As I read over this article, I had a few thoughts that weren't really related to each other but I thought I'd share anyway.
1. Editorial slant
Was it just me, or was Marshall Brain just so freakingly enthusiastic about the concept of a penny-per-page micropayment system?!?! I definitely noticed that... He did seem very interested in the penny payments. It came across in several places, especially at the end:
Would it be worth a penny to you to look up a phone number you need? Would it be worth a penny to you to get a map to your destination? Would it be worth a penny to you to get the answer to a particular question? A penny is an incredible bargain. The fact that none of us is paying that penny right now is putting a huge damper on Web innovation.
Is that so? I think the web's okay, but that's just IMHO.
And, of course, the final sentence of the article:
A penny per page will bring consistent revenue to the Web, and the change that it will bring will amaze all of us.
Someone tell me that's not a conclusion to an essay/editorial. The entire article starts off fine, but as it progresses I see that Marshall Brain seems to be in favour of this system which will "amaze all of us".
Don't get me wrong, if he likes this system, that's wonderful. More power to him. But HSW isn't exactly an opinion site. I was hoping for a slightly more objective view.
2. "A penny isn't that much"
I beg to differ. I've seen a few people make a similar point... All things aside like chopped-up pages, etc, while I was reading the article I thought about my daily page-viewing habits. I read approximately 20 webcomics daily. That's 20 different pages *minimum*, never mind if I want to read what the artist has put up on a news subpage. So guess maybe a quarter total, daily. That will become $7.50 a month so I can get my daily comic fix.
And of course, there's Slashdot itself, if it were to move to the penny-per-view model. I reload/. frequently during the day. Then what if I want to, say, read the comments? Follow the links? No offense to/., but I could end up handing over relatively obscene amounts of money to them because I'm an information junkie. I'd sooner pay a subscription fee - I'd know that would be cheaper. I think the same could be said for lots of other people here.
So for just/. and the comics alone, I could be paying an additional $20-30 a month on top of my already not-cheap DSL service.
3. ADS.
If we're paying, now, to view content that was previously funded by ads, I don't see any reason why the number of banner ads currently polluting the web should stay the same. If I'm going to pay to look at a site, there shouldn't be a need anymore.
But, rather than ban ads altogether, tone them down. Return to the simpler times when all we had were the normal ads at the top of the page, or whatever. But reinstate the idea of a banner exchange. (Remember LinkExchange, anyone?) Marshall Brain talks about resonance and how that will help generate page views. I think a simple banner exchange - free of charge - would be worthwhile instead. I could live with that.
4. Website hosting
Look at a site like Geocities, Freeservers, whatever. The ones that offer free hosting. You'd have to think that they'd join in on this. So what about the sites that are hosted on one of these places? Do they share in the money generated by hits to their pages?
For that matter, if I were to put a website up on some space provided my ISP, could I get money for that?
5. Avoiding the payment
It's happened before and it could happen again. If the majority of the web adopts the penny-payment thing but some sites don't, there will be copyright wars. People will put content up from the pay sites on the free sites. More or less the Napster situation.
6. Currency
Not everyone who uses the web uses the same currency. Exchange rates will have to fit in somewhere, as well... For instance, I live in Canada. As some of you may know, our dollar isn't worth much compared to the US dollar. So you can bet that even though I would be paying one penny per page view, my total will be considered possibly a lump sum. Guess what? I get to pay the exchange rate!
If you look back at my second point where I estimate that my normal surfing habits will be $20-30, if you translate that to Canadian funds, that becomes $30-45, because the majority of the sites I look at aren't hosted in Canada. For me, this is more than unacceptable.
7. Poor students.
This is my last point, and I'm only including it because I still sort of fit the category. Students rarely have significant amounts of cash. I know I didn't all through high school. Living at home with parents who not only pay the ISP fees but surf themselves, how would this have worked for us? I couldn't have paid for my page views, so it falls to them. So it would go with many others... Especially people who have more than one child.
So those are my thoughts. Comment as you will. But if this system comes to pass, and depending on how widespread the system is, I'll either look just at free content or move away from the web altogether. Perhaps I'll rediscover the joy of newsgroups...
IANAHT, but Java is Java is Java. Nothing against it, as I love working in Java, but the way Java works makes it slow, and even on a smaller scale like handhelds I would lay my money on any app built in its native API(s) - not a specific handheld device.
It's more or less a tradeoff - speed vs. flexibility. Take your pick.
Backtracking a little, though, the SL-5000 also runs native Linux apps, doesn't it? Or at least, the SL-5000 isn't restricted to running only Java-based apps. It's just some extra functionality... I wouldn't worry.
Re:QNX will release QNX iPAQ (free non-commecial u
on
Sharp Readies SL-5000D
·
· Score: 1
That's excellent to know... Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll try to lay my hands on an iPaq now.:)
If I understand you correctly, that's the nature of Java. Java itself is very cross-platform given that the code produced by javac is not platform-specific, only the interpreters/runtime environments. This means that a program written in Java can be run under Windows, MacOS, Linux, BSD... any OS where there has been a runtime environment written for Java. It's pretty much hardware-independent too.
I'm thinking the reason Sharp did this was to allow the SL-5000 to run a greater variety of programs than its competitors. Think about it - using an iPaq with WinCE, you're restricted to using programs created specifically for CE. Same with PalmOS. Now, since the SL-5000 is capable of running Java apps, so now you can basically grab any program that you think you would use, and be able to run it on both your handheld and desktop. (That's my theory, personally.)
It looks like the only issues about Java for the SL-5000 are language-specific issues - i.e. differences between v1.1.x and 1.2.2, etc. But it looks good.
I'm a little curious to see when/if PDA makers will start using QNX as a potential operating system for the handhelds. The QNX microkernel is very small, and for that matter, so is the GUI. I don't have exact numbers, but I've used QNX for one of my courses at college as well as a little bit at home, and it works extremely well.
With the extra space saved on the ROM in the device, you could either add some more applications in for greater functionality or possibly just decrease the overall price of the unit given that you wouldn't need so much memory to store the OS. Or both.
3Com used QNX in the Ergo Audrey (I still wish I'd managed to get one of those in time), and not only did it work well technically, but it also created a very hackable device.
I remember I once read a Star Trek book that mentioned ternary computers (the Tholians used them, I believe, and it was called trinary) and since then I've wondered about how effective they would be. Lo and behold, research!
OK, so we're currently operating in a binary fashion. Add an extra state to a bit (or should that be a tit? ya, ya, I know... the article says trit, for obvious reasons:) and voila! More information can be expressed in a shorter space...
What I want to know is how this would compare to quantum computing - which would be better, ternary or quantum? From the little I do know about quantum computing it is based on qubits (can't recall if that's correct or not), which in turn are based on the four basic quantum states.
So is this basically a question of Base 3 vs. Base 4 and how well the math works out for each, or are there significant benefits to quantum computing?
Not every post-secondary institution operates like this. At the college I attend for CS, anywhere after the first level (where you don't really do serious programming) you have to perform error checking, to some degree or another. If you don't, you can lose a few marks or in some cases, all of them.
As you stated in your comment, there are occasions I've had where the professor has said "I won't try this", too, but there are others he will check.
As such I've gotten used to building in error checking. It's become a near compulsion... Did I forget to check for divide by zero? Improper menu selection? Null pointers?
The programs we're writing aren't major applications. The last semester I took, we created a compiler in one course, a simple database in another, and some client-server apps. For these error checking is definitely necessary!
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that not every place is the same. I'm fortunate enough to be attending a good school for CS where they do their best to encourage good coding habits, and I think that'll prepare me well for serious coding later on.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Editorial slant
Is that so? I think the web's okay, but that's just IMHO.Was it just me, or was Marshall Brain just so freakingly enthusiastic about the concept of a penny-per-page micropayment system?!?! I definitely noticed that... He did seem very interested in the penny payments. It came across in several places, especially at the end:
And, of course, the final sentence of the article:
Someone tell me that's not a conclusion to an essay/editorial. The entire article starts off fine, but as it progresses I see that Marshall Brain seems to be in favour of this system which will "amaze all of us".Don't get me wrong, if he likes this system, that's wonderful. More power to him. But HSW isn't exactly an opinion site. I was hoping for a slightly more objective view.
2. "A penny isn't that much"
I beg to differ. I've seen a few people make a similar point... All things aside like chopped-up pages, etc, while I was reading the article I thought about my daily page-viewing habits. I read approximately 20 webcomics daily. That's 20 different pages *minimum*, never mind if I want to read what the artist has put up on a news subpage. So guess maybe a quarter total, daily. That will become $7.50 a month so I can get my daily comic fix.
And of course, there's Slashdot itself, if it were to move to the penny-per-view model. I reload /. frequently during the day. Then what if I want to, say, read the comments? Follow the links? No offense to /., but I could end up handing over relatively obscene amounts of money to them because I'm an information junkie. I'd sooner pay a subscription fee - I'd know that would be cheaper. I think the same could be said for lots of other people here.
So for just /. and the comics alone, I could be paying an additional $20-30 a month on top of my already not-cheap DSL service.
3. ADS.
If we're paying, now, to view content that was previously funded by ads, I don't see any reason why the number of banner ads currently polluting the web should stay the same. If I'm going to pay to look at a site, there shouldn't be a need anymore.
But, rather than ban ads altogether, tone them down. Return to the simpler times when all we had were the normal ads at the top of the page, or whatever. But reinstate the idea of a banner exchange. (Remember LinkExchange, anyone?) Marshall Brain talks about resonance and how that will help generate page views. I think a simple banner exchange - free of charge - would be worthwhile instead. I could live with that.
4. Website hosting
Look at a site like Geocities, Freeservers, whatever. The ones that offer free hosting. You'd have to think that they'd join in on this. So what about the sites that are hosted on one of these places? Do they share in the money generated by hits to their pages?
For that matter, if I were to put a website up on some space provided my ISP, could I get money for that?
5. Avoiding the payment
It's happened before and it could happen again. If the majority of the web adopts the penny-payment thing but some sites don't, there will be copyright wars. People will put content up from the pay sites on the free sites. More or less the Napster situation.
6. Currency
Not everyone who uses the web uses the same currency. Exchange rates will have to fit in somewhere, as well... For instance, I live in Canada. As some of you may know, our dollar isn't worth much compared to the US dollar. So you can bet that even though I would be paying one penny per page view, my total will be considered possibly a lump sum. Guess what? I get to pay the exchange rate!
If you look back at my second point where I estimate that my normal surfing habits will be $20-30, if you translate that to Canadian funds, that becomes $30-45, because the majority of the sites I look at aren't hosted in Canada. For me, this is more than unacceptable.
7. Poor students.
This is my last point, and I'm only including it because I still sort of fit the category. Students rarely have significant amounts of cash. I know I didn't all through high school. Living at home with parents who not only pay the ISP fees but surf themselves, how would this have worked for us? I couldn't have paid for my page views, so it falls to them. So it would go with many others... Especially people who have more than one child.
So those are my thoughts. Comment as you will. But if this system comes to pass, and depending on how widespread the system is, I'll either look just at free content or move away from the web altogether. Perhaps I'll rediscover the joy of newsgroups...
Quick! Someone call the DOJ!
IANAHT, but Java is Java is Java. Nothing against it, as I love working in Java, but the way Java works makes it slow, and even on a smaller scale like handhelds I would lay my money on any app built in its native API(s) - not a specific handheld device.
It's more or less a tradeoff - speed vs. flexibility. Take your pick.
Backtracking a little, though, the SL-5000 also runs native Linux apps, doesn't it? Or at least, the SL-5000 isn't restricted to running only Java-based apps. It's just some extra functionality... I wouldn't worry.
That's excellent to know... Thanks for the info. Maybe I'll try to lay my hands on an iPaq now. :)
I'm thinking the reason Sharp did this was to allow the SL-5000 to run a greater variety of programs than its competitors. Think about it - using an iPaq with WinCE, you're restricted to using programs created specifically for CE. Same with PalmOS. Now, since the SL-5000 is capable of running Java apps, so now you can basically grab any program that you think you would use, and be able to run it on both your handheld and desktop. (That's my theory, personally.)
It looks like the only issues about Java for the SL-5000 are language-specific issues - i.e. differences between v1.1.x and 1.2.2, etc. But it looks good.
With the extra space saved on the ROM in the device, you could either add some more applications in for greater functionality or possibly just decrease the overall price of the unit given that you wouldn't need so much memory to store the OS. Or both.
3Com used QNX in the Ergo Audrey (I still wish I'd managed to get one of those in time), and not only did it work well technically, but it also created a very hackable device.
Just some thoughts.
So, without any further ado... The Ebay haunted painting.
OK, so we're currently operating in a binary fashion. Add an extra state to a bit (or should that be a tit? ya, ya, I know... the article says trit, for obvious reasons :) and voila! More information can be expressed in a shorter space...
What I want to know is how this would compare to quantum computing - which would be better, ternary or quantum? From the little I do know about quantum computing it is based on qubits (can't recall if that's correct or not), which in turn are based on the four basic quantum states.
So is this basically a question of Base 3 vs. Base 4 and how well the math works out for each, or are there significant benefits to quantum computing?
As you stated in your comment, there are occasions I've had where the professor has said "I won't try this", too, but there are others he will check.
As such I've gotten used to building in error checking. It's become a near compulsion... Did I forget to check for divide by zero? Improper menu selection? Null pointers?
The programs we're writing aren't major applications. The last semester I took, we created a compiler in one course, a simple database in another, and some client-server apps. For these error checking is definitely necessary!
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that not every place is the same. I'm fortunate enough to be attending a good school for CS where they do their best to encourage good coding habits, and I think that'll prepare me well for serious coding later on.