It makes sense that in hospitals, there should be some sterilizable version of everything. They don't use operating equipment that can't be sterilized, so why not cellphones? The only problem is, Excess sterilization leads to super-bugs, so maybe just administering an immunization for this bug would be a better idea.:)
It seems that more and more books that are coming out are geared for the novice... or perhaps, we're all just getting that much better? It's important to ask yourself how good you really are. I have found that there are practically no good resources for programming information above a certain level, i'd say Junior Programmer, other than the Knuth books or perhaps a few others. Anyone else know of any advanced topic books that are really good?
A typical Google sample problem: Suppose there are X lockers in the hallway, and someone is opening every Nth locker where n is a prime number. Write a program to parse all the html files on the internet and return something useful.:)
I assumed everyone knew about the contest already, or I would've submitted the story myself! Argh! Oh well. You can all expect to see sir_haxalot take time off from being an artist for a few minutes, in order to use the force and attempt to gain at least a t-shirt.
My creative-art abilities help in situations like thinking to use a sequential access system, but knowing jack about the subsystems would have been more beneficial in actually implementing that system:D
When I was really young, I tried to use a tape drive as a sequential hard-disk drive. I figured since the tape drive was sequential access it would work... let's just say it didn't go real fast. I tried to run an EXE from it, on probably a 386 mind you, and yeah. The laundry got done before the EXE ran! (SIGH) Was I *ever* that young? Still, I am glad to see that the paradigm is now realizeable.
My point was that anyone looking to get a computer wants to get a good deal, not "oh, wee-oo-wee-oo I am so poor." Obviously, I am exceedingly wealthy compared to most of the world, and I am greatful every day for that, as everyone in my position should be.
Perhaps if businesses in poor nations were equipped with these machines, it might be easier for them to pay a living wage... assuming they had customers that could afford their services in the first place!
Aren't we all poor to some extent?
on
State Of The Simputer
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· Score: 1, Insightful
In the reverse of many of the comments on here, who wouldn't want a less expensive computer, provided it still did the functions they need? I agree that gamers need the latest hardware, etc. but shouldn't these machines first go to replace the expensive desktops here in the U.S., and perhaps some of our excess food supply could go over there? A poor person would probably prefer numerous free lunches to a free laptop.
Maybe if a misspelled URL went to a random other URL, it might be OK, but using that page to advertise for a particular company's profit, regardless of the URL, seems really bad. I would much prefer to have a "not found" message, since that's really what's happened. Can you imagine if this happened while driving? Anytime you turn down the wrong street, the same ad came on the radio or something like that? It seems positively Orwellian.
Allow me to amend my previous comment. I meant no disrespect to Sun, but I was referring specifically to Sun's giving away of the JAVA JVM, as well as StarOffice, as missed revenue opportunities. While I see the huge opportunity to gain adoption by many users, I believe personally that charging some money for those things would have been a good idea. Thanks for understanding
True, Sun appears to be making money from the "big iron". However, while there are only a few people that can get those, there are millions using JAVA, and those millions together could contribute far more to Sun's bottom line than a few really large purchases. However, I'm not the CEO, I'm just an artist/intern, so what do i know!
I think Sun may be one of the last companies to realiza that giving a product away doesn't make you any money. I work for Sun, and let me tell you, they are a great bunch of engineers. However, their ability to turn those awesome engineering projects into cash is limited at best. Perhaps if they start charging some serious money for stuff, then things will change. Let's hope that Sun can get back on track!
You'll have to download a new version of IE every time that you want to "add a plugin". That seems about natural, considering how service packs work...:)
Does anyone know if this version of GNOME has good accessibility-related GUI stuff? One of the big concessions that I've heard about Windows is that it has a lot of accessibility features that weren't present in other previous GUIs.
Perhaps it would be more cost-efficient to have a single-use ship system, but we have proven the ability to reuse the ship, and thus we have a responsibility to the universe to not produce more space junk than is absolutely necessary. There is no way to know if one of our spent space capsules, drifting off into the far reaches, might cause some other dawning civilization irreperable harm. Thus, we should use our tech ability to limit the abuse of the prime directive.
Other sectors feel the same way
on
Public Net-work
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· Score: 3, Informative
In the tech group, it's easy to say that the Gov't does the "regular daily stuff" ok. However, ask a PETA person, or a Greenpeace person, or any other focus group that is as knowledgable about their topic as we are about tech, and they'll say, "oh the gov't handles tech fine, but as far as MY topic, they're crappy".
When we get more like 50 of these a week, then we'll know that they've really gotten serious. Large systems have a lot of holes in them -- especially when no one was plugging the holes for oh, 10 years or so.
Comics online will go up as bandwidth does
on
The Rebirth of Comics
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I think that media like comics, video, etc. will start to flourish online with things like Micropayments, but more with the increase of bandwidth. It is remarkably difficult to set up a server that will receive & redistribute 10,000 comic strips a day, versus one that just gets 10,000 hits per day.
The article mentions "an ID on every car axle". Even my Hemi? How are you gonna get an ID on the axle of my Hemi with my boot shoved.. well you know where. Not likely! There will be a huge fight against these in terms of the privacy issues -- tracking cars, for example.
Video games have always been expensive
on
Razor Blade Games?
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· Score: 1
I don't know who's counting, but when I was young, and I asked my parents for Zelda, and it was 50 bucks, that was a lot of money back then. Heck, it's still a lot of money now. I think that people underestimate the cost of video games in general -- and I think the prices are rightfully high. These games that are coming out now are of the caliber of full-console arcade games or better. Does that cost money? Of course! But who wouldn't want to pay that money for the luxury of having a true home arcade, in the sense that the games are THAT cool.
Slashdot Mirror
It makes sense that in hospitals, there should be some sterilizable version of everything. They don't use operating equipment that can't be sterilized, so why not cellphones? The only problem is, Excess sterilization leads to super-bugs, so maybe just administering an immunization for this bug would be a better idea. :)
It seems that more and more books that are coming out are geared for the novice... or perhaps, we're all just getting that much better? It's important to ask yourself how good you really are. I have found that there are practically no good resources for programming information above a certain level, i'd say Junior Programmer, other than the Knuth books or perhaps a few others. Anyone else know of any advanced topic books that are really good?
A typical Google sample problem: Suppose there are X lockers in the hallway, and someone is opening every Nth locker where n is a prime number. Write a program to parse all the html files on the internet and return something useful. :)
I assumed everyone knew about the contest already, or I would've submitted the story myself! Argh! Oh well. You can all expect to see sir_haxalot take time off from being an artist for a few minutes, in order to use the force and attempt to gain at least a t-shirt.
My creative-art abilities help in situations like thinking to use a sequential access system, but knowing jack about the subsystems would have been more beneficial in actually implementing that system :D
When I was really young, I tried to use a tape drive as a sequential hard-disk drive. I figured since the tape drive was sequential access it would work... let's just say it didn't go real fast. I tried to run an EXE from it, on probably a 386 mind you, and yeah. The laundry got done before the EXE ran! (SIGH) Was I *ever* that young?
Still, I am glad to see that the paradigm is now realizeable.
I must be tired today... i fell for that link twice!
My point was that anyone looking to get a computer wants to get a good deal, not "oh, wee-oo-wee-oo I am so poor." Obviously, I am exceedingly wealthy compared to most of the world, and I am greatful every day for that, as everyone in my position should be.
Perhaps if businesses in poor nations were equipped with these machines, it might be easier for them to pay a living wage... assuming they had customers that could afford their services in the first place!
In the reverse of many of the comments on here, who wouldn't want a less expensive computer, provided it still did the functions they need? I agree that gamers need the latest hardware, etc. but shouldn't these machines first go to replace the expensive desktops here in the U.S., and perhaps some of our excess food supply could go over there? A poor person would probably prefer numerous free lunches to a free laptop.
Maybe if a misspelled URL went to a random other URL, it might be OK, but using that page to advertise for a particular company's profit, regardless of the URL, seems really bad. I would much prefer to have a "not found" message, since that's really what's happened. Can you imagine if this happened while driving? Anytime you turn down the wrong street, the same ad came on the radio or something like that? It seems positively Orwellian.
Statement to make sure I don't get sued: My opinion does not reflect the views and opinions of Sun, or of other Sun employees.
Allow me to amend my previous comment. I meant no disrespect to Sun, but I was referring specifically to Sun's giving away of the JAVA JVM, as well as StarOffice, as missed revenue opportunities. While I see the huge opportunity to gain adoption by many users, I believe personally that charging some money for those things would have been a good idea.
Thanks for understanding
True, Sun appears to be making money from the "big iron". However, while there are only a few people that can get those, there are millions using JAVA, and those millions together could contribute far more to Sun's bottom line than a few really large purchases. However, I'm not the CEO, I'm just an artist/intern, so what do i know!
Required response: That would work, except I don't want to support software, I just want to write it and then run far, far away. :)
I think Sun may be one of the last companies to realiza that giving a product away doesn't make you any money. I work for Sun, and let me tell you, they are a great bunch of engineers. However, their ability to turn those awesome engineering projects into cash is limited at best. Perhaps if they start charging some serious money for stuff, then things will change. Let's hope that Sun can get back on track!
What if I'm so goth, I'm dead? Where's my black-on-black version of that shirt? :) I must say, that is a pretty nice logo.
You'll have to download a new version of IE every time that you want to "add a plugin". That seems about natural, considering how service packs work... :)
Does anyone know if this version of GNOME has good accessibility-related GUI stuff? One of the big concessions that I've heard about Windows is that it has a lot of accessibility features that weren't present in other previous GUIs.
Perhaps it would be more cost-efficient to have a single-use ship system, but we have proven the ability to reuse the ship, and thus we have a responsibility to the universe to not produce more space junk than is absolutely necessary. There is no way to know if one of our spent space capsules, drifting off into the far reaches, might cause some other dawning civilization irreperable harm. Thus, we should use our tech ability to limit the abuse of the prime directive.
In the tech group, it's easy to say that the Gov't does the "regular daily stuff" ok. However, ask a PETA person, or a Greenpeace person, or any other focus group that is as knowledgable about their topic as we are about tech, and they'll say, "oh the gov't handles tech fine, but as far as MY topic, they're crappy".
When we get more like 50 of these a week, then we'll know that they've really gotten serious. Large systems have a lot of holes in them -- especially when no one was plugging the holes for oh, 10 years or so.
I think that media like comics, video, etc. will start to flourish online with things like Micropayments, but more with the increase of bandwidth. It is remarkably difficult to set up a server that will receive & redistribute 10,000 comic strips a day, versus one that just gets 10,000 hits per day.
The article mentions "an ID on every car axle". Even my Hemi? How are you gonna get an ID on the axle of my Hemi with my boot shoved.. well you know where. Not likely! There will be a huge fight against these in terms of the privacy issues -- tracking cars, for example.
I don't know who's counting, but when I was young, and I asked my parents for Zelda, and it was 50 bucks, that was a lot of money back then. Heck, it's still a lot of money now. I think that people underestimate the cost of video games in general -- and I think the prices are rightfully high. These games that are coming out now are of the caliber of full-console arcade games or better. Does that cost money? Of course! But who wouldn't want to pay that money for the luxury of having a true home arcade, in the sense that the games are THAT cool.