Reportedly, enterprise Linux customers and proponents like HP and Sun pulled out of a scheduled conference to debate the future of Linux desktops. In general, how would you rate the importance of Lindows and its CEO, Michael Robertson, to the viability of Linux on the desktop?
Of course, since we're talking about virtual keyboards that don't exist yet, then this should be considered a "virtual review". Which is like saying Duke Nukemn Forever is a "virtual product".
Of course it's "better". Who would you rather talk to: The Register, who might decide to bite the hand that's feeding it (a story) and call the source an arrogant bastard in print; or the WSJ, which commands more readers who buy stock on the advice of their brokers (read: sheep), and who generally receive exclusives based on the size of said audience?
That said, the WSJ does indeed have fresh and interesting stories and writing. Just don't assume that the first time you see a story in the WSJ is the first time that story has actually appeared in print.
Yes, I'm sure Google excludes the hundreds of articles a "professional journalist" would publish over the course of a career. In case you haven't noticed, most major media organizations have web sites these days.
Unless Google is persecuting him, too, just like Slashdot.
OMG. "CONSPIRACY THEORY II"!!!!
Brin does technoculture best
on
Kiln People
·
· Score: 1
IMO, Brin's strength is his ability to take a single idea (in this case, dittos) and fashion a cohesive society around it. He obviously goes into a lot of thought about how the technology would affect life in general, both in business and recreation.
Such insight occasionally leads to honest-to-goodness (accurate) predictions of social change, such as the description of the proto-WWW in Earth. I would agree that Brin tends to lapse into a sort of cosmic-mystic dogma to tie up loose ends, but that's typical sf.
Every author tries to achieve something profound, whether it's the elegant simplicity of a simple premise explained or a space station blowing up.
I'm guessing someone's a bit peeved at the arrogance of your sig...
Exactly who do you write for as a "professional journalist"? Google searches only turn up your Slashdot comments, and I think you need a wider audience than that;)
Sadly, I suspect that citizens are no better informed.
On a related topic, a colleague of mine is writing a piece for PC Magazine. You can contact him at sebastian_rupley@ziffdavis.com if you'd like to provide your own comments.
I apologize, because this is just wild speculation. Still, if companies like Sharman Networks can hide out in foreign countries and try to avoid the legal reach of the U.S., wouldn't it be "legal" for the RIAA or its agents (or the U.S. government, for that matter) to hide out in some foreign country with a fat Internet connection and hack away?
It's an interesting IANAL question: if the original information is discovered illegally, but then confirmed, does that legally invalidate the original source of information? Consider: if the RIAA were to ask ISP.net for a laundry list of users who were engaged in suspicious activity, the ISP could refuse, and rightfully so. It's a bit more difficult to refuse when asked for information about a specific user, say any and all information about "John Doe", a "known" illegal file trader.
By the way, that touch panel is designed ass-backwards. It would be much more intuitive to move the whole number pad one space over, and run the letters down the left side, then across the bottom. But I realize the Bar Monkey guys probably didn't design it:)
Unfortunately, due to the lack of comments in this thread, I think the overwhelming opinion is "Who cares?" (/troll)
Seriously, though, the summation of the article wasn't exactly thrilling. Mailing list incentives to convince kids to buy Star Wars action figures?! Shouldn't you be linking to CES previews or something more interesting?
Hold it...you've seen this document and you're not going to cite details? What the hell?! For pete's sake, man, grow a pair and post as much of it as you can! The Times couldn't get a hold of it!
Sure we can. Look at all the opposition to the Patriot Act. And that was with a Democratically-controlled Senate.
Fucking flyover-state conservatives made this happen, and they won't be happy until "Jesus" and "America" are every other goddamn word.
Space matters in Japan
on
Robocoaster
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· Score: 3, Funny
America : Japan CRT : LCD SUV : Compact hybrid Rollercoaster: Robocoaster
It's all about lack of space, apparently. Although you would think that the Japanese would choose to invest in giant mecha to CRUSH THE GAIJIN COASTERS TO DUST!!!!
Initially, my reaction was: "Mod this up, as this fellow doesn't know his own wisdom."
Now, I'm not so sure.
I started college as a physics-English major. I later dropped physics, as I was unable to pursue all of the courses I wished. I also struggled with the math, but I'm happy to say I maintained passing grades.
What Fastball (a baseball-loving liberal arts major! I wish you were a girl, so I could date you...) swings and misses at is the realization that college should be used to refine the skills one learns in high school -- and those are not merely facts like who won the Battle of Waterloo.
The metalesson college offers is refining one's ability to learn and reason, and providing an intellectually nurturing environment to do just that. With all due respect, stating that he had to "waste away" for two semesters of calculus is itself a waste. Think Snow Crash: you're training your mind to accept knowledge, even if that knowledge isn't being processed yet.
(This argument applies also to the specialized training you can receive in college - even if advanced HTML is not offered, I would argue that a basic comp sci course offers the principles needed later.)
Moreover: what job should college prepare you for? I would wager that there are many people who would have never predicted that they would end up in the job they are now.
Isolating yourself intellectually from something you find "stupid" and "unnecessary" is itself a waste, similar to the argument that living your whole life in Bumfuck, OH is acceptable because the outside world has nothing to offer.
"Our engineering sample SlateVision came with an 800MHz Crusoe TM5800 processor, 256MB of PC133 memory, a Lynx 3DM8+ graphics chip, and a 20GB hard drive. Keep in mind that the specifications on the unit are said to be changing for the final shipping unit. The retail model is supposed to come with the 1GHz version of the TM5800 Crusoe processor and offer DDR memory; two items which should help speed noticeably."
A review of a system should reflect the performance of the shipping product, or else it's just a preview. Especially when the product's specs are expected to change dramatically.
Unfortunately, with regards to just the writing itself, many of the comments attached to the article were better written than the article. Just a stylistic comment:)
I'm guessing those "best reporters" are on the unemployment rolls now, hm? But you can save the post-mortem for the CSI guys.
All the same, best of luck finding a job. I can't say that any of the CMP guys ever paid much attention to EN, but competition's a good thing, as are employed reporters.
I competed against them for several years as a reporter for EBN. What another poster perceived as their advantage (that they competed against EET) was their fatal flaw: they didn't just compete against EET, but EBN and other electronics books as well.
It was fine when the 4004 represented the majority of the industry, but they tried to cover MCU, ASICs, design software, systems, you name it. That became impossible ten years ago, and they basically scrambled for the past decade to try and keep up and stay in business. (Also, we'd use them as a farm team and hire away all their best reporters...)
Will run a MAME port, so you can run Super Mario Bros. on a machine that can play Super Mario Advance connected to a machine that can play Super Mario Sunshine. Or maybe I'm the one eating magic mushrooms.
From Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon:
"It's like Intel's doing one of these cool features that an engineer was paid to come up with, and now they're waiting until the last minute to sell it," Reeves said. "For us, it's very cool, but we're not going to crow about it in ads. It's a feature out there in search of good marketing."
From a news article over on ExtremeTech. Some other interesting stuff about how hyperthreading sucks up the audio overhead on a sound card, too.
It's interesting that people pirate songs, but not albums; and movies, not specific scenes. Why?
At least with music you can hear it on the radio--and if it's a good album, chances are you'll hear several songs released as singles. For example, if you like U2, I'd reckon that you'd have figured out that Joshua Tree is a good album since pretty much every song was played on the radio.
The counterargument to your Blue Traveler Fore! argument is that an album is like a newspaper--you might not like all of the songs on it, but they may be ones that the band feels you ought to hear--you might not want to hear a ska version of "Sweet Home Alabama", but some band might think that it says something. I don't know what, it's art.
If the public takes a consumer point of view (I want my music a la carte!) then the market will orient itself to providde that service. If bands would produce albums that are an artistic whole (sort of like The Who's Tommy) and people would recognize that as such, then I wonder if the piracy model would be the same today.
My point is that the music world was once more aligned to a better artisitc model: a song played on the radio could be previewed for free, with the understanding that it was indicative of a larger body of work. Cammed movies should be seen, I feel, as the equivalent of a song playing on a radio.
Slashdot Mirror
Reportedly, enterprise Linux customers and proponents like HP and Sun pulled out of a scheduled conference to debate the future of Linux desktops. In general, how would you rate the importance of Lindows and its CEO, Michael Robertson, to the viability of Linux on the desktop?
Of course, since we're talking about virtual keyboards that don't exist yet, then this should be considered a "virtual review". Which is like saying Duke Nukemn Forever is a "virtual product".
That said, the WSJ does indeed have fresh and interesting stories and writing. Just don't assume that the first time you see a story in the WSJ is the first time that story has actually appeared in print.
Yes, I'm sure Google excludes the hundreds of articles a "professional journalist" would publish over the course of a career. In case you haven't noticed, most major media organizations have web sites these days.
Unless Google is persecuting him, too, just like Slashdot.
OMG. "CONSPIRACY THEORY II"!!!!
Such insight occasionally leads to honest-to-goodness (accurate) predictions of social change, such as the description of the proto-WWW in Earth. I would agree that Brin tends to lapse into a sort of cosmic-mystic dogma to tie up loose ends, but that's typical sf.
Every author tries to achieve something profound, whether it's the elegant simplicity of a simple premise explained or a space station blowing up.
I'm guessing someone's a bit peeved at the arrogance of your sig... Exactly who do you write for as a "professional journalist"? Google searches only turn up your Slashdot comments, and I think you need a wider audience than that ;)
Sadly, I suspect that citizens are no better informed. On a related topic, a colleague of mine is writing a piece for PC Magazine. You can contact him at sebastian_rupley@ziffdavis.com if you'd like to provide your own comments.
I apologize, because this is just wild speculation. Still, if companies like Sharman Networks can hide out in foreign countries and try to avoid the legal reach of the U.S., wouldn't it be "legal" for the RIAA or its agents (or the U.S. government, for that matter) to hide out in some foreign country with a fat Internet connection and hack away?
It's an interesting IANAL question: if the original information is discovered illegally, but then confirmed, does that legally invalidate the original source of information? Consider: if the RIAA were to ask ISP.net for a laundry list of users who were engaged in suspicious activity, the ISP could refuse, and rightfully so. It's a bit more difficult to refuse when asked for information about a specific user, say any and all information about "John Doe", a "known" illegal file trader.
After all, that's how the TV cop shows do it...
By the way, that touch panel is designed ass-backwards. It would be much more intuitive to move the whole number pad one space over, and run the letters down the left side, then across the bottom. But I realize the Bar Monkey guys probably didn't design it :)
Unfortunately, due to the lack of comments in this thread, I think the overwhelming opinion is "Who cares?" (/troll)
Seriously, though, the summation of the article wasn't exactly thrilling. Mailing list incentives to convince kids to buy Star Wars action figures?! Shouldn't you be linking to CES previews or something more interesting?
Hold it...you've seen this document and you're not going to cite details? What the hell?! For pete's sake, man, grow a pair and post as much of it as you can! The Times couldn't get a hold of it!
Sure we can. Look at all the opposition to the Patriot Act. And that was with a Democratically-controlled Senate.
Fucking flyover-state conservatives made this happen, and they won't be happy until "Jesus" and "America" are every other goddamn word.
America : Japan
CRT : LCD
SUV : Compact hybrid
Rollercoaster: Robocoaster
It's all about lack of space, apparently. Although you would think that the Japanese would choose to invest in giant mecha to CRUSH THE GAIJIN COASTERS TO DUST!!!!
(Then again, that might not be polite.)
Now, I'm not so sure.
I started college as a physics-English major. I later dropped physics, as I was unable to pursue all of the courses I wished. I also struggled with the math, but I'm happy to say I maintained passing grades.
What Fastball (a baseball-loving liberal arts major! I wish you were a girl, so I could date you...) swings and misses at is the realization that college should be used to refine the skills one learns in high school -- and those are not merely facts like who won the Battle of Waterloo.
The metalesson college offers is refining one's ability to learn and reason, and providing an intellectually nurturing environment to do just that. With all due respect, stating that he had to "waste away" for two semesters of calculus is itself a waste. Think Snow Crash: you're training your mind to accept knowledge, even if that knowledge isn't being processed yet.
(This argument applies also to the specialized training you can receive in college - even if advanced HTML is not offered, I would argue that a basic comp sci course offers the principles needed later.)
Moreover: what job should college prepare you for? I would wager that there are many people who would have never predicted that they would end up in the job they are now.
Isolating yourself intellectually from something you find "stupid" and "unnecessary" is itself a waste, similar to the argument that living your whole life in Bumfuck, OH is acceptable because the outside world has nothing to offer.
And by the time the thread hits 300 responses, mods will be handing out "+1: Yeah, yeah, yeah" and "+1: All right, already"...
A review of a system should reflect the performance of the shipping product, or else it's just a preview. Especially when the product's specs are expected to change dramatically.
So has anyone published a guide to modding your old G4 case into a litter box?
Unfortunately, with regards to just the writing itself, many of the comments attached to the article were better written than the article. Just a stylistic comment :)
All the same, best of luck finding a job. I can't say that any of the CMP guys ever paid much attention to EN, but competition's a good thing, as are employed reporters.
A wave of laptop-jacking begins...
It was fine when the 4004 represented the majority of the industry, but they tried to cover MCU, ASICs, design software, systems, you name it. That became impossible ten years ago, and they basically scrambled for the past decade to try and keep up and stay in business. (Also, we'd use them as a farm team and hire away all their best reporters...)
Will run a MAME port, so you can run Super Mario Bros. on a machine that can play Super Mario Advance connected to a machine that can play Super Mario Sunshine. Or maybe I'm the one eating magic mushrooms.
From a news article over on ExtremeTech. Some other interesting stuff about how hyperthreading sucks up the audio overhead on a sound card, too.
As an old Byte oclumnist, I miss it. It's but a shadow of its former self.
It's interesting that people pirate songs, but not albums; and movies, not specific scenes. Why? At least with music you can hear it on the radio--and if it's a good album, chances are you'll hear several songs released as singles. For example, if you like U2, I'd reckon that you'd have figured out that Joshua Tree is a good album since pretty much every song was played on the radio. The counterargument to your Blue Traveler Fore! argument is that an album is like a newspaper--you might not like all of the songs on it, but they may be ones that the band feels you ought to hear--you might not want to hear a ska version of "Sweet Home Alabama", but some band might think that it says something. I don't know what, it's art. If the public takes a consumer point of view (I want my music a la carte!) then the market will orient itself to providde that service. If bands would produce albums that are an artistic whole (sort of like The Who's Tommy) and people would recognize that as such, then I wonder if the piracy model would be the same today. My point is that the music world was once more aligned to a better artisitc model: a song played on the radio could be previewed for free, with the understanding that it was indicative of a larger body of work. Cammed movies should be seen, I feel, as the equivalent of a song playing on a radio.