Quite a few times I've thought, wouldn't it be nice if America had the same data privacy laws... this is a good example of why they're needed.
In the UK a database of personally-identifiable information automatically needs permission from every single individual concerned, unless it's exempt for some reason. Even if it is exempt the data can only be kept for the purpose it was collected for, and not shared. Once it's no longer needed it has to be destroyed.
It's a good example of putting individual rights before business interests. Not something the USA excels at...
Case in point: Deus Ex. Still just about my favourite game ever, and it had a great story. It was like being part of a good cyberpunk novel.
Conversely: Far Cry. The gameplay was good, but the story sucked. It was like taking part in a B movie.
In the end, the games that I'll remember (and go back to play again) are the ones where I can really get into the game world. And that means good characters, a decent plot, and new and interesting things all the way through.
The Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard is ideal... it's a combined keyboad/mouse built from two touchpads, and uses 'multi-touch' technology for gestures and mousing. So for mousing you touch two fingers on the right-hand pad, to click you touch a third finger. It's also highly configurable, and great for RSI because there's no force involved in typing and there's no repetitive switching from keyboard to mouse.
Sadly they don't make them any more, so the only way to get one is second-hand. They turn up on ebay from time to time. There are two on there at the moment, in fact. Expect to pay $500+, though.
...for an alternative keyboard that rivals the now-deceased TouchStream. This one doesn't look like it'll do the job, although it does at least combine keyboard and mouse...
(If you've never used integrated keyboard/mouse input, you're missing out. Text editing, in particular, benefits hugely. Some things are far easier to do with the mouse, but power users stick to the keyboard to avoid the switch time.)
I would say that they're giving back something at least as important as code. Open source is a wonderful idea but of limited importance unless the software actually gets used. Google is adding its heavyweight brandname and reputation to the side of open source.
Really, they're doing something only a big corporation with a good public image can do. Code would be great, but it doesn't take a megacorporation to write code.
Where do people think that 10 billion comes from? It's a tax. A very sneaky one, but a tax nonetheless. You'll be paying extra for all the resulting new technology. Or, worse still, the technology won't arrive because the companies paid a ridiculous amount in the auction. We've seen something like that in the UK with mobile phone spectrum. See the first paragraph of this editorial.
So, please, don't talk about the switchover as if it produces money. It doesn't, it's just a tax that people aren't smart enough to complain about.
Yeah, I'm painfully aware... mine will stop working at some point and it's going to be a nasty shock to move back to standard keyboard + mouse.
I wonder how much of the layout you could duplicate on Linux using xmodmap... with a bit of trickery you might be able to get the same sort of behaviour out of any keyboard... without the gestures of the TS, but, still, could be worth a try.
I use a TouchStream keyboard which allows me to fully customise the layout. More than that, it allows me to use three separate modifier keys to temporarily switch to alternative layouts.
Naturally I spent some time experimenting to find the best layout for heavy typing and programming. In the end I settled on a system which eliminates reaches completely: I never have to reach outside 5x3 keys that fall naturally under each hand. (Except backspace, space, enter and delete, which are pressed with the thumbs on a Touchstream; and a few useless ones like F keys, print screen, pause).
So in fact I use a 34 key keyboard.
Never having to reach for symbols is very nice indeed for a programmer...
Anyway, here's the layout. The main layout approximates to a Dvorak layout:
*1 *2 *3 P Y F G C R L A O E U I D H T N S Tab Q J K X B M W V Z
The tab key is the only special or symbol key I can hit without using one of the modifiers. (Shift, ctrl and alt are done using chords, a TouchStream feature... four fingers at once in a particular row of the keyboard).
*1 to *3 are the modifiers, and they change all the keys under the right hand. *1 is the "number pad":
5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 + - * £ $
*2 is the "programming pad":
< / \ != > # & | ^ ~ ; : _ == %
And *3 is the "punctuation pad":
{ ` " @ } ( ' , . ) [ = ? ! ]
And that's it. It took a while to learn, but on the whole the switch to Dvorak was harder. It makes typing very comfortable indeed, as my wrists are completely stationary and I'm never reaching for keys. As for speed... well, I'm a programmer by profession, and it certainly doesn't slow me down.
I think there's definitely a case for reducing the number of keys people use. But it's going to be very hard to get right. TouchStream keyboards are vastly superior to normal keyboards... but they're no longer being made. Too different from normal, too expensive. It may be that nobody gets it right for tens of years... which is a shame. There's a lot of room for improvement.
We already have authentication systems. Why should DNS, which every website uses, be doing something which only a tiny fraction of websites need?
Besides -- technology can't stop phishing. A combination of education, authentication and client software that can with 100% reliability inform the user whether authentication has happened is the answer. Authentication is by far the easiest problem of the three. Education is more or less impossible, and reliably informing users is next to impossible. (In a web browser, anyway. If you let websites display images and run active content, how do you stop them fooling a user, even a well educated one? How do you guarantee it's impossible to do so?)
The root of the problem is that Windows caches files by filename, whereas Linux caches files by inode.
If you replace a file, the Windows cache cannot let different programs see different versions of the file. One filename, one file. The Linux cache ignores the filenames and uses the inodes, so it can present different programs with different versions of the file.
Personally I think this is a serious design flaw in Windows... a program should deal with a file on disk regardless of its name, not with a filename and whatever happens to be associated with it.
(Incidentally, this is why Windows won't let you rename files that are in use; the cache would get confused.)
Actually, looking at that page again, they're selling something... their book on how everything in modern science is wrong. Heh. Not a good place to go for scientific information, then:p
Easy: I prefer it. I have mozilla and opera installed, but those only get fired up in the (rare) event that Opera can't handle something.
The user interface is slicker, IMHO; and more customisable. It's just little things, like what happens if you double click on an empty page... but it's a lot of little things like that:)
Anyway, it's worth a try, then you can decide for yourself.
On a similar note: if I'm juggling and lean my head on my shoulder, it suddenly becomes a lot harder and I most likely drop something. Same goes for others I've seen try it. Final proof that juggling is 98% subconscious.
It's easy to work out how many bits are being used to represent each colour, as well as how many channels are present. High order bits show much less randomness than low order bits, so there will be a marked transition whenever a new word is encountered. Colour channels show considerable correlation between corresponding pixels, so it's easy to match them up.
Although it would be silly to do a colour encoding, since aliens would most definitely not have the same colour perception. (Different animals on earth don't have the same colour perception). They might also be "colour blind", and have fewer than three effective channels.
Nevertheless, it's reasonably easy to represent the information from an arbitrary colour space in a way that suits the visual system of whoever's viewing it. You just do Principal Component Analysis to find the information, then map those colour directions to the ones that the viewers can percieve. Sure, you won't get the colours right, but they'll be visible.
I think the only thing required for an intelligent race to interpret bitmap data is that they are able to see 2D images. You can certainly invent possible races that wouldn't be able to understand them, but... on the whole I think it's a very meagre requirement.
Er... the word bitmap has a specific meaning. My assertion is that it's a way of representing an image that anyone will be able to interpret as an image, thus making it as good as a piece of paper with an image on it. That's all.
The logical conclusion of your argument seems to be that files should be stored as bitmaps. Even the most basic analysis of a bitmap file will reveal regularity with period equal to the width of the image... and it's natural to then look at the data with corresponding periods aligned, revealing the image. Then you have your piece of paper equivalent.
There was an article in New Scientist (IIRC) a while back about constructing a signal which would be interpretable by aliens. They did, indeed, use a bitmap representation. Then they used symbols to build up concepts of mathematics, starting with counting.
I'm not sure how far they got, but it was certainly an interesting article.
Indeed. Your best chance out of college is a job that's tailor-made for graduates. That way they have realistic expectations of you... and of what they have to pay you.
That's the key, and a degree doesn't help you much. A degree gives an employer a fair indication that you have a decent level of knowledge and can work reasonably hard. But it doesn't tell them that you'll be able to plan a software project or write code that's easy to maintain.
If you apply for a job and they have a choice between you and someone with more real world experience, odds are pretty good they won't choose you. So, fresh out of college, your choices are limited. Basically, check the job listings and apply for anything which isn't asking for more experience than you've got. There are other things to consider, of course, but that's the major one. They pretty much have to be looking for a fresh graduate.
I was lucky, I got mine just in time. I needed a second for work, and I was lucky with that too, because I bought one on ebay before it was certain than Fingerworks had died. Cost me $500 but what with the exchange rate and the higher cost of UK models that's the same as what I paid for the first one.
There's probably not much you can do except keep an eye on ebay... although there may still be some available in other countries, particularly Europe... they'll be expensive, though, because you'll be paying two sets of import tax.
It's a real shame:(... I can only hope that the technology is taken further. The ones I have will likely stop working at some point, and it's going to be extremely unpleasant to have to switch back to a normal keyboard+mouse.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite a few times I've thought, wouldn't it be nice if America had the same data privacy laws... this is a good example of why they're needed.
In the UK a database of personally-identifiable information automatically needs permission from every single individual concerned, unless it's exempt for some reason. Even if it is exempt the data can only be kept for the purpose it was collected for, and not shared. Once it's no longer needed it has to be destroyed.
It's a good example of putting individual rights before business interests. Not something the USA excels at...
Hmm. Path finding isn't NP complete -- polynomial, at worst. So it's quite solvable.
It's only NP complete if you have some weird requirement like 'visit all cities' as in the Travelling Salesperson Problem.
And anyway in general if a problem is NP complete then people can't do it either, so you don't need a full solution...
...you need a good story.
Case in point: Deus Ex. Still just about my favourite game ever, and it had a great story. It was like being part of a good cyberpunk novel.
Conversely: Far Cry. The gameplay was good, but the story sucked. It was like taking part in a B movie.
In the end, the games that I'll remember (and go back to play again) are the ones where I can really get into the game world. And that means good characters, a decent plot, and new and interesting things all the way through.
The Fingerworks Touchstream keyboard is ideal... it's a combined keyboad/mouse built from two touchpads, and uses 'multi-touch' technology for gestures and mousing. So for mousing you touch two fingers on the right-hand pad, to click you touch a third finger. It's also highly configurable, and great for RSI because there's no force involved in typing and there's no repetitive switching from keyboard to mouse.
Sadly they don't make them any more, so the only way to get one is second-hand. They turn up on ebay from time to time. There are two on there at the moment, in fact. Expect to pay $500+, though.
Pagerank has some pretty good information publically available:
Pagerank Explained
That at least covers a big chunk of what Google does.
...for an alternative keyboard that rivals the now-deceased TouchStream. This one doesn't look like it'll do the job, although it does at least combine keyboard and mouse...
(If you've never used integrated keyboard/mouse input, you're missing out. Text editing, in particular, benefits hugely. Some things are far easier to do with the mouse, but power users stick to the keyboard to avoid the switch time.)
I would say that they're giving back something at least as important as code. Open source is a wonderful idea but of limited importance unless the software actually gets used. Google is adding its heavyweight brandname and reputation to the side of open source.
Really, they're doing something only a big corporation with a good public image can do. Code would be great, but it doesn't take a megacorporation to write code.
Where do people think that 10 billion comes from? It's a tax. A very sneaky one, but a tax nonetheless. You'll be paying extra for all the resulting new technology. Or, worse still, the technology won't arrive because the companies paid a ridiculous amount in the auction. We've seen something like that in the UK with mobile phone spectrum. See the first paragraph of this editorial.
So, please, don't talk about the switchover as if it produces money. It doesn't, it's just a tax that people aren't smart enough to complain about.
Yeah, I'm painfully aware... mine will stop working at some point and it's going to be a nasty shock to move back to standard keyboard + mouse.
I wonder how much of the layout you could duplicate on Linux using xmodmap... with a bit of trickery you might be able to get the same sort of behaviour out of any keyboard... without the gestures of the TS, but, still, could be worth a try.
I use a TouchStream keyboard which allows me to fully customise the layout. More than that, it allows me to use three separate modifier keys to temporarily switch to alternative layouts.
/ \ != > : _ == %
, . )
Naturally I spent some time experimenting to find the best layout for heavy typing and programming. In the end I settled on a system which eliminates reaches completely: I never have to reach outside 5x3 keys that fall naturally under each hand. (Except backspace, space, enter and delete, which are pressed with the thumbs on a Touchstream; and a few useless ones like F keys, print screen, pause).
So in fact I use a 34 key keyboard.
Never having to reach for symbols is very nice indeed for a programmer...
Anyway, here's the layout. The main layout approximates to a Dvorak layout:
*1 *2 *3 P Y F G C R L
A O E U I D H T N S
Tab Q J K X B M W V Z
The tab key is the only special or symbol key I can hit without using one of the modifiers. (Shift, ctrl and alt are done using chords, a TouchStream feature... four fingers at once in a particular row of the keyboard).
*1 to *3 are the modifiers, and they change all the keys under the right hand. *1 is the "number pad":
5 6 7 8 9
0 1 2 3 4
+ - * £ $
*2 is the "programming pad":
<
# & | ^ ~
;
And *3 is the "punctuation pad":
{ ` " @ }
( '
[ = ? ! ]
And that's it. It took a while to learn, but on the whole the switch to Dvorak was harder. It makes typing very comfortable indeed, as my wrists are completely stationary and I'm never reaching for keys. As for speed... well, I'm a programmer by profession, and it certainly doesn't slow me down.
I think there's definitely a case for reducing the number of keys people use. But it's going to be very hard to get right. TouchStream keyboards are vastly superior to normal keyboards... but they're no longer being made. Too different from normal, too expensive. It may be that nobody gets it right for tens of years... which is a shame. There's a lot of room for improvement.
We already have authentication systems. Why should DNS, which every website uses, be doing something which only a tiny fraction of websites need?
Besides -- technology can't stop phishing. A combination of education, authentication and client software that can with 100% reliability inform the user whether authentication has happened is the answer. Authentication is by far the easiest problem of the three. Education is more or less impossible, and reliably informing users is next to impossible. (In a web browser, anyway. If you let websites display images and run active content, how do you stop them fooling a user, even a well educated one? How do you guarantee it's impossible to do so?)
The root of the problem is that Windows caches files by filename, whereas Linux caches files by inode.
If you replace a file, the Windows cache cannot let different programs see different versions of the file. One filename, one file. The Linux cache ignores the filenames and uses the inodes, so it can present different programs with different versions of the file.
Personally I think this is a serious design flaw in Windows... a program should deal with a file on disk regardless of its name, not with a filename and whatever happens to be associated with it.
(Incidentally, this is why Windows won't let you rename files that are in use; the cache would get confused.)
...and will provide lucrative funding, too.
"And now, live from the Big Brother Space Capsule..."
You can. I forget the details, but the mechanisms available are very flexible... try looking up phantom references and reference queues.
Actually, looking at that page again, they're selling something... their book on how everything in modern science is wrong. Heh. Not a good place to go for scientific information, then :p
That page is full of nonsense, and the derivation is nonsense as well. Where does 'p = E/c' come from?
Looks like that whole page is one big troll... someone has too much time on their hands.
Well worth the download.
Easy: I prefer it. I have mozilla and opera installed, but those only get fired up in the (rare) event that Opera can't handle something.
The user interface is slicker, IMHO; and more customisable. It's just little things, like what happens if you double click on an empty page... but it's a lot of little things like that :)
Anyway, it's worth a try, then you can decide for yourself.
On a similar note: if I'm juggling and lean my head on my shoulder, it suddenly becomes a lot harder and I most likely drop something. Same goes for others I've seen try it. Final proof that juggling is 98% subconscious.
It's easy to work out how many bits are being used to represent each colour, as well as how many channels are present. High order bits show much less randomness than low order bits, so there will be a marked transition whenever a new word is encountered. Colour channels show considerable correlation between corresponding pixels, so it's easy to match them up.
Although it would be silly to do a colour encoding, since aliens would most definitely not have the same colour perception. (Different animals on earth don't have the same colour perception). They might also be "colour blind", and have fewer than three effective channels.
Nevertheless, it's reasonably easy to represent the information from an arbitrary colour space in a way that suits the visual system of whoever's viewing it. You just do Principal Component Analysis to find the information, then map those colour directions to the ones that the viewers can percieve. Sure, you won't get the colours right, but they'll be visible.
I think the only thing required for an intelligent race to interpret bitmap data is that they are able to see 2D images. You can certainly invent possible races that wouldn't be able to understand them, but... on the whole I think it's a very meagre requirement.
Er... the word bitmap has a specific meaning. My assertion is that it's a way of representing an image that anyone will be able to interpret as an image, thus making it as good as a piece of paper with an image on it. That's all.
The logical conclusion of your argument seems to be that files should be stored as bitmaps. Even the most basic analysis of a bitmap file will reveal regularity with period equal to the width of the image... and it's natural to then look at the data with corresponding periods aligned, revealing the image. Then you have your piece of paper equivalent.
There was an article in New Scientist (IIRC) a while back about constructing a signal which would be interpretable by aliens. They did, indeed, use a bitmap representation. Then they used symbols to build up concepts of mathematics, starting with counting.
I'm not sure how far they got, but it was certainly an interesting article.
Indeed. Your best chance out of college is a job that's tailor-made for graduates. That way they have realistic expectations of you... and of what they have to pay you.
That's the key, and a degree doesn't help you much. A degree gives an employer a fair indication that you have a decent level of knowledge and can work reasonably hard. But it doesn't tell them that you'll be able to plan a software project or write code that's easy to maintain.
If you apply for a job and they have a choice between you and someone with more real world experience, odds are pretty good they won't choose you. So, fresh out of college, your choices are limited. Basically, check the job listings and apply for anything which isn't asking for more experience than you've got. There are other things to consider, of course, but that's the major one. They pretty much have to be looking for a fresh graduate.
I know :(
I was lucky, I got mine just in time. I needed a second for work, and I was lucky with that too, because I bought one on ebay before it was certain than Fingerworks had died. Cost me $500 but what with the exchange rate and the higher cost of UK models that's the same as what I paid for the first one.
There's probably not much you can do except keep an eye on ebay... although there may still be some available in other countries, particularly Europe... they'll be expensive, though, because you'll be paying two sets of import tax.
It's a real shame :(... I can only hope that the technology is taken further. The ones I have will likely stop working at some point, and it's going to be extremely unpleasant to have to switch back to a normal keyboard+mouse.
That's life, I guess.