> the avatar DOESN'T have to look exactly like you
For now. Remember how Suckerberg wants you to use your real name? Google's Schmidt commented along the same lines, at some point. Iirc, Blizzard has a similar policy on the forums. Google+ would like you to use your "common" name - not exactly the same, but close enough.
We're still safe, for now; but once it turns into an actual metaverse, how long will it be before the authorities think of the children, say well, if you've nothing to hide... and demand real-you avatars ?
Yes, far-off; out there; extreme and improbably. What if someone told you twenty years ago you'd have a choice between porn scanners and sexual harassment if you want to fly? Slippery slope, and all that.
And, honestly, for most people it still is. It's only been the "social revolution" - facebook and twitter - that has really integrated the internet, and by extension computers, in people's daily lives.
The web is fun, but most people wouldn't have missed it much before facebook. Gaming was nice, but not really a mainstay outside of the hardcores. Spreadsheets and wordprocessors are, for the most, something that smells too much of the office to be much used at home.
The computer has never had a true, neccesary function in people's lives before the social aspect popped up - email being the closest thing. Now that facebook has integrated itself in people's social habits, a computer has become a more convenient way of checking up on your friends than the telephone.
It was probably inevitable; but before that a computer was an expensive piece of metal for light diversions to most people.
While you are right, "natural interfaces" are going somewhere; there's not going to be much of a revolution, more an evolution.
This Kinect toy is funny enough - like the Wiimotes - but it's just a gimmick for some easy party entertainment. Kind of like karaoke, the entertainment value is not in what you're doing, but in getting shitfaced with friends.
Just like there's always someone who thinks their invention is going to replace the mouse and keyboard; so there's always people who think console controllers are going to be replaced. Not very likely, until someone gets brain interfaces right - the current form of controllers is pretty optimal. Maybe small improvements can be made - which is why there's different models from different manufacturers - but the basic shape has evolved over a few generations (remember the original NES controllers, and the old 2600 ones?) to be something that's easy to pick up and comfortable to use; and, like the mouse and the keyboard, any potential contenders will have to be better by more than a bit to have a chance. Waving my arms in front of the telly trying to get Samus to shoot the bloody bastard instead of offering her tits for a spanish tie is not it, amusing though it might be for the spotters.
Host clustering, for one - you make a cluster of host servers, and you can move the guests between them as necessary, in most case with not a single packet lost - yes, that's live migration to another physical machine.
You can even keep a live copy of a running VM in sync on a different physical host, so that even if a physical host crashes, the service can transparantly flip to the copy with everything intact, including in-flight transactions. Pretty impressive, really.
And, of course, capacity expansion is transparant - you add extra hosts to the cluster and redistribute the guests on-the-fly.
I loathe that phrase. It gets parroted all the time, but it is everything that is wrong with large businesses today.
The first duty of everyone in a company, especially the senior staff, is to the company. You are there to run that company, in the way that is most beneficial to that company.
If you do something that shareholders do not like, they may leave; but if that action is in the best interest of the company, other people will see that and become new shareholders.
On the other hand, actions that are good for the shareholders might be desastrous for the company - for example, think of the shitty support you get at Dell. That kind of support is cheap, so it brings in extra dividend to the shareholders; but the company is losing a lot of customers because people tend to stay away after experiencing that support; and how many techies aren't there who actively discourage people from buying dell because they know the hardware might be flakey and support sucks? See also: Sony, Microsoft, AOL et cetera.
Shareholders tend to focus too much on the short term - what is this share going to bring in - whereas a healthy company should have a firm view on the long term.
Yes, but... Going 180 in your car is illegal, and you cannot insure yourself against your own willing illegal actions. While they insurance may manage to build a good case based off gross negligence, Sony didn't actually do anything strictly illegal, they were the victim of illegal action.
That being said, if you leave your car unlocked the insurance sure as hell isn't going to cough up for your stolen laptop - if there's no signs of breakage they'll claim negligence and not pay out.
The trick here is going to be proving that Sony was negligent with their security. This may run for a pretty long time while bureaucrats on both sides comb over tons of server logs.
Well, the very basic usecase is a key-value store. No relational overhead (and no sql parsing!) means it can be blitheringly fast.
In general, if your data is highly structured and internally consistent, you'll be well off with relational databases. If you want very fast lookups, your best option used to be a hierarchical database (LDAP, for instance), but that's a bit of a bugger for updates. NoSQL can also fit that bill, but there's quite a few very different implementations that make it more or less suited for specific purposes. Cassandra, for one, is a column store - think of it as a multidimensional matrix, up to five levels deep, I believe; while you can obviously also do that in SQL, you're going to have rather interesting joins and related slowdowns, while this will be a lot faster for some types of lookup.
I'm convinced that there is a place for NoSQL, just as I'm convinced that there's the usual shitload of blithering idiots who are going to use their one trick to solve every problem they encounter in exactly the wrong way.
The idea predates the name, though. things like Memcached have always been useful. eAccelerator and similar projects have also always had their own built-in key-value store.
I also think NoSQL is a bloody stupid name that's costing them a hell of a lot of points with proper DBAs, even if they now retroactively pretend it to mean "Not only SQL".
Oh, I never claimed to be an expert, or even have much experience with different versions. I just felt a need to point out that it isn't quite as alien to the foreign palette as it is usually made out to be.
The closest thing that I can compare it to, as a Belgian, is "zwarte pensen", a variation on what the english call black pudding; but it is spiced more and differently, and seemed to have oats or something. All in all, I'm sure I could grow to positively appreciate it.
The vegi part stopped being in effect years ago, to my minor shame. I kinda decided that it wasn't eating meat per se that I was against, but rather the way animals get treated in the bio-industry. Still not a major meathead, but I try to source mostly from local, small-scale sources where the animals at least get treated with some respect before being murdered:-)
More on-topic, though, there was also something being sold as 'vegetarian haggis' in some random supermarket. One of my friends bought it for the sheer novelty value of it, but we never did dare actually open the package - it looked revolting. For all I know it's still lurking in a dark corner of his fridge after all these years.
While I agree there is a measurable effect of that displacement, I remain unconvinced that it is a) very relevant against the backdrop of the entire ocean, and b) very measurable at the distance the moon is from us.
Tidal generators impact the bulges' placement and movement over an area of what, a couple of meter? Compared to the scope of your average ocean, that's peanuts.
I'm well aware that the article is about a wave generator instead of a tidal generator, and of the difference between the two. Shockingly, that doesn't stop us from discussing tidal generators. Please stop assuming everyone but you is an idiot, and either post something relevant to the discussion we're having or don't post at all.
Tides are a result of the moon's movement - I'm not aware of any feedback mechanism where stopping the tides would impact the moon.
Even if there is, though, how many tidal generators would we have to install to have the slightest impact on a system that contains it's inertia in such a volume of water? I just asked Wolfram Alpha "what is the total volume of water in all the seas", and it claims 1.332×10^21 liters. The mind boggles.
I really don't believe tidal generators would have the slightest impact.
The highlands *are* magnificent - and so is the whisky, of course, think I brought 20-odd bottles home - but haggis is actually pretty edible. One chipshop actually offered deep fried haggis 'n chips, which was a surprising but definitely repeatable experience.
What's particularly good about guake, except the quick hide/show? I just installed it (admittedly 0.4.1) and it doesn't seem particularly exciting, although I can see the value if you only occasionally do terminal work and/or only have one screen.
Slashdot Mirror
> the avatar DOESN'T have to look exactly like you
For now. Remember how Suckerberg wants you to use your real name? Google's Schmidt commented along the same lines, at some point. Iirc, Blizzard has a similar policy on the forums. Google+ would like you to use your "common" name - not exactly the same, but close enough.
We're still safe, for now; but once it turns into an actual metaverse, how long will it be before the authorities think of the children, say well, if you've nothing to hide... and demand real-you avatars ?
Yes, far-off; out there; extreme and improbably. What if someone told you twenty years ago you'd have a choice between porn scanners and sexual harassment if you want to fly? Slippery slope, and all that.
And, honestly, for most people it still is. It's only been the "social revolution" - facebook and twitter - that has really integrated the internet, and by extension computers, in people's daily lives.
The web is fun, but most people wouldn't have missed it much before facebook. Gaming was nice, but not really a mainstay outside of the hardcores. Spreadsheets and wordprocessors are, for the most, something that smells too much of the office to be much used at home.
The computer has never had a true, neccesary function in people's lives before the social aspect popped up - email being the closest thing. Now that facebook has integrated itself in people's social habits, a computer has become a more convenient way of checking up on your friends than the telephone.
It was probably inevitable; but before that a computer was an expensive piece of metal for light diversions to most people.
While you are right, "natural interfaces" are going somewhere; there's not going to be much of a revolution, more an evolution.
This Kinect toy is funny enough - like the Wiimotes - but it's just a gimmick for some easy party entertainment. Kind of like karaoke, the entertainment value is not in what you're doing, but in getting shitfaced with friends.
Just like there's always someone who thinks their invention is going to replace the mouse and keyboard; so there's always people who think console controllers are going to be replaced. Not very likely, until someone gets brain interfaces right - the current form of controllers is pretty optimal. Maybe small improvements can be made - which is why there's different models from different manufacturers - but the basic shape has evolved over a few generations (remember the original NES controllers, and the old 2600 ones?) to be something that's easy to pick up and comfortable to use; and, like the mouse and the keyboard, any potential contenders will have to be better by more than a bit to have a chance. Waving my arms in front of the telly trying to get Samus to shoot the bloody bastard instead of offering her tits for a spanish tie is not it, amusing though it might be for the spotters.
Just blow it back. He'll not do it twice, especially if you had a good curry the night before.
> These days people kill and die for entirely different deities.
Mostly Mammon, I'd say, with Allah in a distant second place.
Vi vs. Emacs is what happens then.
Host clustering, for one - you make a cluster of host servers, and you can move the guests between them as necessary, in most case with not a single packet lost - yes, that's live migration to another physical machine.
You can even keep a live copy of a running VM in sync on a different physical host, so that even if a physical host crashes, the service can transparantly flip to the copy with everything intact, including in-flight transactions. Pretty impressive, really.
And, of course, capacity expansion is transparant - you add extra hosts to the cluster and redistribute the guests on-the-fly.
Well... to be fair, if "on teh internets" works for patents...
> Over 80% of Americans with insurance are happy with it
Interesting wording. Now, how many Americans *have* insurance?
> Their first duty is to their shareholders
I loathe that phrase. It gets parroted all the time, but it is everything that is wrong with large businesses today.
The first duty of everyone in a company, especially the senior staff, is to the company. You are there to run that company, in the way that is most beneficial to that company.
If you do something that shareholders do not like, they may leave; but if that action is in the best interest of the company, other people will see that and become new shareholders.
On the other hand, actions that are good for the shareholders might be desastrous for the company - for example, think of the shitty support you get at Dell. That kind of support is cheap, so it brings in extra dividend to the shareholders; but the company is losing a lot of customers because people tend to stay away after experiencing that support; and how many techies aren't there who actively discourage people from buying dell because they know the hardware might be flakey and support sucks? See also: Sony, Microsoft, AOL et cetera.
Shareholders tend to focus too much on the short term - what is this share going to bring in - whereas a healthy company should have a firm view on the long term.
Yes, but... Going 180 in your car is illegal, and you cannot insure yourself against your own willing illegal actions. While they insurance may manage to build a good case based off gross negligence, Sony didn't actually do anything strictly illegal, they were the victim of illegal action.
That being said, if you leave your car unlocked the insurance sure as hell isn't going to cough up for your stolen laptop - if there's no signs of breakage they'll claim negligence and not pay out.
The trick here is going to be proving that Sony was negligent with their security. This may run for a pretty long time while bureaucrats on both sides comb over tons of server logs.
Not exactly "just now" - I've seen this over two years ago already, and I'm not even in the US, let alone the military.
Well, to be fair, there's not much to be called a negotiation when you don't have alternative vendors to talk to.
Well, the very basic usecase is a key-value store. No relational overhead (and no sql parsing!) means it can be blitheringly fast.
In general, if your data is highly structured and internally consistent, you'll be well off with relational databases. If you want very fast lookups, your best option used to be a hierarchical database (LDAP, for instance), but that's a bit of a bugger for updates. NoSQL can also fit that bill, but there's quite a few very different implementations that make it more or less suited for specific purposes. Cassandra, for one, is a column store - think of it as a multidimensional matrix, up to five levels deep, I believe; while you can obviously also do that in SQL, you're going to have rather interesting joins and related slowdowns, while this will be a lot faster for some types of lookup.
I'm convinced that there is a place for NoSQL, just as I'm convinced that there's the usual shitload of blithering idiots who are going to use their one trick to solve every problem they encounter in exactly the wrong way.
The idea predates the name, though. things like Memcached have always been useful. eAccelerator and similar projects have also always had their own built-in key-value store.
I also think NoSQL is a bloody stupid name that's costing them a hell of a lot of points with proper DBAs, even if they now retroactively pretend it to mean "Not only SQL".
Fully concur, and let me sum it up: The best type of long-term storage is "redundant".
Why because "on teh intertubes" makes it magically different, of course.
I have full-sentence keyphrases on things like the truecrypt vault that holds my SSH keys. I mean 50+ character sentences.
Most of the time, I have it right on the first shot. Muscle memory helps a lot with things you type regularly, like some passwords.
Oh, I never claimed to be an expert, or even have much experience with different versions. I just felt a need to point out that it isn't quite as alien to the foreign palette as it is usually made out to be.
The closest thing that I can compare it to, as a Belgian, is "zwarte pensen", a variation on what the english call black pudding; but it is spiced more and differently, and seemed to have oats or something. All in all, I'm sure I could grow to positively appreciate it.
Hehe :-)
The vegi part stopped being in effect years ago, to my minor shame. I kinda decided that it wasn't eating meat per se that I was against, but rather the way animals get treated in the bio-industry. Still not a major meathead, but I try to source mostly from local, small-scale sources where the animals at least get treated with some respect before being murdered :-)
More on-topic, though, there was also something being sold as 'vegetarian haggis' in some random supermarket. One of my friends bought it for the sheer novelty value of it, but we never did dare actually open the package - it looked revolting. For all I know it's still lurking in a dark corner of his fridge after all these years.
While I agree there is a measurable effect of that displacement, I remain unconvinced that it is a) very relevant against the backdrop of the entire ocean, and b) very measurable at the distance the moon is from us.
Tidal generators impact the bulges' placement and movement over an area of what, a couple of meter? Compared to the scope of your average ocean, that's peanuts.
I'm well aware that the article is about a wave generator instead of a tidal generator, and of the difference between the two. Shockingly, that doesn't stop us from discussing tidal generators. Please stop assuming everyone but you is an idiot, and either post something relevant to the discussion we're having or don't post at all.
When the waves stop coming, I'm sure we'll have other things to worry about than just those things not working.
Tides are a result of the moon's movement - I'm not aware of any feedback mechanism where stopping the tides would impact the moon.
Even if there is, though, how many tidal generators would we have to install to have the slightest impact on a system that contains it's inertia in such a volume of water? I just asked Wolfram Alpha "what is the total volume of water in all the seas", and it claims 1.332×10^21 liters. The mind boggles.
I really don't believe tidal generators would have the slightest impact.
The highlands *are* magnificent - and so is the whisky, of course, think I brought 20-odd bottles home - but haggis is actually pretty edible. One chipshop actually offered deep fried haggis 'n chips, which was a surprising but definitely repeatable experience.
What's particularly good about guake, except the quick hide/show? I just installed it (admittedly 0.4.1) and it doesn't seem particularly exciting, although I can see the value if you only occasionally do terminal work and/or only have one screen.
What am I missing?