Re:READ THIS -Very Off Topic-
on
Minority Report
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· Score: 1
I would argue that this movie doesn't belong on slashdot either. The whole idea of pre-cognition is fundamentally religious. Sure you could validate it scientifically to some extent but only to the extent that you can validate the statement "God answers prayer." I'm sure they threw in a couple of gadgets to make it seem slightly techie, but that's all window dressing on a political and religious film.
Anyway, Filthy only gave it two fingers so it can't be worth much discussion.
The zooming in their little animated gif or whatever seems like it might be kind of tough to get used to and it goes fast!
Having used this for a short while I can say that you get used to the zooming. The problem, though, is that it takes intense concentration. Sure typing and graffiti take some concentration too, but this is extreme. I haven't seen any mention of the long term effects of using this but I'm guessing your eyes will get fatiqued much more quickly than with other techniques.
I thought price fixing was when two competitors get together and decide to sell at a higher price so that they can both make more money. At least that's what I learned in high school ELPSA back in the day.
I think you are right though about why MS isn't getting in trouble for selling the XBox at $199. If however, MS had started selling the XBox at $199 and Sony thought it was unfair, they could probably take them to court. I think the deal is that one company can't lower the price to drive another company out of business.
The other problem of course is that it takes a larger investment up front. I will often not buy a combination product because I want one function more than the other and don't want to pay for the lesser used function at that point.
Also, combination products are often perceived as lower quality. For example, when I go to buy electronics, there is always the company who said, "Let's add a clock to it!" I think most people have the experience that one part will break and you're left with a wounded duck.
I am interested in the beta news searching function that is currently available on Google. My assumption is that you are exploring this because it takes several days to crawl the entire web so the normal indices can be out of date. And likely many people are looking for a particular story while it is still "news." I'm wondering if you see any long term, more general purpose ways of keeping your indices up to date. For example, do you see any tricks with looking at modification dates of pages or diffing the contents against your cache? Maybe you are already doing this to some extent?
It is certainly true that we have less options but that did not start with Walmart censoring magazine covers. You need to follow this thru to the logical conclusion. We're talking about less choices in magazine covers -> Why? because the magazine publishers only make one cover for everyone. So the problem is that there isn't enough choice in the magazine market -> Why? because several large companies control magazine publishing -> Why? because making a shiny, air-brushed, super-polished magazine takes a lot of money -> Why do we want shiny, air-brushed, super-polished magazines? because we are anesthetized by years of buying increasingly shiniy, air-brushed, super-polished, mass produced sh*t. It all started with the idea of mass production and we're slowly reaching the logical conclusion. We're becoming mass produced humans. You'd think a tirade like this would have some ultimate political message but it doesn't. I am as spoiled by mass production as everyone else so I'm probably not going to fight the system (yet) just so I can live with a choice between lower quality goods.
I agree with the parent that all hell will break loose some day. But I think it will be the world's oppressed taking on the oppressor.
Your point about having no support for you arms is a good one. That is exactly what I thought when I watched the video. It's true that RSI injuries are important but another equally important problem is fatigue. Most importantly, this may have been a confound in their study because subjects got tired of supporting the weight of their arms and therefore took more breaks.
Maybe the lesson to be learned here is to take breaks. Similar themes show up all over the place in other posts here.
Yeah, all I can think of is a really terrible book I read with the title Neanderthal. It fits the mad lib profile for cheap science fiction. "The extinct species ________ is discovered living in a remote corner of the world."
That's funny. I always have that problem when I'm trying to make coffee. The coffee will say "one tablespoon per cup of water." Then I'm thinking "is that actual cup of water or the weird coffee cup measurement." Then to make things worse, the coffee pot has some measuring lines and I'm not sure if those lines are 8 or 5 oz. And then there's further confusion when I pour the water in the back of the coffee maker and the lines on the pot don't seem to match the ones in the coffee maker holding tank.
So I end up just dumping a pile of coffee in the filter and eyeballing the measurements. Guess that's probably what the coffee makers wanted anyway.
I will go you one further. Not only should GUI innovations not be patentable but software innovations in general.
As I understand it, software patents are hardware patents taken to their "logical" conclusion. That is, since any software can be implemented in hardware, the transitive closure is to allow patenting of the software directly. I think this is bogus. Putting something in hardware by definition makes it concrete. It would also raise the bar on what is needed to get a patent thus eliminating a lot of the crap.
I realize this is well beyond redundant but sometimes things just need to be said again.
I'm not so sure about that. His ads weren't ultimately disapproved for being off-topic, but because they had low click-thru. So porn ads under Nintendo might be allowed if the kiddies are clicking.
Yeah, the lesson here seems NOT to be that you can't get away with ridiculous ads - just that you have to have ads that make people click. The last Google response of doom was the one that was measuring click-through.
I mean, I would think you could get better than 0.5% click through with some good silly ads even if they weren't related at all to the query.
Actually, it wasn't a standard sidescroller. You start out in a top down overview and switch to the detailed side scrolling for interactions.
I'm not sure how this could be cited as one of the worst games ever. I can see how you might not have liked it but it wasn't poorly conceived or executed? I loved this game.
challenge - excellent graphics - excellent innovation - overview to sidescroller was a cool idea that built on Zelda I
I bought an Anne Klein watch for my wife for Valentine's Day and there was a clearly marked patent on the box. The patent wasn't for anything related to the watch but for a little drawer in the bottom of the box that held the instruction manual. Tee Hee. I'm sure that will put all the other watchmakers right out of business.
It's a campus like that of a university or large company
How many companies actually have campuses of buildings "interconnected by a high-bandwidth, low-latency, switched network" with "no significant geographical differences"? I'd like to see some statistics on that. Furthermore, the meteor strike example was completely ridiculous to begin with because the data and the backups for most companies are stored in different geographic locations. So it would take at least two concurrent catastrophes before they lose their data. Most companies are willing to accept those odds.
or a single metropolitan area
Wow, that would be a ballsy proposal. Did they actually make it? I didn't see it if they did.
Those blocks would, in general, still be on your local hard drive
Caching does not solve all the world's problems. Its going to be using LRU or some such. There is yet another assumption here that people use their applications and files in this way. You've got to pay for the transfer sometime. There is no getting around it.
This is a shared filesystem and, compared to sharing via protocols such as NFS or CIFS
I think you've highlighted my main problem with this scheme. I wouldn't mind if this was shared file SPACE but they are talking about an entire shared file SYSTEM. But if you take away this assumption that you're sharing the entire file system then you lose most of the benefits of file coalescing - and the whole thing falls apart. Currently, I do use various protocols for shared file space - but I don't use an entire shared file system.
Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to slag other people's projects just because you don't understand what it is that they're doing.
I wouldn't be so quick to criticize with anyone except MS. As a disgruntled user of MS products, I want to clearly state my objections so that this doesn't become accepted and put in their next OS. (And I do think I have a pretty good handle on what they're doing.)
What do you do that's less ridiculous or laughable than that?
My work probably is ridiculous in some ways. And I'd love to have somebody point it out so I don't waste my time. But we're not talking about my work.
Yes the FAQ pretends to address the problems I brought up but the answers don't hold up if you really look at them.
We assume that the machines are interconnected by a high-bandwidth, low-latency, switched network. Also, at least for our initial version, we are assuming no significant geographical differences among machines.
This has two main problems. The first is the phrase "at least for our initial version..." Given Microsoft's angle on.NET, I have a hard time believing this is only meant for large corporations. Second, the main argument for the architecture can be summed up in this cartoon. So they're arguing that they are going to reduce the risk of "geographically localized faults" by distributing files on computers that are geographically localized. Huh??! OK, and this is my favorite:
So, if you need more storage space, you don't get it by calling the sys-admin and begging for a larger quota; you do it by buying a larger hard drive and plugging it into your desktop computer.
Did they really say that? Plugging in a new hard drive is easier for an end user than asking for more space? Inconceivable!
As for the assumption that people only use a fraction of their hard drive... that is what they said in the talk I went to. This must be an important assumption otherwise they wouldn't have made it.
Anyway, the more I think about this the more absurd it seems for any real network. Imagine if the OS was storing my Word application files on another machine (using that great file coalescing scheme). Now it takes an extra 30s to a minute to start - and that is optimistic for a "geographically localized network". Users have been upgrading for years to reduce load time and now they're supposed to take a huge step back! It's so ridiculous, its laughable!
I agree. And as you noted this isn't a toy file sharing scheme for Geeks - this is supposed to be the next OS.
Microsoft keeps building on this idea that people will have unlimited bandwidth (I say Microsoft because I just heard a.NET talk on Farsite). What's amazing to me is that my home connection has maybe doubled from 28K to 56K in the last 5 years (Yes, I'm not willing to pay for DSL or Cable) - and I'm in one of the most developed countries in the world. Also, this solution is actually adding to the bandwidth problem by passing around files that might otherwise reside on a single hard drive. Sure it has benefits, but I'm questioning whether its worth it.
There is also another huge assumption that they don't mention in the article. The assumption is that people don't use most of their hard drive. This is supposedly based on some kind of empirical data. While this may be true I think it depends on a lot of factors that they don't take into consideration. For example, if I expect to use 20 GB of disk space, I'll probably buy a 40 GB disk, just to be safe. If you take away users disk space, they might start to get nervous and want more disk space even if they don't need it.
Anyway, I think Microsoft is on the wrong track but its their nickel. I'd be happy to see them take this approach and fail.
Slashdot Mirror
I would argue that this movie doesn't belong on slashdot either. The whole idea of pre-cognition is fundamentally religious. Sure you could validate it scientifically to some extent but only to the extent that you can validate the statement "God answers prayer." I'm sure they threw in a couple of gadgets to make it seem slightly techie, but that's all window dressing on a political and religious film.
Anyway, Filthy only gave it two fingers so it can't be worth much discussion.
The zooming in their little animated gif or whatever seems like it might be kind of tough to get used to and it goes fast!
Having used this for a short while I can say that you get used to the zooming. The problem, though, is that it takes intense concentration. Sure typing and graffiti take some concentration too, but this is extreme. I haven't seen any mention of the long term effects of using this but I'm guessing your eyes will get fatiqued much more quickly than with other techniques.
I thought price fixing was when two competitors get together and decide to sell at a higher price so that they can both make more money. At least that's what I learned in high school ELPSA back in the day.
I think you are right though about why MS isn't getting in trouble for selling the XBox at $199. If however, MS had started selling the XBox at $199 and Sony thought it was unfair, they could probably take them to court. I think the deal is that one company can't lower the price to drive another company out of business.
The other problem of course is that it takes a larger investment up front. I will often not buy a combination product because I want one function more than the other and don't want to pay for the lesser used function at that point.
Also, combination products are often perceived as lower quality. For example, when I go to buy electronics, there is always the company who said, "Let's add a clock to it!" I think most people have the experience that one part will break and you're left with a wounded duck.
I am interested in the beta news searching function that is currently available on Google. My assumption is that you are exploring this because it takes several days to crawl the entire web so the normal indices can be out of date. And likely many people are looking for a particular story while it is still "news." I'm wondering if you see any long term, more general purpose ways of keeping your indices up to date. For example, do you see any tricks with looking at modification dates of pages or diffing the contents against your cache? Maybe you are already doing this to some extent?
It is certainly true that we have less options but that did not start with Walmart censoring magazine covers. You need to follow this thru to the logical conclusion. We're talking about less choices in magazine covers -> Why? because the magazine publishers only make one cover for everyone. So the problem is that there isn't enough choice in the magazine market -> Why? because several large companies control magazine publishing -> Why? because making a shiny, air-brushed, super-polished magazine takes a lot of money -> Why do we want shiny, air-brushed, super-polished magazines? because we are anesthetized by years of buying increasingly shiniy, air-brushed, super-polished, mass produced sh*t. It all started with the idea of mass production and we're slowly reaching the logical conclusion. We're becoming mass produced humans. You'd think a tirade like this would have some ultimate political message but it doesn't. I am as spoiled by mass production as everyone else so I'm probably not going to fight the system (yet) just so I can live with a choice between lower quality goods.
I agree with the parent that all hell will break loose some day. But I think it will be the world's oppressed taking on the oppressor.
That's where Finger Weights come in :) --Beware, this site has a lot of annoying flash crap--
Your point about having no support for you arms is a good one. That is exactly what I thought when I watched the video. It's true that RSI injuries are important but another equally important problem is fatigue. Most importantly, this may have been a confound in their study because subjects got tired of supporting the weight of their arms and therefore took more breaks.
Maybe the lesson to be learned here is to take breaks. Similar themes show up all over the place in other posts here.
Yeah, all I can think of is a really terrible book I read with the title Neanderthal. It fits the mad lib profile for cheap science fiction. "The extinct species ________ is discovered living in a remote corner of the world."
Ahh, if only I had Launch in my car. And if only they had all the music I like.
That's funny. I always have that problem when I'm trying to make coffee. The coffee will say "one tablespoon per cup of water." Then I'm thinking "is that actual cup of water or the weird coffee cup measurement." Then to make things worse, the coffee pot has some measuring lines and I'm not sure if those lines are 8 or 5 oz. And then there's further confusion when I pour the water in the back of the coffee maker and the lines on the pot don't seem to match the ones in the coffee maker holding tank.
So I end up just dumping a pile of coffee in the filter and eyeballing the measurements. Guess that's probably what the coffee makers wanted anyway.
Take a look at Jazz. It has a 2D scenegraph and support for animation and zooming.
Also, you might look at Squeak and Morphic.
I will go you one further. Not only should GUI innovations not be patentable but software innovations in general.
As I understand it, software patents are hardware patents taken to their "logical" conclusion. That is, since any software can be implemented in hardware, the transitive closure is to allow patenting of the software directly. I think this is bogus. Putting something in hardware by definition makes it concrete. It would also raise the bar on what is needed to get a patent thus eliminating a lot of the crap.
I realize this is well beyond redundant but sometimes things just need to be said again.
I'm not so sure about that. His ads weren't ultimately disapproved for being off-topic, but because they had low click-thru. So porn ads under Nintendo might be allowed if the kiddies are clicking.
Yeah, the lesson here seems NOT to be that you can't get away with ridiculous ads - just that you have to have ads that make people click. The last Google response of doom was the one that was measuring click-through.
I mean, I would think you could get better than 0.5% click through with some good silly ads even if they weren't related at all to the query.
Actually, it wasn't a standard sidescroller. You start out in a top down overview and switch to the detailed side scrolling for interactions.
I'm not sure how this could be cited as one of the worst games ever. I can see how you might not have liked it but it wasn't poorly conceived or executed? I loved this game.
challenge - excellent
graphics - excellent
innovation - overview to sidescroller was a cool idea that built on Zelda I
Here's a link that defends Zelda II.
I think that would count as ammo.
Dude, don't you have a gravity shield?
My flatmate is doing some work for Newlands Scientific
Oh, he must be the one in all the pictures.
I bought an Anne Klein watch for my wife for Valentine's Day and there was a clearly marked patent on the box. The patent wasn't for anything related to the watch but for a little drawer in the bottom of the box that held the instruction manual. Tee Hee. I'm sure that will put all the other watchmakers right out of business.
It's a campus like that of a university or large company
How many companies actually have campuses of buildings "interconnected by a high-bandwidth, low-latency, switched network" with "no significant geographical differences"? I'd like to see some statistics on that. Furthermore, the meteor strike example was completely ridiculous to begin with because the data and the backups for most companies are stored in different geographic locations. So it would take at least two concurrent catastrophes before they lose their data. Most companies are willing to accept those odds.
or a single metropolitan area
Wow, that would be a ballsy proposal. Did they actually make it? I didn't see it if they did.
Those blocks would, in general, still be on your local hard drive
Caching does not solve all the world's problems. Its going to be using LRU or some such. There is yet another assumption here that people use their applications and files in this way. You've got to pay for the transfer sometime. There is no getting around it.
This is a shared filesystem and, compared to sharing via protocols such as NFS or CIFS
I think you've highlighted my main problem with this scheme. I wouldn't mind if this was shared file SPACE but they are talking about an entire shared file SYSTEM. But if you take away this assumption that you're sharing the entire file system then you lose most of the benefits of file coalescing - and the whole thing falls apart. Currently, I do use various protocols for shared file space - but I don't use an entire shared file system.
Maybe you shouldn't be so quick to slag other people's projects just because you don't understand what it is that they're doing.
I wouldn't be so quick to criticize with anyone except MS. As a disgruntled user of MS products, I want to clearly state my objections so that this doesn't become accepted and put in their next OS. (And I do think I have a pretty good handle on what they're doing.)
What do you do that's less ridiculous or laughable than that?
My work probably is ridiculous in some ways. And I'd love to have somebody point it out so I don't waste my time. But we're not talking about my work.
Yes the FAQ pretends to address the problems I brought up but the answers don't hold up if you really look at them.
..." Given Microsoft's angle on .NET, I have a hard time believing this is only meant for large corporations. Second, the main argument for the architecture can be summed up in this cartoon. So they're arguing that they are going to reduce the risk of "geographically localized faults" by distributing files on computers that are geographically localized. Huh??! OK, and this is my favorite:
... that is what they said in the talk I went to. This must be an important assumption otherwise they wouldn't have made it.
We assume that the machines are interconnected by a high-bandwidth, low-latency, switched network. Also, at least for our initial version, we are assuming no significant geographical differences among machines.
This has two main problems. The first is the phrase "at least for our initial version
So, if you need more storage space, you don't get it by calling the sys-admin and begging for a larger quota; you do it by buying a larger hard drive and plugging it into your desktop computer.
Did they really say that? Plugging in a new hard drive is easier for an end user than asking for more space? Inconceivable!
As for the assumption that people only use a fraction of their hard drive
Anyway, the more I think about this the more absurd it seems for any real network. Imagine if the OS was storing my Word application files on another machine (using that great file coalescing scheme). Now it takes an extra 30s to a minute to start - and that is optimistic for a "geographically localized network". Users have been upgrading for years to reduce load time and now they're supposed to take a huge step back! It's so ridiculous, its laughable!
I agree. And as you noted this isn't a toy file sharing scheme for Geeks - this is supposed to be the next OS.
.NET talk on Farsite). What's amazing to me is that my home connection has maybe doubled from 28K to 56K in the last 5 years (Yes, I'm not willing to pay for DSL or Cable) - and I'm in one of the most developed countries in the world. Also, this solution is actually adding to the bandwidth problem by passing around files that might otherwise reside on a single hard drive. Sure it has benefits, but I'm questioning whether its worth it.
Microsoft keeps building on this idea that people will have unlimited bandwidth (I say Microsoft because I just heard a
There is also another huge assumption that they don't mention in the article. The assumption is that people don't use most of their hard drive. This is supposedly based on some kind of empirical data. While this may be true I think it depends on a lot of factors that they don't take into consideration. For example, if I expect to use 20 GB of disk space, I'll probably buy a 40 GB disk, just to be safe. If you take away users disk space, they might start to get nervous and want more disk space even if they don't need it.
Anyway, I think Microsoft is on the wrong track but its their nickel. I'd be happy to see them take this approach and fail.
Just curious why everyone is referring to Xerox in the posts about this story.
Engelbart was at SRI. I'm pretty sure Ted Nelson wasn't at Xerox either - he's at Keio University now. And Vannevar Bush was way before PARC's time.
Anyway, just curious.
I believe Englebart was working for SRI.