I'm definitely interested in the full KB and I am definitely ordering one or two of the $100 3-key units too. I mean yea, it's a bit pricey, but I look at it more as a small investment in their idea. I like their concept and I hope that their products help advance input design past where we are now. I honestly wish there were more hardware companies out there taking risks and pushing the envelope like these guys are doing. Yea, the product may not catch on, or even be the "future direction" of human/computer interaction, but at least they are thinking outside the box and actually (well, hopefully) making a deliverable product, so the world will at least have a chance to find out.
Your angst? You are so disturbed by Microsoft Office that it causes you angst? Christ, did Windows XP cause you to seek therapy? Do you loose sleep at night over Internet Explorer? I mean, it upsets you so much that you feel the need to share your angst with others in a comment about a book review?
No doubt, but just keep in mind that it's being shoved down google's throat too. It's important that we don't loose sight of where the root of this evil lies.
So you believe we should be telling people how to run their countries now? Last time I checked the people of China installed their government. Maybe we should invade and bring them democracy? It's not up to us to decide how their government works.
Quite honestly, that's a problem for China's people, not Google. Google (or MS or anyone else for that matter) has to obey Chinese law when they do business in China. If the people of china don't like it, it's up to them to change their government, not Google.
Google wants to compete in the downloadable media market and this is the price of admission. I'm sure google would be glade to forgo it if they could. If you want to blame anyone for DRM, blame the media companies that google has to license content from and Congress for being for-sale.
The original was better? I don't know what show you watched, but I watched BSG as a kid, and recently again in reruns and it was definitely not better. Campy? Thinly written? Predictable (beyond the norm)? yes! Better than the new BSG? nope, sorry, I don't see it.
I will concede your point about the seven/six point. Didn't really think about that.
As for the budget, the point I was trying to make is that the effects (like mechanical cylons) are expensive and I don't think BSG has the budget from Sci-Fi to go nuts with them. That is probably one of the reasons you see more human cylons than mechanical ones, especially in close-up scenes. I personally like the human cylon concept, since it opens up more depth and complexity for the "enemy" in the show.
That's one opinion. Sorry you don't like the show, but there are a lot of us who do. As for it being cheeseball, well, whatever. I'm not sure what standard you are using but if you compare it to what's on TV these days, it stands up very well as a drama.
I also hate to be the one tell you this, but almost EVERYTHING on TV and in the theaters is formulaic and droll. When was the last time you saw an original ID on TV or in a movie? Sure, they are out there but they are very few and very far between.
I also don't get the Voyager "rip-off" comment, considering the original BSG way out-dates ST:V. If anything Voyager ripped off the original BSG.
I also doubt their budget could be considered "huge". Sci-Fi isn't exactly rolling in cash. Considering all the effects shots in the show, I imagine the budget is stretched thin. Yes, those shots cost money whether or not you think they do. Hell, the SG producers wanted to add a more recurring role for the Asgard but they couldn't afford it because of the effects cost.
As another big SG fan, I have to agree. SG just lacks the drama of BSG. SG is a fun show but it can't compete with BSG as far as story and acting. SG is sci-fi, BSG is drama in a sci-fi world.
Come on! Yes, the software does a fine job, as long as I don't want to do anything else with the computer while it is recording (including while buffering live TV). This is nothing more than the same old AIW with a new GPU. The least they could do is get rid of that GEM+ guide software. Gotta love no automatic updates for the TV guide and all.
If they are going to tie up the TV capture with the GPU (so I can't upgrade one and not the other) the least they could do is put some real capture hardware on it.
No doubt, but the states have been pushing for this for a while now also. Hell, if it wasn't for the interstate commerce clause, the states the UPS truck drives through would probably want a cut of it too.
Sales tax is usually considered to be paid by the consumer, not the store, so it could argued that the consumer does benefit from state services and is therefore on the hook for the tax. Also, physical goods aren't usually dropped from the sky, so at some point it has to go over roads and bridges and such, a portion of which is paid for by the state from tax revenue.
Of course, I'm playing devil's advocate here, don't confuse that for my personal view on the subject!
The reason is the states are loosing money on sales tax for online purchases. Now don't get me wrong, I like not having to pay taxes on my online purchases, but you have to understand the states point of view on it. They rely on taxes for revenue and a big part of it is sales tax for many states.
It's possible that I may never confront myself on the choice or religion or meat-eating. If I am unaware that there is a choice then obviously I cannot make a choice. However, unless you live under a rock them most likely a person is aware that there are different religious beliefs, including beliefs that there is no god or gods at all. If I am aware that there is a choice and I continue to practice whatever it is that I practice, then I have made a choice. My choice may be naive and uninformed, but it is a choice. Any time my beliefs on, well, anything, are challenged, I have to make a choice as to whether or not my beliefs are correct. Now, granted, most times people will choose their own beliefs no matter what the opposition, but they do have the option to change their views.
Actually, you can "prove a negative" when it is completely excluded by another choice. I can prove, for example, that a coin did not land on heads by proving it did land on tails. Since they are mutally exclusive, proving one automatically excludes the other.
Since no one can prove there is or is not a god, all beliefs about god become just that, beliefs. If a person is aware that other people believe in god then they at some point they must make a choice, based on whatever criteria they feel justifies it, whether or not to also believe in god. A belief that there is no god is not a belief in nothing, it is exactly what is says: A belief that there is no god.
The flawed logic is in the parent post, not mine. The parent implied exactly what I stated. Also, if a person is raised by their parents to believe that there is no God, that is an endorsement of atheism, not a lack of endorsement for a religion.
If a person is raised as an atheist, they cannot chose to be an atheist as an adult but they can chose to believe in religion? That is essentially what you are implying, that a person can only make a choice to go against their upbringing and cannot make a conscience choice to continue the beliefs of their parents. This simply is not true.
"Yes, it does. We've all heard about how much Google is trying to help out Firefox - yet if you weren't a geek (or already using Firefox) you'd never know. Go to www.google.com and find the link to Firefox's website and you'll see what I'm talking about - even with how much Google supports Firefox, there is absolutely no mention of Firefox on Google's site. "
Google doesn't OWN Firefox. How many people used or even heard of Keyhole before it became Google Earth? How about now? All Google needs to do is brand it theirs and it will be all over the news, all over the web, even all over/.
But Firefox can be modified for use on mobile devices to do just as good a job at displaying pages as Opera.
Sure, but why spend a couple of years reinventing the wheel. Opera already has it.
No, but they need some other OS that understands Java (often times it's Palm OS). Linux understands Java, too, which is another reason why device makers like it - they can either make their own OS, buy one from someone else, or just use Linux. And if the device is running Linux, then it can run Firefox.
Actually almost every phone that has internet capabilities is using some form of mobile Java, no Palm, WinCE, or Linux required. My Sanyo 8200 has Java, as did my Samsung before that. So no, it is not often Palm. Again, most phones today and probably a good while in the future are not running linux, palm, or WinCE.
Then perhaps you aren't aware of just how many household devices are hacked to run Linux. It hasn't even been a month since the 360 has been released and there's already a project to hack it to run Linux. And I personally have installed Linux on my iPod. Yeah, most people don't do this sort of thing, but still, some do.
Again, the vast majority of consumers don't care. If you took the number of people who hack their devices and multiply it by 100, it still wouldn't be a drop in the bucket of total consumers. Some guy hacking his iPod to run Linux won't factor into a decision to buy or not buy Opera. Even if they did care, you can just as easly run Opera on Linux.
Even though it might be relatively few people who do this, it adds up when you consider that just about every device has been hacked to run Linux - when you add all those PSPs, DS's, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s, iPods, etc, etc all together you can see where it could add up.
But if you add up the people who actually bother to do it you could maybe fill up a star-trek convention. Most people don't buy these devices to hack Linux onto them, they buy them to play games, listen to music, make phone calls, etc.
Not to mention the fact that Firefox could be put on devices that already run Linux such as TiVos (in fact, many people build their own TiVo-like boxes and there are even plugins to make Firefox run within a TiVo-like GUI) and Palm Pilots.
So can Opera. The "Runs on Linux" argument is moot in this case, Opera already does that.
It's not about how many browse the web "right now". There is an ever increasing push to bring browsing to cell phones and other mobile devices.
Not that a google browser that can run on virtually any OS wouldn't take a good size bite out of the browser marketshare for PC's. It doesn't matter how many non-geeks have heard of Opera, I'm sure more than a couple of them have heard of Google, and that's all it will take to get their attention.
What I was saying was that Microsoft and Yahoo (aka Google's competitors) can't touch the possible installation base and head start that Opera gives them in the mobile market. Opera already has deals with several companies to supply Opera for their phones. Since their mobile browser is Java based, the phones don't NEED linux or CE to run it. Do you really think there are, or will be in anything resembling the near future, as many CE and Linux phones as there are phones that have Java?
You may be able to run Firefox on anything that runs linux, but that doesn't mean it will run well. Unlike Firefox, Opera's mobile browser is designed for the small screen, and it does an excellent job of rendering pages on them.
To be perfectly honest I doubt they really care what "hackers" want on their PSP. They care what the millions of consumers see when they turn on their out-of-the-box device. By buying Opera they would have a solid browser and instant buy-in into the mobile market.
Re:Lets hope they open source it
on
Google to Buy Opera?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It's not what's cheaper, it's what can they get on more hardware. Opera not only supports the usual OS's (Windows, OSx, Solaris, Linux, and on and on) they are also a big player in the mobile market. This would get google a jump into the mobile market that MS and Yahoo can't touch at the moment, not to mention massive support across current PC platforms.
I've always liked Pascal for a first intro teaching language. Its OO and the structure is closer to more common programming languages but its strict enough to keep people from learning sloppy habits. BASIC is just too loose with the rules. I like it over C because the syntax is more verbose, making it easier to understand for people new to programming. Another nice thing is that since it is not really used in the real world much anymore, at some point they have to learn another language. Being forced to transition to a new language should hopefully enforce the fact that programming is really a language independent discipline. I've seen more than one programmer that learned one language and that is all they have ever used because they are literally afraid to try another language. That's fine and dandy for them but it causes me headaches when in 2005 they are still writing apps in VB6 or some other ancient language.
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I'm definitely interested in the full KB and I am definitely ordering one or two of the $100 3-key units too. I mean yea, it's a bit pricey, but I look at it more as a small investment in their idea. I like their concept and I hope that their products help advance input design past where we are now. I honestly wish there were more hardware companies out there taking risks and pushing the envelope like these guys are doing. Yea, the product may not catch on, or even be the "future direction" of human/computer interaction, but at least they are thinking outside the box and actually (well, hopefully) making a deliverable product, so the world will at least have a chance to find out.
Your angst? You are so disturbed by Microsoft Office that it causes you angst? Christ, did Windows XP cause you to seek therapy? Do you loose sleep at night over Internet Explorer? I mean, it upsets you so much that you feel the need to share your angst with others in a comment about a book review?
Then why even bother commenting about it? I mean, if you won't open a document about it (oh so clever, btw) why feel compelled to tell the world?
No doubt, but just keep in mind that it's being shoved down google's throat too. It's important that we don't loose sight of where the root of this evil lies.
So you believe we should be telling people how to run their countries now? Last time I checked the people of China installed their government. Maybe we should invade and bring them democracy? It's not up to us to decide how their government works.
Quite honestly, that's a problem for China's people, not Google. Google (or MS or anyone else for that matter) has to obey Chinese law when they do business in China. If the people of china don't like it, it's up to them to change their government, not Google.
Google wants to compete in the downloadable media market and this is the price of admission. I'm sure google would be glade to forgo it if they could. If you want to blame anyone for DRM, blame the media companies that google has to license content from and Congress for being for-sale.
It's the orange hair. Who can resist a scantly clad girl with orange hair?
The original was better? I don't know what show you watched, but I watched BSG as a kid, and recently again in reruns and it was definitely not better. Campy? Thinly written? Predictable (beyond the norm)? yes! Better than the new BSG? nope, sorry, I don't see it.
I will concede your point about the seven/six point. Didn't really think about that.
As for the budget, the point I was trying to make is that the effects (like mechanical cylons) are expensive and I don't think BSG has the budget from Sci-Fi to go nuts with them. That is probably one of the reasons you see more human cylons than mechanical ones, especially in close-up scenes. I personally like the human cylon concept, since it opens up more depth and complexity for the "enemy" in the show.
grr. original idea not ID
That's one opinion. Sorry you don't like the show, but there are a lot of us who do. As for it being cheeseball, well, whatever. I'm not sure what standard you are using but if you compare it to what's on TV these days, it stands up very well as a drama.
I also hate to be the one tell you this, but almost EVERYTHING on TV and in the theaters is formulaic and droll. When was the last time you saw an original ID on TV or in a movie? Sure, they are out there but they are very few and very far between.
I also don't get the Voyager "rip-off" comment, considering the original BSG way out-dates ST:V. If anything Voyager ripped off the original BSG.
I also doubt their budget could be considered "huge". Sci-Fi isn't exactly rolling in cash. Considering all the effects shots in the show, I imagine the budget is stretched thin. Yes, those shots cost money whether or not you think they do. Hell, the SG producers wanted to add a more recurring role for the Asgard but they couldn't afford it because of the effects cost.
As another big SG fan, I have to agree. SG just lacks the drama of BSG. SG is a fun show but it can't compete with BSG as far as story and acting. SG is sci-fi, BSG is drama in a sci-fi world.
I believe the UK is working on a system to allow this right now. Something about tracking all vehicles and taxing them based on milage.
Come on! Yes, the software does a fine job, as long as I don't want to do anything else with the computer while it is recording (including while buffering live TV). This is nothing more than the same old AIW with a new GPU. The least they could do is get rid of that GEM+ guide software. Gotta love no automatic updates for the TV guide and all.
If they are going to tie up the TV capture with the GPU (so I can't upgrade one and not the other) the least they could do is put some real capture hardware on it.
No doubt, but the states have been pushing for this for a while now also. Hell, if it wasn't for the interstate commerce clause, the states the UPS truck drives through would probably want a cut of it too.
Sales tax is usually considered to be paid by the consumer, not the store, so it could argued that the consumer does benefit from state services and is therefore on the hook for the tax. Also, physical goods aren't usually dropped from the sky, so at some point it has to go over roads and bridges and such, a portion of which is paid for by the state from tax revenue.
Of course, I'm playing devil's advocate here, don't confuse that for my personal view on the subject!
The reason is the states are loosing money on sales tax for online purchases. Now don't get me wrong, I like not having to pay taxes on my online purchases, but you have to understand the states point of view on it. They rely on taxes for revenue and a big part of it is sales tax for many states.
It's possible that I may never confront myself on the choice or religion or meat-eating. If I am unaware that there is a choice then obviously I cannot make a choice. However, unless you live under a rock them most likely a person is aware that there are different religious beliefs, including beliefs that there is no god or gods at all. If I am aware that there is a choice and I continue to practice whatever it is that I practice, then I have made a choice. My choice may be naive and uninformed, but it is a choice. Any time my beliefs on, well, anything, are challenged, I have to make a choice as to whether or not my beliefs are correct. Now, granted, most times people will choose their own beliefs no matter what the opposition, but they do have the option to change their views.
Actually, you can "prove a negative" when it is completely excluded by another choice. I can prove, for example, that a coin did not land on heads by proving it did land on tails. Since they are mutally exclusive, proving one automatically excludes the other.
Since no one can prove there is or is not a god, all beliefs about god become just that, beliefs. If a person is aware that other people believe in god then they at some point they must make a choice, based on whatever criteria they feel justifies it, whether or not to also believe in god. A belief that there is no god is not a belief in nothing, it is exactly what is says: A belief that there is no god.
The flawed logic is in the parent post, not mine. The parent implied exactly what I stated. Also, if a person is raised by their parents to believe that there is no God, that is an endorsement of atheism, not a lack of endorsement for a religion.
If a person is raised as an atheist, they cannot chose to be an atheist as an adult but they can chose to believe in religion? That is essentially what you are implying, that a person can only make a choice to go against their upbringing and cannot make a conscience choice to continue the beliefs of their parents. This simply is not true.
"Yes, it does. We've all heard about how much Google is trying to help out Firefox - yet if you weren't a geek (or already using Firefox) you'd never know. Go to www.google.com and find the link to Firefox's website and you'll see what I'm talking about - even with how much Google supports Firefox, there is absolutely no mention of Firefox on Google's site. "
/.
Google doesn't OWN Firefox. How many people used or even heard of Keyhole before it became Google Earth? How about now? All Google needs to do is brand it theirs and it will be all over the news, all over the web, even all over
But Firefox can be modified for use on mobile devices to do just as good a job at displaying pages as Opera.
Sure, but why spend a couple of years reinventing the wheel. Opera already has it.
No, but they need some other OS that understands Java (often times it's Palm OS). Linux understands Java, too, which is another reason why device makers like it - they can either make their own OS, buy one from someone else, or just use Linux. And if the device is running Linux, then it can run Firefox.
Actually almost every phone that has internet capabilities is using some form of mobile Java, no Palm, WinCE, or Linux required. My Sanyo 8200 has Java, as did my Samsung before that. So no, it is not often Palm. Again, most phones today and probably a good while in the future are not running linux, palm, or WinCE.
Then perhaps you aren't aware of just how many household devices are hacked to run Linux. It hasn't even been a month since the 360 has been released and there's already a project to hack it to run Linux. And I personally have installed Linux on my iPod. Yeah, most people don't do this sort of thing, but still, some do.
Again, the vast majority of consumers don't care. If you took the number of people who hack their devices and multiply it by 100, it still wouldn't be a drop in the bucket of total consumers. Some guy hacking his iPod to run Linux won't factor into a decision to buy or not buy Opera. Even if they did care, you can just as easly run Opera on Linux.
Even though it might be relatively few people who do this, it adds up when you consider that just about every device has been hacked to run Linux - when you add all those PSPs, DS's, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s, iPods, etc, etc all together you can see where it could add up.
But if you add up the people who actually bother to do it you could maybe fill up a star-trek convention. Most people don't buy these devices to hack Linux onto them, they buy them to play games, listen to music, make phone calls, etc.
Not to mention the fact that Firefox could be put on devices that already run Linux such as TiVos (in fact, many people build their own TiVo-like boxes and there are even plugins to make Firefox run within a TiVo-like GUI) and Palm Pilots.
So can Opera. The "Runs on Linux" argument is moot in this case, Opera already does that.
It's not about how many browse the web "right now". There is an ever increasing push to bring browsing to cell phones and other mobile devices.
Not that a google browser that can run on virtually any OS wouldn't take a good size bite out of the browser marketshare for PC's. It doesn't matter how many non-geeks have heard of Opera, I'm sure more than a couple of them have heard of Google, and that's all it will take to get their attention.
What I was saying was that Microsoft and Yahoo (aka Google's competitors) can't touch the possible installation base and head start that Opera gives them in the mobile market. Opera already has deals with several companies to supply Opera for their phones. Since their mobile browser is Java based, the phones don't NEED linux or CE to run it. Do you really think there are, or will be in anything resembling the near future, as many CE and Linux phones as there are phones that have Java?
You may be able to run Firefox on anything that runs linux, but that doesn't mean it will run well. Unlike Firefox, Opera's mobile browser is designed for the small screen, and it does an excellent job of rendering pages on them.
To be perfectly honest I doubt they really care what "hackers" want on their PSP. They care what the millions of consumers see when they turn on their out-of-the-box device. By buying Opera they would have a solid browser and instant buy-in into the mobile market.
It's not what's cheaper, it's what can they get on more hardware. Opera not only supports the usual OS's (Windows, OSx, Solaris, Linux, and on and on) they are also a big player in the mobile market. This would get google a jump into the mobile market that MS and Yahoo can't touch at the moment, not to mention massive support across current PC platforms.
I've always liked Pascal for a first intro teaching language. Its OO and the structure is closer to more common programming languages but its strict enough to keep people from learning sloppy habits. BASIC is just too loose with the rules. I like it over C because the syntax is more verbose, making it easier to understand for people new to programming. Another nice thing is that since it is not really used in the real world much anymore, at some point they have to learn another language. Being forced to transition to a new language should hopefully enforce the fact that programming is really a language independent discipline. I've seen more than one programmer that learned one language and that is all they have ever used because they are literally afraid to try another language. That's fine and dandy for them but it causes me headaches when in 2005 they are still writing apps in VB6 or some other ancient language.