combine two monitors without the border problem you're talking about. Not really practical at the moment but maybe if a company made custom hardware like this Panasonic dual head. Anyway, I think they've got unreal tournament in one set of pictures about halfway down the page.
I mean, is there anyone with the millions needed to go that would qualify :)
I know I'll be crying my eyes out over all the millionaires being deprived of the chance to go to space. Its clearly a case of America blind to justice.
Hah! Too funny!
But seriously (and yes offtopic), if you were watching the news after 9/11 you would know that Bin Laden actually trained his people at various playgrounds across Afghanistan. The channels I watched kept showing this clip of heavily-clad "terrorists" swinging on monkey bars.
Another of my 9/11 stock footage favorites showed some security folks testing a taser. They would shoot it at this big macho man and two guys would try to hold him up as he fell backwards.
Right on. Then Howard or Crowe has to stand up at the Golden Globes or whatever and pretend to raise awareness for schizophrenia. Its the equivalent of the classic sympathy generator - "aren't handicapped people the real heroes!"
A clear instance of real world karma whoring if I've ever seen one.
I think what you're describing is the "Winner-Take-All" idea. Here is an article that mentions it. I don't necessarily condone the remedy in the article but it's still somewhat interesting.
Actually we use CV in the US too. You just have to be a card carrying member of the wine and cheese crowd to get away with it. Seriously though, anything business related uses resume whereas the scientific community seems to use CV.
Ha! You nailed it.
:)
We had a couple of the early MA TC versions in our lab (i.e. the ones with a standard Intel processor) and a person wearing one of them looked absolutely ridiculous. There were cables everywhere. The headset had an eyepiece and earphones so it covered a good part of your head. The actual processor was mounted on a belt along with a sizable battery. Then there were the extensions - a huge wrist-mounted touchpad display, a head mounted camera, and a mini-keyboard. (Who needs eyes anyway? I just watch the world through a camera projecting onto a head mounted LCD
Needless to say, we never used them for anything except when two of us wore them as a halloween costume at the CS department party. Boot me up!
I used one of their older models - something like the MA TC - I didn't really have a problem with using only one eye. I'm not sure why but I don't remember needing to wink. However, the eyepiece was semitransparent so I did have problems if there was anything moving in the background. The version we had was running Win98 at 800x600 (I think) so buttons and normal size text were basically unreadable. Tracking the mouse cursor was also a lost cause. Switching to one of the accessibility themes (big fonts and high contrast colors) in Windows helped out but effectively reduced the size of the display.
This is one of those things where its hard to tell if a few details were wrong or if its an overall bad idea. My intuition is that its probably just the details.
We had a couple of their products in our lab - I think they were the MA TC type. These ran Windows 98 and they were huge hulking beasts that could hardly be called wearable. Anyway, my experience with the display was that it wasn't too bright. In fact, they projected on to a half silvered mirror so that you could supposedly see through it. The people in my lab found the half silvered mirror to be a bad idea because you couldn't really concentrate on the screen or the environment very well. It was especially difficult to try to keep track of a mouse cursor when it was half transparent and things were moving in the background. To get any use out of it at all you basically had to go stare at a blank wall. Don't know if this version also has a transparent display - hope they actually ran some user studies.
It does not need a PHD...
Woah, I must have had too much Dilbert. I was trying to figure out what the D might be that would follow "Pointy Haired." I'm sure I could turn this into a MS insult somehow...
My experience is the same. The people I personally know who use a (Palm) PDA work as investment bankers, real estate agents, consultants, management, and similar.
I am one of the few geeks among my family and friends and most of them had Palms well before I did. And mine is sitting on my desk collecting dust.
The people for whom Palms seem to be attractive are those who make extensive use of calendars and address books - ie. they're organized. I don't think that necessarily correlates to geeks.
That raises an interesting question. I'm wondering if Microsoft could cross the line on reducing the price of this thing with that many features. I remember learning in 9th grade ELPSA that it is illegal for a big company to reduce the price of a product to the point of losing money specifically to drive another company out of business (maybe my teacher was on crack but that is how I remember it.)
I'm sure there are a million loopholes in this law if it is even really a part of US law but I'm surprised it hasn't at least come up in an MS case.