Intelligent interfaces like you describe wouldn't be incredibly difficult to code, the problem is that they'd be unreliable. What if the interface "thinks" that you're going to attempt to load one program, when in reality you're actually moving for the program next to it? Now computer resources are being used up to preload the long program, slowing the time it takes to load the actual program you want to use. Everyone needs to stop hoping and waiting for the next "nifty" interface and realize that function over form is still better.
Like someone else said, for most tasks you just can't beat the CLI. Everything else is just going to slow you down.
What people should be waiting for is a method to make a CLI more accessible and easy to use. Problem is, I can't think of any CLI front-end that would be as quick and easy to use as the CLI itself.
Shit. Sorry: not enough caffeine. I need to read the article more clearly. It's the standard 12cm discs that will be 27GB.
Yeah. That's what I was saying. It'd be cool if Philips was showing off some regular CD-sized discs that can hold 27gb of data - but a tiny one that can hold 1gb isn't very interesting.
The technology is pretty damn cool, but it's like every other bit of cool technology we hear about - more than likely it'll take years before it's in wide-spread use. In this case, I don't really see the point though. A DVD can hold much more information and because of that my DVD drive is good for playing discs that contain movies, lots of media, games, regular CDs, whatever. There's no reason to add another (smaller) data storage format to the PC......and in the case of other consumer-level products that might use this: what's the point? The main use for CDs right now is to hold audio, but the vast majority of artists can't even fill a CD with music.
So, really, what's the point?
(by the way, I AM aware that the technology is cool, I just think that making a tiny disc that doesn't offer any real storage advantage was a poor choice to make use of it)
...they do matter, but maybe not to the public in a really direct way. When games win awards like this before they're even playable they generate more hype. More people and game websites and manages are talking about them. Ultimately, this buys the developers more time to get things done. After all, if people are caught up in talking about a game they won't forget that it exists, right?
On the other hand, when people stop talking about a game, demos stop being shown, and awards stop being won everyone forgets that the game even exists. Anyone want to tell me where Team Fortress 2 is?:)
Which is also the equivalent of putting cameras in public places, which makes it easy to track someone's movements throughout the entire day. Therefore, this will not be an effective argument against such monitoring to people who already consider things like cameras in public places to be a good idea.
I don't agree. For one thing, my house and my computer are not "public places". The websites I visit may be, but what I use to get there IS NOT. Here's an analogy...
Cameras in public places are kind of like the hit trackers that exist on websites today. They only "track" me if I happen to visit the place where they are and they can only track my obvious features. In the same way cameras can't tell you who I am, only what I look like, website tracking programs can show you my IP and maybe a little bit about me - but not who I am. Public cameras don't follow me around and neither do website tracking progs.
On the other hand, tracking my browsing habits specifically is a whole lot different. Now you've got a camera that's following me specifically. It knows who I am and can tell you exactly where I go, how long I stay there, and what I do once I'm there. It is definetly different.
Maybe, I dunno. But anyway... this sucks. Doesn't anyone at the DOJ realize that keeping a history of web browsing is about the equivalent of having someone follow you around with a pen and some paper and record the address of every place you visit during the day?
I don't understand how keeping track of information like this can possibly help with security or ANYTHING for that matter.
I agree that the Wayback Machine is pretty cool, although I don't think I'd call it "invaluable" or even a "resource". But it is very nice to go back and see old websites of mine stored there. Websites that I had taken down a looong time ago but are still being preserved in one way or another.
Ultimately, if the Wayback Machine manages to last for long enough it'll be a way for anyone that has ever put content on the web to have something they created stored and available.
???
It's been stated by Mulder and implied (and this is something you should know if you've only tuned in for like 10% of the shows) that he either believes in no higher power or his belief is very very limited. He needs facts, the Truth. He can't deal with something as unknowable as God. At least, that's how I interpreted it all along. I didn't see him as being able to find God, period. Oh, well....the last episode was disappointing. (no spoilers, hah!)
This isn't inteded to be a flame, but did you ever think that maybe intelligent people are smart enough to not care when Hollywood.. ahem... "rewrites history"? I'll be more disappointed if the world is dominated by people who think (incidentally, as this reviewer seems to) that it is the movie industry's job to portray history accurately.
I don't think I've ever seen any movie (american or otherwise) and believed it to be an accurate portayal of facts. There are films that DO (in many cases) accurately portay facts - they're called documentaries. Watch the history channel. Rent one. Some of them are actually interesting.
On the other hand, I don't think watching interesting and educational material is what most people who saw U-571 had in mind. They went to be entertained.
As a matter of fact, why is it that people randomly say things like "but our TV watching/taught populous takes it as the word of history" when it supports what they're trying to say? Knowing a whole lot of people who do love movies and television I can say that they don't look at them as fact or whatever. They can tell the difference. Almost every adult and teenager can. Are you worried about five year olds being fooled into believing that U-571 is historically accurate?
So, to stop ranting, yes... most of the comments are going to be that this movie is ancient history. It's two years old. People who are planning to rent the movie can dig up old reviews. No one has to worry about spending $8 on the movie and sitting in a crowded movie theater to watch it anymore. That is the only concern anyone with a moderate level of intelligence should have about the movie. The same goes for two years ago when it was released. It's a movie made in America. It's being sold to Americans, just like movies made in other countries are sold to people who live in those countries. Deal with it.
Meaningless if this story were comparing Spiderman to E.T., but not meaningless when comparing it to a movie that was released only a few months ago. Ticket prices haven't risen significantly (or at all, probably) since Harry Potter is a very recent movie.
So I agree that money made is a useless figure for comparing movies with a big gap between release times (10-15 years or more), but when comparing recent movies it serves its purposes well enough. I suppose it's most useful to suits, though...
"I know we're making a movie like spider-man, and maybe spider-man sold 87 million tickets.. but how much MONEY did it make?"
What are you saying? Turn the PS3 into a computer? I don't understand this move to make consoles more like computers. If you want a computer, buy one. Hell, you can get a Duron or something along those lines for real cheap nowadays. I love consoles, but I wish they could stay as game playing machines and not game playing machines that cost me more money than they should because some guy is too lazy to hack it to do something he wants it to do but that it wasn't meant to do (hah, how's that for a run on sentence?).
I've said before I have nothing against running Linux on consoles or getting them to do cool things. I think it's great. But there's no reason to force companies like Sony to essentially turn the playstation into a "computer lite".
...for running Linux off of a HDD hooked up to a dreamcast, although the PS2 serves the purpose a little better for me (just based on its shape and its PC-like CD tray): car "PC" systems! Think about it, a console is generally cheaper than a PC, has a smaller profile, doesn't generate as much heat, and has more "out of the box" uses (A PS2 placed in a car is already capable of playing games, DVDs, AND CDs - and with Linux running on it could probably very easy serve as an mp3 player).
A Dreamcast might not be as useful for that specific purpose, but the moral is don't immediatly assume any Linux project done "just for the hell of it" has no practical use. Anyone with the creativity and skill to get Linux running on unusual hardware (and in this case modify the hardware itself) can definetly come up with a good use for it.
Note to you: If you're reading slashdot regularly AND posting here odds are you can identify with those "geeky subversives" yourself. Your holier-than-thou attitude doesn't make you cool, it makes you look like a loser.
I can't believe this got modded up.
I disagree. I laugh as much when I see a sticker-covered, coffee-can exhaust adorned Honda Civic as when I see some huge gas-guzzling american truck lumber by. I don't know why there's so much hate towards ricecars. If the rice crowd things ugly-ass aluminum wings and neons are cool then let them go ahead and do it, no harm. On the other hand, I can't understand why anyone is willing to buy a car that only gets 15 miles to the gallon and then modify it so it only gets 8.
Personally, I prefer a compromise. My slightly-modified Maxima is incredibly comfortable, has a good sound system, and runs mid 14's .
Next Slashdot April Fool's Story...
on
CPAN Shifts Focus
·
· Score: 1
Up to this point, the April Fools jokes were pissing me. But for anyone who's just skipping this one over, read it! The article on Tom's Hardware is actually pretty funny (not theonion.com quality, but close). A few snippets:
Apparently, AMD foreseeing its inability to come up with anything as cool as the GeForce 4 werewolf demo, caved in immediately to Nvidia's demands, and an internal company task force is now working feverishly to come up with, as one source put it to us, "Really, really cool 3D stuff."
"Intel seems to be unconcerned about the possibility of AmVidia coming up with even cooler 3D demos. An Intel spokesperson told us, "Well, we still have those blue guys, and they have their own show in Vegas. That's really cool, and the kids just love it. We're thinking of buying the Moody Blues, too. I love that Things in White Satin song they do."
"ATi reacted by noting, "This does not have any impact on the value of our Canadian stock. We are going to have a really cool 3D demo using a cyborg moose that eats werewolves for lunch. So there." "
And my personal favorite...
"Bill Gates is believed to have told a gathering of his highest ranking officers, "Well, boys, I am really, really rich. This is your problem. Bye."
Qt is Quicktime. Qt is being devloped by Apple as a fully functional toolkit for creating GUI applications in X. Many Linux applications were written in Quicktime, in fact most of KDE is Quicktime. The licensing arguments are about the sorensen license, that Apple chose for Qt. It may or may not be compatible with the GPL.
Heh, careful. If too many people believe you ya might set off a rash of suicides on Slashdot;-)
Am I the only one who thinks Apple users are starting to sound a lot like the people in those annoying Kia commercials? Except that they can't really brag that their Macs cost thousands less than my Honda Accor- er, I mean my x86 PC.
How about: "My Apple iMac came standard with nice, hinted fonts and a breast implant-like case! And it cost hundreds more than your custom-built Athlon 2100+ XP that quad boots four operating systems!"
The Sims is fun. That's all there is to it. Really. The people who look into more deeply and then say they can't understand why anyone would want to play at life (or worse - the people who say it's sick to want to play at like) are the only ones getting sucked into an alternate reality here. The fact is, it's just a game. It's essentially a building/money-management/time-management game. It follows the same formula as all games do - set up a premise, give a challenge, and then provide a reward for completing the challenge.
The premise is that you get to control a bunch of simulated people. The challenge is to keep them happy so they can succeed at their job and ultimately this rewards you by allowing you to add more crap to their house or build a bigger house or whatever. It's fun to be able to design any kind of living environment you want and then see how "people" react to it.
It's also just as escapist as any other game. Think about it- when was the last time you controlled the lives of an entire neighborhood of people? Jesus, people, it's not like this is a first person shooter where your goal is to go take a shit every five minutes.
Alright, my posts on Slashdot generally consist of simple replies or Mac-bashing rants. I don't complain about off-topicness, about trolls, rejected submissions, or crap like that. But I've gotta say it... WHY THE HELL was this modded as a troll? This post makes a bunch of great points (some of them probably unintended) and doesn't seem like it was intended as a troll at all. I don't think the two groups accurately describes all geeks (heh, I don't live in a cube, but I've been known to spend days on end coding personal projects wall watching the Simpsons and taking breaks to play games..), but it really is important to realize that extreme physical exertion inflicted on oneself to not look like a quitter isn't the only form of disciplined devotion out there.
For some people it's a great thing and I have loads of respect for someone who can go through this. On the other hand, some people just aren't into it. I'm in a pretty good physical shape, I spent a long time doing serious amounts of exercise in a day, and in the end I just decided it was pointless. I don't have any great need to be in great shape and have people look up to me because of it nor do I feel like I need to prove something to myself or anyone.
Is there really a downside to do a lot of exercise every day and being in good shape? Of course not, but for a lot of people there are better ways to spend those 90-120 minutes.
Heh, I know what you mean. When I saw that picture I tried to imagine what an impact like that would do to Earth. Just look at the size of that sucker. An asteroid like that would probably blow Earth to bits, not just kill off the dinosaurs.
When I first saw the article I thought that was representative of what almost hit us:)
The problem with that is how easy it would be to bring the world to its knees by stealing that one huge database. Once you've got it you just make a simple program that reads in the contents of the whole database and then use that program from computers around the world to hit major websites and servers. Before you know it, every single ebay, amazon, and paypal account has been comprimised and trillions of dollars are being used without permission. Credit card companies are swamped with complaints, the big websites fail because every damn user account was cracked, etc. etc. etc.
No, I think it's a bad idea to have all the passwords in one big database.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Intelligent interfaces like you describe wouldn't be incredibly difficult to code, the problem is that they'd be unreliable. What if the interface "thinks" that you're going to attempt to load one program, when in reality you're actually moving for the program next to it? Now computer resources are being used up to preload the long program, slowing the time it takes to load the actual program you want to use. Everyone needs to stop hoping and waiting for the next "nifty" interface and realize that function over form is still better.
Like someone else said, for most tasks you just can't beat the CLI. Everything else is just going to slow you down.
What people should be waiting for is a method to make a CLI more accessible and easy to use. Problem is, I can't think of any CLI front-end that would be as quick and easy to use as the CLI itself.
Shit. Sorry: not enough caffeine. I need to read the article more clearly. It's the standard 12cm discs that will be 27GB.
Yeah. That's what I was saying. It'd be cool if Philips was showing off some regular CD-sized discs that can hold 27gb of data - but a tiny one that can hold 1gb isn't very interesting.
The technology is pretty damn cool, but it's like every other bit of cool technology we hear about - more than likely it'll take years before it's in wide-spread use. In this case, I don't really see the point though. A DVD can hold much more information and because of that my DVD drive is good for playing discs that contain movies, lots of media, games, regular CDs, whatever. There's no reason to add another (smaller) data storage format to the PC... ...and in the case of other consumer-level products that might use this: what's the point? The main use for CDs right now is to hold audio, but the vast majority of artists can't even fill a CD with music.
So, really, what's the point?
(by the way, I AM aware that the technology is cool, I just think that making a tiny disc that doesn't offer any real storage advantage was a poor choice to make use of it)
...they do matter, but maybe not to the public in a really direct way. When games win awards like this before they're even playable they generate more hype. More people and game websites and manages are talking about them. Ultimately, this buys the developers more time to get things done. After all, if people are caught up in talking about a game they won't forget that it exists, right?
:)
On the other hand, when people stop talking about a game, demos stop being shown, and awards stop being won everyone forgets that the game even exists. Anyone want to tell me where Team Fortress 2 is?
Which is also the equivalent of putting cameras in public places, which makes it easy to track someone's movements throughout the entire day. Therefore, this will not be an effective argument against such monitoring to people who already consider things like cameras in public places to be a good idea.
I don't agree. For one thing, my house and my computer are not "public places". The websites I visit may be, but what I use to get there IS NOT. Here's an analogy...
Cameras in public places are kind of like the hit trackers that exist on websites today. They only "track" me if I happen to visit the place where they are and they can only track my obvious features. In the same way cameras can't tell you who I am, only what I look like, website tracking programs can show you my IP and maybe a little bit about me - but not who I am. Public cameras don't follow me around and neither do website tracking progs.
On the other hand, tracking my browsing habits specifically is a whole lot different. Now you've got a camera that's following me specifically. It knows who I am and can tell you exactly where I go, how long I stay there, and what I do once I'm there. It is definetly different.
Maybe, I dunno. But anyway... this sucks. Doesn't anyone at the DOJ realize that keeping a history of web browsing is about the equivalent of having someone follow you around with a pen and some paper and record the address of every place you visit during the day? I don't understand how keeping track of information like this can possibly help with security or ANYTHING for that matter.
I agree that the Wayback Machine is pretty cool, although I don't think I'd call it "invaluable" or even a "resource". But it is very nice to go back and see old websites of mine stored there. Websites that I had taken down a looong time ago but are still being preserved in one way or another. Ultimately, if the Wayback Machine manages to last for long enough it'll be a way for anyone that has ever put content on the web to have something they created stored and available.
??? It's been stated by Mulder and implied (and this is something you should know if you've only tuned in for like 10% of the shows) that he either believes in no higher power or his belief is very very limited. He needs facts, the Truth. He can't deal with something as unknowable as God. At least, that's how I interpreted it all along. I didn't see him as being able to find God, period. Oh, well. ...the last episode was disappointing. (no spoilers, hah!)
This isn't inteded to be a flame, but did you ever think that maybe intelligent people are smart enough to not care when Hollywood.. ahem... "rewrites history"? I'll be more disappointed if the world is dominated by people who think (incidentally, as this reviewer seems to) that it is the movie industry's job to portray history accurately.
I don't think I've ever seen any movie (american or otherwise) and believed it to be an accurate portayal of facts. There are films that DO (in many cases) accurately portay facts - they're called documentaries. Watch the history channel. Rent one. Some of them are actually interesting.
On the other hand, I don't think watching interesting and educational material is what most people who saw U-571 had in mind. They went to be entertained.
As a matter of fact, why is it that people randomly say things like "but our TV watching/taught populous takes it as the word of history" when it supports what they're trying to say? Knowing a whole lot of people who do love movies and television I can say that they don't look at them as fact or whatever. They can tell the difference. Almost every adult and teenager can. Are you worried about five year olds being fooled into believing that U-571 is historically accurate?
So, to stop ranting, yes... most of the comments are going to be that this movie is ancient history. It's two years old. People who are planning to rent the movie can dig up old reviews. No one has to worry about spending $8 on the movie and sitting in a crowded movie theater to watch it anymore. That is the only concern anyone with a moderate level of intelligence should have about the movie. The same goes for two years ago when it was released. It's a movie made in America. It's being sold to Americans, just like movies made in other countries are sold to people who live in those countries. Deal with it.
Meaningless if this story were comparing Spiderman to E.T., but not meaningless when comparing it to a movie that was released only a few months ago. Ticket prices haven't risen significantly (or at all, probably) since Harry Potter is a very recent movie.
So I agree that money made is a useless figure for comparing movies with a big gap between release times (10-15 years or more), but when comparing recent movies it serves its purposes well enough. I suppose it's most useful to suits, though...
"I know we're making a movie like spider-man, and maybe spider-man sold 87 million tickets.. but how much MONEY did it make?"
Still, it works for this comparison.
What if you refuse to drive under 100mph and think anyone who doesn't deserves to have their limbs slowly torn off?
What are you saying? Turn the PS3 into a computer? I don't understand this move to make consoles more like computers. If you want a computer, buy one. Hell, you can get a Duron or something along those lines for real cheap nowadays. I love consoles, but I wish they could stay as game playing machines and not game playing machines that cost me more money than they should because some guy is too lazy to hack it to do something he wants it to do but that it wasn't meant to do (hah, how's that for a run on sentence?).
I've said before I have nothing against running Linux on consoles or getting them to do cool things. I think it's great. But there's no reason to force companies like Sony to essentially turn the playstation into a "computer lite".
...for running Linux off of a HDD hooked up to a dreamcast, although the PS2 serves the purpose a little better for me (just based on its shape and its PC-like CD tray): car "PC" systems! Think about it, a console is generally cheaper than a PC, has a smaller profile, doesn't generate as much heat, and has more "out of the box" uses (A PS2 placed in a car is already capable of playing games, DVDs, AND CDs - and with Linux running on it could probably very easy serve as an mp3 player).
A Dreamcast might not be as useful for that specific purpose, but the moral is don't immediatly assume any Linux project done "just for the hell of it" has no practical use. Anyone with the creativity and skill to get Linux running on unusual hardware (and in this case modify the hardware itself) can definetly come up with a good use for it.
Note to you: If you're reading slashdot regularly AND posting here odds are you can identify with those "geeky subversives" yourself. Your holier-than-thou attitude doesn't make you cool, it makes you look like a loser. I can't believe this got modded up.
I disagree. I laugh as much when I see a sticker-covered, coffee-can exhaust adorned Honda Civic as when I see some huge gas-guzzling american truck lumber by. I don't know why there's so much hate towards ricecars. If the rice crowd things ugly-ass aluminum wings and neons are cool then let them go ahead and do it, no harm. On the other hand, I can't understand why anyone is willing to buy a car that only gets 15 miles to the gallon and then modify it so it only gets 8.
Personally, I prefer a compromise. My slightly-modified Maxima is incredibly comfortable, has a good sound system, and runs mid 14's .
Subject: Slashdot to stop April Fool's Jokes
:-)
Up to this point, the April Fools jokes were pissing me. But for anyone who's just skipping this one over, read it! The article on Tom's Hardware is actually pretty funny (not theonion.com quality, but close). A few snippets:
Apparently, AMD foreseeing its inability to come up with anything as cool as the GeForce 4 werewolf demo, caved in immediately to Nvidia's demands, and an internal company task force is now working feverishly to come up with, as one source put it to us, "Really, really cool 3D stuff."
"Intel seems to be unconcerned about the possibility of AmVidia coming up with even cooler 3D demos. An Intel spokesperson told us, "Well, we still have those blue guys, and they have their own show in Vegas. That's really cool, and the kids just love it. We're thinking of buying the Moody Blues, too. I love that Things in White Satin song they do."
"ATi reacted by noting, "This does not have any impact on the value of our Canadian stock. We are going to have a really cool 3D demo using a cyborg moose that eats werewolves for lunch. So there." "
And my personal favorite...
"Bill Gates is believed to have told a gathering of his highest ranking officers, "Well, boys, I am really, really rich. This is your problem. Bye."
Qt is Quicktime. Qt is being devloped by Apple as a fully functional toolkit for creating GUI applications in X. Many Linux applications were written in Quicktime, in fact most of KDE is Quicktime. The licensing arguments are about the sorensen license, that Apple chose for Qt. It may or may not be compatible with the GPL.
;-)
Heh, careful. If too many people believe you ya might set off a rash of suicides on Slashdot
Am I the only one who thinks Apple users are starting to sound a lot like the people in those annoying Kia commercials? Except that they can't really brag that their Macs cost thousands less than my Honda Accor- er, I mean my x86 PC.
How about: "My Apple iMac came standard with nice, hinted fonts and a breast implant-like case! And it cost hundreds more than your custom-built Athlon 2100+ XP that quad boots four operating systems!"
Someone else read the my teacher is an alien series!? Sweet! I'm the only person I know who's ever even heard of it. :)
The Sims is fun. That's all there is to it. Really. The people who look into more deeply and then say they can't understand why anyone would want to play at life (or worse - the people who say it's sick to want to play at like) are the only ones getting sucked into an alternate reality here. The fact is, it's just a game. It's essentially a building/money-management/time-management game. It follows the same formula as all games do - set up a premise, give a challenge, and then provide a reward for completing the challenge.
The premise is that you get to control a bunch of simulated people. The challenge is to keep them happy so they can succeed at their job and ultimately this rewards you by allowing you to add more crap to their house or build a bigger house or whatever. It's fun to be able to design any kind of living environment you want and then see how "people" react to it.
It's also just as escapist as any other game. Think about it- when was the last time you controlled the lives of an entire neighborhood of people? Jesus, people, it's not like this is a first person shooter where your goal is to go take a shit every five minutes.
Lighten up.
Alright, my posts on Slashdot generally consist of simple replies or Mac-bashing rants. I don't complain about off-topicness, about trolls, rejected submissions, or crap like that. But I've gotta say it... WHY THE HELL was this modded as a troll? This post makes a bunch of great points (some of them probably unintended) and doesn't seem like it was intended as a troll at all. I don't think the two groups accurately describes all geeks (heh, I don't live in a cube, but I've been known to spend days on end coding personal projects wall watching the Simpsons and taking breaks to play games..), but it really is important to realize that extreme physical exertion inflicted on oneself to not look like a quitter isn't the only form of disciplined devotion out there.
For some people it's a great thing and I have loads of respect for someone who can go through this. On the other hand, some people just aren't into it. I'm in a pretty good physical shape, I spent a long time doing serious amounts of exercise in a day, and in the end I just decided it was pointless. I don't have any great need to be in great shape and have people look up to me because of it nor do I feel like I need to prove something to myself or anyone.
Is there really a downside to do a lot of exercise every day and being in good shape? Of course not, but for a lot of people there are better ways to spend those 90-120 minutes.
Heh, I know what you mean. When I saw that picture I tried to imagine what an impact like that would do to Earth. Just look at the size of that sucker. An asteroid like that would probably blow Earth to bits, not just kill off the dinosaurs.
:)
When I first saw the article I thought that was representative of what almost hit us
Of course, I kind of like the idea of having something like this as PART of my corrective glasses.
The problem with that is how easy it would be to bring the world to its knees by stealing that one huge database. Once you've got it you just make a simple program that reads in the contents of the whole database and then use that program from computers around the world to hit major websites and servers. Before you know it, every single ebay, amazon, and paypal account has been comprimised and trillions of dollars are being used without permission. Credit card companies are swamped with complaints, the big websites fail because every damn user account was cracked, etc. etc. etc. No, I think it's a bad idea to have all the passwords in one big database. :)