Re:It is a way to get another bubble
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well yeah. EVERYONE had to have a website. Didn't matter what you sold you had to sell it online as well. Billions were invested in making everything available online. Clothes, food, pets, toys. Some made sense (porn) most did not.
Yet at the time it was claimed that the Information Superhighway (remember that one?) was going to totally change the way we lived. The new economy because the old one was just not the way to do it anymore. You actually had companies loosing stock value because they had not announced an internet strategy. Profits? Who cares. In hindsight of course it all seems perfectly silly.
You've managed to misunderstand a lot. First, valuation is about future growth not today's profits. It was then and is now and always will be, in this system we have. Enormous potential will always give high valuations because it means investments will grow. It doesn't matter if you're not making any money. If you have a good plan and a great position, we get the right CEO, the right investors, a bitchin finance person and lawyers, and you're set. This has never changed.
The bubble was a time of great experimentation. It's really not obvious what the right answers are in new territory, but if people are free to try them out, the good ones are frequently found. We needed all those dumb ideas to be tried. Many were simply ahead of their time: it's easy to imagine the logical next few steps without being able to take them.
Web 2.0 is the web's adolescence. Basic problems of infancy are fixed, but lots of difficulties remain. Wait for another go round for your dream tech - 3.0 isn't as much of a joke as TFA's author thinks it is. The social network thing seems like it could result in secure identity, solving the account proliferation problem. ie, you'll log onto the entire web in a way. It's the last remaining big problem. I'd call that 3.0.
uh, hello? tfa is about detrimental habits, the negative ones, not the positive side of gaming. So, like, chill out. I can see that you've had it up to here with people and their opinions, so I think you should ignore the issue entirely from now on.
If you want to take the gloves off and deal with the issue honestly, that's it in a nutshell: gamers are "different and weird" and Must Be Stopped.
Oh, ok. So that whole "video games causes aggressive and violent behavior" opinion simply boils down to: those damn kids are different and weird. FYI, in 2004, in the US alone, the video game market size was 8.2 billion in revenue. That's not the different and weird. That's the mainstream.
Discussion of TFA has its place, but it promises zero-defect programming, which is impossible without working with the users.
On one end of the problem scale are the detailed technical questions - does it work, are there memory leaks, etc. But the other end of the scale is the question Is this the right thing? You have to know where you are on that scale when you are thinking about bugs and defects. From a process and programming perspective, clearly it is on the side of the technical details, and not the big questions of scope, purpose, and philosophy.
Suddenly I'm thinking of the measure of the greatness of poetry scene from Dead Poets Society. Right on. Yeah, I know, it's not about greatness, it's about box office success. I bet they left Gigli out of their tests.
All I am saying is we should EXPECT more from finalized products and software. Once we start expecting and accepting that early release software has problems it becomes no big deal to the vendors and you get stuck in a cycle.
I really want to agree with you. I mean I know, we should. Really, but the truth is that I just don't expect much from a 1.0 release. Consequently, I'm pleasantly surprised, whereas you're not.
Do you accept your new vehicle having problems as it comes off the showroom...?
No. But your computer hardware has a lot fewer flaws that the software that runs on it. Even in 2005 that's fairly unavoidable situation, not for a lack of effort by the software people or a surplus of skill on the hardware side.
Ya know its kinda off topic, but we should expect more from a 1.0 release. Everyone says well its version 1.0 of XXXXXX, expect problems. I disagree with that. To me 1.0 means it should be free of flaws... maybe light on the features but free on flaws.
So in your universe, 1.0 means as flawless as possible (AFAP), whereas for most everyone else, it clearly means the first public version - the First Release. I suppose then, in your universe, most everythning is still in beta. To that I say fine, but any given thing sucks by that measure and we still have to use it and get work done. So what of it?
You don't need to define art. There are things which have lasting value and things which don't (although that's not necessarily a requirement for art). People agree on it generally, given thoughtful openness to the experience. Chess and Go have enduring value. If any game is to be considered art, they are. Is there a computer game that is on that level? Pong? ADVENT? Pac Man? Tetris? Doom? maybe, maybe - all changed gaming culture and our perception of games. Consider Doom: I was there, man, I was there. There was life before Doom and life after Doom. not only did it change the way we thought about computer games, but it was a social commentary, too, even if it was unintended. It was the right thing at the right time. Doom was clearly created by artists. They were doing what hadn't been done before. You could make your own FPS, but unless you're pushing the boundaries, especially of the perception of computer games themselves, your work will still merely be derivative no matter how polished, elegant, "beautiful" it is. Learning to play a well designed game of lasting value is a kind of awakening similar to what one experiences in other art forms. It changes you and changes the way you think. People not open to the experience might merely be "entertained", or have no useful experience. How is this not like art?
Single window portal is an actual mode in OS X, not Windows.
I meant: most or all of the windows users I've observed operate with a maximized window. the apps seem to be designed to fill the screen with a big window subdivided in panes. of course, I'm talking about document-based apps, not iTunes or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Mac UI -- But I belive that its firmly designed for the KISS crowd and traditional "multifinder" Mac users with a handful of windows, not the 60 window power user crowd.
Oh, I agree absolutely; it's just that for some reason, most of the document-based mac apps I use make it easy to use lots of document windows. Much more so than any XWS or Windows environments I've ever used. IMHO, it is due to 1) the menu bar, 2) the use of document-sensitive utility/inspector windows 3) app-level window groups, and 3) the general minimalist design sense of good mac developers. No great features of the window manager per se.
Saying you can just "fling your mouse" when the target is actually several feet away is really dubious.
Isn't that when it works the best? flinging the mouse moves the cursor very rapidly with acceleration, and if you've flung it in the right direction, it stops at the menu bar. Especially if you use a tablet. It did get annoying sometimes in 1995, for those of us with standard mac mice with no acceleration and the gigantic resolution of 1024 x 768.
But today the menu bar works fine on the mac on large displays, and even multiple displays, for me at least.
Being the cynic that I am, I tend not to think that Apple had done research proving a fixed menu bar is the best for large displays. Instead they keep it around because it's a Mac visual trademark that distinguishes them from the competition.
A mac without a menu bar would not be a mac. it would be something else (for better or worse). You're forgetting the application model on the mac though. One application, many documents. Individual windows can be raised, its true, but historically they act as groups of windows per application. And we are used to separating the tools from the document window in utility windows / palettes. We tend to prefer austere document windows because we work with many windows open at once. Editing lots of source files, for instance, we may easily have 20-60 source windows open, arranged all neat-like. We historically have disliked the single window portal dashboard look of Windows (which is misnamed: it should be singular). Menu bars in all those windows would suck. Seriously suck.
Although if we can't get social security under control we could be heading the same place. The problem with things like social security, and welfare is that they remove incentive to work. If you work you make less money due to taxes while if you don't work you get "free" money. Private accounts would put incentive back because the amount of money you put in to the system guarantees the amount of money you get from the system.
But Americans love to work. It's astonishing how much we work. Many people have two jobs and there are very few single income families anymore. People are proud when they can support themselves. "money from home" is embarrassing, let alone from the government. There is plenty of incentive to work. Too much, some say (the shorter work week people). Our consumerist society is full of incentives to have the latest and greatest whatevers, which everyone wants. No, there's no lack of incentive to work around here. How, then, is social security and welfare removing incentive to work? Money is the incentive to work. Our system can tolerate cheats at this level. I support society helping those who can't help themselves; the vast majority don't want help even if they need it.
I believe you. You are awesome.
But bible literalism and ID is no better or worse than catholic statues crying blood or relics from the crucifixion. ignorance is always a huge problem - the biggest problem. the televangelists just play it up. no different than any other corrupt religious leaders.
Of what would this be a monopoly? there's no proposal to nationalize or centralize all software development. And he also did say the companies could compete with each other, so they aren't locked into any decisions or predetermined market segmentation. Lots of open source software companies fail because there is no business model yet, and yet the benefits of open source are great.
As long as it's kept loose, it doesn't sound bad to me. Plenty of govt developed software is great.
People aren't stupid, and need to be involved in huge decisions that affect them. Not to mention the fact that sometimes the best and most interesting ideas come from left field. Diversity of experience and opinion is the key to figuring out complex, multifaceted problems. It's not always having the answer - it's asking the right question. The technicians and scientists can figure out the details. Studying nuclear physics isn't going to enhance your creativity. Should the public have a say in the design of the containers? Probably not. Should they get their chance to say NIMBY? Yes. yes, they should.
... marriage is just a contract - if you really can't stay with someone without that then maybe you've not really found the right person. Marriage does *not* guarantee a lifelong relationship - there's a 50% divorce rate... fuelled by people like you who think that a bit of paper is a free pass to lifelong bliss - two people working hard at a relationship can do, and you don't need a contract for that.
Marriage is not a simple agreement between two people. Not only is it the joining of two families, but it is a legal institution giving rights and benefits that unmarried people don't have. It is the structure of society. You should take it more seriously, not less seriously. In fact, you should be in awe of it; then, when you do get married, it will more likely be to the right person. Why would you do something so monumental with someone you feel so-so about? Having thought about it this way, hopefully you will also wish to wait for the right person before having children (and legally, you really should). Play around with your off-and-on, come-as-you-are afraid-to-commit relationships when you're a kid. Then, before you have your own - grow up.
With the right person leading it, a BENEVOLENT dictatorship will be more effective than ANY democracy.
well now, there's always a catch, isn't there?;-)
besides... we've had a lot of experience with government in the last two thousand years. and we have the oldest, most effective large scale constitutional republic in the history of the world, and today it's righting itself yet again. That's something no dictatorship can ever do. they always go down in flames because so much power is concentrated in the leader.
What I want politicians to do is listen to a small, trusted set of smart people and do the "right thing", regardless of whether it's popular or not.
You mean, like, a monarch who listens to his courtiers?
Oh. awesome.
Yes, it sounds good to say that you as a leader should not swayed by popular opinion and should follow your core set of principles. But.. what happens when those principles are unpopular? Well, guess what: you lie to the people. If you're confident enough, you'll tell yourself that It's For Their Own Good. Lots of people think they're doing the Right Thing.
But unless you want dictatorship, the masses have to be trusted. The great unwashed masses, as you call them, are actually reasonably smart and moral. They are not a mob. They are you. You are saying you do not trust yourself. You want a strongman to make the tough, unpopular decisions that you and your neighbors cannot. Well, Saddam is available.
Or at least, read the reader comments on amazon. Squeak is a Smalltalk implementation, which if you don't know, is a complete proramming & graphics environment designed to be easy enough for kids to learn. Check it out. And if it isn't interesting to you, then my advice is in the absence of any other specific direction, find a great book that appeals to you first, and let that decide for you what specific topic/language/environment you first learn. One of the greatest things about Smalltalk is that you can open up, inspect and change anything, including the entire environment, even as it is running.
Others have reported success with The Little Schemer. There is a Scheme language implementation in javascript (google JScheme) which lets you write Scheme programs right in your browser.
Re:Japan has lowest teen pregnancy rate , USA high
on
Homer Becomes Omar
·
· Score: 1
In japan they eat with chopsticks a lot more than we in the west! and what does that get them? a high suicide rate! what could be more OBVIOUS?
Slashdot Mirror
Well yeah. EVERYONE had to have a website. Didn't matter what you sold you had to sell it online as well. Billions were invested in making everything available online. Clothes, food, pets, toys. Some made sense (porn) most did not.
Yet at the time it was claimed that the Information Superhighway (remember that one?) was going to totally change the way we lived. The new economy because the old one was just not the way to do it anymore. You actually had companies loosing stock value because they had not announced an internet strategy. Profits? Who cares.
In hindsight of course it all seems perfectly silly.
You've managed to misunderstand a lot. First, valuation is about future growth not today's profits. It was then and is now and always will be, in this system we have. Enormous potential will always give high valuations because it means investments will grow. It doesn't matter if you're not making any money. If you have a good plan and a great position, we get the right CEO, the right investors, a bitchin finance person and lawyers, and you're set. This has never changed.
The bubble was a time of great experimentation. It's really not obvious what the right answers are in new territory, but if people are free to try them out, the good ones are frequently found. We needed all those dumb ideas to be tried. Many were simply ahead of their time: it's easy to imagine the logical next few steps without being able to take them.
Web 2.0 is the web's adolescence. Basic problems of infancy are fixed, but lots of difficulties remain. Wait for another go round for your dream tech - 3.0 isn't as much of a joke as TFA's author thinks it is. The social network thing seems like it could result in secure identity, solving the account proliferation problem. ie, you'll log onto the entire web in a way. It's the last remaining big problem. I'd call that 3.0.
uh, hello? tfa is about detrimental habits, the negative ones, not the positive side of gaming. So, like, chill out. I can see that you've had it up to here with people and their opinions, so I think you should ignore the issue entirely from now on.
If you want to take the gloves off and deal with the issue honestly, that's it in a nutshell: gamers are "different and weird" and Must Be Stopped.
Oh, ok. So that whole "video games causes aggressive and violent behavior" opinion simply boils down to: those damn kids are different and weird. FYI, in 2004, in the US alone, the video game market size was 8.2 billion in revenue. That's not the different and weird. That's the mainstream.
Discussion of TFA has its place, but it promises zero-defect programming, which is impossible without working with the users.
On one end of the problem scale are the detailed technical questions - does it work, are there memory leaks, etc. But the other end of the scale is the question Is this the right thing? You have to know where you are on that scale when you are thinking about bugs and defects. From a process and programming perspective, clearly it is on the side of the technical details, and not the big questions of scope, purpose, and philosophy.
Suddenly I'm thinking of the measure of the greatness of poetry scene from Dead Poets Society. Right on. Yeah, I know, it's not about greatness, it's about box office success. I bet they left Gigli out of their tests.
In my head, murder is murder. Motive doesn't really factor into it. Except for things like self-defense, obviously.
So you're not really interested in why crimes are committed. Great.
I don't see the difference between 'streamed' and 'downloaded'... ;)
well for audio you'd certainly hear the difference.
All I am saying is we should EXPECT more from finalized products and software. Once we start expecting and accepting that early release software has problems it becomes no big deal to the vendors and you get stuck in a cycle.
I really want to agree with you. I mean I know, we should. Really, but the truth is that I just don't expect much from a 1.0 release. Consequently, I'm pleasantly surprised, whereas you're not.
Do you accept your new vehicle having problems as it comes off the showroom...?
No. But your computer hardware has a lot fewer flaws that the software that runs on it. Even in 2005 that's fairly unavoidable situation, not for a lack of effort by the software people or a surplus of skill on the hardware side.
Or that since the lack of mirror neurons is the cause, it gets expressed as a lack of empathy?
That, and being a Libertarian.
Ya know its kinda off topic, but we should expect more from a 1.0 release. Everyone says well its version 1.0 of XXXXXX, expect problems. I disagree with that. To me 1.0 means it should be free of flaws... maybe light on the features but free on flaws.
So in your universe, 1.0 means as flawless as possible (AFAP), whereas for most everyone else, it clearly means the first public version - the First Release. I suppose then, in your universe, most everythning is still in beta. To that I say fine, but any given thing sucks by that measure and we still have to use it and get work done. So what of it?
You don't need to define art. There are things which have lasting value and things which don't (although that's not necessarily a requirement for art). People agree on it generally, given thoughtful openness to the experience. Chess and Go have enduring value. If any game is to be considered art, they are. Is there a computer game that is on that level? Pong? ADVENT? Pac Man? Tetris? Doom? maybe, maybe - all changed gaming culture and our perception of games. Consider Doom: I was there, man, I was there. There was life before Doom and life after Doom. not only did it change the way we thought about computer games, but it was a social commentary, too, even if it was unintended. It was the right thing at the right time. Doom was clearly created by artists. They were doing what hadn't been done before. You could make your own FPS, but unless you're pushing the boundaries, especially of the perception of computer games themselves, your work will still merely be derivative no matter how polished, elegant, "beautiful" it is. Learning to play a well designed game of lasting value is a kind of awakening similar to what one experiences in other art forms. It changes you and changes the way you think. People not open to the experience might merely be "entertained", or have no useful experience. How is this not like art?
Single window portal is an actual mode in OS X, not Windows.
I meant: most or all of the windows users I've observed operate with a maximized window. the apps seem to be designed to fill the screen with a big window subdivided in panes. of course, I'm talking about document-based apps, not iTunes or whatever.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Mac UI -- But I belive that its firmly designed for the KISS crowd and traditional "multifinder" Mac users with a handful of windows, not the 60 window power user crowd.
Oh, I agree absolutely; it's just that for some reason, most of the document-based mac apps I use make it easy to use lots of document windows. Much more so than any XWS or Windows environments I've ever used. IMHO, it is due to 1) the menu bar, 2) the use of document-sensitive utility/inspector windows 3) app-level window groups, and 3) the general minimalist design sense of good mac developers. No great features of the window manager per se.
Saying you can just "fling your mouse" when the target is actually several feet away is really dubious.
Isn't that when it works the best? flinging the mouse moves the cursor very rapidly with acceleration, and if you've flung it in the right direction, it stops at the menu bar. Especially if you use a tablet. It did get annoying sometimes in 1995, for those of us with standard mac mice with no acceleration and the gigantic resolution of 1024 x 768.
But today the menu bar works fine on the mac on large displays, and even multiple displays, for me at least.
Being the cynic that I am, I tend not to think that Apple had done research proving a fixed menu bar is the best for large displays. Instead they keep it around because it's a Mac visual trademark that distinguishes them from the competition.
A mac without a menu bar would not be a mac. it would be something else (for better or worse). You're forgetting the application model on the mac though. One application, many documents. Individual windows can be raised, its true, but historically they act as groups of windows per application. And we are used to separating the tools from the document window in utility windows / palettes. We tend to prefer austere document windows because we work with many windows open at once. Editing lots of source files, for instance, we may easily have 20-60 source windows open, arranged all neat-like. We historically have disliked the single window portal dashboard look of Windows (which is misnamed: it should be singular). Menu bars in all those windows would suck. Seriously suck.
ALAS... would be my preference. Asynchronous Lisp and S-expressions.
Although if we can't get social security under control we could be heading the same place. The problem with things like social security, and welfare is that they remove incentive to work. If you work you make less money due to taxes while if you don't work you get "free" money. Private accounts would put incentive back because the amount of money you put in to the system guarantees the amount of money you get from the system.
But Americans love to work. It's astonishing how much we work. Many people have two jobs and there are very few single income families anymore. People are proud when they can support themselves. "money from home" is embarrassing, let alone from the government. There is plenty of incentive to work. Too much, some say (the shorter work week people). Our consumerist society is full of incentives to have the latest and greatest whatevers, which everyone wants. No, there's no lack of incentive to work around here. How, then, is social security and welfare removing incentive to work? Money is the incentive to work. Our system can tolerate cheats at this level. I support society helping those who can't help themselves; the vast majority don't want help even if they need it.
I believe you. You are awesome. But bible literalism and ID is no better or worse than catholic statues crying blood or relics from the crucifixion. ignorance is always a huge problem - the biggest problem. the televangelists just play it up. no different than any other corrupt religious leaders.
I think the main giveaway is that he's trying to sell a product. We just don't have any reason to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Of what would this be a monopoly? there's no proposal to nationalize or centralize all software development. And he also did say the companies could compete with each other, so they aren't locked into any decisions or predetermined market segmentation. Lots of open source software companies fail because there is no business model yet, and yet the benefits of open source are great.
As long as it's kept loose, it doesn't sound bad to me. Plenty of govt developed software is great.
People aren't stupid, and need to be involved in huge decisions that affect them. Not to mention the fact that sometimes the best and most interesting ideas come from left field. Diversity of experience and opinion is the key to figuring out complex, multifaceted problems. It's not always having the answer - it's asking the right question. The technicians and scientists can figure out the details. Studying nuclear physics isn't going to enhance your creativity. Should the public have a say in the design of the containers? Probably not. Should they get their chance to say NIMBY? Yes. yes, they should.
What term should FSM'ers use?
satirists?
... marriage is just a contract - if you really can't stay with someone without that then maybe you've not really found the right person. Marriage does *not* guarantee a lifelong relationship - there's a 50% divorce rate... fuelled by people like you who think that a bit of paper is a free pass to lifelong bliss - two people working hard at a relationship can do, and you don't need a contract for that.
Marriage is not a simple agreement between two people. Not only is it the joining of two families, but it is a legal institution giving rights and benefits that unmarried people don't have. It is the structure of society. You should take it more seriously, not less seriously. In fact, you should be in awe of it; then, when you do get married, it will more likely be to the right person. Why would you do something so monumental with someone you feel so-so about? Having thought about it this way, hopefully you will also wish to wait for the right person before having children (and legally, you really should). Play around with your off-and-on, come-as-you-are afraid-to-commit relationships when you're a kid. Then, before you have your own - grow up.
With the right person leading it, a BENEVOLENT dictatorship will be more effective than ANY democracy.
;-)
well now, there's always a catch, isn't there?
besides... we've had a lot of experience with government in the last two thousand years. and we have the oldest, most effective large scale constitutional republic in the history of the world, and today it's righting itself yet again. That's something no dictatorship can ever do. they always go down in flames because so much power is concentrated in the leader.
But wait. you said will be! Do you have a plan?
heh. yeah.
:-)
I think I would have really enjoyed GTA back when I played games regularly.. say, 1985-89
What I want politicians to do is listen to a small, trusted set of smart people and do the "right thing", regardless of whether it's popular or not.
You mean, like, a monarch who listens to his courtiers?
Oh. awesome.
Yes, it sounds good to say that you as a leader should not swayed by popular opinion and should follow your core set of principles. But.. what happens when those principles are unpopular? Well, guess what: you lie to the people. If you're confident enough, you'll tell yourself that It's For Their Own Good. Lots of people think they're doing the Right Thing.
But unless you want dictatorship, the masses have to be trusted. The great unwashed masses, as you call them, are actually reasonably smart and moral. They are not a mob. They are you. You are saying you do not trust yourself. You want a strongman to make the tough, unpopular decisions that you and your neighbors cannot. Well, Saddam is available.
try this
Squeak: Learn programming with robots
Or at least, read the reader comments on amazon. Squeak is a Smalltalk implementation, which if you don't know, is a complete proramming & graphics environment designed to be easy enough for kids to learn. Check it out. And if it isn't interesting to you, then my advice is in the absence of any other specific direction, find a great book that appeals to you first, and let that decide for you what specific topic/language/environment you first learn. One of the greatest things about Smalltalk is that you can open up, inspect and change anything, including the entire environment, even as it is running.
Others have reported success with The Little Schemer. There is a Scheme language implementation in javascript (google JScheme) which lets you write Scheme programs right in your browser.
In japan they eat with chopsticks a lot more than we in the west! and what does that get them? a high suicide rate! what could be more OBVIOUS?