Ok, let's get this straight. Go to the website: http://www.genevaconventions.org/ Read the conventions. They are in remarkably clear english, almost free of legalese. There is nothing offensive in them, and they follow a perfectly sensible set of procedures that are thouroghly inoffensive. To put it simply, if by some strange chance you had to detain some people on your property you would follow these procedures out of common decency.
For god's sake, the Nazis followed the Geneva conventions for POWs, and we followed them with the Nazi POWs. The other part of the equation is that these are the conventions other countries follow with US POWs. If everything goes pear shaped in Iraq, do you want Sadr announcing that the Geneva Convnetions are "quaint documents".
Read the frigging founding documents (RTFFD), The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions all of them are in plain language, and all of them are common sense that has served us well for ages.
I love PDAs, I'm never without my last of the line Clie. I find the PDA indispensable not only for keeping lists and contacts but as an e-book, simple camera and a GPS enabled navigator (particularly with vindigo). On the other hand, I have a very simple prepaid cellphone because I despise cellular companies, particularly with regard to the level of control they attempt to maintain over one's data, as well as the privacy failures of various cell features.
And no, paper and pencil notebooks don't cut it. The strength of the PDA is the capacity to sync all the data you use. That and the capacity to dynamically process information such as maps and gps data.
The true strength of the present PDA is that it is always there. A PDA is only effective if you keep it in arms reach at all times, at which point it becomes indispensable.
The thing that PDAs need is a reasonably power efficient means of acessing the net most of the time. In the 80's and early 90's connectivity was a nice thing for PCs now it is effectively indispensable. A perfectly good PC, even insanely tricked out is near useless without a broadband connection. A reasonable web link capability on the part of future PDAs will be equally essential.
The strength of smartphones are that they have this connectivity, the downside is the cost and intrusiveness of cellphone companies and the limitations of power. It's hard enough to keep a charge on either a cell or a PDA the full day through. Doubling the functionality kills batteries very quickly.
Of course, several technologies show promise in restoring the PDAs luster. The first is fuel cell batteries, which address the power limitations, and the second is e-paper which improves the display quality. Add ubiquitous connectivity (wiMax or the like)and you have the rebirth of the PDA.
While simply rapming up the megapixel count and using conventional lenses will actually degrade image quality, use of coputational imaging technologies such as cubic phase masks http://www.cdm-optics.com/site/index.php has the potential to increase image quality over conventional cameras.
Put simply cubic phase masks deliberately blur images in a fashion which allows for the sampling of the wavefront. Thus by tossing a lot of pixels and computational power at deblurring, a batter image than possible with conventional optics is possible. And yes, they are working on a cell phone version.
Obviously, this is a particular threat from Apple. With the capability of intel Macs to run XP, obviously the only reason to buy one is to run a pirate copy of Windows.
Apple must provide a copy of windows with every mac!
Actually, Nintendo beats the hell out of Sony on movies via their Play Yan cartridge. It's a standard size cartridge that incorporates an audio jack and works with the original GameBoy Advance on up. It takes dirt cheap SD flash w/ DRM free MP4 files which encode with 3rd party software. It holds 1-2 movies on a 1GB SD card, and plays mp3s as well. As always, the battery life is insane allowing for many hours of playback. But the real killer is that the cartridge works on all of the advance and DS models including the micro! As a result you can carry about a video/mp3 capable micro that is near nano size, but then shift over to a DS (or DS lite) for a larger screen speakers and longer battery life.
As a result my PSP gathers dust while my GBA micro is a constant companion (with a DS in the bag for the 'Big Screen' experience).
On the low end the GBA movie player ($25) from Lik Sang takes CF cards and produces serviceable video. With a used Advance you can cobble together a Sub $50 video player. Eat that, Sony!
Old Wine in new bottles. This is the same on-demand junk cable companies have been trying to shove down our throats forever.
My SageTV box plugs along flawlessly, recordin all the shows I want, streaming DRM free video to my entire network. I can easily burn the results to DVD or transcode to my PSP or GameBoy PlayYan. Why would I want to pay extra for less capability?
The fun part is that my tired old homemade DVR keeps gaining functionality over time from upgrades and synergy with my new toys
The continuous trend in consumer electronics seems to be offering less functionality for more money. As homemade systems continuously gain features, the commercial systems continuously become less useful and more annoying.
While it doesn't have native movie support, the GameBoyMicro/DS beat the hell out of the PSP with a PlayYan. The combination of insane battery life and cheap SD flash easily compensate for the smaller screen
While I follow the dress code of my California based company (beard, polo shirt, chinos, dress shoes), I am well known as someone who "cleans up well" and can readily give a good impression at a goverment or business presentation. I have no problem with this and rather much enjoy having an excuse to dress to the nines. On the other hand, when I'm back to the lab I'm casual again. This works for me.
The key point is respect, by dressing up I'm showing in a rather painless way that I can meet managers or business types halfway and can effectively interface with them. If I'm dressed sharper than they are I've beaten them at their own game and have a point in may favor immediately. It makes them considerably more receptive to my non-negotable issues.
On the other hand folks who made a point of not being able to "clean up well" tend to be rubbing their arrogance in peoples faces. They do it because they assume that they can get away with it because of their awesome skills. Problem is, skills change, and everybody loves to undermine an arrogant bastard, especially when they hand you shovels. Worse yet, they don't see it coming because they aren't able to collect intelligence dressed like that.
Haberdashery is a form of legal social engineering which is fun and easy to practice.
In my case I simply inherited my father's angry mode. I'm very calm and reserved unless pushed to the absolute limit. Then I go off big time. Veins bulging, face red, 130 decibel screams with a voice a register or so under Darth Vader. Most recipents go pale and visibly twitch when I'm present for about a year afterwards.
That is, I'll buy a physical copy of a lossless recording of an album without DRM (won't touch the DRMed ones with a 10' pole) which I will promptly rip w/ LAME to mp3. When encoding improves I'll repeat the process. Of course I only listen to the non-DRMed mp3's I rip.
If they don't rip, they are useless to me. (sorry Sony artists)
Actually a large proportion of my DVD's go the same way. Rip to MP4 watch on GameBoy or PSP while traveling. Once again, if they don't rip, they are useless.
I'm not into buying DRMed files which won't back up, won't stream, won't transcode and can be revoked by the **AA and their co-conspirators at any time.
Ok the answer is no. Visual basic is platform dependent, ugly and limited.
Basic should have been put out of its misery decades ago.
A beginner working with visual basic will not have a ground up perspective of programming, and will find that transfering their knowledge to other languages is terribly difficult.
On the other hand pyhton is simple and acessible enough to teach as a first language, and avoids the annoyances and pitfalls associated with pointers and other beginner unfriendly constructs. On the other hand python is powerful enough to serve as a primary language, has fantastic data structures, is bound to just about every known API, and allows the beginner to do serious programming almost immediately. Finally python is cross platform and free 9 as in speech, beer and sex) .
The sad thing is that the DS (or even better the micro) equipped with a Play Yan cartridge beats out the PSP in terms of battery life, ruggedness and portability for video playback.
The cartridge I use to the exclusion of all others, the Play Yan already sticks out by about a cm so I am not gravely concerned. I just want a smaller brighter video player and web browser.
Ah, the golden ear audiophiles who have better ears at 50 than dogs. That will buy dlithium doped cables the diameter of their wrist to exploit the "skin effect", which is utterly neglible in the audio frequency. Who prefer the often horrific distortion of tubes in the service of "perfect reproduction". A perfect complement to the cult of the iPod. Granted, if you are listening to a great recording in a perfect enviroment a reasonably good system which has been constructed according to measurable metrics really shines. On the other hand, in a mobile environment with background noise and mediocre music 128kbps and stock holds up fine.
Actually the blanket licence, essentially a flat rate licence for arbitrary play of content is the standard for radio and other venues. The CD and MP3 taxes are similar in this regard. It's been one standard means of making profit for a good fraction of a century.
The basic problem with the concept of a good business model is that present technologies allow for hypothetical models in which the industry takes a cut with every time you play a song or watch a movie in perpetuity. As long as this is held up as the standard, any other business model is regarded as bad or unprofitable.
The problem that arises is that it is generating a labrynth of incompatible DRM mechanisms that actually supress sales of both hardware and software. Basically the law of unintended consequences.
My suspicion is that DRM will cause a bunch of severe DIVX (the disc player) level implosions in the entertainment and electronics industries before an effective means of funding media production occurs (I suspect a system based on preorders in escrow will win out).
Disney is particularly atrocious in this regard. They try to force you to watch endless previews before accesing the main menu. Although recently they have added the capability to jump using the menu button. Frankly, this is the thing I particularly detest with regard to DRM on CDs.
Um, 99% (Japan) vs 97% (US) literacy rate. We are way behind much of the first world.
I'm sure there are people in Japan making the same criticism of Japanese youngsters.
Care to bring up specific examples? I'm sure that Japanese school girls drive giant robots back from school before a relaxing night of tenacle sex, and I have the links to back it up.
A nation that created Read or Die and the literacy episode of Samurai Champloo has as much different attitude towards reading than the US has.
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If we get to November 2006 without glassing Iran I'll be overjoyed.
Ok, let's get this straight. Go to the website:
http://www.genevaconventions.org/
Read the conventions.
They are in remarkably clear english, almost free of legalese. There is nothing offensive in them, and they follow a perfectly sensible set of procedures that are thouroghly inoffensive. To put it simply, if by some strange chance you had to detain some people on your property you would follow these procedures out of common decency.
For god's sake, the Nazis followed the Geneva conventions for POWs, and we followed them with the Nazi POWs. The other part of the equation is that these are the conventions other countries follow with US POWs. If everything goes pear shaped in Iraq, do you want Sadr announcing that the Geneva Convnetions are "quaint documents".
Read the frigging founding documents (RTFFD), The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions all of them are in plain language, and all of them are common sense that has served us well for ages.
I love PDAs, I'm never without my last of the line Clie. I find the PDA indispensable not only for keeping lists and contacts but as an e-book, simple camera and a GPS enabled navigator (particularly with vindigo). On the other hand, I have a very simple prepaid cellphone because I despise cellular companies, particularly with regard to the level of control they attempt to maintain over one's data, as well as the privacy failures of various cell features.
And no, paper and pencil notebooks don't cut it. The strength of the PDA is the capacity to sync all the data you use. That and the capacity to dynamically process information such as maps and gps data.
The true strength of the present PDA is that it is always there. A PDA is only effective if you keep it in arms reach at all times, at which point it becomes indispensable.
The thing that PDAs need is a reasonably power efficient means of acessing the net most of the time. In the 80's and early 90's connectivity was a nice thing for PCs now it is effectively indispensable. A perfectly good PC, even insanely tricked out is near useless without a broadband connection. A reasonable web link capability on the part of future PDAs will be equally essential.
The strength of smartphones are that they have this connectivity, the downside is the cost and intrusiveness of cellphone companies and the limitations of power. It's hard enough to keep a charge on either a cell or a PDA the full day through. Doubling the functionality kills batteries very quickly.
Of course, several technologies show promise in restoring the PDAs luster. The first is fuel cell batteries, which address the power limitations, and the second is e-paper which improves the display quality. Add ubiquitous connectivity (wiMax or the like)and you have the rebirth of the PDA.
While simply rapming up the megapixel count and using conventional lenses will actually degrade image quality, use of coputational imaging technologies such as cubic phase masks http://www.cdm-optics.com/site/index.php has the potential to increase image quality over conventional cameras.
Put simply cubic phase masks deliberately blur images in a fashion which allows for the sampling of the wavefront. Thus by tossing a lot of pixels and computational power at deblurring, a batter image than possible with conventional optics is possible. And yes, they are working on a cell phone version.
...simple green goo
Obviously, this is a particular threat from Apple.
With the capability of intel Macs to run XP, obviously the only reason to buy one is to run a pirate copy of Windows.
Apple must provide a copy of windows with every mac!
Actually, Nintendo beats the hell out of Sony on movies via their Play Yan cartridge. It's a standard size cartridge that incorporates an audio jack and works with the original GameBoy Advance on up. It takes dirt cheap SD flash w/ DRM free MP4 files which encode with 3rd party software. It holds 1-2 movies on a 1GB SD card, and plays mp3s as well. As always, the battery life is insane allowing for many hours of playback.
But the real killer is that the cartridge works on all of the advance and DS models including the micro! As a result you can carry about a video/mp3 capable micro that is near nano size, but then shift over to a DS (or DS lite) for a larger screen speakers and longer battery life.
As a result my PSP gathers dust while my GBA micro is a constant companion (with a DS in the bag for the 'Big Screen' experience).
On the low end the GBA movie player ($25) from Lik Sang takes CF cards and produces serviceable video. With a used Advance you can cobble together a Sub $50 video player. Eat that, Sony!
Old Wine in new bottles. This is the same on-demand junk cable companies have been trying to shove down our throats forever.
My SageTV box plugs along flawlessly, recordin all the shows I want, streaming DRM free video to my entire network. I can easily burn the results to DVD or transcode to my PSP or GameBoy PlayYan. Why would I want to pay extra for less capability?
The fun part is that my tired old homemade DVR keeps gaining functionality over time from upgrades and synergy with my new toys
The continuous trend in consumer electronics seems to be offering less functionality for more money. As homemade systems continuously gain features, the commercial systems continuously become less useful and more annoying.
While it doesn't have native movie support, the GameBoyMicro/DS beat the hell out of the PSP with a PlayYan. The combination of insane battery life and cheap SD flash easily compensate for the smaller screen
...the food isn't overpriced, you can sit in more comfortable seats, ... the floors aren't sticky...
Obviously, this guy hasn't seen my house.
While I follow the dress code of my California based company (beard, polo shirt, chinos, dress shoes), I am well known as someone who "cleans up well" and can readily give a good impression at a goverment or business presentation. I have no problem with this and rather much enjoy having an excuse to dress to the nines. On the other hand, when I'm back to the lab I'm casual again. This works for me.
The key point is respect, by dressing up I'm showing in a rather painless way that I can meet managers or business types halfway and can effectively interface with them. If I'm dressed sharper than they are I've beaten them at their own game and have a point in may favor immediately. It makes them considerably more receptive to my non-negotable issues.
On the other hand folks who made a point of not being able to "clean up well" tend to be rubbing their arrogance in peoples faces. They do it because they assume that they can get away with it because of their awesome skills. Problem is, skills change, and everybody loves to undermine an arrogant bastard, especially when they hand you shovels. Worse yet, they don't see it coming because they aren't able to collect intelligence dressed like that.
Haberdashery is a form of legal social engineering which is fun and easy to practice.
In my case I simply inherited my father's angry mode. I'm very calm and reserved unless pushed to the absolute limit. Then I go off big time. Veins bulging, face red, 130 decibel screams with a voice a register or so under Darth Vader. Most recipents go pale and visibly twitch when I'm present for about a year afterwards.
A Killer device:
With apologies to Woody Guthrie the 1 st world release should be labeled:
This Machine Kills Monopolists
That is, I'll buy a physical copy of a lossless recording of an album without DRM (won't touch the DRMed ones with a 10' pole) which I will promptly rip w/ LAME to mp3. When encoding improves I'll repeat the process. Of course I only listen to the non-DRMed mp3's I rip.
If they don't rip, they are useless to me. (sorry Sony artists)
Actually a large proportion of my DVD's go the same way. Rip to MP4 watch on GameBoy or PSP while traveling. Once again, if they don't rip, they are useless.
I'm not into buying DRMed files which won't back up, won't stream, won't transcode and can be revoked by the **AA and their co-conspirators at any time.
I cross cut shred, swirl the bits and mix with well used kitty litter before tossing!
Cringley has pointed out that the retiring boomer hackers will have more impact especially on the open source movement.
The under 30's have the advantage/disadvantage of not knowing what is impossible. On the other hand the old hands know the old tricks.
I was astounded to encounter teen interns who looked astounded at the concept of sub-Gigahertz machines.
Actually that wasn't the question.
Ok the answer is no. Visual basic is platform dependent, ugly and limited.
Basic should have been put out of its misery decades ago.
A beginner working with visual basic will not have a ground up perspective of programming, and will find that transfering their knowledge to other languages is terribly difficult.
On the other hand pyhton is simple and acessible enough to teach as a first language, and avoids the annoyances and pitfalls associated with pointers and other beginner unfriendly constructs. On the other hand python is powerful enough to serve as a primary language, has fantastic data structures, is bound to just about every known API, and allows the beginner to do serious programming almost immediately. Finally python is cross platform and free 9 as in speech, beer and sex) .
Both Duke Nukem Forever and the Phantom console will have to be redesigned to incorporate this technology.
The sad thing is that the DS (or even better the micro) equipped with a Play Yan cartridge beats out the PSP in terms of battery life, ruggedness and portability for video playback.
The cartridge I use to the exclusion of all others, the Play Yan already sticks out by about a cm so I am not gravely concerned. I just want a smaller brighter video player and web browser.
Ah, the golden ear audiophiles who have better ears at 50 than dogs. That will buy dlithium doped cables the diameter of their wrist to exploit the "skin effect", which is utterly neglible in the audio frequency. Who prefer the often horrific distortion of tubes in the service of "perfect reproduction". A perfect complement to the cult of the iPod. Granted, if you are listening to a great recording in a perfect enviroment a reasonably good system which has been constructed according to measurable metrics really shines. On the other hand, in a mobile environment with background noise and mediocre music 128kbps and stock holds up fine.
Actually the blanket licence, essentially a flat rate licence for arbitrary play of content is the standard for radio and other venues. The CD and MP3 taxes are similar in this regard. It's been one standard means of making profit for a good fraction of a century.
The basic problem with the concept of a good business model is that present technologies allow for hypothetical models in which the industry takes a cut with every time you play a song or watch a movie in perpetuity. As long as this is held up as the standard, any other business model is regarded as bad or unprofitable.
The problem that arises is that it is generating a labrynth of incompatible DRM mechanisms that actually supress sales of both hardware and software. Basically the law of unintended consequences.
My suspicion is that DRM will cause a bunch of severe DIVX (the disc player) level implosions in the entertainment and electronics industries before an effective means of funding media production occurs (I suspect a system based on preorders in escrow will win out).
Disney is particularly atrocious in this regard. They try to force you to watch endless previews before accesing the main menu. Although recently they have added the capability to jump using the menu button. Frankly, this is the thing I particularly detest with regard to DRM on CDs.
Just about 9 million folks, a drop in the bucket.
Um, 99% (Japan) vs 97% (US) literacy rate. We are way behind much of the first world.
I'm sure there are people in Japan making the same criticism of Japanese youngsters.
Care to bring up specific examples? I'm sure that Japanese school girls drive giant robots back from school before a relaxing night of tenacle sex, and I have the links to back it up.
A nation that created Read or Die and the literacy episode of Samurai Champloo has as much different attitude towards reading than the US has.