While this might be a last resort for the disabled - it's probably a bad idea otherwise. Speech is not the same as typing/writing. Speech uses a part of your brain that interferes with other kinds of reasoning. Please, let's not let yet another generation of engineers waste their time on this.
Speaking of pop-ups - has anyone else noticed a fair number of pop-ups getting past firefox these days? I looked into a little bit and it seems that the way they are doing it is with a little flash wrapper. I guess I need to go back to using the click to play extension.
Well, I don't disagree that the whole iPod killer thing is ridiculous. iPods are a status symbol. However, I do think FM recording is a non-incremental advancement. This basically enables something akin to TIVO for radio - i.e. low effort recording and (potentially) time shifting of content. Something I think could inspire a lot of new sales. It's hard to tell from the website and the PC Magazine article the exact UI controls for FM recording though. The FM recording may just be an afterthought.
I completely agree with you that Java applications will almost always lag behind in "snappiness." The thing is though that at some point applications reach a "good enough" level where people are willing to tolerate them if they cost less. It happens all the time in business. I'm not sure we're quite there yet for Java but we're getting pretty darn close. Eclipse for example (Java although not Swing) is good enough that I'm willing to rely on it for my work.
Re:First, how go I get to Google Print
on
Breaking Google's DRM
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· Score: 2, Informative
Apparently it's slashdotted. I'm getting a 502 server error when I try to look at the book.
No see, it's that he's really good at playing video games. His skills in the Sims Online are legendary. And surely you've heard of his mighty exploits in Zoo Tycoon?
Sorry, that's not true. Police can stop you at any time even if they haven't seen you violate a law. Even if they technically couldn't (which they can) this could easily be abused.
Alternately, one non-practical means of anonymous transportation which no one has mentioned is ultralight planes. These require no license to fly.
That's actual measurement of actual code under comparable circumstances.
I'm not sure which controlled study you're referring to here. Do you have a link? Did they measure task completion times and number of bugs? Did they control for programmer skill and experience level?
A factor of 5 is too large to discounty by any supposed greater "amount of mental effort" you hypothesize.
How do you know? Code length is a completely indirect way of measuring what you really want to know, which is how long does it take to solve real problems while minimizing bugs and supporting later maintenance. This includes many practical factors like Java IDE's providing better support for auto-completion since the language is strongly typed.
OK, I just read that essay "Succinctness is Power." I think his starting hypothesis is totally bogus. He claims that the reason we use high level languages instead of assembly is to make programs shorter. That's a huge generalization. Yes, assembly is usually going to be longer but that's not it's main problem. Just taking the second link from a Google search suggests that the main advantage of high-level languages over low-level languages is that they are easier to read, write, and maintain. High level languages also often have the advantage of being platform independent and abstracting the details of hardware operations.
I would also like to point out that "power" is not that meaningful. The thing we should be talking about is efficiency. I think you have to take into account the amount of mental effort you have to put into the language to get out the power. Not just the first time you look at the code but every time.
To give an extreme example from my own practice - I usually don't even use "i++" to increment a variable. I find that understanding these statements takes me a few extra seconds (over "i=i+1") to convince myself of what's going on. Maybe "i++" has more power since it takes two less characters and can be combined with other actions such as "j=i++", but the efficiency is much lower for me because I have to spend extra time every time I look at that piece of code.
That reminds me of those stupid Olympics commercials where they advertise the high definition broadcast. Why do I need a new TV and a special broadcast, I can see the high definition just fine on my regular TV?
Is it just me or is Firefox 0.9 way LESS stable than 0.8. Does anyone know if there are known problems or what?
Also, why is Firefox going in the wrong direction? Are they still adding features instead of working to close this thing off? Forget the stupid theme and get this thing working! Now is the perfect time to steal users back from IE.
Combining Netscape 7 in there - that's 13.7% for mozilla derivatives. That is impressive if it's true.
I'm wondering where they got these statistics. I couldn't find any discussion of this on the site. They don't seem to jive with the Google Zeitgeist. In the Google Zeitgeist, all Mozilla variants seem to fall into the "other" category. At the May 2004 point, the other category seems to have a lower percentage than both IE 5 and IE 5.5 on Google. In contrast, the w3schools statistics say that Mozilla by itself is higher than all IE 5 browsers combined. Is this really only visitors to the w3schools site?
Also, looking at the second hit returned from a "browser statistics" query on Google highlights the uncertainty around this. They list 5 different sources of browser statistics that vary wildly. Here's the link.
With all the hubub over IE, it seems like there would be more discussion over this. Is the only way these statistics are being collected is from the useragent string? Are there any statistics on how often this string is being spoofed?
I went to a presentation by Alien Technology and they claimed that one of the big cost savings in depolying these devices was reducing employee theft. I don't see how this could be possible if you are correct.
It would be a sad day if one of these (excuse the pun) bugs were released and some error was caught too late.
It already happened on Mars. Didn't you see Cowboy Bebop? The moral of the story is that we need to be able to manipulate the weather to deliver the antidote. Your fears about human hubris are clearly without merit.
Why is 65 significant? I don't remember celebrating last year at 64? Is it just because it's a multiple of 5? I mean, can we celebrate insignificant events like this on multiples of 10 at least, if not 25?
65 sounds like one of the years used for sales at a furniture store.
That's what I'm screaming. I mean, I can't even find a cart that doesn't shake or veer off to one side or the other. And they're going to spend money for this solution in search of a problem?
I remember a while back some of the grocery stores started putting calculators in the handles of the carts. Even these were constantly broken. And that's about as simple as an electronic device can get.
I would imagine that just the power needed to charge these stupid carts would be enough to make them prohibitive. The only places I can imagine using these as a gimick are the snobby high end joints like Whole Foods, Draeger's, or Andronico's.
I actually remember a talk at CHI about a vibrating vest or something like that for sending and receiving hugs. I also remember discussing with someone how they must have been discretely funded by the pr0n industry.
I agree that without the glasses you would be impaired. I think it relates to the famous levels of processing theory. This basically says the more work you do to process information - the better you will remember it.
You are right - not about trolling but about the pay rates. I don't know what I was thinking when I posted the $30K-40K. I looked it up and the actual pay I got from school for 9 months was between $10K-20K. However, internships and such during the summer usually paid better so I usually made around $20K-30K total. My initial figure wasn't *that* ridiculous.
Regarding time spent though - I think it's like everything in life. If you want to be recognized in your field you are gonna have to bust your hump (or be smart or get lucky). But if you just want to get a degree, you can graduate in reasonable time with much lower effort and still enjoy life. A lot of people don't because they are consumed with improving their CV/Resume.
Pick any school with a decent CS department. I am mostly familiar with ACC state schools. In particular Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. All of them offered the same kinds of deals with about $30-40K plus benefits. Of course, this was a couple years ago, but probably still valid. I have heard that other schools across the country have similar offers.
Granted, you will usually have to be a teaching or research assistant to get pay and benefits. As I mentioned, there is some work involved. Many schools do also have fellowships available if you have good grades in undergrad.
Slashdot Mirror
If not, why not?
While this might be a last resort for the disabled - it's probably a bad idea otherwise. Speech is not the same as typing/writing. Speech uses a part of your brain that interferes with other kinds of reasoning. Please, let's not let yet another generation of engineers waste their time on this.
Speaking of pop-ups - has anyone else noticed a fair number of pop-ups getting past firefox these days? I looked into a little bit and it seems that the way they are doing it is with a little flash wrapper. I guess I need to go back to using the click to play extension.
Well, I don't disagree that the whole iPod killer thing is ridiculous. iPods are a status symbol. However, I do think FM recording is a non-incremental advancement. This basically enables something akin to TIVO for radio - i.e. low effort recording and (potentially) time shifting of content. Something I think could inspire a lot of new sales. It's hard to tell from the website and the PC Magazine article the exact UI controls for FM recording though. The FM recording may just be an afterthought.
I completely agree with you that Java applications will almost always lag behind in "snappiness." The thing is though that at some point applications reach a "good enough" level where people are willing to tolerate them if they cost less. It happens all the time in business. I'm not sure we're quite there yet for Java but we're getting pretty darn close. Eclipse for example (Java although not Swing) is good enough that I'm willing to rely on it for my work.
Apparently it's slashdotted. I'm getting a 502 server error when I try to look at the book.
No see, it's that he's really good at playing video games. His skills in the Sims Online are legendary. And surely you've heard of his mighty exploits in Zoo Tycoon?
Yeah and what about the Y10K problem? It's being completely ignored!
it is only when you don't obey applicable laws
Sorry, that's not true. Police can stop you at any time even if they haven't seen you violate a law. Even if they technically couldn't (which they can) this could easily be abused.
Alternately, one non-practical means of anonymous transportation which no one has mentioned is ultralight planes. These require no license to fly.
That's actual measurement of actual code under comparable circumstances.
I'm not sure which controlled study you're referring to here. Do you have a link? Did they measure task completion times and number of bugs? Did they control for programmer skill and experience level?
A factor of 5 is too large to discounty by any supposed greater "amount of mental effort" you hypothesize.
How do you know? Code length is a completely indirect way of measuring what you really want to know, which is how long does it take to solve real problems while minimizing bugs and supporting later maintenance. This includes many practical factors like Java IDE's providing better support for auto-completion since the language is strongly typed.
OK, I just read that essay "Succinctness is Power." I think his starting hypothesis is totally bogus. He claims that the reason we use high level languages instead of assembly is to make programs shorter. That's a huge generalization. Yes, assembly is usually going to be longer but that's not it's main problem. Just taking the second link from a Google search suggests that the main advantage of high-level languages over low-level languages is that they are easier to read, write, and maintain. High level languages also often have the advantage of being platform independent and abstracting the details of hardware operations.
I would also like to point out that "power" is not that meaningful. The thing we should be talking about is efficiency. I think you have to take into account the amount of mental effort you have to put into the language to get out the power. Not just the first time you look at the code but every time.
To give an extreme example from my own practice - I usually don't even use "i++" to increment a variable. I find that understanding these statements takes me a few extra seconds (over "i=i+1") to convince myself of what's going on. Maybe "i++" has more power since it takes two less characters and can be combined with other actions such as "j=i++", but the efficiency is much lower for me because I have to spend extra time every time I look at that piece of code.
That reminds me of those stupid Olympics commercials where they advertise the high definition broadcast. Why do I need a new TV and a special broadcast, I can see the high definition just fine on my regular TV?
How about something like prevayler. I haven't actually used it yet, just have it on my radar as something to check out later.
Is it just me or is Firefox 0.9 way LESS stable than 0.8. Does anyone know if there are known problems or what?
Also, why is Firefox going in the wrong direction? Are they still adding features instead of working to close this thing off? Forget the stupid theme and get this thing working! Now is the perfect time to steal users back from IE.
Combining Netscape 7 in there - that's 13.7% for mozilla derivatives. That is impressive if it's true.
I'm wondering where they got these statistics. I couldn't find any discussion of this on the site. They don't seem to jive with the Google Zeitgeist. In the Google Zeitgeist, all Mozilla variants seem to fall into the "other" category. At the May 2004 point, the other category seems to have a lower percentage than both IE 5 and IE 5.5 on Google. In contrast, the w3schools statistics say that Mozilla by itself is higher than all IE 5 browsers combined. Is this really only visitors to the w3schools site?
Also, looking at the second hit returned from a "browser statistics" query on Google highlights the uncertainty around this. They list 5 different sources of browser statistics that vary wildly. Here's the link.
With all the hubub over IE, it seems like there would be more discussion over this. Is the only way these statistics are being collected is from the useragent string? Are there any statistics on how often this string is being spoofed?
For me, this raises one important question? Can vegetarians eat aliens?
Stop the vegicide!
I went to a presentation by Alien Technology and they claimed that one of the big cost savings in depolying these devices was reducing employee theft. I don't see how this could be possible if you are correct.
The only real use for this is to win those contests on the radio where they play a 2 second snippet from a song and you have to guess what song it is.
I have to say though, that I pity anyway who actually participates in these contests.
It would be a sad day if one of these (excuse the pun) bugs were released and some error was caught too late.
It already happened on Mars. Didn't you see Cowboy Bebop? The moral of the story is that we need to be able to manipulate the weather to deliver the antidote. Your fears about human hubris are clearly without merit.
Why is 65 significant? I don't remember celebrating last year at 64? Is it just because it's a multiple of 5? I mean, can we celebrate insignificant events like this on multiples of 10 at least, if not 25?
65 sounds like one of the years used for sales at a furniture store.
That's what I'm screaming. I mean, I can't even find a cart that doesn't shake or veer off to one side or the other. And they're going to spend money for this solution in search of a problem?
I remember a while back some of the grocery stores started putting calculators in the handles of the carts. Even these were constantly broken. And that's about as simple as an electronic device can get.
I would imagine that just the power needed to charge these stupid carts would be enough to make them prohibitive. The only places I can imagine using these as a gimick are the snobby high end joints like Whole Foods, Draeger's, or Andronico's.
You'll be happy to know that the MIT media lab is hard at work on your idea. Here are some related technologies: an emotional communication device and a a medium for intimate conversation.
I actually remember a talk at CHI about a vibrating vest or something like that for sending and receiving hugs. I also remember discussing with someone how they must have been discretely funded by the pr0n industry.
Mp3s4free.com: It's dot net!
I agree that without the glasses you would be impaired. I think it relates to the famous levels of processing theory. This basically says the more work you do to process information - the better you will remember it.
You are right - not about trolling but about the pay rates. I don't know what I was thinking when I posted the $30K-40K. I looked it up and the actual pay I got from school for 9 months was between $10K-20K. However, internships and such during the summer usually paid better so I usually made around $20K-30K total. My initial figure wasn't *that* ridiculous.
Regarding time spent though - I think it's like everything in life. If you want to be recognized in your field you are gonna have to bust your hump (or be smart or get lucky). But if you just want to get a degree, you can graduate in reasonable time with much lower effort and still enjoy life. A lot of people don't because they are consumed with improving their CV/Resume.
Pick any school with a decent CS department. I am mostly familiar with ACC state schools. In particular Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. All of them offered the same kinds of deals with about $30-40K plus benefits. Of course, this was a couple years ago, but probably still valid. I have heard that other schools across the country have similar offers.
Granted, you will usually have to be a teaching or research assistant to get pay and benefits. As I mentioned, there is some work involved. Many schools do also have fellowships available if you have good grades in undergrad.