Are you joking or trying to troll? There are very smart people among these terrorists. If you think the most dangerous terrorists are fighting in Afghanistan, you are wrong. Maybe 'random terrorist programmers' wouldn't make it through the Microsoft interview process, but a 'highly educated, higly motivated fanatic with IQ over 160' has a quite good change.
Btw, you don't consider your example anything more than trivial do you?
This has been answered already, but still.. I suppose you are talking about same system of quality control that would make it nearly impossible for the easter eggs get through, not to mention the (hopefully unintentional) security holes.
Al Queda is not just terrorists in afghanistan. They are all around the world. They have well educated, smart people well capable of getting jobs at Microsoft.
As Microsoft would need terrorist help
on
al Qaeda Hacks XP?
·
· Score: 2, Redundant
Knowing Microsoft's track record, I wonder how much more damage some terrorist can add.
I think it is more important to include as many effects as you can: gravity, linear momentum, angular momentum, elastic/inelastic collisions, friction (surface and wind), than it is to model the effects perfectly.
And books like this tell you how to implement them (and how to do it right). If you implement a physics engine, you can do a (semi)realistic one. It doesn't take that much more time to do it right. Even more people (me maybe) would have bought carmageddon if it had felt just a little bit more like driving a real car.
I feel kinda stupid answering to AC, but here it goes.
This discussion is not about maintenance, but about locating files on your computer
Right! The bike-example was about maintenance, not the discussion.
Millions of people drive cars and they don't need to know how the car works. And that's the way things should be! Technology should make things easier, not harder.
I like to say: "Computers are complex!", There's only so much you can simplify, but it won't help when users need to do complex tasks. They HAVE to learn it!
Computers are indeed complex, just like cars. They can be simple to operate, just like cars. Users do not need to do complex tasks that would require them to know how the computer works(if you disagree, name one).
A computer is not a magic wand, no matter what romantic dreams you may have.
I have very few romantic dreams, thank you. But, do you really think that saying 'Computers are complex and hard to use, live with it' is better alternative than trying to make them easy to use?
It's easy to play the devil's advocate, but I think there's more poewr for enthusiasm than downplaying here.
The harder half is 6 or 12 videoprojectors (or more!), the mirrors and the (back) projection surfaces for the CAVE. Add in the tracking hardware (cost and complexity (ie EM interference))
Their source is GPL'd; it could be modified to use standard or flat monitors in a downsized setting.
you'll still need a team of grad students, builders and time.
How many/. readers are grad students and builders, I leave as an exercise for the reader to wonder.
you need a *big* room for one of these
Unless you downsize it. How many of us have spare space for wondrous technical projects...
The electronic (wall)paper is being developed at least by IBM and, err, was it HP (my memory fails me here and I'm too lazy to check/.'s comprehensive archives on all the stories of this subject). Say it will hit market 5 yrs from now; you'd still have 5 years to make a product out of this to get it to market by my wildly suggested deadline of ten yrs from now.
All that is needed for this breakthrough is all that work to create the usable content, just like DVD's need movies to sell.
I am sure some of us are willing to put together the effort in small groups of friends interested in this achievement. Just for the fun of it!
No you don't. The example about motorbike is not about using it, it's about maintenance. There is absolutely no need to know how motorbike or a computer works to use it. Basically user needs to know only how to (suprise!) use it. With motorbike, you don't want to be reliant on a mechanic. You probably don't want to rely on mechanic with computer either. But for Joe Average it is enough that a light 'you need to get a mechanic to see your machine' is sufficient.
If I recall, the holodecks also used force field treadmills or some such to control your movement.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they don't use force field treadmills. They don't actually really exist. It's only a tv-show (and/or a movie).
http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/ClusteredVR/szg/doc/Para me terExamples.txt
That seems like pretty doable by any geeks with enough boxes.
That would say if the 3D immersion has any usability to it at all, it will be in common use in 10 yrs. It might become the next big thing in living rooms like TV became 40 years ago.
However, what makes a new technology break through is not what it enables, but what you get with it. TV would have had no use whatsoever without the television programs made to be watched with it. Computers only broke through when there were programs for it.
Umm, I sense a great opportunity for all people who can really do great 3D graphics.
Not to mention what I already said about getting 3D GUIs off the ground at
The machines today come, thanks to ID and other game companies, equipped with graphics chips more than able to create an immersive 3D environment. This capability is totally unused in daily usage.
Graphics chips doesn't immersive 3d environment make. There is very good reason that we are still using 2d environments: we don't have 3d one.
3d environment isn't just about using polygons. Currently only functional immersive displays are CAVE-like installments and they aren't exactly customer grade hardware. Head mounted displays and such are currently too cumbersome to be used any length of time. Normal monitor is hardly on immersive display.
Another problem is navigation. Keyboard and mouse just aren't good in 3d use. It might be cool to move using mouse but it is hardly efficient. If more time is used in navigating user interface than actually getting results, it just doesn't work.
Usable 3d UI's will probably emerge in future and then it'll be important to find suitable metaphors and components. But it just isn't possible until we have customer level 3d equipment.
This desktop idea would only serve to let people use the very basic functions of a computer, but it will never let them get any further than that.
Vast majority of users run very few applications. They have absolutely no need to 'get any further' or know anything about the internal architecture of the computer. Shouldn't we ('we' as in software developer) make things as easy, simple and intuitive as possible for them. For developers, there could be additional tools to access all information they need.
The desktop and window interface as we know it was developed in Xerox Palo Alto laboratories.
Why we still 20-30 yrs later have no good new metaphors is because there is no fundamental development dedicated to that effort.
The machines today come, thanks to ID and other game companies, equipped with graphics chips more than able to create an immersive 3D environment. This capability is totally unused in daily usage.
Trash the disk metaphor like it has been trashed in UNIX file hierarchy: you can still know everything about your disks, but they have become irrelevant in the directory structure.
A good 3D environment should trash the desktops as well and use spaces instead. Yes you can have your 2D windows for text terminals and whatever current applications, but you can as well do your 3D CAD/CGI design/rendering in space provided by a 3D GUI. Imagine being able to "turn around" with mouse or similar (headmounted?) device in order to look around; to be able to "zoom" into and past separate windows and work areas (workspaces) with mouse wheel or cursor keys.
Imagine being able to link to each other related files/items in a 3D-space instead of 2D. What would that do to your DB schemes. Or to zoom into a software package's source icon to see its design, zoom into a class to see its components, and zoom into a method to see its source.
Etc.
This would require trial-and-error, examining, playing around. Where is the team that is being paid for this development?
Any hints would be greatly appreciated. I could even be interested in such work myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, new games don't have them? I wonder why?
Are you joking or trying to troll? There are very smart people among these terrorists. If you think the most dangerous terrorists are fighting in Afghanistan, you are wrong. Maybe 'random terrorist programmers' wouldn't make it through the Microsoft interview process, but a 'highly educated, higly motivated fanatic with IQ over 160' has a quite good change.
Btw, you don't consider your example anything more than trivial do you?
This has been answered already, but still.. I suppose you are talking about same system of quality control that would make it nearly impossible for the easter eggs get through, not to mention the (hopefully unintentional) security holes.
Al Queda is not just terrorists in afghanistan. They are all around the world. They have well educated, smart people well capable of getting jobs at Microsoft.
Knowing Microsoft's track record, I wonder how much more damage some terrorist can add.
I think it is more important to include as many effects as you can: gravity, linear momentum, angular momentum, elastic/inelastic collisions, friction (surface and wind), than it is to model the effects perfectly.
And books like this tell you how to implement them (and how to do it right). If you implement a physics engine, you can do a (semi)realistic one. It doesn't take that much more time to do it right. Even more people (me maybe) would have bought carmageddon if it had felt just a little bit more like driving a real car.
Would be a cpu fan club?
nfortunately, there isn't much benefit for most people from a 3D interface because they don't see or think in 3D.
I'm actually quite sure that most people see in 3D.
I have very few romantic dreams, thank you.
To be precise, I do have quite a few romantic dreams. However, most of them contain naught references to any kinds of machinery.
I feel kinda stupid answering to AC, but here it goes.
This discussion is not about maintenance, but about locating files on your computer
Right! The bike-example was about maintenance, not the discussion.
Millions of people drive cars and they don't need to know how the car works. And that's the way things should be! Technology should make things easier, not harder.
I like to say: "Computers are complex!", There's only so much you can simplify, but it won't help when users need to do complex tasks. They HAVE to learn it! Computers are indeed complex, just like cars. They can be simple to operate, just like cars. Users do not need to do complex tasks that would require them to know how the computer works(if you disagree, name one). A computer is not a magic wand, no matter what romantic dreams you may have.
I have very few romantic dreams, thank you. But, do you really think that saying 'Computers are complex and hard to use, live with it' is better alternative than trying to make them easy to use?
It's easy to play the devil's advocate, but I think there's more poewr for enthusiasm than downplaying here.
/. readers are grad students and builders, I leave as an exercise for the reader to wonder.
/.'s comprehensive archives on all the stories of this subject). Say it will hit market 5 yrs from now; you'd still have 5 years to make a product out of this to get it to market by my wildly suggested deadline of ten yrs from now.
The harder half is 6 or 12 videoprojectors (or more!), the mirrors and the (back) projection surfaces for the CAVE. Add in the tracking hardware (cost and complexity (ie EM interference))
Their source is GPL'd; it could be modified to use standard or flat monitors in a downsized setting.
you'll still need a team of grad students, builders and time.
Same goes for developing operating systems.
How many
you need a *big* room for one of these
Unless you downsize it. How many of us have spare space for wondrous technical projects...
The electronic (wall)paper is being developed at least by IBM and, err, was it HP (my memory fails me here and I'm too lazy to check
All that is needed for this breakthrough is all that work to create the usable content, just like DVD's need movies to sell.
I am sure some of us are willing to put together the effort in small groups of friends interested in this achievement. Just for the fun of it!
To use it, you must know basicly how it works.
No you don't. The example about motorbike is not about using it, it's about maintenance. There is absolutely no need to know how motorbike or a computer works to use it. Basically user needs to know only how to (suprise!) use it. With motorbike, you don't want to be reliant on a mechanic. You probably don't want to rely on mechanic with computer either. But for Joe Average it is enough that a light 'you need to get a mechanic to see your machine' is sufficient.
If I recall, the holodecks also used force field treadmills or some such to control your movement.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but they don't use force field treadmills. They don't actually really exist. It's only a tv-show (and/or a movie).
Also, there's no santa claus.
See their HOWTO for building up your own setup at
a me terExamples.txt
7 18 945
http://www.isl.uiuc.edu/ClusteredVR/szg/doc/Par
That seems like pretty doable by any geeks with enough boxes.
That would say if the 3D immersion has any usability to it at all, it will be in common use in 10 yrs. It might become the next big thing in living rooms like TV became 40 years ago.
However, what makes a new technology break through is not what it enables, but what you get with it. TV would have had no use whatsoever without the television programs made to be watched with it. Computers only broke through when there were programs for it.
Umm, I sense a great opportunity for all people who can really do great 3D graphics.
Not to mention what I already said about getting 3D GUIs off the ground at
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25035&cid=2
WAR against the Islamic faith
Since when? I totally missed that! Who is on the other side, all other religions? Please, tell me more!
Graphics chips doesn't immersive 3d environment make. There is very good reason that we are still using 2d environments: we don't have 3d one.
3d environment isn't just about using polygons. Currently only functional immersive displays are CAVE-like installments and they aren't exactly customer grade hardware. Head mounted displays and such are currently too cumbersome to be used any length of time. Normal monitor is hardly on immersive display.
Another problem is navigation. Keyboard and mouse just aren't good in 3d use. It might be cool to move using mouse but it is hardly efficient. If more time is used in navigating user interface than actually getting results, it just doesn't work.
Usable 3d UI's will probably emerge in future and then it'll be important to find suitable metaphors and components. But it just isn't possible until we have customer level 3d equipment.
This desktop idea would only serve to let people use the very basic functions of a computer, but it will never let them get any further than that.
Vast majority of users run very few applications. They have absolutely no need to 'get any further' or know anything about the internal architecture of the computer. Shouldn't we ('we' as in software developer) make things as easy, simple and intuitive as possible for them. For developers, there could be additional tools to access all information they need.
The desktop and window interface as we know it was developed in Xerox Palo Alto laboratories.
Why we still 20-30 yrs later have no good new metaphors is because there is no fundamental development dedicated to that effort.
The machines today come, thanks to ID and other game companies, equipped with graphics chips more than able to create an immersive 3D environment. This capability is totally unused in daily usage.
Trash the disk metaphor like it has been trashed in UNIX file hierarchy: you can still know everything about your disks, but they have become irrelevant in the directory structure.
A good 3D environment should trash the desktops as well and use spaces instead. Yes you can have your 2D windows for text terminals and whatever current applications, but you can as well do your 3D CAD/CGI design/rendering in space provided by a 3D GUI. Imagine being able to "turn around" with mouse or similar (headmounted?) device in order to look around; to be able to "zoom" into and past separate windows and work areas (workspaces) with mouse wheel or cursor keys.
Imagine being able to link to each other related files/items in a 3D-space instead of 2D. What would that do to your DB schemes. Or to zoom into a software package's source icon to see its design, zoom into a class to see its components, and zoom into a method to see its source.
Etc.
This would require trial-and-error, examining, playing around. Where is the team that is being paid for this development?
Any hints would be greatly appreciated. I could even be interested in such work myself.