"Wireless purely for the sake of wireless is just a stupid idea."
Living in a college dorm is expensive enough. Phone bill? $30/mo. Cable? (Granted, it's a luxury.) $40-80/mo.
I don't know if, from an infrastructure point of view, this can be practically be done. However, if it can, this means a few things:
1.) Potentially lower cost to students for basic services. (Assuming the cable co. doesn't go apeshit over it...)
2.) Wireless means not having to upgrade cables. If, for example, they need to rewire the building to use gig-E, that's an expensive proposition. What happens when the new late great technology like fibre comes along?
3.) Intangibles. Students are exposed to both networking AND wireless networking in a way that benefits them. Maybe I can only speak for myself here, but when I got my first job where the network was a major aspect of the daily routine, I picked up a lot of valuable stuff. Stuff that's been quite useful at the job I have now. As an employee out in the 'real world', I'm more valuable for being able to take advantage of networking etc to smooth out work flow. In other words, it's a good thing that networking/internet is less abstract for office employees.
I say: If they can pull it off, more power to them. Collaboration is a very important aspect for most careers.
"Uh, can't they already determine heights to high degree of accuracy with GPS or other radio wave methods?"
Yes, but they're not passive. You either have to send an energy wave down or somebody holding a GPS unit. This satellite could get that data passively.
"How would a picture be more accurate?"
I didn't RTFA so I don't know the context of the word 'Accurate'. I can tell you, though, that I've seen stereoscopic images taken from airplanes travelling over.. uh.. bombing targets. The imagery was amazing. You could see things like guard towers etc that you couldn't make out so easily with only one photo.
Also, concievably, they could take color images. There's no way you could get color data via the other methods you mentioned. If you're looking down over a city, for example, a stereo color image will tell you a LOT more than anything radar or GPS could do. In the sense that the data is more useful, yes, it's very accurate.
"Is anyone else annoyed by this trend? I don't want a game console/DVD player/Tivo/music station/carpet cleaner. How about individual components that each do their chosen function well intead of one that does them all poorly?"
Right now on my entertainment center, I have a digital cable box, Replay, DVD Player, VCR, and a huge mess of cables. I'd love to consolidate.
On the flip side, I have a PS2 in the other room that doubles as a DVD player. Frankly, I hate it. Once the DVD's going, it's fine. But the controls for it are awful and I keep dropping the controller onto the floor. Of COURSE the chapter controls are on the shoulder buttons, and gee, guess which hits the floor first?
It's not the I disagree with you. I want a GAME machine. Spare me the cost of playing DVDs and using crappy media. (Argh I wish game discs came in caddies.) But I cannot ignore, however, that DVD playback is simply a software solution at this point. I don't mind convergence at that point.
Yes. Do you have any reason to doubt that what they've already demo'd cannot be achieved? It's a 3D accelerated interface like games have been doing for years, not a magic telepathic journaling system.
"Right. Like they stay up nights worrying about a company that builds portable music players."
Well, I would assume they would worry about a company building a competing product, like OSX for example.
"It helps to have the target of your accusations repeatedly using vaporware to keep themselves in the gullible technology press."
Well yeah, you have such a broad definition of vaporware I would guess that you get helped out a lot with that. Afterall, if it's not on shelves, and we don't like the company, it's vaporware!!
"The whole premise is flawed as soon as you introduce the radical concept of saved games, as you can shift your "commitment" to any point in the future, or put it off indefinitely."
It's a detail, but not a flaw in the premise. How many of you have half-played games? I have. I never finished Mafia, even though I was enjoying it. I've had San Andreas for 3 months now. (I'm stuck on a not-so-fun level.) Prepare to point and laugh, but I was FIRST in line to get Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, they're both still half finished.
Shifting the commitment doesn't strengthen the commitment. Either you really want to spend that much time in a game world, or you don't.
Frankly, I think there is easily a market for both types of games, especially now that the portables war is starting to take off.
"Close but no cigar. I think you were looking for the article before this, but maybe I'm wrong."
A few years ago I made a little mistake like that. I had opened a bunch of Slashdot windows to different stories and replied to the wrong one. The mods were having fun at my expense. I'd ask why I was modded down, they'd mod that off topic. Finally, somebody told me to scroll up.
Yep, it was bonehead stupidity on my end, but I really wish I hadn't been modded down 5 or 6 times before finally getting told.
"Yeah, I mean, star trek was a "Wagon train to the stars", as far as I knew. It wasn't supposed to be deep."
It was also made at a time when Scifi was virtually non-existent on TV. Roddenberry had a real difficult time getting Paramount to do it. For example: The rule about most aliens being basically humanoid with bumpy heads was a pitch to prove that the budget wouldn't need to be astronomical.
Star Trek TMP almost didnt' get made because of Star Wars. It was felt back then that the market could only sustain 1 science fiction movie. If Close Encounters hadn't have happened, the Star Trek movies wouldn't have. It proved that a significant amount of people out there really did like sci-fi.
To chew on Star Trek for not meeting high standards of science fiction books is like chewing on Nasa for not building a moon base yet.
"...And so the Trekkies were executed in the manner most befitting virgins - they were thrown into volcanoes -- Futurama"
Heh. That episode was on last night.
What's weirder is that there was a story a few weeks back about a boat off the coast of California in international waters where some off-shoring was taking place. Some people cracked jokes about Petoria. That particular episode of Family Guy was on Adult Swim as well, the previous night.
"How many times have we seen breathless articles all slack-jawed over some new technology that Microsoft is getting ready to unveil.... only to have it never appear. Vaporware anyone?"
A.) They've publically demo'd the technology.
B.) Apple's sort of doing it so they want to keep up.
C.) It's easy to cry vaporware. All you need is for a few people to despise the target of your accusation to nod their heads and donate a few mod points to the cause.
"The first is that this can probably be exploited by malware/spyware to make "invisible" interfaces that sit over top of existing applications, happily monitoring everything you're doing."
"How often does the average user update the video drivers in Windows? Do they really care that it requires a reboot? I would guess that less than 0.1% of my Windows reboots are prompted by updating the video drivers."
So... it isn't welcome then? I just rebuilt my gf's computer. I had to reboot a couple of times, one of them was simply to get the video driver going. Okay, it was another 30 seconds out of my day, but it still would have been pleasant if the screen just flickered a bit and suddenly everything was working.
It may not be the biggest time sink in the world, but I do like leaving my computer on for weeks at a time. (Yes, even in Windows, even though the uninformed still keep making 99'esque BSOD jokes.) Upgrading a video driver can be a little expensive if I've already got a bunch of things open in a state I'd like to get back to.
"More importantly, though... it looks like Longhorn's graphics capabilities really are set to stand out from the Linux (and even OS X) crowd."
*Cue stale arguments about non-needed eyecandy etc, even though Longhorn sends its graphic stuff out to the video card.
Anyway, yeah, I think it's a good bet Longhorn's going to stand out. Anybody seen the recent keynote address Bill Gates made about Longhorn? They gave a couple of demos that were pretty interesting. Most of the graphics were vector based and scaled up quite well when magnifying. The screenshots everybody bitched about didn't tell the story of having an OSX'esque changing background and animated windows.
What really struck me about the Longhorn demo was the idea that resolution doesn't really matter anymore. Running at 1600 by 1200, but Calculator's too small? No prob, scale it up. This may not be a BFD to anybody, but it means that monitors can go even higher in resolution without making everybody squinty. We may, in the next 10 years, have 300dpi monitors. That'd be pretty slick.
"Didn't I hear the same "no rebooting" line with Win2k and with WinXP?"
I don't know what you've heard, but what I heard was "fewer reboots". That much is true. Back in the 98/95/NT days sometimes installing SOFTWARE required a reboot. I've also had sound cards come to life without a reboot.
Maybe Longhorn won't be reboot free, but MS has made progress here.
Slashdot Mirror
Out of curiosity, are you using a form of visual recognition at the registration form for your site? If not, I'd recommend considering it.
We use VBulletin on a site I assist with, we had a problem with automated spamming until that was put into place.
(Note: I have no idea why your post was modded off-topic. Lame.)
"Wireless purely for the sake of wireless is just a stupid idea."
Living in a college dorm is expensive enough. Phone bill? $30/mo. Cable? (Granted, it's a luxury.) $40-80/mo.
I don't know if, from an infrastructure point of view, this can be practically be done. However, if it can, this means a few things:
1.) Potentially lower cost to students for basic services. (Assuming the cable co. doesn't go apeshit over it...)
2.) Wireless means not having to upgrade cables. If, for example, they need to rewire the building to use gig-E, that's an expensive proposition. What happens when the new late great technology like fibre comes along?
3.) Intangibles. Students are exposed to both networking AND wireless networking in a way that benefits them. Maybe I can only speak for myself here, but when I got my first job where the network was a major aspect of the daily routine, I picked up a lot of valuable stuff. Stuff that's been quite useful at the job I have now. As an employee out in the 'real world', I'm more valuable for being able to take advantage of networking etc to smooth out work flow. In other words, it's a good thing that networking/internet is less abstract for office employees.
I say: If they can pull it off, more power to them. Collaboration is a very important aspect for most careers.
"Uh, can't they already determine heights to high degree of accuracy with GPS or other radio wave methods?"
.. uh.. bombing targets. The imagery was amazing. You could see things like guard towers etc that you couldn't make out so easily with only one photo.
Yes, but they're not passive. You either have to send an energy wave down or somebody holding a GPS unit. This satellite could get that data passively.
"How would a picture be more accurate?"
I didn't RTFA so I don't know the context of the word 'Accurate'. I can tell you, though, that I've seen stereoscopic images taken from airplanes travelling over
Also, concievably, they could take color images. There's no way you could get color data via the other methods you mentioned. If you're looking down over a city, for example, a stereo color image will tell you a LOT more than anything radar or GPS could do. In the sense that the data is more useful, yes, it's very accurate.
"Is anyone else annoyed by this trend? I don't want a game console/DVD player/Tivo/music station/carpet cleaner. How about individual components that each do their chosen function well intead of one that does them all poorly?"
Right now on my entertainment center, I have a digital cable box, Replay, DVD Player, VCR, and a huge mess of cables. I'd love to consolidate.
On the flip side, I have a PS2 in the other room that doubles as a DVD player. Frankly, I hate it. Once the DVD's going, it's fine. But the controls for it are awful and I keep dropping the controller onto the floor. Of COURSE the chapter controls are on the shoulder buttons, and gee, guess which hits the floor first?
It's not the I disagree with you. I want a GAME machine. Spare me the cost of playing DVDs and using crappy media. (Argh I wish game discs came in caddies.) But I cannot ignore, however, that DVD playback is simply a software solution at this point. I don't mind convergence at that point.
"Newsflash: people on Slashdot have different opinions!"
I wouldn't be complaining if I had faith that a lot of the opinions were independently arrived at instead of showing off for mod points.
"Have you ever built a prototype?"
Yes. Do you have any reason to doubt that what they've already demo'd cannot be achieved? It's a 3D accelerated interface like games have been doing for years, not a magic telepathic journaling system.
"Right. Like they stay up nights worrying about a company that builds portable music players."
Well, I would assume they would worry about a company building a competing product, like OSX for example.
"It helps to have the target of your accusations repeatedly using vaporware to keep themselves in the gullible technology press."
Well yeah, you have such a broad definition of vaporware I would guess that you get helped out a lot with that. Afterall, if it's not on shelves, and we don't like the company, it's vaporware!!
Heh, thanks for the sarcastic mod there. Hope the M2 mods don't give ya too much shit over it.
"There's an old Cat saying: It's better to live one hour as a Tiger than a lifetime as a worm."
"Well there's an old human saying: Whoever head of a worm-skin rug?"
"You'll never be able to convince people to pay $50 a pop for short games like you will for epic games."
Tell that to Namco, Midway, and Capcom.
"The whole premise is flawed as soon as you introduce the radical concept of saved games, as you can shift your "commitment" to any point in the future, or put it off indefinitely."
It's a detail, but not a flaw in the premise. How many of you have half-played games? I have. I never finished Mafia, even though I was enjoying it. I've had San Andreas for 3 months now. (I'm stuck on a not-so-fun level.) Prepare to point and laugh, but I was FIRST in line to get Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, they're both still half finished.
Shifting the commitment doesn't strengthen the commitment. Either you really want to spend that much time in a game world, or you don't.
Frankly, I think there is easily a market for both types of games, especially now that the portables war is starting to take off.
"Close but no cigar. I think you were looking for the article before this, but maybe I'm wrong."
A few years ago I made a little mistake like that. I had opened a bunch of Slashdot windows to different stories and replied to the wrong one. The mods were having fun at my expense. I'd ask why I was modded down, they'd mod that off topic. Finally, somebody told me to scroll up.
Yep, it was bonehead stupidity on my end, but I really wish I hadn't been modded down 5 or 6 times before finally getting told.
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
Ugh. I'm tired of this cliche.
It's a battle, not a super hero ethics test.
"They teach porn?"
Ever taken a figure drawing course?
"..oh wait... The Piece Prize... Wow. It occurs to me that it is a highly humorous name for a prize. I am unable to contain myself. Really!"
Why do I have the feeling that this story was posted simply to watch the spelling nazis make asses out of themselves?
Anybody want some popcorn?
Troll...?
"Yeah, I mean, star trek was a "Wagon train to the stars", as far as I knew. It wasn't supposed to be deep."
It was also made at a time when Scifi was virtually non-existent on TV. Roddenberry had a real difficult time getting Paramount to do it. For example: The rule about most aliens being basically humanoid with bumpy heads was a pitch to prove that the budget wouldn't need to be astronomical.
Star Trek TMP almost didnt' get made because of Star Wars. It was felt back then that the market could only sustain 1 science fiction movie. If Close Encounters hadn't have happened, the Star Trek movies wouldn't have. It proved that a significant amount of people out there really did like sci-fi.
To chew on Star Trek for not meeting high standards of science fiction books is like chewing on Nasa for not building a moon base yet.
"They just share an opinion, and if they're good, back it up with some information."
Maybe, but some critics make sensationalistic points. Why wasn't he saying this a few years ago hot off the heels of TNG?
"...And so the Trekkies were executed in the manner most befitting virgins - they were thrown into volcanoes -- Futurama"
Heh. That episode was on last night.
What's weirder is that there was a story a few weeks back about a boat off the coast of California in international waters where some off-shoring was taking place. Some people cracked jokes about Petoria. That particular episode of Family Guy was on Adult Swim as well, the previous night.
What's up with that?!
"Somewhere between Capcom, Nintendo and EA. They are dictating to the industry that it's ok to sell the sequels for 10+ years."
At least Nintendo is dicating "Despite being a sequal, don't make it a rehash of the original."
Before you angrily hit reply, compare Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, and 3 to the first 3 Mario games. Perfect example.
In any event, a game doesn't have to be a sequal to be a snoozer. Plenty of me-too Quake or Street Fighter killers have been made.
"How many times have we seen breathless articles all slack-jawed over some new technology that Microsoft is getting ready to unveil .... only to have it never appear.
Vaporware anyone?"
A.) They've publically demo'd the technology.
B.) Apple's sort of doing it so they want to keep up.
C.) It's easy to cry vaporware. All you need is for a few people to despise the target of your accusation to nod their heads and donate a few mod points to the cause.
"The first is that this can probably be exploited by malware/spyware to make "invisible" interfaces that sit over top of existing applications, happily monitoring everything you're doing."
You mean like sniffers that already exist today?
"Didn't BeOS do this? Don't a great deal of modern operating systems do this? I fail to see the innovation."
When was that described as innovation?
"How often does the average user update the video drivers in Windows? Do they really care that it requires a reboot? I would guess that less than 0.1% of my Windows reboots are prompted by updating the video drivers."
So... it isn't welcome then? I just rebuilt my gf's computer. I had to reboot a couple of times, one of them was simply to get the video driver going. Okay, it was another 30 seconds out of my day, but it still would have been pleasant if the screen just flickered a bit and suddenly everything was working.
It may not be the biggest time sink in the world, but I do like leaving my computer on for weeks at a time. (Yes, even in Windows, even though the uninformed still keep making 99'esque BSOD jokes.) Upgrading a video driver can be a little expensive if I've already got a bunch of things open in a state I'd like to get back to.
"More importantly, though... it looks like Longhorn's graphics capabilities really are set to stand out from the Linux (and even OS X) crowd."
*Cue stale arguments about non-needed eyecandy etc, even though Longhorn sends its graphic stuff out to the video card.
Anyway, yeah, I think it's a good bet Longhorn's going to stand out. Anybody seen the recent keynote address Bill Gates made about Longhorn? They gave a couple of demos that were pretty interesting. Most of the graphics were vector based and scaled up quite well when magnifying. The screenshots everybody bitched about didn't tell the story of having an OSX'esque changing background and animated windows.
What really struck me about the Longhorn demo was the idea that resolution doesn't really matter anymore. Running at 1600 by 1200, but Calculator's too small? No prob, scale it up. This may not be a BFD to anybody, but it means that monitors can go even higher in resolution without making everybody squinty. We may, in the next 10 years, have 300dpi monitors. That'd be pretty slick.
"Didn't I hear the same "no rebooting" line with Win2k and with WinXP?"
I don't know what you've heard, but what I heard was "fewer reboots". That much is true. Back in the 98/95/NT days sometimes installing SOFTWARE required a reboot. I've also had sound cards come to life without a reboot.
Maybe Longhorn won't be reboot free, but MS has made progress here.