Each different software is like a branch of the evolutionary tree. The more branches, the more options. The good software flourishes and encourages imitators, the bad software dies off.
Actually I would have 2 separate wikis - a local one with a bunch of basic information, that would allow you to take notes as you learn your way around the operating system, and then another one online so that people could share information. The local one - that you would install as an optional package - would come pre-populated with some basic FAQ-type info.
The idea of a "web operating system" sounds very 1990s to me. It doesn't really sounds the least bit interesting these days. On the other hand, I don't understand why linux distros don't take more advantage of things like wikis. I'd really like to see linux distros become more integrated with wikis - error messages could have links to wikis or forum posts, control panel applets could contain links to editable howtos, etc. there are some security issues but nothing impossible.
While we're discussing XHTML, are there any real drawbacks to XHTML? I mean, you can't have user-submitted content (like myspace) without converting it. There's a learning curve. But are there browsers that don't render XHTML properly? If I run a web design shop, are there any risks to consider before switching to XHTML?
Here's my concept: a multiplayer game, like SOCOM or Counter-Strike. Instead of playing the same map over and over, they release a new map every so often, and set it up like a TV show. You could easily create a "24" like series within SOCOM or Counterstrike, where every few weeks you get a new mission. Right now, after a few weeks of play you learn all the maps and it gets boring. But imagine if you got not just a new map but a new story every once in a while!
The excitement would be awesome - a new episode would generate massive amounts of traffic, and lots of the players would experience the new mission simultaneously when it's released, kind of like a TV show. They could have previews just like TV shows. But I think online FPS titles (especially console titles) could benefit immensly from this - instead of letting the same old content get more and more stale.
If I'm reading this right, it was passed almost unanimously in both the house and the senate (these things aren't terribly clear). It appears to have been sponsored by Dan Lungren (R-CA). Does anyone know how to stop this kind of crap? I don't know of a single person who would endorse this crap, but it appears that pretty much everybody voted for it (no doubt due to it's name).
I've recently started using a wiki to take notes on things I do. Not personal stuff, but how-to. When I have to look something up the second or third time, it goes into the wiki. If I have a cool idea for a project, I put it in the wiki. It's not much right now but's it's growing fast - and theoretically it contains an outline of everything I've learned lately. I'm amazed at the thought of how things would be different if I had started this 10 years ago though - keep in mind that everything that goes into the wiki gets reinforced because I come into contact with it on a regular basis.
A lot is said about how it is dangerous to mention drugs or talk openly about your feelings on myspace because with the 30+ crowd that is not the norm. What these people fail to realize is that with people under the age of 25, these behaviors are normal. It is quite common for young people to have photos of themselves drunk, intoxicated, smoking pot, etc online. While older folks might see this as a terrible thing, young people are quite comfortable with these behaviors. Likewise with talking about depression or probably even homosexuality. Our traditional "taboos" - especially the ones that have legal but not moral implications (alcohol, drugs, homosexuality, etc) are disappearing.
I like to answer my land line by saying "I DONT LIKE TELEMARKETERS" (instead of the usual "hello"). This is usually followed by a brief pause, then the caller hangs up. Occasionally someone will try to say something out of confusion, at which point I repeat myself.
Of course, I only use my land line for DSL and I haven't given it out to anyone.
What about nightlights? I bought a couple of regular light-detecting nightlights about 6 months ago and they have already started to die out... Are any of these new-fangled LED or CFA bulbs available as nightlights (esp. motion detecting or light-detecting)?
I just came back from travelling through Guatemala and Belize. There were quite a few internet cafes that advertised as "hi-speed" but connections were so slow that it often took more than 5 minutes to upload a 2 meg photo to US servers. I had the same experience in Northern Belize. I hear the south of Belize actually has fast connections though...
Actually eBay seller ratings are totally unreliable. I had a problem with a seller after buying a few old records. Nothing horrible, but the guy was rude, unprofessional, overcharged on shipping, and took nearly a month to ship what normally takes 2 weeks at most. So to be fair, I left 1 negative comment and 1 neutral. He managed to have them removed within 3 days.
What's worse - he left 2 negative comments for me, and they were never removed. Then to make things even worse, the guy harassed me for months. over 30 emails in the first 2 weeks after I lef the feedback.
Now my complaints, although mild, were completely completely legitimate, and I was polite and clear in all of my communications. And my goal was to warn other buyers about this guy - he was truly a pain to deal with, and for a while I was concerned about being sued or even worse. The guy deserved some negative feedback, but his feedback rating was 100%.
While I fully expect the usual morons to try to dispute my claims based on this web posting, the fact remains that you simply can't trust that an ebay seller - even one who has a 100% feedback rating - is honest, reliable or trustworthy in any way.
I didn't see any tech article linked there... I thought this was about Crop Circles? And you're pretty messed up if you can't see how mentioning the possible harm done by farm subsidies adds value to a discussion of Crops, even if we do have to set aside the humorous part for a moment.
I like to think that God is a metaphor for science, created by people who had no better way of explaining things. "God" represents, in both a literal and figurative sense, the rules of nature and the forces of physics. Those rules are the mystical force that binds all things together, and the beautiful part - the "god" part - is that there will likely always be more to learn, there will always be things that we do not understand or cannot predict.
This guy makes a lot of assumptions in his analysis. I often search for a single topic multiple times - not out of obsession, but to refine my search. Sometimes I didn't get what I was looking for the first time, so I'll go back and sift through the 2nd and 3rd pages. Sometimes I search again because I can't remember where the best page was. Each new search for the same topic may lead me to change my search target - at first I might be looking to buy a product at a major retailer, only to realize later that it might be available used. These are all reasons to repeat a search that have nothing to do with obsession. Also, the author may have labelled someone as "Obsessive" when they are searching for "texas real estate" when in fact they work in the real estate industry.
The article is an interesting read but I'm not buying into his category system.
Come on, the "founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services" thinks gamers suffer from Video Game addiction? Guess what? If you report those symptoms to a chiropractor he's going to have a different prescription for you! I don't doubt that there are a lot of similarities between addiction to drugs/pills/alcohol and excessive gaming, but this is absurd. I do think that the idea of "video game addiction" is interesting, but I think "addiction" is the wrong word.
While we're on the subject, I'd love to hear some stories about remote controls for PCs - drivers, Linux support, features, etc. I have a media box hooked up to my 47" tv but the mouse / keyboard setup makes it a pain in the neck (or wrist?).
I just came back from visiting Mayan ruins in Central America and I wondered why they don't use similar technicques to locate some of the ruins? Many ruins are deep within thick jungles, and I have heard of archaeologists walking by structures without recognizing them because the jungle is so thick. There are so many sites that are unknown to historians that locals usually suggest new sites every few weeks. Is there anything about thick jungles that would prevent this technique from working in central america?
I've worked for several 527s and helped run several call centers in the St. Louis, Missouri area. I never once encountered a single person that was not passionate and dedicated to progressive politics on any campaign. Although we did have Republicans that volunteered to try to sabotage the works. That's the only exception though.
I was also involved in the hiring process, and it's pretty obvious that you need to be passionate about the issues to work on one of these campaigns. It would be pretty naive to hire someone who wasn't passionate about these issues - they would be a huge risk. That said, in the hustle and bustle of a campaign mistakes are occasionally made. But if you think that ads in college newspapers to work in call centers are "astroturfing", you are confused.
I'll summarize the above for clarity: 1. The majority of people in call centers are dedicated to their causes (although my only experience is on the left). 2. Republicans play dirty. 3. It's very unlikely that someone who identifies them as a democrat on the phone for a survey is anything other than that. The work sucks. The pay (if you are lucky enough to get paid) is shit. You will work 60-80 hours a week. But it's fun, the people are great despite their flaws, and you will sleep at night (partially because you are doing the right thing, and partially because of complete and total exhaustion).
A well-designed ad-based Linux distro could easily be friendly, reliable, secure, and profitable. Actually, you could even trust an open-source ad-supported OS. If you could make a profit it would drive Linux adoption extremely rapidly. Keep in mind that if one person builds a profitable ad-based Linux distro, that would create a reliable profit stream for all the Linux developers out there.
Imagine an OS that suggests better, cheap hardware that has current drivers for your current OS. It could suggest online printing services when you want to print something out. There are thousands of online services that would pay good money for a simple text ad in the control panel, or in a menu somewhere. Obviously we should hesitate to support any ad-based OS due to privacy concerns, but an honest person could make a very honest living building this sort of thing on top of Linux, and give the user the option to turn off any of the ad options that he or she doesn't want.
We already have that problem without the Semantic Web. Semantic Web coding is not a fix for that problem, it's a fix for other problems.
This is like saying "Don't use Open Source software because people will do bad things with it". People will do bad things with or without Open Source software, and with or without the Semantic Web.
Anyway the article isn't very clear... By "Semantic Web", are we talking about using <div>s and <p>s instead of <table>s and <br>s? Or are we talking about microformats? Or something else?
One more thing... if google doesn't support the "Semantic Web", it will most likely fail.
Does Gimpshop still have all those obnoxious windows? Are they trying to claim that it's a feature and not a bug? (I realize that some people might like it, I just can't get past that part, and I think there are a lot of users out there like me who want to switch. I'm not trying to start a flamewar over which method is better)
Slashdot Mirror
Each different software is like a branch of the evolutionary tree. The more branches, the more options. The good software flourishes and encourages imitators, the bad software dies off.
Actually I would have 2 separate wikis - a local one with a bunch of basic information, that would allow you to take notes as you learn your way around the operating system, and then another one online so that people could share information. The local one - that you would install as an optional package - would come pre-populated with some basic FAQ-type info.
The idea of a "web operating system" sounds very 1990s to me. It doesn't really sounds the least bit interesting these days. On the other hand, I don't understand why linux distros don't take more advantage of things like wikis. I'd really like to see linux distros become more integrated with wikis - error messages could have links to wikis or forum posts, control panel applets could contain links to editable howtos, etc. there are some security issues but nothing impossible.
While we're discussing XHTML, are there any real drawbacks to XHTML? I mean, you can't have user-submitted content (like myspace) without converting it. There's a learning curve. But are there browsers that don't render XHTML properly? If I run a web design shop, are there any risks to consider before switching to XHTML?
Here's my concept: a multiplayer game, like SOCOM or Counter-Strike. Instead of playing the same map over and over, they release a new map every so often, and set it up like a TV show. You could easily create a "24" like series within SOCOM or Counterstrike, where every few weeks you get a new mission. Right now, after a few weeks of play you learn all the maps and it gets boring. But imagine if you got not just a new map but a new story every once in a while! The excitement would be awesome - a new episode would generate massive amounts of traffic, and lots of the players would experience the new mission simultaneously when it's released, kind of like a TV show. They could have previews just like TV shows. But I think online FPS titles (especially console titles) could benefit immensly from this - instead of letting the same old content get more and more stale.
If I'm reading this right, it was passed almost unanimously in both the house and the senate (these things aren't terribly clear). It appears to have been sponsored by Dan Lungren (R-CA). Does anyone know how to stop this kind of crap? I don't know of a single person who would endorse this crap, but it appears that pretty much everybody voted for it (no doubt due to it's name).
I've recently started using a wiki to take notes on things I do. Not personal stuff, but how-to. When I have to look something up the second or third time, it goes into the wiki. If I have a cool idea for a project, I put it in the wiki. It's not much right now but's it's growing fast - and theoretically it contains an outline of everything I've learned lately. I'm amazed at the thought of how things would be different if I had started this 10 years ago though - keep in mind that everything that goes into the wiki gets reinforced because I come into contact with it on a regular basis.
A lot is said about how it is dangerous to mention drugs or talk openly about your feelings on myspace because with the 30+ crowd that is not the norm. What these people fail to realize is that with people under the age of 25, these behaviors are normal. It is quite common for young people to have photos of themselves drunk, intoxicated, smoking pot, etc online. While older folks might see this as a terrible thing, young people are quite comfortable with these behaviors. Likewise with talking about depression or probably even homosexuality. Our traditional "taboos" - especially the ones that have legal but not moral implications (alcohol, drugs, homosexuality, etc) are disappearing.
I like to answer my land line by saying "I DONT LIKE TELEMARKETERS" (instead of the usual "hello"). This is usually followed by a brief pause, then the caller hangs up. Occasionally someone will try to say something out of confusion, at which point I repeat myself.
Of course, I only use my land line for DSL and I haven't given it out to anyone.
can you point us to some particular recordings?
What about nightlights? I bought a couple of regular light-detecting nightlights about 6 months ago and they have already started to die out... Are any of these new-fangled LED or CFA bulbs available as nightlights (esp. motion detecting or light-detecting)?
I just came back from travelling through Guatemala and Belize. There were quite a few internet cafes that advertised as "hi-speed" but connections were so slow that it often took more than 5 minutes to upload a 2 meg photo to US servers. I had the same experience in Northern Belize. I hear the south of Belize actually has fast connections though...
Actually eBay seller ratings are totally unreliable. I had a problem with a seller after buying a few old records. Nothing horrible, but the guy was rude, unprofessional, overcharged on shipping, and took nearly a month to ship what normally takes 2 weeks at most. So to be fair, I left 1 negative comment and 1 neutral. He managed to have them removed within 3 days.
What's worse - he left 2 negative comments for me, and they were never removed. Then to make things even worse, the guy harassed me for months. over 30 emails in the first 2 weeks after I lef the feedback.
Now my complaints, although mild, were completely completely legitimate, and I was polite and clear in all of my communications. And my goal was to warn other buyers about this guy - he was truly a pain to deal with, and for a while I was concerned about being sued or even worse. The guy deserved some negative feedback, but his feedback rating was 100%.
While I fully expect the usual morons to try to dispute my claims based on this web posting, the fact remains that you simply can't trust that an ebay seller - even one who has a 100% feedback rating - is honest, reliable or trustworthy in any way.
I didn't see any tech article linked there... I thought this was about Crop Circles? And you're pretty messed up if you can't see how mentioning the possible harm done by farm subsidies adds value to a discussion of Crops, even if we do have to set aside the humorous part for a moment.
I like to think that God is a metaphor for science, created by people who had no better way of explaining things. "God" represents, in both a literal and figurative sense, the rules of nature and the forces of physics. Those rules are the mystical force that binds all things together, and the beautiful part - the "god" part - is that there will likely always be more to learn, there will always be things that we do not understand or cannot predict.
This guy makes a lot of assumptions in his analysis. I often search for a single topic multiple times - not out of obsession, but to refine my search. Sometimes I didn't get what I was looking for the first time, so I'll go back and sift through the 2nd and 3rd pages. Sometimes I search again because I can't remember where the best page was. Each new search for the same topic may lead me to change my search target - at first I might be looking to buy a product at a major retailer, only to realize later that it might be available used. These are all reasons to repeat a search that have nothing to do with obsession. Also, the author may have labelled someone as "Obsessive" when they are searching for "texas real estate" when in fact they work in the real estate industry.
The article is an interesting read but I'm not buying into his category system.
Ha ha. I'm actually considering moving from windows 2000 to Windows XP over the next few months!
Come on, the "founder and coordinator of Computer Addiction Services" thinks gamers suffer from Video Game addiction? Guess what? If you report those symptoms to a chiropractor he's going to have a different prescription for you! I don't doubt that there are a lot of similarities between addiction to drugs/pills/alcohol and excessive gaming, but this is absurd. I do think that the idea of "video game addiction" is interesting, but I think "addiction" is the wrong word.
While we're on the subject, I'd love to hear some stories about remote controls for PCs - drivers, Linux support, features, etc. I have a media box hooked up to my 47" tv but the mouse / keyboard setup makes it a pain in the neck (or wrist?).
I just came back from visiting Mayan ruins in Central America and I wondered why they don't use similar technicques to locate some of the ruins? Many ruins are deep within thick jungles, and I have heard of archaeologists walking by structures without recognizing them because the jungle is so thick. There are so many sites that are unknown to historians that locals usually suggest new sites every few weeks. Is there anything about thick jungles that would prevent this technique from working in central america?
I've worked for several 527s and helped run several call centers in the St. Louis, Missouri area. I never once encountered a single person that was not passionate and dedicated to progressive politics on any campaign. Although we did have Republicans that volunteered to try to sabotage the works. That's the only exception though.
I was also involved in the hiring process, and it's pretty obvious that you need to be passionate about the issues to work on one of these campaigns. It would be pretty naive to hire someone who wasn't passionate about these issues - they would be a huge risk. That said, in the hustle and bustle of a campaign mistakes are occasionally made. But if you think that ads in college newspapers to work in call centers are "astroturfing", you are confused.
I'll summarize the above for clarity: 1. The majority of people in call centers are dedicated to their causes (although my only experience is on the left). 2. Republicans play dirty. 3. It's very unlikely that someone who identifies them as a democrat on the phone for a survey is anything other than that. The work sucks. The pay (if you are lucky enough to get paid) is shit. You will work 60-80 hours a week. But it's fun, the people are great despite their flaws, and you will sleep at night (partially because you are doing the right thing, and partially because of complete and total exhaustion).
A well-designed ad-based Linux distro could easily be friendly, reliable, secure, and profitable. Actually, you could even trust an open-source ad-supported OS. If you could make a profit it would drive Linux adoption extremely rapidly. Keep in mind that if one person builds a profitable ad-based Linux distro, that would create a reliable profit stream for all the Linux developers out there.
Imagine an OS that suggests better, cheap hardware that has current drivers for your current OS. It could suggest online printing services when you want to print something out. There are thousands of online services that would pay good money for a simple text ad in the control panel, or in a menu somewhere. Obviously we should hesitate to support any ad-based OS due to privacy concerns, but an honest person could make a very honest living building this sort of thing on top of Linux, and give the user the option to turn off any of the ad options that he or she doesn't want.
We already have that problem without the Semantic Web. Semantic Web coding is not a fix for that problem, it's a fix for other problems.
This is like saying "Don't use Open Source software because people will do bad things with it". People will do bad things with or without Open Source software, and with or without the Semantic Web.
Anyway the article isn't very clear... By "Semantic Web", are we talking about using <div>s and <p>s instead of <table>s and <br>s? Or are we talking about microformats? Or something else?
One more thing... if google doesn't support the "Semantic Web", it will most likely fail.
"Misuse of the Internet to violate the law can ultimately only serve to harm legitimate businesses."
I don't see how Internet Gambling could harm legitimate business...
Does Gimpshop still have all those obnoxious windows? Are they trying to claim that it's a feature and not a bug? (I realize that some people might like it, I just can't get past that part, and I think there are a lot of users out there like me who want to switch. I'm not trying to start a flamewar over which method is better)