What's up with the UK recently? It's bizarre. People complain like hell about the EU imposing laws on the UK, but if it is the UK gov doing it, nobody bats an eyelid.
For example, smoking. I hate smoking, it's horrid. But if people want to do it, they should be able to go to pubs where it's allowed. If people want to listen to music that glorifies "an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" then they should be able to. And if people want to copy music or books or whatever of an artist that is well dead and buried then they should be able to do that too.
Is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world.
I have a question that I hope someone in the UK can answer.
There are speed cameras on the roads. OK. There are ones on main road to monitor traffic. Fine. There are ones in city centers to catch criminals. No problem. But what are those blue cameras with antennas on top you see on roads everywhere?
You can be going down a minor country road, and at a T-Junction there will be a camera. What are they for? They're not for traffic violations, it doesn't make sense that they are to monitor traffic as they are on such minor roads, and they are unlikely to catch muggers down a quiet country road. The only thing I can think of is that the authorities have a pretty sophisticated system whereby they can track any cars movements over the whole country via numberplate recognition. Is that it?
Everyone seems to know about (and hate) the yellow speed cameras, but I find the blue ones more sinister because nobody seems to know what they are for.
The dynamical system concept is a mathematical formalization for any fixed "rule" which describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, and the number of fish each spring in a lake.
It seems to me that this whole field (what do I call it - complex systems? derived behaviour? emergent systems? swarm theory?) lacks a consistent language. It is a hugely important scientific field, but everyone calling it different names means it appears smaller than it really is!
The very people the FSF are trying to protect are the end users, not the companies who want to profit off of GNU works.
The FSF enforces the GPL, and so it is acting in the interests of programmers/organisations that release software with that licence. If they put people off the adoption of software which uses the GPL then they are harming the people that choose to release software under the GPL, which is contrary to their aims.
I like the FSF a lot, but I'm sure this kind of posturing is very harmful to the adoption of Linux. OSS advocates scream "FUD" when companies like Microsoft try to scare clients by saying using GPL software opens them up to legal action, but this kind of statement by the FSS shows that they have a point. The FSS needs to choose its battles more wisely if it is not going to harm the people it is supposed to help.
How can you put quantum and organic computing on the same list as a hack to join up a bunch of projectors to make a larger screen and a fricking "beanbag" mouse that you wave about?
In the short term. In the longer term, it could be very bad indeed.
Microsoft's power, and profits, come from the fact that they have a stranglehold on the market. They really can't afford to let anyone get too much traction in their own market - as soon as they loose the stranglehold things could turn very ugly very quickly for Microsoft, because it will mean they won't be able to dictate price to the market, the market will dictate to them and that will mean plunging profits.
No freeware, maybe. But one of the things I really like about OSX is the amount of high quality, reasonably priced useful mini apps there are for it. Things like TextMate (or TextWrangler, which is free!) and Transmit are worth the money. There is a lot of "freeware" for the PC, but a lot of it would be better termed "crapware".
One thing I've never understood about the USA is why Americans seem completely bind to the corruption within their own system. Example - Dick Cheney - until he became Vice President he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Energy Services, he is still a major stockholder. Then, the Iraq war happened, apparently a driving force behind that was Cheney. Do you guys not have the concept of "conflict of interest"?
Is the problem that in school you have it drummed into you how great the USA is, and so don't see the problems? (Sorry I realise this post is a bit trollish, but it is a genuine question).
You're not racing or playing Pac-Mac. So long as the terrain acts correctly, it's on par with the other major MMOs.
No, but then I'm used to playing games like Doom, Quake, Half-life and GTA. I don't think it is acceptable for MMOs not to have features (like collision detection, basic physics) that other games have had for a decade, I see no reason for it.
But, if you love the books, the game is definately worth picking up and giving a spin.
I disagree. If you like games like World of Warcraft, then take a look, you might like it. But I love the books and really thought the game sucked completely. It's a game for fricks sake - above all it should be fun to play. Having a crappy combat system does not make for a good game, however faithful the game is to the books or pretty the graphics are.
Sounds like you were playing an elf and didn't understand that elves are friends of all critters furry and small.
I was playing a hobbit. And shouldn't it be my choice about what I do in the game? At the very least, it could display a message saying "A hobbit would never do that!" rather than "forbidden action".
I purchased it, and spent a weekend trying to get into it.
Frankly, I was really disappointed. The combat system sucks - it actually has a window that says things like "You hit the wolf for two points of damage". It felt like going back in time to the 80's.
And then the graphics might be pretty, but there is not physics system, or, believe it or not, collision detection. You can actually walk through people, even when you are fighting them.
And the tasks suck. Spending half an hour searching for wild flowers is not my idea of fun.
And although the world is big, you can't really explore it - you can't open doors unless they are part of the plot, you can't smash crates or barrels or whatever to see what is inside them, you even can't fight the NPCs or animals unless it is part of the plot.
Personally I don't think it is "polished gameplay" if you try, for instance, trying to do something like shoot a sheep with your crossbow only to receive an error message - yes, really! an error message saying something like "disallowed action".
Sorry but personally I expected much more. It is very pretty though!
Is that true? I find it hard to believe that Microsoft's latest operating system - which has surely be designed to be good for at least a decade - is fundamentally not designed to exploit what is going to be a major trend in microprocessors over the coming years. How could that be? Microsoft must have known when it started work on Vista that multi-core was coming - and surely companies like Intel would have been pressuring them to make their OS multicore? Seems very bizarre to me.
A question for someone who understands this stuff - what's the difference between the way Vista and OSX handle multicore processors? Would Apples OSX need to be redesigned to use multicore processors more effectively? Apple already sell 8 core machines - are these not using the multicore as effectively as they could?
Chances are a team in Microsoft Research or something has been working on this product for a while and they demoed it as soon as was possible and convenient.
Ah yes, but this isn't a demo of something being done in Microsoft Research, this is being hyped by Microsoft's marketing machine as being a coming product. There's a big difference.
I think the Apple credit lately has been almost a shame, since Microsoft has a long history of making future computing technology available on commodity hardware/ for the masses.
True, although it has to be said that a lot of Microsoft's innovation stays in the lab, whereas Apple have been quite consistent at launching innovative new products.
The point is- I could see Microsoft trying to remind people that they're responsible for quite a bit of innovation as being a completely credible practice.
Yes, Microsoft R&D do some incredible stuff. The dumb thing is that a lot of it never sees the light because it would compete with the existing Microsoft cash-cows.
Yes, but we're talking about marketing here. From a marketing perspective, it's disappeared. From the website they linked to: "Origami is a code name for a small project with big plans." Do you remember the hype when Microsoft launched this, almost as if it was a new hardware product they were about to release? They just used this little development project to create a spoiler campaign for the iPhone. I believe this is just the same thing - an R&D project hyped to spoil whatever is coming from Apple in a couple of weeks at the WWDC.
Firstly, let me say I think the software demos look fantastic. However...
Is it just me, or does the choice of hardware technologies seem a bit, well, crappy? Back projection - that means the table itself is huge underneath - if you're eating in a restaurant you want a table you can streach your legs under.
And infa-red cameras tracking the movement..? Notice when they do the paint demo - it looks like the system isn't actually very accurate. They do blobby finger painting, but if I was going to buy ones of these I would want something I could draw fine, accurate lines on with a pen. And I'm not convinced of the idea of having to put barcodes on everything so the system can recognise them.
Surely a flat-screen technology (TFT, Plasma, whatever) coupled with one of the newer multi-touch sensitive technologies would be better?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, this puts me right off David Cameron.
What's up with the UK recently? It's bizarre. People complain like hell about the EU imposing laws on the UK, but if it is the UK gov doing it, nobody bats an eyelid.
For example, smoking. I hate smoking, it's horrid. But if people want to do it, they should be able to go to pubs where it's allowed. If people want to listen to music that glorifies "an anti-learning culture, truancy, knifes, violence, guns, misogyny" then they should be able to. And if people want to copy music or books or whatever of an artist that is well dead and buried then they should be able to do that too.
They just count cars and how fast they are moving
You don't need cameras to do that. A simpler and cheaper mechanism is to run a pressure sensitive cable/whatever across the road.
They may officially be to "just count cars" but I think there is more to it than that.
Is quite quickly becoming the creepiest democratic country in the world.
I have a question that I hope someone in the UK can answer.
There are speed cameras on the roads. OK. There are ones on main road to monitor traffic. Fine. There are ones in city centers to catch criminals. No problem. But what are those blue cameras with antennas on top you see on roads everywhere?
You can be going down a minor country road, and at a T-Junction there will be a camera. What are they for? They're not for traffic violations, it doesn't make sense that they are to monitor traffic as they are on such minor roads, and they are unlikely to catch muggers down a quiet country road. The only thing I can think of is that the authorities have a pretty sophisticated system whereby they can track any cars movements over the whole country via numberplate recognition. Is that it?
Everyone seems to know about (and hate) the yellow speed cameras, but I find the blue ones more sinister because nobody seems to know what they are for.
According to the article you link to:
The dynamical system concept is a mathematical formalization for any fixed "rule" which describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in a pipe, and the number of fish each spring in a lake.
which doesn't sound right to me.
It seems to me that this whole field (what do I call it - complex systems? derived behaviour? emergent systems? swarm theory?) lacks a consistent language. It is a hugely important scientific field, but everyone calling it different names means it appears smaller than it really is!
The very people the FSF are trying to protect are the end users, not the companies who want to profit off of GNU works.
The FSF enforces the GPL, and so it is acting in the interests of programmers/organisations that release software with that licence. If they put people off the adoption of software which uses the GPL then they are harming the people that choose to release software under the GPL, which is contrary to their aims.
I like the FSF a lot, but I'm sure this kind of posturing is very harmful to the adoption of Linux. OSS advocates scream "FUD" when companies like Microsoft try to scare clients by saying using GPL software opens them up to legal action, but this kind of statement by the FSS shows that they have a point. The FSS needs to choose its battles more wisely if it is not going to harm the people it is supposed to help.
Sorry, but the article is just dumb.
How can you put quantum and organic computing on the same list as a hack to join up a bunch of projectors to make a larger screen and a fricking "beanbag" mouse that you wave about?
An untapped market of what, ~5% of computer users?
that's right, five percent of the top end of a huge market, any business would be dumb to go after that...
Not necessarily, but it could happen.
Not whilst Steve Jobs is around.
Seems like it would be good for Microsoft.
In the short term. In the longer term, it could be very bad indeed.
Microsoft's power, and profits, come from the fact that they have a stranglehold on the market. They really can't afford to let anyone get too much traction in their own market - as soon as they loose the stranglehold things could turn very ugly very quickly for Microsoft, because it will mean they won't be able to dictate price to the market, the market will dictate to them and that will mean plunging profits.
Here you go
No freeware, maybe. But one of the things I really like about OSX is the amount of high quality, reasonably priced useful mini apps there are for it. Things like TextMate (or TextWrangler, which is free!) and Transmit are worth the money. There is a lot of "freeware" for the PC, but a lot of it would be better termed "crapware".
One thing I've never understood about the USA is why Americans seem completely bind to the corruption within their own system. Example - Dick Cheney - until he became Vice President he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton Energy Services, he is still a major stockholder. Then, the Iraq war happened, apparently a driving force behind that was Cheney. Do you guys not have the concept of "conflict of interest"?
Is the problem that in school you have it drummed into you how great the USA is, and so don't see the problems? (Sorry I realise this post is a bit trollish, but it is a genuine question).
You're not racing or playing Pac-Mac. So long as the terrain acts correctly, it's on par with the other major MMOs.
No, but then I'm used to playing games like Doom, Quake, Half-life and GTA. I don't think it is acceptable for MMOs not to have features (like collision detection, basic physics) that other games have had for a decade, I see no reason for it.
But, if you love the books, the game is definately worth picking up and giving a spin.
I disagree. If you like games like World of Warcraft, then take a look, you might like it. But I love the books and really thought the game sucked completely. It's a game for fricks sake - above all it should be fun to play. Having a crappy combat system does not make for a good game, however faithful the game is to the books or pretty the graphics are.
Sounds like you were playing an elf and didn't understand that elves are friends of all critters furry and small.
I was playing a hobbit. And shouldn't it be my choice about what I do in the game? At the very least, it could display a message saying "A hobbit would never do that!" rather than "forbidden action".
I purchased it, and spent a weekend trying to get into it.
Frankly, I was really disappointed. The combat system sucks - it actually has a window that says things like "You hit the wolf for two points of damage". It felt like going back in time to the 80's.
And then the graphics might be pretty, but there is not physics system, or, believe it or not, collision detection. You can actually walk through people, even when you are fighting them.
And the tasks suck. Spending half an hour searching for wild flowers is not my idea of fun.
And although the world is big, you can't really explore it - you can't open doors unless they are part of the plot, you can't smash crates or barrels or whatever to see what is inside them, you even can't fight the NPCs or animals unless it is part of the plot.
Personally I don't think it is "polished gameplay" if you try, for instance, trying to do something like shoot a sheep with your crossbow only to receive an error message - yes, really! an error message saying something like "disallowed action".
Sorry but personally I expected much more. It is very pretty though!
Is that true? I find it hard to believe that Microsoft's latest operating system - which has surely be designed to be good for at least a decade - is fundamentally not designed to exploit what is going to be a major trend in microprocessors over the coming years. How could that be? Microsoft must have known when it started work on Vista that multi-core was coming - and surely companies like Intel would have been pressuring them to make their OS multicore? Seems very bizarre to me.
A question for someone who understands this stuff - what's the difference between the way Vista and OSX handle multicore processors? Would Apples OSX need to be redesigned to use multicore processors more effectively? Apple already sell 8 core machines - are these not using the multicore as effectively as they could?
Chances are a team in Microsoft Research or something has been working on this product for a while and they demoed it as soon as was possible and convenient.
Ah yes, but this isn't a demo of something being done in Microsoft Research, this is being hyped by Microsoft's marketing machine as being a coming product. There's a big difference.
I think the Apple credit lately has been almost a shame, since Microsoft has a long history of making future computing technology available on commodity hardware/ for the masses.
True, although it has to be said that a lot of Microsoft's innovation stays in the lab, whereas Apple have been quite consistent at launching innovative new products.
The point is- I could see Microsoft trying to remind people that they're responsible for quite a bit of innovation as being a completely credible practice.
Yes, Microsoft R&D do some incredible stuff. The dumb thing is that a lot of it never sees the light because it would compete with the existing Microsoft cash-cows.
Yes, but we're talking about marketing here. From a marketing perspective, it's disappeared. From the website they linked to: "Origami is a code name for a small project with big plans." Do you remember the hype when Microsoft launched this, almost as if it was a new hardware product they were about to release? They just used this little development project to create a spoiler campaign for the iPhone. I believe this is just the same thing - an R&D project hyped to spoil whatever is coming from Apple in a couple of weeks at the WWDC.
Ah yes, I'd forgotten about Origami - how quickly that disappeared. And didn't they announce that shortly before Jobs announced the iPhone?
Perhaps Apple fanboys should take this as being a sign that Apple is going to announce something really big at the WWDC in a couple of weeks time!
But thank you for trying to rewrite history to make it seem like Apple invented it.
I never said anything of the sort. Try rereading what I said without the assumption that I'm an Apple fanboy.
Firstly, let me say I think the software demos look fantastic. However...
Is it just me, or does the choice of hardware technologies seem a bit, well, crappy? Back projection - that means the table itself is huge underneath - if you're eating in a restaurant you want a table you can streach your legs under.
And infa-red cameras tracking the movement..? Notice when they do the paint demo - it looks like the system isn't actually very accurate. They do blobby finger painting, but if I was going to buy ones of these I would want something I could draw fine, accurate lines on with a pen. And I'm not convinced of the idea of having to put barcodes on everything so the system can recognise them.
Surely a flat-screen technology (TFT, Plasma, whatever) coupled with one of the newer multi-touch sensitive technologies would be better?