...there really isn't a whole lot of difference between what he's done and the classic Animatronics pioneered by the conservative state Disneyland in California. In other news, I posted my reasons for why I think humanoid androids are a dead end and they apply just as well here.
There is absolutely no reason that computers should waste power when they aren't doing anything (they also shouldn't be doing ANYTHING unless we are using them). A computer should function more like a data pump/pipe. When there is input (user input), then there is output. When there isn't input, there is no output and no power used at all. This would also be aided by new display technologies that don't use power until their pixels change. (ie. the image is held like a photograph until new data comes in). I think developments like that would wind up saving lots of power and the environment.
...back in 2000 when I found that none of their products are fully functional in real OSes and are of questionable value in toy OSes. I moved to Voodoo, then NVidia and haven't looked back. Oh yes, I've had experience with the latest ATIs under Linux and I can say that they still suck completely. I just haven't actually bought their products myself. I'm speaking of a box I have here at work.
The use of humanoid robots will be limited to pointless tasks (greeters at Walmart)in the future. They are difficult to make, difficult to maintain (mechanically) and won't ever match the abilities of humans as long as we keep them "humanoid". The cost will never be less than the minimal benefits. You'd be better off with holograms for greeters once the technology is ironed out. In fact, for virtually any human/sentient machine interaction you're better off with holograms or VR. The only need for robotics is when you're dealing with physical interaction with objects (assembly or dangerous tasks) or people (surgery, sex bots built like spiders with sexy female human legs in black hosiery and the head of Amanda Donohoe, and let's face it... combat). And in every instance, the humanoid form is not that great. I want my robotic surgeon to have lasers built into his multiple tendrils (hopefully a few million of them) and nanoscale filaments that can perform cellular level cuts and sutures. No humanoid android will ever have that ability. Humanoid robots are overrated. Now if you want some applications for humanoid androids, I hear Disney has some openings in the "It's a Small World" display...
Daft Punk fans have known this since the 90s. Witness their latest non-musical project Electroma. It's a beautiful movie that follows two brave robots who want to find out what it means to be human.
..."Laser Tweezers used to Scott Adams". I couldn't figure out what the hell that meant. Did someone publish a holographic collection of Dilbert toons?
...spend a bunch of tax dollars finding out when Infinium Labs is going to release their Phantom. At this point that would be proof positive of the paranormal.
The real example is that there are very few outlets for us to voice these opinions now. Sure we can blog all we want, but since there's so much of that going on, it has no validity. The mainstream only responds to the mainstream press which no longer actually broadcast anything approaching reality. We have no options because we lack power and money. And we lack power and money because most of us are not insterested in either. Those who are, are the ones in control and they don't represent us. That's about the most basic the example can get. And you can be certain that if someone from down here at street level got access to the mindshare of America, that person would be demonized, discredited or killed (literally or financially). More likely a mixture of all of the above. I can't get on Fox News for instance and opine about the scary situation that America is in. They won't let me. And if I tried, they'd brand me with some negative terms so that people like you can say, "damn right"!
There's also the "birds of a feather" theory. While you might know a lot of people who think that Bush and friends are doing a wonderful job and that your lives are better off for it. I also know just as many, if not more people who think America is in major trouble. (I'm in Ohio which is getting to be a very scary place) We're losing jobs. We have less and less money to get by as the cost of living increases at an alarming pace. We have poor, if any healthcare. The big cities that were once flourishing are now in decay and the money and jobs are being rerouted to the small towns thanks to some political games. The election system is very possibly compromised at worst and untrustworthy at best. Businesses are getting more and more protection from being held accountable for the things they do to us (We've got FirstEnergy here who re-opened a nuke plant that was closed because of a major malfunction that almost caused a major incident. The re-opening was done against the advice of several authorities in the nuclear industry simply because it would be profitable for FirstEnergy). So maybe my persepective is skewed from yours because of where I live and the people I know and vice-versa. I don't live in a rich development or own an SUV, but that doesn't make me any less American...
...sorry to hear about the fascists coming your way too. We're locked up tighter than a drum here in the U.S. if we don't support Bush or the war in Iraq or anti-gay legislation, or anti-middle and anti-lower income tax breaks. I guess the terrorists did win. The elections that is...
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 1
I think it just depends on your working style. Most of the time saving features in Photoshop tend to have very inflexible parameters that make assumptions about what you want to do. This is a bad thing. So in the end even a seasoned Photoshop user is STILL going to have to work around the limitations of Photoshop. This is not to say that Photoshop is bad. It's more that Photoshop provides some shortcuts that those who know better won't use. I mean, honestly when was the last time you used a wizard in MS Office to write a document? Anyone who does is shortchanging themselves. The same with Photoshop.
Re:Comments from people who actually create Creati
on
Beginning GIMP
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If you're talking print, you'll probably find very few designers who use GIMP. But if you're talking artists and web designers, there are plenty. GIMP might lag on some features and tools that Photoshop has, but it's every bit as useful as Photoshop. I dropped Photoshop from my DTP business some years back when the costs were too much to justify and I don't believe in piracy. I haven't looked back since. GIMP can do everything that Photoshop can but in some cases might require the workaround skills you learned in Photoshop 3.x and up. Most of the timesaving features of the newest versions of Photoshop might be missing, but that doesn't mean you can't get the same output. The only issue remaining is print...
The poor music business is feeling the crunch of the idiots who like to download pirated music. That means they'll only clear a few billion this year instead of the extra hundred million or so that never makes it to the hands of the people who matter most in all this: the artists themselves. The most important people in the music business are the composers and musicians who write and perform the music and the producers and engineers who put it all together. Beyond that, screw the business end. They're redundant. If the artists and their crew stuck out on their own and sold their goods at reasonable prices online, they'd be richer for it. Come on... be honest. For those of you out there who like say... Nelly Furtado, if she put her songs online at her own site for legal download at $.25 a track, she'd be a very rich woman. About the only thing that I can agree with allofmp3.com on is the pricing. At least their prices are realistic for digitally distributed lossy recordings. And for all you fucking nimrods who think it's your right to access anything you want without actually paying for it, go stick a hot soldering iron in your assholes on my behalf. Thanks...
I went to the Pyramids when I was 16 and climbed to the top of one of them. Awesome. Almost spiritual. Absolutely awesome and the ONLY reason I'd go back. Unfortunately, my family and I drank the water in the hotel in Mexico City that said, "purified" and got sick. So our trip was cut short by a week. Plenty of warnings to avoid the "ladrones' as well...
Nice reply. It hadn't occurred to me to even consider the reverse reason for home schooling. Where I live (Metro Cleveland Area) the only people who homeschool are the white, protestants who love Bush and want to keep their kids from being exposed to anything they deem "bad". The public schools in the surrounding suburbs here (not Cleveland Public Schools themselves which are a mess) attempt to provide more diverse education with expanded opportunities for the arts, sciences, athletics, etc... But I can see that in the south things are probably a lot worse and Ohio, is sadly becoming "the south" in its mindset.
It's so damn annoying that Slashdotters assume that someone who likes their content peppered with strong language is immature or young. Some of us are just ornery SOBs who like to associate with other ornery SOBs. There's also a lot of us who have deep and wide sarcastic streaks. Get used to it. It's a way of life.
Everyone learns in different ways. Unfortunately, when it comes to providing school in an affordable way whether it's public or private, the individual needs of each student cannot be addressed. In the case of this charter school, the approach would work with a very narrow group of individuals. It would require discipline that most students lack and the oversight of a parent which most parents can't provide. The students who would thrive in a virtual charter situation would probably thrive even more in a standard environment as they would be dedicated either way. Dedication is one of the hallmarks of a good studen.
I hated school since I found it boring to work at the level of those around me. I applied my dedication to my own interests on my own time: science, electronics, musical composition, etc... This was a failing of the school system purely based on the fact that they couldn't cater to my needs. While I was busy designing circuits and building digital equipment at home, the kids in my Biology class were having trouble grasping the concept of cells. While I was composing original music even though I couldn't sight read well at all, the kids at school were busy trying to even learn to play a simple instrument.
Home schooling isn't the answer either and I'll tell you why. While my experiences in school were intellectually underwhelming, the cultural exposure was extermely valuable. I grew up in a very diverse community with plenty of jewish kids, black kids, asian kids, spanish kids and even "waspy" kids. My school experiences were definitely "big city". We had our share of incidents with knives, guns and rape by and against fellow students. We had plenty of drug and alcohol abuse as well among students with less forethought than others. (Keep in mind this was in the mid 80s)
I value all of that because it prepared me for the real world where these kinds of things happen. I wasn't shocked by any of the school shootings in the 90s because to me it was real life and an inevitable conclusion without some major changes in schools. Home schooling completely removes a student from those experiences and gives them only what their parents want them to think the world is. That's completely wrong.
A parent has no right to limit the experiences of their child no matter how much they might want to. That child is an individual and has a right to experience whatever they conclude they want to experience. I'm a hardcore Linux user. My daughter will still use Windows if that's what she wants. I despise religion. I plan to expose my daughter to every religion possible excluding obvious cults should she express an interest. It seems tha tmost home schoolers see home schooling as an opportunity to shape their child in their own image. Again, that's completely wrong. The goal, if anything, should be to let your child achieve their view of perfection.
The virtual chartered school idea will work for some, but is far too fragile because there is no enforcement of the less pleasant aspects of school, most of which are social. I think the teachers are right. A lot of students will see it as an opportunity to goof off or cheat. A lot of parents will see it as yet another way to keep their kids out of their hair (why the fucking hell did you have the kid in the first place if you didn't commit for life?). But, I guess it doesn't matter. America is falling apart and fast becoming irrelevant on the world stage when it comes to anything other than brutality.
Yeah but try actually clicking and dragging individual objects simultaneously with those multiple devices... That's this is all about. Just imagine having a virtual table covered with photos and different people sitting around the table dragging individual photos to them or duplicating and passing the image along to others around the table. THAT is what we're talking about here. Imagine a design meeting being held around a table like this and the presenter loads his documents into the table. He then, in real time, creates duplicates with his hands and pops them to each person around the table so they can read and possibly even edit in a collaborative mode. THAT is what makes this really cool. Of course, as usual, this was available on Macs first. HP is working on stuff like this too.
You're just jealous because someone who works for a non-profit that covers a quarter of the state of Ohio is actually successful...;P Have a rotten fucked up shitty day.
It's gonna be Daikatana II MMORPG!!! This is gonna rock as hard as the original Daikatana did! I can't wait. Romero can code rings around that little dweeb Carmack! I wonder if this means that the old empire of iD will rise again and we'll see such innovative titles as the original Doom but updated for the 20th century? Maybe he'll even bring back Killcreek (hotcha cha!!! sizzle...)? I can't wait! To quote a much loved movie, "This is gonna be grrrreat"!
Well that's cause it is incredible. The performance just amazes me everytime my coworkers show me how glacially slow an enhanced desktop can be if you really try hard enough. Compared to E that is...
Slashdot Mirror
...there really isn't a whole lot of difference between what he's done and the classic Animatronics pioneered by the conservative state Disneyland in California. In other news, I posted my reasons for why I think humanoid androids are a dead end and they apply just as well here.
There is absolutely no reason that computers should waste power when they aren't doing anything (they also shouldn't be doing ANYTHING unless we are using them). A computer should function more like a data pump/pipe. When there is input (user input), then there is output. When there isn't input, there is no output and no power used at all. This would also be aided by new display technologies that don't use power until their pixels change. (ie. the image is held like a photograph until new data comes in). I think developments like that would wind up saving lots of power and the environment.
...back in 2000 when I found that none of their products are fully functional in real OSes and are of questionable value in toy OSes. I moved to Voodoo, then NVidia and haven't looked back. Oh yes, I've had experience with the latest ATIs under Linux and I can say that they still suck completely. I just haven't actually bought their products myself. I'm speaking of a box I have here at work.
The use of humanoid robots will be limited to pointless tasks (greeters at Walmart)in the future. They are difficult to make, difficult to maintain (mechanically) and won't ever match the abilities of humans as long as we keep them "humanoid". The cost will never be less than the minimal benefits. You'd be better off with holograms for greeters once the technology is ironed out. In fact, for virtually any human/sentient machine interaction you're better off with holograms or VR. The only need for robotics is when you're dealing with physical interaction with objects (assembly or dangerous tasks) or people (surgery, sex bots built like spiders with sexy female human legs in black hosiery and the head of Amanda Donohoe, and let's face it... combat). And in every instance, the humanoid form is not that great. I want my robotic surgeon to have lasers built into his multiple tendrils (hopefully a few million of them) and nanoscale filaments that can perform cellular level cuts and sutures. No humanoid android will ever have that ability. Humanoid robots are overrated. Now if you want some applications for humanoid androids, I hear Disney has some openings in the "It's a Small World" display...
Daft Punk fans have known this since the 90s. Witness their latest non-musical project Electroma. It's a beautiful movie that follows two brave robots who want to find out what it means to be human.
Trolling? What is this "trolling" of which you speak? Perhaps I should subscribe to your newsletter?
..."Laser Tweezers used to Scott Adams". I couldn't figure out what the hell that meant. Did someone publish a holographic collection of Dilbert toons?
You're quite correct but it should be universally applied. The right shouldn't have a louder voice than the left and vice-versa.
...spend a bunch of tax dollars finding out when Infinium Labs is going to release their Phantom. At this point that would be proof positive of the paranormal.
The real example is that there are very few outlets for us to voice these opinions now. Sure we can blog all we want, but since there's so much of that going on, it has no validity. The mainstream only responds to the mainstream press which no longer actually broadcast anything approaching reality. We have no options because we lack power and money. And we lack power and money because most of us are not insterested in either. Those who are, are the ones in control and they don't represent us. That's about the most basic the example can get. And you can be certain that if someone from down here at street level got access to the mindshare of America, that person would be demonized, discredited or killed (literally or financially). More likely a mixture of all of the above. I can't get on Fox News for instance and opine about the scary situation that America is in. They won't let me. And if I tried, they'd brand me with some negative terms so that people like you can say, "damn right"!
There's also the "birds of a feather" theory. While you might know a lot of people who think that Bush and friends are doing a wonderful job and that your lives are better off for it. I also know just as many, if not more people who think America is in major trouble. (I'm in Ohio which is getting to be a very scary place) We're losing jobs. We have less and less money to get by as the cost of living increases at an alarming pace. We have poor, if any healthcare. The big cities that were once flourishing are now in decay and the money and jobs are being rerouted to the small towns thanks to some political games. The election system is very possibly compromised at worst and untrustworthy at best. Businesses are getting more and more protection from being held accountable for the things they do to us (We've got FirstEnergy here who re-opened a nuke plant that was closed because of a major malfunction that almost caused a major incident. The re-opening was done against the advice of several authorities in the nuclear industry simply because it would be profitable for FirstEnergy). So maybe my persepective is skewed from yours because of where I live and the people I know and vice-versa. I don't live in a rich development or own an SUV, but that doesn't make me any less American...
...sorry to hear about the fascists coming your way too. We're locked up tighter than a drum here in the U.S. if we don't support Bush or the war in Iraq or anti-gay legislation, or anti-middle and anti-lower income tax breaks. I guess the terrorists did win. The elections that is...
I think it just depends on your working style. Most of the time saving features in Photoshop tend to have very inflexible parameters that make assumptions about what you want to do. This is a bad thing. So in the end even a seasoned Photoshop user is STILL going to have to work around the limitations of Photoshop. This is not to say that Photoshop is bad. It's more that Photoshop provides some shortcuts that those who know better won't use. I mean, honestly when was the last time you used a wizard in MS Office to write a document? Anyone who does is shortchanging themselves. The same with Photoshop.
If you're talking print, you'll probably find very few designers who use GIMP. But if you're talking artists and web designers, there are plenty. GIMP might lag on some features and tools that Photoshop has, but it's every bit as useful as Photoshop. I dropped Photoshop from my DTP business some years back when the costs were too much to justify and I don't believe in piracy. I haven't looked back since. GIMP can do everything that Photoshop can but in some cases might require the workaround skills you learned in Photoshop 3.x and up. Most of the timesaving features of the newest versions of Photoshop might be missing, but that doesn't mean you can't get the same output. The only issue remaining is print...
The poor music business is feeling the crunch of the idiots who like to download pirated music. That means they'll only clear a few billion this year instead of the extra hundred million or so that never makes it to the hands of the people who matter most in all this: the artists themselves. The most important people in the music business are the composers and musicians who write and perform the music and the producers and engineers who put it all together. Beyond that, screw the business end. They're redundant. If the artists and their crew stuck out on their own and sold their goods at reasonable prices online, they'd be richer for it. Come on... be honest. For those of you out there who like say... Nelly Furtado, if she put her songs online at her own site for legal download at $.25 a track, she'd be a very rich woman. About the only thing that I can agree with allofmp3.com on is the pricing. At least their prices are realistic for digitally distributed lossy recordings. And for all you fucking nimrods who think it's your right to access anything you want without actually paying for it, go stick a hot soldering iron in your assholes on my behalf. Thanks...
Well... I could have said "Mean sons of bitches" but that probably would have put the wimps off. ;P
I went to the Pyramids when I was 16 and climbed to the top of one of them. Awesome. Almost spiritual. Absolutely awesome and the ONLY reason I'd go back. Unfortunately, my family and I drank the water in the hotel in Mexico City that said, "purified" and got sick. So our trip was cut short by a week. Plenty of warnings to avoid the "ladrones' as well...
Nice reply. It hadn't occurred to me to even consider the reverse reason for home schooling. Where I live (Metro Cleveland Area) the only people who homeschool are the white, protestants who love Bush and want to keep their kids from being exposed to anything they deem "bad". The public schools in the surrounding suburbs here (not Cleveland Public Schools themselves which are a mess) attempt to provide more diverse education with expanded opportunities for the arts, sciences, athletics, etc... But I can see that in the south things are probably a lot worse and Ohio, is sadly becoming "the south" in its mindset.
It's so damn annoying that Slashdotters assume that someone who likes their content peppered with strong language is immature or young. Some of us are just ornery SOBs who like to associate with other ornery SOBs. There's also a lot of us who have deep and wide sarcastic streaks. Get used to it. It's a way of life.
Everyone learns in different ways. Unfortunately, when it comes to providing school in an affordable way whether it's public or private, the individual needs of each student cannot be addressed. In the case of this charter school, the approach would work with a very narrow group of individuals. It would require discipline that most students lack and the oversight of a parent which most parents can't provide. The students who would thrive in a virtual charter situation would probably thrive even more in a standard environment as they would be dedicated either way. Dedication is one of the hallmarks of a good studen.
I hated school since I found it boring to work at the level of those around me. I applied my dedication to my own interests on my own time: science, electronics, musical composition, etc... This was a failing of the school system purely based on the fact that they couldn't cater to my needs. While I was busy designing circuits and building digital equipment at home, the kids in my Biology class were having trouble grasping the concept of cells. While I was composing original music even though I couldn't sight read well at all, the kids at school were busy trying to even learn to play a simple instrument.
Home schooling isn't the answer either and I'll tell you why. While my experiences in school were intellectually underwhelming, the cultural exposure was extermely valuable. I grew up in a very diverse community with plenty of jewish kids, black kids, asian kids, spanish kids and even "waspy" kids. My school experiences were definitely "big city". We had our share of incidents with knives, guns and rape by and against fellow students. We had plenty of drug and alcohol abuse as well among students with less forethought than others. (Keep in mind this was in the mid 80s)
I value all of that because it prepared me for the real world where these kinds of things happen. I wasn't shocked by any of the school shootings in the 90s because to me it was real life and an inevitable conclusion without some major changes in schools. Home schooling completely removes a student from those experiences and gives them only what their parents want them to think the world is. That's completely wrong.
A parent has no right to limit the experiences of their child no matter how much they might want to. That child is an individual and has a right to experience whatever they conclude they want to experience. I'm a hardcore Linux user. My daughter will still use Windows if that's what she wants. I despise religion. I plan to expose my daughter to every religion possible excluding obvious cults should she express an interest. It seems tha tmost home schoolers see home schooling as an opportunity to shape their child in their own image. Again, that's completely wrong. The goal, if anything, should be to let your child achieve their view of perfection.
The virtual chartered school idea will work for some, but is far too fragile because there is no enforcement of the less pleasant aspects of school, most of which are social. I think the teachers are right. A lot of students will see it as an opportunity to goof off or cheat. A lot of parents will see it as yet another way to keep their kids out of their hair (why the fucking hell did you have the kid in the first place if you didn't commit for life?). But, I guess it doesn't matter. America is falling apart and fast becoming irrelevant on the world stage when it comes to anything other than brutality.
Yeah but try actually clicking and dragging individual objects simultaneously with those multiple devices... That's this is all about. Just imagine having a virtual table covered with photos and different people sitting around the table dragging individual photos to them or duplicating and passing the image along to others around the table. THAT is what we're talking about here. Imagine a design meeting being held around a table like this and the presenter loads his documents into the table. He then, in real time, creates duplicates with his hands and pops them to each person around the table so they can read and possibly even edit in a collaborative mode. THAT is what makes this really cool. Of course, as usual, this was available on Macs first. HP is working on stuff like this too.
Beavis: "Ahhh... shaddup Butthead. Or, I'm gonna have to lay the smackdown on your ass. Beyotch"!
Ahh yes, Beavis and Butthead. WAY BETTER than Southpark any day.
At first gland I thought it said hardon.
You're just jealous because someone who works for a non-profit that covers a quarter of the state of Ohio is actually successful... ;P Have a rotten fucked up shitty day.
It's gonna be Daikatana II MMORPG!!! This is gonna rock as hard as the original Daikatana did! I can't wait. Romero can code rings around that little dweeb Carmack! I wonder if this means that the old empire of iD will rise again and we'll see such innovative titles as the original Doom but updated for the 20th century? Maybe he'll even bring back Killcreek (hotcha cha!!! sizzle...)? I can't wait! To quote a much loved movie, "This is gonna be grrrreat"!
Well that's cause it is incredible. The performance just amazes me everytime my coworkers show me how glacially slow an enhanced desktop can be if you really try hard enough. Compared to E that is...