Webpads as a market seem to suffer from always-rising-expectations.
A few years ago 800x600, 256 color, a few hours battery life and a 56KB/sec wireless connection, cost $1,000 would have stolen the show. Now it's gotta be 1024x768, full color, last 8 or more hours, be capable of playing back mp3s and video, tie into some sort of low-cost wireless system, preferably 802.11?, and cost $500.
They're competing with low end laptops for market and components and always suffering in comparison to desktops. Add in the ruggedness that's required (how many times will it slide off the couch or get dropped as someone tries to pick it up one-handed from the coffee table?) and range of uses they'll be put to and it's a tough product to build at an attractive price point.
Then there's the OS & UI. Folks want the same as they've got on their home PC which mostly means Wintel or MacOS (Linux isn't going to be a popular choice for the consumer market,/.-readers excepted.) Both of these OS's really rely heavily on keyboards and while there have been any number of work-arounds (how many iterations of PenWindows?) they remain clunky without. On-screen "Soft-keyboards" are one option but not one that's ever generated much enthusiasm.
One clever solution has been to use the Webpad as a remote terminal. This solves much of the software and storage issues as long as one has decent wireless bandwidth. However it does require the "base" PC be on & dedicating resources to the client.
Windows is not particularly good serving two masters though MS does have some new technology that they've been showing around. However after so many failed attempts in this area vendors are justifiably nervous about committing real resources to it until someone else proves it out.
Apple has only recently re-introduced partial remote terminal capability into their MacOS line (it was present in Next Step but lost in the transition to Quartz/Display-PDF). There is speculation (isn't there always with Apple?) they're going to offer some combination of local/remote interfaces as part of their "Digital Hub" strategy with a webpad running an embedded-PPC-based MacOS X-lite.
Linux - well as noted most of the market is biased towards Wintel then Mac. While something with inherently limited functionality like a webpad (not that Linux is inherently limited, just that this wouldn't require a full-blown Linux-for-the-desktop universal solution) and the low cost of Linux would make it attractive the lack of full & easy support for all file formats & plug-is a problem. There are work-arounds but frankly they're not attractive ones from a sales & support perspective.
Finally, remember that lots of the companies most likely to try out a webpad product are the exact same ones that got burnt on network appliances. In today's deadly market nobody is particularly enthused to chance losing money on another dead end like those, especially for a market & product so similar. Webpads *might* take off but not many want to risk their not, particularly for the low per unit profit most see in them.
My guess? Aside from a few rebranded models we won't see any from the big names except possibly IBM & Apple. IBM has a good history of migrating technology like this to/from their vertical markets so they've little wasted R&D or manufacturing costs. Apple likes to be a trailblazer plus their customers are open to an all-Apple terminal/server solution. Thus Apple can keep the margin low on the webpad & recoup it on the server. Others? Perhaps some Tiawanese & other manufacturers attempting to build their own brands.
Mandrake Linux came under fire last week for trying to redefine "free," as in free software, by charging corporate users a sizable support fee before permitting them to download its distribution of the open source Linux software. One of my spies gave them a chance nonetheless and ordered the professional edition of Linux, but to little avail. The thing is, Mandrake's system accepted and charged my spy's American Express instantaneously, but never sent the software. What's more, Mandrake's sales and support cannot track the order, leaving my spy without the software and the money.
Look like Mandrake may be having some financial growing pains, hope they don't burn too many of their newly paying customers.
First off I'm going to guess that 90% of the folks who will be posting gung-ho comments on this will be unilingual Americans. The folks posting against it will be those who're bilingual and ever read the "same" document in both languages.
It doesn't work. If translating were so simple for machines to do they'd be doing a fine job. However good translation requires context, insight, emotional inflection, etc. Even then each and every one ends up different; sometimes subtly sometimes blatantly.
Just as machine translation sux at these so will distributed translation. Reading a paragraph or a page doesn't tell enough about the feel, flow, or tone of a document. There are numerous words and phrases that can be interpreted multiple ways between any two languages and will be, each time differently by each interpreter.
If you don't know this already then go and look up any document (books and short stories are easy to find, so is poetry) that has been translated more then once. Take a look at the different translations and ask yourself - "Are these really from the same source document?"
Now imagine trying to read something composed of alternating paragraphs or pages from each translation: Incoherence.
Distributed problem solving works for subjects with clearly defined data sets, methodologies, and standards; not human language.
Boy Smoothie you like to take a cause & run with it. Doubtless we'll meet up in a few years at the airport with you trying to push carnations & asking for an offering in return, suggesting I take this really great "Personality Test"...
Mann claims the "total cost to restore the computer vision system is $109,698". If this is line with many of his other claims it's at Radio Shack for $199 - Canadian.
Heart-monitor electrodes don't enter the body. They're simply stuck on with pads like bandages. Pulling them off is only slightly worse them what every child experiences on at least one knee once a week. It could be slightly worse for Mann depending on how hairy his chest is & if he'd shaved the area as he should've first. Any "wound" was doubtless trivial and fine within 20 seconds.
We don't know his intent, the security folks certainly don't, all they know is they've a socially maladjusted person making preposterous claims and wrapped in electronics & who knows what. Their job is to ensure the safety of the aircraft, not cater to whackos.
As to the intellect & motives of the security staff, glad to see you have such insight into them. Its almost as if you've flown through St. John (which btw I found to have rather decent security staff, certainly better then most other airports.) Doubtless all folks not doing whatever it is you do are "idiots with IQs that combined still don't match the intelligence of a small kitchen appliance trying to believe that they actually had a purpose for living". Remind me to be impressed by you sometime (not.)
The only thing anyone here has to admit is the security folks were trying to do their job. As has been widely noted in Canadian press there is no "right" to fly. Furthermore Mann didn't have the paperwork that would be expected of medical electronics nor of a disabled person. Finally I'm not aware of his electronics having been certified for use onboard an aircraft and the local folks simply don't have the authority to contravene this Federal policy
(nor should they for such a frivolous reason.)
Glad you've found such a role model in Mann - I wish you the dubious pleasure of spending some time with him sometime and seeing how he operates. You just got sucked into yet another of his little dramas.
Mann needs his gear like a kid needs his security blanket (plush toy, whatever.) He's perfectly fine without it, indeed lives large parts of his life not wired up. However when he's insecure or wants attention then he dons his armor and makes a show of himself.
Which leads to his second characteristic which is using his gear as a tool to provoke folks. He deliberately makes himself obtrusive with his "requirements" and pushes folks by blatantly recording them, refusing to cease, indeed almost assaulting them.
Imagine an adult declaring they *must* have their pet/TV/tinfoil-hat/shotgun/whatever with them and you've got Mann. Now watch them use it as a passive-aggressive tool to deliberately provoke other folks and get attention and you've really got Mann. Now watch after throwing a tantrum the objects of it all get nonchalantly taken off, put down, walked away from. That's what he does.
Needless to say many folks actively avoid him; consider him with pity but wish no involvement with his little dramas. Indeed there's a running debate as to when someone will finally take exception to his behavior with a pipe and he really will find his gear "integrated" with his body, likely starting with his anterior sphincter. While most will decry the violence few will not have more then a little empathy for the poor sod Mann will have finally managed to push too far.
That Mann has managed to score points with Air Canada is no surprise. The folks at the gate have little authority and a mandate to prevent suspicious objects from being brought on-board. As has been pointed out there is no "right" in Canada to fly onboard an aircraft and the protestations of Mann's pet Dr. notwithstanding he has no disabled status.
Furthermore the requirements of turning off electronics during take-off & landing are well & long established, the local folks have no authority to grant exceptions to this Federal policy. His electronics is not certified medical electronics but a nest of boxes and wires doubtlessly radiating RF and precisely the sort of thing that concerns regulators.
Indeed I expect if any/. reader were to be asked to share an aircraft with some loon "requiring" a mass of electronics & cabling all declaring he *must* have it I expect they'd reconsider their schedule and debark pretty darn quickly. Its easy to sit in front of a keyboard & monitor declaring Mann to be a victim, doubtless a little harder to be some security folk faced with him & the responsibility for a safe aircraft. As to "knowing" he is safe - can you say for sure Mann with all of his dysfunctions doesn't have something nasty tucked in there?
Seriously, through Apple's Open Scripting Architecture folks have been able to use any number of languages such a Tcl/Tk. Java, Perl, Python, Jpython, and JavaScript under MacOS & MacOS X.
The great thing is that virtually every Mac application has hooks for scripting through the standard Apple Events model which is automagically available to all other OSA languages.
For many of us, South Park notwithstanding, still feel every day the loss of friends & lovers & family to that disease. Furthermore many of us watch yet more friends, family & lovers continue to fight for their lives, every day.
That many somehow believe that the epidemic is over or that they are somehow safe from it is only more disheartening and even more tragic.
So unless you've lost ones close to you to HIV, or to the events of September 11, 2001, please don't take it upon yourself try and tell the rest of us what we should find "funny" or not.
The CATO's Institute's pet Steve Milloy writing for Fox "News" 3 days after the incident doesn't meet most folks standards of legitimate or informed reportage.
One of the contributing factors is the lack of Asbestos fireproofing above the 70th floors
Please offer a citation from a reputable source that:
This is factually correct.
It had any relevance on the disaster.
Forest for the trees
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Paper to XML?
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· Score: 5, Informative
You've got two questions conflated here:
OCR your material. Frankly OCR still sucks and if there is any possible way you can get your hands on a source file for your material do it. Even with a.01% error-rate (you wish it were that good!) you're still going to have to proof this damn closely and at great effort.
You'd might do well just hiring a company to retype this in for you. There are any number of such that do this at fairly reasonable prices, locally & off-shore. They'll likely be cheaper then your going the research/purchase/assemble/scan/OCR/review/output cycle on your own, particularly for a one-off.
Next is the output format. Sure some software will do it's best to figure out a table from a paragraph but it's still tricky stuff as prone to error as it is to getting it right. Again the best procedure is doing it by hand so you know it is done properly the first time then spending days reviewing crappy machine-generated code.
As to XML vs. anything else - who cares. Get it into any reasonable format and without too much effort you can convert it to another. Unless you're trying for buzzword-bingo just accept any text & table formats & post-process to your favorite flavor.
Finally if you just want to quick-n-dirty get the thing into electronic format and don't mind doing a bit of indexing yourself Adobe Acrobat can suck in material including OCR, supports indexes, tables, etc, and has an XML implementation.
Lots of folks are posting-from-the-hip how "obviously" the towers had sub-standard sprinklers or fire protection or should of held up to the impact or the fire...
Think for a few moments before posting.
These buildings received Certificates of Occupancy, had been tested in the prior attack, their systems and procedures were as good as any other in the world.
There is NO evidence of cost-cutting, sub-standard materials or equipment, etc. This was a public building owned until recently by the Port Authority of NY & NJ and by all reports kept in exemplary condition.
These were not slip-shod towers built overnight in some 3rd-world country without reviews, standards, or regular inspections.
Aside from their unusual tube-design (which appears to have been their greatest asset) and height there is nothing special about WTC towers that would separate them from tall buildings around the world. This includes materials.
Finally, before you post realize that 3,000 humans died horribly in this disaster. Perhaps before you post your Monday-morning-quarterbacking, rumor-spreading & conspiracy theories you might show a bit of respect for those folks and the ones they left behind.
Well, this was the World Trade Center. They had to cut all costs, including maintenance, to please investors.
My what a jaded li'l bastard you are.
Pity that:
The WTC was a public building only "sold" a few months prior to the attack. It was built and owned by the Port Authority of NY & NJ.
There are likely no other buildings in the world (possibly excepting the Great Pyramid) that could have held up as well/as long to the assault as the WTC did.
So 2 for 2 you were wrong; now please crawl back to your dark corner.
Yes, unfortunately, anyone who shops at [competitor], for example, are set to expose not only their credit card information, but their billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, and other such personal information, on just getting a DVD or two.
It should be noted (but isn't) that this is DragonMagic smearing a business competitor, not a disinterested party passing along a helpful hint.
NAI PGP for Windows was a good program?! Show me one average person who ever felt it was a slam-dunk. You know, not the ones who read/. but those that had to install it for some reason, were given this fool thing and a sheet of local instructions and told "install this" and weren't found trembling under their desk 3 days later with a pooched PC.
Ech.
Some great concepts but still a cranky idiosyncratic bastard of a program. Trivial to use? Sure, after reading far too many poorly written manual pages. Easy to interact with? When it didn't hopelessly mangle what it was supposed to secure (we didn't want one-way!) Integrated - as long as you didn't do this or that or...
Look, you want a well integrated NAI program look at how NAV interacts with Outlook. Yeah it's a big pig and lots of folks hate it but to the user it's *not an issue*. It scans for nasties. It scans incoming & it scans outgoing. It can be configured with a few clicks in a clean interface written in simple language. It just works.
Personally I ask any ambitious developer to take the same strategy NAI does for NAV and don't try to build yourself into the apps and instead become a proxy. I'd love a local PGP proxy app that my mail could go through. The only interface I'd need would be a tiny plug-in to set a header on messages for the proxy to read and act on. That sort of plugin should be simple enough to write for all of the popular email apps, let the engine remain consistant across everything.
With how to talk to the engine simplified then the effort can be moved to making PGP as an installation easier, more intuitive, and less of a jerk. For one thing default to a minimal install, go the install-on-demand route if need be, but DON'T dump a half-dozen applications into a system by default. Firewalls and VPNs are lovely but make sure the customer knows what they're getting into first, leave it as a second phase install by default.
Plug-ins? Drop folks to a web-page where plugs for each app can be listed. Include some default plugs in the install for the most common uses but still encourage the ambitious to check out the newer/more featureful/not-in-the-distrib versions.
Finally, why isn't there yet a standard for PGP-certifying and/or encoding web-pages?
Well, more like people are not buying Macs JUST to use the iPod.
However it is a great sales tool to sell a Mac: Has brought in a lot of folks to look at them and been a significent factor tipping folks to get a Mac in a lot of cases.
Sometimes its been folks who wouldn't have considered a Mac before but this intrigued them and then they liked what they saw. Face it, when someone sits next to you and pulls out an iPod it becomes a great bit of viral marketing for a Mac.
Other times its been owners of older Macs (who are notoriously loath to upgrade) popping by a store to check out this wonder-device and after 15 minutes surrounded by shiny new machines deciding yeah, it's finally time to get a new model.
And finally sometimes it is just an impulse buy. The same as some folks will one day walk by a display of new TVs and say "Ya know what - I want one" and come out 20 minutes later with a couple grand 36" blahblahblah model there are folks who see an iPod, and a Mac, and say what the heck, I want a Digital Hub with the trimmings.
Let me guess, page views down for the quarter so/. needs to bump 'em?
Apple sues over violations of their copyright, trademark, and trade dress. As everyone here should be well aware by now if you don't actively defend them you lose them.
The ability to talk to a device of theirs isn't an issue. As to more iPods/fewer Macs who knows, I doubt Apple has a strong concern as they've supported the product and stand to make money whichever way. However it is sad when that kind of flamebait is gratuitously tacked onto a story.
Comes with coupons. Redeem them for three free updates. Since most of the updates have been freely downloadable it hasn't been a hardship (one wasn't - too big.)
Accubyte will be around, since they're pretty large and pretty reliable.
Really? How many employees? How long have they been around? What is their sales volume? What was their profit last quarter? You got any of that or are you just talking out yer ass?
Wow, nice Mac fanatic, claiming anything cheaper than a Mac must be using cheap hardware from third worlds.
Wow - you got me pegged, think about going to work for Ms. Cleo?
You don't know jackshit about me but that I corrected your inane post comparing some no-name brand with a top tier manufacturer. Look fanboy, it may rock your world but cheap PCs suck. Ask anyone who ever had the displeasure of owning a Packard Bell, an early Gateway or a late model eMachine.
You wanna compare products go ahead but at least make it an honest comparison of like products. Or aren't you clueful enough to know the difference?
iMacs come with a quality 15" Sony monitor or a quality LCD.
Sorry, the iMacs don't come with a Sony monitor.
I'm typing on an iMac right now (Bondi Blue Rev b) in there is very definately a reinforcing wire shadow across the screen. So not only do I know professionially its a Sony monitor I have proof: Nobody else uses this design.
Pity you didn't do your homework better years ago. In case you're still doubtful Apple has a technote explaining the shadow to nervous customers.
$899.95 ($89.95 to get three year warranty parts and labor) for a 2.0 GHz P-4 with everything but LAN card and Monitor.
Really? And how's their support? Come with a few free OS upgrades? Will they be around tomorrow to honor that warrenty or are they one of the struggling?
Nothing in Apple's consumer lineup on its site is close (dual 1 GHzs are 2K$+).
Close how? there's an Indigo iMac listed on Apple's web-page that's $800.
Pretty good from a top-tier manufacturer with quality components. No it's not your bargain-basement deal but stands up well to offerings from Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, etc.
For the price of an inexpensive iMac, there you go, a full powered PC. And with 17" monitors reaching under $150 now, cheap grades a little less, well, Macs are still way more expensive.
Right, ever use one of the $150-specials? iMacs come with a quality 15" Sony monitor or a quality LCD. Or go to a G4. Sorry, you're comparing, er, apples to oranges. If you want a real comparison go check Apple's competition: The other big PC manufacturers. Some website selling a boatload of seconds from Korea isn't Apple's market.
The only thing I can say is that most of the Academy knows nothing of the original books, their scope and the difficulty involved in adapting them to the screen. How many of the Academy do you think actually read the books?
How many folks who've devoted their lives to storytelling have read LOTR? Gee, you think not many? Look up from your People Magazine and realize behind the red carpet and dresses there are legions of talented creative literate people in the industry. Heck, they're not the ones rushing to make Tom Greene movies but bills gotta be paid...
For that matter, how many in the Academy do you think can actually read?
Those that voted on Best Screenplay Adaptation. So, did you read the other source material and their screenplays?
No?
But 'cause you liked LOTR/FOTR is has to be the best adaptation, right? So who is really the clueless unread zombie?
ABM Screenplay Adaption better then LOTR/FOTR
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LoTR Takes 4 Oscars
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· Score: 2
My only comment is that I can't believe they didn't win for best screenplay adaptation. I've reread the books since seeing FotR and it's amazing how many changes they made...
Now go read Nasar's book and the screenplay that came from it, actually have some basis with to judge which is better.
Personally I didn't like Nasar's book at all and claims of "whispering campaign" aside thought that the film really did ignore the some relevant but uncomfortable bits about Nash's life. However honesty aside given what the book offered the screenplay did a marvelous job of bringing the characters to life in a 2 hour visual medium.
Better the LOTR/FOTR? For a screenplay adaption: Yes. Tolkien's source material is much richer, more visual, already plotted. Then it's more a case of condensing then actually rewriting and creating anew.
Documention: Y'know, the dead-tree or online specs that in some cases read as if they were Babelfished from their native tongue and others with beautify lucid, illustrated, and well organized troves of data.
Support: Who ya gonna call? Even if this is outsourced there's still some sort of coherent product issue / resolution process going on. Websites, call centers, tech notes, latest qualified drivers, etc. If the product is pooched better vendors will simply swap out the problem item.
Brand Value: Braun doesn't make their own small electronics but folks buy the Braun name. Why? Because through whatever combination of Marketing / Quality Control programs consumers associate Braun products with good devices.
R & D: They're not called Wintel without a reason. If the motherboard isn't made by Intel, or designed by Intel, or based on an Intel design then you've a rare beast. Even then the components are all about the same - this year's popular chips, or last years, or their knock-offs, all making PCs remarkably homogenous. Canon engines are in HP laser printers which sell far better then their Canon counterparts. Why? Large manufacturers do invest in making their variation somehow slightly "better" even if that only means supplying a better BIOS to the hardware manufacturer.
Marketing: Hey, folks found them to buy didn't they? There are any number of great products sitting out there that languish without decent marketing. DEC, Novell and Polaroid are examples of companies that had great products and couldn't sell them worth a damn. Apple has good products and flogs them mercilessly to great effect. Take a lesson who is doing well and who is circling the drain or already gone.
Product Line: Nobody wants to deal with ten vendors for similar products. Rather it is best to get some semblance of unified technology all under a single set of contracts. That means a vendor has to offer a full range of products even if they're not all necessarily completely built by them.
Buy on price, buy on specs, buy on brand name, all are foolish. There's a lot more to a PC then those qualities considered alone. For those all proud that they build their own PCs, well bully for you. How much time did you spend learning what components you wanted, from what vendors you wanted to buy, learning what is required to build a PC and how to go about it? Most folks don't want to invest their time but buy their computers off the shelf with all of the above already done for them.
Build a computer, build a house, customize a car, they're all decisions with their own advantages & disadvantages. For the majority just buying the darn thing outright is the way to go.
I'm not gonna try and tell Apple how to sell their products: They've got the best-selling computer a couple years in a row, 4 billion US in the bank and appear to be the only computer manufacturer riding out these times well.
However I can make one suggestion to folks commenting on what it would take to get them to buy a Mac: Use one. Don't go on about how you disliked MacOS 7.6.1 on an LC II back whenever.
Try a modern Mac,
running MacOS X,
for one hour.
See how fast you can come up to speed on it. That it has all of the Unix lovin' ya dig with the ease of a great GUI right there for the using. How it ships with a set of developer tools, documentation, the works (mmm - Cocoa). The full range of standard applications available. That it is perfectly married to the hardware it runs on.
One hour. Try it. Don't read reviews, listen to gripe-sheets, how old-school Macolytes miss some features, the pissing & moaning that Apple paid for a specific codec and didn't give it away, whatever.
See for yourself what it is like.
Take a look at the hardware and price it out against any other top tier manufacturer with quality components, a three year warranty, full support. See if MHz really is the true and only measure of a computer's performance. Ask yourself if you could fall in love with an OS, would you be cheating on another?
That's all. Give it a fair shake and then decide if it's right for you or not. But at least drive it around the block, kick the tires, check out under the hood. Trust me, the brochures don't do it justice.
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A few years ago 800x600, 256 color, a few hours battery life and a 56KB/sec wireless connection, cost $1,000 would have stolen the show. Now it's gotta be 1024x768, full color, last 8 or more hours, be capable of playing back mp3s and video, tie into some sort of low-cost wireless system, preferably 802.11?, and cost $500.
They're competing with low end laptops for market and components and always suffering in comparison to desktops. Add in the ruggedness that's required (how many times will it slide off the couch or get dropped as someone tries to pick it up one-handed from the coffee table?) and range of uses they'll be put to and it's a tough product to build at an attractive price point.
Then there's the OS & UI. Folks want the same as they've got on their home PC which mostly means Wintel or MacOS (Linux isn't going to be a popular choice for the consumer market, /.-readers excepted.) Both of these OS's really rely heavily on keyboards and while there have been any number of work-arounds (how many iterations of PenWindows?) they remain clunky without. On-screen "Soft-keyboards" are one option but not one that's ever generated much enthusiasm.
One clever solution has been to use the Webpad as a remote terminal. This solves much of the software and storage issues as long as one has decent wireless bandwidth. However it does require the "base" PC be on & dedicating resources to the client.
Windows is not particularly good serving two masters though MS does have some new technology that they've been showing around. However after so many failed attempts in this area vendors are justifiably nervous about committing real resources to it until someone else proves it out.
Apple has only recently re-introduced partial remote terminal capability into their MacOS line (it was present in Next Step but lost in the transition to Quartz/Display-PDF). There is speculation (isn't there always with Apple?) they're going to offer some combination of local/remote interfaces as part of their "Digital Hub" strategy with a webpad running an embedded-PPC-based MacOS X-lite.
Linux - well as noted most of the market is biased towards Wintel then Mac. While something with inherently limited functionality like a webpad (not that Linux is inherently limited, just that this wouldn't require a full-blown Linux-for-the-desktop universal solution) and the low cost of Linux would make it attractive the lack of full & easy support for all file formats & plug-is a problem. There are work-arounds but frankly they're not attractive ones from a sales & support perspective.
Finally, remember that lots of the companies most likely to try out a webpad product are the exact same ones that got burnt on network appliances. In today's deadly market nobody is particularly enthused to chance losing money on another dead end like those, especially for a market & product so similar. Webpads *might* take off but not many want to risk their not, particularly for the low per unit profit most see in them.
My guess? Aside from a few rebranded models we won't see any from the big names except possibly IBM & Apple. IBM has a good history of migrating technology like this to/from their vertical markets so they've little wasted R&D or manufacturing costs. Apple likes to be a trailblazer plus their customers are open to an all-Apple terminal/server solution. Thus Apple can keep the margin low on the webpad & recoup it on the server. Others? Perhaps some Tiawanese & other manufacturers attempting to build their own brands.
C'mon folks, this is a troll! Who the heck fell for it?!
It doesn't work. If translating were so simple for machines to do they'd be doing a fine job. However good translation requires context, insight, emotional inflection, etc. Even then each and every one ends up different; sometimes subtly sometimes blatantly.
Just as machine translation sux at these so will distributed translation. Reading a paragraph or a page doesn't tell enough about the feel, flow, or tone of a document. There are numerous words and phrases that can be interpreted multiple ways between any two languages and will be, each time differently by each interpreter.
If you don't know this already then go and look up any document (books and short stories are easy to find, so is poetry) that has been translated more then once. Take a look at the different translations and ask yourself - "Are these really from the same source document?"
Now imagine trying to read something composed of alternating paragraphs or pages from each translation: Incoherence.
Distributed problem solving works for subjects with clearly defined data sets, methodologies, and standards; not human language.
As to the intellect & motives of the security staff, glad to see you have such insight into them. Its almost as if you've flown through St. John (which btw I found to have rather decent security staff, certainly better then most other airports.) Doubtless all folks not doing whatever it is you do are "idiots with IQs that combined still don't match the intelligence of a small kitchen appliance trying to believe that they actually had a purpose for living". Remind me to be impressed by you sometime (not.)
The only thing anyone here has to admit is the security folks were trying to do their job. As has been widely noted in Canadian press there is no "right" to fly. Furthermore Mann didn't have the paperwork that would be expected of medical electronics nor of a disabled person. Finally I'm not aware of his electronics having been certified for use onboard an aircraft and the local folks simply don't have the authority to contravene this Federal policy (nor should they for such a frivolous reason.)
Glad you've found such a role model in Mann - I wish you the dubious pleasure of spending some time with him sometime and seeing how he operates. You just got sucked into yet another of his little dramas.
Which leads to his second characteristic which is using his gear as a tool to provoke folks. He deliberately makes himself obtrusive with his "requirements" and pushes folks by blatantly recording them, refusing to cease, indeed almost assaulting them.
Imagine an adult declaring they *must* have their pet/TV/tinfoil-hat/shotgun/whatever with them and you've got Mann. Now watch them use it as a passive-aggressive tool to deliberately provoke other folks and get attention and you've really got Mann. Now watch after throwing a tantrum the objects of it all get nonchalantly taken off, put down, walked away from. That's what he does.
Needless to say many folks actively avoid him; consider him with pity but wish no involvement with his little dramas. Indeed there's a running debate as to when someone will finally take exception to his behavior with a pipe and he really will find his gear "integrated" with his body, likely starting with his anterior sphincter. While most will decry the violence few will not have more then a little empathy for the poor sod Mann will have finally managed to push too far.
That Mann has managed to score points with Air Canada is no surprise. The folks at the gate have little authority and a mandate to prevent suspicious objects from being brought on-board. As has been pointed out there is no "right" in Canada to fly onboard an aircraft and the protestations of Mann's pet Dr. notwithstanding he has no disabled status.
Furthermore the requirements of turning off electronics during take-off & landing are well & long established, the local folks have no authority to grant exceptions to this Federal policy. His electronics is not certified medical electronics but a nest of boxes and wires doubtlessly radiating RF and precisely the sort of thing that concerns regulators.
Indeed I expect if any /. reader were to be asked to share an aircraft with some loon "requiring" a mass of electronics & cabling all declaring he *must* have it I expect they'd reconsider their schedule and debark pretty darn quickly. Its easy to sit in front of a keyboard & monitor declaring Mann to be a victim, doubtless a little harder to be some security folk faced with him & the responsibility for a safe aircraft. As to "knowing" he is safe - can you say for sure Mann with all of his dysfunctions doesn't have something nasty tucked in there?
The great thing is that virtually every Mac application has hooks for scripting through the standard Apple Events model which is automagically available to all other OSA languages.
Built in a rush before WWII.
In a swamp.
On pilings.
W/O word getting out.
To this day.
Riiiiight. It's where they hide "The Greys".
For many of us, South Park notwithstanding, still feel every day the loss of friends & lovers & family to that disease. Furthermore many of us watch yet more friends, family & lovers continue to fight for their lives, every day.
That many somehow believe that the epidemic is over or that they are somehow safe from it is only more disheartening and even more tragic.
So unless you've lost ones close to you to HIV, or to the events of September 11, 2001, please don't take it upon yourself try and tell the rest of us what we should find "funny" or not.
The CATO's Institute's pet Steve Milloy writing for Fox "News" 3 days after the incident doesn't meet most folks standards of legitimate or informed reportage.
- OCR your material. Frankly OCR still sucks and if there is any possible way you can get your hands on a source file for your material do it. Even with a
.01% error-rate (you wish it were that good!) you're still going to have to proof this damn closely and at great effort.
-
Next is the output format. Sure some software will do it's best to figure out a table from a paragraph but it's still tricky stuff as prone to error as it is to getting it right. Again the best procedure is doing it by hand so you know it is done properly the first time then spending days reviewing crappy machine-generated code.
Finally if you just want to quick-n-dirty get the thing into electronic format and don't mind doing a bit of indexing yourself Adobe Acrobat can suck in material including OCR, supports indexes, tables, etc, and has an XML implementation.You'd might do well just hiring a company to retype this in for you. There are any number of such that do this at fairly reasonable prices, locally & off-shore. They'll likely be cheaper then your going the research/purchase/assemble/scan/OCR/review/output cycle on your own, particularly for a one-off.
As to XML vs. anything else - who cares. Get it into any reasonable format and without too much effort you can convert it to another. Unless you're trying for buzzword-bingo just accept any text & table formats & post-process to your favorite flavor.
Think for a few moments before posting.
- These buildings received Certificates of Occupancy, had been tested in the prior attack, their systems and procedures were as good as any other in the world.
- There is NO evidence of cost-cutting, sub-standard materials or equipment, etc. This was a public building owned until recently by the Port Authority of NY & NJ and by all reports kept in exemplary condition.
- These were not slip-shod towers built overnight in some 3rd-world country without reviews, standards, or regular inspections.
- Aside from their unusual tube-design (which appears to have been their greatest asset) and height there is nothing special about WTC towers that would separate them from tall buildings around the world. This includes materials.
Finally, before you post realize that 3,000 humans died horribly in this disaster. Perhaps before you post your Monday-morning-quarterbacking, rumor-spreading & conspiracy theories you might show a bit of respect for those folks and the ones they left behind.A little courtesy and respect is appreciated.
Pity that:
- The WTC was a public building only "sold" a few months prior to the attack. It was built and owned by the Port Authority of NY & NJ.
- There are likely no other buildings in the world (possibly excepting the Great Pyramid) that could have held up as well/as long to the assault as the WTC did.
So 2 for 2 you were wrong; now please crawl back to your dark corner.Ech.
Some great concepts but still a cranky idiosyncratic bastard of a program. Trivial to use? Sure, after reading far too many poorly written manual pages. Easy to interact with? When it didn't hopelessly mangle what it was supposed to secure (we didn't want one-way!) Integrated - as long as you didn't do this or that or...
Look, you want a well integrated NAI program look at how NAV interacts with Outlook. Yeah it's a big pig and lots of folks hate it but to the user it's *not an issue*. It scans for nasties. It scans incoming & it scans outgoing. It can be configured with a few clicks in a clean interface written in simple language. It just works.
Personally I ask any ambitious developer to take the same strategy NAI does for NAV and don't try to build yourself into the apps and instead become a proxy. I'd love a local PGP proxy app that my mail could go through. The only interface I'd need would be a tiny plug-in to set a header on messages for the proxy to read and act on. That sort of plugin should be simple enough to write for all of the popular email apps, let the engine remain consistant across everything.
With how to talk to the engine simplified then the effort can be moved to making PGP as an installation easier, more intuitive, and less of a jerk. For one thing default to a minimal install, go the install-on-demand route if need be, but DON'T dump a half-dozen applications into a system by default. Firewalls and VPNs are lovely but make sure the customer knows what they're getting into first, leave it as a second phase install by default. Plug-ins? Drop folks to a web-page where plugs for each app can be listed. Include some default plugs in the install for the most common uses but still encourage the ambitious to check out the newer/more featureful/not-in-the-distrib versions.
Finally, why isn't there yet a standard for PGP-certifying and/or encoding web-pages?
Well, more like people are not buying Macs JUST to use the iPod.
However it is a great sales tool to sell a Mac: Has brought in a lot of folks to look at them and been a significent factor tipping folks to get a Mac in a lot of cases.
Sometimes its been folks who wouldn't have considered a Mac before but this intrigued them and then they liked what they saw. Face it, when someone sits next to you and pulls out an iPod it becomes a great bit of viral marketing for a Mac.
Other times its been owners of older Macs (who are notoriously loath to upgrade) popping by a store to check out this wonder-device and after 15 minutes surrounded by shiny new machines deciding yeah, it's finally time to get a new model.
And finally sometimes it is just an impulse buy. The same as some folks will one day walk by a display of new TVs and say "Ya know what - I want one" and come out 20 minutes later with a couple grand 36" blahblahblah model there are folks who see an iPod, and a Mac, and say what the heck, I want a Digital Hub with the trimmings.
Apple sues over violations of their copyright, trademark, and trade dress. As everyone here should be well aware by now if you don't actively defend them you lose them.
The ability to talk to a device of theirs isn't an issue. As to more iPods/fewer Macs who knows, I doubt Apple has a strong concern as they've supported the product and stand to make money whichever way. However it is sad when that kind of flamebait is gratuitously tacked onto a story.
Wow - you got me pegged, think about going to work for Ms. Cleo?
You don't know jackshit about me but that I corrected your inane post comparing some no-name brand with a top tier manufacturer. Look fanboy, it may rock your world but cheap PCs suck. Ask anyone who ever had the displeasure of owning a Packard Bell, an early Gateway or a late model eMachine.
You wanna compare products go ahead but at least make it an honest comparison of like products. Or aren't you clueful enough to know the difference?
Pity you didn't do your homework better years ago. In case you're still doubtful Apple has a technote explaining the shadow to nervous customers.
No?
But 'cause you liked LOTR/FOTR is has to be the best adaptation, right? So who is really the clueless unread zombie?
Now go read Nasar's book and the screenplay that came from it, actually have some basis with to judge which is better.
Personally I didn't like Nasar's book at all and claims of "whispering campaign" aside thought that the film really did ignore the some relevant but uncomfortable bits about Nash's life. However honesty aside given what the book offered the screenplay did a marvelous job of bringing the characters to life in a 2 hour visual medium.
Better the LOTR/FOTR? For a screenplay adaption: Yes. Tolkien's source material is much richer, more visual, already plotted. Then it's more a case of condensing then actually rewriting and creating anew.
- Documention: Y'know, the dead-tree or online specs that in some cases read as if they were Babelfished from their native tongue and others with beautify lucid, illustrated, and well organized troves of data.
- Support: Who ya gonna call? Even if this is outsourced there's still some sort of coherent product issue / resolution process going on. Websites, call centers, tech notes, latest qualified drivers, etc. If the product is pooched better vendors will simply swap out the problem item.
- Brand Value: Braun doesn't make their own small electronics but folks buy the Braun name. Why? Because through whatever combination of Marketing / Quality Control programs consumers associate Braun products with good devices.
- R & D: They're not called Wintel without a reason. If the motherboard isn't made by Intel, or designed by Intel, or based on an Intel design then you've a rare beast. Even then the components are all about the same - this year's popular chips, or last years, or their knock-offs, all making PCs remarkably homogenous. Canon engines are in HP laser printers which sell far better then their Canon counterparts. Why? Large manufacturers do invest in making their variation somehow slightly "better" even if that only means supplying a better BIOS to the hardware manufacturer.
- Marketing: Hey, folks found them to buy didn't they? There are any number of great products sitting out there that languish without decent marketing. DEC, Novell and Polaroid are examples of companies that had great products and couldn't sell them worth a damn. Apple has good products and flogs them mercilessly to great effect. Take a lesson who is doing well and who is circling the drain or already gone.
- Product Line: Nobody wants to deal with ten vendors for similar products. Rather it is best to get some semblance of unified technology all under a single set of contracts. That means a vendor has to offer a full range of products even if they're not all necessarily completely built by them.
Buy on price, buy on specs, buy on brand name, all are foolish. There's a lot more to a PC then those qualities considered alone. For those all proud that they build their own PCs, well bully for you. How much time did you spend learning what components you wanted, from what vendors you wanted to buy, learning what is required to build a PC and how to go about it? Most folks don't want to invest their time but buy their computers off the shelf with all of the above already done for them.Build a computer, build a house, customize a car, they're all decisions with their own advantages & disadvantages. For the majority just buying the darn thing outright is the way to go.
However I can make one suggestion to folks commenting on what it would take to get them to buy a Mac: Use one. Don't go on about how you disliked MacOS 7.6.1 on an LC II back whenever.
Try a modern Mac,
running MacOS X,
for one hour.
See how fast you can come up to speed on it. That it has all of the Unix lovin' ya dig with the ease of a great GUI right there for the using. How it ships with a set of developer tools, documentation, the works (mmm - Cocoa). The full range of standard applications available. That it is perfectly married to the hardware it runs on.
One hour. Try it. Don't read reviews, listen to gripe-sheets, how old-school Macolytes miss some features, the pissing & moaning that Apple paid for a specific codec and didn't give it away, whatever.
See for yourself what it is like.
Take a look at the hardware and price it out against any other top tier manufacturer with quality components, a three year warranty, full support. See if MHz really is the true and only measure of a computer's performance. Ask yourself if you could fall in love with an OS, would you be cheating on another?
That's all. Give it a fair shake and then decide if it's right for you or not. But at least drive it around the block, kick the tires, check out under the hood. Trust me, the brochures don't do it justice.